Dark Star Rising Second Edition (Pebbles in The Sky)

by Bagley, Jeffery

  He stood and went to the kitchen sink window to watch her petite, brown haired, California sun-tanned form walk down the street toward the local park. As he watched her, Peter’s mind was filled with thoughts of a heavenly body that was for once, not of the stellar type.

  Peter caught up with Susan about a half hour later after he had cleaned the dishes and stuffed his laptop with the data and images that were giving him his problems into his backpack. Susan was sitting on a bench in the shade of a palm tree looking at her Facebook page. Peter snuck up behind her, put his hands over her eyes, and whispered. “Would you like to go run naked on the beach with a total stranger?”

  “Only if he is tall, good looking, rich, and does not have his doctoral paper to finish,” she sighed as she reached over her head and ran her hands up his warm arms. Susan stood up, shut down her tablet and came around the bench to him. “We better get a move on because I have a class in twenty minutes,” she stated as they started down the sidewalk toward the campus.

  Peter fell into step beside her and after a minute of walking in stride he broke the silence. “I am going to take your advice and go talk to Professor Casselman.”

  She squinted up at him for a moment and spoke. “Well it’s about time. I have been telling you to do that for almost a week. It’s not like he is going to bite your head off you know, you are his lead graduate assistant.”

  “I know,” said Peter “but he is always carrying on so about how our research should be an independent project and how we need to learn to take the initiative and find the solution to our own problems. But anyway, I have two hours free this morning until I have to teach a class, so I am going to stop by his office. On Friday he usually catches up his paperwork and then leaves at lunchtime. Maybe he will be so fired up for the weekend he will not give me the independence and initiative lecture again.”

  Susan turned to him as they came to the biology building and stood up on her toes to give him a kiss. “Good luck. I am sure he will not cut your head off or anything. And remember, you promised to take me to the new Nicholas Sparks movie tonight since I had to work on Valentine’s Day. You better not forget, Peter Rockwell,” she warned as she turned to enter the building. She smiled, and waved as she went inside to class.

  Peter turned and headed on down the sidewalk toward the Administrative offices for the Applied Science Department. Arriving at the entrance of the building, he dodged around the grounds keeper who was weed-eating the grass around the edge of the sidewalk. He bounded up the stairs to the Astronomy Department offices. He paused at the door and read the brass plaque on the door. “Doctor Eric Casselman, Lead Professor, Astronomy Department,” it stated in engraved script. Peter sighed and wondered if he would ever have a plaque that read Doctor Peter Rockwell on it. Probably not at the rate I am getting my paper done he decided. Raising his hand he knocked on the door.

  A gruff voice answered the knock from within the office. “Well, if you are that intent on coming on in, why did you knock?”

  Peter grimaced and opened the door. “Good morning Dr. Casselman, can I see you for just a moment?”

  Dr. Casselman leaned back in his chair, removed his glasses and set down the newspaper he had been reading. “Only if you reach over on the file cabinet and grab us both a cup of coffee he answered.” As Peter was pouring the coffee he looked down at the newspaper and laughed. “Remember the meteor that exploded over South Africa about two months ago and caused all the damage on the ground? Well, now the locals over there are making a fortune finding and selling the pieces of it that made it to the ground.” He shook his head in amazement. “You have to give them credit, they are a resourceful bunch.” He took the cup of coffee that Peter offered and waved his hand at the old wooden chair in front of his desk. Peter settled his muscular frame carefully into the chair as it creaked and wobbled. “Have I ever told you where I got that chair?” Dr. Casselman asked.

  Peter grinned and replied. “The rumor is that it used to be a crucifix but you had it made into a chair for your graduate students because the crucifix would not fit into your office.”

  Dr. Casselman grinned. “I planted that rumor myself. I thought maybe it would keep all these bothersome undergrad students out of my office. But actually, it belonged to one of my professors back when I was at Princeton. I sat in that very chair as he yelled and cursed at me when I told him I was transferring to Cal Tech to do my graduate work.” He actually got so mad at me as I left that he kicked the chair and broke it. The next morning it was in the garbage on the curb as I walked by, so I took it home and had it repaired. That chair has memories you know. It has seen a lot of asses come and go over the years.”

  “So Peter,” Dr. Casselman said as he looked at his watch. “What can I do for you this morning? Don’t you have a class to teach in a little bit?”

  “I have one to teach in about two hours sir, but I have a problem with my research data that I cannot seem to resolve.”

  Dr. Casselman frowned, “Peter, you know how I feel about my grad students not solving their own problems. Someday when you are running your own independent research you are going to have similar issues and it is best that you start learning how to deal with the problems and to find the solutions yourself now.”

  Peter shook his head and said, “I know, I know, but I have been beating my head bloody over this for a week now and I cannot decide what to do since I do not have access to more recent data. The problem is with some of the archived Spitzer Telescope data. Do you have a moment to look at something for me?”

  Dr. Casselman looked at Peter sternly for a moment and then winked and spoke. “Well, it is Friday, and I have several games of golf scheduled for the weekend. You have caught me at a good time I guess.”

  Peter laughed, “Actually, that is what Susan said when she convinced me to come talk to you. Go and see him on Friday before he leaves early at lunch, she advised. I could not figure out how she knew so much about you.”

  “And would Susan be that attractive young brunette I have seen you around campus with?” Dr. Casselman asked.

  “Yes Sir,” answered Peter.

  Dr. Casselman grinned and laughed. “If I was a young graduate student again, I might find it hard to concentrate on my paper also if I was in orbit around her like you have been. She is quite the looker, and quite bright to boot, from what I hear from the professors over in the Biology Department.”

  Peter looked perplexed and asked, “How do you know about Susan if I may ask, Sir?”

  Dr. Casselman face took on a serious look, and he replied, “Don’t you think that I keep close tabs on my graduate students and anything that may affect their work on their thesis projects? I am especially keeping an eye on you Peter, since you happen to be dating my niece,” Dr. Casselman said as his face broke into a huge grin.

  Peter was stunned. “Susan is your niece? But, I don’t see the connection. You are from California and she is from South Carolina. That is clear across the continent.”

  “I am impressed with your geography knowledge,” Dr. Casselman laughed. “Susan’s mother, my sister, got married and moved to South Carolina. I stayed here in California after I finished school.”

  Peter was confused until he sorted all that out in his head. “How long have you known that I was going out with Susan?”

  Dr. Casselman burst out laughing. “Since she came in one day and asked me who the clumsy grad student of mine was that dumped beer and hot sauce all over her. So, I guess I knew she was interested in you before you ever made a fool of yourself by sending her all those flowers and mooning around that pub where she works. I actually predicted that she would go out with you before she ever decided for herself that she would.

  Peter shook his head. “I feel like I have been set up.”

  “Yes, I guess that you kind of were,” Dr. Casselman winked at him. “Susan had told me that you were struggling with your paper and that she was going to convince you to come to talk to me. So what seems to be the i
ssue with your data?”

  Peter pulled out his laptop, and the stack of spectroscopic data he had and spread it across the desk. “This is a deep field sequence from the Spitzer that was repeated twenty-three times over the operational life of the telescope. I chose this particular study area because it was clear of any other infrared sources that would mask the changes caused by any galactic dust clouds that might be interspersed between Spritzer and the target galaxy. The problem is that in every single study there is this thermal artifact right here,” Peter said as he circled the tiny area that was giving him fits.

  Dr. Casselman looked through the photos, and then spoke. “I bet there is a problem with the photo printer and that is the source of your artifact.”

  Peter shook his head. “No, I ruled that out. Look, here are the raw digital images from Spritzer. The artifact is present in the raw images also,” he said as he pulled them up on his laptop. He clicked through each image until the end. “It is definitely not the printer.”

  Dr. Casselman studied the photos again and said, “Have you ruled out any thermal source that could be close by, such as a near Earth asteroid, a body in the Oort cloud, or even a another satellite?”

  Peter shook his head and answered. “I have looked at all the other studies in the same area from other telescopes, both in orbit and here on the ground. There is nothing there that could be a thermal source in that area. It is also pretty unlikely that it is an unknown comet because this area is about twenty degrees above the ecliptic plane. I pulled the Hubble studies taken around the same time period and in the same area. They show nothing in that area.”

  Dr. Casselman studied the infrared photographs and then the spectrographic data again. “It seems,” he mumbled, “It seems that whatever your artifact is it gets worse over each shot, and the spectrographic data indicates that it is also growing warmer, as can be seen on your consecutive studies. It is highly unlikely that this would be an asteroid or comet as there is almost no bearing shift over the entire span of studies. If it was something orbiting the sun there would definitely be a bearing shift over the time period of several years. I do not recall any discussion of a problem with the spectrographic imager of the Spitzer Telescope when the project was running.”

  “There wasn’t one,” Peter answered. “This artifact is not present in any other Spitzer image field, only this specific set.”

  “Have you tried asking someone over at JPL about any known problems with Spitzer during this time period?” Dr. Casselman asked. “This spectroscopic data almost looks like it is indicating a Doppler shift.”

  “I tried,” Peter said, “but since the main imager has been out of coolant for almost seven years the main engineers and technicians on the project have moved on to other work and the guys still managing the other instruments are too junior to have been around then. They were of no help.”

  Dr. Casselman thought for a moment and then spoke. “Leave this data with me for the weekend Peter, and copy those digital images over onto this thumb drive as he pulled one out of his own computer and offered it to Peter. I am pretty good friends with Dr. Mike Banscott. He was the second in charge of the Spitzer project. I will ask him if he has any idea what could have gone wrong with the imager that could cause this abnormality. Why don’t you take the weekend off from your paper and entertain that niece of mine? I will get back to you in the next week or so with an answer if I can get one. Now, get out of here and go teach your class.”

  After Peter had left, Dr. Casselman looked over all the images and other data that Peter had left him. Finally, he picked up his cell phone and dialed a number. As the phone was answered on the other end he said, “Dwight, this is Eric, I am afraid that you will have to find another person to be your fourth on the course this afternoon. Something has come up and I will not be able to get there in time to tee off. Yes, Yes, I will try and make it Sunday, and again I apologize for the late notice.”

  Doctor Casselman ended the call and flipped through his contact list until he found the number he was looking for and quick dialed it. “Yes,” he said as the phone was answered. “I would like to speak to Dr. Banscott. No, he was not expecting my call but tell him it is Doctor Eric Casselman.” After several minutes waiting he heard the voice he was wanting. “Mike, this is Eric, yea buddy, good to speak with you. Sorry if I interrupted anything big but I need to talk to you and ask your opinion on something. How about letting me buy you lunch over at O’Malley’s? Yes, I know it is short notice but I really think you will be interested in this. Ok great, I will see you at one.”

  Eric studied the data Peter had left again. “Hmm,” he thought to himself. “Either that billion dollar telescope had a previously unknown problem, or his star grad student had stumbled upon something that would make an even better topic for his research paper.” Curiously, he had a sense of Déjà vu and he found himself actually hoping that the Spitzer really had been having issues when these studies were taken.

  Chapter 2

  March 11th, 2016

  Boston,Massachusetts

  Brett Driskall weaved his way into the crowded canteen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, as it was usually called to prevent having to twist a person’s tongue around the official name. Looking out over the sea of students and staff, he searched for a familiar redhead. Looking left and right, he finally saw her sitting far over in one corner. He made his way through the quick grill line grabbing a cheeseburger, fries, and a coke and made his way over to her. He stood before an empty chair at her table and inquired, “Is this seat taken Mrs. Driskall?”

  She looked up, smiled, and responded. “Why no, Mr. Driscall, please join me.”

  Brett leaned over and gave his wife Jessica a quick kiss and sat down with his food.

  He began to eat his burger, giving it his rapt attention as if trying to discern if it was really meat or some other heterogeneous protein mixture that was simply being called a burger. As he chewed, Jessica just sat and stared at him.

  After several minutes she could stand it no longer. “Well, tell me!” she exclaimed. “Are you going to make me wait all day?” Brett contemplated his answer for a moment, and then reached down and assembled a “100” made of French fries on the table between them. Jessica looked at them for a moment and asked, “One hundred what?”

  Peter continued chewing his burger, and then with great difficulty tried to produce a percent sign out of a French fry. It was more of a greasy starchy mess than a symbol, so he just told her with a big grin, “one hundred percent.”

  Jessica just stared at him and tears formed in her eyes. She was so excited and emotional she could barely speak. “All of them, all of the genotypes, it was one hundred percent for all of them?”

  Brett’s grin got bigger as he replied. “Yes, my dear, one hundred percent.”

  Jessica lost control, and began crying and laughing at the same time. “Oh Brett, do you know what this means? We may have actually done it!”

  Brett leaned over the table, wiped the tears off her face with his napkin, and spoke softly. “That is not quite the response I expected, but yes, there was one hundred percent immunity to the whole gamut of genotypes in all of the test animals. And, as a bonus, the immunoglobulin serum derived from the original test animals was completely effective in wiping out disease in the other test group. The only exception in all of the subjects was the very advanced cases that had developed secondary cancers.”

  Susan leaned back and wiped her eyes. “You know what this means don’t you?” she said. “We need to publish right away and get fast track approval for human trials.”

  Brett nodded and said, “Yes, but we need to go talk more privately first,” as he looked around at the multitude of students laughing, talking, and eating around them. Having finished his burger, he stood, grabbed his trash and her hand and led her out of the canteen. He dropped his trash in the waste can at the door as they left.

  They walked hand in hand toward their small apartment
on the edge of campus, each lost in their own thoughts. Brett and Jessica had met while both of them were doing post graduate work in molecular biology at MIT. They had spent so much time in the lab together they had slowly drifted together, becoming good friends, then lovers, and eventually husband and wife after they had finished their doctorate degrees. They both shared the same dream, to develop a cure for HIV/AIDs, and to prevent all the suffering that went along with that scourge of a disease.

  For the past five years, they had been doing research using grant money from Merck Laboratories and the National Institute of Health. Originally, they had set out to try and develop a method of rapidly identifying new and emerging types of viruses and the many different mutating strains of the HIV Virus. Then, reversing the methods they had developed in doing that, they came up with a novel approach to engineering a vaccine. Seven months ago, they had made a major breakthrough. They were able to produce an experimental vaccine and had gotten permission for doing a primate trial of the vaccine for the past six months in cooperation with the Boston University Biology Lab. They had been forced to use the lab there because it was certified to handle some of the deadliest diseases known to man. The lab was certified for working with samples of Ebola, Marburg, HIV, and other deadly pathogens. If it was contagious to man, and it killed or caused severe sickness, then the school had it under study there in the class four isolation lab.

  It was a twist of fate and a little luck that had originally let them make the breakthrough. In truth, their research grant had not been given to develop a cure for any disease. What their project had been dedicated to was finding a way to quickly identify and analyze the genetic makeup of newly emerging viral diseases so that prompt action could be taken to isolate and control an outbreak before a deadly epidemic could get under way. There was also a strong need for identifying new strains of HIV since that rapidly mutating virus was constantly changing and making useless all the new drugs being developed to control it. They had developed an efficient and timely new way to breakdown viral RNA and DNA molecules, map their structure, and then save it in a digital database using a powerful computer.