Cinereous Skies

Chapter 16: A New Day

Peter, El, Mozzie, June, and Cyrus were already present when Neal and Sara arrived at the chemistry lab that evening. Mozzie had placed the armillary sphere on the center of one of the long lab tables. Betelgeuse was curled up next to it, having evidently decided to be its guardian. When Mozzie was away, Cyrus took care of the tabby. As a result, he felt equally at home in Cyrus's lab and Mozzie's office.

Neal stopped to stroke the cat's sleek fur. Late last night when he'd flopped on Mozzie's old leather couch, Betelgeuse had jumped on top of him. He hadn't thought he'd be able to sleep, but a few minutes of the tabby's rumbling purrs had done the trick. "Has Lavinia tested you too?" he murmured.

Betelgeuse gave a smug murf as if he understood, but he didn't transmit any messages. Neal could communicate with the shilkas on Merope. Why not cats? Phineas and Lavinia could communicate with chittaks. Would he be able to as well?

While waiting for Lavinia and Talmadge's arrival, Neal thanked the group for coming.

"I'm sure I speak for all of us," Mozzie said expansively, "when I say our lives have been transformed for the better. We're privileged to embark upon a mission to safeguard Earth for generations to come. And I have every confidence in our success. Neal, you have an advantage over your parents, and that's us. We're the secret weapon the Ymar don't know about and that will inevitably lead to their destruction." Mozzie didn't stop there. He was still expounding on his belief that their group held the fate of the entire universe in their hands—a terrifying thought if ever there was one—when Lavinia and Talmadge stepped into the lab.

It was Talmadge's first time to see the armillary sphere. He took a seat on a lab stool and lifted the sphere to examine the undersurface of the rings. Lavinia sat next to him. After a leisurely stretch, Betelgeuse sauntered over to Lavinia and leaped onto her lap. She welcomed him with a scratch behind the ears. Neal had noticed the previous night how friendly Satchmo had been with her. She appeared to have a special rapport with animals.

"It was only when the ghast tried to steal the sphere from the Nautical Shop that we became aware of its significance," Talmadge admitted.

"Zophar hadn't mentioned it?" El asked.

"Not a word. He may have meant to but died before he had the chance. I returned to our home base to research the sphere but could uncover only limited information about Zophar's work."

"We realized we needed to redouble our efforts when Neal detected the Celaenian script on the rings," Lavinia added. "I called upon a colleague to comb through our records for anything that could be relevant. Last week she discovered that Zophar had left additional notes." Lavinia paused to take a slow breath, her expression turning grim. "The file had been miscataloged by a library assistant. If it weren't for the diligence of my colleague, it might never have been discovered."

"Once Peter and Neal returned from Merope, I headed to our home base to retrieve the information," Talmadge said. "The records are particularly relevant to what happened when Neal was a child. In 1959, when he was six years old, Andrew was inadvertently pulled into a wormhole in Boston."

"How?" Sara asked. "Did it spontaneously form while he was taking a stroll?"

Talmadge gave a brief chuckle. "Not quite. From the sound of it, the circumstances were reminiscent of what happened to Neal at St. Jude's Church. Andrew saw a nightgaunt in the sky. It led him to a deserted house. There he found a ruby crystal in a metal box, similar to the crystal which Neal discovered on the church altar. Andrew was sucked via the crystal into a wormhole. He emerged in the frozen monastery of Leng."

"Was the high priest there to greet him?" Peter asked.

"No, but two gugs were. They dwell in an underground city lying under Leng. That staircase you spotted behind the monastery altar leads directly to their city. Andrew was carried off by the gugs and taken to their city. Fortunately, Zophar had followed Andrew to the house. He was able to enter the same wormhole. Eventually, he rescued Andrew but their journey back to Earth was a long one. During the course of their travels, Andrew chanced upon the armillary sphere and decided to bring it back with him."