They allowed the relationship discussion a respectful moment to die before moving on.
“All right then, Ben,” Caitlin said. “Back to the gorilla. Give me the good stuff.”
He looked around puckishly. “What, here, in public?”
“Grow up. What new translations have you done?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. I’m assuming you worked during your flight.”
“Guilty. My astonished cries woke the man sitting next to me. He looked at me funny.”
“You should be used to that.”
“Seriously, no exaggeration, I did actually vocalize at one point. Galderkhaan. Galder. Khaan. Remind you of anything?”
“No.”
“Old Norse and…?”
Caitlin stopped chewing, then stopped walking. “No way. That obvious?”
“That obvious. I have no idea what the ‘Galder’ is but ‘khaan’ means the same thing as the Mongolian word—a title for a lord and master.”
“Who used it more,” Caitlin asked, “Priests or Technologists?”
“Very clever, you. First thing I checked. It wasn’t the Priests.”
“That’s surprising,” she said. “I would have thought they’d be the ones into the ‘supreme being’ thing.”
“You’re thinking like a modern person,” Ben pointed out. “Things were different then and there.”
A long, relaxed walk later, Ben guided Caitlin into Paley Park, a small courtyard that had more benches than trees. They had the courtyard to themselves. The views were mostly of brick, with an oblong of sky above. But it was quiet, save for a freestanding wall at the back lit in russet gold and covered with long, beautiful, gently melodious rivulets of water.
“So was this khaan a god for the Technologists or a great ruler?” Caitlin asked.
“I don’t know. My guess, based on nothing but intuition, is that the volcano was the khaan, given their focus on geothermal energy. Think Vulcan, Hades, the gods of the underworld.”
Caitlin made a face. “Somehow I’m reluctant to ascribe that kind of primal mind-set to them.”
“Why? It was good enough for the Greeks, Romans, and just about every other culture, including ours. Is modern religion any different? How many people believe in the ‘fire god’ we call Satan?”
“Okay, point taken,” Caitlin said. “So with khaan in the name of the city or whatever Galderkhaan was, does that mean the Technologists were in power?”
“Shared and equal power, as far as I can make out, but with increasing hostility between them. Not physical hostility; there was a reference to banishment for anyone who used violence. Anyway, the two groups did split the place.”
“Geographically?”
“Nothing formalized”—Ben nodded at the pieces of the Berlin Wall that were displayed on one side of the park—“but each had their sector and there they lived.”
“Glogharasor and Belhorji?” Caitlin couldn’t believe she was casually pulling names from one of her trances as if they were “Manhattan” and “Brooklyn.”
Ben regarded her. “Yes. Jesus.”
“Don’t do that,” Caitlin said. “I’m trying not to freak myself out.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry. The Priests lived in Glogharasor. They used the root word ‘Glogharas’ when they spoke of themselves—the ‘dawn seers.’”
“And Belhorji?”
“Don’t know yet,” he admitted.
Caitlin returned to her food. She wasn’t very hungry but needed something to do. Saying those two names had caused something strange to happen inside her.
“Cai, are you okay?”
“Hmm? Yeah. Yes. Why?”
“You looked like you went somewhere.”
“No, there’s just—an idea. A thought. I don’t know why I had it.”
“Speak,” he said encouragingly.
“Galderkhaan,” she said. “If there’s anything left of it, we should find it.”
“I’m all for that, but how? And why, specifically?”
“Maybe it’s not as strange and remote as we think,” Caitlin said. “How do we know that things haven’t been found and misidentified and hidden in museums and universities somewhere, the way meteors and fossils have been for centuries?”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Ben said. “I had that idea myself. While I was in London I took a turn through the British Museum, looked at the relics with fresh eyes, peered here and there for Galderkhaani writing, wondered the same thing. I couldn’t find anything, though.”
He stared at her as she munched. She looked at the fountain.
“Cai?”
“I’m here,” she said as she glanced at her phone and saw that there were no text updates from Anita about Jacob. “Do you mind if we walk some more—maybe just around the block?”
“Not a bit, if those heels of yours don’t care.”
She smiled a little as they stood and left the courtyard, binning their food containers on their way out.
“The frustrating thing is I’m running out of things to translate,” Ben went on. “I only have about twelve minutes of tape from all those sessions. And I’d really like to know why there were several mentions of agriculture in the sky.”
“You’re sure it says ‘in’ and not ‘under’?” Even as she asked it, she regretted it.
“Caitlin, this is me. I’ve checked it a dozen times and it’s unmistakable. Of course it’s nonsense, unless they were doing something on a mountaintop or caldera—but then they would have said ‘mountaintop’ or ‘caldera’ and not specifically used the word ‘sky.’”
“Right. These people were pretty specific about things.”
“Lots of words, very little nuance when the hand gestures were added.”
She chuckled. “Sounds wonderful.”
“What does?”
“A civilization without nuance. You’re this or that, a word is that or this. Understanding was instant and absolute.”
He put a hand on her arm to slow her to a stop.
“What?” she asked.
“Where would I fit? In that language, I mean?”
She looked into his sweet smoke-colored eyes. And because she couldn’t answer him, she kissed him. She kissed him until she knew that when he asked, she would say yes.
Caitlin briefly considered staying where they were. She discarded that idea, though; she might have felt like a college kid again but being spotted in public could cost her her job. There was the laundry room—but then, she decided, she was just being ornery for the sake of it.
She called Anita.
“How is Jacob?” she asked.
“Fine,” Anita replied. “You don’t have to check every hour—Jacob is sleeping peacefully.”
“Actually, I’m coming back,” Caitlin said. “We’re coming back.”
“Oh!” Anita said. “Reaching for coat as we speak.”
Caitlin ended the call and they went upstairs. Anita greeted them on her way out.
“Halal?” she said, sniffing once.
“From a cart,” Ben said. “Not my idea.” He added quickly, “But perfect.”
“Thank you,” Caitlin said as Anita slipped past them.
“Happy to help,” she replied, pulling the door shut.
As they moved into the apartment, neither of them reached for a light switch. They went to Caitlin’s bedroom, where they circled each other, peeling clothes, turning slowly closer and closer to a window full of distant, scattered lamplights. Falling onto the bed below, pressing into him, Caitlin felt like she was inhaling Ben’s skin. The sensation felt full of nostalgia and promise, and almost relief. She bathed in the perfection of normality for a long while. Then, still touching him as completely as two bodies can, she let their linked limbs flow like the brass in Barbara’s Celtic knot.