Now it was all clear: The two identical twinklings occurred eight years and six months apart, just long enough for light to make a round trip between the two stars. After 4.25 years, when the light of the sun’s twinkling reached Alpha Centauri A, the latter twinkled in the same way, and after the same amount of time, the light of Alpha Centauri’s twinkling was observed here.
She hunched over her computer, making calculations and talking to herself. “Even if we take into account the several years where the two stars regressed from each other, the result still fits.”
“I hope what I said doesn’t cause you too much worry. There’s ultimately nothing we can do to confirm this, right? It’s just a theory.”
“Nothing we can do to confirm this? Don’t be so sure. That light from the sun twinkling was broadcast into space. Perhaps that’ll lead to another star twinkling in the same way.”
“After Alpha Centauri, the next closest star is…”
“Barnard’s Star, 1.81 parsecs away, but it’s too dim. There’s no way to measure it. The next star out, Wolf 359, 2.35 parsecs away, is just as dim. Can’t measure it. Yet farther out, Lalande 21185, 2.52 parsecs away, is also too dim…. That leaves Sirius.”
“That seems like a star bright enough to see. How far is it?”
“2.65 parsecs away, just 8.6 light-years.”
“The light from the sun twinkling has already traveled for ten years. It’s already reached there. Perhaps Sirius has already twinkled back.”
“But the light from it twinkling won’t arrive for another seven years.” She seemed to wake all of a sudden from a dream, then laughed. “Oh, dear, what am I thinking? It’s too ridiculous!”
“So you’re saying, as an astronomer, the idea is ridiculous?”
She studied him earnestly. “What else can it be? As a brain surgeon, how do you feel when someone discusses with you where thought comes from, the brain or the heart?”
He had nothing to say. She glanced at her watch, so he started to leave. She didn’t urge him to stay, but she accompanied him quite a distance along the road that led down the mountain. He stopped himself from asking for her number because he knew, in her eyes, he was just some stranger who bumped into her again by chance ten years later.
After they said goodbye, she walked up toward the observatory. Her white lab coat swayed in the mountain breeze. Unexpectedly, it stirred up in him how it had felt when they’d said goodbye ten years ago. The sunlight seemed to change into moonlight. That feather disappeared in the distance… like a straw of rice, sinking into the water, that someone desperately tries to grab. He decided he wanted to maintain that cobweb-like connection between them. Almost instinctively, he shouted at her back:
“If, seven years from now, you see Sirius actually twinkles like that…”
She stopped walking and turned toward him. With a smile, she answered, “Then we’ll meet here!”
SECOND TIME
With marriage, he entered a completely different life, but what changed his life thoroughly was a child. After the child was born, the train of life suddenly changed from the local to the express. It rushed past stop after stop in its never-ending journey onward. He grew numb from the journey. His eyes shut, he no longer paid attention to the unchanging scenery. Weary, he went to sleep. However, as with so many others sleeping on the train, a tiny clock deep in his heart still ticked. He woke the minute he reached his destination.
One night, his wife and child slept soundly but he couldn’t sleep. On some mysterious impulse, he threw on his clothes, then went to the balcony. Overhead, the fog of city lights dimmed the many stars in the sky. He was searching for something, but what? It was a good while before his heart answered him: He was looking for Sirius. He couldn’t help but shiver at that.
Seven years had passed. The time left before the appointment he’d made with her: two days.
SIRIUS
The first snow of the year had fallen the day before, and the roads were slippery. The taxi couldn’t make it up the last stretch to the mountain’s peak. He had to go, once again, on foot, clambering to the peak of Mount Siyun.
On the road, more than once, he wondered whether he was thinking straight. The probability she’d keep the appointment was zero. The reason was simple: Sirius couldn’t twinkle like the sun had seventeen years earlier. In the past seven years, he had skimmed a lot of astronomy and astrophysics. That he’d said something so ridiculous seven years ago filled him with shame. He was grateful that she hadn’t laughed at him there and then. Thinking about it now, he realized she had merely been polite when she seemed to take it seriously. In the intervening seven years, he’d pondered the promise she’d made as they left each other many, many times. The more he did, the more it seemed to take on a mocking tone….
Astronomical observations had shifted to telescopes in Earth orbit. Mount Siyun Observatory had shut down four years ago. The buildings there became vacation villas. No one was around in the off-season. What was he going to do there? He stopped. The seven years that’d passed had taken their toll. He couldn’t climb up the mountain as easily anymore. He hesitated for a moment, but ultimately abandoned the idea of turning back. He continued upward.
He’d waited so long, why not finally chase a dream just this once?
When he saw the white figure, he thought it was a hallucination. The figure wearing the white windbreaker in front of the former observatory blended into the backdrop of the snow-packed mountain. It was difficult to make out at first, but when she saw him, she ran to him. She looked like a feather flying over the snowfield. He could only stand dumbstruck, and wait for her to reach him. She gasped for air, unable to speak. Except that her long hair was now short, she hadn’t changed much. Seven years wasn’t long. Compared to the lifetimes of stars, it didn’t even count as an instant, and she studied stars.
She looked him in the eyes. “Doctor, at first, I didn’t have much hope of seeing you. I came only to carry out a promise or perhaps to fulfill a wish.”
“Me too.”
“I almost let the observation date slip by, but I never truly forgot it, just stowed it in the deepest recesses of my memory. A few nights ago, I suddenly thought of it….”
“Me too.”
Neither of them spoke. They just listened to the gusts of wind that blew through the trees reverberate among the mountains.
“Did Sirius actually twinkle like that?” he asked finally, his voice trembling a little.
“The waveform of its twinkling overlaps precisely the sun’s from seventeen years ago and Alpha Centauri A’s from seven years ago. It also arrived exactly on time. The space telescope Confucius 3 observed it. There’s no way it can be wrong.”
They fell again into another long stretch of silence. The rumble of wind through the trees rose and fell. The sound spiraled among the mountains, filling the space between earth and sky. It seemed as though some sort of force throughout the universe thrummed like a deep and mystical chorus…. He couldn’t help but shiver. She, evidently feeling the same way, broke the silence, as though to cast off her fears.
“But this situation, this strange phenomenon, goes beyond our current theories. It requires many more observations and much more evidence in order for the scientific community to deal with it.”
“I know. The next possible observable star is…”
“It would have been Procyon, in Canis Minor, but five years ago, it rapidly grew too dark to be worth measuring. Maybe it drifted into a nearby cloud of interstellar dust. So, the next measurable star is Altair, in the constellation Aquila.”