The Orthogonal Galaxy (11 page)

“
Tonight?”

“
Wha…? Where?”

“
What’s this all about,
Professor?”

She stared at Joram
intently, searching for him to give her clues about the situation.
He could only stare blankly into her eyes while shaking his
head.

“
Okay… uh… bye
then.”

She slowly placed her
phone back in her purse.

“
Tonight?” Joram inquired
on the edge of his seat.

“
Uh-huh,” She mouthed
back.

“
At the Burbank
Airport?”

“
Uh-huh.”

“
The private
terminal.”

“
Uh-huh.”

“
Rendezvous with a
helicopter?”

“
Uh-huh.”

“
Heading to Paris,
France?”

“
Uh-huh... No, wait.” Kath
collected herself. A smile slowly appeared on her face as she
admired Joram’s trick to pull her back to reality.

“
No, Mount Palomar, silly…
the same thing he told you, right?”

“
Uh-huh,” Joram playfully
mocked Kath with a falsetto voice intended to mimic her responses
to him.

“
Very funny, Joram
Anders.” She looked at her watch. “We have to get going… we don’t
have much time to pack before Zimmer meets us at the airport… What
do you think this is all about, Joram?”

“
I don’t know, but what
the heck… a helicopter ride to a mountain observatory for some
star-gazing… sounds wonderful to me. Let’s go!”

“
Yeah, it sounds rather…”
Kath caught herself and blushed slightly as she pulled the word
“romantic” off of her lips and responded, “Rather
wonderful.”

…

Kath and Joram paused as
they entered the helicopter terminal together. Kath pulled a roller
bag behind her, while Joram had a duffel bag on his shoulder. They
both looked around for Professor Zimmer who was to meet them
here.

“
I’ll just check at the
counter,” Joram said.

With sleepy eyes, Kath
watched Joram approach the counter and engage a young man on the
other side. The young man motioned to his right and exchanged some
words and a smile with Joram, who nodded and turned back towards
Kath.

“
We need to wait in room
109 right over there,” Joram offered as the two continued towards
the meeting room.

As they entered the small,
well-lit room, they saw another individual slumped in a seat. As he
heard them enter, he stood up and peered at them, straining to
identify them as someone he knew. Joram was the first to recognize
the individual as the person who entered the planetarium on the
first day of class when he was relaxing in his fully-reclined
seat.

“
You’re in Professor
Zimmer’s A21 class, aren’t you?” Joram offered his right
hand.

“
Yes,” said the young man
accepting Joram’s firm handshake. “As I recall, you were the first
person in the room on Monday weren’t you?”

Joram blushed, realizing
that he had been caught off guard that first day of class as he had
expected.

“
Yes,” he chuckled. “I
suspect you caught me in a rather vulnerable position there didn’t
you.”

Kath cocked her head
slightly and gave Joram an inquisitive glance.

“
I arrived early to class
that first day, so that I could acquaint myself with the
planetarium. I was experimenting with the controls of the seat, and
got a little comfortable when I reclined it all the
way.”

At first, Kath snickered,
but she quickly regained her control… for just a moment before she
had a chance to visualize Joram being caught in that position. The
thought, coupled with her fatigue, made her burst into such a fit
of laughter that her new companion joined in heartily as
well.

Joram rolled his eyes and
nodded, blushing even more.

“
I’m sorry, Joram,” Kath
said. “I know it’s not funny, I just…”

“
It’s ok, Kath,” accepted
Joram. “Actually, it is pretty funny, so I don’t fault
you.”

Kath now turned to her
classmate, “I’m Kath Mirabelle.”

“
Oh, I’m Reyd Eastman,”
their fellow student introduced himself throwing his right hand out
in front of him quickly. “It’s nice to meet both of
you.”

“
Reyd,” Joram grabbed his
colleague’s hand and bypassed the chit chat, “do you know why we’re
all here?”

“
No, I have no idea,
Professor Zimmer just said…” Reyd was cut off abruptly.

“
I can tell you why we’re
here,” announced Professor Zimmer, looking rather haggard from his
second flight of the day. “But please follow me to the helicopter
first.”

The trio of graduate
students retrieved their luggage and obeyed the professor quickly
and quietly as they proceeded out of the room and down the hall of
the terminal.

For an aging professor,
the trio of students was surprised at the quickness of his gait.
After briskly catching up to him, Joram’s curiosity won out over
discretion. He turned his face towards Zimmer and asked,
“Professor, what is this about?”

“
I’m not at liberty to say
here in the terminal, Joram,” the professor looked straight ahead
and continued his rapid pace. “While the situation was declassified
just moments before my plane landed, NASA is scheduling a press
conference later this evening, and I am not at liberty to speak of
the matter here. I’ll tell you everything once we’re aboard the
helicopter.”

Joram tried to piece the
clues together. Situation? NASA? Press conf… Joram looked at his
watch… a press conference later this evening? It was already 11:45
PM. Why would NASA schedule a press conference this late in the
evening? Something was obviously very urgent. And then, didn’t the
professor say something about a plane landing? But he was just in
class with him about 12 hours ago. Where could he have gone—and
returned—so suddenly?

The professor continued
his pace with the students following along with him silently all
the way to the tarmac where a helicopter’s blades were already
whirring overhead. A pair of airport personnel rushed out to meet
the party and assist the group and their luggage into the
helicopter. A pilot assisted Kath into the cockpit first and then
helped Joram, Reyd, and lastly the professor. Each seat had a
headset on it, and each member placed it on their heads. After the
pilot gave some brief instructions, all of the passengers were
harnessed into their seat and clearance was granted from air
traffic controllers for departure.

The helicopter lifted
slowly off the ground, and the three students gazed out of their
windows to see the lights of Southern California stretch to the
horizon in nearly all directions. A smattering of lights could also
be seen in the mountains to the north of the city. They watched
until the ground disappeared under a dense marine layer and soon
all that could be seen was the flashing lights of the helicopter
itself and the moonless sky filled with a vast array of stars of
various brightness and color. Joram admired the scene overhead. He
had only been in Southern California for a week, and he was already
missing the expansive, star-filled sky over his home in
Kansas.

Joram looked back over at
the professor who was studying the contents of a manila folder
intently. After a moment he looked up at the pilot, who was engaged
with final departure communication from the airport. The pilot
looked back at Zimmer and nodded.

Reaching for a button on
his headset, he engaged his microphone. Looking at his perplexed
trio, he spoke, “Can you all hear me
okay?” They each nodded and leaned towards the professor with
intent curiosity, as if by proximity they would be able to hear him
through the noise of the helicopter better.

“
You’ll recall that Dean
Scoville came into my classroom today as lecture was finishing up.
He led me to his office, where I was given a very urgent assignment
from NASA. I have been to Johnson Space Center, where they have
briefed me on a situation of utmost concern.” He paused, not sure
how to continue. “It is our lot to solve a rather perplexing
astronomical puzzle as quickly as possible, which is why I have
summoned the three of you to travel with me to Palomar
tonight.”

He caught himself with
that statement, “By the way, I have failed to thank you for your
willingness to do this without sufficient preparation or
explanation. My apologies for not being clearer… I had to be brief
on the phone because this situation was classified when I spoke to
you.”

Another longer pause
ensued, as he was not sure he wanted to precede his briefing with
the following introduction. “There are at least three astronauts
whose lives could be in jeopardy at this very moment.”

At that, Kath gave a
start, and covered her gasping mouth with her hands. Joram leaned
back in his seat, horrified at the implication. Reyd dropped his
head in realization of the seriousness of the situation.

Zimmer gave his students
the details as they had been conveyed to him by Gilroy’s task
force.

“
Now, we had hoped to have
a visual on the camp by now, seeing how the lone communicating
satellite is directly overhead. However, a severe dust storm has
completely obscured visibility of 60% of the surface of the planet.
Even so, the satellite should be able to communicate with equipment
at the camp, but…” with this Zimmer lowered his head, “… but, I’m
afraid that there is no signal. Now, the timing is not as desirable
as we’d like,” Zimmer began to wrap up his briefing. “At this late
hour, we will only have a few good hours to collect
data.”

With an introduction to
the situation out of the way, Professor Zimmer instructed his
graduate students in the plans which he had devised on the plane
trip back from Houston. “Joram, you will accompany Reyd, who has
familiarity with the setup at Palomar. Reyd received his bachelor’s
degree last Spring in Computer Science with a minor in Astronomy.
He will be able to work the system to process the data in any
manner we need. Kath, as the only meteorologist currently in the
program, I have called on you to study the dynamics of the dust
storm. This is not a storm of any typical nature that has ever been
observed occurring on our neighbor. I, in the meantime, will
control the telescope to collect what I believe will be the most
useful set of data for us to process. For the time being, I advise
you to get what little rest you can before we land at Palomar. If
you have any questions, just press the red button on your headset
right here.”

Kath was the first to
deploy her microphone. “Professor, you are correct that I have
studied meteorology, but only as it pertains to Earth. I have no
notion of the atmospheric dynamics on Mars to be able to adequately
perform this study.”

“
I suspect that you will
learn quickly, Miss Mirabelle,” began Zimmer, “As soon as we touch
down, you will have complete access to a team of Martian
meteorologists in Israel. They are prepared to teleconference with
you and have been given express instructions to give you full
access to their knowledge. Ask them any question that you need.
Call upon them for any report of data that may help. Your job is to
communicate to the team assembled at Palomar any and all details as
they unravel from the team in Israel.”

Kath nodded her head. She
did not feel adequate to the task, but also did not want to let the
professor down, and she certainly did not want to let down the
three astronauts whose lives could depend on the teamwork of
everybody involved on their behalf.

“
Any more questions?”
probed the professor.

Joram had many, but he
knew that he could defer many of them to Reyd once they were on the
ground, so as to not distract the professor from any data
processing or theorizing on the matter for the remainder of the
flight.

After a moment of silence,
the professor returned to his seat, reclined the seat back
slightly, and rested his head, heaving a burdened sigh as he closed
his eyes.

Kath, who sat next to
Joram took off her headset and spoke above the noisy helicopter
into Joram’s ear. “How exactly are we supposed to rest with this
racket?”

Joram reached under his
seat and pulled out a pair of objects from his duffel bag. “You
said that you were wanting to try these, and well… I thought they
might come in handy for you on the flight.”

Kath smiled in amazement.
In the little time that Joram had to pack for the trip, he was
thoughtful enough to remember his Ear Cups… for her!

She placed them over her
ears, and was quite shocked to discover that they worked amazingly
well. She could hear almost nothing. In his ear, she said, “You’re
wonderful, Joram Anders,” and proceeded to kiss him on the
cheek.

The two exchanged a warm
smile with each other before Kath got comfortable, resting her head
on Joram’s broad shoulder. In an instant, she was asleep as if
resting in her own bed, and not on a noisy helicopter bound for a
mountain observatory 100 miles away.

7

With a commanding
presence, Warron slid his seat back deliberately, causing a slight
squeak as it rubbed on the tile floor. He stood erect and turned to
face the jury. Beginning at the lower left of the jury box, Warron
ensured that he had the attention of each juror. Scanning the last
juror seated in the upper right corner, a young male college
student, he felt confident on whom he should focus to provide the
desired results.