The Orthogonal Galaxy (57 page)

Joram nodded, but his
pursed lips and narrowed eyes indicated that he was clearly not
placated. Two minutes later, he inquired, “We’ve only seen one
orbit of this thing, Professor. What if it doesn’t
return?”

“
And why would it not
return, Mr. Anders?” Zimmer responded into Joram’s ear to avoid
disrupting the focused silence of mission control personnel. “A
collision is outside of the likelihood of possibility. As you know,
this thing orbits in the sparseness of the Milky Way periphery
where a collision with a large enough deterrent for such a speedy
object is extremely unlikely.”

“
Do you think, then that
we simply didn’t account for everything in our calculation,
Professor?”

“
Undoubtedly!”

“
We have studied the
equations for years. What variable could we have
overlooked.”

“
It’s not what we
overlooked, Mr. Anders, but rather what we couldn’t
calculate.”

Joram tilted his head and
looked Zimmer squarely in the face.

“
While I feel confident
that no major collisions have occurred, I wouldn’t be surprised at
all if the comet hasn’t had some resistance to its orbit from space
dust, rocks or other small sized asteroids from nearby star
systems.”

“
Of course!” Anders stated
loud enough to obtain the attention of several field correspondents
seated around the group. It was so obvious that he wondered why he
hadn’t thought about it himself. His face flushed as Kath scowled
at him for his irreverence. Leaning closer to the professor, he
regained himself. “But, Professor, if these minor collisions could
slow down the comet and cause a delay, couldn’t they also impact
its course?”

“
Certainly, but I don’t
believe that it will be significant. Work the numbers, if it will
satisfy you. A thirty minute delay is only 5 ten millionths of the
entire orbit. Even if we wait several hours, the change is
miniscule. I suspect the same will be true of the
orbit.”

After a moment of silence,
Anders continued. “Professor, I’ve been concerned
about—”

Joram was interrupted by a
raised hand of Professor Zimmer, who leaned forward in his seat as
if to obtain a better view of the Mission Control floor below. A
certain level of bustling ensued with some shifting in seats, and a
couple of engineers stood and rushed about to various
workstations.

Several more engineers
stood as the main video display began processing the clear path of
the superluminal comet, significantly closer to Jupiter than
previously anticipated.

Several chattering voices
were heard, but above the din, a voice of the mission control
commander came from the back of the control room floor. “Trajectory
team, please adjust calculations of comet’s orbit and upload
immediately to ST3. Comm, please notify ST3 that we have received
confirmation of the comet and that once the onboard computer has
adjusted its trajectory assignment, they are to proceed immediately
to rendezvous. Congratulations, Team! ST3 hyper-warp phase begins
now.”

Kath enthusiastically
embraced Joram and went to plant a kiss on his cheek, when she
noticed his ashen complexion. “Joram?” she asked wrinkling her
forehead in confusion.

Joram responded by shaking
his head in confusion with a shrug of the shoulders. He turned to
Zimmer to notice a similarly fallen countenance. “Professor, I’m
worried about—”

Zimmer shot a knowing
wide-eyed glance at Anders along with a rapid, yet subtle shake of
the head. “Not here, Joram.”

Kath squeezed Joram’s hand
for his attention. He turned and leaned towards her ear. “I hope
I’m wrong, Kath. We’ll need to do some thorough reviews and crunch
some big numbers, but there may be a chance that—”

“
Mr. Anders! Not—here!”
Zimmer’s voice was soft enough to not be heard above the chatter of
the room, but was as stern as Joram had ever remembered. He stopped
short, and began to comprehend that his mentor was absolutely
right. Being overheard in this group of individuals could prove
detrimental.

27

“
There she is again,”
exclaimed Blade, “just comin’ over the horizon.”

“
Yeah, I see her,” Paol’s
jaw dropped. “What a show!”

Paol Joonter and Blade
Slater had already spent several days hugging the surface of
Jupiter while waiting out for their ride to Earth2, and yet they
certainly had not tired from the celestial show they were enjoying.
They found Jupiter to be simply mind-boggling as they closed in on
it. The radiant colors, and turbulent cloud patterns provided an
eerie, almost frightening backdrop, as if the planet was trying to
swallow the tiny Star Transport into its violent atmosphere. They
had also been able to see all four of the Galilean moons, each so
vastly different in appearance. Now, while they hovered above the
wavy equatorial clouds of Jupiter, they could see two of Jupiter’s
moons simultaneously.

They had already been
enjoying the view of Callisto directly overhead. When he first saw
the moon up close as the vehicle approached Jupiter, Paol was
stunned to find that it looked like an inhabited planet due to the
appearance of city lights scattered all over the otherwise dark and
ruddy surface of the satellite. Even after Blade had explained to
him that the bright white spots on Callisto were nothing more than
fields of ice at relatively higher elevations, he still found it
eerie to look upon and imagine civilization on such a small,
remote, and frozen moon.

With Callisto perched high
above the domed ceiling of Star Transport, Europa now began its
rise above the Jovian horizon. In stark contrast to the dark
regions of Callisto, Europa is covered by a light, deep permafrost.
With the appearance of dirty snow the surface is mingled with a
dusty brown crust and watery ice. What really distinguishes Europa,
however, is the deep brown lines scattering along the face of the
planet in all different directions, as if the surface had been
clawed by a very large cat. Neither Paol nor Blade could conceive
of the violent geologic forces at work to cause this vast scarring
all over the face of the moon.

“
You know, Blade,” said
Paol in awestruck wonder, “We’ve seen four pretty amazing and
starkly different moons here around Jupiter. After we travel the
circumference of the Milky Way on this mission, I can’t help but
think that it would be a walk in the park to come explore the moons
of Jupiter after we get back home.”

“
Ah that would be
somethin’, Paol. I don’t know if they’d let us have a go at it
though. They’ve been talkin’ up the Magellan mission fo’ years,
where they send off astronauts to explore and map the Solar System.
It always comes back to a price tag that Washington won’t pay
fo’.”

“
It seems likely,” Paol
mused, “that if this mission succeeds, it will open up a whole
world of possibilities. It would prove that if interstellar travel
is possible, then intrastellar exploration would certainly be a
safe proposition, and would look like pocket change compared to the
costs of this mission.”

“
Well,” Blade snorted. “I
thinks we first need to cross this bridge befo’ we can comes to the
next one.”

“
Agreed. I guess I’ll just
sit back and enjoy the show.” Paol reclined his seat and clasped
his hands behind his head, enjoying the view of Callisto overhead
with Europa straight ahead and the dominating surface of Jupiter to
the left.

A series of chimes pulled
the astronauts back to the mission at hand.

“
Message from: Mission
Control,” Blade read the display. “Let’s haves a looksy shall we,
Partna’?”

Paol remained in his
position of repose. “What’s it say, Blade?”

Blade read the display.
“It says, ‘Show time, boys! The superluminal comet passed by at
oh-eight hundred six hours. While its approach was later and nearer
to Jupiter than anticipated, we have ascertained that the mission
is a ‘Go’ for hyper-warp phase. Please ensure that data set 13009
is uploaded, configured, and operational before proceeding to
rendezvous with the yellow beam. This is the final communication
from Mission Control until you emerge from superluminal speed on
your return to Earth1. Please confirm message and proceed with
mission. Godspeed, gentlemen!’”

Paol quickly pulled out of
his dreamy enjoyment of the celestial view around him, and became
austere and business-like. “Navigator, please respond affirmatively
to the message from Mission Control. I will work on installing the
13009 patch to the computer for correct navigation to the comet
tail.”

Paol worked the control
panel in front of him furiously and efficiently as Blade typed and
sent his response to Earth1. As Blade sat back in his seat, Paol
also paused briefly and turned to his partner.

“
This is the moment we’ve
been waiting for, Blade. Are you ready for this?”

“
There’s no backin’ out
now, Cap’n.”

The two reached out and
clasped each other by the right hand in a tight grip. With
intensity, they stared deeply into each other’s faces, both
attempting to assess the readiness of the other. Without further
need for words, the moment sealed their intent to do everything
possible to proceed with the mission and succeed. They could read
the expression on each other’s face and realized that they could
strictly rely on the loyalty of the other from this precise moment
in time to the day they step back onto Earth1, over twelve years in
the future.

Turning back to the
display, Paol and Blade silently read, “13009: Installed &
Functional!”

“
Full speed ahead, Cap’n,”
Blade confirmed. “Full speed ahead.”

In an instant, the Star
Transport accelerated through its final orbit of Jupiter. The
computer had assumed full navigational control via the 13009 data
set, and as a result, Paol and Blade only needed to sit back and
enjoy the ride.

After about a half hour of
travel, Star Transport had locked its course directly for the path
of the superluminal comet. Paol squinted at the video display for
signs of anything out of the ordinary.

“
Ain’t gonna work, ya’
know,” Blade guessed Paol’s thoughts.

“
What’s that?” Paol
inquired.

“
You tryin’ to stare down
the path of the comet. You know that thing has left the solar
system already.”

“
Yes.”

“
And ya’ also know that
our ride is currently travelin’ faster than the speed of light,
right?”

“
Yes.”

“
Well, there ain’t no use
tryin’ to see it. It’s out there alright, but we ain’t gonna be
seein’ it. It's gonna be a few Earth1 days befo’ any of the dust
from that thing slows down enough to be seen.”

“
I know, I know,” Paol
sighed. “It’s just that it’s hard to have confidence in something
you can’t see.”

Blade attempted to
convince his counter-part, “But Earth-based astronomy could sees
the comet path through non-visual radiation, right? We don’t have
to see it with our own two eyes if somethin’ else detected it with
certainty.”

“
But what if the
calculation of the path was wrong? I mean, space is so vast out
here that we’re trying to find a very thin line of the comet’s
path. If the calculations are off at all, we won’t be able to
intersect such a thin object. It would be like finding a needle in
a haystack.”

Paol stared blankly at his
companion.

“
At night.”

Still no
response.

“
Blindfolded.”

“
So,” Blade replied,
“You’re sayin’ ya’ don’t believe NASA? They’s confident that they
caught the path, and they’s given us data set 13009 to make sure
that we intersect it.”

“
I
understand that
they
are confident,” Paol responded. “All I’m saying is that if I
could see the darned object, I’d be able to know for
myself.”

Blade sighed and spoke
softly, “
Therefore we are always
confident, for we walk by faith, not by sight
.”

“
What?” Paol asked looking
directly over at his navigator, to see a contemplative look on his
face.

Blade turned to gain eye
contact with Paol. “It’s from the apostle Paul. The very same who
said ‘
Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen
.’ Ya’ see, Paol, what the apostle understood is that you can
actually believe in things without seein’ ‘em. There’s been
billions who believed that God was their Creator, and they ain’t
seen Him either.”

“
You see, I just don’t
understand that… why do they believe something they can’t
see?”

“
Didn’t I just answer that
question?” Blade responded waving his hands in great animation.
“It’s faith, man… faith.”

Paol was clearly
unimpressed.

“
Look, Paol, faith’s
really the drivin’ motivation fer everythin’ in life. When the Sun
sets in the evenin’, you don’t worry ‘bout it gettin’ dark fo’ever.
Ya’ have faith the Sun will rise in the mornin’. When you see that
Sun, ya’ get outta bed, and go into the office, ‘cuz ya’ have faith
that you’ll close that big business deal that will provide fo’ yer
family.”