The Orthogonal Galaxy

by Michael L. Lewis

  …

  With lengthened stride, Scoville rushed down the corridor leading away from the planetarium and back to his office.

  “What is it, Ballard?” asked Zimmer who was lagging the dean by a couple of steps.

  “I’ve got NASA on hold.”

  At this, Professor Zimmer stopped dead in his tracks. Noticing that the sound of the extra pair of footsteps had ceased, Scoville turned back and looked at Zimmer.

  “Are they cutting off the funding, Ballard?”

  Ballard lowered his head and took a couple of steps back towards Zimmer. “No, no… it’s… it’s something… worse.” With the last word, his voice trailed off. He turned again, and restored to his former swift gait. “You’ll be briefed presently.”

  They rushed into Scoville’s office and quickly took seats opposite of each other at a round conference table. A telephone with a blinking red light informed Zimmer of the urgent party waiting on the other end.

  Taking the phone off of mute, Scoville announced their return. “Vurim, I’m back. I have Professor Zimmer with me. I believe that you two have met.”

  “Yes, we have met,” answered Vurim affirmatively. “Dr. Zimmer, this is Vurim Gilroy. I’m the director of the Mars Mission here at Johnson Space Center.”

  “Ah, yes. Dr. Gilroy. We met a few years ago at the International Conference on Modern Astrophysics, didn’t we? As I recall, you presented some results and conclusions from your first subterranean drilling explorations of Mars, right?”

  “That is correct.”

  “What can I do for you? I understand you have a matter of some urgency you wish to discuss with me?”

  “Unfortunately, yes we do.” His voice was hushed, and an audibly deep breath ensued before he began his briefing.

  “We are currently studying a set of data regarding a series of disturbing events which happened a few hours ago regarding our Mars mission. We hope you may be of assistance in brainstorming possible astronomical phenomena which might account for the singularities we have witnessed.”

  “Ok,” said Zimmer attentively. “I’ll do what I can to help.” Zimmer’s gaze was fixed on Scoville, as if searching his expressing for clues. Scoville’s shrugged his shoulders and shook his head to convey that he knew next to nothing yet himself.

  “First of all,” stated Gilroy hesitantly, “we’d like to request your presence here at Johnson where we are convening a team of experts to examine the data first-hand.”

  Scoville looked up at Zimmer, twisted his head, threw up his hands, and nodded slowly. “Well, I just began a new term of courses and research here at the university. Any leave would have to be approved of by Dean Scoville.”

  “He has assured us full cooperation in this matter,” announced Gilroy in a business-like manner.

  Zimmer looked at Scoville in a puzzled manner and tapped the mute button. “Ballard?”

  “Carlton, we’re treading lightly on the funding for your research. We need to bend over backwards for these guys. I’ll be sure to cover for your class and research teams. It’ll only be for a few days.”

  After taking the phone off of mute, Zimmer continued. “Ok. When do you need me to leave?”

  “I have a chartered plane that will be landing in Burbank at 1:20 PM Pacific Time.”

  Zimmer looked at his watch, which read 12:17 PM. “Why, that’s just an hour away. I’ll need some time to pack and…”

  “No packing!” Gilroy interrupted shortly. “We’ll get everything you need here. You can communicate those needs from the airplane once you’re in the air.”

  “Ok,” agreed Zimmer in an overwhelmed manner. “Can I ask what the urgency is all about?”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible. We are conversing over an unsecured communication channel, and this is a matter that is currently classified as secret… You do still have a security clearance, Professor?”

  “Yes, yes. I’ll depart for the airport immediately.”

  “Thank you for your understanding and support. We’ll talk in a few hours.”

  The phone went dead.

  “Ballard, what is going on?”

  “I don’t know anymore than you, Carlton. But, my hunch tells me that something has gone wrong on Mars. NASA doesn’t operate like this unless there is genuine concern for the well-being of their astronauts.”

  “But, why me? I’m an astrophysicist, not an aerospace engineer. If there’s a problem millions of miles away, what possible help will I be?”

  “I don’t have answers for you, Carlton. But, once you find out what is going on, I’d appreciate hearing from you. I’ll need to know what arrangements need to be made here in the department during your absence.”

  “Will do, Ballard.” Zimmer stood up and bid farewell to the dean. He disappeared through the office door and rushed down the corridor for his rendezvous with the jet that had been arranged to pick him up a couple of hours before he himself knew of it. Like Scoville, Zimmer was beginning to fear the worst. NASA was too eager, too quick, too quiet to not cause these two CalTech astronomers significant concern.

  …

  Professor Zimmer landed in Houston at 6:15 PM. Dr. Gilroy had a car waiting for him to quickly usher him to Johnson Space Center. Gilroy was waiting on the curb for the astronomer when he arrived. He opened the door for Zimmer and shook his hand warmly and gratefully.

  Zimmer noticed that he showed signs of fatigue and stress. His complexion was pale, and his eyes deeply red. As they shook hands, the professor could note that Gilroy’s hand was tremulous and sweaty.

  With a subdued voice, he said, “Thank you for coming, professor. I will escort you through security and into a conference room, where we have compiled a set of data that we hope you can decipher for us.”

  “I certainly hope that I may be of assistance to you, Doctor,” started Zimmer.

  The conference room was ample and bright. Entering through a glass door, the professor noted an open feel to the room, because of the windows which wrapped around three sides of the conference room. Along the far wall, which contained no windows, a long counter contained coffee pots, cups, napkins, and a water dispenser. In the center of the room, a long, elliptical table had seating for 12 people, and every seat except for two was occupied. Gilroy offered the professor a seat at the end of the table, and took the seat immediately to his right.

  “Professor Zimmer,” announced Gilroy, “I’d like to introduce you to a few members of our team. “Starting to your left, we have Staneck Rodgers, Physon Edwards, Kinnet Brothers, and Christian Popolous. These men are mission control specialists for the Mars Mission. Following is our team of engineers. Lawton Jacobsen is our lead telecommunications hardware engineer. Then we have two of our top aerospace engineers, Sharli Cartwright and Cordic Huford, both from Kennedy. Our materials scientist, Lane Wells, is from Ames. And I believe you may know our Martian experts, Draven Sillieu, and Marselline Jones.”

  “Stan, would you please explain to the team the reason why we have convened this meeting?”

  “Certainly,” stated Stan with a deep sigh. He slowly lifted himself out of his seat and progressed towards the end of the room opposite of where he unrolled a large map depicting Earth and Mars. Several post-it notes of different color were placed around the map, but Zimmer could not read the writing on any of them.

  “At 07:22 this morning local time, an alarm went off indicating that one of the four Martian communication satellite links demonstrated a failure here.” Rodgers gestured with a laser pointer to one of the post-it notes on the map. “In three seconds, we lost comm with another satellite here, and this one stopped communicating about two seconds later. For some reason, satellite number four, which was right here at the time of the failures, has continued to transmit, and is currently located here. At first, we assumed that there was an electromagnetic incident which took the satellites offline, but typically, interference lasts a few minutes.” Stan paused to look around the room to see how this information was
being received.

  “Have you calculated a correlation with the timing of the loss of failure?” asked Zimmer.

  “Yes,” answered Rodgers. “And what we found was that all three satellites failed at exactly the same moment in time. The fact that we observed the alarms at different times is due to the differences in the distance of each satellite from the Earth as well as the latency of the various signals traveling over those distances. Satellite Two was closest to the earth, while Satellite One was the farthest. As a result, we received these just moments apart due to the extra distance required to reach the Earth.”

  “I trust they all operate off of the same software code base?” Zimmer quizzed suggestively.

  “Yes that is true,” Stan’s gaze met the floor while his voice tapered off.

  Physon stood quickly to relieve his partner. “Professor, we have eliminated the possibility of a software bug causing the failure at the same exact clock cycle.”

  Zimmer’s forehead wrinkled as he gestured for the mission specialist to continue with the details.

  “You see, less than thirty minutes before the incident, there was a shift change. An astronaut departed Camp Mars in a shuttle, and we also lost communication with him as well.”

  Zimmer leaned forward in his seat as if to better comprehend this last statement.

  “Communication loss with the shuttle is also calculated to be synchronized to the same exact moment in time.” Physon paused to compose his words precisely. “The clock in the shuttle is not synchronized precisely to the satellite array… and the shuttle software team was completely isolated from the satellite software team. In other words, the software code is entirely different for the shuttle. The probability of a synchronized bug between two entirely different pieces of complicated software code… well, it’s just not practical to suggest such a correlation.”

  Zimmer stood on his feet and turned away from the table. Stroking his forehead and cheek, it was clear that his mind was working feverishly. He wheeled around quickly. “A visual… we must get a visual. Surely we can see the satellites and shuttle from a terrestrial-based observatory. It’s not all that far to Mars.”

  Vurim chimed in from his seat. “Madrid has been working on that for the last several hours, but they have not been able to identify a visual on any satellite or on the shuttle.”

  “Well, their results are bogus! You have told me that there is still one satellite which is communicating. They simply must get a visual on that one.”

  “At present, it is too close to the horizon of Mars to pick up a visual on it,” clarified Vurim. “But we should be able to do so in about two hours.” He looked at his watch. “Maybe a bit less than that.”

  “Madrid should send us their data… we need an extra pair of eyes on it,” suggested Zimmer.

  “We’ve got a team of astronomers assembled upstairs… they’re looking at the data right now,” claimed Vurim.

  Zimmer took a new line of suggestive data collection. “Any clues from the data of the remaining satellite? I trust that it is able to communicate with the camp? Can it give us a visual of Mars?” Zimmer brainstormed.

  “We’ve been looking at images of the planet, but nothing looks out of the ordinary… Well, there is a slight dust storm that we’re noticing, but that is not unusual. What we’re waiting for right now is for Number Four to get into range of Camp Mars. Presently, the Camp is on the opposite side of Mars. Earthrise on Camp Mars won’t be for another seven hours, but Satellite Four will have a visual lock in about five hours… we should have at least visual data of the Camp around midnight in order to check on the status of the astronauts there.”

  “You’ve been thorough in your analysis, Doctor Vurim,” Zimmer admitted. “I’m not sure how I can be of help.”

  Vurim pleaded with Zimmer, “We need theories, Professor… astronomical, physical theories on what could have caused an event like this to occur. We’re at an absolute loss to explain this anomaly.”

  “I think we’re going to need more data,” announced Zimmer. “I’d like to take a look at the Madrid data, while we are waiting for Sat Four to get in range. Then, I will want to do some study myself this evening at Palomar. But first, I have a few phone calls to make.”

  …

  Joram Anders rushed up the steps of the apartment complex, bypassing every other step with great strides. At the third floor, he rapped on the door intently. Kath opened the door slowly and playfully.

  “Who is it?” she said with a cheerful voice.

  Joram gasped for breath. “Ah, Kath… it’s me, Joram.”

  “Joram? I’m sorry, Joram who?” She tried to be coy, but gave herself away with a snicker as she completed the inquiry.

  “Ok, Kath,” Joram shook his head. “You win… I owe you an apology.” Then with a deep breath, he let out, “I’m sorry.”

  The door opened wide revealing a very light apartment. Joram’s shaded his eyes for a moment in part to get used to the light, but mainly to get a less blinding visual on his new friend, who he admitted to himself appeared more and more attractive each time he saw her. This time was no different. Kath looked as beautiful as ever, and he wondered if his tardiness didn’t allow her more time to prepare herself for perfection.

  Shyly, he looked down at the floor. “I’m really sorry, Kath.” Then looking up to meet her eyes, he admitted, “I got so caught up in reviewing my notes from the day that I completely lost track of time.”

  “Why didn’t you answer your cell phone?” she asked.

  “I had my Ear Cups on,” he explained.

  “Oooh,” Kath took a step back. “You have a pair of Ear Cups? I’m starting to see more and more of those, but I’m not sure if I like them.”

  “Why not?” asked Joram.

  “They’re so… so…, “Kath strained for the right word, “unfashionable.”

  Joram laughed. “They’re not supposed to be fashionable… they’re supposed to be functional. My parents got me a pair for my graduation this year. I was so surprised, because they are really not very technical people… I didn’t even know they knew about them, since they’re so new! They’re much more comfortable that head phones or ear buds because they just cup right over your ear, and the slight suction effect keeps them on snug. The sound quality is amazing, and I’m surprised at how well they cancel the surrounding noise… which is the reason why my parents got them for me. They were all, ‘You know it’s gonna be noisy around that college. You should have something to help you study without all of the distractions.’”

  “Well, I’ll just have to try them for myself sometime,” Kath conceded. “But you still won’t catch me with them at the gym.”

  “No,” Joram chuckled. “I guess I wouldn’t.”

  “Well, let me just grab my purse and we’ll be on our way then.”

  Joram waited outside the open door, but he studied the apartment, looking for clues about Kath’s interests and tastes. It was sparsely decorated, a common practice among all college students, but it looked comfortable nevertheless.

  “So, I hear Louie’s makes the best pizza,” Joram offered as they strode together down the stairs.

  “It’s really, really good,” Kath admitted. “I’m sure I must be in there once a week. Goodness, I’m starving just thinking about it.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t be if your dinner partner would’ve been on time.”

  Kath touched him lightly on the forearm. “It’s ok, Joram, really. I understand.”

  At Louie’s, Joram was in heaven. The pizza was indeed delicious and Kath’s company was simply delightful. He couldn’t help feel a little jealous for all of the guys at the place that seemed to know her. He had thought about how his life had changed so quickly. Why, just a week ago, he was still on his rural farm outside of Wichita, Kansas helping himself to a hearty plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes before heading out to admire the stars in the night sky. Now here he was in bustling Pasadena, California, enjoying the company of a lov
ely young lady in a very active and trendy restaurant. He snapped himself out of the daydream.

  “So there I was,” Kath continued in the middle of an animated story. “drenching wet, and the police officer asks me, ‘is that what you normally go swimming in?’”

  Joram forced a laugh, wishing he had actually paid more attention to what must have been a fascinating tale. Just as Kath’s raucous laughter began to subside, Joram’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pants pocket and looked at the caller ID.

  “Oh sure,” Kath tilted her head slyly and allowed a wisp of hair to cover her winking eye. “In your quiet apartment you can’t hear my phone call, and now in one of the most noisy restaurants in Pasadena, you can hear it just fine.”

  Joram smiled with feigned irritation. “I don’t know who it is… it’s a local call. I wonder who it could be.”

  “Well, the best way to find out is to answer it,” Kath allowed the distraction.

  “Hello,” Joram answered jovially. The smile eroded from his face, and he sat upright in his chair.

  “Um, yes, professor, right… um… hello… how are you on this fine evening?” He winced in embarrassment while hearing how lamely he had greeted the caller.

  His grew quiet and pale.

  “I’m sorry… it’s a little noisy here.” He covered one ear as if to hear better. “Did you say tonight?”

  He looked at his watch and appeared ready to rebut, but thought better of it. “Where? But, I don’t understand… Well, okay, I’ll see you then. Good Bye.”

  After a moment of tense silence, Kath attempted to ease any discomfort that Joram may have been feeling. “You know if you’re going to hold your mouth open like that, you might as well start on another piece of pizza.”

  He decided to use his mouth in a different way—by explaining to Kath the mysterious nature of the phone call.

  “That was Professor Zimmer!” He said in confused excitement. “He said that I need to…”