Ben caught a flash of an image on the cover of the cellphone as it disappeared back into Roger’s bag. A yin-yang symbol inside a white octagon. Where had he seen that before?
“What’s with the yin-yang?” Ben asked.
Roger sat upright and rubbed the back of his neck. “Where?”
“On that cellphone thing. A white symbol inside an octagon.”
Roger snorted. “Nothing. Just trying to be cool. You know, Chinese symbols.”
Ben frowned but let it go. “How’s the gas situation?” he asked.
“Holding steady at a third.”
The truck ahead of them advanced a few feet and stopped. Roger inched the car forward, then clicked the engine off. They had to conserve fuel.
Right after leaving Darmstadt, Ben had stopped to fill up their stolen BMW 3-series diesel. Roger checked online: this car had a range of 1200 kilometers on a full 60-liter tank. Ben constantly had to do the math in his head—3.8 liters to a gallon, 1.6 kilometers to a mile—even as a scientist working in metric when measuring the cosmos, he wasn’t used to using it for day-to-day things like driving. Rome was less than 1100 kilometers drive; the castle less than 900. Easily within the range of this car with a full tank of gas.
If it wasn’t idling for hours on end.
But, it seemed to use less than a half a liter of diesel for every hour of idling, as best as they could calculate. And they had hours to calculate and analyze. As they progressed up into the mountains, the shoulder became littered with less efficient cars that ran out of fuel. Stranded motorists begged for rides. The service stations they passed had lines that stretched back for miles. Good thing the drivers were Swiss and German, and not American. Good thing people here didn’t have guns in their cars.
Roger flicked his chin ahead, at the staircase of winding pavement that zigzagged up the mountainside. “We just need to get over that next ridge, and we’ll be on our way down.”
“Finally,” Ben grumbled. He’d had to resist the urge to get out of the car and walk more than once.
“…best estimate of Nomad’s position is ten billion kilometers, and already affecting Earth’s orbit…” They had the radio tuned to the only English news station they could find, BBC Europe. “Scientists are predicting a sharp drop in global temperatures after Nomad passes…”
“It’s been a day already,” said Roger. “Dr. Müller has the data we gave him. They have to know Nomad is less than two days away. Why haven’t they announced anything?”
Ben stared at the mountains. “Why do you think?” Thinking of Dr. Müller sparked an image in his mind. The yin-yang symbol. Dr. Müller’s signet ring had exactly the same image on it, Ben was sure of it.
“…last minute negotiations to avert full-scale war in the Middle East, the Americans have asked both sides to come back to negotiations…”
The truck pulled forward another few feet. “I just don’t see how it was possible that we missed seeing Nomad until now,” Roger muttered.
“Ever heard of Trajan’s column?” Ben took a long look at Roger.
Roger inched the car forward. “No.”
“It’s a monument in the middle of Rome. It’s been on display for everyone to see for the past two thousand years, maybe one of the most analyzed artifacts in the history of mankind. For hundreds of years, scholars have been studying it and writing papers about it. On its surface is a visual history of the Roman legions.”
Roger pulled them forward another ten feet, put on the parking brake and frowned at Ben. “What does that have to do with Nomad?”
“Because, last year, for the first time, they noticed that there were women engraved on Trajan’s column. For hundreds of years, scholars had said that only men appeared on the column, because Roman legionaries weren’t allowed to be married.”
Roger shook his head. “Still don’t see where you’re going…”
“People only see what they want to see, that’s my point.” He nodded toward the back seat, at his backpack. “Or someone wanted it to be invisible.”
“A conspiracy? Hiding something this big?” Roger stared at Ben.
Ben’s head snapped forward, his laptop slamming into the dashboard, the crunching roar of grinding metal filling the air. Dazed, he looked up. The truck in front had slid backward into them, impacting their car and rolling up the metal of the hood. Cursing, Roger slammed the car into park.
Ben threw off his seatbelt and jumped out of the passenger side, dropping his laptop into the seat. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he yelled at the truck.
No reply.
He was about to walk around the front of the truck when he heard on the radio:“…new report just breaking…”
“Roger, can you turn that up?”
Roger nodded and leaned forward, twisting the dial on the radio. The car’s engine whined.