Torchwood fic: 'Mid the Tallest Dark
Author: rustydog
Title: 'Mid the Tallest Dark
Characters: Toshiko, team
Rating: 12 (It would be G if not for Owen's slight potty mouth)
Words: ~3400
Beta: the wonderful travels_in_time
Summary: On a winter night, darkness is spreading, and only Tosh can figure out how to stop it.
Note: (Added 12/2008) There is now a sequel, "How the Light Gets In," posted here. (The sequel has spoilers for the series 2 finale, but the story here is completely spoiler-free.)
A match flared, illuminating Jack's hand and part of the keyboard where Toshiko was working. The hand moved the flame smoothly back and forth above the desk surface, searching until it found a pillar candle, which it then lit.
A few seconds later, visible to Jack in the warm, flickering light, Tosh's nose wrinkled at the sudden smell of match smoke and waxy sage.
"What's wrong with plain emergency candles again?" she asked, rubbing her nose with the back of her fingers to stifle a sneeze. Then she returned to typing, hunched over the keys.
"Ianto says it's nearly impossible to find anything but scented candles these days," Jack replied, a hint of a smile in his voice. "Of course, Owen says that's not surprising when you shop at the places Ianto likes..." He paused. "Tosh," he said, more seriously.
"Jack," she replied with creeping frustration. "I'm almost certain I'm close. I've found three alien writing systems, in addition to Ogham, that are similar to the language on our object. So at least I know which direction to read the characters. I'll have it narrowed down by syntax in fifteen minutes. "
Jack sighed. "Take those off and look around," he ordered, leaning back on the stool he had sat down on. Tosh had a large, binocular viewing contraption strapped to her head. When she pushed it up off her face, she could see in the natural light that there were candles lit on almost every surface in the Hub, including several placed at even intervals up the stairs.
"It's beautiful," she said.
Jack pressed his lips together and nodded slowly. "Yes," he agreed. "And possibly a fire hazard, despite all the water we've got in here. But Tosh, if there's an emergency in the city... we can't keep operating like this. Nobody can use the computers without that photon trace detector you're wearing, the cells are dark, we can't even use our mobiles. Ianto says the electronics and lights in the Tourist Information Centre have all gone now. If it keeps spreading--"
"--we'll explain that the environmentally irresponsible overuse of Christmas lights caused the power grid to experience rolling failures," Tosh finished for him.
"Including everyone's mobile phone batteries?"
Tosh sighed and gave in. "Thirty minutes? I'll give you something in thirty minutes."
Jack nodded and turned to go. Tosh called to him in a lighter voice, "You didn't approve Owen's request for a bonfire?"
Jack spun back to look at her, arms crossed across his chest, his expression suddenly mischievous. "Told him it was well past Guy Fawkes Day, although he still had a few suggestions of effigies he'd like to burn."
"I can imagine," Toshiko grinned, reaching up to pull the viewer back over her eyes.
"Oh, ah--" Jack continued, "he says you look like the Deadly Mantis with those goggles on."
Fortunately her blush was invisible in the candlelight. "It's too bad we don't have a pair for everyone else," she shot back, "since Owen looks a lot less like a bald otter through these things."
"Toshiko Sato!" Jack exclaimed in mock surprise. "I like this side of you! But... thirty minutes, okay? If nothing else, you don't want to miss much more of this poker game."
"You didn't let Owen convince you to make it strip poker, did you?"
Jack spread his arms, hands open in a gesture of helplessness. "Hey, who am I to argue? I have a gorgeous staff." He turned again and bounded up the steps to the boardroom, leaving Tosh in the quiet again to continue her work.
On the corner of her desk sat the device in question. It was a dinner plate-sized disk of a dark-colored, non-Earth metal, thinner at the edge than the center, where a convex amber-colored lens was set. The outer circle of the disk was divided into eight panels, which were inscribed with notch-like characters. The device had shown up in a fish market a week before, most likely dredged up from the bay. It had sat in Artifact Recovery since, until early that morning, when every lighted instrument in the Hub had begun to dim. Fortunately, Ianto had been present to witness the simultaneous activation of this particular device. After failed efforts to create a workaround for the lights and electronics, Jack had determined that the only answer lay in the device itself, and that began with translation.
After Jack left Tosh's desk, the amber lens began to glow more brightly.
*
Twice Toshiko had to beg for another half-hour before she had finished enough of the translation to be useful. She made her way up the stairs to the board room, carrying the object and forcing herself to go carefully so that, in her urgency, she didn't stumble on something in the dark.
Jack, Ianto, and Owen looked up when she appeared in the doorway, prompting Gwen also to turn around in her chair. Tosh noted, almost disappointed, that Jack seemed to have been joking about the strip poker.
When Owen saw her, he spluttered and began to wheeze, then put his head down on the card-strewn table and gave in to the giggles.
Tosh had forgotten she was still wearing the goggles. She sighed with annoyance, pushed them up on her head, and looked back at Owen and the refreshments on the table. "Have you all been drinking?"
Gwen managed to give an apologetic look to Tosh and a mildly accusatory look to Jack at the same time. "Some of us have," she said, nodding toward Jack's water glass. "Tosh, without that special viewing gear we can't use the computers or go anywhere without a candle. It did feel a bit like a blackout party. I'm sorry, but it sounded like it was going to be awhile."
The mention of the "viewing gear" had set Owen off again. Gwen reached over her pile of poker chips and picked up a bottle. "Owen, are you sure this is just beer you've been drinking?"
Tosh noticed then that Ianto was looking a bit like the cat who swallowed the canary, but she couldn't be bothered to comment. She tried to ignore them all and get back to the matter at hand. "Look, I've got enough information that I think we need to act now."
"You know what the device is?" Gwen asked seriously, trying to counteract her giggling colleague across the table. Still listening intently, Jack reached across Ianto to cuff Owen in the back of the head.
"Well, not exactly, nor how it works, but with a little more time I can find out. It's just, as the translation program was running I checked satellite and heat images of the city, and it's not just the Hub and the Visitor Information Centre without light now, it's the Plass and about half of Butetown. It is spreading. The power is still on, there's just no light at all. The call volume at the police station has started to spike."
"No doubt people wondering why their battery-operated torches aren't working, either," Jack mused. "We could have a serious panic before long. Right, so we... do what Owen originally suggested and throw the thing back in the Bay?" He winced as he said it, aware it was a poor plan.
"Yes, I think that would be a very bad idea," she said, casting a glance at Owen to see if he had registered her subtle criticism. He hadn't. "I think that would just shift the effect, and anyway it's spreading pretty fast. It wouldn't buy us much time. What I've been able to read on the device is talking about light--"
"Surprising," Ianto interjected dryly.
"Right, of course, but it also keeps mentioning 'star' or 'sun,' it's not very clear. 'Star in the greatest darkness' and something about a pendulum."
"We need to shoot it into space? With... a trebuchet?" Gwen ventured.
Tosh smirked at the image. "I'm hoping it would be enough to get it out into the open, away from other lights. I think it needs darkness, so it's creating it. If there's no other light interfering, maybe it will turn out to be something completely benign."
"Or maybe--" Owen lifted his head and punctuated the air with a wavering finger, "it will bbl-ow up."
"Unlikely, but I suppose we can't rule it out," Tosh said, frowning. "It also talks about the 'center of the night,' which probably means midnight. And it's almost ten now."
"Right, then." Jack stood and placed both hands on the table, ready for action. "Owen, since you're good for nothing else right now, you get to carry the device."
Tosh smiled as if he had read her mind.
Jack continued, "We take this thing out somewhere open and dark. Ianto, any suggestions?"
"Yes, sir, I think I know just the place," Ianto said, standing and moving toward the door. "We'll need to dress warmly."
*
Jack drove, wearing ordinary night vision goggles since the SUV's headlamps wouldn't work. Even the gauges in the instrument cluster didn't luminesce, and the team couldn't help but notice streetlights dimming and flicking out as they drove past. Despite the exigency of the situation, Ianto, who seemed to carry incredibly detailed maps in his head, directed them along the least traveled routes to avoid putting out other motorists' headlamps as the SUV came near.
Tosh wore the photon goggles and continued work on the translation in the back seat, behind the driver. Owen sat beside her, straddling the "hump" and holding the device gingerly, only his hunched silhouette visible. Gwen shivered and pressed her right shoulder against him.
"Oy, careful! If you make me drop this--"
"-You'll have to bend over and pick it up?" Gwen teased, rocking her body into his again. "Tosh, it's not going to explode, is it." It was a firm statement rather than a question.
"Well," Tosh replied without looking up from the screen, which appeared black to the other two, "like I said, that's unclear, but the phrase I'm working on now seems to indicate it could melt your fingers if you tip it, or are still holding it at midnight." In the darkness, it was impossible to see if she was smiling.
"Jack," Owen growled, "step on it, will you? You're driving like my great-uncle Charley. And Ianto, that's enough with the shortcuts." He balanced the device on his knees so that he could push up his coat sleeve to look at his watch, which he then remembered was digital. He grunted with frustration. Tosh tapped away on her keyboard.
*
It took over an hour and a half to arrive at the destination Ianto had chosen for them from memory. He had done well; still guided by Jack's night vision goggles, they parked the SUV, and after they had hopped over a stone fence (Owen carefully handing off the device to Tosh for a minute), a short, careful walk through the dark heather and coarse grass brought them to a barren hilltop. The village they had passed just before parking was hidden in a valley, so there was not a manmade light to be seen.
And despite the lack of the moon, they felt they could see for miles. The stars stretched over them like an inverted, flecked enamel bowl. Involuntarily, they all stood in silence for a moment, heads thrown back, gazing.
"It's been a long time since I've seen this many stars. Well, since I noticed," Gwen said softly, standing near Jack.
"There are a lot more out there," Jack murmured in reply.
The wind picked up. It seemed to have sobered Owen, who was less awed by the night sky. "Damn, it's cold," he complained. "So, Tosh, what are we doing here again?"
She moved over to him, took the device, and stepped back, stooping and placing it on the ground in the center of the circle the five of them formed. "We're waiting."
"You're kidding me. It's fucking cold, and we've all driven out here with a dangerous object so we can stand around it and wait? Are we idiots?"
The whole group seemed to be considering his second question uncomfortably. Tosh thought it wise to ignore it. "Something's going to happen in--Ianto, what's the time?"
Ianto reached under his coat for his pocket watch, which was analog and just visible in the starlight. "Eleven fifty-six and twenty seconds," he reported.
"--less than four minutes. I'm sure of it. If nothing happens... I guess we think about a Plan C." Anticipating Owen's comment, she reminded him, "Plan B was terrible."
Gwen stepped closer to Jack, and he put his arm around her shoulders. Tosh blew on her hands and stamped her feet. Ianto, with his hands shoved deep in his coat pockets, looked immovable.
Owen watched Toshiko. "You didn't bring gloves?" he asked in a more normal voice.
"I needed my fingers. My head was full. I forgot," she shrugged, blowing on her hands again.
"I remembered," he muttered, "and I was holding on to that bleeding thing the whole time."
It was the last straw. She had opened her mouth to snap at him when he stepped over and stuck out his hand. Offering his gloves. "My pockets are lined," he said quietly. "Put those on." She was staring at him. "Do it, you madwoman, I'm getting cold looking at you!" She closed her mouth, smiled at him, and started pulling on the gloves, which were too large, but still warm from his hands. Owen stepped back, shifting on his feet with almost a swagger, lest the moment become soft. He had turned toward the device again.
"Was it that bright before?" he asked the group.
"It does look brighter," Jack said cautiously. "Actually, yeah, I can see your faces by it now."
Ianto snapped his watch shut again. "Thirty seconds 'til."
They held their breaths, watching. Owen's stance indicated he was ready to remove himself post haste if the situation warranted.
The device was vibrating now, almost as if it were trembling with anticipation. One might have expected a whir or hum with that much vibration, but the device itself was still utterly silent. The frosty grass beneath it crackled with each slight bounce the object made.
Suddenly the amber lens on the top seemed to dissolve in a swirl of vapor, and, so fast it took their breath away, a beam of yellow light shot into the sky. Their heads flew back, following it, but, impossibly, it did not end. It did not disappear from view in the distance, as even the strongest light should. It seemed to stream, as if it were flowing in both directions at once, away from the Earth and toward it. There were sparkling specks of dust flowing with the stream.
"Fuck me," said Owen delicately.
"Oh, it's beautiful," breathed Gwen.
Tosh laughed with delight.
Then the beam of light shifted, still emanating from the device on the ground, but searching the sky like a spotlight, back and forth. Owen jumped out of the way as it tilted past him and stopped again. They followed it with their eyes, light years away, to where it seemed to meet a single star on the north horizon. After a moment they noticed that the light had become white--so white it was almost blue.
"Does anybody know that star?" Tosh broke the silence. "I can't access my charts right now..." she trailed off, absorbed in wonder.
"I might," said Jack thoughtfully. "Tosh, what exactly did you get from the text on the device? Did you finish the translation?"
"As much as I can, there are probably cultural aspects that just don't translate. The main text said, roughly,Light of the star, stored
In a pendant on a chain
Swings along its arc--
'Mid the tallest dark,
Pauses imperceptibly
And returns again.
And tonight is the winter solstice. The longest night. So, you know..."
"You got this," Owen gestured to the hilltop and the night, "from that?"
Tosh shrugged. "Well, there was a technical preamble. And that was a translation, of course. The original makes more sense, in a way. But less, in another way. Then there was a postscript about a 'piercing sword to save us.'"
"Ah," Jack nodded. He began to chuckle, then to laugh out loud.
"What now?" Gwen wondered, cuffing his shoulder. "What is it?" She turned to Tosh, "I thought it was a lovely poem."
"No, no," Jack panted, "it's just--I think it's missionary literature. The whole thing. It's like a religious pamphlet. Sword," he muttered to himself. "What is it about religions and militarism?"
"I swear I didn't see him drink a drop, Tosh," Gwen apologized.
"Like a Gideon Bible, right?" Jack continued. "I'll bet you that any inhabited world within sight of that star has several of these," he nodded toward the device on the ground, still linking their hilltop with its distant sun. "They calibrate to the planet's tilt, rotation, and revolution, and they activate at the time of 'the tallest dark' to point out the heavenly body the makers of these things think we should all be worshiping. Like leaving a free religious book in a hotel room. They're not confronting anyone, just, you know... dropping hints."
"But in order to get noticed, the 'book' needs a dark place, and if it doesn't have one, it makes one," Gwen followed along.
"Right," Jack nodded.
They were silent for a moment, absorbing the theory and watching the beam of light. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the beam withdrew from the sky and extinguished itself in a swirl of smoke-like, luminous particles.
The darkness of the night was more profound than before. But then it was less--
"Uh, Tosh--" Owen said with some alarm, "you're glowing!"
"Am I?" Tosh said, holding her arm in front of her face to see.
Ianto coughed. Gwen walked over to Owen and patted his arm.
"Em, Owen," she said in a soothing yet impish voice, "you're glowing too."
Owen almost yelped when he took his hand out of his pocket. "I look like a traffic signal!"
Jack grinned. "Well, you can scan yourself and Tosh when we get back to the Hub. I think you'll be fine, though. You both held the device a lot, it probably transferred a few harmless properties to you."
"Harmless and temporary properties, you mean," Owen insisted. "Temporary."
"Sure," Jack agreed. "Probably. You might need to stay inside at night for a couple of days. Or get a job in a living crèche."
Gwen snorted.
As they made the short return trek to the SUV, Owen bearing the now-inert device with much less care, Jack hung back and kept Tosh with him. "Tosh," he questioned as they walked, "how much did you know about this by the time we left the Hub?"
She ducked her head, but replied, "I knew it had something to do with the season, and the stars."
"But you didn't think it was dangerous."
"Not really. I thought it might be pretty, and you'd all like to see."
"But we wouldn't have all come just for the possibility of a light show," Jack guessed.
"Least of all Owen. And I knew it was going to be cold." It sounded almost like an apology, but Jack laughed again.
"Good girl. We can use a little wonder in our lives every now and then. I know I can."
She smiled.
He noticed. "You should do that more, smile. Even when you're not... literally glowing, it looks good on you." They had reached the stone fence. He gave her a boost climbing over, vaulted it himself, and, with a hand on her back, guided her toward the front passenger seat, to which Ianto had returned.
"Sorry, Ianto, but if the lights haven't recovered yet, I can use our glowing Tosh to read the instruments."
"That you can, sir," Ianto nodded, smiling slightly as he stepped aside.
When they were all settled, Jack pulled the SUV back onto the narrow road. They drove in silence for awhile. Eventually he noticed that the road before them was slightly less dark; the headlamps were warming up.
Owen, enveloped in his own glow in the back seat, broke the silence. "Think we could find another one of those things for next year? Provided we can find a dark place that's not in the country."
Tosh smiled and shook her head ruefully. The headlamps flickered and came on full-beam. Above them, the stars were still.
Notes
The Deadly Mantis
Ogham
Title: 'Mid the Tallest Dark
Characters: Toshiko, team
Rating: 12 (It would be G if not for Owen's slight potty mouth)
Words: ~3400
Beta: the wonderful travels_in_time
Summary: On a winter night, darkness is spreading, and only Tosh can figure out how to stop it.
Note: (Added 12/2008) There is now a sequel, "How the Light Gets In," posted here. (The sequel has spoilers for the series 2 finale, but the story here is completely spoiler-free.)
A match flared, illuminating Jack's hand and part of the keyboard where Toshiko was working. The hand moved the flame smoothly back and forth above the desk surface, searching until it found a pillar candle, which it then lit.
A few seconds later, visible to Jack in the warm, flickering light, Tosh's nose wrinkled at the sudden smell of match smoke and waxy sage.
"What's wrong with plain emergency candles again?" she asked, rubbing her nose with the back of her fingers to stifle a sneeze. Then she returned to typing, hunched over the keys.
"Ianto says it's nearly impossible to find anything but scented candles these days," Jack replied, a hint of a smile in his voice. "Of course, Owen says that's not surprising when you shop at the places Ianto likes..." He paused. "Tosh," he said, more seriously.
"Jack," she replied with creeping frustration. "I'm almost certain I'm close. I've found three alien writing systems, in addition to Ogham, that are similar to the language on our object. So at least I know which direction to read the characters. I'll have it narrowed down by syntax in fifteen minutes. "
Jack sighed. "Take those off and look around," he ordered, leaning back on the stool he had sat down on. Tosh had a large, binocular viewing contraption strapped to her head. When she pushed it up off her face, she could see in the natural light that there were candles lit on almost every surface in the Hub, including several placed at even intervals up the stairs.
"It's beautiful," she said.
Jack pressed his lips together and nodded slowly. "Yes," he agreed. "And possibly a fire hazard, despite all the water we've got in here. But Tosh, if there's an emergency in the city... we can't keep operating like this. Nobody can use the computers without that photon trace detector you're wearing, the cells are dark, we can't even use our mobiles. Ianto says the electronics and lights in the Tourist Information Centre have all gone now. If it keeps spreading--"
"--we'll explain that the environmentally irresponsible overuse of Christmas lights caused the power grid to experience rolling failures," Tosh finished for him.
"Including everyone's mobile phone batteries?"
Tosh sighed and gave in. "Thirty minutes? I'll give you something in thirty minutes."
Jack nodded and turned to go. Tosh called to him in a lighter voice, "You didn't approve Owen's request for a bonfire?"
Jack spun back to look at her, arms crossed across his chest, his expression suddenly mischievous. "Told him it was well past Guy Fawkes Day, although he still had a few suggestions of effigies he'd like to burn."
"I can imagine," Toshiko grinned, reaching up to pull the viewer back over her eyes.
"Oh, ah--" Jack continued, "he says you look like the Deadly Mantis with those goggles on."
Fortunately her blush was invisible in the candlelight. "It's too bad we don't have a pair for everyone else," she shot back, "since Owen looks a lot less like a bald otter through these things."
"Toshiko Sato!" Jack exclaimed in mock surprise. "I like this side of you! But... thirty minutes, okay? If nothing else, you don't want to miss much more of this poker game."
"You didn't let Owen convince you to make it strip poker, did you?"
Jack spread his arms, hands open in a gesture of helplessness. "Hey, who am I to argue? I have a gorgeous staff." He turned again and bounded up the steps to the boardroom, leaving Tosh in the quiet again to continue her work.
On the corner of her desk sat the device in question. It was a dinner plate-sized disk of a dark-colored, non-Earth metal, thinner at the edge than the center, where a convex amber-colored lens was set. The outer circle of the disk was divided into eight panels, which were inscribed with notch-like characters. The device had shown up in a fish market a week before, most likely dredged up from the bay. It had sat in Artifact Recovery since, until early that morning, when every lighted instrument in the Hub had begun to dim. Fortunately, Ianto had been present to witness the simultaneous activation of this particular device. After failed efforts to create a workaround for the lights and electronics, Jack had determined that the only answer lay in the device itself, and that began with translation.
After Jack left Tosh's desk, the amber lens began to glow more brightly.
*
Twice Toshiko had to beg for another half-hour before she had finished enough of the translation to be useful. She made her way up the stairs to the board room, carrying the object and forcing herself to go carefully so that, in her urgency, she didn't stumble on something in the dark.
Jack, Ianto, and Owen looked up when she appeared in the doorway, prompting Gwen also to turn around in her chair. Tosh noted, almost disappointed, that Jack seemed to have been joking about the strip poker.
When Owen saw her, he spluttered and began to wheeze, then put his head down on the card-strewn table and gave in to the giggles.
Tosh had forgotten she was still wearing the goggles. She sighed with annoyance, pushed them up on her head, and looked back at Owen and the refreshments on the table. "Have you all been drinking?"
Gwen managed to give an apologetic look to Tosh and a mildly accusatory look to Jack at the same time. "Some of us have," she said, nodding toward Jack's water glass. "Tosh, without that special viewing gear we can't use the computers or go anywhere without a candle. It did feel a bit like a blackout party. I'm sorry, but it sounded like it was going to be awhile."
The mention of the "viewing gear" had set Owen off again. Gwen reached over her pile of poker chips and picked up a bottle. "Owen, are you sure this is just beer you've been drinking?"
Tosh noticed then that Ianto was looking a bit like the cat who swallowed the canary, but she couldn't be bothered to comment. She tried to ignore them all and get back to the matter at hand. "Look, I've got enough information that I think we need to act now."
"You know what the device is?" Gwen asked seriously, trying to counteract her giggling colleague across the table. Still listening intently, Jack reached across Ianto to cuff Owen in the back of the head.
"Well, not exactly, nor how it works, but with a little more time I can find out. It's just, as the translation program was running I checked satellite and heat images of the city, and it's not just the Hub and the Visitor Information Centre without light now, it's the Plass and about half of Butetown. It is spreading. The power is still on, there's just no light at all. The call volume at the police station has started to spike."
"No doubt people wondering why their battery-operated torches aren't working, either," Jack mused. "We could have a serious panic before long. Right, so we... do what Owen originally suggested and throw the thing back in the Bay?" He winced as he said it, aware it was a poor plan.
"Yes, I think that would be a very bad idea," she said, casting a glance at Owen to see if he had registered her subtle criticism. He hadn't. "I think that would just shift the effect, and anyway it's spreading pretty fast. It wouldn't buy us much time. What I've been able to read on the device is talking about light--"
"Surprising," Ianto interjected dryly.
"Right, of course, but it also keeps mentioning 'star' or 'sun,' it's not very clear. 'Star in the greatest darkness' and something about a pendulum."
"We need to shoot it into space? With... a trebuchet?" Gwen ventured.
Tosh smirked at the image. "I'm hoping it would be enough to get it out into the open, away from other lights. I think it needs darkness, so it's creating it. If there's no other light interfering, maybe it will turn out to be something completely benign."
"Or maybe--" Owen lifted his head and punctuated the air with a wavering finger, "it will bbl-ow up."
"Unlikely, but I suppose we can't rule it out," Tosh said, frowning. "It also talks about the 'center of the night,' which probably means midnight. And it's almost ten now."
"Right, then." Jack stood and placed both hands on the table, ready for action. "Owen, since you're good for nothing else right now, you get to carry the device."
Tosh smiled as if he had read her mind.
Jack continued, "We take this thing out somewhere open and dark. Ianto, any suggestions?"
"Yes, sir, I think I know just the place," Ianto said, standing and moving toward the door. "We'll need to dress warmly."
*
Jack drove, wearing ordinary night vision goggles since the SUV's headlamps wouldn't work. Even the gauges in the instrument cluster didn't luminesce, and the team couldn't help but notice streetlights dimming and flicking out as they drove past. Despite the exigency of the situation, Ianto, who seemed to carry incredibly detailed maps in his head, directed them along the least traveled routes to avoid putting out other motorists' headlamps as the SUV came near.
Tosh wore the photon goggles and continued work on the translation in the back seat, behind the driver. Owen sat beside her, straddling the "hump" and holding the device gingerly, only his hunched silhouette visible. Gwen shivered and pressed her right shoulder against him.
"Oy, careful! If you make me drop this--"
"-You'll have to bend over and pick it up?" Gwen teased, rocking her body into his again. "Tosh, it's not going to explode, is it." It was a firm statement rather than a question.
"Well," Tosh replied without looking up from the screen, which appeared black to the other two, "like I said, that's unclear, but the phrase I'm working on now seems to indicate it could melt your fingers if you tip it, or are still holding it at midnight." In the darkness, it was impossible to see if she was smiling.
"Jack," Owen growled, "step on it, will you? You're driving like my great-uncle Charley. And Ianto, that's enough with the shortcuts." He balanced the device on his knees so that he could push up his coat sleeve to look at his watch, which he then remembered was digital. He grunted with frustration. Tosh tapped away on her keyboard.
*
It took over an hour and a half to arrive at the destination Ianto had chosen for them from memory. He had done well; still guided by Jack's night vision goggles, they parked the SUV, and after they had hopped over a stone fence (Owen carefully handing off the device to Tosh for a minute), a short, careful walk through the dark heather and coarse grass brought them to a barren hilltop. The village they had passed just before parking was hidden in a valley, so there was not a manmade light to be seen.
And despite the lack of the moon, they felt they could see for miles. The stars stretched over them like an inverted, flecked enamel bowl. Involuntarily, they all stood in silence for a moment, heads thrown back, gazing.
"It's been a long time since I've seen this many stars. Well, since I noticed," Gwen said softly, standing near Jack.
"There are a lot more out there," Jack murmured in reply.
The wind picked up. It seemed to have sobered Owen, who was less awed by the night sky. "Damn, it's cold," he complained. "So, Tosh, what are we doing here again?"
She moved over to him, took the device, and stepped back, stooping and placing it on the ground in the center of the circle the five of them formed. "We're waiting."
"You're kidding me. It's fucking cold, and we've all driven out here with a dangerous object so we can stand around it and wait? Are we idiots?"
The whole group seemed to be considering his second question uncomfortably. Tosh thought it wise to ignore it. "Something's going to happen in--Ianto, what's the time?"
Ianto reached under his coat for his pocket watch, which was analog and just visible in the starlight. "Eleven fifty-six and twenty seconds," he reported.
"--less than four minutes. I'm sure of it. If nothing happens... I guess we think about a Plan C." Anticipating Owen's comment, she reminded him, "Plan B was terrible."
Gwen stepped closer to Jack, and he put his arm around her shoulders. Tosh blew on her hands and stamped her feet. Ianto, with his hands shoved deep in his coat pockets, looked immovable.
Owen watched Toshiko. "You didn't bring gloves?" he asked in a more normal voice.
"I needed my fingers. My head was full. I forgot," she shrugged, blowing on her hands again.
"I remembered," he muttered, "and I was holding on to that bleeding thing the whole time."
It was the last straw. She had opened her mouth to snap at him when he stepped over and stuck out his hand. Offering his gloves. "My pockets are lined," he said quietly. "Put those on." She was staring at him. "Do it, you madwoman, I'm getting cold looking at you!" She closed her mouth, smiled at him, and started pulling on the gloves, which were too large, but still warm from his hands. Owen stepped back, shifting on his feet with almost a swagger, lest the moment become soft. He had turned toward the device again.
"Was it that bright before?" he asked the group.
"It does look brighter," Jack said cautiously. "Actually, yeah, I can see your faces by it now."
Ianto snapped his watch shut again. "Thirty seconds 'til."
They held their breaths, watching. Owen's stance indicated he was ready to remove himself post haste if the situation warranted.
The device was vibrating now, almost as if it were trembling with anticipation. One might have expected a whir or hum with that much vibration, but the device itself was still utterly silent. The frosty grass beneath it crackled with each slight bounce the object made.
Suddenly the amber lens on the top seemed to dissolve in a swirl of vapor, and, so fast it took their breath away, a beam of yellow light shot into the sky. Their heads flew back, following it, but, impossibly, it did not end. It did not disappear from view in the distance, as even the strongest light should. It seemed to stream, as if it were flowing in both directions at once, away from the Earth and toward it. There were sparkling specks of dust flowing with the stream.
"Fuck me," said Owen delicately.
"Oh, it's beautiful," breathed Gwen.
Tosh laughed with delight.
Then the beam of light shifted, still emanating from the device on the ground, but searching the sky like a spotlight, back and forth. Owen jumped out of the way as it tilted past him and stopped again. They followed it with their eyes, light years away, to where it seemed to meet a single star on the north horizon. After a moment they noticed that the light had become white--so white it was almost blue.
"Does anybody know that star?" Tosh broke the silence. "I can't access my charts right now..." she trailed off, absorbed in wonder.
"I might," said Jack thoughtfully. "Tosh, what exactly did you get from the text on the device? Did you finish the translation?"
"As much as I can, there are probably cultural aspects that just don't translate. The main text said, roughly,Light of the star, stored
In a pendant on a chain
Swings along its arc--
'Mid the tallest dark,
Pauses imperceptibly
And returns again.
And tonight is the winter solstice. The longest night. So, you know..."
"You got this," Owen gestured to the hilltop and the night, "from that?"
Tosh shrugged. "Well, there was a technical preamble. And that was a translation, of course. The original makes more sense, in a way. But less, in another way. Then there was a postscript about a 'piercing sword to save us.'"
"Ah," Jack nodded. He began to chuckle, then to laugh out loud.
"What now?" Gwen wondered, cuffing his shoulder. "What is it?" She turned to Tosh, "I thought it was a lovely poem."
"No, no," Jack panted, "it's just--I think it's missionary literature. The whole thing. It's like a religious pamphlet. Sword," he muttered to himself. "What is it about religions and militarism?"
"I swear I didn't see him drink a drop, Tosh," Gwen apologized.
"Like a Gideon Bible, right?" Jack continued. "I'll bet you that any inhabited world within sight of that star has several of these," he nodded toward the device on the ground, still linking their hilltop with its distant sun. "They calibrate to the planet's tilt, rotation, and revolution, and they activate at the time of 'the tallest dark' to point out the heavenly body the makers of these things think we should all be worshiping. Like leaving a free religious book in a hotel room. They're not confronting anyone, just, you know... dropping hints."
"But in order to get noticed, the 'book' needs a dark place, and if it doesn't have one, it makes one," Gwen followed along.
"Right," Jack nodded.
They were silent for a moment, absorbing the theory and watching the beam of light. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the beam withdrew from the sky and extinguished itself in a swirl of smoke-like, luminous particles.
The darkness of the night was more profound than before. But then it was less--
"Uh, Tosh--" Owen said with some alarm, "you're glowing!"
"Am I?" Tosh said, holding her arm in front of her face to see.
Ianto coughed. Gwen walked over to Owen and patted his arm.
"Em, Owen," she said in a soothing yet impish voice, "you're glowing too."
Owen almost yelped when he took his hand out of his pocket. "I look like a traffic signal!"
Jack grinned. "Well, you can scan yourself and Tosh when we get back to the Hub. I think you'll be fine, though. You both held the device a lot, it probably transferred a few harmless properties to you."
"Harmless and temporary properties, you mean," Owen insisted. "Temporary."
"Sure," Jack agreed. "Probably. You might need to stay inside at night for a couple of days. Or get a job in a living crèche."
Gwen snorted.
As they made the short return trek to the SUV, Owen bearing the now-inert device with much less care, Jack hung back and kept Tosh with him. "Tosh," he questioned as they walked, "how much did you know about this by the time we left the Hub?"
She ducked her head, but replied, "I knew it had something to do with the season, and the stars."
"But you didn't think it was dangerous."
"Not really. I thought it might be pretty, and you'd all like to see."
"But we wouldn't have all come just for the possibility of a light show," Jack guessed.
"Least of all Owen. And I knew it was going to be cold." It sounded almost like an apology, but Jack laughed again.
"Good girl. We can use a little wonder in our lives every now and then. I know I can."
She smiled.
He noticed. "You should do that more, smile. Even when you're not... literally glowing, it looks good on you." They had reached the stone fence. He gave her a boost climbing over, vaulted it himself, and, with a hand on her back, guided her toward the front passenger seat, to which Ianto had returned.
"Sorry, Ianto, but if the lights haven't recovered yet, I can use our glowing Tosh to read the instruments."
"That you can, sir," Ianto nodded, smiling slightly as he stepped aside.
When they were all settled, Jack pulled the SUV back onto the narrow road. They drove in silence for awhile. Eventually he noticed that the road before them was slightly less dark; the headlamps were warming up.
Owen, enveloped in his own glow in the back seat, broke the silence. "Think we could find another one of those things for next year? Provided we can find a dark place that's not in the country."
Tosh smiled and shook her head ruefully. The headlamps flickered and came on full-beam. Above them, the stars were still.
Notes
The Deadly Mantis
Ogham