The Desert Observatory – Part 1: Clear Skies

The minibus left San Pedro at ten, climbing into a desert so dark and silent that Camila forgot she had been tired for three weeks.

"Welcome to the driest place on Earth," said the guide, standing in the aisle with a red torch. "And the clearest sky. I am Henrik. Please do not turn on your phones."

He was thirty-five, tall and fair, in a battered fleece, with a Danish accent that rounded off his vowels. The group spilled out onto a plateau where a row of telescopes stood in the blue dark, and the sky arrived all at once.

Camila stopped dead. There was no black left in it. The Milky Way hung across the zenith like smoke lit from within, thick with stars.

"Yes," said Henrik, quietly, beside her. "Everybody does that."

"I live in Santiago. I did not know."

"Nobody knows until they see it." He handed her a blanket. "Come. I will show you Saturn."

The planet sat in the eyepiece, small and perfect, ringed in pale gold. Camila gasped aloud.

"It is real," said Henrik, smiling. "It is always a surprise."

By midnight the others had drifted to the minibus, cold and sleepy, but she lingered by the telescope with a mug of hot chocolate, asking questions until her breath steamed.

"Can I ask you something?" she said.

"Yes."

"Do you ever get tired of it?"

He looked up at the sky for a long moment. "I get tired of people. Never this."

"Then why talk to me?"

"You asked the right questions," said Henrik. "And you cried at Saturn."

"I did not."

"A little."

She laughed. "Green?" she said, on impulse.

"Green," said Henrik. "Very green. Stay. The Pleiades rise at one."

Continue the story: Part 2 – The Pleiades.