ABC shorts: The Map…
The Map
A.B. Carolan, Copyright 2019
“Maybe it’s a treasure map,” Kevin said after unrolling the document they’d found in the old house onto the attic floor and putting some old tools at each corner to hold it down.
“Kind of weirdo,” his friend Dave said. “Just a bunch of black dots with some numbers beside them. Maybe the rest of it faded away? The paper’s brittle.”
The roll of paper had been in the top, thin drawer of an old chest. The other larger drawers were filled with rocks.
Kevin looked around. “Kinda spooky up here. I’ve seen enough. The old house is just full of junk no one wants.”
Dave squatted and studied their find. “Maybe Mr. Sandoval can analyze the paper. It’s old. Could be fun to see how old.”
Jorge Sandoval was the boys’ chem teacher. He also taught bio—they’d had him for that—and physics, which they’d heard was a really tough course. Kevin wanted to take that; Dave wasn’t sure.
Their high school wasn’t big enough to have more than one science teacher.
“Okay,” said Kevin. “Up to you. He’ll ask where we got it if it’s real old, you know.”
Dave shrugged. “Then we’ll tell him.”
***
Jorge was in his garage thinking about the next week’s demo for physics class. The topic was polarization of light. He’d just had an idea. Instead of an optical demo—the class’s back row wouldn’t be able to see anything—he’d use microwaves. Everywhere in the classroom, the kids could hear the effects of polarization instead of having to see them. He thought he had the equipment to do that in his garage.
He saw through the high basement windows Dave and Kevin, the future graduates from the class of 1984, park their bikes. They burst into his house and came galumphing downstairs. He saw the roll of paper in Dave’s hand.
“Hey you two, what are you up to?”
After a short explanation about what they wanted, Jorge snipped off a corner of the paper roll and tested it—multiple tests, taking notes, all the while explaining what he was doing. He even let them pitch in.
“It’s good quality paper,” he announced after almost thirty minutes. “Nothing special, though, and not especially old. Like wrapping paper for mailing packages, only white instead of brown. Why did you think it’s old?”
Dave looked at Kevin. Kevin nodded.
“We found it in that old condemned house on Maple Drive,” Dave said.
“They condemned it because it’s ready to fall apart,” said Jorge. “You boys shouldn’t be snooping in there. It’s dangerous.”
“We weren’t snooping. We just wanted to see if there was any cool stuff inside.”
“And this is cool? Like I said, it’s just old wrapping paper.”
“We thought it was a map or something.” Kevin grabbed the roll and spread it out on the basement floor, waiting the corners down with some of Jorge’s tools. “You see?”
Jorge squatted and stared at the black dots and numbers. He then stood and walked around to the side of the paper before squatting again and making a frame with his hands.
“From this angle, there are a few patterns I recognize. I have no idea what the numbers mean, though. Let me check something.” He went to his old desk and booted up some software on his desktop computer. He gestured to the boys to join him.
“What do you think?”
Dave and Kevin looked from the screen to the paper on the floor and then back.
“They’re just more dots, only without numbers,” Dave said.
“No, some of the dots make patterns that match the patterns on the paper,” Kevin said.
“Precisely. I think you have a star map. Let’s see if I can coax this old machine to bring up lower magnitude stars.” Jorge fiddled; more dots appeared on the screen. “Cool, huh?”
“I guess the paper covers a bigger field of stars,” Dave said. “Some of the dots on the paper still don’t match up.”
“You’re right. This software only goes down to a certain magnitude. Can I borrow this roll of paper for a bit?” Jorge had lost all interest in the physics demo.
“Why? Didn’t you say it was just old wrapping paper?” Kevin said it with a smile.
“The first thing a scientist should learn is to admit when he’s wrong.”
***
The nearest university was about fifty miles away. Jorge didn’t have classes on Tuesdays. He normally used that time to correct quizzes and prepare lessons, but he’d made an appointment with Professor Schwartz, an astronomer at the university. Jorge had taken astrophysics with him.
“Your call was a surprise, Jorge.”
After pleasantries, they got down to business. Jorge unrolled the paper on the professor’s office carpet.
“Hmm. This is your exciting find? It looks like someone’s homemade star map.”
“Correct. Only thing, professor, is that I can’t find all the stars the map indicates.”
“Did you date this roll of paper? It looks old.”
“Probably early twentieth century. I can’t do a radioactive dating.”
“Not accurate enough anyway. Not biological material either. You should know that.”
“The paper probably has cotton fibers, professor.”
“Hmm. I stand corrected. But that dating method is only good to a few decades.” The professor walked around the star map. “Can I keep this for a few days?”
***
The professor took a few months instead. One Saturday morning, Jorge received a call from him.
“You know that roll of paper you left me, Jorge?”
“Yeah. I wondered if you’d forgotten about it. Do you want to return it?”
“No, maybe…look, I consulted with a few colleagues. There are dots on that map you can only see with the Hale telescope on Mt. Palomar. Whoever made this map decades ago either made some lucky guesses or had information we didn’t have back then. Who owned the house where the map was found?”
Jorge should have thought to check that. “I’ll find out.”
He found there was a gap in the records corresponding to a loan foreclosure that was drawn out over a long period before the Depression. The bank had sold the house to the US government, but no one seemed to have lived in it.
Jorge and the boys broke into the house to see if they could find anything more about the house. It was Kevin who found the two clues. One of the rocks in the old chest had a label underneath that said “Lunar Ore Sample #1009.” And there was also a piece of metal buried under a few other rocks. It was labeled “Lunar Artifact #3—origin unknown.”
So who made the star map? Jorge asked himself. And how did they get that information about those super-dim stars?
***
Comments are always welcome.
Mind Games by A.B. Carolan. Androids with psi powers? What could go wrong? Fourteen-year-old Della Dos Toros must leave her sheltered existence in planet Sanctuary’s Dark Domes to escape those searching for her. Her adopted father told her to hide her powers, but she must use all of them to find his murderer. This action-packed sci-fi mystery for young adults is available on Amazon in ebook and print format and on Smashwords and at its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc) in ebook format.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
