Chapter 1, Part 1
The sky above the little town of Valle Cerro, California is clear tonight for the first time in weeks. Douglas knows that this may be the last night like this for months; the rainy season should have started by now, and the whole month of October has been bone-dry, the dark, pendulous clouds that ripple across the sky holding nothing but the silent static of heat lightning. He hates the oppressive weight of the clouds, of the dank, heavy air against his skin, trapping him on the ground.
He lets his bike fall to the ground. The heavy chain and padlock wrapped around its battered frame clatter on the ochre floor of the desert. It’s been stolen twice this year, and each time he found it in the same place, carelessly dumped in the gully behind his high school. He knows who took it (but not why; if anyone wanted to use it, he thinks, they could have asked, and he would have let them. He would have had to, really, he would have no choice…). There’s really only one person in the entire town who cares enough about Douglas’s existence to go out of his way to torment him.
But there’s nobody here now, out in the desert, no other living beings except for the woodpeckers and little scurrying mice and spiders that come out when the sun goes down. They never bother Douglas. He knows they don’t mean him any harm.
Douglas settles himself on a boulder and waits for the sun to set behind the mountains. He loves riding out to the desert at night and looking at the stars, letting his mind drift in the black space between them. He feels like he could leave his gawky seventeen-year-old body behind and float forever. And he will someday, he thinks. His thoughts will slip out of his body like so much smoke and rise towards the stars. It’ll be weeks before anyone thinks to look for his body, and by that time, he’ll be halfway to Aldebaran.
Ω
He’s tracing the line of Orion’s belt when it winks into existence between Alnilam and Mintaka, a tiny white speck on the black velvet of the night. It wouldn’t have been bright enough for him to notice it in another patch of sky, but the appearance of this interruption in space directly in his point of view merits watching. He sits up and concentrates. Maybe it’s a new star, and he’ll get to name it if he tells someone. A more chilling thought-it’s a supernova, and the deadly waves of its fire are rushing towards the Earth now, ready to turn everyone he knows into nothing more than grease spots on the charred surface of a giant cinder. The thought is not as chilling as it should be.
The new star is getting larger, eclipsing the two stars it’s appeared between. How fast can a supernova travel? Douglas wonders whether anyone in town is watching it, whether there are insomniac stargazers like himself marveling from their backyards, or whether he is the only one in the world who knows that it exists. He decides that he likes it better as his own secret. If it is a supernova, there’s nothing that anyone on Earth will be able to do about it, anyway. Better to savor the knowledge while it lasts.
There’s a silent burst of white across the night sky-it can’t be heat lightning, there are no clouds-and there isn’t a star anymore, but a silvery thing motionless in the sky. Douglas’s heart skips a beat. It can’t be a satellite or a plane. If it were, it’d be moving across the sky, not hanging there…and then it does move, tracing an arc across the sky, leaving a faint red trail in its wake, falling.
Douglas turns to watch it, hugging his knees to his chest, shivering in spite of the unseasonable balminess of the night. The thing is falling to the west, falling slower than anything should be able to fall, almost drifting. Landing. It glints silver against the dark looming peaks of the mountain range, then winks out of view.
The mountain range…the hills are only a few miles from here. Douglas slides down from his perch on the boulder and manhandles his bike into place. If he can ride quickly enough, he might be able to find the thing, whatever it is, tonight.
Ω
After only a half-hour riding across the trackless desert, Douglas’s lungs are on fire, his legs are wet noodles, and his insides feel like a bowl of marbles. His battered old bike seems to have found every rock in the desert and taken pains to roll directly over it. It’s a wonder the frame hasn’t fallen apart yet. The tires are never going to be the same. The thing from outer space had better be worth it.
He’s kept the spot where it touched down in mind, holding it in his head like a map, being careful to steer directly towards it. It’s funny, but he feels as though he wouldn’t be able to lose it if he tried. Like it’s calling to him.
The night is unusually bright. The moon is out, and every pebble casts a long shadow over the desert floor. His eyes scan the horizon for a glimpse of silver.
There’s a rumbling sound behind him. He chances a glance over his shoulder, craning his neck to see…and immediately feels a jolt as the front tire of his bike catches on a huge rock that he hadn’t seen in his path. The bike flips over, and he’s sent crashing to the ground.
“Gah, oh…” He lifts his head and spits out brown dust, noticing that the vehicle that broke his concentration has shuddered to a halt a few yards away. It’s a nondescript white van. He wonders who it could be, out in the desert in the middle of the night. Someone from town? But who in Valle Cerro, besides him, could possibly be interested in a mysterious visitor from the night?