She nodded in acknowledgment. “You should taste my cooking.”
“Good?”
“Terrible.”
Daniel smiled. He switched the laptop on and connected to the onboard Wi-Fi. “We’ve got about an hour before we land. I don’t see an email from Bradley yet. While we’re waiting, can I fill in the physics holes for you?”
“I’d appreciate that. Dr. Bradley’s briefing certainly got my attention. I’m used to talking about extraordinary things; we do it at NASA all the time. But particles that allow for extra dimensions of space? That just doesn’t even seem of this world.”
“Good old-fashioned quantum physics,” Daniel responded. “The complexity of a galaxy on the head of a pin, with special rules that only apply at scales of the ultra-small. I completely agree, it doesn’t seem of this world. I’ve been involved in this stuff several times in my career, and I’m still not sure I understand it. Not really. But I’ll tell you what I know, and we’ll both learn more when we get to Fermilab.”
He tapped a few keys and then stopped and looked up. “I’m glad that Ibarra included you. We’re going to need your experience once we dig into this, and I’m sure NASA will be well represented.”
Marie settled into the comfortable leather seat like she was ready to pour a cup of coffee and read the Sunday paper.
Daniel had explained it before, and he knew where to start. “Quantum physics automatically sounds like a difficult subject, right? Like rocket science. It’s one of those topics that makes people roll their eyes.” So far, she wasn’t rolling her eyes.
“The good news is that it’s a lot easier to grasp today than twenty or thirty years ago. Our knowledge has increased dramatically since Max Planck and Albert Einstein proposed the quantum model back in the early 1900s. Today, the whole thing can be summarized in one diagram. I’ll show you.”
Daniel located a file and turned his computer toward Marie.
“That’s it, the Standard Model. In this single diagram, you’re looking at the underlying structure of our universe. It’s a parts list, but it’s also an architectural drawing. Everything you’ve ever touched or felt is here. The air you breathe, the ground you stand on, the sunlight that pours down, the stars in the night sky. All in those seventeen boxes. The story of our universe on a single page.”
“You have a passion for this part of science.” She held her hand over her heart.
“I have a passion for all discoveries.” He paused. “If an alien landed next door and asked me, ‘Does your species know anything? Or should I skip Earth and keep looking?’ I would argue that humans are worthy. And I would point to two documents as proof. The Periodic Table of the Elements, and this diagram, the Standard Model. Together they demonstrate that humans have figured out what our universe is made of and that we understand its structure, its true nature. If the universe is intentional, the Standard Model is the artist’s signature.”
“A man with passion and a poet,” she said.
“It’s easy to be poetic. There’s an elegance in this model. A symmetry of parts. We didn’t make it that way, we simply discovered it.”
“So, did God make it that way?” she asked with sincerity.
Daniel thought for a second and then provided his standard response. “When we discover evidence of intentional design, evidence for a creator, I’ll consider it. Until then, I’ll appreciate the elegance I see in the world as a natural consequence of being alive. Humans appreciate the beauty of the universe because we are part of it.”
Marie nodded. “I like your answer. It’s fair. I’ve heard of the Standard Model, but truthfully, I’ve never seen it. I guess I never had any need. So, what do the boxes represent?”
“Well, the six purple boxes at the top are quarks. These are the building blocks of matter, the Legos as Bradley described. When put together in the right combination, quarks make protons or neutrons. Quarks vary in size, electrical charge, and what they call ‘spin.’ These characteristics define the six types, or flavors, of the particle. As they were discovered, they were given odd names like up, down, charm and strange. Don’t ask me who named them, I really don’t know. But I can tell you that many of these quarks were discovered at Fermilab.”
“Then we’re heading to a pretty important place.”
“We are.” Daniel looked up at Marie and saw an adult who enjoyed learning. It was a good sign. He had encountered the opposite far too many times. Adults who had decided that high school or college was enough and gave their brain permission to be lazy for the rest of their lives. He continued with a renewed enthusiasm.
“The six green boxes at the bottom are also particles, the leptons, and they also have flavors. Six quarks and six leptons, grouped in four sets of three. It’s the symmetry I mentioned. One of these lepton flavors is known to every school kid—the ordinary electron, which, of course, gives us electricity. Next to it on the chart is the electron neutrino, with its cousins, the muon and tau neutrinos. And while electrons are easy to detect because they have an electrical charge, neutrinos are almost impossible to detect because they have no charge at all. I’ll tell you more about neutrinos in a minute.”
“I’ve heard of these particles too, but it’s interesting to see them organized in a diagram like this. And they’re all real, right? Not just someone’s speculation?”
Daniel laughed. “Real-world stuff. Each particle, each box on this diagram is a real and unique fragment of what the universe is made of. The people who discovered these particles can show you visible traces of them, lines shooting across a detector plate, that for a tiny fraction of a second represented that specific particle in all its glory.”
“I bet they have photos hanging on the walls at Fermilab,” Marie offered.
“You’re probably right. Actually, I’ve never been there, so this will be new for both of us.”
He pointed again to the diagram. “Finally, the orange boxes on the right are bosons, each representing a force, like the strong nuclear force that holds quarks together. The best-known boson is the photon. It carries the electromagnetic force, or light. And, of course, there’s the famous Higgs boson. It’s a bit different.”
He looked up at Marie. “Remember the Force from Star Wars? The Higgs field is like the Force. It exists everywhere, and it’s still pretty mysterious. It gives all the other particles their mass—at least, that’s what physicists think it does. Like I warned, this stuff gets weird.”
“Weird, maybe, but I like it,” she said. “I like the symmetry and the simplicity. The diagram is very… inspiring.”
“Well said,” Daniel agreed. “It’s not quite complete, though. It’s missing gravity. Einstein described gravity as nothing more than a curvature of space, like a bowling ball on a mattress. He also theorized that massive collisions would produce gravity waves, like dropping a rock in a swimming pool. In 2016—”
“And now you’re in my territory,” Marie interrupted. “In 2016, scientists working in the LIGO project detected the first gravitational wave from two black holes colliding. It proved that gravitational waves exist.”
“Precisely,” Daniel said. “That was big news. It might not be long before we can add a new boson, the graviton, to this model.”
“Quite impressive, Dr. Rice.” Marie looked up at him, smiling. “You’d make a good instructor.”
“Thanks. A fifth-grade classroom, that’s where I’d end up.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of college. Why fifth grade?”
“For me, it couldn’t be any other age. Kids at that age are still inquisitive, not yet embarrassed to be smart, and are excited to learn. They latch on to science quickly. It’s the right age to inspire them. Besides, I remember fifth-grade science class well. We grew pea plants and carefully studied their color and size variations to learn about genetics.”
“That’s too cool!” Marie exclaimed. “And this one class sparked your lifelong interest in science? You should find that teacher and tell her w
hat a great job she did.”
“I did. Mrs. Andrews, Emerson Elementary in Kirkland, Washington. I looked her up a few years ago. She was still teaching, so I dropped in on her class and thanked her personally.” Daniel smiled, the memory still fresh.
“That’s a good story, very sweet.”
She put her hands together and turned the conversation once more. “But before my chance to catch up disappears, you said you were going to tell me about neutrinos, and I’m pretty sure Fermilab is involved.”
Daniel was impressed; she had certainly been paying attention. “You’re right, I did. Okay… neutrinos are probably the least understood part of the Standard Model. We do know that neutrinos are naturally produced… by the sun. They’re flooding this airplane right now in massive numbers. They pass right through the atmosphere, this plane, our bodies, and the whole Earth without affecting much of anything. They seem to be completely harmless, some say useless, because no one knows why they exist. They don’t do anything.”
“That’s interesting the way you express it,” she said. “That they’re useless. They take up three boxes on the diagram. Why would the universe have a particle that doesn’t do anything?”
“Good question, and honestly, I don’t have an answer.” He paused for a moment. “I guess a physicist would say that neutrinos are a byproduct of decay. But that doesn’t tell you much. We don’t know much about them because they’re so hard to detect. Enrico Fermi gave them their name way back in the 1930s, but they weren’t actually discovered until the 1960s, and the tau neutrino not until 2000. At Fermilab, by the way.”
“Where else?”
Daniel noticed a flashing icon on his computer. “Hang on… it’s an email from Bradley. He says there’s no further contact with Soyuz. And I’m not sure what AMOS is, but he says they also have negative contact.”
“AMOS is an Air Force tracking facility in Maui,” Marie explained. “They use a telescope to scan an orbital vector. They can visually identify spacecraft from the ground.”
“So, if Soyuz is still in orbit, Roscosmos and NASA can’t find them.”
Marie’s lips tightened. “It’s super weird that we’re not spotting them. The transmissions indicate the capsule is still in orbit. Our ground controllers are good. It’s not likely they would miss something.”
Daniel heard her speak, but his real focus was directed back at the computer. “Bradley also sent an attachment. Background on the Diastasi program. There’s a lot here, but this first part is interesting. The program isn’t just Fermilab people. They also use a corporate partner, a company called Stetler.”
A corporation involved in a government science program. He’d seen it before; the organizational complications, the higher personnel turnover, the control issues.
He looked out the window as the jet banked to the left. “At the very least, the scope of our investigation just doubled.”
9 Illusions
Sergei hit the control panel with his fist, hard enough to draw blood from a knuckle.
“Eto piz dets!” he yelled. The Russian expletive caught the attention of his companions, even the American. After several hours of continuous transmission, they had waited patiently for any response. There had been none.
“It’s Earth,” Jeremy said. “It has to be.”
Over time, their view out the window had changed. The wall of stars was still there, still separated from them. But they had learned that it could be penetrated. Twice now, they had passed directly through it and found yet more darkness on the other side. The wall was now behind them, still filled with a field of stars and the same thin blue ellipse.
Stranger still, as they rounded the other side, the blue ellipse increased in width, taking the shape of a disc. It was like looking at a Frisbee edge on, its disc shape revealed only when tilted. As the thin ellipse transformed into a disc, they could make out swirls of clouds and recognize landforms. The northern tip of Queensland, the sweep of Cape Cod, the Kamchatka Peninsula. Without a doubt, the familiar ground of Earth, but only as imagined in a nightmare.
Beyond its impossible shape, there was also the ubiquitous glow. It emanated from the land but also from the ocean, even the clouds. A deep orange-red that confused all the other colors of the Earth.
The discrepancy between his mind’s view of what should be and the unreasonable reality out the window was making Sergei’s head throb. “If this is Earth, where the hell is everyone?”
Anton took his turn looking out the window. “It’s Earth. Even if our view has changed. Self-tests confirm our equipment is fine. We are transmitting, there is no question. The receivers are working, there is simply nothing to receive. No voice, no GPS, not even a carrier wave.”
Sergei took a deep breath. It would do no good to allow frustrations to take over. “Our eyes tell us we are still in orbit. But the computer can’t produce orbital vectors because there is no data. Our radios are operational, but we cannot raise anyone. Why?”
“They can’t transmit?” Jeremy suggested.
Anton waved an arm at the window. “Something has happened down there and they’re all dead.”
“Then why no communication with GPS satellites? Or from ISS? More likely, something has happened to us, to Soyuz. But what?”
Each man sat motionless in his seat, offering no answers. After several minutes, Jeremy broke the silence.
“We have to keep trying. Alternate frequencies. Emergency and descent. Go to short-wave frequencies. We have to raise someone.”
Sergei shrugged. “What choice do we have?” The pointless conversation was only consuming valuable oxygen, and a descent module separated from its service tanks had none to spare. He pressed his transmit button once more.
“Moskva, Sayuz. Kak pashyevayesh… Moskva, Sayuz. Pozhaluysta otvet’te… Hello, any station, please respond.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From high above, Kwajalein Atoll is a narrow loop of sand lost in a vast expanse of ocean. The turquoise lagoon in its interior occasionally connects with the exterior blue, separating the atoll into a chain of individual islands, each dotted with palm trees, a few houses, roads and people.
Most of Kwajalein’s inhabitants are crowded onto one sliver, Ebeye Island. The much larger main island belongs entirely to the United States Army. Its location in the middle of the Pacific is ideal for a variety of military purposes. During World War II, Kwajalein was bombed extensively, and rusting hulks of Japanese ships remain in the shallow waters. In the 1950s, the nearby atolls of Bikini and Enewetak were obliterated by hydrogen bomb explosions.
Modern Kwajalein is home to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Site, a facility that launches EKVs, or exoatmospheric kill vehicles, that can destroy a nuclear weapon in space before it reaches its target. In theory, a missile launched from North Korea toward Hawaii would result in nothing more than a temporary flash in the sky.
Down on the ground, among the palm trees, the white-sand beach, the tropical sunset, the large white radar domes, the military aircraft, and the occasional EKV test launch, Master Sergeant Dino Vasquez hurried along the concrete path, head down and eyes fixed on a printout he clasped in his hands.
Without looking up, he pushed open the door to Space Operations, a building near the base of a hexagonal-paneled radar dome. His pace quickened across the old linoleum floor and past the 1960s-era metal desks. A banner on the wall displayed a picture of a satellite and the inscription, Orbital Debris Tracking, Protecting Our Investments in Space. Above one of the desks was a movie poster, Sandra Bullock floating in her underwear, the International Space Station being shredded by orbital debris behind her.
At this hour of the evening, there were only a few people still working in the Orbital Debris Program office. Most had already left for dinner at the mess hall or for a sunset beer at Franky’s On The Beach. Vasquez headed for the only enclosed office in the building.
He stopped at a desk where a woman in civilian clothes typed at her comput
er. “Is the duty officer in?”
“Yeah. Major Katz. But he’s leaving pretty soon. I wouldn’t delay happy hour if I were you.”
Vasquez knocked on the door and opened it without waiting for an answer. “Major, are you available?”
The man at the desk lifted his head. “Yes, Vasquez, just barely. What do you need?”
“Sir, I need your help. I think we need to alert JSC. I just got the latest debris trajectory report, and we’re missing some objects.”
“Missing? That’s fantastic, Vasquez. Always good to be missing space debris. Good job, go get some dinner.”
“No, sir, you don’t understand. It includes some big stuff, not your ordinary bolt or astronaut’s glove.”
The major lowered his head again. “Outstanding, Vasquez. Great to hear. One more piece of junk that burned up in the atmosphere. Mark it in your shift log and we’re done for the night.”
Vasquez shifted his weight nervously. “No, sir, the report shows fourteen T3-sized objects that were on last week’s report but are not showing up. Everything else is still on the report, more than five thousand tracked objects. But fourteen are missing. One is a decommissioned satellite, another a booster O-ring, and another is half of a solar panel. Big stuff, and they were all in stable NEO orbits. None were due to reenter for years.”
The major set down his pen, looked up once more and stared at Vasquez as though he were an invading army.
“Well, Vasquez, that doesn’t make much sense, does it? Your computer isn’t working. I’d suggest you contact MIT Lincoln and let them know you want to compare datasets.”
“I already did, sir. Talked to their operator and their duty officer. They ran the report and couldn’t make any sense out it either. We’re talking about big pieces of metal. Stuff that has been on every tracking report for the past five years. Thousands of orbits. And now they’re just gone.”
Quantum Space: Book One in the Quantum Series Page 5