Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (65 page)

“Well, part of your studies here,
like lectures and seminars, are done at the University in large groups,
sometimes hundreds, and students from all the colleges take them together. But
the other parts, practicals and supervisions, are often at the college in very
small groups, frequently just one on two. You also live at your college, so
it’s both school, in part, and home. Also, each college has its own set of
professors, labs, practice rooms, its own library, chapel, choir, meal hall.
Further, you actually apply and get accepted through the college, not the
University. It’s a lot different than the way we do things in the States, but
it works. It was fun.”

“Do the colleges specialize in
certain fields?” said Jeff.

“No. In fact most of the colleges
offer all the courses – degrees. There are a few exceptions. Homerton used be a
teaching college, concentrating in education degrees, but now it’s pretty well
diversified like all the others. Two of the colleges – Clare Hall and Darwin –
are graduate studies only, and three – Lucy Cavendish, Murray Edwards, and
Newnham – are women only. And some of them are what they call ‘mature
undergraduate and graduate only.’ At those you have to be 21 or older for
admission.”

“Is it hard to get in?” said Heidi.

“It’s pretty competitive. Pembroke’s
the only College at Cambridge that offers the Semester Abroad Scheme, and they
accept up to 30 students a year for that. Some of the other Colleges have
one-year visiting student programs, but most of them only accept two or three
students a year.”

“Is it expensive?” said Jeff.

Gabe shrugged. “Depends on your
point of view. About $30,000 plus food and travel.”

“Good grief! For one semester?”

“Well, two Terms. They run on a
quarter system here. But that’s about the same price, depending on your major,
as a full year, three Terms, for a normally enrolled student.”

Jeff shook his head. “So that’s how
your education tab got so high.”

“Well, that and four and a half
years at Oberlin, a year at MIT, and three years at Caltech.”

He laughed. “That’d do it. Where is
Pembroke?”

“Just a couple blocks down the
street from King’s. Just up here we’ll take a right on Silver Street, then a
left on Trumpington. Just a block up it turns into King’s Parade, and King’s
College is right there. If we turned the other way on Trumpington, Pembroke’s
just a block down.”

“What’s Pembroke like? I mean, how
does it compare with King’s?”

“Not including The Backs, they’re
about the same size, but Pembroke is older – it’s the third oldest of the
Cambridge colleges after Peterhouse and Clare – and consistently has a higher
academic ranking. Pembroke’s typically in the top five or six of the Cambridge
college rankings.” She chuckled. “King’s is usually a bit farther down the
list.”

“The Backs?”

“Yeah, it’s an open wooded area
that runs along behind King’s, Clare, Trinity Hall, and Trinity, from Queens up
to St. John’s, between the Cam and Queen’s Road.”

“The Cam?”

Gabe laughed. “I need to get you a
map. The Cam is the river that runs through Cambridge.”

“And it’s older than King’s?”

“Yes, nearly a hundred years older.
The license to lay the foundation was granted by Edward III on Christmas Eve
1347. Henry VI founded King’s in 1441, and construction of the chapel was begun
five years later, though it wasn’t completed until 1544. Pembroke has one of
the finest libraries at Cambridge, and the chapel was designed by Christopher
Wren, his first work. King’s major claim to fame is its chapel and choir. But
aside from that, I think Pembroke’s a better college.”

“Good grief. To study at a college
that was built 150 years before Columbus set sail, that must be something.”

“Yeah, it was neat. King’s has a
reputation for radicalism, something like the Sorbonne.” Gabe winked at
Chrissie. “Pembroke’s a bit more straight-laced.”

Chrissie shook her head and rolled
her eyes. “I know what you mean. I swear, most of the undergrads at the
Sorbonne seem to have been transported through time from the French Revolution.
Some of them are kind of scary.”

Jeff chuckled, and glanced at
Susan. “Sounds like Berkeley.”

She smiled and nodded. “And
Stanford too.”

“Gabe, what’s the best college at
Cambridge?”

“I don’t know. Depends on how you
define… best. Ask any student here and they’ll probably tell you the ‘best’ is
the one they’re at. Trinity is the biggest and has the most applications every
year. It’s also produced the most Nobel laureates. But since it’s the biggest,
that may simply be a statistical coincidence. But it’s also produced five of
the six Fields medalists from all of Great Britain. So if one is a mathematician,
it might not be a bad place to go. It’s also the best endowed and one of the
three Royal Colleges, including King’s and St. John’s. Personally, I think the
best is Pembroke, I really liked it there. Each college has its own
personality, and if I had it to do over again, and could choose any, I think
I’d still choose Pembroke. It was a good fit for me.”

“I see. How’s Cambridge compare
with, say… Caltech?”

“Um, kind of apples and oranges.
Schools like Cambridge and Oxford are kind of hard to compare with American
universities – be they big ones like Harvard or Berkeley, or small like Caltech
and MIT – since going to school here is kind of like going to a big university
and a very small college at the same time. Cambridge has over 18,000 students,
but Pembroke only has 700. Caltech has about 2,200. Here you may have a lecture
at the University in the morning in a big hall with 300 other students, and
then in the afternoon have what essentially amounts to private tutoring to help
you sort out what you heard in the lecture that morning. But I kind of like the
format, it’s a lot more personal. I wish there were schools in the U.S. that
were like this. If I knew then what I know now, I would have liked to come here
for all my undergraduate and graduate work. I don’t know as I would have got a
better education, but I think I would have enjoyed it more.

“Academically, I dunno, once you
get into the rarified air of this academic level, they’re all pretty similar. I
mean, Caltech, MIT, Cambridge, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley… Right there you’ve
got six schools that are consistently ranked among the top ten universities in
the entire world. So far as quality of education goes, how much difference can
there be between them?”

Jeff thought for a moment, then
grinned and nodded. “And sitting right here in this car we have alumni of all
six of them.”

Gabe smiled. “And UCLA is in the
top fifteen.”

He laughed. “Yeah, but I’m living
proof that even UCLA graduates the occasional idiot.”

They all laughed.

“You guys are making me feel really
stupid,” said Chrissie.

“I don’t know, Chrissie,” said
Jeff. “I don’t think too many people will look down their nose at Boston
College and the Sorbonne.” He glanced at Abby. “And the Naval Academy is
certainly ranked as one the top schools in the country.”

Abby smiled.

“#1 in the nation among Liberal
Arts Colleges,” said Gabe. “And #5 in undergraduate engineering programs.”

Abby furrowed her brow and stared
at Gabe. “You know, one of these days your brain is gonna run out of storage
space and you’re gonna lock up like a PC with the Blue Screen of Death, and
spend the rest of your life as a turnip.”

Gabe laughed. “Possibly.”

#

The limousine pulled to a stop at
the King’s College main gate on King’s Parade. They piled out and Jeff handed
the engraved invitation to the Porter. “Jeffrey Grey, and party.”

“Yes, sir.” The Porter called for
another Porter who led them toward the Chapel.

As they crunched through the two
inches of fresh snow, Gabe grinned. “Wow, old home week.”

“Did you attend the Festival while
you were here?” said Jeff.

“No, I wasn’t here for it. I was
only here for the Lent and Easter Terms, mid-January through mid-June. So I
missed it by a few weeks.”

The Porter led them around the east
end of the Chapel and through the north doorway beside St. Edward’s Chapel.
There, he handed the invitation to a steward.

“Yes, sir. I’ll show you to your
seats.”

Gabe gasped softly, and whispered
to Jeff, “Gosh, we get to sit in the Choir?”

He shrugged. “Where else would we
sit?”

She pointed to a large wooden
edifice dividing the Chapel. “In the Ante-Chapel, on the other side of the
choir screen. You can hear fine from there, but you can’t see anything. That’s
where the public sits.”

“Lucky us.”

“Yes, very lucky. Hardly anyone
outside of the King’s College staff and a few guests ever get to sit back here
and actually see this.”

Before taking their seats, Jeff
helped Gabe off with her floor-length silk-lined black Persian curly lamb’s
wool coat with mink-trimmed hood. He looked at the coat. “I don’t recognize
this. Is it new?”

“Uh huh. I got it in Boston a
couple weeks ago. We’re supposed to have a cold winter and this looked warm.”

“Is it?”

“Very.”

Jeff whispered, “You know
something?”

“What?”

“You look really lovely this
afternoon.”

She gasped softly, grinned, and bit
her lip. “Thank you. You look very nice also.”

“Thanks.”

“I always like it when you wear a
tux. You look so… debonair.”

He chuckled, they took their seats, and for the next
hour and a half listened, enchanted, to the Festival of Nine Lessons and
Carols.

Saturday, February
20, 2016 (T minus 31 days)

PROP,
“And… shutdown.”

FLIGHT,
“Rog. GUIDANCE?”

GUIDANCE,
“Right down the pipe, FLIGHT.
Magellan
is on her way.”

Everyone in the MCC leaped out of
their seats and burst into applause.

Jeff glanced across the room at
Heidi and gave her a grin and thumbs up.

She smiled and clapped her hands.

Gabe, Abby and Susan hugged him.
They huddled, leaning their heads together.

“Well, that’s it,” said Jeff. “Two
launches to go… us. Thirty-one days.”

They all nodded.

“I need a drink,” said Abby.

Jeff grinned. “Yeah. But first,
let’s thank the troops.” They walked to the front of the MCC and stepped up
onto the stage beneath the main displays. Jeff clasped his hands together,
clutched them to his chest, and nodded appreciatively to everyone in the room.
The applause died down and everyone retook their seats. “Thank you. Thank you
all so much.” He glanced over his shoulder at the displays. “Godspeed,
Magellan
,
see you soon.” He turned back to the room and grinned. “Well, two more to go.”
He chuckled. “We won’t be here to kibitz for those, but we would appreciate it
if you’d make sure to get it right.” Everyone laughed. “It’s more than two
years since the first time I stood here before you. What we have accomplished
together in that time, well… it’s a whole new chapter in space exploration,
that’s for sure. I hope you’ve had as much fun as we’ve had.” The MCC team
applauded. “I note with considerable pleasure that we now have no more doctoral
candidates
here. Congratulations to all of you that have received your
degrees since we began. I also note, with no small amount of pride, that about
a third of you are now employed by NASA. Two of your numbers have now served in
the ISS FCR, and one is on NASA’s SLS development team – Bob, I trust you’ve
learned something from Heidi?”

Robert Vandergriff, now sitting
GNC, smiled and nodded.

“And, even one amongst you has been
selected for the Educator Astronaut Program. Congratulations Sheri, well done.”

Sheri Boehm, FDO, grinned. “Thank
you.”

“Well, 29 days from now the four of
us will hop in the plane and fly down to Kennedy. And two days after that,
we’ll climb into our command module atop the last of our J-241s. Heidi, that
thing gonna work?”

Everyone laughed.

Heidi grinned, sheepishly, and
nodded. “I think so.”

Jeff smiled. “While we’re at it,
ladies and gentlemen, can we please have a big round of applause for this lady,
the mother of the Jupiter rocket.”

Everyone stood and applauded.

Heidi blushed, and nodded
appreciatively.

“And while we’re at it, how about a
big hand for your boss and the voice of Grey Aerospace. Chrissie, take a bow.”

Chrissie stood at the PAO console
and bowed to the room, wiping tears from her eyes.

Jeff nodded. “Okay then. While
we’re gone, we expect you all to behave. And we’d appreciate it if you’d write
now and then.” He smiled as the MCC team laughed. “And, well… we hope to see
you all when we get back. In the meantime, there’s champagne, caviar, and King
crab upstairs… if you’re interested.”

Tuesday, March 8,
2016 (T minus 14 days)

Returning
from LC-39A at Kennedy, following the countdown rehearsal, Jeff led Gabe, Abby
and Susan into the Press Room in the Operations and Checkout Building, better
known simply as the O&C. Cameras flashed. “Good afternoon, all. Um, before
we begin, I’d just like to say that we’ve been in these suits for a bit over
four hours, so can we try to keep this brief and to the point?”

“David
Thompson, Fox News. How did it go?”

“The
countdown rehearsal went fine. We’ve obviously practiced this many times and I
don’t believe either the Firing Room or we encountered any major surprises. The
countdown sequence we’re using is largely based on the shuttle sequence. NASA
did that 135 times, so it’s not a real big deal.”