January Black

Chapter 2 - Part 2

When his ancestors traveled to these shores, Captain Steer used the star in his navigation calculations. Decades later, after astronomer Janus Black built the telescope, Steer looked upon the bright blue star for what she truly was: a nebula reflecting the light of two supergiant stars. Black’s estranged wife, labor guild founder Widow Black, named the telescope after the discovery.

Matty stepped back from the Red Star to take in the bowl of stars above him. The telescope performed its function well. It isolated drops of water in a pool. He preferred stargazing. It was like swimming in the expanse.

How he had come to find himself in the observatory disappeared. He forgot his disappointed parents. As he remembered the last time he saw so many stars, the sounds of the party taking place downstairs faded into the gentle flow of a river. A warm breeze blew into the space, across his skin and through his hair. He smelled rain and flowers. Night birds called to their mates. Toads croaked. Hoppers sang.

“Mosquitoes?”

Straightening his posture, Matty blinked away his memory of his grandfather’s ranch. “Pardon, sir?”

“You were thinking about when you last saw a sky like this.”

“Yes, sir. How did you…?”

“Everybody does. That is rather the point.” The King turned from the telescope, stood up, and stretched. He sounded puzzled by the thought he voiced. “They always forget the mosquitoes.”

With his unbuttoned collar, loose tie and jacket hanging from his neck and chair, respectively, Hadrian Steer seemed comfortable, even content. The man’s stocking feet, however, was what gave Matty hope that the man wasn’t too angry with him.

“Have a seat.” The King patted the back of Aster’s viewing chair.

The offer came as a shock. Matty froze for a moment before his excitement took over. Dodging three small telescopes along his hasty approach, he came to a stop short of the King. He wanted to sit down, but he didn’t dare. Not just yet.

Up close, the exquisite details took his breath away and he paused to burn them into his memory. The dials. The gears. His fingerprints on the tarnished copper. Every bit of engineering was precise to a tolerance only a laser could measure.

Matty read the words engraved in a spiral around the eyepiece at the base of the telescope shaft.

The Great Refractor, hereby named “Aster” by Widow Black, on March 13, NY 48, and dedicated by Jules Steer, King of Columbia, on March 15, NY 49, in memoriam of OLS January Black. Intrepid Seeker, look and you shall find her.

It’s creator built the device as a tribute to his wife, so the beauty was to be expected. There was one piece that was purely decorative. He settled into the chair when the King prompted him to sit again, and lifted his hand to let a heavy medallion that dangled from the eyepiece lay in his palm. On the front, the Sextant and Sun was stamped in silver, or perhaps steel. The ubiquitous symbol represented the Steer Family and their corporation. Matty couldn’t walk five steps on The Hill without seeing that thing somewhere.

On this pendant, though, text appeared below the sextant.

OLS Kitsune

Captain Steer, the founding father of the kingdom, wore a necklace like this in his portraits, and Matty thought this one might well be the real thing. If so, why keep it here? Why not a museum? Or a vault?

“Have a peek,” the King said.

Matty lowered his hand and released the medallion. As it hung freely once more, he looked up through the shaft. A gossamer wisp of blue dust floated in space. Within the cloud were the two stars he had seen with the Red Star, one white supergiant, one blue. They were not like drops of water in a pool. They were distinct, luminous spheres of burning gas. His indifference toward astronomy shattered.

“They’re beautiful.”

“Yes, they are,” the King agreed. Matty was allowed enough time with the telescope and the stars that when the King spoke again, the interruption took him by surprise. “Come. There is a matter we need to discuss.”