CHAPTER 59
“Of course, of course” said Penny's father, a look of sudden enlightenment in his eyes. “The only explanation that makes sense. Of course. The dome started here, was born here. And first evolved here into what it has become!”
“Then it left,” Malcolm added, nodding, eyes still closed. He kept on nodding.
“You’re saying….” Chiffrey stared at Penny, as if he wanted to speak, but he seemed to lose his voice. Finally, he turned to her father and managed, “Could you run that by me again?”
Penny's father glanced at Malcolm to see if he was going to add any more, but the young man had gone quiet again, so her father went on. “The dome must be as much a self-contained ecosystem as a single entity. It’s not a ship. It doesn’t need one. It is its own ship and a world unto itself! A unique anomaly, another path of evolution, but only this single one because it multiplied and evolved inside itself, not outside like the rest of terrestrial life. It’s a living world! And it began here, most likely long before us. Long before. At some point in the primordial past, it gained the ability to move without obvious physical means. I know it sounds incredible, but don’t you see? If it could do what we have all witnessed, there seems no reason why it could not travel anywhere, including the farthest reaches of space. I have no idea how, but think of it, we are talking about an evolved consciousness that’s had a continuous lifespan of millions, perhaps even tens of millions of years. What wouldn’t be possible? Imagine what we might become and what we might be capable of in another million years or so? Assuming we haven’t destroyed ourselves, of course.”
Chiffrey looked down and stared into the palms of his hands, then looked up at Penny and simply asked, “Is that what you’re trying to say? And how long ago?”
“How long ago, now?”
“When, dammit, when did it first leave here? Leave the earth?”
Unfazed by Chiffrey’s tone, Penny said, “The sense of time I used to possess troubles me now like a foreign language where I know the words, but no longer the grammar.”
“What?” Chiffrey asked. “Look, I apologize, it’s just…” He stopped for a moment then started to speak again, directly to her but slowly, as if he were talking to a small child. “You’re saying that thing is from here? And it’s some kind of advanced life form that evolved on earth but left here at some point in the past. Can you expand on that a little?”
She closed her eyes. “I see a long ship…a single sail with a red dragon. Men. Rowing at oars…”
When she tried to continue, a tear ran down her cheek. “Why do we hold everything so…small?” She started to shake a little, and her connection with the dome became more tenuous.
“Are you okay?” Chiffrey said.
“You are all…” She stopped and was quiet. She looked at them, her face a picture of joy tempered by sadness.
“I’ll need some time now,” she finally said. “Of my own.”
“Another minute, please,” Chiffrey said. “You haven’t even told us where Matthew went and why, let alone what he was doing inside that pod thing we had in the tank.”
But to Penny, the words Chiffrey spoke drifted further and further apart, the space between each syllable widening into vast chasms of silence. In the deepening night, every detail around her again shone bright and shimmering in the afterglow of the dome’s departure. Every particle of matter around her seemed to dance away towards some long forgotten ecstasy.
Chiffrey’s voice came back from far away. “Wasn’t sure what you meant is all. You look tired. Maybe some coffee?”
“I need to rest,” she said, and then without ceremony or preamble, she curled up on the deck in front of them. Her breathing became deep and slow. The hardness of the deck did not reach her. Instead it was as if she was melting into the ship, as if it had become a great cradle that would protect her and give her the rest she had so greatly needed her whole life. All cares gone, she soon drifted off.
No one moved at first. Then, one by one, those who had blankets laid them over and around her. Chiffrey had abruptly left, but soon returned.
“Haven’t used a pillow in years,” he said to Becka, “so she might as well use mine. It’s fresh. I’m sorry if I pushed too hard.”
Becka nodded. “Someone had to, I suppose,” she whispered with a trace of regret. She gently placed the pillow under Penny’s head. “I’ll watch over her for now.”