The Orthogonal Galaxy (8 page)

The road from the well
passed along a couple of smaller craters, evidence of impact since
the main crater had been established. O’Ryan was tempted to ask
whether his colleagues worried about meteor impacts. An impact was
the one thing that Garrison feared the most during his time on
Mars. Remembering the lesson that his trainers had engrained in him
memory, he shook his head and said to himself, “Stop it, O’Ryan!
You’re much more likely to be killed by lightning on earth, than to
be killed by a meteor impact on Mars.”

On the west side of the
crater, Ayman pointed out the communication towers to Garrison as
the team stopped briefly in front of an array of ten large
satellite receivers and various radio transmitters all pointed in
different directions. After Ayman enumerated the uses and functions
of each tower, the team drove on, passing by two large fuel tanks
used to store the propellant needed by departing shuttles. Here,
the road parallels the two-mile long airstrip. Garrison could see a
Mars Shuttle down the runway just outside of the hangar. He knew
that this was Ayman’s aircraft, and that soon, the crew on Mars
would consist of just himself and the Russian.

Now at the north end of
the crater, Ayman parked the vehicle at an electric sub-station on
the other side of the crater. The station tied into a vast field of
solar panels that filled in the entire crater north of the
airstrip. Because of the distance from the sun, solar electricity
was less efficient than it was on Earth, and that meant that the
power needs of the camp would require a two square mile area of
solar panels collecting as much sunlight as possible. Ayman led
Garrison on a tour of the sub-station and the solar field. As they
returned back towards the vehicle, the sun was getting lower on the
horizon.

“
Well, gentlemen,”
announced Ayman. “I will be leaving you here. I need to get that
thing off the ground before the Sun sets.”

“
Thanks for the tour,
Ayman.” Garrison was appreciative of the hospitality but also felt
tentative of his departure. While Dmitri was certainly a capable
host, talk had been intermittent, since he deferred much of the
orientation to his American companion.

“
You’re welcome, O’Ryan.
And good luck with your mission here.” Ayman saluted Garrison,
since handshakes were not feasible in the spacesuits. He turned and
saluted Dmitri as well. “Mr. Boronov, it has been a pleasure
serving here with you for the last two years. I’ll look forward to
seeing you at our joint press conference and debriefing in a couple
of months.”

Dmitri bowed and saluted.
“It has been much pleasure of mine to work with you here on
Mars.”

With the farewell
complete, Ayman turned on his heels and walked towards the shuttle.
Garrison and Dmitri watched as their fellow astronaut climbed the
ladder into the cockpit and heard over the common channel that
Mission Control had cleared him for takeoff as soon as he was
ready. Garrison could see the burn of the engine just before the
sound reached his ear. And then, in a flash, the shuttle was down
the runway, in the air, and soon out of sight.

…

“
Looks like he’s gone,”
Garrison turned to his companion. “What do we do now?”

“
Well, friend,” Dmitri
began. “We have instructions to repair valve gauge on fuel tank
number one. When we fueled the Nevada shuttle, we noticed a
malfunction on gauge. NASA gave instruction for fixing
it.”

“
Ok, then,” accepted
Garrison. “Let’s go do it.”

“
Boronov to Mission
Control. The Nevada has successfully taken off and we are heading
to fuel tank number one for pressure gauge malfunction assessment
and repair.”

After this brief
announcement, the pair walked back to the MTV where Dmitri took
over the controls. As he began to back away from the solar field,
he stopped abruptly. “Oh. I forget to grab toolbox. We will need to
go back to bunker for tools.”

Arriving back at the
workshop garage, the two astronauts exited the MTV and stopped
abruptly on either side. Turning quickly to his colleague, Garrison
exclaimed, “What was that?! I just felt something odd.”

Dmitri turned slowly to
face his partner. “I do not know. Did it feel like… like…” Dmitri
grasped for words in English to describe the sensation.

“
Almost like a breeze
passing through my spacesuit from behind.” Garrison turned around,
almost expecting to find the source of the mysterious sensation,
but all he saw was the massive SAR building on the east end of the
crater. No wind. Nothing out of place.

“
Yes,” panted Dmitri. “I
feel same thing too, but it went as quick as it came.”

Garrison had a bad feeling
about what had just happened. He couldn’t explain why, but the
concern gave him the sensation of goose bumps on his arms, and a
tingling of hair on his neck. He knew that it wasn’t just his
imagination, since Boronov also felt it. Worse still for O’Ryan was
the fact that his companion didn’t seem to recollect ever observing
the sensation before. Silence fell over the pair, as they grasped
to make sense of the matter. A breeze? Inside their space suits?
Impossible!

5

Walking confidently toward
the jury, the District Attorney began wrapping up the case from his
perspective. “Ladies and gentlemen, first let me thank you for the
full attention that you’ve given this case over the last couple of
weeks. I know that each of you have very busy lives, and I
appreciate the devotion and service you have given to see that
justice is served.

“
What we have before us is
a classic case of a crime of passion… a very serious, violent crime
of passion. It is a case where the defendant seated over there”—the
attorney whirled around and pointed a long index finger at the
suspect, who did not flinch at the attention, but who inwardly did
despise the man standing before him, trying his best to wrongly
ruin his life—“lost better judgment to greed. It is a case where
money, in all of its ugliness, cost the lives of two hard-working
individuals, murdered in cold blood. Oh, how vain and senseless is
the almighty dollar at ruining the lives of people who should know
better.

“
This
man, Paol Joonter, a high-flying executive, flew from his home in
Seattle, Washington to Atlanta, Georgia, in order to prevent
further risk to a failed business deal. He arrived on March
27
^th
of this year, in order to mitigate the loss of vast corporate
wealth, which he, in part is responsible for losing. When he could
not succeed in his task, we have shown the unfortunate sequence of
events which ensued.

“
We have
shown through documents and eyewitness that Mr. Joonter purchased a
.38 caliber pistol at a local gun dealer on March
28
^th
.
We have shown surveillance video of his late-night entry into the
office of Mr. Rawson Becker on the evening of the
28
^th
.
We have provided a chilling recorded audio of the exchange of
words—and bullets—which experts have matched to the mouth and gun
of the defendant. We have given forensic evidence of fingerprints
matching those of Mr. Joonter so clearly that Detective Johnson of
the FBI was quoted in the courtroom as saying, ‘Those prints leapt
right off the gun.’ There is motive, there is clear, irrefutable
evidence, and there is a man who must be punished for his crimes.
Paol Joonter is clearly responsible for the cold-blooded murder of
Mr. Becker and his assistant, Ms. Shannyl Cox. I’m confident that
you will see justice done in this case. Thank you for your
time.”

As confidently as he
approached the jury, he returned to his table convinced of victory
in this case. His opponent exchanged some hushed words with his
client before proceeding with his closing remarks. While he was one
of the most renowned defense attorneys of his day, he couldn’t help
feeling that the odds were stacked against him. What made him such
an excellent lawyer was his ability to remain composed, and to
observe and utilize any holes in prosecution's defense. As a
result, he did not give the impression that he was on the losing
side of the case.

6

On his second day of
Zimmer’s class, Joram was working his Digital Note Tablet much
harder than he did on the first day. He was soaking up every word,
every thought, which the professor had for the class. Sitting at
his left once again, Kath also found herself scribbling
frantically, and enjoying the concepts placed before
them.

“
Over the next several
weeks,” started the professor, “we’ll be studying various examples
of the different types of galaxies. We’ll discuss how and why they
form their characteristic shapes, and compare and contrast these in
vast details.

“
You should know,”
attested Zimmer as he paced in front of the class with his wireless
lapel microphone broadcasting his lesson clearly to the entire
class, “that there are three major classifications of galaxies.
These are spiral, elliptical, and irregular.

“
Spiral galaxies are
perhaps the best known of these, and this is certainly because our
own galaxy, the Milky Way, is indeed a spiral galaxy. However, the
photos that you may have seen of spiral galaxies come from those
which may be indicative to the Milky Way, but certainly do not
mirror our own galaxy. For obvious reasons, it is rather difficult
to acquire a detailed image of our own galaxy, since there are no
spacecraft far enough away which might give us a portrait of our
own system. Nevertheless, there are several superb computer
renderings that depict our galaxy as shown on this
slide.”

The professor then
gestured behind him, where a computer-generated image of the Milky
Way was depicted for the class.

“
As you can notice from
this image, there is a bar of stars which emanate from either side
of the extremely bright galactic center of our galaxy. These bars
eventually give way to several spiral arms. This type of galaxy is
called, appropriately enough, a barred-spiral galaxy. There are
others, as the one in this next image, which do not demonstrate
this type of barring effect. In the Hubble Classification, we
designate spiral galaxies with the letter ‘S’, and barred-spiral
galaxies with the letters ‘SB.’”

At this point, the
professor advanced through a series of slides demonstrating other
types of galaxies. The class took fastidious notes as Professor
Zimmer rattled off a quick and elementary overview of galaxies.
This was a graduate class, so he would have to quickly launch into
great details about the makeup and classification of galaxies, so
he was brief in his introduction.

“
Now that I have described
to you the various classifications of galaxies in the known
universe,” Professor Zimmer gestured to a screen where a slide was
being projected, “it is prudent for us to begin our study of each
type. We will begin, appropriately enough, with our own galaxy, the
Milky Way.”

The professor was
interrupted here by the opening of door to the back of the
planetarium. He looked up to see Dean Scoville enter and assume a
standing position in the same exact place as last time.

Joram whispered to Kath,
“That guy is making a habit out of disrupting the professor right
at the end of class.”

“
That guy,” breathed Kath
lowly, covering her mouth to be less conspicuous, “is Dean
Scoville.”

Joram’s head whipped back
again to see a rather urgent look on Scoville’s face. “He looks—”
Trailing off, he recalled the awkward episode that occurred on
Monday, and snapped a worried glance up to Zimmer. Fortunately, the
professor did not notice the two friends’ discussion, but instead
looked intently at the dean. The two seemed to exchange knowing
glances for a moment before the professor turned back to his
class.

“
But that discussion,”
began the professor, “will begin on Friday. Also, please take a
look at the course website for the first set of selected readings.
We will begin discussion on those readings next week. Class
dismissed.”

Rather than wait at the
back of the class this time, Dean Scoville swept down the stairs
and onto the stage to meet up quickly with Zimmer. Joram watched
the pair intently, while the rest of the class turned off their
note tablets, and fumbled for their backpacks. There was no
exchange of words as the two met up. Instead, Scoville gave a
slight nod and gestured towards the door in the back of the room
where the two swiftly disappeared from sight.

“
What do you think that
was all about?” Joram asked Kath.

“
Huh?” Kath asked looking
up at Joram as she zipped her pack. “Oh, you mean Scoville and
Zimmer? Don’t know… it looked pretty important though.” Then,
shrugging off the incident, she continued, “Hey, I’m thirsty. Let’s
go get something to drink.”

As they left the
planetarium, Joram looked back towards the closed door as if
expecting to see it reopen or otherwise gain some knowledge as to
the urgent departure of the two professors. Realizing that he would
gain no further insight, he shrugged his shoulders and bounded up
the stairs to rejoin Kath.

…

At Johnson Space Center,
two engineers sat quietly in a control room where panels of
computer screens monitored activity on Camp Mars. The main screen
contained an image of the camp as captured from a digital camera
mounted on a satellite orbiting the planet. Other screens contained
various waveforms and pulses which monitored environmental and
meteorological activity. Side-by-side screens titled Boronov and
O’Ryan contained the vital signs of the two astronauts. Another
charted the progress of the Shuttle Nevada recently departed from
the crater and heading on a direct bearing for the Moon.