The Orthogonal Galaxy (20 page)

“
That satellite survived,
Kath, because it was sheltered from the destructive path that has
left an indelible mark on our inner Solar System. However, the
trajectory of the shuttle was not in the shadow.”

Kath did not understand.
“In what shadow, Professor?”

“
In the shadow of the
yellow beam, Ms. Mirabelle. Mars protected that remaining
satellite, as it sat in the shadow during that one fateful,
destructive moment.”

The three students
gasped.

“
Professor?” Joram asked
quietly. Deliberately, he phrased his questions. “Are you
suggesting that the yellow beam is the source of the
radiation?”

“
Yes, Mr. Anders, I
believe that is exactly the case.”

“
Then, you know what this
yellow beam is, then, right?”

Zimmer sighed heavily. “I
have no clue, Mr. Anders. But you three are going to help me find
out. Consider yourselves assigned to your graduate research here at
CalTech.”

11

Paol Joonter broke an
awkward silence in an attempt to calm his nerves. “It seems just
like yesterday,” he said as much to himself as to those around him.
He was staring out of a window in a very familiar hallway of the
courthouse. The last time he was here, he was awaiting a verdict in
his murder trial. Now, he waited to hear his sentencing.

“
What seems like
yesterday, Paol?” His lawyer accepted the prompt, knowing that it
would help pass the time, if not the stress.

The client turned to his
council as he answered the question. “It’s just that I remember
sitting in that bench over there for two days—or was it
eternity—waiting to hear the verdict. Now, here I am again waiting
to hear another jury decide my fate.”

“
How do you feel this
time, Paol?” continued Warron.

“
Frankly, I’m still
disturbed, but I’m not as nervous. I think I’m beyond that now. I’m
hardened, calloused inside. Maybe it’s numbness and the whole thing
hasn’t really settled in yet.” Turning back to the window, he
paused for a moment. “At least this time, it’s a beautiful day out
there. The sun is shining, not a cloud in the sky. Maybe that’s a
good omen. But how good can it possibly be?”

“
Paol, remember what I’ve
told you. We will appeal, and we will win. You will not have to
spend any time in jail. Since this is a first-time offense, I
should have no problem getting bail during the appellate process,
especially because it’s a first offense, and nobody is considering
you to be dangerous.”

“
Yes,” countered the
frustrated businessman, whose optimism had given way to cynicism in
recent weeks. “You also pointed out how lawmakers on Capitol Hill
were encouraging federal courts to wield harsher sentences on
white-collar criminals these days.”

“
True,” admitted Warron.
“I did warn you that things could be different, but typically,
those new laws are because white-collar crime continues to grow at
alarming rates. Tax evasion, fraud, money laundering, and
embezzling were wreaking havoc on the national economy. The intent
of Congress was to increase penalties on these monetary types of
crimes that have been impacting our economy for years.” While
Warron believed that this was the case, he was also concerned about
how these laws might be interpreted by federal judges and juries,
particularly in the case of his client.

Paol Joonter retreated
from the window and returned to the bench to sit beside Warron.
Staring at the tile floor, he refused to continue to distract
himself with the beautiful autumn day that was occurring outside.
It was too painful for him to think that he may never be able to
see a beautiful sunny day in a downtown park setting ever
again.

“
The way I see it, Warron,
it’s either life in prison with parole in no fewer than 20 years or
the death penalty. Right?”

“
Wrong!” Warron refused to
look at the glass half empty. “It’s neither of those scenarios…
it’s appeal, Paol. Appeal and acquit.”

Paol smiled weakly.
“Thanks, Warron. With your confidence, I am hopeful that you will
find a way to restore justice to the system.”

Warron stood erect with
the sound of echoing footsteps. “That would be Monay.”

Paol heaved a sigh of
concern. “Here we go again.”

12

“
Hello, Reyd,” said Kath
cheerfully as she leaped through the door of the common
room.

Reyd Eastman gave a start.
“Kath. Joram. Glad you could finally make it.” He frowned while
looking at his watch. “Zimmer’s been asking for you guys for a
while now.”

Joram’s eyes widened in
concern. “What did he say, Reyd?”

“
Something about finding some more
reliable
grad students to make
history by studying one of the most bizarre astronomical phenomena
to occur in the last century.” Reyd’s smirk gave away his practical
joke.

Kath, who by now had
approached to within arms distance, slugged Reyd in the shoulder.
“You need to practice your poker face! By the way, why didn’t you
ride down with us?”

“
Oh, I have an aunt who
lives in Lake Elsinore, so I stayed at her place last night. It
breaks up the drive nicely.”

The trio turned towards
the door as they heard it fly open. Professor Zimmer marched
briskly into the room. “Ah, Joram. Kath… Glad you could finally
make it. I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to find
some more
reliable
graduate students to make history by studying one of the most
bizarre astronomical phenomena to occur in the last
century.”

With jaws dropped, Kath
and Joram turned quickly to Reyd, who could only shrug his
shoulders with as much surprise as they. Did Zimmer overhear their
conversation?

“
Just kidding, you two,”
smiled the professor.

“
Professor, you seem
rather chipper this evening,” Kath observed.

“
Ah, that’s because I have
just heard some great news, Kath!”

“
What’s that?”

“
I received a call from
Dr. Gilroy at Johnson. An observatory has yielded an encouraging
piece of evidence. It appears that our Martian astronauts are…”
Zimmer paused for effect and then lowered his voice to a whisper,
which was betrayed by the twinkle in his eye, “…alive!”

Kath let out a screech,
Reyd sighed with much relief, and Joram applauded.

“
How did they discover
that, Professor?” asked Joram eagerly.

“
Turns out that they left
a message with some of the rubbish: S.O.S, it spells. They were
able to trace two sets of footprints leading to the opening where
they were able to lay out the letters with a series of beams to
make the three block letters needed.”

“
Professor, I saw the
destruction,” pointed out Reyd. “There was nothing left standing.
How could they survive that?”

“
Apparently, the last
communication that we had with the astronauts occurred while they
were in the bunker—deep under ground. They were supposed to be on
their way to a maintenance task, but they had forgotten a set of
tools in the bunker.”

Kath breathed deeply.
“What a stroke of luck… what a miracle!”

Changing conversation
abruptly, Zimmer announced, “Now, I must inform you that I will not
be able to assist your efforts in the observatory tonight. I must
attend a meeting of some urgency. You three will have to proceed on
your own. You have the information from our meeting on campus
earlier this week, correct?”

The three nodded their
heads as Zimmer eyed his three students for their affirmative
response. “Good!” he said clapping his hands. “You may proceed to
the observatory to begin your preparations for the
evening.”

Zimmer left the room,
closing the door behind him with a pace that was quicker than his
entrance.

“
I wonder what that was
all about,” Kath mused with her hands on her hips.

“
Dunno. But let’s go make
history!” Joram directed with excitement. This was the team’s first
trip back to Palomar, and he had been eager to continue exploring
ever since they returned back to the university.

…

The trio of graduate
students huddled around the main control panel of the observatory.
For the first couple of hours, the team organized themselves as
best as they could without their mentor. They poured over the data
that had been collected from the resident astronomers, as well as
that of other observatories around the globe.

First looking at optical
data collected from their very own 26” telescope, they were able to
conclude that the brightness of the yellow beam was growing
steadily in intensity. In the past week, the apparent magnitude of
the beam had gone from a barely visible 6.3 when it was first
detected to its present 1.3, making it as bright as some of the
brightest stars in the sky. They had been able to calculate that
the beam was about 120 miles wide and passed by Mars at a minimum
distance of 12,500 miles—a near miss in astronomical terms—and that
the line was perfectly parallel to the plane of the Milky Way. This
was a significant contribution, and allayed much of the tension and
concern surrounding the beam.

There were still many lay
people who were swayed by the media to conclude that it had to be
an alien spaceship, but the scientific community had concluded
convincingly that this was very likely a galactic phenomenon,
because of its orientation to the plane. Nevertheless, in the back
of everyone’s mind was the fact that some radiation event began
exactly in the direction of the beam, and that it was detectable
from Earth, from the Sun, and on Mars around the same point in
time—evidence, say the visionaries that it must have been a space
craft emitting the radiation as it passed by at very high
speeds—perhaps even nearing the speed of light—and that the trail
left behind was simply the exhaust of the passing UFO.

Reyd was the first to
broach the subject. “You know what the media is saying don’t
you?”

Kath shivered at the
allusion. “It’s easy for them to spew off irrelevant theories. It’s
harder for me to scientifically study this phenomenon with the
thought that just maybe I don’t want to discover what the source of
it is.”

“
Oh, Kath,” rebutted Reyd.
“It would be a marvelous discovery to learn of extra-terrestrial
intelligence. You know Zimmer has been eager in this subject for
some time.”

“
What, the parallel
earth?”

“
Sure, I mean, what comes
with a parallel earth?” Reyd paused too short for either of his
peers to craft an answer. “Parallel beings! That’s what comes from
a parallel earth!”

“
But if that was a
spaceship, then we have no parallel. And if the conspiracy
theorists are right, our solar system just got buzzed by some alien
ship scouting out our neighborhood. And look at the damage which
that one ship caused on Camp Mars. Now that the scout has buzzed
us, the rest of the troops will move in and take over. It could be
the end of us, Reyd. I don’t want to discover our
Armageddon.”

“
Kath, you worry too
much.” Changing subjects Reyd asked her, “So what is your theory,
then? What is that thing?” Reyd pointed to the screen where some of
the latest images of the beam twinkled mysteriously.

“
I… I don’t
know.”

“
Jor. What do you think?”
Reyd turned to his other colleague.

“
Wha? Huh?” Joram had
completely missed the conversation as he scoured the
data.

“
Could this be a UFO,
Joram?”

“
UFO? C’mon, Reyd,” Joram
snorted. “You need to pay more attention to the data, and less
attention to the media.”

Quickly changing the
subject back to their research, Joram announced, “There is no
telling how long this thing is. I mean, it could be several
light-years long.”

“
What?” Reyd and Kath
synchronized their stunned response.

“
Why is that so
surprising?” Joram turned away from the monitor to look at his
colleagues. “Just because we’ve only seen measurable effects from
our inner Solar System… don’t think that the thing is local to us.
Where does the beam begin? And where does it end?”

After a pause, Reyd said,
“Why don’t you tell us, Joram? You seem to be the authority on the
subject.”

“
No,” Joram tried to avoid
a confrontation. “I’m just like you two… trying to learn what the
heck this is.”

“
Sorry, Joram,” Reyd
reined in his aggressiveness. “So tell us. Why do you think it is
so sizable?”

“
Visual clues indicate
that for at least 7000 Astronomical Units in both directions, the
beam has at least the same absolute magnitude. Thus, I wonder how
much farther the beam extends in both directions before it fades?
But more importantly, what the heck is causing such a phenomenon?
It is so strange.”

“
It must be some jet of
radiation, and if we can figure out which way it is coming from, we
can go back and find the star that is giving it off,” suggested
Reyd.