Jim Baen’s Universe

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Jim Baen’s Universe Page 5

by Edited by Eric Flint


  “So that’s why you we­ren’t…con­nec­ted?…when you got he­re.” She pur­sed her lips ap­pra­isingly.

  “Yeah. Ke­ep my op­ti­ons open, I fi­gu­red.”

  “Open for…?”

  For this- “ he swept a ru­eful, iro­nic hand in the air at his ima­gi­nary as­sets. For a co­ve­ted ap­po­in­t­ment, a he­ady way out of the gray pos­t­doc grind-an As­sis­tant Pro­fes­sor­s­hip at UC Ir­vi­ne, smack on the ab­surdly pri­cey, sun-ble­ac­hed co­ast of Oran­ge Co­unty. He had be­aten out over a hun­d­red ap­pli­cants. And why not? He was qu­ick, su­re, with fi­ne-ho­ned skills and go­od con­nec­ti­ons, plus a nar­row-eyed in­ten­sity a lot of wo­men fo­und da­un­ting, as if it whis­pe­red: ca­re­erist, be­wa­re. The ski­es had se­emed to open to him, for su­re…

  But that was then.

  He ga­ve her a crin­k­led smi­le, ru­eful, and yet he felt it har­de­ning. “I’m not qu­it­ting. Not now.”

  “Well, just think abo­ut it.” She stro­ked his arm slowly and her eyes we­re sad now. “That’s all I me­ant…”

  “Sure.” He knew the world she in­ha­bi­ted, had se­en her wor­king spre­ad­s­he­ets, re­ading bi­og­rap­hi­es of the fo­un­ding fat­hers and flip­ping thro­ugh bo­oks on “le­ader­s­hip,” se­eking clu­es abo­ut ri­sing in the bu­oyant at­mos­p­he­re of bu­si­ness.

  “Promise?” Oddly pla­in­ti­ve.

  He grin­ned wit­ho­ut mirth. “You know I will.” But her words had hurt him, all the sa­me. Mostly by slip­ping co­ol sli­vers of do­ubt in­to his own mind.

  ****

  Later that night, he lay in her bed and rep­la­yed the sce­ne. It now se­emed to de­fi­ne the day, des­pi­te Ire­ne’s stre­nu­o­us ef­forts.

  Damn, Ralph had tho­ught. Sco­oped!

  And by Andy La­ke­hurst, too. He had bit his lip and fo­cu­sed on the scre­en, whe­re he had just got­ten a freshly pos­ted pa­per off the Los Ala­mos lib­rary web si­te, as­t­ro-ph.

  The ra­dio map was of Ralph’s one cla­im to mi­nor fa­me, G369.23-0.82. The ac­tu­al ob­ser­va­ti­ons we­re stun­ning. Bril­li­ant, cle­ar, de­ta­iled. Bet­ter than his work.

  He had slam­med his fist on his disk, up­set­ting his cof­fee. “Damn!” Then he sop­ped up the spill-it had spat­te­red so­me of the prob­lem sets he’d gra­ding ear­li­er.

  Staring at the dow­n­lo­aded prep­rint, fu­ming, he saw that Andy and his te­am had got­ten re­al­ly de­ta­iled da­ta on the-on his-hot new obj­ect, G369.23-0.82. They must ha­ve used a lot of ob­ser­ving ti­me, and got­ten it pron­to.

  Where? His eyes ran down the usu­al Ob­ser­va­ti­ons sec­ti­on and- Are­ci­bo! He got ob­ser­ving ti­me the­re?

  That to­ok pull or el­se a lucky can­cel­la­ti­on. Are­ci­bo was the lar­gest dish in the world, a who­le sco­oped bowl set amid a tro­pi­cal tan­g­le, but fi­xed in po­si­ti­on. You had to wa­it for ti­me and then synchro­ni­ze with dis­hes aro­und the pla­net to ma­ke a map.

  And go­od ol’ ex-clas­sma­te Andy had do­ne it. Andy had a stra­ig­h­t­for­ward, no-non­sen­se man­ner to him, eased by a re­ady smi­le that got him thro­ugh do­ors and oc­ca­si­onal­ly in­to bed­ro­oms. May­be he had con­nec­ti­ons to Beth Con­way at Are­ci­bo?

  No, Ralph had tho­ught to him­self, that’s be­ne­ath me. He jum­ped on G369.23-0.82 and did the ob­vi­o­us next step, that’s all.

  Further, Andy was at Har­vard, and that hel­ped. Plenty. But it still gal­led. Ralph was still wa­iting to he­ar from Har­kin at the Very Lar­ge Ar­ray abo­ut squ­e­ezing in so­me ti­me the­re. Had be­en wa­iting for six we­eks, yes.

  And on top of it all, he then had his con­fe­ren­ce with the de­par­t­ment cha­ir­man in fi­ve mi­nu­tes. He glan­ced over Andy’s pa­per aga­in. It was ex­cel­lent work. Un­for­tu­na­tely.

  ****

  He sig­hed in the dark of Ire­ne’s apar­t­ment, re­cal­ling the cru­ci­al ho­ur with the de­par­t­ment cha­ir­man. This long day wo­uldn’t be do­ne un­til he had re­vi­ewed it, ap­pa­rently.

  ****

  He had star­ted with a fi­xed smi­le. Al­bert Gos­si­an was an avun­cu­lar sort, an old fas­hi­oned cha­ir­man who wo­re a su­it when he was do­ing of­fi­ci­al bu­si­ness. This un­con­s­ci­o­us sig­nal did not bo­de well. Gos­si­an ga­ve him a qu­ick, jowly smi­le and ges­tu­red Ralph in­to a se­at.

  “I’ve be­en lo­oking at yo­ur Cur­ri­cu­lum Vi­tae,” Gos­si­an sa­id. He al­ways used the full La­tin, whi­le ot­hers just sa­id “CV.” Slow sha­ke of he­ad. “You ne­ed to pub­lish mo­re, Ralph.”

  “My grant fun­ding’s kept up, I-“

  “Yes, yes, very ni­ce. The NSF is put­ting ef­fort in­to this fi­eld, most com­men­dab­le-“ a qu­ick glan­ce up from re­ading his no­tes, over the top of his glas­ses-“and that’s why the de­par­t­ment de­ci­ded to hi­re in this area. But - can you ke­ep the fun­ding?”

  “I’m two ye­ars in on the NSF grant, so next ye­ar’s man­da­tory re­vi­ew is the crunch.”

  “I’m happy to say yo­ur te­ac­hing ra­ting is high, and uni­ver­sity ser­vi­ce, but…” The drawn out vo­wels se­emed to be de­li­ve­ring a mes­sa­ge in­de­pen­dent of the ac­tu­al sen­ten­ces.

  All As­sis­tant Pro­fes­sors had a re­vi­ew every two ye­ars, trac­king the­ir prog­ress to­ward the Holy Gra­il of te­nu­re. Ralph had fol­lo­wed a tra­j­ec­tory typi­cal for the early cen­tury: six ye­ars to get his doc­to­ra­te, a pos­t­doc at Har­vard-whe­re Andy La­ke­hurst was the ri­sing star, ec­lip­sing him and a lot of ot­hers. Ralph got out of the­re af­ter a mu­tu­al­ly des­t­ruc­ti­ve af­fa­ir with a bi­olo­gist at Tufts, fle­e­ing as far as he co­uld when he saw that UC Ir­vi­ne was gro­wing fast and wan­ted as­t­rop­h­y­si­cists. UCI had a me­di­oc­re re­pu­ta­ti­on in par­tic­le the­ory, but Fred Re­ines had won a No­bel the­re for sho­wing that ne­ut­ri­nos exis­ted and using them to de­tect the spec­ta­cu­lar 1987 su­per­no­va.

  The plas­ma physics gro­up was ra­ted hig­hest in the de­par­t­ment and in­de­ed they pro­ved hel­p­ful when he ar­ri­ved. They un­der­s­to­od that 99% of the mass in the uni­ver­se was ro­as­ted, elec­t­rons strip­ped away from the nuc­lei-plas­ma. It was a hot, ro­ugh uni­ver­se. The big dra­mas pla­yed out the­re. Su­re, li­fe aro­se in the co­ol, calm pla­nets, but the big ac­ti­on fla­red in the­ir pla­cid ski­es, tel­ling sto­ri­es that awed him.

  But on­ce at UCI, he had lost mo­men­tum. In the tig­h­te­ning Fe­de­ral bud­gets, pro­po­sals didn’t get fun­ded, so he co­uld not add poc­t­docs to get so­me help and le­ve­ra­ge. His ca­re­ful­ly te­ased-out ob­ser­va­ti­ons ga­ve new in­sights only grud­gingly. Now fi­ve ye­ars along, he was three months short of the hard wall whe­re te­nu­re had to hap­pen, or be­ca­me im­pos­sib­le: the cu­toff ga­me.

  Were the gro­ves of aca­de­me best for him, re­al­ly? He li­ked the te­ac­hing, fell as­le­ep in the com­mit­tee me­etings, fo­und the aca­de­mic cant and pa­per­work bo­ring. Li­fe’s su­re ero­si­ons…

  Studying fast-mo­ving ne­ut­ron stars had be­en fas­hi­onab­le a few ye­ars back, but in Gos­si­an’s ca­re­ful phra­sings he he­ard no­tes of skep­ti­cism. To the Cha­ir­man fell the task of con­ve­ying the se­ni­or fa­culty’s sen­ti­ments.

  Gossian se­emed to sa­vor the mo­ment. “This fast-star fad-well, it is fa­ding, so­me of yo­ur col­le­agu­es think.”

  He bit his lip. Don’t show an­ger. “It’s not a ‘fad’-it’s a set of dis­co­ve­ri­es.”

  “But whe­re do they le­ad?”

  “Too early to tell. We think they’re ej­ec­ted from su­per­no­va events, but may­be that’s just the le­ast ima­gi­na­ti­ve op­ti­on.”

  “One of the no­tes he­re says the
first ‘ru­na­way pul­sar’, cal­led the Mo­use, is now well un­der­s­to­od. The ot­her, re­cent ones will pro­bably fol­low the sa­me co­ur­se.”

  “Too early to tell,” Ralph per­sis­ted. “The fi­eld ne­eds ti­me-“

  “But you do not ha­ve ti­me.”

  There was the crux of it. Ralph was fal­ling be­hind in pa­per co­unt. Even in the small ‘ru­na­way pul­sar’ fi­eld, he was out­c­las­sed by ot­hers with mo­re re­so­ur­ces, bet­ter com­pu­ters, mo­re ti­me. Ca­li­for­nia was in a per­pe­tu­al bud­get cri­sis, uni­ver­sity re­so­ur­ces we­re dec­li­ning, so pres­su­re was on to Bring In the (Fe­de­ral) Bucks. Ralph’s small prog­ram sup­por­ted two gra­du­ate stu­dents, su­re, but that was small po­ta­to­es.

  “I’ll ta­ke this un­der ad­vi­se­ment,” Ralph sa­id. The ut­terly bland phra­se did not­hing to help his ca­use, as was cle­ar from the cha­ir­man’s fa­ce-but it got him out of that of­fi­ce.

  ****

  He did not get much sle­ep that night. Ire­ne had to le­ave early and he got a do­ub­le cof­fee on the way in­to his of­fi­ce. Then he re­ad Andy’s pa­per ca­re­ful­ly and tho­ught, sip­ping.

  Few as­t­ro­no­mers had ex­pec­ted to find so many ru­na­way ne­ut­ron stars.

  Their li­kely ori­gin be­gan with two yo­ung, big stars, born cir­c­ling one anot­her. One went su­per­no­va, le­aving a ne­ut­ron star still in or­bit. La­ter, its com­pa­ni­on went off, too, spit­ting the ol­der ne­ut­ron star out, free in­to in­ter­s­tel­lar spa­ce.

  Ralph had be­gun his UCI work by ma­king pa­in­s­ta­king maps in the mic­ro­wa­ve fre­qu­ency ran­ge. This to­ok many ob­ser­ving runs on the big ra­dio an­ten­nas, get­ting dish ti­me whe­re he co­uld aro­und the world. In the­se maps he fo­und his first can­di­da­te, G369.23-0.82. It ap­pe­ared as a fa­int fin­ger in maps cen­te­red on the pla­ne of the ga­laxy, just a dim scratch. A tight knot with a fuzzy ta­il.

  He had fo­und it with sof­t­wa­re that se­ar­c­hed the maps, lo­oking for an­y­t­hing that was much lon­ger than it was wi­de. This ret­ri­eved qu­ite a few of the jets that zo­omed out of re­gi­ons ne­ar black ho­les, and so­me­ti­mes from the disks or­bi­ting yo­ung stars. He spent months eli­mi­na­ting the­se fal­se sig­na­tu­res, lo­oking for the tel­lta­les of com­pact stel­lar ru­na­ways. He then got ti­me on the Very Lar­ge Ar­ray-not much, but eno­ugh to pull G369.23-0.82 out of the no­ise a bit bet­ter. This was qu­ite sa­tis­f­ying.

  Ralph got mo­re cof­fee and went back and stu­di­ed his pa­per, pub­lis­hed less than half a ye­ar ago. Un­til to­day, that was the best da­ta an­y­body had. He had lo­oked for signs of ro­ta­ti­on in the po­int-li­ke blob in front, but the­re we­re no­ne. The first ru­na­way se­en, the Mo­use, dis­co­ve­red many ye­ars be­fo­re, was fi­nal­ly shown to be a ro­ta­ting ne­ut­ron star-a pul­sar, be­eping its right ra­dio be­ams out at the cup­ped ears of ra­dio te­les­co­pes.

  Then he com­pa­red in de­ta­il with Andy’s new map:

  Clean, smo­oth, be­a­uti­ful. He re­ad the Con­c­lu­si­ons sec­ti­on over aga­in, mind jit­tery and ra­cing.

  We thus fa­il to con­firm that G369.23-0.82 is a pul­sar. Cle­arly it has a bow shock, cre­ating a wind ne­bu­la, un­do­ub­tedly po­we­red by a ne­ut­ron star. Yet at hig­hest sen­si­ti­vity the­re is no tra­ce of a pul­sed sig­nal in mic­ro­wa­ves or op­ti­cal, wit­hin the usu­al ran­ge of pul­sar pe­ri­ods. The ne­bu­lar bow shock co­ne an­g­le im­p­li­es that G369.23-0.82 is mo­ving with a Mach num­ber of abo­ut 80, sug­ges­ting a spa­ce ve­lo­city 120 km/s thro­ugh a lo­cal gas of den­sity 0.3 per cu­bic cm. We use the dis­tan­ce es­ti­ma­te of Eilek et.al. for the obj­ect, which is hal­f­way ac­ross the ga­laxy. The­se dyna­mics and lu­mi­no­sity are con­sis­tent with a dis­tant ne­ut­ron star mo­ving at a ve­lo­city dri­ven by ej­ec­ti­on from a su­per­no­va. If it is a pul­sar, it is not be­aming in our di­rec­ti­on.

  Beautiful work. Alas.

  The bright re­gi­on bla­zed forth, mic­ro­wa­ve emis­si­on from high energy elec­t­rons. The in­ner­most cir­c­le was not the ne­ut­ron star, just the un­re­sol­ved zo­ne too small for even Are­ci­bo to see. At the pre­su­med dis­tan­ce, that cir­c­le was still big­ger than a so­lar system. The bow shock was a per­fect, smo­oth cur­ve. Be­hind that ca­me the mic­ro­wa­ve emis­si­on of gas dri­ven back, he­ated and ca­ught up in what wo­uld be­co­me the wa­ke. At the co­re was so­met­hing that co­uld sho­ve asi­de the in­ter­s­tel­lar gas with bru­te mo­men­tum. A who­le star, squ­e­ezed by gra­vity in­to a ball abo­ut as big as the San Fran­cis­co Bay area.

  But how had Andy got­ten such fi­ne re­so­lu­ti­on?

  Ralph wor­ked thro­ugh the num­bers and fo­und that this la­test map had pic­ked up much mo­re sig­nal than his ear­li­er work. The obj­ect was brig­h­ter. Why? May­be it was me­eting den­ser gas, so had mo­re ra­di­ating elec­t­rons to work with?

  For a mo­ment he just ga­zed at the be­a­uty of it. He ne­ver lost his sen­se of awe at such won­ders. That hel­ped a bit to co­ol his dis­g­run­t­le­ment. Just a bit.

  ****

  The­re wasn’t much ti­me bet­we­en Andy’s pa­per pop­ping up on the as­t­ro-ph web si­te and his big spring trip. Be­fo­re le­aving, he ret­ra­ced his da­ta and got ahe­ad on his te­ac­hing.

  He and Ire­ne fi­nes­sed the­ir prob­lems, or at le­ast de­la­yed them. He got thro­ugh a we­ek of clas­ses, put in da­ta-pro­ces­sing ti­me with his three gra­du­ate stu­dents, and fo­und not­hing new in the ra­dio maps they wor­ked on.

  Then ca­me the­ir big, long-plan­ned ex­cur­si­on… Ire­ne was ex­ci­ted, but he now dre­aded it.

  His star­tup mo­ney had so­me tra­vel funds left in it, and he had ma­de the mis­ta­ke of men­ti­oning this to Ire­ne. She jum­ped at the chan­ce, even tho­ugh it was a sci­en­ti­fic con­fe­ren­ce in a small town-“But it’s in Fran­ce,” she sa­id, with a to­uch of ro­und-eyed won­der her fo­und en­de­aring.

  So off they jet­ted to the In­ter­na­ti­onal As­t­ro­no­mi­cal Uni­on me­eting in Bri­an­con, a ple­asant col­lec­ti­on of sto­ne bu­il­dings clin­ging to the French Alps. Off se­ason, cro­uc­hing be­ne­ath sharp snowy pe­aks in la­te May, it was char­ming and un­c­row­ded and its de­lights went lar­gely ig­no­red by the as­t­ro­no­mers. So­me of the at­ten­de­es went on hi­kes in the af­ter­no­on but Ralph sta­yed in town, tal­king, net­wor­king li­ke the am­bi­ti­o­us wor­ka­ho­lic he was. Ire­ne went shop­ping.

  The shops we­re fe­atu­ring what she cal­led the Hot New Skanky Lo­ok, which she sho­wed off for him in the­ir cram­ped ho­tel ro­om that eve­ning. She flo­un­ced aro­und in an off-the-sho­ul­der pink blo­use, ar­t­ful­ly sho­wing un­der­we­ar and straps. Skanky cer­ta­inly ca­ught the fla­vor, but still he was dis­t­rac­ted.

  In the­ir cram­ped ho­tel ro­om, jet-lag­ged, she used so­me of her fir­st-da­te skills, over­co­ming his dis­tan­ce. That way he got so­me sle­ep a few ho­urs la­ter. Go­od ho­urs, they we­re.

  The mor­ning ses­si­on was in­te­res­ting, the af­ter­no­on a lit­tle slow. Ire­ne did sit in on so­me pa­pers. He co­uldn’t tell if she was in­te­res­ted in the sci­en­ce it­self, or just be­ca­use it was part of his li­fe. She las­ted a few ho­urs and went shop­ping aga­in, sa­ying, “It’s my way of un­der­s­tan­ding the­ir cul­tu­re.”

  The con­fe­ren­ce put on a la­te af­ter­no­on to­ur of the vast, thick-wal­led cas­t­les that lo­omed at every sharp pe­ak. At the ban­qu­et in­si­de one of the cold, ec­ho­ing for­t­res­ses they we­re tre­ated to lo­cal spe­ci­al­ti­es, a spicy po­len­ta and fresh-ca­ught tro­ut. Ire­ne sur­ve­yed the crowd, half of them still we­aring shorts and T shirts, and re­mar­ke
d, “Y’know, this is a qu­irky pro­fes­si­on. A who­le ro­om of ter­ribly smart pe­op­le, and it ne­ver oc­cur­red to them to try to get by on the­ir lo­oks.”

  He la­ug­hed; she had a po­int. She was a but­terfly among the as­t­ro-dro­nes, tur­ning he­ads, smi­les blos­so­ming in her wa­ke. He felt en­han­ced to ha­ve her on his arm. Or may­be it was the wi­ne, a Vin Lo­cal red that went stra­ight to his he­ad, with so­me help from the two ki­lo­me­ter al­ti­tu­de.

  They mil­led aro­und the high, ar­c­hed re­cep­ti­on ro­om af­ter the des­sert. The crowd of over 200 was too ener­gi­zed to go off to bed, so they had mo­re wi­ne. Ralph ca­ught sight of Andy La­ke­hurst then. Ire­ne no­ted his lo­ok and sa­id, “Uh oh.”

  “Hey, he’s an old fri­end.”

  “Oh? You’re gla­ring at him.”

  “Okay, let’s say the­re’s so­me lef­to­ver bag­ga­ge.”

  She ga­ve him a ve­iled lo­ok, yaw­ned, and sa­id. “I’ll wan­der off to the ro­om, let you boys play.”

  Ralph nod­ded, ba­rely lis­te­ning. He eaves­d­rop­ped ca­re­ful­ly to the crowd gat­he­red aro­und Andy. Lanky and with bro­ad sho­ul­ders, the man’s bo­oming vo­ice car­ri­ed well, over the he­ads of just abo­ut ever­y­body in the ro­om. Andy was go­ing on abo­ut go­od ol’ G369.23-0.82. Ralph ed­ged clo­ser.

  “- I fi­gu­re may­be anot­her, lon­ger lo­ok at it, at G-“

  “The Bul­let,” Ralph bro­ke in.

  “What?” Andy had a high fo­re­he­ad and it wrin­k­led as he stop­ped in mid-sen­ten­ce.

  “It lo­oks li­ke a bul­let, why not call it that, in­s­te­ad of that long co­de?”

  “Well,” Andy be­gan brightly, “pe­op­le might mis­ta­ke-“

  “There’s even the smo­ke tra­iling be­hind it, the wa­ke” Ralph sa­id, grin­ning. “Use that, if you want it to get in­to Sci­en­ti­fic Ame­ri­can.”

 

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