“But you knew it would be a celestial event, something to do with the equinox. Mick, can you stop pacing, it’s hard to carry on a conversation like this. Come here. Sit down next to me.”

He hesitates, then sits beside her. She can see his hands shaking.

“Talk to me.”

“I can feel it, Dom.”

“What can you feel?”

“I don’t know … I can’t describe it. Something’s out there, a presence. It’s still in the distance, but it’s getting closer. I’ve felt it before, but never like this.”

She touches the hair flowing down his neck, fingering a thick, brown curl. “Try to relax. Let’s talk about this deep-space radio transmission. I want you to tell me how you knew the biggest event in humanity’s history was about to happen.”

He looks up at her, fear in his eyes. “This is nothing. This is only the beginning of the final act. The biggest event will happen on December 21, when billions of people die.”

“And how do you know that? I know what the Mayan calendar says, but you’re too intelligent to simply accept some three-thousand-year-old prophecy without the scientific evidence to support it. Explain the facts to me, Mick. No Mayan folklore, just the supporting evidence.”

He shakes his head. “This is why I asked you to read my father’s journal.”

“I started to, but I’d rather you explain it to me in person. The last time we spoke, you warned me about some kind of rare galactic alignment orienting itself to Earth beginning on the fall equinox. Explain that to me.”

Mick closes his eyes, drawing slow breaths as he forces his adrenaline-racked muscles to calm.

Dominique can hear the whirring of the tape recorder. She clears her throat, covering the noise.

He reopens his eyes, his gaze softer now. “Are you familiar with the Popol Vuh?”

“I know it’s the Mayan book of creation, their equivalent of our Bible.”