The Orthogonal Galaxy (26 page)

“
The case seemed so open
and shut to me,” she confided. “If I was on that jury, I would’ve
voted him guilty also.”

“
I know,
I know, I would have too. That’s why this is so difficult for me to
swallow. I have a client who is a good, honest, and
innocent
man. I have
failed to represent him adequately, and now he’s been sentenced to
serve a prison term he does not deserve.” He stopped in his tracks
and gazed intently at his paralegal. “But I will not fail him in
the end, Monay. Mark my words. Paol Joonter will be
acquitted.”

She turned one corner of
her mouth up in a half smile. “I’m sure you will find a way… that’s
why I work for you, you know.”

Distracted, she turned
back towards the window front of an electronics store that the pair
had stopped in front of. Televisions of all sizes, synchronized to
the same channel were just starting to broadcast the evening news.
A pair of speakers above the window allowed passersby the
opportunity to watch and hear the broadcast.

A male news anchor dressed
in a dark suit coat, white shirt and red paisley tie announced,
“Our top story of the night comes from Houston, Texas, where our
reporters are picking up the latest details from the incident on
Camp Mars. Rilynn Stewbridge comes to us live from the press room
at the Johnson Space Center. Rilynn, can you fill us in on what we
know so far.”

The television screen
split to show both the anchor and field correspondent side-by-side.
A caption at the bottom announced, “Tragedy on Mars.”

“
Well, Milas,” began the
correspondent, strategically placed with an empty press podium and
NASA logo in the background. “Dr. Vurim Gilroy just gave an
announcement that NASA will attempt a mission to rescue the
astronauts on Camp Mars. Communication has still not been made
between Mars and Earth, and there is no word on the status of
astronauts Garrison O’Ryan and Dmitri Boronov.

“
He stated that a team of
NASA specialists have been assembled, as well as renowned
astrophysicist and CalTech professor, Carlton Zimmer, to assess the
cause of the incident. We talked with Dr. Zimmer earlier today
about the incident.”

“
A newsreel then showed
the interview with Zimmer. Warron lowered his umbrella, since the
rain had completely ceased now, and took a couple of steps closer
to the largest TV.

Wow!” he exclaimed. “Would
you look at that?”

Monay playfully hit her
boss over the head with her umbrella. “What is it with you men that
make you drool every time you see a large-screen TV?”

He turned abruptly. “No!”
he said. “I’m not talking about the TV… I’m talking about how
haggard Carl looks.”

“
Carl?” Monay asked as she
turned back to the television. “Just because you’re one of the top
lawyers in the country doesn’t give you a right to be on a
first-syllable basis with every important scientist, you
know.”

He turned away from the
store window and began walking away from Monay. “Not unless that
important scientist just happens to be your brother.”

Monay’s jaw dropped.
“Carlton Zimmer is your brother! I… I… I had no idea!”

She bounded several steps
quickly in order to catch up to Warron Zimmer, the younger, and
certainly less popular sibling of the Zimmer family.

“
I mean, sure you have the
same last name and all, and maybe Zimmer isn’t all that popular,
but I never would have made the connection.”

“
Well, we certainly took a
different course in life,” Warron said. “I was still in diapers
when Carlton was already intently studying every move of NASA.
Every young boy his age was captivated by the announced development
on Mars. Carl just took it more to heart, I guess. He knew the
first astronauts’ names. He monitored construction of the camp
intently. He became quite the areologist.”

“
Airy what?” asked
Monay.

“
Areology,” began Warron,
“refers to the study of Mars. Carl made sure I knew the correct
word, when I kept referring to him as a Martian-ologist. The poor
chap looked exhausted in that newsreel, I’ll tell you that much. I
don’t think he should continue to work at the pace that he does…
he’s just starting to get too old for that to be any good on his
health.”

“
Well,” retorted the
paralegal. “I’m not so sure he looked a whole lot different than
you during your pre-trial efforts.”

“
That’s different,” the
lawyer countered. “I’m younger than he is… by eight years.” He cut
a glance out of the corner of his eyes, spying on a reaction from
his assistant. He was disappointed when all she did was roll her
eyes.

“
Anyway,” Monay switched
the conversation back to the current event. “I saw a headline this
morning in the newspaper regarding the Mars incident.”

“
What did the paper have
to say about it?” Warron asked.

“
Nobody seemed to know
what was going on, but it sounded like a couple of astronauts may
were in serious danger.”

“
And that’s how my brother
comes in. NASA called on him to help them find a solution to saving
the astronauts. Well, if anybody can do it, he’s their man. The
best problem solver I know. He’d have made a better lawyer than
me.”

“
Well, he certainly makes
a better Martian-ologist, or whatever you call it,” Monay asserted.
“Your brother is Carlton Zimmer, and I know more about what’s going
on at Mars than you do?”

“
It’s not like Carl works
on the Mars thing anymore. He’s chasing bigger challenges at this
stage of his career.”

“
Oh, that’s right. Didn’t
he attempt to study black holes?” asked Monay.

“
That was his main project
a couple of years back, and I don’t think it ended on a positive
note. It was a beginning of a rough relationship with NASA funding
of his programs. It turns out that it’s really hard to understand
something you can’t observe, and since black holes are known to be
gravity sources so large that nothing—not even light—can escape,
well, it’s not like you’re landing an astronaut on one of these
things to take soil samples, are you? He mentioned that it was one
of his toughest and most frustrating pieces of research. I know
that he wasn’t happy with the results. Either way, he’s really been
interested in just one objective practically since he was in grade
school.”

“
What’s that?”

“
He’s trying to find a
parallel earth out there. You know, I really respect his dream, but
it seems so unreasonable. I hope he’s not chasing some dead end
path. But… he is the expert, and I know he has his theories for
good reason. I just don’t understand it all when he explains it to
me.”

“
Well, I wish him the
best. He’s made some fascinating discoveries along the way. It
sounds like a parallel earth would be a crowning achievement for
him”

“
It really would be. I
sure hope he can find it.”

16

Carlton Zimmers’ research
team stepped out of a white shuttle van in a large parking lot.
Zimmer looked more tired than ever, while the students looked like
energetic, bright-eyed children on a field trip. Nonchalantly,
Zimmer thanked the driver of the van and walked towards the
adjacent building—an inauspicious off-white structure of four
stories in height with no windows and only the identifying number
30 placed high on its wall.

“
Not much to look at,
huh?” Reyd said, breaking the silence.

“
No, you’re not!” Kath
shot back at her fellow student as she turned and slugged him on
the shoulder for his irreverence at this space exploration
monument.

“
It doesn’t have to be
much to look at,” Joram rebutted. “Just think of the history,
Reyd,”

Zimmer settled the
squabble once and for all. “Would you all prefer to stand out here
and debate the architectural merits of Mission Control, or would
you like to go inside and get a closer look at our
beam.”

Without a word, the three
followed the professor inside the foyer of the building, where a
tall middle-aged man was waiting with an outstretched
hand.

“
Dr. Zimmer.”

“
Stan… so kind of you to
meet us here.”

“
It’s no problem,
Professor.

“
Students, this is Staneck
Rodgers—mission specialist for the Mars mission.” Zimmer introduced
each of his students to the NASA engineer.

“
I’m glad you all could
come see the mission. I, for one, have lost plenty of sleep—mostly
over the astronauts, you’ll understand—but also out of curiosity
over this mysterious object. I really hope this mission will shed
some light on its origin and makeup.”

Walking towards a security
desk at the foyer, Stan proceeded with business. “I’ll need each of
you to sign your name and provide our security guard, with a set of
fingerprints.”

Reyd went first, and Kath
remained close by to follow after him. Joram lingered a little
behind in order to bend his ear towards the conversation ensuing
between Rodgers and Zimmer.

“
No, professor,” Joram
overheard Staneck as he shook his head. “There have been no
anomalies with the mission. Everything is going smoothly. We had a
clean separation of the USL from the shuttle at 0913 hours this
morning. In approximately 45 minutes, we should have paddle
separation. Data collection should begin within a few minutes of
trajectory correction for each of the twelve paddles.” Stan looked
at his watch. “Things should start getting busy, and hopefully
interesting, in about an hour or so.”

“
And the astronauts,
Stan?” inquired Zimmer with a concerned tone in his
voice.

“
No fresh evidence,
Professor—” Stan answered as Zimmer lowered and shook his head.
“—but remember, they are simply following strict protocol to
preserve the environment in the bunker. Once they are awaiting
rescue, they must remain locked inside, otherwise they compromise
too much oxygen.”

“
Come on, Stan,” Zimmer
protested. “Protocol or not, what would you do? Tell me that you
wouldn’t come out during Earth-sight with a field scope and look
for a high-luminosity morse signal. You would have to have nerves
of steel to wait inside your Martian gravesite, not knowing if or
when you were going to be rescued.”

“
Astronauts are trained to
follow every instruction, Professor.”

“
Then why are we sending
the signal, Stan? We have stations on three separate oceanic
islands, constantly transmitting a night-time light source in morse
code, so that the astronauts know about the mission and its
timeframe. If we thought they wouldn’t emerge, we wouldn’t send the
signal.”

“
The astronauts are never
notified of the emergency communication signal. They have no idea
that such a procedure exists, simply because we don’t want to tempt
them to surface too often and squander their environment. The
signal is only intended for them to see under dire
circumstances.”

Zimmer laughed in
ridicule. “So we tell our men to wait it out, but we send a signal
that they’re never supposed to see anyway. I just don’t understand
these emergency procedures very well.”

“
I’m sorry, Professor.
Even I didn’t know about the emergency light signals. Until this
had occurred, they were highly classified. Remote islands with no
human contact were selected in the South Pacific, North Atlantic,
and Indian Oceans. High-intensity solar-powered light sources with
remote satellite communication capabilities were set up and known
only by a few top NASA personnel until they were turned on. Even
though these islands are ridiculously remote in most cases, any
airplane within a few thousand miles could see the light shining
way up into the atmosphere at nighttime. NASA had to declassify
them with a formal press release the moment they turned them
on.”

“
Did Gilroy
know?”

“
Yes,
Professor.”

Zimmer shook his head in
disgust.

“
Well I am glad that they
declassified it, so that every future astronaut in the inner solar
system will know that he can still receive communications from
Earth. I just think it is atrocious to make those two men suffer
the constant emotional stress of imagining death by slow
suffocation in a lonely Martian chamber. To build into emergency
procedures the knowledge that Martian astronauts in distress are to
be left in the dark—perhaps both figuratively and literally—I don’t
think the public is going to be too happy with NASA once they
realize—”

“
All done, Professor,”
Zimmer was too busy opining on the state of the astronauts that he
entirely missed Kather’s appearance, nor did Kath realize until it
was too late that she had interrupted a conversation in a rather
tense moment.

“
I’m sorry—we’ll just—just
wait over here.” Kath stammered.

“
No, no, Miss Mirabelle.
Your timing is appropriate. Mr. Rodgers and I were just finishing
our conversation, and I know he has some pressing matters to look
after.”

“
My apologies, Professor.
There really is nothing more we can do except get that shuttle down
to Camp Mars as quickly as possible and return those astronauts to
Earth. This is our top priority, I assure you.”