The Sky Vault by Benjamin Percy

Author:Benjamin Percy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-09-12T00:00:00+00:00

Logbook: George C. Warnok

Entry 61

April 7, 1944

For a good month now, Dr. Devinor has been shadowing us in the lab. He wears the same gray suit and red tie every day. His knuckles are cubed with arthritis, and his back is hunched, and he winces sometimes at a pain in his left knee. He wears glasses and takes them off regularly to clean with a handkerchief. A cloud of cigarette smoke follows him. His fingertips and white mustache are stained yellow from tobacco. He does not go out of his way to instruct or correct our work. He is more of a silent editor. He will make notations in data reports. He will restart a computer with a variant algorithm informing its programming. He will say of a certain X-ray machine that for it to make any bit of difference, we need to increase the magnification fiftyfold.

There is a chalkboard hanging on the lab wall. One day he walked into the room, picked up a piece of chalk, and, in quick slashing strokes, etched out a formula. He departed without explanation. We spent the better part of two hours trying to decipher his hieroglyphics—and then everything crystallized. I clapped my hands and said, “We need to make an adjustment to the gravitational lensing.”

One time, when he lingered by my desk, I set aside my work and said, “Dr. Devinor? May I ask you something?”

He had a hangdog face. Every part of him drooped as if from exhaustion except for his thin silver eyebrows, which raised now as he waited for me to continue.

“I’m sorry if this seems rude of me. But why don’t you simply tell the men what you know? Why make us work so hard to figure out these hints and clues?”

“Because what I know isn’t correct. My way failed. You need to go your own way.” He placed a hand over his heart, a gesture I thought indicated he cared for us, but he was only searching in his breast pocket for his cigarettes and matches.

“I heard you mention something the other day in passing when you were meeting with the major general. Tunguska, I believe the word was. You referred to Tunguska as a failure and a disaster. Is there any chance you could elaborate on that?”

His entire body stiffened and he looked at me severely. “I must be going.”

His favorite spot was the roof. Day or night, you could find him up there. He enjoyed the isolation, I’m sure. But I noticed his head often tilted up, as if he were seeing something in the sky the rest of us didn’t.

Spring came late here. A damp chill seemed to soak into the very bones of the building. Boots tracked mud through the halls. The windows fogged over. Coughing barked down hallways, and every drinking fountain was oystered with phlegm. Given the close quarters, everyone was soon sick. Wiggins joked that the permafrost up here had released some ancient virus. Kubert joked that the gamma rays

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