Snippet 2 From “The Poet, The End of Time”
“and death I think is no parenthesis”
from “since feeling is first” by ee cummings
Beth gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Maxine, just two nights before. The artificial gravitational lense system was deployed and operational. The world was collectively pulling back from the edge. It was a relaxing time. Ukpik was remembering Max and the conversations they shared about the cosmos, so he decided to take the telescope out for some stargazing. Ukpik was looking at the stars through Max’s telescope, a favorite pastime of Ukpik’s, when Maya walked up.
“Have you considered the rings of Saturn? They seem so mysterious.”
Ukpik stepped back from the telescope and replied, “Yeah, they are almost like the grooves in a vinyl record.”
Maya smiled, then said, “I’ll leave you at it then.” And then turned and walked away.
Ukpik, picturing those strange rings of Saturn in his mind turned back to the telescope, turned it to the direction of Saturn and looked back into the eyepiece.
That evening when Ukpik was home, in his room, he pulled up every NASA image of Saturn’s rings that he could find. Ukpik found a series of images from an orbiting satellite sent to study and monitor the rings, and spent the evening staring at the beauty of the patterns of light and the color, the bands, the particles.
That night Ukpik dreamt of the rings of Saturn. In his dream he thought he recognized a pattern, something in one band that looked like a binary pattern in a very narrow band.
The next morning, as he awoke he remembered the clarity of the pattern of particles. After breakfast Ukpik went back to the Saturn satellite images from the night before. Ukpik zoomed in on the bands and started to scan, and then stopped. He froze. Ukpik jumped out of his chair and yelled, “I’m heading out to see Maya and Core,” as he ran out of the back door.
Ukpik felt like he could explode. He was running to the complex, a little under a mile away from his house. He thought, “Maya and Core are going to find a pattern in a ring of Saturn something incredible.”
Ukpik reached the access road, out of breath and tired from running, and started walking to the bunker, breathing heavily, trying to catch his breath as he walked. Ukpik reached the door and rang the bell. Maya answered, “Ukpik, come in.”
“Maya, it’s there, in the rings, a pattern. It looks binary.”
Maya said, “Let’s go to the ‘War Room’ and share this with Core.”
The two entered the “War Room” where Maya said, “Share with Core your findings.”
“I was looking at the stars last night when Maya showed up and suggested I consider the rings of Saturn. This morning, looking at the imagery from the NASA satellite at Saturn I found within a very narrow band a pattern. It looks like a binary pattern.”
A 3-D image of Saturn appeared at the center of the table.
Core’s voice emanated from the ceiling tile grid, “Interesting. Life is full of surprises. Let’s have a look. Show me the band in which you found this pattern.”
Ukpik told Core where to zoom in, which band held the pattern.
Core’s said, “Indeed, this is a binary pattern that represents an ASCII text pattern…”
And projected onto the center of the table the following:
“By the time Ukpik finds this we will be well on our way back home. Humanity and Earth should be safe for the foreseeable future. There are a few more clues, breadcrumbs for you to find. Cheers, Hank M. Greene”
Core said, “Ukpik, you said Maya suggested you might want to consider the rings of Saturn?”
Ukpik replied, “Yes.”
Maya smiled.
Who is, or, who was Hank M. Greene?
