The Orthogonal Galaxy
Chapter 14

Conversation was light in the Palomar dining roomon Saturday evening. The stresses of theevening before coupled with the grind of nighttime work in the astronomyinduced significant fatigue on the part of Professor Zimmer’s graduate students. Each would eventually shake off the slumberof the day through their microwave dinners and choice of caffeinatedbeverages. Joram had already consumedhalf of his bottle of Coca-Cola, Reyd was sipping at his hot coffee, and Kathwas savoring her peach-flavored iced tea. Engulfed in silence, the trio looked up from their meals as they heardthe door to the room open.

“Professor Zimmer!” Kath exclaimed, relieved tosee her mentor appear.

With bags under his eyes, it was clear that thetoil of the last couple of weeks was even taking its toll on this seasonedastronomer, all too acquainted with nocturnal living.

“Hello!” Zimmer nodded and smiled. “I’m glad I’ll be able to assist you withyour efforts this evening. I’m verysorry I left the three of you alone in your duties last night, especiallyconsidering the scare that you gave yourselves. However, I’m impressed with the accomplishments that you were able tomake last night.”

“Accomplishments?” sneered Reyd, cutting a glanceat Joram. “We spent the whole eveningregenerating the same set of numbers from the same set of calculations.”

“Ah, but in the end, you made a discovery thathas become a great piece of the puzzle,” Zimmer stated in a congratulatorymanner.

After a brief pause, Kath broke the silence in animploring tone, “Professor?”

“Yes, Kath.”

“I’m sorry that I jumped to such ridiculousconclusions last night.”

“Nonsense, Miss Mirabelle. They were not ridiculous at all. I was singularly impressed with yourtheory. It fit Mr. Anders’ calculations. It fit the manner of the brightening of thebeam. It was a really clever piece ofdeduction.”

“Clever, indeed. It only took you five seconds to disprove it. I… I didn’t think it through enough.”

“Only because of experience, Kath. I’ve been around the block enough withscientific discovery that I’m constantly trying to analyze all of the data inan effort to disprove any theory which I might concoct, as it is always easierto prove a theory wrong than to prove one right. For example, take Einstein’s theory ofrelativity. It has dominated the thoughtprocess and laws of physics for centuries now, yet it cannot be proven. Just because we’ve observed that it holdstrue in a million and one experiments which have been conducted over many yearsdoesn’t mean that experiment number one million and two will not provideevidence to disprove it—or at least provide a singularity to the theory. It would take infinite observational prowessto prove a theory, but it takes just one contrary piece of data to disprove it.

“That said, as you set forth your theory to melast night, my first objective was to disprove it. And so, I realized that the calculation ofthe distance from the beam to Mars was calculated by several teams over severaldays. All of these teams came up withthe same number. 12,500 miles. This indicates that there was no motion ofthe beam towards the planet Mars, thus it could not be emanating away from thecenter of the Milky Way as you had proposed.

“Further, any such radiation would propagatethrough the empty expanses of the galaxy nearly at the speed of light. Had the beam been approaching from the centerof the galaxy, we would have been hit with the radiation only minutes after ithad rained its destructive powers down on Camp Mars.

“Further, we know that the radiation had already hit Earth, just not with the same punch that it had onMars—which is most fortunate. We knowthat there was an unidentifiable impact of radiation on the side of the Earthwhich is facing in the direction of where the beam rests now. The Sun also received a radiation event atthe same time as well.”

At this, Joram interrupted Zimmer. “That’s what’s got me confused,Professor. How can the event besynchronized between Earth, Mars and the Sun? How could it be omni-present at the same exact moment in time?”

“That, Mr. Anders… has cost me many a night ofsleep in the last couple of weeks. It isa serious piece of the puzzle that must be understood, and as you know… inorder to do that, we would be better served spending time over at 26, insteadof here in the dining room.”

All three students got the hint, and eachreturned to their dinner and drink. Zimmer pulled an apple out of an oversized pocket on his windbreaker andinstructed the team to meet him at the observatory as soon as they were finishedwith their dinner. The distinctivecrunch of the juicy apple was clearly heard as the door shut behind him.

“I think your theory was brilliant, Kath,” Joramcomplemented. “You had Reyd and meconvinced, you know.”

“It’s not so much the theory that’s botheringme.” Kath shared. “I really am starting to wonder if I reallywant to do this type of research. I’mafraid of what we might replace.”

Reyd attempted to console her. “You know, Kath, even if we discover itwithout you, you’ll eventually know what the yellow beam is. As soon as the phenomenon of what happenedhere is understood, it will be broadcast to the world. You should be thrilled—honored—to be a partof it.”

“I know, but what if we actually come in contactwith extra-terrestrial life, Reyd?”

“Well, they’re just as likely to be friendly asthey are to be ornery, aren’t they? Besides in thousands of years of human history that we can piecetogether, what do we have to show for it in terms of any alien interaction?”

Joram, attempting to lighten the situation, firedoff a fast answer to the question. “Well, we do have all of those accounts of alien abductions and UFOsightings.”

Kath pursed her lips and playfully slugged Joramin the shoulder. “Oh, stop it, JoramAnders.”

Joram simply shrugged his shoulders, covering uphis smile by stuffing the last piece of lasagna in his mouth.

“Well, anyway, what do I really have tocontribute to the team, anyway? I’m justa meteorologist, remember? I’m not anexpert astronomer, or a computer whiz.”

Joram got serious. “Kath, you are a first-year astronomygraduate student, just like Reyd and me. We have an education in front of us. What better way to obtain it than to be on a research team, obtainingour knowledge of the universe from one of the world’s foremostastrophysicists. I have a feeling thatwe’re going to learn a lot as we continue to work with Zimmer. This project he’s assigned us to—it’s large,very large! When there are questionsthat Zimmer cannot answer…” He trailedoff. Realizing that he had made hispoint, he opted to use his mouth to consume the remainder of his garlic breadand soft drink.

Being the first to stand up, Reyd and Kath tooktheir lead from Joram and followed him to another evening of research.

…

On that evening, the four astronomers organized aplan to continue their study of the beam. They used computer models to calculate the trajectory of the circlearound the Milky Way. After dispellingKath’s emanation theory, the team returned to an orbital theory. That is, their major assumption at this pointwas that the beam was the trail of an object orbiting the center of the MilkyWay, since the arc calculated by the team just the evening before perfectlyrepresented an orbiting body.

For a couple of hours they tried to zoom in onthe beam and study its undulating pattern. They had hoped to orient the direction of its travel, but they could notmake out from the near-randomness of the oscillations which direction any ofthe radiation was traveling.

After a midnight break, the group returned totheir stations to resume their work. Thebeam was undulating on all of the monitors, precisely where they left thetelescope focused on it.

Shortly after sitting down, Reyd turned in hischair. “Hey, Kath. What’s the forecast for tonight anyway?”

“Clear skies. Why do you ask? Are you hoping tocall it an early night, partner?” Kathwinked playfully at him.

“No, but I do believe my eyes are clouding over,because it looks like the beam is more dim. I thought that maybe there was a light haze or perhaps marine layerdeveloping.”

Professor Zimmer squinted at the screen frombehind Reyd’s chair. “Are you sure itlooks more dim, Reyd?”

“Well, it looks like it to me, but maybe my eyesare just fogging over during these late night studies.”

“Joram, Kath, what do you guys think? Does it look like it’s dimming?”

Joram shook his head, and Kath shrugged hershoulders.

Zimmer slapped his forehead. “Drats!” he exclaimed while stepping awayfrom Reyd’s station. He quickly pulledout his cell phone and paced anxiously around the observatory.

“Hi, Stan. Carlton Zimmer here… Listen, I completely forgot that we should start abolometer on the beam… I’d like to use the AstroLab for greater precision, andround-the-clock capability… Yeah, that’sall. No, wait… First, let’s go get thetangential points along the horizon of the curve. That should be about 7000 AU away… Thanks, Stan. I’ll be in touch on the analysis.”

After hanging up the cell phone, he could tell bythe gaze of his students that an explanation was needed.

“That was Stan Rodgers, a mission specialist atJohnson. In fact, Stan was one of thespecialists on duty the morning of the disaster on . Dr. Gilroy has given me 24-hour access to histeam, and this happens to be Stan’s shift.

“Anyway, I can’t believe that I didn’t startbolometric analysis on this thing the moment it appeared in the sky. We should be measuring its luminosityconstantly to see if we can determine what is emitting the light, how muchenergy it is giving off, and how quickly the energy is dissipating.”

Turning his focus back to the yellow beam, hecontinued, “I just hope that the adage ‘better late than never applies now’because that is a huge oversight.”

“Professor.” Joram asked. “Did I understand that you were going to getmeasurements at either end of the beam?”

“Precisely,” Zimmer smiled at the observation.“As you no doubt had calculated, the orbit is 1.4 million miles away fromhere. At that, we can see about 7K AUaway before we get to the visible horizon of its orbit. By taking a quick luminosity measurement ateither end, we should be able to assess the direction of travel, since one endwill be brighter than the other. Thebright end is the one where the origin of the trail was more recentlyattended. That will help us determinethe direction that this thing went as it flew by.”

Kath wanted to ask Zimmer a question, but she wasafraid that this might not be the time, as he returned to the computer monitorwhere he stared intently at the live images of the beam on the monitors. Focused on the image, Kath whispered toJoram, “What the heck is a bolometer?”

“It measures electromagnetic radiationintensity. If the radiation is in thevisible light spectrum, it is used to calculate the luminosity. No doubt Professor Zimmer would like to havethe data on this beam as it has come into existence. If it is the tail of some orbiting object,then we can be certain that it will disappear. The rate of dissipation could help us determine what...”

Joram stopped dead in his tracks as the professorspun around with wide eyes. His firstthought went back to that first day in class when he was sure that Zimmernoticed him whispering to Kath. He nowthought to himself that Zimmer must have a very keen sense of hearing. Joram began to offer a lame apology fordistracting the professor’s attention on his work.

“No, No, it’s not that,” Zimmer replied. “There’s something I just noticed about thebeam that is very perplexing.”

The three students stood at attention waiting forthis latest nugget of information from their mentor.

“Come look,” he pointed to the screen. “You see the thickness of the beam here. Since it is dimming, it appears as if thelight is not solid, and yet, I can see no light coming from behind it. And now look at the edges of the beamhere. It appears that there is a darkband both above and below the beam. Evenwhere this beam is not giving off light, it appears to be obscuring the lightbehind it. Reyd, can you bring up thestar atlas on the other monitor. I’dlike to see what we’re missing in the sky if this beam is truly obscuring itsbackground.”

Within a minute, the left monitor had an imagevery close to the one on the right, except that there was no yellow beam. This image was a digitally-renderedsimulation of the same section of the night sky for their present location,date, and time. “Ok, so what I’d like to do, Reyd, is to follow the beam to thestar Deneb,” Zimmer said.

“Alpha Cygni!” exclaimed Joram Anders. “Great choice, Professor. It should be right in the galactic plane suchthat it would be obscured by the beam.”

Zimmer turned in his seat and peered intently athis first-year graduate student. “Actually, Mr. Anders, if my calculations are correct, Deneb will stillbe perfectly visible in our sky. It willclear the beam to the north of the galactic plane. However, Deneb—or as you point out, AlphaCygni—is the brightest star in the constellation Cygnus, as well as one of thebrightest stars in our sky, with an apparent magnitude of 1.25. While it is about 3500 light years away, itsradius is more than 200 times that of our own Sun, making it about a quarter ofa million times brighter.”

Kath pursed her lips together and let out a softwhistle. “200 times the size of our ownSun?”

“Yes, Kath,” confirmed Professor Zimmer. “As you may be aware from your primary schoolscience instruction, there is an elementary analogy that demonstrates thedifference between the size of the Earth and the size of the Sun.”

“Oh, yes,” Kath recalled excitedly. “If the Earth were the size of a garden pea,then the Sun would be the size of a basketball.”

“Great memory, Miss Mirabelle. Now, if our Sun were the pea, then you wouldhave to be a giant to play the basketball of Deneb, because it would be overfive feet in diameter.”

Kath reeled at this imagery. It was hard enough to imagine the size of theEarth, let alone the Sun. Now to replaceout how massive Alpha Cygni is in relation to our own Sun was simply hard tofathom.

“So, if I understand correctly, Professor,” saidJoram closing in on Kath. “If the Sun isthe size of a pea—” he said bending over slightly and holding his finger andthumb about a pea’s diameter apart in front of Kath’s abdomen. “—Then Deneb would be a five-foot tallbasketball,” he said placing his other hand on top of Kath’s head.

Reyd attempted to suppress his laughter, butinstead let out a bursting snort that was clearly heard by all.

Kath turned the corners of her mouth down andnarrowed her eyes in feigned irritation. “Very funny, Mr. Anders.”

“Indeed,” said Zimmer dryly in mock agreementwith the prank. “Anyway, Deneb will bevery easy to replace, and it gets me in the ballpark of the object I really wantto look for—NGC 7000.”

“The North America Nebula?” asked Joram with someconfidence in his question.

“That is correct, Mr. Anders.”

“Why that feature, Professor?” asked Kath withcuriosity.

“NGC 7000, Miss Mirabelle, is about the size ofthe Moon in our night sky. And it willbe very easy to see with our 26 here. While looking for stars only gives us certain points in the vicinity ofthe beam, the nebula will give us a cloud of ionized gas that we can use toreplace the border of obscurity and perhaps measure the width of the beam. Turning to Reyd, Zimmer restated hisdirection. “To Deneb, Mr. Eastman.”

“Yes, sir,” nodded Reyd and gave a glance towardsJoram just before returning to the console.

Zimmer returned to the telescope platform to dialin the adjusted coordinates of Deneb as Reyd reeled them off. Joram and Kath watched as Reyd and Zimmerworked towards the bright star.

“How does that look, Mr. Eastman?” Zimmer asked.

After a pause, Reyd turned towards Zimmer. “Professor… I don’t see Deneb in this image.”

“Perhaps I misheard your coordinates, Mr. Eastman. Can you please repeat them?”

“Right ascension: 20 hours, 41 minutes, 25.9seconds.”

“Got it.”

“Declination: Plus 45 degrees, 16 minutes, and 49seconds.”

“Yeah that looks right,” Zimmer said shaking hishead in dismay.

After several attempts, the team had to admitdefeat. Deneb was nowhere to be found inthe sky above the beam. Reyd pulled upboth the live image on the left monitor and the digitized image on the right.

“I don’t understand,” Zimmer said quietly. “You can see that the beam’s obscurityborders are just below the indicated position for Deneb, and yet while otherstars are visible, Deneb just isn’t there.”

“Deneb is a white supergiant, Professor.” Anders suggested. “As such, it is in its last phases oflife. You don’t suppose…”

“Supernova, Mr. Anders?” Zimmer asked inamazement. “We would not have missedthat event. And what are the odds ofDeneb dying precisely with the beam?”

As silence ensued for a few moments, the teampondered this new mystery. Kath was thefirst to be heard. “Well, this may be acrazy idea…” Her voice trailed off, asthe entire team wheeled around to see what Kath was thinking about.

“Go ahead, Miss Mirabelle.”

“Well, what if the yellow beam is the death of Deneb.”

“Not a bad piece of thinking,” Zimmer admiredwhile rubbing his chin. “However, suchan idea would only hold under your previous emanation theory. That is, the light would be emanating at thespeed of light right past us if Deneb had already exploded some 3500 yearsago—the time it would’ve taken for the light to reach us—and as we know, thisbeam is just not radiating in that manner. But, do remember, Team that we must not dismiss any crazy notion. Please speak every thought that comes to yourmind.”

For some time, the team continued to stare at thetwo images. The next to break thesilence was Joram. “Reyd, is there a wayto overlay these two images?”

“Yes, I can make a transparent overlay of thedigital image on top of the live image. However, you won’t really see anything new, because all of the stars inthe digital image will simply sit on top of stars in the live image.”

“I’m not so sure that they will, Reyd.”

“What are you suggesting, Mr. Anders?” asked theprofessor as he leaned farther over in his chair.

“I’m not sure, Professor, but it looks like lightmay be bending towards the beam. Assuch, the light from Deneb would be pulled southward enough to be in the regionof obscurity.”

“Well, ok… However, keep in mind that what you’resuggesting is that the beam is carrying a vast amount of mass to produce thegravity necessary to bend light, right, Mr. Anders?”

“I know, Professor. It’s a crazy idea.”

“But… as I said, no crazy notion dismissed.”Professor Zimmer conceded. “Go on, Mr.Eastman. Let us overlay the images. Heaven knows I have nothing better to suggestat this bizarre turn of events.”

Eastman worked the keyboard quickly, dialing inthe correct menu settings to overlay the two images. The resulting image was a noisy chart ofpinpoint lights of varying brightness and size all over the monitor.

The entire team leaned forward staring at theimage with captive attention. At length,Zimmer’s eyes grew wide in recognition. “Reyd,” he said softly and calmly, as if in shock. “Falsify the color, please.”

“Professor?”

“The digitized image. Can you falsify the color of the stars? Perhaps turn them all fluorescent green.”

“Oh, yeah, coming right up.”

With a couple of mouse clicks, the live starsmaintained their yellowish-white glow while other green dots appeared acrossthe screen.

The rest of the team quickly understood what theywere seeing. Far away from the beam, thegreen dots overlayed perfectly with the stars, but going closer into the centerof the image, where the yellow beam sat, pulsating its mesmerizing light, thegreen dots remained farther and farther away from the beam, while the livestarlight grew closer and closer. And atleast one green dot, the digital location of the star Deneb, was alone in thenight sky, with its live counterpart completely missing. The light was indeed bending towards thebeam, and those stars which were closest to the beam found that their starlightwas completely consumed behind the obscure background of the beam itself. Another momentous discovery had been made,but as have been the case with all discoveries thus far, more questions werecreated than there were answers afforded.

While Reyd and Kath congratulated Joram on thishuge replace, Zimmer remained at the monitor studying the image. He began pacing and mumblingincoherently. The noise level of thetrio of graduate students diminished as they understood that Zimmer was stillconsumed in thought and concern. Thetension of silence resumed and was broken by a tension even greater in the formof a phone call.

“Dr. Gilroy,” breathed the crackling voice ofZimmer into his cell phone. “We have ahuge problem… about the rescue mission… I’ll need to come to Johnson immediately.”

…

A voice droned and echoed throughout the domedroom. “Apparent magnitude can becalculated as follows. The variableM-sub-x denotes apparent magnitude, where x denotes the specific band ofelectromagnetic radiation for which apparent magnitude we are measuring. Thus, M-sub-x equals negative two point fivetimes log base ten of F-sub-x plus C. F-sub-x is the flux in the band x, and C is a constant calculated forthe band of interest. As you alreadyknow from Maxwell’s equations, the flux can be derived by calculating thesurface integral of an electromagnetic vector field…”

Kath could barely keep her eyes open. As her head began to nod, she forced herselfto attention once more.

“… equation by John Henry Poynting, where S,representing the energy flux in watts per square meter, equals one divided bymu-sub-zero times E cross B, where mu-sub-zero is the magenetic constant,defined as four times pi times ten to the minus seven power…”

It was no good—Kath could not stay focused. She looked to her left and noticed that shewas not alone in her inability to follow the monotone nature of Dean Scoville,filling in for the absent Zimmer. Shelooked to her right and saw more of the same. Heads propped up by hands on desks, gravity-afflicted bodies slinkingout of seats towards the ground, and—you gotta be kidding? One student taking fastidious notes, consumedwith rapt attention. A smile formed onKath’s face. She couldn’t resist themoment.

“P-S-S-S-S-T.” The letters formed quickly on Joram Anders’s Digital Note Tablet inlinewith the notes he was rapidly copying from the whiteboard which Scoville hadfilled for the third time during the lecture. “One divided by the quantity two times mu-sub-zero times P times S timesS times S times S times T all multiplied by E-sub-zero squared.”

Irritated, he looked up and glared at his fellowstudent. As Kath shrugged her softshoulders in a most flirtatious manner, Joram felt a tingle in his stomach andknew that he couldn’t be the least upset with his delightful research partner.

He shook his head, fixed the equation, andreturned his attention to Scoville—sort of. He could still feel Kath staring at him, and glanced over as she gavehim a wink. He gave a sigh, looked overand mouthed the words “Stop it”, concerned about how easily she was able tosteal his attention away from weightier matters.

After class, Joram had to scold her. “Note passing, Kath? Isn’t that a bit juvenile?”

“How could you focus on that lecture, Joram?”Kath attempted to change the subject.

“Kath, it’s not the speaker that I careabout—it’s the subject.”

“I know, I know,” Kath surrendered. “I’m sorry, Joram. It’s just that I’ve been having a hard timesleeping. These weekends at Palomar arereally throwing my body into sleepless disarray. I’m not sure if I’m cut out for astronomy,Joram.”

“Don’t say that, Kath.” Joram loathed the idea of losing Kath fromthe program. “Give it some time, you’lladjust. It’s just been two weekends sofar.”

“And then, with Scoville… I swear if Zimmerdoesn’t get back soon, I’ll become infamously known throughout the departmentas Kath Van Winkle.”

“Speaking of Zimmer,” Joram took advantage of thesegue, “What do you think he’s doing?”

“I suspect he’s still at Johnson.”

“Really? But he left on Sunday. Three fulldays?”

“Yeah, I suspect the longer he’s gone, the worsenews it is on the rescue mission, not being able to figure out how tocounteract the effects of gravity on the beam so close to the spaceship.” Kath’s voice trailed off.

“What’s wrong, Kath?”

“I just can’t help wondering about theastronauts. How awful it will be if wehave to leave them up there. Iunderstand they can survive for several months. What a miserable demise it will be to be left waiting that long. Talk about a slow death.” Kath stopped on thesidewalk and turned to Joram. “Itcould’ve been worse, you know.”

Joram returned a curious stare. “What do you mean?”

“If you hadn’t discovered the gravitationaleffects of the beam, we might have sent up a team of rescuers to an mostunexpected and unfortunate doom. Youhave probably saved a handful of lives, Joram.”

“Well, before you award me with that medal ofhonor, the act wasn’t anything close to heroic, Kath. I just stumbled across something, that’s all…any of us could’ve done that. Besides,it was Zimmer’s decision to go replace Deneb. Any other star, and we probably would’ve just looked over the detail.”

“Do you think a rescue mission is stillpossible?” Kath asked the question thathad weighed on her mind all week long.

“I’m confident that Zimmer will come up with away to save them—and study that beam too.”

“But how, Joram? What would you do to save those astronauts in light of the gravitationalrisks of the beam?”

“I really don’t know, Kath. I suspect that we might need to takeadvantage of the beam’s gravity. Use itas a slingshot to hurl us away from Mars and then bring us back in a sort oforbit around the beam perhaps. It mighttake a lot longer to get there, depending on how strong the gravity of the beamis, but what’s a few more weeks, or even a couple of months if need be to bringthose astronauts back. Any politicianwho loves his career is going to do all that he can to bring those men backalive.”

“I sure do hope you’re right, Joram.”

The pair resumed their course through campus at aleisurely rate, when Kath’s cell phone rang in her backpack. Opening the phone up, she looked at thecaller’s phone number and gasped. “It’sZimmer!” she said quietly to Joram, as if the professor might overhear her.

Without saying a word, Joram gestured anxiouslyfor her to answer.

“Hello, Professor… Really? Oh, that’s great news… launch on Friday… oh,I’m so relieved. But what about thegravity? I’m sorry, say that again… But…I don’t understand… Houston, you say? Weekend after next… Wow… yeah that will be great! Joram? Oh, he’s probably too busy reviewing Dean Scoville’s notes after thelast lecture to turn his cell phone on…”

Joram’s jaw dropped as he threw open his backpackand rummaged through its contents looking for his phone.

“Yeah… he says he’s really enjoying the dean’slectures… he’s absolutely smitten with the man’s intelligence…”

Joram looked horrified. This little prank was just going too far, andhe made gestures to get her to stop—frantically waving hands, jumping up anddown, making slicing motions across his neck, reaching out as if to strangleher for this level of imprudence.

“Just kidding, Professor… he’s right here withme. We just got out of 21, you know…yeah, I’ll let him know… See you on Friday.”

Kath roared with laughter. “You should’ve seen your face, Joram Anders.”

Joram stood there motionless, not wanting to giveaway any emotion, but as he watched her jubilantly engaged, with her softbrunette hair bouncing around her face he felt his irritation, once again, meltinto attraction.

Taking a deep breath, she composed herself onceagain. “Let’s go to the Red Door Café,and I’ll tell you all about the call.”

Joram jumped at the offer, all too eager to hearprogress of Zimmer’s activities. Joramprodded her for information all the way, but Kath refused to divulge anydetails until she had a peach-flavored iced tea to drink.

“Well?” Joram asked as he and his raspberrylemonade took a seat next to Kath.

Kath held up a finger to hold off Joram just amoment longer. She took a swig of hertea along with a long drawn out breath.

“Are you quite sufficient to talk now, my lady,”Joram said bowing to his regal companion.

In a burst, Kath let out all of the details ofthe conversation in the longest run-on sentence that Joram was ever aware ofhearing. “Zimmer said there’s no worry about gravity; after studying the gravitationaleffects of the beam on Mars, they realized that the light was not bendingbecause of gravity, but for some other phenomenon, because the beam had notshown any effect whatsoever on Mars; of course, we’re going to have to figurethat one out now too, you know, but Zimmer said he’ll brief us on that the nexttime we’re at Palomar, which won’t be for a week and a half, but let me getback to that little detail later; anyway, the mission will resume with just one day of delay, so thelaunch will be on Friday afternoon instead of Thursday morning; the professorneeded extra time to add a few items for studying the light-bending phenomenonup close; the mission is going to launch the experimentation equipment prior tolanding on Mars in 18 days, which means that the experiments will begin on ournext research weekend, not this weekend but the next one, but of course, youalready know that; what you don’t know, however, is that we’ll not be going toPalomar that weekend, we’ll be going to Houston instead, in order to be in therescue mission control room while the experiments are under way; Zimmer thoughtit would be best for us to be there collecting data in real time; by the way,Zimmer was steamed that you didn’t answer your cell phone when he tried to callyou first…”

“What?” Joram’s jaw dropped. “But… but…but c’mon we just got out of class. Ididn’t have a chance to turn it…” Joramcut himself short recognizing the look in Kath’s eyes. “Oh, I am so gullible. Would you just stop doing that to me? How many times will I fall for it?”

Kath chuckled. “Hook, line and sinker.”

“Yeah, but just you wait, Kather Mirabelle. I’ll start recognizing your bait before long,and then you’ll have to pick up and move to a different pond, because this fishain’t gonna bite anymore.”

Kath feigned an expression of seriousness. “Oh that will be a sad day, Joram Anders… asad, sad day.” Looking at her watch, shefinished her tea hurriedly. “Would youlook at the time? We should getgoing. I’m meeting a friend at thetennis club for a game this afternoon, and you need to start reviewing thosenotes from Scoville.”

With a quick peck on the cheek, Kath immersedherself in the crowded walkways of the CalTech campus. Joram watched and admired her gait for aslong as he could see her. After shedisappeared, he allowed the moment with Kath and the news from Zimmer to settlein while enjoying the rest of his lemonade.