One minute and fifty-four seconds later Lois turned just in time to catch sight of Clark stumbling up the long flight of marble stairs leading to the Observatory's entrance hall. Kent looked good in a tux, she'd have to give him that. His suits were usually badly-tailored, baggy affairs in dull colors paired with uninspired ties. She knew he had the basic points of attraction down pat – he was tall, dark-haired, and his face was strong-boned and angular enough to satisfy the current trends in masculine beauty. Still, there was something...off about him. Lois had never been able to pinpoint exactly what it was. Perhaps it was his sweet, awkward Kansas roots. Unlike the men in the room behind her, Clark was goofy and harmless: she had long ago come to think of him as a hapless puppy lost in the big city and in need of guidance. Harmless. She smiled, tilting her head towards the big clock that hung suspended over the mezzanine.
"You're late."
"Sorry," Clark blushed, starting up the final flight of stairs into the Observatory's main reception room. "Got caught in traffic."
She sighed. "Sure, it's a real rush-hour around here. I must have seen...what, ten other cars on the highway on the way up. Can't you just admit that you got lost?"
He hesitated for an instant, and she grinned, her annoyance at his lateness evaporating. "You're such a man, Clark Kent. And it's okay – Huntington is tough to find, and I had a cabbie who knew where to go."
Lois paused on the step just above him and frowned in the bright lights of the entranceway. She brushed at his shoulder – his tux jacket seemed to be covered in a thin layer of dust. Clark met her eyes, his mouth held open a little. The light reflected off his glasses. Beneath her fingers his shoulder felt surprisingly firm. Perhaps Clark, like the men in the reception room just behind her, spoiled himself with a good gym membership. For some reason the thought surprised her. She had never suspected Clark Kent of vanity.
"You're covered in...what, dust?"
He dipped his head. "I don't know. It's...it was a rental."
"Oh," Lois replied, pausing in what she did, her hand held mid-sweep as she brushed the remaining dust off his shoulder. She hadn't intended to embarrass him. Poor Clark.
"C'mon, they're starting," she told him, leading the way. One of the astronomers, the one she had interviewed for the Mars piece, took his place behind the podium and cleared his throat.
Dr. Peter Carey was an older man, and despite his visionary work on the Mars project Lois had always thought him to be entirely the product of some other generation. His muttonchops and slightly outdated eveningwear contributed to the impression, and his stilted Victorian manners had further convinced Lois that Dr. Carey was a man out of his time. Still, he possessed the kind of genius that had secured him a leading role in NASA missions for the last twenty years; his work with the Huntington Observatory had brought an infusion of much-needed research funding to the beleaguered outpost, and Lois hoped that this new discovery would put the Observatory firmly in the black. Metropolis was, quite famously the City of Tomorrow, but the city council was rather stingy when it came to warding grants or public funds to its scientific community.
"Thank you all for coming," Dr. Carey said, his voice carrying to the end of the room. "We have a very exciting announcement for you today, so I'll get right to the point. Lights, please," he said quietly, and immediately the room was plunged into darkness. Lois smiled: the scientists were clearly aware of the value of theatricality when pursuing donations. Hidden projectors scattered around the reception hall began to cast a series of celestial images over the walls and ceiling. Lois felt like she was back in sixth grade at the Metropolis Planetarium. Fiery Mars, cool Venus, the beautiful blue orb of Earth sped by in quick succession, followed by the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. The presentation accelerated, and Dr. Carey began to lecture the gathered crowd as they watched the solar system pass by.
"As you know, NASA and other terrestrial organizations have launched several probes into deep space. The images being beamed back are astonishing. We live in a strange and beautiful universe, my friends" he said, his knobby fingers gripping the sides of the wooden podium. Pluto shot by, and then for a long time there was nothing on the display but a long, endless field of stars. Clark leaned closer to her.
"Some show, huh?"
"It's not nothing," Lois muttered, her eyes widening when the stars began to zip by at lightening speed until they were simply long streaks of light. She felt a bit dizzy and glanced at Carey: he was staring at the images flickering on the walls and ceiling intently, his eyes ablaze with something Lois couldn't quite define. That reporter's sixth-sense, which had served her so well in her career, snapped instantly to life. Something about Carey was fishy; she'd stake her inevitable Pulitzer on it.
She glanced at Clark to see if he'd caught on but the Kansas farmboy seemed entranced by the lightshow. She glanced up at the ceiling and instantly forgot all about Carey. The simulation passed through an ion storm of some kind, and then was promptly swallowed by a massive red anomaly. The speed of movement picked up and they were zipping along a twisting, winding tunnel of some kind. A wormhole? she wondered, confused. Suddenly they were on the other side of the universe and the simulation shot out into an unfamiliar field of stars. The scientists had set up some kind of sound system to go along with the presentation: she had scarcely been registering the passing swoosh! of planets or the quiet hum of stars but, as the presentation entered an asteroid field of some kind the entire reception hall seemed to vibrate as the camera's eye passed over thousands of glowing green rocks.
The simulation felt entirely real at that moment, so much so that Lois unconsciously reached out for Clark's hand. His palm felt warm and secure; she realized that she had always suspected Clark's hand would be clammy and a bit twitchy. And then all thoughts of Clark Kent and his surprisingly-warm hand fled as, in a brilliant burst of green and crystalline light, the much-heralded new planet came into focus.
Lois, along with nearly everyone else in the room, let out a shocked gasp. The new planet was massive, a wintry-green orb of brilliant light in an otherwise empty sky. The asteroid belt hovered somewhere behind and Lois felt her eyes well with unexpected tears. She could not account for the way she felt: this new planet was...it was...
"Krypton," Dr. Carey supplied from his podium. "Yes, we think it is."
The room was utterly silent. Lois was dimly aware of a sudden, intense pressure on her hand. Clark. He was squeezing her palm so tightly the sensation became almost painful. She winced and jerked her hand away; he barely seemed to notice. He was still staring up intently at the simulation, his mouth agape. Like everyone else he seemed surprised, but...but there was something different about Clark's shock. Lois was used to seeing Clark look astonished – he almost always seemed confused or amazed by the rushed and frantic pace of big city life. This wasn't it. He looked almost...ecstatic. And heartbroken. And...
No, she decided, cutting off her train of thought. She was reading too much into it.
"What makes you think this is Krypton?" she yelled out, not waiting for Carey to formally begin the question period.
Dr. Carey paused, squinting into the darkness to locate her among the crowd. "Ah, Ms. Lane. I'm glad you could make it to our press conference. I'm sure your favorite interview subject will be very interested in our discovery. We believe this is Krypton because we have compared radiostatic isotope readings from that green asteroid belt to some of the Kryptonite collected by the United States government. The radioactive frequency given off by those asteroids is a precise match to the Kryptonite samples."
"But I thought the planet Krypton was destroyed," Lois shot back, suddenly feeling like the room was far too warm. The hair at the back of her neck prickled and the familiar sensation of panic threatened at the edges of her vision. Would this mean...
"Apparently you were misinformed," Carey replied. "Our full report to NASA will be submitted in the morning, as well as details about the radioscopic tests. We have tested and re-confirmed our findings, and I think our conclusion will eventually be proven to be correct. This," he said, sweeping an arm towards the simulation with the air of an old showman, "is Krypton."
"It cannot be seen from Earth, of course," he continued, more P.T. Barnum than Nobel laureate at the moment. "Ihese images were transmitted via our farthest probe, launched in 1971. It has taken more than forty-three years for our probe to get close enough to Krypton for a snapshot. If this is indeed his home planet, Superman traveled a very long way when he came to us. Something to ask him about next time you see him, Ms. Lane," Dr. Carey said. "Next question."
Lois raised her hand again and looked to see if Clark was doing the same. He still seemed stunned and she elbowed him in the side.
"You okay?" she murmured, listening with half an ear as Gregul from the Post asked about possible life on Krypton. "You look a little green..."
"Shrimp cocktail," Clark replied, seeming to snap out of his strange mood. He blinked and ran a trembling hand over his forehead. Lois frowned.
"You're sweating."
"I- I am," he stuttered, adjusting his glasses. "Lois, you mind if I duck out? You can have the byline."
"Clark, this is the story of the century! It'll be on the front page for weeks! You can't just-"
"I really think I'm going to be sick," he said, casting another glance upwards at the still-hovering simulation of Krypton. Lois sighed.
"Sure. But you're never going to get off the city beat if you don't push yourself, Clark. I-"
Her next words were forgotten when the McCloud, the cable news guy, asked about a manned mission to Krypton. Lois barely heard Clark leave.