Entirely built by private funding, the relatively small telescope with its six-foot mirror and a focal ratio of f/1.0, achieved first light in 1993. Today, a dozen astronomers—all priests—work from the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, on a Vatican salary.
On the balcony, both sides covered by steel antennas next to the closed telescope doors, sat a young Jesuit brother, casually dressed in blue jeans and white sweater. With dark eyes and long, dark hair, which was tied into a knot, and a T-shirt that read:
He held a sandwich in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other. Fabia Gavino loved to spend his lunchtime high on the mountaintop, looking for birds. As a keen birdwatcher—when he had the day shift—he loved to look out for the Elegant Trogon, the Hooded Oriole or the House Finch scavenging the conifer trees for insects. With the mountaintop in complete silence, he heard their soft sounds, betraying their presence.
With an Elegant Trogon in his binoculars’ sight, from down the hillside, a loud electric humming suddenly disturbed the silence. Gavino instantly recognized the sound and turned his binoculars toward the Mount Graham International Observatory road. As an electric converted, blue Jeep CJ neared the observatory, its engine’s howling pitch grew louder. Not as loud as the original eight-cylinder gas engine sounded when it was built in 1976, but still. The Jeep passed the neighboring Large Binocular Telescope. The LBT was constructed three years after the Vatican’s telescope, and Gavino had always wondered whether it was a coincidence that they called it Large Binocular Telescope Near-infrared Spectroscopic Utility with Camera and Integral Field Unit for Extragalactic Research, originally shortened to LUCIFER.
Gavino let go of the binoculars that now dangled from his neck. He jumped up and slid down the steel ladder. Before the Jeep arrived, he was waiting in front of the building. With dust flying around, the car stopped three feet in front of Gavino. The car door opened, and a man in blue jeans and a black T-shirt stepped out, walked in silence up to Gavino, and kissed him on the cheek.
“Lamberto,” Gavino spoke enthusiastically. “Welcome to Arizona.”
“Thank you, my young friend.” De Cremonese had only met Gavino a few times now, but he liked him from the first moment they met. In Gavino’s passion for astronomy, he recognized a lot of his own passion, with the difference being that he discovered his passion in his forties. In that way, he could even be a bit jealous—but not envious—of Gavino, who discovered his love in his mid-twenties. He specifically called Gavino to help him out with this situation. Not only did he feel he could trust the young Jesuit explicitly, but he also needed someone who was pristine in his thinking. Someone who could think out of the box unhindered by years of experience, and finally, someone who would keep his mouth shut to his colleagues when needed.
“What brings you here to our lonely mountaintop?”
“You didn’t get my message, Fabia?”
“Sure, I did. But I always wanted to say that. It tends to get a bit lonely up here, you remember?”
De Cremonese ignored the question and stared down the mountain for a moment. How can this ever get dull? What a view. “Are you alone?”
“You know the day shift. If anyone shows up it will be late in the afternoon. But they’re here all right, in their living quarters, sleeping in.”
De Cremonese took out his cellphone. “I need to make a call first.”
Gavino shook his head slowly.
“Still nothing?”
“No reception at all, boss.”
De Cremonese looked at his phone. No bars.
“But the satellite line inside works perfectly.” Gavino pointed to the door.
De Cremonese walked inside.
“We should get something to drink later.”
De Cremonese nodded.
Inside the vast metal hall, for a moment, he looked up to the big white telescope mounted on its massive yellow pivot. ‘DANGER PITCH POINT,’ it read on the base. De Cremonese was still impressed by the telescope every time he visited. He turned to the wall behind him, took the red phone from the wall and dialed.
“Yes,” he called out after waiting for a long time. “Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you perfectly, sir,” a woman’s voice sounded from the other side. “You are connected to the Logynous answering service. I’m sorry, but the extension you’re trying to call doesn’t answer. Maybe I can help you?”
“I’m looking for Ms. Coleman. Amie Coleman.”
“I understand, sir, but Ms. Coleman doesn’t answer her phone. Can I get your name so I can try to connect you to her cellphone?”
“Please do so. Lamberto De Cremonese,” and music sounded as he was put on hold. He recognized it as ‘Summer number one,’ the second movement of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons played by Nigel Kennedy. He always liked this version. In fact, it was one of his favorites, and for a moment, he wondered if, somehow, there was a connection made between his favorite music and this telephone call. Every little piece of data is connected nowadays.
“Hello, sir,” the woman came back.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. No one is answering the cellphone. Would you like to leave a message?”
“Okay, thank you. Yes, please let her know that I called, and that I can be reached at this number.”
“Will do, sir. Thank you for your call.”
“No luck?” Gavino asked.
De Cremonese shook his head. “You were here the night of the sighting?”
“I made the recording myself. And I think....” Gavino stopped for a second.
“You have a theory?” The corners of De Cremonese’s mouth lifted a bit.
“What I have probably raises more questions than it gives answers, but yes, I do.”
“All right, take me through it.” Followed by Gavino, De Cremonese took a few big steps, before entering a door with a sign that said, ‘Angel’s office.’ A fitting remembrance to Roger Angel, the man who designed the telescope’s mirror.
Both men now sat down behind a desk with three horizontally connected computer screens.
“Based on the initial sighting, I collected some readings from the local origination points and did some extrapolations. Here,” Gavino pointed at the screen. “You see? Two objects are coming from Earth. At first, I thought it was just another night satellite launch. Nothing special about that.”
“Except for the fact that two of them launched at the same time,” De Cremonese remarked.
“Not very common, but I looked it up. China has done it a few times before.”
“Did these originate in China?”
“I’ll get to that later, if you please. But no.”
“Sorry.” De Cremonese nodded. “I’m a bit anxious. Please continue.”
“Here.” Gavino pointed to the center screen. “This is where the two objects....”
“Rockets?” De Cremonese intervened.
“Of course, rockets. What else could they be?”
De Cremonese grinned. “True, excuse me. Please go on,” De Cremonese pleaded.
“Here it was where the two rockets left our atmosphere and here’s where they passed the twenty-six-thousand-mile barrier, and also where I started to get suspicious since only a handful of satellites orbit Earth at a higher altitude. You see? Here they split up, and each goes its way. Then, finally, this is where they escaped the predefined telescope’s trajectory, and we lost them.” He pointed to the top right corner of the screen. “But based on their previous trajectory, I was able to do some extrapolation.” Gavino punched in some keys, and on the left screen, an animation of the solar system appeared. The image slowly enlarged on two animated dots, on precisely the place they disappeared from the screen on the center monitor. “One” was written above one dot and “two” above the other. “Which one do you want to follow first?”
De Cremonese shook his head a few times. “I don’t care. Um... one.”
Gavino clicked his mouse a few times, and the image moved. The number one dot to
ok a slight turn left on the screen, and as the image scrolled, the moon came into frame from the top. Dot One passed the moon on the left side on the screen and went on.
“It didn’t go to the moon?” De Cremonese asked.
Gavino clicked the mouse, and the animation stopped. “Nope,” he replied. “The trajectory suggests too great a distance from the moon to get into a synchronous orbit. It definitely went past it.” He clicked the mouse again, and the animation started again. In the center, a small dot labeled ‘Sun’ appeared. A large circle around the sun was drawn, and Dot One now rotated slowly on that circle. With a click of the mouse, a second circle appeared. “This is Earth,” Gavino explained, pointing to a dot moving on the second circle. He clicked the mouse again, and a third circle appeared. On the third circle appeared a dot labeled ‘Mars.’ Now the three circles turned concentrically relative to each other. As the three circles turned, Dot One slowly rotated its way from Earth to Mars.
“Depending on its velocity, I figure the first rocket could reach Mars somewhere between one hundred eighty and two hundred ten days,” Gavino finished.
“Depending on how much fuel they’re willing to burn,” De Cremonese concluded. “You’re sure?”
Gavino nodded heavily. “Absolutely sure. You know there are optimal windows for a Mars launch about every two years, and guess what....”
De Cremonese smiled. Gavino wasn’t only young, but he was also cocky for his age. Oh, the young. “And what about the other one?”
“Ah, number two. Well, number two was more of mystery at first.”
“Which you undoubtedly solved,” De Cremonese said, praising the young Jesuit.
“Not completely, but... well, let me show you.” With a few taps on the mouse on the right screen, a new animation appeared on the screen, showing a dot labeled ‘Two.’ With every click of the mouse, the dot traveled through space from Earth, passing planets, through our solar system in a different route.
“What am I looking at?”
“You’re looking at all possible extrapolations and variations the computer calculated on the trajectory number two could have taken.”
“And they’re all going nowhere?” De Cremonese frowned.
“Yes, indeed. Or at least that’s what I thought at first. As you can see in every scenario, the rocket seems to be on its way through the solar system, keeping huge distances from any of the planets or moons.”
“So, where is it going? Out of the solar system?”
“That’s what I thought at first, but”—Gavino raised his index finger—“see what happens when I overlay a map of known large asteroids.” On the screen, some one hundred blue dots appeared, swirling their way between the planets.
“I’m always amazed by how little of them collide with any planets.” De Cremonese shrugged.
“Wait for it,” Gavino replied. Dot Two snaked its way gracefully from Earth again, avoiding the Moon and Mars. Just beyond Mars, the dot passed a red dot labeled “5261,” at what looked to be an extremely close distance, at least on the screen.
“Eureka,” De Cremonese called out.
“That’s exactly what I thought.”
5261 Eureka—a one-mile-long asteroid—was the name of the first so-called Mars trojans, a series of asteroids that share Mars’s orbit around the sun. Although many theories exist, there’s no real evidence on how these trojans originated, or what their exact composition is.
“And they pass each other within how many miles?” De Cremonese asked.
“I can’t be sure, but it could be as close as a few hundred miles or so.”
“Wow.” A line appeared between De Cremonese’s brows. “That’s too close to be a coincidence.”
Gavino agreed. “But if it’s no coincidence, what is it? Why would somebody send a rocket to pass an asteroid at such a close distance? Research? To take measurements of some kind?”
“That’s the only thing I can think of, although there’s usually not much interest in those floating rocks. What do we know about 5261 Eureka?” De Cremonese asked.
Gavino brought an asteroid database onto the screen. “Not that much. It’s located deep within Mars’s stable Lagrangian zone, which could mean it’s been in Mars’s orbit for the better part of our solar system’s history. Furthermore, it’s a typical A-type asteroid, according to the infrared spectrum. Presumably, some gasses, Achondrite stone, Angrites, consisting mostly of the mineral augite with some olivine, anorthite and troilite. Nothing out of the ordinary, well, see for yourself.” He turned the screen to De Cremonese, who mumbled as he read.
“Nothing special,” he concluded. “Nothing there that would justify a visit.” He plucked his gray beard. “I don’t understand.”
For a long moment, the room stayed silent, except for the clinging of metal echoing through the building as it stretched and shrunk by the profound temperature changes on the mountain.
“And the rockets’ point of origin?” De Cremonese broke the silence.
“Huh?” Gavino game back.
“You said you were going to get back on the rockets’ point of origin. Where were they launched from?”
“Ah, yes. Sure.” Gavino rubbed his face as if he just woke up. “Although both rockets only came into our telescope’s frame when they were high in altitude, based on their trajectory, I was still able to deduce a point of origin... roughly.”
“How roughly?”
“Well, I think that the point of origin can be found somewhere on a latitude of 1.678,” Gavino said.
“And longitude?” De Cremonese asked, somewhat impatiently.
“That, I don’t have,” Gavino sighed. “Sorry. There was no way I could deduce the longitude, since I don’t know the velocity of the rockets, and there’s no way I can calculate the distance traveled and get a longitude. Again, I’m sorry.”
It took De Cremonese a second to recover from his disappointment. “No, of course not.” He then came back. “There’s absolutely no reason to say you’re sorry. I think you did excellent work.”
“You really think so?” Gavino’s eyes widened.
“I absolutely do. In fact, I’m the one who should be sorry. It’s just that I hoped that uh... Well, you know.”
“I do.”
“So, 1.678 latitude,” De Cremonese repeated. “That’s almost on top of the equator.”
Gavino put a map of the world with the equator drawn across onto the center screen. De Cremonese crossed his finger over the screen and started reading. “Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, São Tomé and Príncipe, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Maldives, Indonesia and Kiribati.”
“Fourteen countries. What do we do now?”
De Cremonese rubbed his face with both hands. “Is that B&N’s Grill just past the base camp still open?”
“I believe it is,” Gavino answered.
De Cremonese looked at his watch. “I suggest we do some more homework and then meet at five—that’s about three hours from now—in the parking lot, drive to B&N’s and discuss our findings over dinner. What do you think?”
Gavino gave a bright smile. “It’s a date.”
“Well, not exactly, but okay. And one more thing. Please, let’s keep this all to ourselves, at least until we know what we’re talking about.”
“Not a problem. Five it is.”
Chapter 12 – Neurogenesis
Boston, MA, Five Months Ago
“My shift just started, and I came as soon as I heard you were awake. How are you doing?” Dr. David Elder was still adjusting his white coat over his blue jeans, while juggling a computer tablet in his hands as he entered Jennifer’s hospital room. “And a good afternoon to you too, Ms. Porter,” he said, addressing Jennifer’s mother sitting next to her daughter’s bed.
The otherwise sterile-looking room looked much cozier now with the corkboard behind the bed filled with ‘get well’ greeting cards and stuffed animals sent by colleagues and students s
cattered around the room.
It had been two weeks since Jennifer’s treatment. After the surgery, she’d been put in a medically induced coma to give the treatment time to work on the brain without stress. Wavy lines on the EEG monitor next to the bed originated from the electrodes on her head. Twelve hours ago, they slowly reduced the flow of barbiturates, waking her up, and she’d regained full consciousness two hours ago.
“Dr. Elder,” Sylvia said.
Jennifer, still sleepy, cleared her throat. “Hi.”
“Do you mind?” The doctor took a wooden spatula from his breast pocket and pointed it at Jennifer’s mouth. She opened her mouth, and holding her tongue down with the wooden stick, he looked deep into her throat.
“It’s a bit dry from the barbiturates,” he said, taking the spatula out. “Just drink a lot and eat soft foods like ice cream, and everything should be okay soon.”
Jennifer smiled as her mother gave her a glass of water.
The doctor replaced the spatula with a small flashlight. “If you please.” He shone the light a couple of times in both eyes. “Okay, looks great. Now keep your head still and follow my finger.” He moved his finger from left to right in front of her eyes. “Okay, thank you.”
“How am I doing, doctor?”
The doctor looked at the tablet and scrolled up and down. “Actually, from what I see and, on the screen here, you’re doing good, if not great. How are you feeling?”
“Except for the sore throat and a bit of drowsiness, I feel fine.”
“You two have been talking to each other a while now.” He looked from Jennifer to Sylvia. “No memory problems, confusion or anything like that?”
“Not that I’ve noticed,” Sylvia answered as Jennifer shook her head.
Dr. Elder opened an image of a brain scan on his tablet and stared at it for a long moment. “Hmm.”
“Hmm good, or hmm bad?” Jennifer inquired.
“Um, good,” the doctor answered quickly. “You remember, on the brain scan, the gaps we saw?”
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