THE CAMBRIDGE ANNEX: THE TRILOGY

by Peter Damon

  “Some, but not much,” Stanley told him, cutting through Samuel’s thoughts. “The Prime Minister wants the inaugural meeting of the committee to be held on the ARC. He’ll chair it personally,” Stanley explained.

  “And he doesn’t want the children around his feet when he meets with fellow statesmen,” Samuel assumed.

  “He was thinking of a parade of the SUVs down the Mall before ascending into space. He thought a picture of them over Buckingham Palace would be a nice contrast to that picture of one hovering menacingly over the White House.

  “Would it take much to train him in how to use the Range Rover?” he asked.

  “I’ll find out for you,” Samuel agreed, taking more notes, his face turned to hide his expression.

  +++++++++++++

  David and Thomas Howard sat in their suite and listened to the Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University repeat the assurances he’d received from the Prime Minister himself.

  The boys would be in complete charge of a new department set up within, but separate from, the Ministry of Defence. An unlimited research budget and an initial team of 30 research staff, six figure salaries, bonuses, a pool of cars normally reserved for senior foreign office use were among the incentives offered. Nothing would be too much for the lads who had discovered the means to harness gravity.

  “So, any questions boys?” Sir Richard Phillips asked.

  The boys shook their heads. They understood all too well. And if their eyes betrayed them, that was as nothing when compared to the Vice Chancellor’s expression.

  “What are we going to do?” Thomas asked his brother quietly, sombrely, after the call had ended.

  David shrugged. “I can’t see that there’s much we can do,” he admitted.

  “Michael?”

  “Is suffering some form of mental illness,” David pointed out, not at all certain what that meant.

  Thomas gnawed at his lower lip as he tried thinking of an alternative to the Vice –Chancellor’s view of their future. Truth was, neither of the twins had much experience of life outside of academia. Left to their own devices, they would have long since perished at one of their monitors, far too involved with learning, comprehending and discovering for them to have considered food, or any of the other basic human needs. There had always been someone around to take care of them, if not one of their parents, now sadly deceased, then a tutor, or the wife of. Elder women often gravitated towards them, in a purely maternal way. Now, with Michael indisposed, they couldn’t see past the single offer being made by the Vice Chancellor of the Cambridge University.

  “I was thinking of Gravitons again,” David told his brother, preferring to return to things over which they had some control. He wrote an equation down for his brother to look at.

  “Wow. Let’s go share this with Don,” Thomas agreed, in total harmony with his brother.

  +++++++++++++

  “How is he?” Samuel asked of Gail, nodding a greeting towards Heather who sat nearby, watching her partner sleeping restlessly in the next room through one of the many monitors.

  “Asleep at the moment,” Gail answered. “She won’t let him see any of the psychologists,” she whispered to him.

  “She’s still got her head screwed on then,” he said, smiling with forced humour.

  “Samuel! I thought you more aware of the power of the mind,” Gail chastened him.

  “I am, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m for having strangers probe into someone’s Id.”

  “You permit doctors to peer at you,” Gail challenged.

  “Only once I’ve got to know the doctor,” Samuel explained. “I know mental illness is difficult to judge, but have you any ideas how long his recovery may take?” he asked.

  “Without him talking to someone?” Gail qualified.

  “Stop it!” Heather interrupted them.

  “Heather. We need him,” Samuel explained.

  Michael was stirring and the movement divided Heather’s attention. His movements made Michael appear all the more defenceless. It tore at her to see him that way, and she recalled walking to the police station with him. The whole world must have felt against him at that moment, and yet he’d been strong enough to sit for hours in a police cell pretending boredom, pretending nothing monumental hung in the balance while all along, three students prepared six satellites for launching from a car park in Germany, and just a handful of others prepared a container ship for launching into outer-space.

  “You talk to him then, will you?” she begged.

  “Me?”Samuel asked.

  “Just talk, Samuel. He needs someone,” Gail pressed.

  Samuel looked across towards Heather and softly sighed. She looked so forlorn, so lost without Michael smiling at her side.

  “I’ll see what I can do, but I make no promises,” he warned.

  +++++++++++++

  “I brought you a cup of tea,” Samuel said while Michael blinked and pulled himself up slightly.

  “Where’s Heather,” he asked nervously.

  “Asleep next door,” Samuel told him. Or would be when the sedative in her tea go to work. “You can get up and check, if you want,” Samuel told him. “She’s just outside the door,” he offered.

  Michael looked nervously towards the door, his hands gripping the bedcovers as if prepared to lift them like a shield between him and whatever else was outside, waiting for him just beyond the doors. There were things outside the door he clearly didn’t want to see, to know about or face up to.

  “It’s a bit quiet out there at the moment,” Samuel explained as he took the comfortable chair beside the bed and sipped from his own cup. “So I thought I would come in, keep you company and perhaps find out a little about how all this started.”

  “A fool’s errand,” Michael told him, his efforts to watch Samuel diverting him from whatever was outside. “I told Rolle that right from the beginning,” he explained.

  “But you got involved, nonetheless,” Samuel said.

  “I like puzzles,” Michael admitted, and cautiously sipped his tea before drinking with more relish.

  “The story has it that you gave up everything for this,” Samuel said.

  “Huh! Wasn’t much to give up,” Michael recalled, and began taking of his life before Rolle intervened.

  +++++++++++++

  “This is an Apollos asteroid, meaning that it has a semi-major axis of more than one Astronomical Unit and crosses earth’s orbit,” Allan explained to the small group he and Matt had pulled together, stopping when Frankie put up his hand.

  “It’s an asteroid then, and not a comet?” he enquired.

  “That’s right. Comets have much more ice than rock. Most comets, unless extinct from having lost their ice, have a gaseous tail caused by it melting under the light of the sun.

  “This is an Asteroid, perhaps better termed a Near Earth Object. NASA has categorised it as a Potentially Hazardous Object because of its size; 500 metre diameter, and its projected path across that of earth’s orbit. It was last seen 15 years ago, but it’s largely believed to be made up of rock. There is some ice on it, on the side away from the sun, but not very much. NASA believe it weighs about 1 billion tonnes, but this is a guesstimate based on its albedo; the nature or frequency of the light it’s reflecting,” Allan explained.

  “You can tell what it’s made of by its reflected light?” Frankie asked.

  Matt nodded. “Sure. Think about it. Ice gives off a lot more reflected light than say, forest or plants would. “Well, scientists have got it down to a fine art. We can now tell if something is wet or dry, and what it’s composed of, on the surface, just by analysing the radiation coming off of it.”

  “And you want us to catch it, somehow,” Frankie asked, looking at its picture on the far monitor, an indistinct and featureless rock, not a ball and not quite an egg shape either. In fact, there was no uniformity in the piece of rock at all. Loosely speaking, very loosely speaking Frankie thought, it resembled a deflated r
ugby ball with a few added dents in it.

  “Map it externally, learn its internal geology. If you’re able, capture it and steer it into a high earth orbit,” Allan agreed.

  The door opened and Joyce Davers walked in. More experienced in outer-space than the students who had risen with her just weeks previously, her inclusion in the team that had gone to Mars had given her a new confidence, and the way she walked while wearing her spacesuit proclaimed this to all who knew the difference.

  “I’ve loaded the ferry’s systems with the asteroid’s path and have it running a matching course for when we’re ready to leave,” she explained.

  Ricky, a fellow student from the recent intake of 100, and the other student who’d been privileged to go to Mars with Frankie and Matt, smiled and looked away.

  “We?” Frankie murmured, his voice low and threatening.

  “It’s travelling at just over 29 thousand kilometres an hour relative to earth,” she explained, glancing at everyone but Frankie. “So we should plan to put the ferry in front of it, and then take more detailed readings as it approaches us,” she suggested, and only then looked towards the leading spaceman, begging him with her eyes to let her accompany them.

  “Freedom One,” he told her, and when she looked perplexed, added; “the ferry. The ferry you are going to be working in, is called Freedom One,” he explained for her benefit.

  “Thank you,” she told him, grinning brightly.

  “Maddy, Brendan, you’ll run the lead SUV. Matt and I will run the second, if we need more than one. Ricky will take the helm, Joyce will provide directions and the tea. Jerry has some experience with drilling, so he’ll get us the equipment we need, make sure it works in space and come along for the ride. Peter will be on board to do the laser mapping, and Paul will come along as our doctor, just in case. Any questions?” he asked.

  “Right then; we leave late tomorrow. Let’s get prepared.”

  +++++++++++++

  The ARC’s main meeting room, the one with a glass wall that looked into the control-room, was close to full, 18 professors sitting or standing about the main table, congregating about the refreshment table at the side of the room to wait their turn to get a cup of tea or coffee. Their conversations were focused on what Samuel might want of them, and what could be serious enough to break into their research and overall tutoring of the very specially gifted students on the ARC.

  They seldom met as a whole group, too preoccupied with their own subjects, the endeavours of their students, and the progress of that paper, article, book they had to write, to be able to look up and chat, just for the sake of chatting. So, throwing off the cowls of their self-imposed labours, they were boisterous and good humoured. They were the elite of their profession, developing the knowledge and skills of the elite within the university and the ARC was providing a platform that enthused everybody.

  Samuel arrived a little late and made his apologies as he strode to the head of the room and thanked them for attending. “As you may be aware, the United Nations voted to have a committee of nations approve all activity in outer-space. This new treaty, signed by many of the United Nation countries, adversely affects the ARC and the way in which it’s supported from earth.”

  “Now there’s a surprise,” said one of the professors sparking a short period of laughter.

  “Such is the impact of the treaty, that the Cambridge University has concluded that it has no alternative but to close the annex, and return staff and students to the earth,” Samuel continued.

  There was stunned silence. Opened-mouth professors, normally never left without retort, simply looked at each other in shock. The few seconds it took them to recover the power of speech felt much longer.

  “You have to be joking,” one professor began.

  “Are you and the Cambridge University Vice Chancellor aware of the incredible leap forward we are making in astrophysics?” another called, clearly angry.

  “And not just astrophysics,” another called. “All the sciences here have made notable advances. There’s not one field currently present on the ARC who has not had articles accepted by the recognised science journals.”

  Samuel held his hands up, palms exposed, and, slowly, the room fell silent to wait on him.

  “I fully understand. I appreciate from an academic point of view how important and unique the ARC is to you. However, Cambridge University has confirmed; they have no wish to remain on the ship while under the control of the United Nations. So, as much as I may agree with your sentiments, the Rolle College is to close with immediate effect.”

  “And the ship? What of the ARC?” one of the professors asks.

  “We have one month in which to return all of the students, professors and college equipment to earth. I would greatly appreciate your assistance in facilitating that task,” Samuel finished.

  Two of the more senior professors walked out indignantly, no doubt to contact the Vice Chancellor themselves. The others turned to each other, looking for mutual understanding of their loss that was clearly lacking outside of their circle.

  +++++++++++++

  Oliver was busy writing another article, this time for the Sydney Morning Herald, when his constantly running software began picking up stories containing a large proportion of his chosen key words.

  He opened one and began to read details of the story just released by the Cambridge University press-office, confirming that Rolle College would no longer continue to operate from the Annex, more commonly called the ARC. It was to return to Cambridge where a new building was to be built on the site of the old farm. For the rest of this academic year, the college would operate as a correspondence college, with professors anticipating that it would take the rest of the year for the students to adequately write up their coursework.

  Shaking his head at the waste of it all, Oliver returned to his own writings, re-reading it to put his mind back on-track before continuing to rapidly type.

  +++++++++++++

  “All gone, all gone, all gone,” Michael was repeating as he rocked his head against the pillows behind his head, his eyes vacant.

  “Gone where, Michael?” Samuel asked, resuming his seat at the sick man’s side.

  Michael stopped repeating the words but his head kept rocking for a few moments more before that too stopped. Then he was silent for a while, his eyes staring off into a distance only he could see.

  “Gone. Dearly departed, we are gathered here together,” he misquoted.

  “You don’t believe in life after death?”

  Michael gave a sharp bark of laughter. “No,” he confirmed.

  “That surprises me, surrounded as you are by so many physicists,” Samuel mentioned.

  Michael cocked his head. “You’ll have to explain that one to me,” he told the black man. “Last I heard no-one had yet proved there was a heaven. A hell perhaps, but no heaven.”

  “No, no they haven’t,” Samuel agreed. “But science seems to hold out hope for the theory of reincarnation,” Samuel told him.

  “Yeah. I want to come back as a tom-cat,” Michael chuckled, his face screwed up in a parody of humour.

  “Careful what you wish for, Michael,” Samuel smiled and shook a finger at him in warning.

  Michael fell back on his pillows and stared at the ceiling. “Do you think life holds meaning. I mean, is there a purpose to it tormenting us so?” he asked.

  “You mean, is life there solely to break you, or to make you; to show you the person you can become,” Samuel answered.

  Michael didn’t answer, but kept staring beyond the ceiling. Samuel finished his coffee and, putting down the cup, made himself comfortable in the chair, closed his eyes, and began to silently pray.

  “You’re not going to sleep on me, are you?” Michael asked from afar.

  “I’m praying, or meditating, whichever term you’re more comfortable with,” Samuel said while his mind continued to focus solely on his body and his breathing.

  “For my soul,�
�� Michael muttered, a note of anger in his voice.

  “No,” Samuel told him. “For my own.”

  “Surely, you should pray for others.”

  “And what would that achieve?” Samuel asked, opening his eyes to look towards the grief stricken man. If there was ever a soul in torment, then it was Michael’s, Samuel reflected, the unshaven and gaunt face looking ten years older than the man he’d known just days before. What pain had he endured in the past he wondered, that could crash over him with such strength as to make him too afraid to even open a door onto another room, for fear of what it might hold?

  +++++++++++++

  Oliver Cole had been in journalism the best part of twenty long years. He had worked in provincial papers and then for nationals, had survived the cull of News Corporation and the witch-hunts against the news trade that had followed. He had migrated successfully into the net-media business where the company’s web presence was everything, where stories were published in real-time and the front page was an automatic display of the most recent, and the most viewed, items of news and editorials. Your success was no longer measured by the distribution of the newspaper and how well-written your piece was, but by how many had read your particular article, how many had commented on it, how many had ‘liked’ it, or sent a twitter message to others about it.

  For all his experience and the hard shell of cynicism his chosen profession conferred on its members, the public could still surprise him, as it did now with the comments and views as that rapidly filled the media channels, drowning all other topics by their sheer volume.

  News of the Rolle College closure was now in the mainstream press, with those in the east having had the most opportunity to read, listen and digest. It didn’t come as a surprise to Oliver to find that it only made headline news in the UK. Elsewhere it rated between the second and the fifth page, a few columns of factual detail with some claiming the college had been a complete failure, too expensive to continue with, and lacking the right management to have made it a success, while others suggested the college had been a fabrication anyway, somehow managing to ignore the many scientific articles that had been published.