Eric took off his helmet and shook himself, like a dog after a swim.
“That’s better!” he said. He looked around. “But where am I? And what happened?” A pair of eyeglasses with yellow lenses slid off his nose, and he looked at them in bemusement. “These aren’t mine!” He glanced at Cosmos, but Cosmos’s screen was blank and black smoke drifted from the keyboard.
Annie rushed forward and hugged him. “Dad!” she squealed. “You fell into a black hole! And George had to rescue you—he was so smart, Dad. He found out from the notes you left him that you could escape from the black hole, but first he had to find Cosmos—Cosmos was stolen by a horrible man who—”
“Slow down, Annie, slow down!” said Eric, who seemed rather dazed. “You mean I’ve been inside a black hole and come back again? But that’s incredible! That means I’ve got it right—that means all the work I’ve done on black holes is correct. Information that goes into a black hole is not lost forever—I know that now! That’s amazing. Now, if I can come out of—”
“Eric!” said Susan sharply.
Eric jumped. “Oh, Susan!” he said, looking rather sheepish and embarrassed. He handed over the yellow glasses. “I don’t suppose,” he said apologetically, “you have a spare pair of my glasses with you? I seem to have come out of the black hole wearing someone else’s.”
“These two have been running around all over town to try and save you,” said Susan, digging into her handbag and pulling out a pair of Eric’s usual glasses. “They’ve cut school, and George is missing the science competition he wanted to enter, all for your sake. I think the least you could do is say thank you, especially to George. He figured it all out by himself, you know—about Graham and the black hole and everything else. And don’t lose this pair!”
“Thank you, Annie,” said Eric, patting his daughter gently and putting his glasses onto his nose at their familiar crooked angle. “And thank you, George. You’ve been very brave and very smart.”
“That’s all right.” George stared at his feet. “It wasn’t me, really—it was Cosmos.”
“No, it wasn’t,” said Eric. “Cosmos couldn’t have got me back without you—otherwise I’d be here already, wouldn’t I?”
“S’pose so,” said George gruffly. “Is Cosmos all right?” The great computer was still silent and black screened.
Eric untangled himself from Annie and went over to Cosmos. “Poor old thing,” he said, unplugging the computer, folding him up, and tucking him under his arm. “I expect he needs a bit of a rest. Now, I’d better get home right away and write up my new discoveries. I must let all the other scientists know immediately that I’ve made the most astonishing—”
Susan coughed loudly and glared at him.
Eric looked at her, puzzled. “What?” he mouthed.
“George!” she mouthed back.
“Oh, of course!” said Eric out loud, striking his hand against his forehead. He turned to George. “I’m so sorry! What I meant to say was that first of all, I think we should go back to your school and see if you’re still in time to enter the science competition. Is that right?” he asked Susan, who nodded and smiled.
“But I’m not sure . . . ,” protested George.
“We can go through your presentation in the car,” said Eric firmly. He started clanking toward the door in his space suit. “Let’s get moving.” He looked around to find that no one was following him.
“What now?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Dad!” said Annie in a disgusted tone. “You’re not going to George’s school dressed like that, are you?”
“I don’t think anyone will notice,” said Eric. “But if you insist . . .” He peeled off his space suit to reveal his ordinary everyday clothes below, then ruffled his hair. “And anyway, where are we? I don’t recognize this place.”
“This, Eric,” said Susan, “is Graham Reeper’s house. Graham wrote you that note to send you into outer space, and while you were there, he stole Cosmos, thinking this would mean you could never come back.”
“No!” Eric gasped. “Graham did it deliberately? He stole Cosmos?”
“I told you he’d never forgive you.”
“Oh dear,” said Eric sadly, struggling to pull off his space boot. “That is very unhappy news.”
“Um, Eric,” piped up George, “what did happen with you and Greeper? I mean, why did he want you to be eaten by a black hole? And why won’t he ever forgive you?”
“Oh, George,” said Eric, shaking off the space boot, “it’s a long story. You know that Graham and I used to work together?” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket for his wallet. From it he took out a crumpled old photo and handed it to George. In the picture George saw two young men; standing in between them was an older man with a long white beard. Both the young men were wearing black gowns with white fur–lined hoods, and all three were laughing at the camera. The man on the right had thick dark hair and heavy-framed glasses that, even then, were sitting at a slightly strange angle.
“But that’s you!” said George, pointing at the photo. He examined the face of the other young man. It was strangely familiar. “And that looks like Greeper! But he looks really nice and friendly, not scary and weird like he is now.”
“Graham,” said Eric quietly, “was my best friend. We studied physics together at the university, the one here in this town. The man you see in the middle was our tutor—a brilliant cosmologist. He invented the concept of Cosmos, and Graham and I worked together on the early prototypes. We wanted a machine that would help us to explore outer space so that we could extend our knowledge of the Universe.
“At the beginning, Graham and I got along very well together,” Eric continued, gazing into the distance. “But after a while he became strange and cold. I started to realize he wanted Cosmos all for himself. He didn’t want to go on a quest for knowledge to benefit humanity—he wanted to use Cosmos to make himself rich and powerful by exploiting the wonders of space for his own good. You have to understand,” he added, “that in those days, Cosmos was very different. Back then he was a gigantic computer—so big he took up a whole basement. And yet he wasn’t even half as powerful as he is now. Anyway, one evening when Graham thought he was alone, I caught him. He was trying to use Cosmos for his own terrible plans. I was there and I tried to stop him and . . . it was . . . dreadful. Everything had to change after that.” Eric fell silent.
“What—after the terrible thing happened?” asked Annie.
Susan nodded. “Yes, honey,” she said. “Don’t ask your father any more questions about it. That’s enough for now.”