Head In The Stars

It was a good thing that Aron volunteered to drive Millie and me to Kai's university. The place was out in the middle of nowhere and the roads to it had next to no drainage. If I'd been the one driving, Millie and I would have been swept away by all the water.

Millie brought a book for the car trip but ended up sleeping the whole way in the back. In the front Aron and I didn't speak a word. Aron kept his eyes on the road while I leaned against my window and watched him through half-lidded eyes since I knew the gloom in the van would hide my voyeur-ing. Outside the lightning flashed and the cast a cool light that sculpted Aron's face into something resolute and strong. He must have been quite the heartthrob at school and probably still was at the police station.

The sky was dark when we got there but the lights in the university buildings were warm and inviting.

Kai was waiting for us in the entrance, umbrella in hand. He, surprisingly, was wearing a loose pullover and baggy sports pants. Even at the weather station he hadn't dressed so casual.

"Good job making it here," he said when we drew near. He handed us a pair of towels. I pushed one to Aron then helped Millie dry off with the other. "Sorry, I didn't know there would be three of you," Kai added.

"No, thank you for helping to organise this," I said.

A towel flopped over my head, covering my eyes. I pulled it down and saw that Aron had finished. He didn't look at me.

"Why are there so many people still here?" he asked Kai. "Isn't it T8 at the moment?" He was right. There were people all over the place as if it was a normal school day.

"It is," replied Kai. "But by the time the typhoon signal was raised it was too late for most of us to go anywhere. The university is too far away from everything. The trains near here all close at a T8 signal anyway."

When we finished with the towels, Kai took them and handed them to an assistant looking person who had appeared at some point beside him.

"Do you work here?" asked Millie as the assistant took the towels away and Kai began to lead us through the university.

"Sometimes," replied Kai. "I studied here before and I'm researching my PhD here now."

Millie nodded thoughtfully. She almost looked like a researcher herself with the way she walked next to Kai with her hands clasped behind her back. Perhaps I was getting a preview of what was to come. I hoped so. I might have failed to amount to anything, but maybe I could help her to achieve something.

"Has Lachlan explained to you why you're here?" Kai asked.

Millie nodded. "A little." She glanced back at me, but I think she could tell I was in no mood to talk, hadn't been for a while now.

"There's a professor here who would be happy to talk to you about aliens," said Kai. "His name is…"

"Kai! Is this your merry band of merry spacefarers?"

Ahead of us came a rotund man wearing suspenders and a receding hairline. He'd just come out of one of the side doors which I guessed led into different lecture halls. Behind him a flood of students began to file out of the same door and a few looked at us curiously as they passed.

The man waved us to the side. "Vincent Zheng," he said. "Professor of… Ah, you must be Miss Millie Lam. Kai's told me all about you."

For once Millie looked intimidated and I went to give her a supportive pat on the head. "Yes," I said. "This is Millie. I'm Lachlan, and this is Aron."

Millie gave a little nod.

"Good, good, yes," Professor Zheng said. He nodded a few times to himself then started walking. We all looked at each other.

Kai shrugged. "He can be a little absentminded sometimes."

--

The lower levels of the astronomy department breathed money with ceiling to floor windows and vaunted ceilings and the lot, but as we went higher and higher in the building, the true musty nature of the place revealed itself. The floor was carpeted, brown, and dusty while the walls and ceilings were a little too close for comfort. On the walls were yellowing posters and photographs of space launches, satellites and group photos I suspected were former classes.

"This area must look familiar to you, Siu-Kai," the professor said. "It hasn't changed in two decades."

He turned and led us up a small ramp and to more warren-like hallways.

"It's a good thing you know, funding," he went on. "But I must say, there's something missing in all these new renovations and gadgets and designs. There's no..."

"Soul?" offered Aron.

"Romance," the professor replied. "No romance at all. Why, when I first started here, we had only a single computer lab, can you imagine? And punch cards, all the machines ran on punch cards. Ah, it was such a bother having to use them." He looked back at Millie. "Child, have you ever seen that kind of computer before?"

Millie shook her head. She walked beside me, holding my hand.

"Ah, I should try to find out if we still have any of the old things lying around..." the old man muttered. "We could hold an exhibition..."

"I've only seen digital computers here," said Kai.

"Speaking of digital computers," the professor went on, "I remember secretly downloading 'SETI at Home' and installing it onto all the computers. I was just a teaching assistant at the time so if anyone found out..." He drew a finger across his neck.

"Did you get caught?" asked Aron.

"No, but it still got removed. The IT department decided to upgrade operating systems, so everything was wiped." He gave a dramatic sigh.

"So that's what that ugly wallpaper was," said Kai thoughtfully. The professor gave him a look.

"What's 'SETI at Home'?" Aron asked. The name SETI sounded familiar, but I couldn't recall where I'd heard it from. I was glad Aron asked.

"It is, or was, a project that involved using the combined donated computing power of a network of machines to analyse data captured from space," said the professor.

"Basically, crowd sourced civilian alien hunters," translated Kai.

"One should not be so dismissive of aliens, my dear Kai," said Professor Zheng. "There's so much in the universe we don't know."

"Do you believe in aliens?" asked Millie.

"My dear, I am an alien fanatic," replied the professor.

Millie's eyes went wide in surprise, and she looked up at me. I wasn't sure how to respond so I just squeezed her hand. Should I tell her to be careful who she talked to about being an alien? Perhaps, but I didn't feel like I had the right to tell her what she should or should not do. I didn't have the right to tell anyone anything.

"There's only one person I know who is at my level of fanaticism," the professor went on. "Can you guess who it is, Siu-Kai?"

"I have no idea."

"Moira Chung! Don't you remember her? She was always going on about the Star Children..."

Millie's head jerked up though Kai looked at him blankly.

"Ah, she must have graduated before you entered university. All you young people seem the same age to me," he said, shaking his head.

Millie tugged on my hand and I looked down at her.

"Can you ask if we can meet her?" she asked. "She sounds interesting."

The professor laughed. "She is indeed interesting," he said, "But you don't need to ask to meet her. I took the liberty of inviting her to our little meeting. She should arrive here in an hour or two."

"Thank you," I said, genuinely grateful. Millie was an unknown and I knew no one in this community. I suddenly wondered if we'd be able to start getting some answers to things.

The professor chuckled and continued on.

"I thought you studied weather science," Aron said to Kai. "Did you study space too?"

Kai shook his head. "Well, not exactly. I majored in weather science but we all had to take foundational courses in all the sciences. Astronomy was one of them."

"So, Professor Zheng..." began Aron.

"Was one of the lecturers," Kai finished. "Is one of the lecturers," he amended. "As for Moira Chung… I may have heard the name but I honestly can't say."

"Ah, I see."

I had the sneaking suspicion that Aron was asking these question less to find out the answers himself but more for my benefit. I pushed away that thought. Was it too self-centred of me to think this way? I thought so.

After a few more twists and turns he stopped in front of a door, opened it and...

Closed it behind him.