"Yes
…
I
…
suppose they are."
"Well, do you like them Rich," asked Vicki.
"They
’
re biblical all right."
"Yes, but do you like them?"
"I suppose so, I
…
I haven
’
t really thought about it," he said hesitantly.
Susan had asked him outright in bed a few nights before, whether he had another woman or not and she felt sure he hadn
’
t. She was convinced it must be tiredness because they were okay for money. Somehow she had to get him away for a break, because that
’
s what he needed.
"Rob and I have decided that we want the baby christened, Mom."
"I
’
m glad about that Vicki, you bring that child up like your father and I brought you up, in a respectable home with Church on Sundays."
Richard
’
s head was bowed, and he avoided looking up at the others. His hand covered his eyes as he rubbed his forehead nervously.
Vicki noticed his agitated state and tried to please him by saying, "Rich, if Pops is not well enough to give me away, will you do it for me?"
Richard looked up at her for a moment in silence. "Of course I will sis."
Vicki got up and walked around to where he was seated. "Thanks," she said, kissing his cheek.
"Well, if you
’
ll all excuse me I
’
m off to bed, I need some sleep."
“
Rich, it
’
s only eight-thirty,
”
complained Susan.
“
Sorry, but I
’
ve got another early start tomorrow, that engine
’
s still playing up."
“
I
’
ll leave you some food in the fridge to take with you. Don
’
t forget to take it." She said sternly.
“
Yeah, okay. Goodnight everyone."
"Goodnight," came the communal response.
Waiting until he
’
d climbed the stairs, Susan said in a quiet voice "I
’
m worried about him, he
’
s never like this normally. Something
’
s on his mind and he won
’
t tell me what it is. I even thought he had another woman for a while."
"Susan," replied Mary, in a shocked voice.
"If he has, she
’
s sure wearing him out," joked Vicki. Susan laughed loudly before helping herself to more cheese and Mary smiled in slight embarrassment.
Adam Domaradzki was sitting on a barstool in a small wine bar on Jones Street drinking a bottle of
‘
Sierra Nevada
’
beer. He wore tinted glasses and a black
‘
Giants
’
baseball cap that partially covered his impassive face. His grey jacket looked shabby and stained on the lapels and sleeves. Sitting next to him were two youths that had been drinking heavily and were becoming loud and aggressive. "You guys in need of something a little stronger?" Domaradzki asked. They looked at each other through drunken red eyes and smiled before laughing out loud. "What kind of stuff have you got old man?" Said one of the youths.
"What would you like?"
"Oh
…
Mister Big Time."
"If you want to come with me, I
’
ll show you what
’
s on offer. It
’
s all pure stuff, I guarantee you."
"I hope it
’
s purer than you are," said the other youth, bursting into loud laughter again and spilling beer down the front of his tee shirt.
"Where is it then, mister?"
"In my car up near Huntington Park, just a few blocks away."
"We know where it is stupid."
“
Why don
’
t you carry some on you then?"
"And you called me stupid." Domaradzki said with irritation in his voice.
"How much?"
"See it first, then we talk money."
"Okay
…
let
’
s go."
"Don
’
t leave with me, wait five minutes and then catch me up,
”
he said sharply, as he left the bar.
"Let
’
s do this stupid bastard over Joe."
"Yeah, lets clean him out and leave him in the gutter."
“
Yeah." Joe felt in his pocket for the penknife he
’
d never had chance to use.
Some minutes later Domaradzki had visited his car and was calmly waiting at the entrance to the Park when the two youths arrived. In the trunk of his Ford was a plastic carrier bag containing a clean set of clothes, a towel and a new container of Wet Wipes.
"Walk with me in the park to a quiet spot where we can do business, but keep your voices down, we can get pulled for this you know," he said quietly. The two youths were nervous and their adrenaline was pumping at the thought of free drugs and the chance to kick the old man senseless.
Stopping at a place where the lighting from the street was dimmed by a tree, Domaradzki beckoned them to come closer. As they did he pulled two knives from his jacket and in a swift inward motion of his hands simultaneously slashed their throats, opening deep, bloody gashes in their necks that allowed the warm night air into their lungs as they inhaled in shock and confusion. Quickly he lunged the long bloody blades into their chests, twisting the handles like a trained assassin. Looking into their disbelieving eyes he smiled as their open neck wounds poured blood and bile that gurgled as they took their last breaths. In a pathetic attempt at retaliation, one of them reached forward with an outstretched arm but his trembling hand only slid slowly down Domaradzki
’
s jacket as he crumpled to the floor.
Standing over them like a victorious gladiator after some great battle, he gouged out their eyes and cut out their tongues. One of the youths was still alive and his body spasmed while blood from his neck wound squirted upwards in gushes for a few brief seconds more. Domaradzki decided to take the bloody prizes home and boil the tongues; they would make a cheap and delicious supper for his poodle, Missy. He laughed when he thought about how the dog would swallow the eyeballs whole without chewing, even though he told her off every time, she still did it.
Yuri Klyushin was sitting at his desk, busily working on the search plan for the next two months. He was a big man at just over six foot and two hundred and forty pounds. His short receding hair stood up in patchy tumps and he wore round gold rimmed glasses that contrasted with his strong square features. He had decided to point the radio transceivers at the constellations: Andromeda, Canis Major, Corrus, Pegasus and Ursa Minor and now he was busily noting the sub set of Open and Globular Clusters of interest to him when McPherson walked in.
“
Busy, Yuri?"
"Very, I
’
m working on the plan for the next two months, come and take a look," he said, with enthusiasm and a hint of Russian in his voice.
“
Both upsilon Pegasus and tau Pegasus are approximately two-hundred light years, so I think they
’
re a good choice for distance category 2, don
’
t you?"
"If you say so, Yuri," said McPherson, trusting his judgement totally.
"I
’
m also categorizing some Planetary Nebula and I
’
ll probably start with Gemini."
"Whatever you say Yuri
…
Tell me something Yuri, do you believe in God? Do you ever wonder where all of this came from, this unimaginable mass of stars and gasses and energy?" Yuri looked upward for a moment before answering, as if searching for inspiration.
"Do I believe in God?" He paused. "Life for my parents in Russia," he said very seriously, "was sometimes very hard. Like millions of other Russians they worked the land. Many times we were near to the starvation and many died in the cold Russian winters. Religion was something that people needed, it gave them hope and it frightened them, but then came the revolution of 1917, and in three days my friend, the tsarist Romanov's who had ruled Russia for three centuries had been replaced by the Bolsheviks, an almost unheard of party of idealists. My parents were believers and as a child I went to church, but faith to me was not something I understood well. After the revolution, religion was banned anyway, and no one was allowed to openly admit to having a faith in God. But, I was young and I didn
’
t care then and when I left Russia to go to University, I didn
’
t feel the need for religion anyway because I had many girls and vodka to occupy my mind." McPherson laughed and nodded knowingly. Yuri continued. "To answer your question Rob, I guess the answer is no. Now and then I think about it, but I guess it
’
s beyond my simple mind to understand such things. If there is a God, he never once answered the prayers of my parents and they died as poor as the day they were born, before I could return to my homeland. If he does exist, he is a very cruel God."
McPherson was silent for a while, thinking about his words. "Vicki and I were talking about it last night and it seems that science postulates on the way the universe started, you know the
‘
Big Bang
’
theory and all that, but what was there before that? Who or what created the elements and what was there before the elements? Was there a time when there was nothing? I mean if there was, then how do you create something from nothing?"
"Yeah, I
’
m not sure we
’
re meant to know those things, and even if we did, could we comprehend them? You see, our minds understand time, life and death, boundaries, changes of state; because that
’
s the world we live in; a finite world. But tell us that the universe is endless with no outer limits and that all mass came from another parallel dimension that we can
’
t see or comprehend even and then our cognitive thought processes break down. The human mind cannot understand principles that do not fit into our model of life."
"So God and heaven and eternal life just might exist then?"
"I suppose so, who knows what
’
s out there. Maybe we
’
ll be lucky and find out."
"Do you know Yuri, I
’
m beginning to think that we might not. Maybe we just have to wait until death takes us on a journey, to a place where all the questions are answered, a place very far from here that we would never find, even if we looked for a million years, because our eyes were never meant to see it."
"You
’
ll be going to church next," said Yuri jokingly.
"Maybe there
’
s something in that after all. Think about it Yuri, God the creator sends his son to Earth to teach us how to live as flesh and blood, not that we
’
ve taken much notice mind you. And to give us hope that there is life after death and why not. If we live in a universe where the origin and rules are beyond our comprehension, then why not life after death, in another form, another dimension? So what
’
s the purpose of it all? McPherson postulated. Why do we need to be flesh and blood, so that we can experience love, hate, anger, suffering and then, finally death, before we go off to a better place, as the bible tells us? And then what; no suffering no hating no hurting just a house of many rooms where love is all. I really don
’
t know Yuri," said McPherson, slightly disillusioned.
"Maybe we just live and die and that
’
s it, there is no more. One thing I do know Rob, it
’
s time for coffee. That I understand very well."
"So do I Yuri," said McPherson.
Back at his office McPherson touched the mouse on his desk and the monitor lit up. Opening the summary file on data from day one to the present, he studied the listings of
‘
bin numbers
’
, but not one had reached any significant number to suggest it was anything other than pure noise from outer space.
“
There must be someone out there,
”
he said, thinking aloud.
“
Rob, is that you?" said Vicki, from her office next door.
“
It is, I
’
m looking at the summary of results and it
’
s surprisingly poor. Do you fancy a coffee?"
"I suppose you
’
re also going to suggest a work out and cocktails after?" joked Vicki. McPherson laughed at the comment and remembered the lines he used when they first got together.