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Carmen sees him once a month. She makes the long, icy drive to the railway station, then bundles into the elevator with her briefcases and carefully-packed computer. When she reaches the top and the icy glory of Sphinx Observatory, she performs her routine maintenance check. If there’s ever anything wrong, she would write a memo and return it to Liège so they could send up more hands for the optics.
There’s never anything wrong.
“All the equipment working properly?” she says, one windy day in January when he’s had the job about three months. She’s bundled up in the best ski jacket she could find, with earmuffs and gloves. He’s wearing a thin overcoat and a pretense at a scarf, and looks unaffected.
“All working properly,” he agrees. He doesn’t smile. She’s never seen him smile.
“Got a request coming up for Polytechnique soon.”
He nods. His eyes don’t meet hers.
“Where’d you go to school?” she tries.
“Eh…” He thinks for a moment, as though it’s hard to remember. “Oregon State University. Long time ago.”
He doesn’t look old enough for anything to be a long time ago, but there’s something in the way he carries himself that indicates life has treated him harshly. “Optics?”
“No,” he says. He doesn’t make any attempt to continue, just stands there outside the elevator.
“Right,” she says, getting the hint. Some telescope operators do it for the love of the stars, the love of high windy places where they can look out over the world and up into the universe. Others do it because it’s lonely. “Well, I’ll be going then.”
“Mind the gap,” he says, and the corner of his lips quirks up for the first time since she’s met him.
“Yeah.” Carmen doesn’t know what he means, but she bundles herself into the elevator regardless. “See you next month.”
The doors close.
February: colder than January. Again, the operator-- whose name she can never quite remember-- is dressed in entirely inadequate clothing. He bundles her into the main anteroom and hands her a cup of cocoa, which she almost spits out because it’s ice cold.
“Something wrong?” he says, with a tone that sounds like it’s trying for anxious and falling on its face.
“It’s not very warm, is all.”
He frowns. “It’s warm.” Carmen takes another sip, because she doesn’t want to disappoint him. This time it’s the perfect temperature. It’s always been the perfect temperature. “It’s the perfect temperature,” she says. “Thanks. What’s your name again?”
He tells her his name.
“That’s a nice name,” Carmen says. It is a nice name. It would be nice if she knew what it was.
“Everything working properly,” he says.
“Everything working properly?” she says.
“I do,” he says.
“You do your job well,” she says.
She frowns. There’s something wrong with the conversation, but she can’t quite put her finger on it. Her cup is empty. “Say, when did I finish the cocoa?”
She’s in the elevator again. Everything is working properly.
There’s nothing wrong with Sphinx Observatory. Everything at Sphinx Observatory works properly, including the operator. March arrives, and so does Carmen. She spends the elevator in a strange state of tension, rubbing her hands together and feeling the chill like she never normally does. What is wrong with Sphinx Observatory? The sky has been clear every night for months now, and the University is thrilled.
She takes the cocoa he offers; it’s the right temperature this time. “Can I see the Cassegrain?” she asks.
“It’s working properly.” The operator makes no move to lead her to the telescope room.
“I’d like to see it, please. Just routine maintenance.”
He leads her through the narrow hallways before finally unlocking the door to the Cassegrain. She looks at it. It’s a Cassegrain.
“It sure is a Cassegrain,” she says, feeling phenomenally stupid. “You’ve had a lot of spectroscopy jobs recently, right?”
He hums his assent. “Mainly solar. But I have my own projects, of course.”
“Oh?” Carmen runs her hand along the side of the telescope tube. “Like what?”
“Extrasolar, mostly. I tend to just… let it drift. In the quiet hours, before the time slots are filled. And after. And when I find something, I look at it.”
For Carmen, coming from a world where nothing is real unless you put it down on paper and get it in JSTOR, this is oddly moving. “What have you found?”
His eyes go vague. “Mizar,” he says.
“Really?” Carmen cocks her head, surprised. “Why Mizar?”
“It’s a binary star,” he says, and gestures for her to sit down at the eyepiece. “It has a twin, if you like. Alcor. Much smaller, not as luminous. Mizar shines every night, brightening up the world. To a massive star like Mizar, Alcor’s just a blip on the radar. Something notable that passes by in an ellipse once in a cycle. But to Alcor…. Mizar is everything. The whole world. And without her, he spins off into space.”
Carmen stands transfixed, staring at him. It’s like he can see the stars in front of him, and as his hands brush the air, for an instant she thinks she can as well.
“Would you like to see them?” he asks.
Above them, the dome is shut against the bitter afternoon winds. “It’s day.”
“That doesn’t matter,” he says, guiding her hand to the scope. “You’ll see them. I don’t even need to be in the booth.”
And there they are. It’s just a tiny corner of the sky, unmarred by failures in adaptive optics or cloud cover or anything so mundane as the impossible impossible distance from Earth to the Big Dipper. Carmen sees them as though from a planet orbiting the pair, but miraculously they don’t hurt her eyes. “They’re beautiful,” she breathes.
“They could be,” says the operator. “And maybe they will be again soon. Would you like a cup of cocoa?”
She starts away from the eyepiece. What has she seen? It’s daytime. There are no stars in the sky and she doesn’t know what she’s doing here and she doesn’t know his name. “What’s your name?” she says.
He gives her a long look. “I’ll get you some cocoa.”
Everything is working properly.
When she comes back in April, she’s prepared. Her coat is lined with iron filings and there’s salt in her pockets, packed tight like soil. If the operator notices he doesn’t let on, just leads her to the booth to perform her routine checks.
When he offers her cocoa she just shakes her head, not trusting herself to speak. Then, without him inviting her, she thoroughly examines the Cassegrain. There doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with it, and when she peers through the eyepiece all she sees is the expected dark frame, not a distant sky with impossible stars.
“There’s nothing wrong with the scope,” he says from behind her, sounding amused.
“Well, then.” She straightens, her hands buried deep in the salt in her pockets. “There must be something wrong with you.”
He cocks his head and stays silent.
“What are you doing here?”
“Reflecting,” he says. “And getting some perspective.”
“No better place to do so,” Carmen agrees. “What are you getting perspective on?”
For the first time he looks cold in his thin black overcoat. “I’ve made some mistakes. Recently, in particular, but for too long to excuse. And I’ve hurt people. I’ve hurt… friends.” He twists his mouth as though tasting the word. “Yes, friends. Friend. Sometimes you need to get away from people so you can learn how to be near them again.”
In the cold spring light trickling through the window, the whole room glints. “What’s your name?” she asks.
He tells her.
“Oh,” she says.
Chuckling slightly, he points an elbow in her direction. “The salt wouldn’t have worked anyway,” he says. “But you don’t have to worry. I’m… I’m trying. And you’ve been kind to me. Thank you.”
“Of course,” says Carmen. After all, no telescope ops are ever entirely normal. “Thanks for the cocoa.”
He winks.