Read Online Analog SFF, June 2011 by Dell Magazine Authors - Free Book Online
Authors: Dell Magazine Authors
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he had grown up). Neither apartment was big enough for two, not unless at least one of them shed a lot of possessions. Nowhere in the middle appealed to either of them.
He suggested they find a place near her work, and she countered with moving near his. She was so solicitous about what his commute might become, so sympathetic, that it drove him to insist on northern Virginia. Together they found the townhouse in Reston, a beautiful place with a private dock on Lake Anne. He bought a canoe. It was going to be her moving-in present.
Reston would mean an easy twenty-minute commute for Lindsey, and he was thrilled for her. “To return the favor” she insisted that he buy the townhouse solo. The equity growth would all be his—the slow, grinding decline in house prices had to end someday —and she would spare him the complications of entwining their finances. Though he did not follow her logic—there was no hurry, but marriage was the obvious next step—he went along. That Marcus own the place was obviously important to her.
Because for Lindsey, moving in together had become Plan B. Because she was in the running to open and manage a new regional office, in Seattle . She kept that possibility to herself until, two days after closing on the townhouse, her promotion came through. By the end of that week she was off to the Left Coast, for the opportunity she “couldn't not take."
You understand, Marcus. Right? And you own a house now, so be glad.
It hadn't helped Marcus's newfound cynicism that Lindsey's manipulations impressed Sean. As in, “You're a sucker, bro."
* * * *
West Virginia Route 28, when Marcus finally came to it, was as isolated and unused as the crumbling road that had preceded it. For no discernable reason the national forest he had yet to leave had changed names from George Washington to Monongahela.
He knew he was close when radio reception went to hell. Guessing what he would find, he checked his cell: no service. So he must have zipped past a second road sign unawares: announcement of the National Radio Quiet Zone.
GPS satellites paid no heed to a terrestrial ban on transmission, though, and his nav system worked fine. He spotted the modest sign for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory where he expected, just before the unincorporated town of Green Bank.
A few low buildings clustered near the observatory entrance. As he passed the Science Center, the two cars and one yellow school bus in its parking lot seemed forlorn. He parked outside the L-shaped building Valerie Clayburn's acknowledging text message had indicated.
He was a half hour early.
Bright white dish antennas, one after another, receded into the distance. None stood close enough to offer any sense of scale. So how big were they? Rather than kill time at the Science Center among grade-schoolers, why not find out? He could not have asked for a nicer day for a stroll.
His first stop: the trio of signposts abutting the parking lot. Ambling over, curious, Marcus found placards for the sun, Mercury, and Venus. Earth had a sign not far away. Touring the scale model of the solar system would take him out to the big antennas. He walked to “Mars,” only a few steps from “Earth."
Past “Mars” he came to a tollgatelike barrier across the road. Boldly lettered signs announced Diesels only beyond this point and Turn off your digital cameras . A well-trodden footpath circumvented the gate and he kept going. By the time he spotted the Jupiter sign, the first big antenna had caught his interest. It had a descriptive sign too. The dish was forty-five feet across! How big were the antennas in the distance?
Marcus understood the scale of the solar system—intellectually. Hiking it, even at a 1:3,000,000,000 scale, was something else again. “Pluto” and the last of the big dishes were still more than a mile away. He turned around without ever seeing the sign for Uranus.
* * * *
Valerie's office in the Jansky Lab overlooked the
He suggested they find a place near her work, and she countered with moving near his. She was so solicitous about what his commute might become, so sympathetic, that it drove him to insist on northern Virginia. Together they found the townhouse in Reston, a beautiful place with a private dock on Lake Anne. He bought a canoe. It was going to be her moving-in present.
Reston would mean an easy twenty-minute commute for Lindsey, and he was thrilled for her. “To return the favor” she insisted that he buy the townhouse solo. The equity growth would all be his—the slow, grinding decline in house prices had to end someday —and she would spare him the complications of entwining their finances. Though he did not follow her logic—there was no hurry, but marriage was the obvious next step—he went along. That Marcus own the place was obviously important to her.
Because for Lindsey, moving in together had become Plan B. Because she was in the running to open and manage a new regional office, in Seattle . She kept that possibility to herself until, two days after closing on the townhouse, her promotion came through. By the end of that week she was off to the Left Coast, for the opportunity she “couldn't not take."
You understand, Marcus. Right? And you own a house now, so be glad.
It hadn't helped Marcus's newfound cynicism that Lindsey's manipulations impressed Sean. As in, “You're a sucker, bro."
* * * *
West Virginia Route 28, when Marcus finally came to it, was as isolated and unused as the crumbling road that had preceded it. For no discernable reason the national forest he had yet to leave had changed names from George Washington to Monongahela.
He knew he was close when radio reception went to hell. Guessing what he would find, he checked his cell: no service. So he must have zipped past a second road sign unawares: announcement of the National Radio Quiet Zone.
GPS satellites paid no heed to a terrestrial ban on transmission, though, and his nav system worked fine. He spotted the modest sign for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory where he expected, just before the unincorporated town of Green Bank.
A few low buildings clustered near the observatory entrance. As he passed the Science Center, the two cars and one yellow school bus in its parking lot seemed forlorn. He parked outside the L-shaped building Valerie Clayburn's acknowledging text message had indicated.
He was a half hour early.
Bright white dish antennas, one after another, receded into the distance. None stood close enough to offer any sense of scale. So how big were they? Rather than kill time at the Science Center among grade-schoolers, why not find out? He could not have asked for a nicer day for a stroll.
His first stop: the trio of signposts abutting the parking lot. Ambling over, curious, Marcus found placards for the sun, Mercury, and Venus. Earth had a sign not far away. Touring the scale model of the solar system would take him out to the big antennas. He walked to “Mars,” only a few steps from “Earth."
Past “Mars” he came to a tollgatelike barrier across the road. Boldly lettered signs announced Diesels only beyond this point and Turn off your digital cameras . A well-trodden footpath circumvented the gate and he kept going. By the time he spotted the Jupiter sign, the first big antenna had caught his interest. It had a descriptive sign too. The dish was forty-five feet across! How big were the antennas in the distance?
Marcus understood the scale of the solar system—intellectually. Hiking it, even at a 1:3,000,000,000 scale, was something else again. “Pluto” and the last of the big dishes were still more than a mile away. He turned around without ever seeing the sign for Uranus.
* * * *
Valerie's office in the Jansky Lab overlooked the
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