Chapter Ten

Jonah watched as Nana pushed a few of the files around on the top of her desk, looking at their covers and occasionally opening them to glance in at their front pages. She had been doing this for several minutes, not saying anything, but seeming absorbed in what she was seeing even if she was doing little to really investigate the files and their contents.

“Do you understand any of this?” Aubrey finally asked. “Does any of this make sense to you?”

“I don’t know what you’re asking me, Aubrey,” Nana said. “Why would I understand any of this? These are files from before I was even born.”

“I know that,” Aubrey said. “That’s the point. These all come from more than a hundred years ago, and yet this one, this one right here is my file. It says that I went to the University medical ward three times and saw different doctors. There’s also a page missing from it that could have anything on it, and we don’t know. How is this possible?”

“Why are you asking me about it?”

There was something strange in Nana’s voice, something just beneath the words that Jonah could detect but couldn’t quite decipher. It was as though she wasn’t really asking the question to get an actual answer that would clarify the situation for her, but rather that she was asking just to see what Aubrey and he were going to say to her.

“I think you know why,” Aubrey said. “You know who Jonah is. You are the one who gave me that book that would tell me who he is. Why was that book so important?”

“I told you, it belonged to my mother. She loved that book and we spent a lot of time going through it together.”

“I know that’s what you told me,” Aubrey continued, “but you didn’t explain why it was so important. Why did your mother put so much value into it?”

“And why did she spend so much time touching my picture?” Jonah asked.

Both women looked up at him as if they had almost forgotten that he was there with them.

“She was a very private woman,” Nana said. “Whatever was happening in her mind and heart when she was touching that picture stayed there. All of my memories of my mother have that book in them. It was her most precious possession.”

Jonah looked at Nana and she met his eyes, the expression in them seeming to convey something within her that she didn’t want to say. He gave a slight nod and turned to Aubrey.

“The book,” he said. “We’ve gone through all of this because of that book, but we didn’t even think about looking at the book itself. You used that to find out about me, so why don’t we use it to find out more?”

Aubrey’s eyes widened.

“We can read the book. Maybe it will give us some insight into what is going on here. That book was written just a few years after the Nyx 23 crew went missing. It has a different perspective than the books that are written about it now.”

“Exactly,” Jonah said. “It was written by people who were actually around when the entire situation happened. It can tell us things about what everyone knew and how they felt about it that we can’t get from reading contemporary books, and at the same time, the contemporary books might tell us more or different things that the older book doesn’t. If we read the old book, we can compare what’s in it to what you learned about the situation in school and I can tell you want actually happened.”

Aubrey nodded.

“It’s pretty clear that the accuracy of the information that was shared with the public is fairly suspect. If we can compare all of the different views, maybe they will overlap or contrast distinctly and something will stand out that will make something make sense.”

Jonah didn’t know what they might find in the old book or how it might further illuminate the situation, but it was all that they could think of to do. Aubrey rushed out of the room to get the book and Jonah turned to look at Nana.

“You always knew who I was,” he said.

Nana gave a slow nod.

“From the moment that I saw you walk in the door. I can’t forget your face. It’s one I have seen so many times before. I just never could have imagined that this would be the way that I would see it again.”

“You have to know something, Nana. Something about this has to make sense to you.”

Before the older woman could answer him, Aubrey ran through the office door again, gripping the book tightly against her chest. She closed the door behind her and stepped up to the desk. Placing the book on it, she pulled a chair up and sat down. Jonah followed her lead and they both leaned forward over the desk to look at it. Aubrey flipped the cover and the book immediately opened to the page of pictures of the crew. Jonah’s eyes locked on his own face again, noticing now the change in texture of the page that indicated just how much Nana’s mother touched this image of him. It was a strange thought and one that he didn’t know how to feel about. At once, it was nice to know that there was someone who had thought so much of him even then, long after he was lost and the world thought that he had died. At the same time, however, he didn’t know Nana’s mother and didn’t understand the draw that she would have had to him. This made her obvious attachment to him feel like it somewhat threw him off balance.

Jonah took his eyes away from the picture of himself to look at the faces of the rest of the crew, emotion starting to coil in his stomach as he saw the images of those who had been lost in the crash and those he had left behind when he chose to come with the crew to Earth. He had looked at nearly all of them when something struck him. He scanned back over the pictures again, pulling the book closer to look at them more intently.

“What is it?” Aubrey asked.

Jonah picked up the book and flipped to the back so he could look through the resource section. He looked at the picture again and then compared it to the information that he found. After a few seconds he put the book back down on the desk and pointed at the picture of a smiling man at the center of the bank of pictures.

“Him,” Jonah said. “This man. I don’t know him.”

Aubrey turned the book toward herself and looked down at the picture.

“What do you mean you don’t know him?” she asked. “That’s the pilot of the StarCity.”

Jonah shook his head.

“No. I know that’s what it says, but that’s not him.”

“I don’t understand,” Aubrey said. “This is Martin Roe, the man who is always credited with being the pilot for the Nyx 23 mission. He’s in all of the textbooks and all of the research about the mission. It says that he was one of the most clandestine of the people included on the mission because of his work outside of the program. His family didn’t even know that he was a part of the project until after the crew went missing. He was given full honors at the memorial service held in his honor.”

“Memorial service?” Jonah asked.

Aubrey nodded.

“Once it was fully established that the ship had gone missing and was no longer in communication with mission control, the military and government decided that they would do a search of the planet and the surrounding areas to try to find any clues that might indicate where the ship went and if any of the crew was still alive. After the military recognizance groups returned without any word of what happened, the planet entered into a formal waiting period. When that was over, the entire crew was declared dead. There were memorial services for everyone and a national day of mourning was established.”

“A memorial service was held for me?” Jonah asked.

Aubrey nodded.

“Yes. There were huge funeral rituals and speeches. Nyx 23 became the martyrs of the entire planet. People used the situation to call for stricter intergalactic cooperation and laws, and others demanded that Earth shut off all alliances with planets that weren’t deemed occupied and civilized for more than 50 years. It became really heated. Remembering Nyx 23 became a rallying cry for all kinds of demands and changes in policy and protocol.”

“Can you show me pictures of the memorial services?” Jonah asked.

“I can do something even better than that,” Aubrey said. She crossed the room to one of the large bookshelves that lined one wall. “These are my textbooks from college. By the time that I was in school, the high school studies of the disaster were fairly cursory. They covered what happened and the effects of it, but it didn’t get into as much detail. In college, though, the research was much more extensive. I took a class that devoted almost three weeks just to the disappearance and the after-affects. This book,” she pulled a book down from the shelf and carried it over to the desk, “is considered one of the foremost texts on the topic. It has first-hand accounts, blueprints…but it also has this.”

Aubrey opened the book to a page that was entirely taken up by the image of a large crowd looking up at an elevated stage. The back of the stage was filled with massive floral displays while the center held a pedestal with a man standing behind it. He was gesturing toward the crowd and Jonah could see that there was a long row of empty chairs positioned along either side of the stage as well as on another platform in front.

“What is this?” Jonah asked.

“It’s the memorial service that was held for the entire crew.”

Jonah watched as Aubrey touched a dark spot at the bottom of the picture and a shimmering blue and white hologram rose out of the picture. He was surprised that the technology had been integrated into a textbook, but when it started moving and sound came toward him, all other thoughts left his mind. He listened intently as the man, who Jonah soon recognized as a military leader, addressed the crowd, telling them about the bravery and sacrifice of the Nyx 23 crew. He talked about the clandestine nature of the project and reassured the public that this was intended as protection for them and for the planet. They didn’t want to cause panic or disrupt the normal progression of people’s lives for something that was still in exploratory stages and would hopefully have no direct impact on the people of Earth. He was poetic and emotional, calling upon all of those on Earth and on all allied planets to never forget those who had lost their lives in their effort to protect not just the people of Earth, but the values and truths that all those who were aligned with the intergalactic agreements held dear.

Jonah felt strangely breathless as he watched the memorial service unfold with music and further speeches. As the program drew to a close, the leader stepped behind the pedestal again and announced that they would complete the memorial service by reading out the names of the crew members along with displaying their images. The crowd fell silent again and a valiant, almost triumphant song rose up along with the first image of a crew member. Jonah, Aubrey, and Nana remained in silence, as though suspended in the moment along with the rest of the crowd, watching reverently as the faces of the crew slid past and the sound of their names reverberated through the stillness. Aubrey walked around to Jonah’s side and he felt her take his hand, squeezing it comfortingly as they went deeper into the list. He shuddered slightly as his face appeared in the hologram and the man called his name, returning the squeeze of Aubrey’s hand.

They had gone through dozens of names when there was a slight pause and the man gestured toward the screen where the images had appeared.

“Of course, all of the souls on this crew were led fearlessly by their courageous and devoted pilot, Martin Roe.”

“That,” Jonah said, pointing at the hologram. “That’s not right. There was no Martin Roe on the crew. He wasn’t with us.”

The hologram had gone still, and Aubrey touched the button again to close it out.

“What do you mean it isn’t right? Why would they memorialize someone as the pilot of a crew when he wasn’t even there?”

“I don’t know, but I can tell you that that man was not our pilot. I was there, remember? I knew every person on the primary crew. I didn’t know the names of all of the mechanical crew, but I knew the pilot. His name was Etan, not Martin Roe, and he didn’t look anything like that picture that they just showed. I spent months training alongside Etan and weeks onboard the StarCity with him. I know what I’m talking about.”

“I just don’t understand,” Aubrey said. “How is that possible? How could they not know that they were memorializing the wrong pilot? How could they write about him and teach that he was the pilot for all of these years?”

“I don’t know,” Jonah said, “but I think that there is a far more pressing question than that.”

“Who is Martin Roe and why did no one notice that he was being credited for piloting a mission that he had nothing to do with?”

Jonah nodded at Nana.

“He had to have a family. Colleagues. Friends. Something. Someone had to notice that he was being lauded as the fearless leader of the StarCity when he didn’t go at all. Someone had to notice that he was still on Earth, alive and well, even after the mission was said to have disappeared.”

“Like him,” Aubrey said. “Where did he go? If he didn’t have anything to do with this mission, or if he was supposed to but then changed his mind, why didn’t he say anything? Why didn’t he come forward and point out that he wasn’t on the ship at all, much less when it disappeared? No one said anything about him or his life after the mission, so what happened to him?”

“I think that we need to go to the factory,” Jonah said.

“The Izalux factory?” Nana asked.

Jonah nodded and started to gather the patient files.

“I know that it doesn’t make any sense right now, but it’s all the connection that we have right now. We need to get to that factory and find out anything else that we can.”

“I’ll call the lab and tell them that I’m going to need a leave of absence,” Aubrey said. “Considering I haven’t even taken vacation in the entire time that I’ve worked there and today is my first sick day in three years, I think that they owe me a little bit of time without too many complaints.”

“I’ll go up and start packing,” Jonah said. “We have some research that we need to do before we go, but I want to make sure that we are ready as soon as possible.”

****

Nana watched as Aubrey and Jonah rushed out of the office and went in different directions, readying themselves for the challenge that was in front of them. She drew in a breath and stood slowly. Her body suddenly felt older and heavier as she walked around the large desk toward the door to the office. Everything felt like it was rushing toward her, moments that she had anticipated for years suddenly happening though she hadn’t yet prepared herself for them. She climbed the back stairs that led up to her bedroom and closed the door behind her, closing out the sound of the muffled voices that were rising up toward her from the floor below. She leaned back against the door for a few seconds, gathering her thoughts and emotions, before crossing the room to her vanity and the antique jewelry box sitting there.

Her hands trembled slightly as she opened the box and removed the insert that concealed a hidden panel. Nana reached into a ring box on the other side of the vanity table and withdrew a tiny key that she used to unlock the panel and moved the polished cherry wood slat aside. Returning the key to its place, she reached into the compartment and withdrew a small stack of letters. The thick envelopes crackled in her hands as she held them, their musty smell and dry texture revealing their age.

After a few seconds, she pulled the letters away from her heart where she had been holding them and looked down at the willowy script across the front of the top letter. It was the same on each of the envelopes, her name swept across the thick, creamy paper in fading blue ink. The only difference in the envelopes was the instructions written on the back of the flap of each. None had been opened, all left completely sealed just as they were when she found them in the days following her mother’s death. They were tucked in that compartment in the jewelry box, unopened, seemingly untouched from when they were placed there. She could only assume that they had been written by her mother years before her death, years even before Nana’s birth. Though her curiosity had nearly overcome her, she had forced herself to resist opening the envelopes, telling herself that she had to follow the guidelines that were written on the back of the envelopes, knowing that she was only to open them when the notes on the envelope flaps dictated.

Nana slipped the envelopes back into the hidden compartment of the jewelry box and rested her hand on them for a few moments. She knew that the time was coming to open them and she would finally know exactly what they said. In her heart, she knew what the letters were about. It could only be one thing, only one mystery that could be important enough for her mother to put the effort into writing the letters and keeping them concealed throughout Nana’s life to ensure that she would open them at just the right moment.

Closing the compartment, Nana picked up the tiny key again and locked it before placing the insert back into place. She returned the jewelry box to its position on the vanity table and then took the few steps to the small bookshelf on the other side of the room. A silver picture frame stood out in stark contrast from the faded antique books that surrounded it. She reached for it and took it into her hands. The faces of her parents gazed up at her and she looked down at them with a blend of love and sadness in her heart. Nana touched each of them, first tracing the outline of her father’s face and then her mother’s. She could still remember them so distinctly, from the sound of their voices to the smell of their skin when they hugged her. When she closed her eyes, she could still feel the soft fabric of her father’s shirt when he lifted her into his arms and carried around the house after coming home from work, or her mother’s hand brushing across her hair as she lulled her to sleep at night.

“It’s all working out now,” Nana whispered to the picture. “It’s all going to be fine. I’ll make sure that it is.”