Dustin Thomason - 12.21

Projected stars moved in slow concentric circles above their heads. Chel sank down into one of the cloth-covered seats, tired of craning her neck.

“So the earth wobbles back and forth,” Patrick continued. “And not only does the sun’s path across the sky change as a result, but so do the stars’.”

“But even if they shift over time,” Chel asked, “the stars we see here in Los Angeles aren’t very different from the ones they see in Seattle, right? So how are we supposed to get a good location from that? The differences are pretty imperceptible.”

“Imperceptible to our eyes. We have too much light pollution. But the ancients’ naked-eye observations were more precise than ours could ever be.”

Patrick’s own love affair with the Maya began while he pursued a PhD in archaeoastronomy. He became obsessed with the analyses that the Maya astronomers were able to do from their temples: approximations of planetary cycles, understanding of the concept of galaxies, even a basic grasping of the idea of moons attached to other planets. The modern decline of stargazing was a tragedy, Patrick felt.

They both stared up at the frozen sky. “So let’s start at Tikal,” he said. “This is what it looked like there on the vernal equinox on the approximate date you got from the carbon dating and the iconography. Let’s say: March twentieth, A.D. 930” He used the laser to highlight a bright object in the western sky. “According to your scribe, on his vernal equinox, Venus was visible in the dead middle. So we rotate the coordinates of the star projector within the range of the Petén, until we get Venus in the right place.”

The stars spun above them until Venus was at the apex of the planetarium ceiling. “Looks like about fourteen to sixteen degrees north,” Patrick said finally.

But Chel knew enough to know that from fourteen to sixteen degrees north would span a range of more than two hundred miles wide. “That’s as close as we can get? We have to do better than that.”

Patrick began to shift stars. “That’s only the first constraint. From what you’ve already translated, we’ve got dozens more to parse. We’ll go as fast as we can.”

They worked side by side, with the projector and Patrick’s computerized star charts, the codex providing more inputs. Much of the work was done in silence, with Patrick entirely focused on the sky above.

It was after two a.m., during a long stretch of silence, when Chel found her thoughts drifting uncomfortably to Volcy and his deathbed.

To her relief, Patrick interrupted them. “So before this all started,” he said, “did you have a chance to take that trip to the Petén you wanted? Were you writing all the articles you’d hoped to?”

When she’d ended their relationship and he moved out of her house, these were the excuses she gave.

“I guess,” Chel said quietly.

“After this, you’ll be a keynote speaker for the rest of your life,” he said.

Patrick already seemed to have forgotten that she might be facing a jail term after this. Yet even now, in the midst of this catastrophe, Chel could hear the tinge of jealousy in his voice. Despite Patrick’s cutting-edge scholarship, there were few people who were interested in archaeoastronomy. He’d spent his career trying to convince the academy that what he did mattered. But he always found himself presenting at the ends of conferences, publishing in obscure journals, and having book proposals rejected.

Chel hadn’t really processed how deep his competitive streak ran until the night after she won the American Society of Linguistics’ most prestigious award. They’d gotten to the bottom of a second bottle of Sangiovese at their favorite Italian restaurant, and Patrick tilted his glass toward her.

“To you,” he’d said. “For picking the right specialty.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” he’d said, downing a long sip of wine. “I’m just happy epigraphy is well appreciated.”

He did his best to behave every time another of her articles was accepted or she received another award, but it was forced cheer. Eventually, Chel limited what she told him about work to the few frustrations she had with her job: students not doing their work or the politics of the Getty board. She shared every bad thing that happened and none of the good; it was easier. But with each little omission, Chel felt the distance growing between them.

Patrick again shifted the star pattern on the planetarium ceiling.

“I’ve been seeing someone,” he said.

Chel looked up. “You have?”

“Yeah. For a couple of months. Her name is Martha.”

“Is it real?”

“I think so. I’ve been staying at her place. She was anxious about me seeing you tonight, but she understood the urgency. Pretty weird excuse to get together with your ex in the middle of the night.”

“I didn’t know anyone under sixty was named Martha.”

“She’s plenty south of sixty, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“So she’s a child. Even better.”

“She’s thirty-five, and a successful theater director. And she wants to get married.”

Chel was astounded that he was thinking of marriage so soon after their breakup. “At least you’re not in the same field.”

Patrick looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Just that you’ll never have to worry about… work disagreements.”

“You think that was our problem?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“The problem wasn’t me competing with you, Chel,” he said slowly. “Until you realize you’ve long surpassed whatever expectations your father might have had for you, you’ll never be happy. Or be able to make anyone else happy.”

Chel turned back to the codex images. “We should focus.”

PATRICK FINALLY STOPPED the projector ten minutes later, breaking the silence of the enormous room. “This matches all of the constraints,” he said, pointing up. “All eighteen.”

“You’re sure?” Chel asked. “This is it?”

“This is it,” he said. “Between 15.3 and 15.8 degrees north and 900 to 970 A.D. We can’t know exactly where it falls, but we can apply the mean values. So we’re basically talking about fifteen and a half degrees north and 935 A.D. I told you I’d figure it out.”

This was the same sky above Paktul as he had written the codex. The exact same. Chel had plenty of occasion to feel genuine awe in her work, but this feeling of transcending time and space was unique, and she sensed them getting closer to what they needed.

“Near the southern part of the Petén, just like you thought,” Patrick said, rolling up his sleeves. He spread out a map of the Maya region on a desk beside the star projector. The map was positional, with latitude lines marking each half-degree change. “It’s not Tikal or Uaxactun or Piedras Negras; those are in the seventeen-degree range. So we’re looking at something farther south.”

He traced an invisible line between the degree markers. The location of each of the known major Maya cities in the southeast Petén was marked, but Patrick’s invisible line didn’t intersect with any of them, or with any of the minor ones either.

Now something was bothering Chel.

“Is there another computer I can use?” she asked.

Patrick pointed toward a small office in the back of the planetarium.

At the monitor, she found her way to Google Earth and a digital map showing contemporary villages in Guatemala. There were no latitude markings. So Chel pulled up another map online that had detailed latitude lines, then toggled between them until she found what she was searching for.

Fifteen and a half degrees north ran almost exactly through the place she was born.