The Orthogonal Galaxy (30 page)

“
Maybe we could drive it
straight through the beam and have it emerge out the other side.
I’d like to see if we can get to the center of the
beam.”

“
Let’s not forget that the
beam is 12000 km wide. The paddle can obtain a safe maximum
velocity of 400 km/h. It would take thirty hours to get all the way
through, and we haven’t had more than a few minutes with any of the
paddles yet. However, I—like you—would love to pentrate as deeply
as we can. Perhaps we will get some imagery or sensory data telling
us what is in the beam as we get closer to the center.”

“
Speaking of the center,”
Kath voiced softly yet confidently, “since we know that the beam
demonstrates a very turbulent corkscrew flow, I wonder if we get to
the center and all will be calm and quiet.”

“
Not a bad idea, Miss
Mirabelle. But how to get it there? We’ve entered at two different
speeds and angles and we can’t seem to get very far into the beam.
We could, perhaps, tear through as Mr. Eastman suggests, and
decelerate quickly once we near the center—if we can get that far.
We’ll keep it in mind.”

Zimmer glanced over at
Joram. “Two paddles, two ideas from two team members. What do you
say, Joram? If you had full control over paddle number twelve, how
would you use it?”

“
My idea is similar to
Reyd’s… drive it at full speed—”

“
Boys,” Kath snorted.
“It’s all about speed, isn’t it?”

Joram feigned to ignore
her as he fixed his gaze on Zimmer. “Drive it at full
speed—upstream.”

Zimmer gave a twitch which
looked like an effort not to betray some thought which he had not
shared with the team. He swallowed, cleared his throat, and
proceeded in a normal tone. “Upstream, Mr. Anders? What do you mean
by that?”

“
I mean rather than
hitting the beam at 90 degrees, I’d like to penetrate the beam at a
very shallow angle with the pedal to the metal,
Professor.”

Looking intently at his
pupil, he queried further. “Why would you want to do that? What do
you intend to gain?”

“
I—I don’t—well, I guess I
don’t really know. Just a gut feeling, you can say.” Anders was
hiding something and even at this late hour, his transparency was
readily perceived by all.

“
C’mon, Joram,” Kath
leaned closer towards him. “Tell us what you’re really
thinking.”

“
Oh, I don’t really know
what we should do with the paddle. It’s late, and I’m not thinking
clearly,” conceded Joram, attempting to deflect the scrutiny.
“Professor, what do you think we should do with the
paddle?”

Silence ensued for several
moments. Zimmer weighed the question a little, but considered the
exchange from Joram even more. Not yet ready to betray his own
thoughts yet, or what he suspected to be Joram’s thoughts, he
wrapped up the meeting as follows.

“
Three paddles… three
suggestions. I actually like all of them. At this point, I’d like
to start with Mr. Eastman’s proposal. If we can indeed get the
paddle all the way through at high speed, we might be able to make
even more use of it. Depending on the outcome, we’ll take Miss
Mirabelle’s suggestion second, and see if we might not be able to
rest a paddle in the center of the beam. If we’re successful, we
might be able to keep the paddle there for days in order to collect
images and data from the inside. Mr. Anders, your paddle will go
last, since it appears to be the most reckless idea of all to go
full tilt upstream, and since you have not given us a well-founded
reason behind your suggestion—unless you care to do so
now.”

With this last phrase,
Joram broke off eye contact with Zimmer and looked, instead, at the
clock on the wall. He was uncomfortable with the change of
expression on Zimmer’s face, and hoped not to give him an
opportunity to discern his thoughts. Perhaps if he avoided eye
contact, Zimmer would not be able to penetrate his mind.

“
All right, then,” Zimmer
stated as he stood from his chair, realizing that Joram Anders was
not going to reveal himself. “Let’s get back in there for the final
push.”

…

The door to the
observation room closed. Reyd and Kath unleashed on
Joram.

“
What was that exchange
back there, Joram Anders?” Kath scolded.

“
Huh?”

“
Don’t ‘huh’ me. There was
something fairly tense back there. You, Zimmer?”

Reyd opined on the matter.
“Well, yeah. When a college professor asks you a question, it’s
usually a good idea to answer.” The last word came out louder than
even Reyd had intended.

“
Look guys, it’s just
late… I’m tired… Besides, I don’t think he really looked very
reprimanding of the matter.”

“
Oh, come on, Joram,” Kath
said. “You have admired Carlton Zimmer since you were practically
in diapers. You are realizing your dream of studying under him. Why
would you jeopardize your standing with him with this
reticence?”

Joram wanted to change the
subject and defuse the tension. “Hey, I’ll have you know I was out
of diapers by the time I was eight.”

Realizing that his
attempted humor didn’t exactly work as well as he would have liked,
he tried a more sincere tact. “Look guys, I now know that I
shouldn’t have suggested going upstream, because… well, it’s a
stupid idea, and I’m sure I’ve lost better judgment this late in
the evening.”

“
What is the idea, Joram?”
Kath implored.

“
No, Kath—it’s—please
forget it. I’ll tell you someday—I promise—when we can all look
back and have a good laugh about it.”

Kath didn’t look
convinced.

“
I promise,” Joram stated
with a tone of finality.

Realizing she wasn’t going
to pull it out of him, Kath honored Joram’s last word on the
subject. “Ok, ok… I’m sorry to be so pushy about it. Let’s sit down
and watch the show, shall we?”

After a brief pause, Reyd
tried to loosen up a little bit. “It’s too bad there aren’t any
couches in here to lie down on. Paddle eleven is just now being
undocked. It’ll be at least a half hour before the paddles are in
place for deployment.”

“
Hey, I’ll keep an eye out
on the progress if you guys want to close your eyes and catch a few
winks.” Joram’s offer was genuine and was readily accepted by Reyd,
and reluctantly agreed upon by Kath. Both were grateful for the
offer and quickly found a position in their seats in which they
could refresh themselves for a moment.

Joram slowly paced back
and forth along the front of the room, his gaze focused on the
mauve carpet that was compressing under his feet. The full-length
glass wall made it easy for Zimmer to occasionally peer in. It was
clear that Joram was heavily burdened, and Zimmer suspected he knew
the reason for his turmoil—particularly if it was due to the same
concern which he himself carried with him since earlier in the
evening.

The time dragged on for
Joram, as he paced and weighed his concerns in his head. “What a
ridiculous theory. Why did I ever suggest upstream? Will this
change my relationship with Zimmer? Will he look for a replacement
on his research team? I didn’t mean to disrespect his authority or
intelligence. What a ridiculous theory.”

His mind raced. Time flew
by rapidly. He heard a tap on the glass wall separating himself
from the control room. Joram looked up, and saw Zimmer point to his
eyes and then to his watch, as if to say, “Showtime, Mr. Anders!”
Joram looked at the clock on the control room wall and then back to
Zimmer with a knowing look on his face. He nodded as he wheeled
around to wake Reyd and Kath. The three students resumed their
vigilance on the mission as they saw a red dot indicating paddle
number ten racing towards the beam. They could see the data set
against the background of the yellow flickering image. 384 km/hr.
The paddle was at maximum velocity, and was about to penetrate the
outer extent of the beam.

The next several minutes
proved tense. All remained quiet, breathless, and attentive to see
how far the paddle would be able to penetrate the beam. Reyd kept
glancing at his watch. So far, none of the paddles had gotten
farther than approximately a few miles inside the particle-rich
beam.

Exuberantly, he worked the
math. “This might just work, Guys! We’re looking at four miles of
progress per minute. We’re about ten minutes into the experiment.
That’s 40 miles so far”

Kath responded quietly.
“Dang it! You spoke to soon, Reyd… the position is degrading.” The
red dot was veering downstream rapidly.

On the control room floor,
sensors started failing, the image went black, the red dot
demonstrated a final 90-degree curved directory, and transmission
ceased completely.

Reyd stood up. “There must
be some larger debris in there breaking these things up. That’s
just got to be the answer.”

Joram rebutted. “I don’t
think so, Reyd. None of the sensors have detected anything larger
than a small grain of sand. Wouldn’t we start to see some larger
objects before a large rock blasts it away? If that theory were
true, you’d start to see pea-sized pebbles, then golf-ball sized
rocks, and then a basketball offering that would knock it out for
good. From sand to large rock without anything else in between?
Maybe, but I’d think the odds are highly against it.”

“
So what then, Genius?”
Reyd’s fatigue induced a hasty and defensive posture.

Joram shook his head. “It
would all make sense if the debris were larger, like Reyd proposed.
I could totally see the debris start to move the paddle downstream
and eventually cause it to break up. But you can’t make that
conclusion with the small size of the debris that is impacting
these paddles. The math simply doesn’t stick, no matter how fast
our sand is moving through this hourglass.”

Zimmer stepped into the
room with a dejected look on his face. “Two paddles to go team, and
it’s looking like we won’t penetrate this thing far enough. Kath,
since Reyd’s paddle could barely scrape the surface, what do you
want to do with your paddle now?”

Kath looked down at the
floor, and then looked up at Zimmer. “I’ve been thinking a little
bit about Deneb, Professor.”

Zimmer raised an eyebrow
and wrinkled his forehead in interest. “Me too, Ms. Mirabelle.
Along with any number of puzzle pieces that we haven’t yet put
together. What do you propose?”

“
Well, I’m not sure what
to propose, but we haven’t yet found a vastly massive source that
could cause enough gravity to distort the light in that manner. Can
we do something to explore the gravity of the beam?”

“
There doesn’t really seem
to be significant gravitational pull, Miss Mirabelle. We’ve
navigated several of the paddles to the opposite side of the beam
with respect to the USL. The guidance team tells me that there have
been no abnormal course corrections due to unexpected gravitational
forces.”

“
Then what is causing the
light bending, and how can we study it?” Kath pondered.

“
I’m not sure that we can
even see the light bending at close range. I’ve been recording
image data from the paddles, and the images seem to indicate no
bending of light, but we’ll need to run some computer simulations
and rendering to compare with expected results.”

After a brief pause, Kath
suggested, “Professor, can we go ahead and deploy Joram’s paddle
next, and then confer about paddle twelve when we get
there?”

“
Great idea, Miss
Mirabelle,” Zimmer agreed. “We’ll get your paddle in position next,
Mr. Anders.”

Joram’s paddle, of course,
met a similar fate. After slamming into the beam at full speed in
the opposite direction of particle travel, the trajectory curved
nearly 180 degrees very quickly towards the direction of the beam’s
flow, and the paddle spun wildly out of control before losing
contact with mission control.

With one paddle to go, the
team consulted sternly over the prospects of collecting any data
they thought would be useful.

“
I’ve got an idea,
Professor,” stated Kath as they conversed. “It seems that just
before the demise of each paddle, a very rapid change of course
occurs first. Maybe we’re inducing too much stress on the paddles
to have their position change so rapidly. As such, I propose that
we revisit Joram’s experiment—in reverse.”

“
What?” asked Reyd with a
condescending tone.

“
I think,” started Zimmer
with a glare of disdain for the tactless syllable voiced by his
pupil, “that Mr. Eastman means, ‘What a great idea!’, but please do
explain exactly what you mean, Miss Mirabelle?”

“
I’m thinking that we
should send the final paddle at full speed, but instead of going
upstream, let’s go downstream. The possibility for greater success
could be anticipated simply because we’ll be going in the direction
of least resistance. So far, we’ve gone straight into the beam, and
we’ve gone upstream. We have yet to go downstream.”

Zimmer lauded this
suggestion. “Absolutely brilliant! So far, the beam has rejected
our efforts to penetrate its realm. Perhaps we could sneak in a
paddle-sized particle that simply goes with the flow.”