The Orthogonal Galaxy

by Michael L. Lewis

  As for Joram, Kath, and Reyd, they continued studying the aftermath of the comet. They continued to scour the data from the original Yellow Beam mission and were also focusing on improved sets of data from a more controlled second mission, where the USL had been relaying data for several weeks as improved paddles were navigating the comet’s tail with much greater control and were mapping out its cross-section. The only problem with the second mission is that a significant amount of time had elapsed, such that the quantity and velocity of particles remaining this far behind in the tail were now reduced significantly.

  The team had ceased going to Palomar altogether these days, and were studying and measuring data in their lab on campus. They had made a couple of weekend trips to Ames Research Center in Northern California. Ames was tasked with studying the soil and debris samples returned from the rescue mission to Mars, so the team had a chance to meet scientists and engineers on the team and were able to get a first-hand glimpse of some of the artifacts and the discoveries which were being made.

  Along with NASA’s efforts, Zimmer and his research team were making great progress in understanding the matter left behind from the comet. Hordes of scientists around the world were jumping on the superluminal band wagon as well, which was aiding the understanding of travel greater than the speed of light, but nobody had yet stumbled onto any solid theories about the exact mechanisms required to escape the electromagnetic force, and thereby be enabled to travel faster than light. This was a complicated problem, and physicists knew that answers would take a long time to fully be understood. Some were certain that we would need one more fly-by of the comet before we could really understand superluminal travel. Outspoken opponents went so far as to be a significant hindrance in Zimmer’s efforts in getting a mission off to Earth2 during the next fly-by of the comet.

  Late one evening, Zimmer sat in his office reviewing media coverage of Congressional debates regarding the mission. Irritated with the press’ coverage of the matter, he closed the lid on his laptop.

  Shaking his head, he muttered under his breath, “Why does politics always have to get in the way of science?”

  He stood up and walked over to the window of his office. He looked over the quiet campus. Sidewalks were illuminated in bright blue light, shadowed occasionally by the overhanging tree standing motionless in the still of the night. Near the circle of ground lights illuminating the planetarium bearing his name, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. Easily recognizable in contrast to the perfect stillness of the night, he saw the backs of a pair of students walking together along one of the walkways. Their path curved towards a building, and as the students approached, he smiled as he saw the distinct profiles of Joram and Kath. Joram held the door of the building open for Kath, who smiled and nodded as she crossed the threshold. Joram stepped in behind her and allowed the door to swing shut.

  Zimmer looked at his watch. 9:43 PM. “Those two seem to always be in that lab these days, and with the evening growing late, they return for more.” He would have to stop by on his way to the parking lot now—just to make sure that everything was going well with their research, and to ascertain whether they had any questions for him.

  Just as he grabbed his coat off of his office chair and headed for the door, his ear implant rang softly. He wasn’t used to getting any phone calls this late, but he tapped his ear to answer the call anyway.

  “Carlton Zimmer speaking,” he said while beginning to put his coat on in hopes of being able to dismiss the caller quickly.

  “Carl,” sounded an exuberant voice on the other end of the call. “How are you doing?”

  “Little brother?” Zimmer was pleased to hear the pleasant voice.

  “Little brother, indeed!” exclaimed Warron Zimmer. “Little enough to be in your shadow, as always… I keep hearing about you from the media these days.”

  Shrugging off the praise, Carlton spoke warmly, “It’s been a while, Warron. I’m glad to hear from you.”

  “Well, I do apologize that it’s so late… I’ve been busy reviewing a new case, and time ran away from me. I couldn’t miss the opportunity to wish my big brother a happy birthday.”

  “Ah, yes. I should’ve known,” Zimmer nodded and smiled while taking his coat off and reclining in his office chair with his hands clasped behind his head. “You never miss calling me on my birthday… even though I almost always find an excuse to miss yours.”

  “Excuse… is that what you call unraveling the mysteries of the universe these days, Bro? How is the sleuthing going anyway?”

  “Well, it’s been an exciting year, to be sure.”

  “No kidding! You found your parallel Earth, and you’ve discovered something moving faster than the speed of light! And now, I hear you’re working with NASA on a mission to the other Earth?”

  The older Zimmer sighed audibly and paused, weighing his response to this question.

  Warron probed, “At least I thought I heard about a mission.”

  “Oh, yes… you heard,” the astronomer confirmed. “It’s just not going very well at the moment.”

  “You talking about those critics? It’s nonsense. The American people are behind you on this. We all want to know about this place and you know how impatient we are when we want something. Nobody is going to stand for waiting an extra five years, when we have the time to prepare now.”

  “I only wish those guys were our biggest problem right now, but we have an even bigger problem at the moment—something that I did not foresee, and which may scrap the entire effort altogether.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing you won’t be able to solve,” Warron encouraged. “You’ve solved all sorts of tough scientific challenges in your life.”

  “No, this time it’s out of my hands. I was in a meeting with NASA earlier this week. Turns out we can’t find any astronauts who are willing to take the job. None… not one. And for this mission to succeed, we need two.”

  “You gotta be kidding? This must be the most exciting mission in the history of space exploration. Talk about making a name for yourself. I mean, we still read about that Ned Armstrong guy who was the first to land on the Moon. Imagine how famous the guy will be who first lands on Earth2?”

  Zimmer corrected quickly, “Neil!”

  “What?” asked Warron in a state of confused misunderstanding. “Can’t I just sit?”

  “No,” Zimmer rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean for you to kneel. I was referring to Neil Armstrong, who was the first man to walk on the Moon.”

  In his career as well as in personal conversations, the successful defense attorney was not one to be allowed to get off onto irrelevant tangents. “Oh yeah, right… but you get the idea, Carl. The thrill of the adventure. Going somewhere nobody has ever been before. The fame. Maybe you should increase the salary?”

  “It’s already at twenty-five million, Warron,” the professor answered flatly, and then heard a startled whisper on the other end.

  “So, what’s the problem, Carl? I just can’t believe you’re not getting any bites.”

  “It’s actually very easy to understand. You travel through space at over 25000 times the speed of light for more than a year, hoping that the speed of light won’t adversely affect you physically. Then, you stay on a foreign planet for six and a half years waiting to hitch a ride on the next lap of the comet. What if they get there and find that humans aren’t exactly friendly to them? What if they land in a Jurassic era of dinosaurs excited to feed off of an exotic meal? And if you’ve actually managed to survive Earth2 this long, then you have to hope that NASA didn’t botch one of the coordinates or round off any of their math to the wrong decimal place while trying to rendezvous with a massive object that it hurtling towards you at a pace that is faster than anything you could conceive. What if you get flung off of the comet prematurely on your return home, and you get stuck in the vastness of space with no hope of return to either Earth.

  “Remember, also that all of this will take
13 years away from your personal life. That alone will take out every family man on the planet, but it is also a significant reason for rejection among bachelors as well, who view this time in their lives as significant for settling into family life or the pursuit of any other personal activity. The 23-year olds out there have a hard time coming to grasp with the fact that they’ll be gone until they’re 36. Would you want to give up your twenties for a likely suicide mission?

  “Well, if you put it that way…” Warron’s voice trailed off in a tone of defeat and discouragement—not only out of empathy for his brother, but also out of disappointment for his own curiosity. Everybody wanted to know what—or more importantly—who was on this other earth.

  “Basically, we have conflicting requirements in the person that can fill the job. We need somebody who is intelligent enough to understand the science and engineering of the mission, and yet stupid enough to not figure out that we’re asking 13 years of their lives for a suicide mission, or somebody who has absolutely nothing to lose.”

  There was a long pause in the conversation at this point. After looking at his watch, Zimmer broke the silence. “Did you fall asleep on me during that explanation, Warron? It is getting awfully late there in Atlanta.”

  “Um… no, actually I was just… thinking about something.”

  “What’s that?” the elder Zimmer asked.

  “Oh, sorry… it’s nothing… ludicrous really… but then again…”

  “Go ahead.”

  “It’s just something you said that made me think… You said you need ‘somebody who has absolutely nothing to lose’, right?”

  “That’s right,” Zimmer said with full, albeit reserved, attention.

  “It’s going to sound crazy, Carl, but I might be able to help you out.”

  Chapter

  22

  The two prisoners sat quietly in their cell. Paol Joonter was writing a letter in response to the one he had received from his family. Every Tuesday, Paol anticipated that weekly letter. It was his only link to the family. After reading the letter three times and memorizing every detail of the picture of his children, who appeared to be enjoying themselves at the Seattle Mariners baseball game, Paol sat down on his chair and began to write his weekly response on his clipboard.

  Three feet away, he could hear the occasional deep and raspy breath of his cellmate, Blade Slater, who was enveloped in his reading “All Quiet on the Western Front.” An occasional muffled vocalization was heard in response to Blade’s reading, followed by the soft sound of the pages turning. Echoes of other prisoner interactions could be heard through the halls of the cell block.

  Only Paol noticed any of the noises, as Blade was consumed by his book. For that reason, Paol’s head was the only one to raise from his letter writing as he heard the growing thump of footsteps approaching from down the hall. A guard emerged in view and approached the cell.

  “Joonter!” the guard barked into the cell needlessly, considering that the two had already made eye contact. Unlocking the cell with his laser key, the guard announced one last word “Visitor.”

  At this, Blade’s focus returned to the present with a nearly imperceptible raise of his eyebrows. Without lifting his eyes from his book, Blade congratulated his partner for his break in the doldrums of the regular routine and bid him farewell for the moment.

  Paol quietly followed the guard, remaining ten feet behind as required by security regulations. Prisoners cooed and jeered at Paol as he walked by, voicing resentment through phrases too indecent for print. Paol ignored it all, fixing his gaze to the back of the guard leading him to the visitation room, a small five-foot square box of concrete with aged fluorescent lighting. A 12-inch thick glass separated him from his lawyer, Warron Zimmer.

  Paol was always encouraged by these visits, since he remained hopeful that Zimmer would bring some significant news in his parole process, but generally, all updates were less than encouraging. The process was moving forward, at a typical judicial pace, but Zimmer was still seeking a significant piece of the puzzle that would help accelerate the process. After months in prison, Paol was growing frustrated and hopeless.

  After briefing his client on the current status, Paol could tell that there was no reason to get his hopes up during this visit either. After a typical exchange where Warron gave Paol details, and Paol gave Warron his appreciation, Paol felt something a little different in the countenance of his lawyer during a pause in the conversation.

  “Paol,” began Zimmer, not knowing exactly how to begin.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever told you that my brother is Carlton Zimmer, the astrophysicist.”

  “No, I don’t remember ever hearing that. I read in the news that he has been involved in some pretty amazing discoveries this year.”

  “He is working presently on a mission to Earth2.”

  “Yeah that sounds quite wild.”

  “Actually, everything is proceeding quite nicely, as far as the mission is concerned, but there is one snag that is jeopardizing his efforts of ever getting to explore this new Earth.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nobody seems willing to accept the mission.”

  “I thought NASA was stacked with astronauts and candidates ambitious to become astronauts.”

  “Well, I think the Mars scare has been effective at keeping astronauts on pins and needles, and frankly, every astronaut—as I understand it from my brother—feels that the mission is simply suicidal. They see too many unknowns that could easily go wrong, and the commitment is large. It will be 13 years before the astronauts return. So there they are. NASA needs a pair of astronauts for the most exciting mission in the history of our planet, and they can’t even find one.”

  Paol gave a low whistle. “I guess I hadn’t been following closely enough to realize the specifics. That is a long time.”

  Sitting forward in his seat, Warron spoke intently. “I’d like to make a suggestion, Paol.”

  Paol’s face contorted, not knowing where this was going. He indicated to his lawyer to proceed with the suggestion.

  “NASA is very eager to find individuals to fulfill this mission. The United States—heck, the world—is very eager. I could get you out of here, Paol, if you would accept to do this.”

  Paol blinked rapidly and cocked his head to the left. Measuring his response, he continued, “I’m not sure if I understand what you’re saying.”

  “I’m saying that I think it would be in your best interest to trade in your orange jumpsuit for a blue spacesuit, Paol. Serve your country on this mission, and when you return, I can practically promise that you’d be pardoned by the president. Besides, by the time you return, I’m almost certain to have cracked this case open.”

  “Warron,” Joonter spoke with complete surprise. “You just told me that the mission is suicidal. If I wait here, I might be able to see my family again someday.”

  “No,” Zimmer shook his head. “I didn’t say it was suicidal… it’s the press and the astronauts who say it is suicidal. My brother thinks there is actually a good chance for success.”

  “So, I put my life in the hands of one person, who is certainly biased towards making this attempt.”

  “Paol, I would trust my brother with my life. I have talked to him at length about this, and I believe him—the mission can succeed.”

  “Why should I believe him?”

  “That’s what everyone said when he was looking for his parallel Earth. It’s what they said when he first discovered an object faster than the speed of light. Nobody believed him—but they were forced to in the end. Look, I’m not going to pressure you into this, but I think it would be an incredible opportunity to do something with your time instead of sitting in this cell. I might get you back to your family within the next couple of years instead of taking 13, but that all depends on if I can find the smoking gun that lands the right person in your place.”

  Warron Zimmer stopped there, as he realized that Paol was envelope
d in a flurry of thought. Weighing the options, his mind raced. He envisioned the scenarios—perhaps he would spend many long years in a prison cell, or maybe he would be returned to his family sooner than expected, or maybe he should invest the 13-year side trip to regain his life on his own terms, once and for all.

  “I’ll do it.”

  Zimmer was dumbstruck. “Don’t you want time to think about it?”

  “Warron, I didn’t get to where I am—” he stopped to look around. “—Or I should say, where I was—without waiting long enough for someone else to take the opportunities away from me. In business, I always acted fast, trusted my instincts, and more often than not, they served me well. My heart tells me that the world needs to know about this other place, so why should I sit here doing nothing, when I have the opportunity to do something more—much more.”

  “But there are no guarantees. You may not come back.”

  “Are you changing your mind on this, Warron? I thought you trusted your brother with your life. Besides you didn’t ask me just for kicks. You thought that it might just make sense.”

  Warron smiled.

  “So, I’ll do it, but under one condition.”

  The smile was erased. “What condition?”

  “I get to bring my cellmate with me.”

  “What?” Warron asked in amazement. “You want to bring a hardened criminal in a maximum security prison on the most dangerous undertaking of your life?”

  “Well, you just asked one person in that category to do this? Why do you think there are no others in here that could do the job? He is one of the most gifted people I’ve met—a real self-taught genius who has read up on every subject imaginable in the seven years he’s been here. Besides his intuition and quick thinking has preserved his and my health in this hell hole. And he has something in common with your brother. ”

  “What’s that?” Warron asked excitedly.

  “I would trust him with my life.”

  …