Launch Pad

by Jody Lynn Nye

The door slid open, and Conrad sauntered in.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said. He swaggered over and plopped down in a chair at the end of the table next to Colonel Kurland.

  “You,” Jake said, echoing what all of the others must have been thinking. “So that’s what all this is about.”

  Director McDonald looked from one person to another, but focused back on Christie.

  “It doesn’t matter where our concerns arise from,” she said. “We are all keenly aware of the risks that we take, sending human beings into a near-unknown beset with myriad dangers. But are we taking an additional risk?”

  “What are you accusing me of?” Christie asked. Doug thought she looked near tears.

  “Well, is there some kind of intuition associated with your research?” McDonald asked. “A practice that is … not strictly scientific?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then why can’t we duplicate it?” Conrad demanded.

  “You mean you can’t, Conrad,” Jake said. “There’s been plenty of correlation.”

  “Other astronomers have been given the same data and don’t understand how she came to her conclusions that those worlds were viable,” Conrad said. “ATSA took my suggestion that the initial findings be reexamined. Under the circumstances, you understand that they want to be cautious.”

  “Does it matter how she made the determinations?” Farah asked. “The correlations show she is right. She helped us pinpoint the planets on which to concentrate. This makes five in a row. How much more do you need?”

  “We’re not here to attack you,” Linda Nagata said, with a winning smile. She was slim, athletic and had smooth, tanned skin. “We’re your biggest fans! But from what I’ve been reading it seems, well, a little like magic.”

  “Or guesses,” Kurland said.

  “That’s unfair!” Christie exclaimed. “I share my conclusions only after I have analyzed the data many times! I am a legitimate scientist!”

  Ready cleared his throat.

  “Look, Christie,” he said, squirming a little. “Your work seemed to be more accurate than the initial computer simulations. Of the multiple thousands of Goldilocks worlds we’ve been scanning, you’ve asserted that five of them were habitable but uninhabited. Only five.”

  “So far,” Tiffany pointed out. Ready nodded assent.

  “No one could have been certain until we had eyes and a chemistry set on the ground that you were right. But every probe so far has proved you right, and I just have to open up and say it. It’s a little disconcerting that you know what no one else does.”

  “If you’re saying I’m not qualified, then why am I here?”

  Doug sighed. The elephant in the room couldn’t be ignored any longer.

  “We aren’t saying you’re not qualified,” Ready said. “It’s not your scientific rigor that people question, Christie. Or your scholarship or your research studies, or even your personality. It’s your sideline.”

  Christie let her head drop backward.

  “Oh, so that’s it! Just because I write astrology books, you think I can’t calculate?”

  Rob held up a hand to forestall outbursts from the others. He favored Christie with his megawatt smile.

  “No! Don’t get us wrong, Christie,” he said, in his most soothing voice. “I can’t wait to spread the word to every living being in this solar system. It would be great PR to be able to send out a ship to a world that human beings could live on.”

  Director McDonald nodded.

  “We need an absolute success,” she said. “In fact, it’s vital to the future of ATSA. We’ve been accused in the past of staging ‘astronomy theater’ to keep ourselves relevant. That’s not true, of course.”

  “Of course not,” Rob assured her. The rest of them couldn’t look directly toward the director. If Doug had a credit for every time ATSA announced it had found the next Earth, he’d be as wealthy as Rob. This project couldn’t be derailed now without destroying the space agency’s future prospects. “And it’s not true here, is it?”

  “My results have been checked again and again,” Christie said, fiercely. “No one is sending a single person into space only on my say-so alone. I know astrology is not real science. I don’t bring any of that into my work. The conclusions I reached after researching the raw data gave me that information.”

  McDonald tried to be placatory.

  “I don’t doubt that the results speak for themselves.”

  Farah interrupted her.

  “Do we have to show all of our work as if we’re doing long division on a chalkboard? It’s all there. The orbiters and mobile lander laboratories confirmed each world as a potential candidate for human settlement. As scientists, we question everything we do over and over again. Christie is a zealous scientist, but she is not working alone.”

  “Please understand our position. It’s the perception of a fallacious premise that could bring this whole project to a grinding halt. Billions of dollars and thousands of people are working toward this goal. I just want to assure everyone involved that we’re not building a foundation on false hopes. That press conference is in Jerusalem in three weeks. We can’t lose public confidence, or funding for the completion of the ships could be withdrawn by the world senate. I’m on your side, people, but I’m walking a tightrope.”

  Doug exchanged a glance with Rob, who cleared his throat for attention.

  “I promise you, Director, that every piece of information that ATSA was given, no matter where it originated, has been checked and rechecked, long before we sent a single craft through the wormhole. You have nothing to worry about. The planets are there, ready and waiting.”

  Conrad leaned forward, his hooded eyes gleaming.

  “Then what about this … spectromancy?”

  “What?” Christie asked, baffled. “I’ve never heard that word before.”

  Doug let his head drop back on his neck and stifled a groan. Rob caught the toss and gave them a brilliant smile.

  “You’re making that up, Conrad,” he said.

  “No, I am not,” the other scientist said, turning a vicious grin to the PR agent. “I have proof that such a word was used on this station, with regard to Dr. Yant, just about the same time that the fifth Landis probe returned. I say that she was finally admitting how she came up with her data. It’s all in the Lexicon program.” He pushed a tablet into the center of the table. Doug reached for it. He saw the word set out in the sans-serif print that was the default typeface of the vocabulary compiler program in common usage in most universities and labs to capture new terms as they were coined. Doug was so used to it being there listening and recording that he had forgotten all about it. Lexicon must have snapped up the term when Rob used it, as it did all unknown words, and waited ever since for a definition.

  Christie glared at Conrad.

  “I never said anything like that, and you can’t prove that I did.”

  “It’s all over the net. It had to come from you. Director, you need someone in charge here who will run the program under genuine scientific principles, not hokum and superstition.”

  “You mean you?” Tiffany asked, appalled.

  “Do you mind if we return to the subject?” Farah asked. “I have to get back to my students. Your departure is going to skew the equipment settings even further. Are we done here?”

  Doug and Rob exchanged glances.

  “I did not make up any of the conclusions I reached,” Christie said. “I’ve defended my analyses about ten times per exoplanet already. If the Landis probe videos and lab analyses don’t confirm them, then what more can I say?”

  “We’re done,” Jake said, planting his palms on the table and standing up. “Nice to see you guys,” he added to the colony ship captains.

  The astronomers scattered before Doug had a chance to call them back. Conrad stayed seated until the last of his colleagues had left the room, then scurried away before Doug could question him.

  Director McDonald pushed
back her chair, probably more emphatically than she intended in the station’s lighter gravity. Doug rose more carefully. She shook his hand.

  “Well, Captain Farren, I can’t say I’m completely satisfied. I can assure you I’ll be looking into this.”

  “So will I, director,” Doug assured them. He and Rob escorted them to the shuttle. The filmmaker drew Doug aside before he went through the hatch.

  “Damn Conrad!” Rob whispered. “He’s going to scotch the dreams of billions just so he can get more funding?”

  “Never underestimate the petty jealousies of a professor without tenure,” Doug said.

  “Is it really that bad?” Rob asked.

  “You have no idea.”

  “Whew! And I thought Hollywood was cutthroat. I’ll try to talk them around on the way back. Let me know what you find.”

  “Will do,” Doug said.

  He watched the shuttle depart with his heart in his shoes.

  O O O

  “Christie,” Doug said, then put out a hand toward the console screen as the red-haired astronomer frowned and reached for a control. “No, don’t hang up!”

  “What do you want?”

  “I know that Conrad’s been your rival for a long time.”

  “He had one of his students break into my office! God knows what he was going to sabotage. Or steal. He wrote a letter to my sponsors, trying to get my funding rescinded. Or reassigned to him.”

  “I know. Everyone complains about him. He’s a big pain in the ass, but he does bring in grant money.”

  He surprised a smile out of her.

  “That’s true. Thanks for backing me up in that meeting.”

  “No problem. I’d like to ask a favor.”

  She gave him a suspicious look. “What?”

  “Obviously Conrad has been spreading rumors that you conjured up viable planets out of thin vacuum. I want to try and reproduce your results myself, so I can be more convincing next time I have to talk to Director McDonald. Can you shoot me the raw data you worked from?”

  Her eyebrows went up behind her gold-rimmed glasses.

  “All of it? There’s six years worth and more.”

  “Yes. The new 3.2 tb computers can compile faster than even last year.”

  “All right. I’ll have to send it by FTP.” Her hands started working below the bottom of the comm frame.

  “Thanks.”

  He barely had time to close the window before the little green circle appeared. He opened the link. It was a massive file.

  Doug had a masters in physics, but hadn’t gone as far into practical astronomy as the others. But it meant he had a working knowledge. With a little help from some online textbooks and a robotic tutor, he went over her data himself over the next two weeks. The spectroscopic analyses of each Goldilocks world showed tiny variations indicating presence of the four building blocks of life: oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and hydrogen. The temperature gradients were more spotty, as they had been gathered from several different observations of each planet. Still, it was all there, just as she had said.

  He called Christie back. She was in her office.

  “I ran your data, and everything is just the way we assumed it was. Why didn’t Conrad come to the same conclusions? Why didn’t anyone else on this station until you published the first results?”

  Christie hesitated. She looked to her right and left, though Doug couldn’t see anyone else in the room.

  “I’m about to publish a paper that will make it all obvious, I think,” she said. “I’ve been working on it for a year, but the crisis made me hurry up to finish it. I really don’t think I can speak freely on it until the release date. It is all there, honest. I just have to get it to press before Conrad steals my data. I’ll give you the whole abstract as soon as I get confirmation from my collaborators and our publisher. You understand.”

  “Normally I would, but the whole colony program seems to be hinging on it. Will you tell me in confidence? Should we meet somewhere quiet? One of the library carrels?”

  Christie threw up her hands.

  “I can’t. The station system means that we can be overheard no matter where on this platform we talk! Conrad has been bugging my office. You saw that he hacked into Lexicon. And now I’m dogged by that spectromancy thing. And normally I’d jump on a word like that. I could probably earn millions on a book about it.”

  Doug felt guilty about that. He should have deleted the term.

  “No problem. I’ll confirm it from another direction. It’ll be all right.”

  If Christie wouldn’t help him directly, he needed an independent set of eyes. He took the data to Jake Kerr.

  The burly astronomer was happy to help. He ran the spectroscopic analyses over the next few days. He returned to Doug’s office with a look of wonder on his face.

  “I really didn’t see all this the first time,” he confirmed.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” Jake said. He sat down at Doug’s console and brought up the datafile. “I’m going to run a correlation between my set of data and Christie’s.”

  They waited. It took the amped-up processor mere seconds to spit out a few dozen pages of data side by side. Jake scrolled up and down the pages.

  “This is crazy. She has numbers I don’t. Yeah, I’d have called this junk data.”

  “Inconsistent?” Doug asked.

  “Yes. No. But that’s where the anomaly first appears. It looks like a compression of several high-accuracy readings in microseconds. That’s really interesting!”

  “When do they date from?” Doug asked, leaning over Jake’s shoulder.

  They ran a list. Doug started matching them against events on the station. Some of them dated from shuttle flights, but he wasn’t sure why that mattered. Some of the others were repairs on telescopes that upset the attitude of the whole station while things were restored to their correct orientation. Then he remembered what Farah had said about recalibration.

  “I think I get it,” Jake said, eagerly, his hands flying over the console. “Let me show you.”

  Doug stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “I see it. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk to anyone else about it for the moment. We’ll talk about it on Earth. In the meantime, I need to get back to someone.”

  Back in his office, he opened a secure circuit to Rob.

  “Tell Director McDonald it’s all right,” he said. “The rumors are just rumors. They always were. We’ll have to deal with Conrad some other way.”

  Rob smiled.

  “I knew it,” he said.

  “How do we handle the press?” Doug asked.

  “Leave that to me,” Rob said, smoothly. “I’ll send out a general release lauding all the Verley astronomers’ input to the upcoming launches – but leaving his name out.”

  O O O

  Over the next few days, Doug winced every time he checked in with social media. Spectromancy was indeed trending all over the net. The press babbled about the possibility of problems, shrieking that ATSA was about to send innocent human beings off into the great unknown based on occult science. He reassured anyone who posted that everything was fine.

  When he boarded the shuttle for Earth, the speech he planned to make at the conference ricocheted around in his mind. The rest of the astronomers boarded silently behind him.

  No one talked during the hours-long flight as the craft spiraled down, homing in on Mother Earth. Most of them were working, listening to or viewing entertainment, or just staring out of the portholes. All of them were thinking hard about the upcoming conference.

  The moment they stepped out of the shuttle in Jerusalem spaceport, everyone’s tablets went “ping!” with newly received messages. Doug glanced at his own list. At the top was one from Rob, who was waiting on the pad outside.

  Doug found him next to the ramp leading up to the open-air boarding area with the blazing, dry heat of the Israeli desert. They hurried to get in under the terminal roof.<
br />
  “Doug!”

  Christie came running after them and drew them aside from the passing crowd. She beamed at them.

  “It’s published!” she whispered. “I can tell you now.”

  Doug held up a finger.

  “No, let me tell you.” He held out his tablet and beckoned the others to look. “The interstitial data came from wobbles. You discovered a tremulus that was not present or visible at other times. Just these.” He showed them the timetable.

  Rob pointed at the list. “I remember this one. I was here for that. And that one.

  Was it something to do with me?”

  “Yes!” Doug said.

  “You’re kidding—my presence during observation indicates the habitability of an exoplanet?”

  “Not exactly,” Doug said with a cocked eyebrow. Rob grinned ruefully.

  “No, but what happened while I was present? Those stars weren’t occluded by other intermediary bodies. Space is a little dusty, but otherwise clear.”

  “Nothing.”

  Then Rob smiled broadly.

  “What happened before?” he asked.

  “The shuttle docked!” Doug said. “Every time the shuttle attaches itself to the platform, there is a minuscule wobble. Several of us have noticed it. It’s a damned nuisance. Jake told me he had to throw out tons of calculations that were scotched when the platform moved. All the telescopes have to be recalibrated every time.”

  “Right!” Christie said, astonished. “How did you know?”

  “It’s that simple?” Rob asked.

  “It had to be,” Doug said. “We’re all using the same telescopes, and what looked like identical readings. But they weren’t.”

  “No one else was using what they saw as junk data,” Christie explained. “We’re all looking for the obvious, emissions and broadcasts, as well as atmospheric data, to indicate whether one of those planets has an advanced civilization or not. Clouds and things change the profile of the planet, make some people think they have a population when they don’t. I found that when the platform jiggled, it also moved the telescopes slightly. The others threw out that data. I didn’t. What I saw in the times everybody else saw as wobbles told me whether or not the anomalies were signs of advanced life or not. And when they weren’t, I passed those along to ATSA as possible sites for settlement.”