There was a muffled reply that Baedecker translated as 'come up' and then a buzz as the door opened. Baedecker was reminded of the entrance foyer to his family's apartment building on Kildare Street in Chicago before the war. As he entered, he half expected to smell the mixture of moldy carpet, varnished wood, and boiled cabbage that had meant homecoming to him for the years of his early childhood. He did not. The interior of the school smelled of furniture polish and the evening breeze coming through open windows.
Baedecker was fascinated by the glimpses of rooms as they ascended the two flights of stairs. A large classroom on the first floor had been transformed into an oversized living room. Part of the long blackboard remained but was now bracketed by built-in bookcases holding hundreds of volumes. A few pieces of quality antique furniture sat here and there on a polished wood floor, and a small area had been set off by a Persian carpet and comfortably overstuffed sofa and chairs.
On the second story, as far above the ground as a normal third story, Baedecker caught a glimpse of a book-filled study behind sliding doors and a bedroom with a single, canopied bed alone in the center of six hundred square feet of polished wood. Two cats moved quickly into the shadows at the sound of footsteps. Baedecker followed Dave up a wrought-iron spiral staircase that obviously had been added after the building ceased functioning as a school. They passed through a trapdoor cut into the ceiling and suddenly they were in light again, emerging onto what might have been the pilothouse of a tall stern-wheeler.
Baedecker was so surprised and struck by the view that for several seconds he could not focus his attention on the elderly woman who sat smiling at him from a wicker chair. He looked around, not bothering to hide his expression of delight.
The old school belfry had been enlarged into a glass cupola at least fifteen feet by fifteen feet, and even the top of the belfry had been glassed in with skylights. Baedecker could tell from the quality of light that all of the glass was polarized. Now it merely enhanced the already-rich evening colors of sky and foliage, but he knew that in the daytime the glass would be opaque from the outside while hues would be clarified and exaggerated to an observer within. Outside, running east and west along the crest of two gables leading from the belfry, a narrow widow's walk was set off by an intricate wrought-iron railing. Inside, there were several pieces of wicker furniture, a table with a tea service and star charts laid out, and an antique brass telescope on a tall tripod.
But it was the view that struck Baedecker the most. From this vantage forty feet above the town, he could see over rooftops and treetops to the canyon walls and foothills and beyond them to the high ridges where slabs of ancient sediment thrust through the soil like thorns through tired cloth. The polarized sky was such a dark shade that it reminded Baedecker of those rare flights above 75,000 feet where the stars become visible in the daytime and the cobalt blue curve of the heavens blends to black. Baedecker realized that the stars were becoming visible now, entering the sky in pairs and small clusters like early theatergoers searching for the best seats.
A breeze came through screens set low in the glass wall, the wind ruffled the pages of a book on the arm of a chair, and Baedecker focused his attention on the woman who sat smiling at him.
'Miz Callahan,' said Dave, 'this is Richard Baedecker. Richard, Miz Elizabeth Sterling Callahan.'
'How do you do, Mr. Baedecker,' said the woman and extended her hand palm downward.
Baedecker took it and looked carefully at the old woman. His initial impression had been of a woman in her late sixties, but now he revised that age upward by at least a decade and perhaps more. Still, despite the assault of years, Elizabeth Sterling Callahan retained a beauty too entrenched to be overthrown by time alone. Her hair was white and cropped short, but it stood out in electric waves from her strong-featured face. Her cheekbones pressed sharply against skin freckled by sun and age, but the small, brown eyes were lively and intelligent, and her smile still had the power to intrigue.
'Very pleased to meet you, Miz Callahan,' said Baedecker.
'Any friend of David's is a friend of mine,' she said and Baedecker smiled at the rich huskiness of her voice. 'Sit down, please. Sable, say hello to our friends.' Baedecker noticed for the first time that a black Labrador was curled in the shadows behind her chair. The dog looked up eagerly as Dave crouched to pet it.
'How long?' said Dave, patting the dog's side.
'Patience, patience,' laughed Miz Callahan. 'Good things take time.' She looked at Baedecker. 'Is this your first visit to our town, Mr. Baedecker?'
'Yes, ma'am,' said Baedecker, feeling like a boy in her presence and not necessarily disliking the feeling.
'Well, it's a quiet little place,' said Miz Callahan, 'but we hope you will find it to your liking.'
'I do already,' said Baedecker. 'I also very much like your house. You've done wonderful things with it.'
'Why thank you, Mr. Baedecker,' she said and Baedecker could see her smile in the dimming light. 'My late husband and I did most of the work when we first retired here in the late 1950s. The school had been abandoned for almost thirty years at that point and was in terrible shape. The roof had collapsed in places, pigeons were roosting in all of the second-floor rooms . . . oh, my, it was in terrible shape. David, there is a pitcher of lemonade there on that table. Would you mind pouring us each some? Thank you, dear.' Baedecker sipped the lemonade from a crystal wineglass as full night fell outside. There were a few house-lights visible in town and two pole lights, one not far from Dave's house, but their glow was shielded by branches and did not detract from the beauty of the sky as more stars took their places.
'There's Mars rising,' said Dave.
'No, dear, that's Betelgeuse,' said Miz Callahan. 'You see, it's opposite Rigel and above Orion's Belt.'
'You're interested in astronomy?' asked Baedecker, smiling at Dave's embarrassment. He had had to coach his crewmate during the astrogation exercises for months prior to the mission.
'Mr. Callahan was an astronomer,' said the old woman. 'We met when he was a professor at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. I had gone there to teach history. Have you ever seen DePauw, Mr. Baedecker?'
'No, ma'am.'
'A very pretty little school,' said Miz Callahan. 'Second-rate academically and buried in the seventh circle of desolation out there in the cornfields of Indiana, but a very pretty little campus. More lemonade, Mr. Baedecker?'
'No, thank you.'
'Mr. Callahan was a Chicago Cubs fan,' she said. 'We used to travel to Chicago on the Monon Railroad every August to watch games at Wrigley Field. That was our vacation. I remember in 1945, when they did so well, Mr. Callahan made plans to stay over in the Blackstone Hotel for an extra week. Traveling to the Cubs' games was the one thing Mr. Callahan missed when he took early retirement and we moved out here in the fall of 1959.'
'What made you decide on Lonerock?' asked Baedecker. 'Did you have family in Oregon?'
'Oh, heavens, no,' said Miz Callahan. 'Neither of us had ever been out west before we moved here. No, Mr. Callahan simply had calculated on his maps that this was the best place for magnetic lines of force, and we loaded up the DeSoto and came out.'
'Magnetic lines of force?' said Baedecker.
'Are you interested in watching the sky, Mr. Baedecker?' she asked.
Before Baedecker could respond, Dave said, 'Richard walked on the moon with me sixteen years ago.'
'Oh, David, don't start up with that again,' said Miz Callahan and gave his wrist a playful slap.
Dave turned to Baedecker. 'Miz Callahan doesn't believe that Americans walked on the moon.'
'Really?' said Baedecker. 'I thought everyone accepted that.'