The Orthogonal Galaxy (58 page)

“
But, that’s different,
Blade. I have faith in those things, because I know they will work.
They worked in the past, they can work again in the future.
Religious faith is so much different.”

“
Is it, now?” Blade raised
his eyebrows as he stared piercingly at his companion. “The faith
you talk ‘bout is based on evidence of yer experiences in life.
Religious faith ain’t so different. In fact, Paul used the word
evidence—evidence that there’s a supreme Creator who guides and
directs yer life—evidence that miracles happen even today. We may
not read ‘bout lepers gettin’ healed, or people walkin’ on water,
or water turnin’ to wine, but in the day to day life of millions
who’s developed faith, they’ll tell ya’ that they’ve seen miracles
in their lives.”

“
Have you, Blade?” Paol
inquired softly. “Have you seen miracles in your life?”

“
Why—of all the people to
ask the question, I’d expect you to be the last, Paol. You know
more ‘bout my life than any other person on Earth1, but let’s
review anyway. A black boy’s born in an inner city ghetto, gets no
decent education, has little support of family, and little future
to speak of. He robs a bank, shoots an officer, and finds himself
servin’ hard time, all befo’ becomin’ an adult. Where’s that black
boy today? He’s a world famous astronaut with a well-rounded,
self-taught education on the most historic and audacious space
mission ever attempted. Some may look on that as a coincidence, but
as fo’ that black boy himself, he sees it as a true miracle, Paol—a
true miracle.”

Paol sat for a moment in
silence, contemplating these last words, but persisted in his
skepticism. “What about my life, Blade? What miracles have there
been in my life? I was wrongly accused of a crime I did not commit,
separated from my family, sentenced to life in prison, and as a
result my life was ruined due to a legal technicality.”

Blade turned his head away
from Paol and stared out at the vast collection of stars. Paol
could see focused concentration on his face during the intent
silence. At last, he spoke softly, yet confidently. “Purpose—,” he
hung on the word to make sure Paol would understand, “isn’t always
seen through the
windshield
, but often through
the
rear view
mirror.”

Paol squinted and drew his
lips into a tight line. He laid his head on the back of his seat
and closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure what to think. Could there be a
purpose in all of this? Purpose to the injustices he and his family
had suffered? The only purpose he could see in being separated from
his family and risking his life was to appease the curiosity of his
fellow man, who had been seeking extra-terrestrial intelligence for
many generations. It all seemed so unnecessary.

…

“
Cap’n, we’ve reached
maximum velocity.” Small beads of sweat betrayed Blade’s anxiety.
Wide eyes formed large white circles, as Blade focused on the
navigational display ahead of him.

“
Well, Blade, here we go,
then,” Paol stated with a deep breath. “Proceed to ease us into the
path of the comet.”

The Star Transport was
traveling at maximum velocity in the direction of the comet’s path
exactly parallel to its orbit. Astronauts Joonter and Slater had
officially begun the ‘suicide’ part of their mission. All knew that
the most dangerous aspect of the mission was to insert themselves
into the path of the comet, where debris shed from the superluminal
rock was traveling at tens of thousands of times faster than the
speed of light. Although microscopic is size, these tiny particles
would soon slam into the back of the Star Transport and propel the
vehicle on its course towards Earth2—if all went well. If it didn’t
go so well, these tiny particles would penetrate the Star Shield,
the Star Transport, and the pair of defenseless
astronauts.

Their hearts were racing
in quiet apprehension as the displays ahead of them showed a model
of Star Transport easing closer to a yellow line, representing the
path of travel of the comet. In due course, they received their
first impact sensor detection.

“
Right topside wing
impact,” Blade indicated. “Zero point six seven five warp. Sensor
function normal. No aberrations in systems.”

“
Looks like your faith in
NASA’s faith was well-founded after all, Mr. Slater. We are
certainly in the neighborhood of our ride.”

Whether Blade actually
heard this or not, Paol could not know. Certainly, Blade didn’t
acknowledge the statement, either because of his intense focus, or
because he simply had nothing to say in response to being right on
his belief that data set 13009 would provide the correct
coordinates for their rendezvous.

“
Another right topside
wing. Zero point six seven five warp.”

“
Where are we to the
galactic plane, Blade?”

“
Pretty much dead
center.”

“
Hmmm… let’s stay the
course. We’ve received two topside impacts. Makes me suspect that
the comet tail may be slightly above the galactic plane, but we
need more details to extrapolate correctly.”

“
How ‘bout this one: right
topside… uh… make that two right wing topsides. Zero point six
seven six warp.”

“
Ease us up out of the
galactic plane, Blade. We need the particles to hit us straight on,
or we may get pushed right out of the path. Let’s correct the
heading for direct parallel travel as well. I want to get enough of
these rare impact events to help us stabilize a more parallel entry
to the beam.”

“
Yes, sir… I’m correctin’
the headin’ by plus zero zero three five. I also have two more
topside wing impacts, and one topside fuselage. All sensors and
systems still functional.”

Blade and Paol worked on
course correction for an hour—longer than they had hoped to, but
they eventually found the orbital plane of the comet to be slightly
elevated above the plane of the Milky Way, by about fourteen
thousand miles. While NASA was able to detect the radiation impact
of the comet’s fly-by, all they could use to calculate the
trajectory was the single event as registered around the world’s
ground-spaced telescopes as well as the instruments orbiting the
Earth, Moon and Mars. They quickly calculated an estimated
trajectory, which proved accurate enough to ballpark, but not
precise enough to give an exact orbit. Rough calculations of the
comet’s orbit were calculated at four thousand miles above the
galactic plane, plus or minus twenty thousand miles. The
calculation proved to be about ten thousand miles off, but was
close enough to give Star Transport enough high-speed particle
impact data to allow it to correct its course.

Once they had received a
direct particle impact rate of 98%, they began to steer the ship
once again towards the center of the beam, where the extremely
high-speed particles would propel them towards their destination.
Soon, the spaceship was being peppered by particles of comet powder
at the rate of several hundred per minute. They watched the data
eagerly: rate of impact, average direction of impact, maximum speed
of impact, sensor health. No detail was missed by the pair, as they
began to immerse themselves into the comet’s path. Their minds
raced, and both thought frequently about the last time NASA
attempted to inject man-made objects into the yellow beam several
years ago. At the end of the experiment, the comet tail managed to
pulverize all twelve paddles that were injected into the stream.
Now, these two clung to the hope that NASA got it right in creating
an experiment which would not prove to be the thirteenth fatal
failure against the violent nature of the comet. Paol and Blade had
to admit that so far, everything was going according to plan. The
Star Transport had made its way deeper into the beam than before,
although the tension was only growing greater as they watched the
speed of impact grow.

Blade broke a rather tense
moment of silence, pointing to the display. “Looks like the maximum
impact speed is nearin’ the speed of light, Paol.”

Paol swallowed hard. “Zero
point nine two warp.”

The astronauts stared at
the display watching this rate increase slowly and steadily: 0.93…
0.94… 0.95.

“
How you feeling, Buddy?”
Paol looked over at his companion, who was looking a bit
pale.

“
So far, so good, Partna’,
but we’ve got a long way to go to reach our ultimate velocity, and
this tin can is shakin’ more than I’d like it to. If it continues
to rattle like this, I don’t think the thing’s gonna stay together
at twenty-seven thousand times the speed of light.”

“
You know—”, Paol
began.

When Blade discerned that
Paol would not finish the sentence, he quipped, “Nope… can’t say I
do know… especially since I don’t know what you’re thinkin’ I
know.”

Paol gave a slight smile
of appreciation for Blade’s attempted wisecrack in this most tense
of situations.

“
I was just thinking out
loud—it’s nothing really.”

“
Now, go on… tell me
whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout.”

“
I was just wondering if
we should turn this ship around. I really agree with you—this thing
can’t take the beating it’s going to receive, can it?”

“
Paol!” Blade exclaimed in
disappointment. “Don’t even tell me you’re serious ‘bout that. Why,
just exactly whatcha think NASA is goin’ to say when we tell them
that we’ve done chickened out on their multi-billion dollar
mission. D’ya think the President’ll pardon us still? Besides… how
would ya’ be able to live with ya’self, knowin’ that ya’ backed
out.”

“
I’d
live
with myself better if I were
alive
, Blade.”

“
You really believe that?
C’mon, Paol. You know we gotta do this. We can’t back out fo’ no
reason. We accepted it. We trained fer it. We live by it… and
maybe—but hopefully not—we die by it.”

Paol grew agitated. “You
fool!” He shouted. “You’d rather kill yourself over a principle
than accept defeat?”

“
Defeat! Who says we’ve
been defeated? Nothin’ but yer cowardice, Joonter. Fo’ someone who
knows so much ‘bout science and business, please tell me how you
missed so much ‘bout principles and life. This thing, Paol—it’s
bigger than you or me. We were born, and someday we’ll die. After
you’re long gone, who’s gonna care ‘bout yer pittance of a life and
the successful business ya’ built up. Earth1 will keep on spinnin’,
people will keep on livin’, and you’ll just be six feet under the
ground. What purpose will yer life have if ya’ selfishly live it
fo’ yerself. You have the opportunity to do somethin’
great—somethin’ very, very few people get the chance to do. Whether
ya’ live to return to Earth1 or not, yer legacy will be better
served by yer tryin’ this mission instead of slinkin’ back home to
some prison cell, while ya’ hope that yer lawyer comes up with some
way of gettin’ ya’ back to yer no-purpose existence of closin’
business deals and inventin’ stuff that nobody really needs in the
first place. Big deal. Others would do it if you’s never born
anyway. This here—this is what I call livin’. And if I die doin’
it? So be it. At least people will remember Blade Slater as the
first person to attempt warp-speed travel. Others will be inspired,
follow perhaps in my footsteps, until they succeed at it. Now that
is livin’ to me.”

Paol grew sullen, but
undeterred. He spoke quietly, but firmly. “Blade, listen to reason.
The Star Transport is getting a very violent treatment. You can
feel the pounding we are getting.” Paol pointed to the sensor
impact display. “Zero point nine eight warp. We’re only facing the
beginning of the storm with particles hitting us at zero point nine
eight warp. The vehicle will not be able to hold together when we
get bombarded with particles traveling five orders of magnitude
greater. Don’t you think we can provide more data to NASA if we
return the ship in one piece? The engineers will be able to analyze
the data and beef up the ship for a more successful run at
it.”

Blade bowed his head and
closed his eyes. Remaining in this position, he finally answered
his partner. “I’m hearin’ ya’ loud and clear, Paol. And, what I’m
hearin’ and realizin’ is that yer heart’s just not in this thing.”
He looked up into Paol’s face. “I do think the mission is a
failure, but mainly because the mission can’t affo’d doubt—it can’t
affo’d self-absorbed fear. If this was goin’ to work, it was gonna
do it by an unflinchin’ resolve on both our parts. Do I feel the
ship heavin’? Do I feel it shakin’? Yeah, I do. But, I also look at
the data in front of me, and I see that we ain’t lost a single
system yet. Not a single sensor failed. I think we don’t know
exactly what this ship is capable of. We’re almost in the portion
of the tail that is strictly goin’ faster than the speed of light.
I say if we really want NASA to have the data it will need to make
the next mission a success, then we need to wait until the
max—no—until the average impact is one point zero zero warp. At
that point we’ll—”

Blade stopped dead in his
tracks. He lifted his head up, whirled it around to the right, to
the left. His eyes widened. He glanced back over at Paol, and saw
Paol clutching his seat with a dead-ahead stare that sent chills
down his spine.