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Caffrey flipped through a few more screens, scratching his temple, with a
determined gaze in his eyes. He got up and strolled to the bow
viewport. "I have a map and a ship. It's my staircase to the heavens. There must be someplace."
"I'm sorry to interrupt your pensive moment, my self-reflective rice cake, but there's an object approaching. Dead ahead."
Caffrey furrowed his eyebrows as the object caught his attention.
"What is it?"
The object was rotating, and flickered with colorful flashes as the starlight bounced off its shining surfaces.
"It seems to be a box of some sort. Made primarily of wood, metal and plastic. There are no lifeforms aboard. Shall I destroy it, evade it or grapple it?"
"Interesting. Grapple it. Please."
Angie worked The Moby Dick's dexterous grappling hand. With programmed agility, she snagged the odd box and, after a few moments in the decontamination chamber, brought it inboard. Its exterior was a mess—cracked, rusted and dirty. However, the cleansing process had partially revealed some writing on its surface that, to Caffrey's surprise, was in an older but legible Earth language.
"'Groovy Tunes Jukebox,'" he read, studying the set of black plastic disks that filled the interior beyond its clear domed window.
"These are musical notations," he announced, pointing to the little notes painted all over the box.
He pried open the plastic window and extracted a handful of the small black disks. They crumbled in his hands. There were over a hundred of the objects. A few, although scratched, remained solid and had faded paper labels that Caffrey read with a certain curiosity.
"'Light My Fire,' The Doors. 'Purple Haze,' Jimi Hendrix. 'Satisfaction,' The Rolling Stones."
One after the other he examined the plates, whose surfaces were etched with a continuous ridge spiraling in to the center of the disc, where there was a hole. Each was in worse condition than the previous, but in an inner compartment he discovered a single disk had been protected during its journey through the Cosmos. It had a plain white label with hand-scribbled words. His eyes widened, and his expression changed to a nervous smile as he read those words.
"'Stairway to Heaven,' Led Zeppelin," Caffrey breathed as he shook his head. "It's happened again, Angie."
It had, indeed. Throughout Caffrey's life the universe had winked coyly at him in moments of synchronicity. Time and time again, he would find a thought or recently spoken phrase manifest before him in unexpected ways and forms. Since his childhood the strange coincidences had haunted him like a mischievous ghost. It began happening so frequently it had become unnerving. Creepy. Although he never mentioned it to anyone, he was beginning to feel someone was trying to tell him something. If not for the rational side of his brain's constant assurance that it was all nothing but coincidence, he would have undoubtedly been kept up nights.
"Angie, run 'Stairway to Heaven.'"
Oddly, a full thirty seconds passed before Angie responded.
"It's an extremely obscure reference with only one mention in the entire system. It appears that 'Stairway to Heaven' is a song title, and 'Led Zeppelin' is the name of the group of musicians who created and performed it. Categorized as Rock Music. The genre, according to the official report, began as a subversive and socially destructive plot to subjugate the minds of the young that was slowly converted into the perfect backing track for selling luxury transportation vehicles."
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