Page 65 of Reinventing Cato
“How good are you?” Cato called.
“Not as good as you.”
Cato took the ticket for the concert out of his wallet and put it on the kitchen worktop. “While I remember.”
“Thanks.”
Vigge cut a couple of slices of bread and left them on the wooden board with the rest of the loaf, the knife, and the butter.
“Want everything on the table?” Cato asked.
“Please.” Vigge swallowed hard. He hoped it was his imagination that things had suddenly turned awkward. Had he done something wrong?
“This is so strange,” Cato whispered. “I feel as if I’m taking snapshots with a camera. Picking up clues about your life. You’re my equivalent of dark matter. Largely a mystery. Completely intriguing though.”
“I think you know plenty about me.”
“I know you like the stars, like me, that you play the violin, like me, you read thrillers and autobiographies—well, I like thrillers but not autobiographies. You can cook, like me. I know you’re not keen on public displays of affection—yet, but I do like them, so we’ll have to work on that. And I found out this morning that you can fly through the air with the greatest of ease much more confidently than me.”
Vigge smiled and ladled out the soup.
Cato dropped down at the table. “I’m pretty sure you’re not a serial killer. Unless this isn’t really your house, in which case I’m probably doomed. There’s no coppery tang of blood, no obvious strange stains, no suspicious smell from bodies hidden under floorboards, no gruesome relics sitting on your shelves. But I’ll just wait for you to try the soup first. Though maybe you’ve been feeding yourself small doses of the poison so you’re immune.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve done.” He waited for Cato to taste the soup.
“It’s delicious.” Cato smiled at him. “I’ll die happy.”
The sunbeams coming through the skylight lit up Cato’s face and Vigge’s cock thickened. Cato’s blue eyes were so beautiful, those thick black lashes fanning sculpted cheekbones. He didn’t need eyeliner but he looked gorgeous with it.
Cato blinked in the light and paused with his spoon partway to his mouth. “Don’t you think the patterns made by sunlight are fascinating? Light is so powerful. It changes everything. No matter where you are in the world, no matter what you’re doing—well, unless you’re trapped in a perfectly sealed box or a cave, there’s always light to look at, to wonder at, and as long as nothing absorbs it, the wavelengths go on for ever and ever. Sort of. Though my research depends on gravity bending them.”
Vigge wondered how Cato could think of doing anything other than astrophysics.
Cato put his fingers into the light shining onto the table. “449 seconds for this light to reach here from the sun.”
“So if the sun went out, it would be that long before we noticed?”
“Yep. Weird thought, isn’t it? Not that life would end instantly, but it would be the beginning of the end.”
“When I was a kid, I was fascinated by dinosaurs and I used to think, somewhere in a galaxy far, far away, if an alien had a—”
“Big enough telescope,” Cato interrupted. “Oh Christ, are we finishing each other’s sentences?”
Vigge smiled. “They might be able to see dinosaurs walking on the Earth?”
“Ah no,” Cato said. “Phew. I was going to say that aliens might have been thinking—I think the kids should come home now, honey. There’s a bloody big asteroid heading for Earth. Oh damn, too late.”
Vigge laughed and swallowed the last mouthful of soup. “Do you think thereislife on other planets?”
“Yes. Absolutely. We can’t know what’s happening in a galaxy a hundred million light years away from us. Doesn’t have to be life as we know it. And there are hundreds of billions of galaxies so no, I don’t think the Earth is unique.”
“You think we’ve already been visited by ETs?”
“No. Nor do I think we’ll ever see any alien life forms. Travelling fast is the key and we haven’t solved that yet. I think I’m with Arthur C. Clarke who said there were two possibilities—we were either alone in the universe or we weren’t. Either possibility was equally terrifying. Absolutely right.”
“Can you stay?”
Cato stared at him. “Do you mean— Are my entire belongings in my car, including my collection of Star Wars figures, my special marbles and my fifty-seven stuffed cats? Or have I brought my toothbrush?” Cato blinked. “Or maybe you wanted to ask if I’d like to watch a film this afternoon and cuddle on the couch? Or perhaps you need a hand with the garden and thought of me and my legendary ability to cope with creepy crawlies? Or maybe you were wondering if I was going to get whisked back to my planet.”
