The Hole

by Brandon Q Morris

  Maria hurried to get out in front of it, using her oxygen tank for additional thrust. This made her tumble a bit, but that was okay. She passed the machine while being upside-down. Lucky for her, she never experienced nausea in such situations.

  There was a magnetic platform in front of her. Her feet slid across the metal, but she reacted too slowly and did not latch on. The next one was five meters away. Don’t panic, Maria, you are going to reach it, she reassured herself. Was the machine already taking off? No, so far it was not lost yet.

  This time Maria managed to anchor herself to the asteroid. The black monster was coming toward her. It seemed overwhelming, but she had to remain calm. It was her own strength that had accelerated this machine, so her strength would be sufficient to stop it again.

  “Three, two, one,” she counted. Her gloves hit the cold metal, and Maria pushed against it with full force. The machine threatened to squash her, but she would not allow that to happen. She was stronger—she had to be stronger. Maria heard the light hissing of the life-support system, and sweat ran down her forehead. Finally the machine stopped. She carefully leaned against it and took a deep breath.

  “Great work,” Watson said five minutes later.

  “Thanks for the suggestion,” she replied. Maria felt like she had been hit by a bus, but she had ultimately defeated the machine. She opened the control console and pushed the reset button. Now the machine would communicate with its siblings and find a new position where it and its drill were needed. A warning signal peeped inside her helmet, indicating that the machine was now moving away from her. Maria let go of the metal so it could move freely.

  “And, how was your day?” Doug asked during dinner.

  “One of the drill robots got stuck,” she answered.

  “Really? So it was a routine job.”

  “Yes, routine.”

  She was not in the mood for listening to Doug’s clever, after-the-fact advice. And now she and Watson possessed their first secret.

  January 19, 2072, Pico del Teide

  “Dr. Zetschewitz, I need—”

  “The name is Dieter. We decided on a first-name basis, Maribel.” No, you decided that. Could you let me finish my sentence? It was already hard enough for Maribel to ask this smug asshole for help, but she could not move forward without him. Thanks to his influence, she received the very latest data astronomers all over the world had been collecting. But that thing, that ‘aberration,’ proved stubborn. It did not disappear, and not just that, it was also coming closer. There had to be something up there.

  Zetschewitz was looking at his monitor and typing.

  “Dieter, I need your help,” Maribel said.

  Her boss finally turned around to face her with a stern look. “Oh, really?” He uttered only those two words, but the patronizing undertone angered her. She would have liked to end the conversation—or to get up and slap him across the face. Normally Maribel did not have such violent fantasies.

  “I fed the latest data into the model—” she began.

  Zetschewitz interrupted, “Which data you received thanks to my intervention...”

  Yes, and do you want me to kneel down in front of you and beg? she thought, getting angry, but instead continuing defiantly, “Which—yes—I received thanks to your intervention, but the aberration is still there. And in addition, it is moving toward the solar system.”

  “Could it possibly be an illusory movement caused by using more exact data now?” her boss asked.

  “No, the shift is already larger than the error margin of the very first calculation,” Maribel added.

  “That is... interesting,” Zetschewitz said. The expression on his face changed noticeably. The tense, squinty look disappeared, and his eyes seemed to get larger. Is he getting curious?

  “I was also able to determine the mass more precisely,” she said hesitantly, knowing her boss would not like this.

  “And? Come on, tell me!” he insisted.

  “The mass of Jupiter?” Maribel hated herself for making it sound like a question. Without doubt this thing weighed as much as the gas giant Jupiter. She was just questioning herself.

  “Are you absolutely sure, or is this some kind of gut feeling?” Now Zetschewitz sounded as arrogant as ever, having put air quotes around ‘gut feeling.’

  “The error margin lies at plus or minus thirty percent,” Maribel said. “Therefore the object’s weight is 0.7 to 1.3 times as much as Jupiter.”

  “That is a lot,” he said. “We should be able to see an object like that.”

  “My thoughts, exactly,” she answered, “but at that point I reach certain limits.”

  “Yes, obviously,” her boss said in a neutral tone of voice. “We need observation time. Let me take care of it. What would you consider the best option?”

  “Maybe about half an hour with the Telescopio Carlos Sánchez?” Maribel said.

  “That old thing?” Zetschewitz laughed. “Nice joke, Maribel. No, I thought of either the James Webb Space Telescope or of ESO’s OWL in the Atacama desert.”

  “You think you can get access to them?”

  “Most certainly!”

  As far as the James Webb Space Telescope was concerned, Maribel could almost imagine Zetschewitz getting his wish. They might, however, need to wait a few weeks for a timeslot on the NASA space telescope, which had been in use for fifty years and was completely outdated. Its successor, the Einstein Telescope, was supposed to have been launched a long time ago. Despite the delay, the James Webb still produced good images without interference by Earth’s atmosphere.

  However, the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope, or OWL, was brand-new—the European Southern Observatory, ESO, had inaugurated it just two years ago. Astronomers placed enormous hopes on the OWL’s main reflector with its diameter of 100 meters, and because of the demand, the wait list normally extended to years.

  “I am afraid we don’t have enough time to wait for the OWL,” Maribel said, her voice hinting at her disappointment.

  “So you would also prefer the OWL, do I understand you correctly?” Zetschewitz asked.

  She nodded, but her expression indicated that even trying for it would be a waste of time.

  “Because I agree. Good,” he said. For a moment she wondered whether he was acknowledging her ‘waste of time’ body language, but his next question made it all clear.

  “What’s our time difference with Chile?”

  “Computer, what is the current time in Chile?” asked Maribel.

  “The time zone difference is four hours. Right now, however, daylight savings time is in effect in Chile, so it is three hours earlier there,” the synthetic voice replied.

  Zetschewitz looked at the old-fashioned watch on his left wrist. “That’s good, because Pedro is usually the first to show up in the office. It is a few minutes before eleven here. If I am lucky, I can catch him before the team meeting.”

  Maribel was not sure what her boss was talking about. Was he going to call there?

  “Computer, establish connection with Pedro Gómez Pérez,” Zetschewitz said out loud.

  “Person found in your contact list,” the computer voice replied. “Establishing connection.” At the same time, the light in the room was automatically dimmed. One and a half minutes later, the image of an office appeared on the wall. It looked a lot like theirs.

  “Good morning, Pedro,” Zetschewitz said, even though at the moment only an empty desk was visible. Then an elderly man with thinning hair walked into the picture, and he waved at them.

  “Good morning, Tenerife!” he said.

  “Pedro, may I introduce my colleague, Maribel Pedreira?” Zetschewitz said.

  “Buenos días!” Gómez Pérez greeted Maribel in Spanish, and she dutifully returned the greeting.

  The man did not have to introduce himself, and he obviously knew this. Two years ago Pedro Gómez Pérez was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, and Maribel recognized his face from the media. The older man seemed
quite vigorous for his age, which must have been past 70. Most of all, Gómez Pérez had a friendly and genuine smile, which was a real relief after being around a sourpuss like Zetschewitz all the time.

  “You looked stressed, Maribel,” the researcher said. “Does Dieter aggravate you that much? Is he giving you hell?” Gómez Pérez laughed, showing his bright teeth. Maribel did not know what to say.

  “I understand,” the older scientist continued. “You don’t have to answer me. I know Dieter quite well. He was one of my doctoral students. So, how can I help you? Our team meeting is about to start.”

  “Pedro, we need half an hour with the OWL,” Zetschewitz said. “Well, let’s say an hour, with preparation and post-processing.”

  Gómez Pérez looked surprised.

  “What are you planning to do, Dieter?” he asked.

  “I am sorry, but I cannot tell you quite yet,” Zetschewitz replied.

  It’s all over now, Maribel thought. Gómez Pérez would never agree under these circumstances.

  “Sure,” the man from Chile said. Gómez Pérez turned around, typed something into a monitor screen and looked at the result. “Day after tomorrow,” he announced. “But you will have to get up early—two o’clock CLST. I will reserve the time for you and give you remote access. Do you need any special filters?”

  “Do we need any special filters?” Zetschewitz asked Maribel in turn. She shook her head.

  “We won’t need any,” her boss said.

  “Great, but I’ve got to go now,” Gómez Pérez said.

  “Thank you so much, Pedro. I owe you one,” Zetschewitz said.

  “I already have an idea what I want,” the astronomer in Chile said, waggling his eyebrows half-menacingly and half-jokingly. Then he walked out of his office and disappeared from the image. The connection was cancelled.

  “Does this solve your problem?” Zetschewitz asked. With sincere effort, she could almost detect a smile on his face.

  “I think so,” Maribel replied.

  “Good. Then you can focus on my galaxies again until the day after tomorrow.”

  January 21, 2072, Pico del Teide

  To make sure she would not oversleep—or arrive late for any other reason—Maribel took a room for one night at the observatory’s hostel. Zetschewitz had refused to authorize the Institute to pay the more than 100 euros cost for the room, so she dipped into her personal funds. It was worth the expense to her, because the risk of missing this unique opportunity had seemed too great. Also, because she wanted to be well-rested for this project, using the sleeping bag was out of the question. In retrospect, her decision to stay overnight at the hostel proved astute. Snow was falling heavily when she walked from the hostel building to the OGS2. If she had driven from home, she might have gotten stuck. When she reached the office, melting snow still clung to her jacket. A few wet flakes and water droplets flew off when she gave it a shake before hanging it up.

  Zetschewitz himself would not be there. He would not bother to get up so early just for an hour of access! Therefore, Maribel was all alone. Thanks to lots of practice in graduate school, she knew the basics of how to operate a telescope by remote control. The difference this time, though, was that she had never handled a device worth several billion dollars. While she could not break anything via remote control, as the OWL’s automatic system prevented this from occurring, she still felt an enormous responsibility.

  Maribel looked at the clock and saw it was 4:48 a.m. Just seeing the numbers made her yawn. She launched the connection, and the other side in the Chilean desert replied at once, after the initial countdown had been displayed. The weather conditions she saw listed on the monitor screen were perfect. Maribel imagined the countless stars in the darkness. One of the astronomers in Chile who had been working there before her timeslot must have moved the hall’s 220-meters-high cover to the side. She checked her data one more time—was it the seventeenth time? Or the eighteenth? This was the position where she had to aim OWL. If the most powerful telescope on Earth could not see anything there, then nothing existed at that location.

  “Taking over remote control,” Maribel’s computer reported. She saw innumerable switches and menus on her screen. What she was handling was definitely not a toy, but luckily for her the software was somewhat standardized. It took Maribel about five minutes to enter the desired location. A few thousand kilometers away from her, machinery weighing 15,000 tons started to move. The main mirror itself, with its diameter of 100 meters, consisted of 3,048 segments that had to be individually aimed at the position she entered.

  The focusing procedure took another ten minutes or so, and after the software reported its completion, Maribel started the recording. Photons, light particles emitted by the object she was looking for, would hit the gigantic area of the main reflector. There they were bundled and reflected to the secondary mirror, which was 30 meters wide. From there the collected photons moved at the speed of light via an optical correction system that accounted for the influence of Earth’s atmosphere, arriving at the collection element where they were recorded. Here Maribel could examine the colors of the photons—meaning the spectrum of the object—but she was not interested in that. She was looking for a single answer: Did something exist there—or not?

  For about half an hour, she controlled the sharpest eye owned by humanity. It was an exhilarating feeling, one that, all by itself, made having gone through grad school worthwhile. However, Maribel did not get the results at once. Astronomers no longer stood at the telescope with an eye pressed to the eyepiece. Instead, the electronic system collected, corrected, and analyzed data, so she could be totally sure of the end result. Maribel became more nervous with each passing minute. Couldn’t the software at least spit out a preliminary result? I have to act more like a professional, she thought. A good astronomer is patient.

  Maribel now understood why she preferred specializing in astrophysics, an area where she could determine how quickly things were done. She looked at the clock. Another thirteen minutes. How else could she distract herself? She had not known that, early in his career, her boss had been a doctoral student of Gómez Pérez. Obviously Zetschewitz had behaved in an arrogant fashion even back then, but it did not seem to have put a dent in his career. In science, it appeared that a certain degree of being an asshole—assholeness—was acceptable. Maribel laughed about the term. On a scale of 1 to 10, Zetschewitz would certainly receive a 9. Maybe she should copy him in certain ways? No, that would mean pretending, which she really did not like.

  “Analysis complete,” her computer reported. Finally! With trembling hands, Maribel entered the command to transfer and display the results. The minutes stretched on painfully, while the download indicator bar moved to the right.

  Then there was a short ping, and a simple text file with values opened. She herself was responsible for interpreting them. Maribel’s eyes went through the list, line by line. She was so excited she grabbed her chair with both hands. The result almost knocked her out and made her heart beat faster. OWL, the best telescope ever built by mankind, looked at the location of the aberration and found—nothing.

  Three hours later her office door opened. It was her boss. Maribel sat, or rather almost lay in her chair. She still had not managed to come to terms with this result. It just could not be true.

  Zetschewitz looked at her. One did not have to be a good judge of people to notice what state she was in.

  “Nothing?” he simply asked.

  Maribel nodded slightly, which she barely managed to do. At that moment she absolutely could not speak. She had to be very careful not to break into tears. Crying in front of Zetschewitz—that was all she needed!

  “You look like you are about to cry,” her boss said sarcastically.

  Thanks, you idiot, Maribel thought. If you were trying to get me to shed tears in front of you, you just blew it with that sentence. No way, now. She remained silent.

  “To be honest, I expected something like this,�
� he said, looking at her as if waiting for a reaction.

  What was Maribel supposed to say? Of course he had obviously known it all along.

  “I don’t want to sound like a know-it-all,” Zetschewitz finally said, “but it was so apparent. Did you really believe something this heavy could be flying around near the solar system, without anyone noticing it?”

  “Why OWL?” Two words were all Maribel managed to utter right now.

  “Why did I get you observation time at OWL?” her boss asked. “You know, I like you. I like to support up-and-coming talents. Furthermore, I thought you could better focus on your actual work after this distraction was eliminated once and for all. If OWL doesn’t see anything...”

  Then nothing existed there. On the one hand that was obvious. On the other hand Maribel would absolutely vouch for her calculations. There had to be something there.

  “The calculations arrived at by the supercomputer—” she started.

  “...are worthless data,” Zetschewitz interrupted her. “They are based on a method which so far has never generated real insights.”

  “Yet you want to use it for your study of galactic dynamics,” she said and secretly rejoiced, since her boss could not simply brush off this argument.

  “Girl, you see, there are models—meaning mathematical procedures—which are averse to certain inputs, so to speak. Anyone would know this,” he began. “If you have a division in a formula and then put zero for the denominator, you won’t get a meaningful result. That’s probably what happened to you here. But it does not mean it would come out the same when applied to galaxy dynamics. You should know that better than I do!”