Karl sipped his burned coffee and grimaced at the bitter taste, pushing the cup aside. If Michael didn’t buy a drip coffee maker very soon, he was going to arrive at work one of these days to find the old percolator crumpled in the parking lot, having fallen from a great height. As it turned out on this day, Karl discovered his morning shot of caffeine wasn’t necessary. He was already well and truly awake.
Karl waited for Arnold to show an interest in the papers and when he saw none forthcoming, he pulled them across the tabletop and spread them out in front of him. The pages were filled with numbers, diagrams, and jotted notes. After studying them in silence for several minutes he looked up at Arnold and pointed to the data.
“You know we only need to consider the field lines. That’s evidence of electromagnetic influence coming from a source other than our sun, right there.”
“No, you are wrong,” Arnold said.
Arnold had developed a small twitch in the corner of one eye. He pushed up his glasses with an index finger and rubbed at the tiny muscle.
“What you are seeing is related to a typical solar cycle.
“Remember the giant filament that lay across the surface of the Sun for two whole days?” Michael asked his two colleagues. “Well, take a look at this.”
He pointed at the screen.
“See what happens?” Michael asked. “It snaps away. No—make that sucked away! There’s an invisible vampire feeding off our sun. A typical solar cycle, my ass!”
“Are you presenting this at the symposium in Melbourne?” Karl asked, gazing at Michael with a bemused expression.
“Damned right I am!” Michael declared.
He spun the laptop around and opened the image in Paint Shop to trace three long candy green lines over the streaks of fiery plasma extending from the orange disk. When he was finished, he turned the laptop once more and pushed it across to Arnold.
“See the length of these things. See how many there are? And they are on the same side of the Sun! So please don’t tell me that is normal?”
“Interesting,” Karl said, as he leaned across for a closer look, and nodded his head in agreement. “Nice!”
“All heading off in the same direction,” Michael continued.
Arnold pushed his spectacles up his nose and peered at the display.
“Did you get those images from Learmonth?” He asked with barely concealed surprise.
Michael smiled in response. He could barely hide the look of triumph.
“Did the other observatories record the same discharges?” Arnold asked.
Arnold’s nose was almost touching the screen of the laptop.
“Yes, they did.” Michael switched the image on the screen to a view of the Sun’s surface. “Let’s take a look these shots.”
He began clicking through the images.
“All around the globe, they are recording the same thing. At Learmonth, Udaipur, El Teide, Cerro Tololo, Big Bear, Mauna Loa… Just take your pick.”
“So, you’re saying those flashes are being observed in every solar observatory on Earth?” Arnold asked, waving his hands in the air.
Michael shook his head, ignoring the question.
“What concerns me is all the geomagnetic storms we’ve been having. We’ve got data from magnetometers—the elevated Kp Index. The jolts are going off the charts. There’s just no doubt any longer about a relationship between what is happening on Earth and the solar wind.
But then—that solar wind we have been getting walloped by is not all coming from our sun! The solar cycle is currently one of low activity. That is what we expect, and we are told. On top of that, the data clearly show the solar wind to be coming from a different direction!”
Karl turned to Arnold as the man eased himself back into his chair. When Arnold met his gaze for a brief moment, Karl was stunned to see the man’s face had drained of color.
“You’re the whiz kid working with radiation emissions,” Michael said to Arnold. “Tell us what’s going on here.”
Arnold pushed his chair back with a loud scraping of metal against concrete.
“I—ah… I gotta take a pee.”
“What do you think he’s really up to?” Michael asked Karl when the door closed behind Arnold.
“I think you are making something out of nothing, Mick.”
“Don’t call me that!”
“You’re a bit touchy today, aren’t you?”
“Damned right,” Michael said gesturing to the closed door with his thumb. “I am concerned about our colleague… I’ve tried to shake the feeling. I always end up telling myself I’m being silly. I tell myself I’m simply not able to tolerate the man’s nervous disposition, but now I’m not so sure anymore.”
“You don’t think it might be something to do with a certain lack of social skills?” Karl asked.
Michael shut his laptop a little too hard.
“Do you want to know what I think?” Karl said with a sudden smile.
“Of course I do,” Michael replied without glancing up.
“Arnold’s just as committed to scientific discovery as you and I.”
Michael sighed. He grabbed his empty cup and stood. “Do you want another one?”
“No—yes—thanks.”
Michael took the empty cup from his hand and walked over to the coffee machine. As he poured the hot black liquid, he heard Arnold’s nervous cough behind him. At that moment, he suddenly felt sorry for the man. He glanced around at his American colleague.
“You want another one, Arnold?”
Arnold shook his head. “No. I seem to have a weak bladder today. It’s probably all this talk of plasma outflow.”
Karl was pretending to read the papers in front of him but he was unable to stifle his chuckles. It was not often Arnold came out with a well-timed wisecrack. Hell, the man had to have dug deep for the quip.
“Ah—I would like to get back to my own project now if you don’t mind,” Arnold said.
“Sure,” Michael replied. “Your mystery project…”
Arnold blinked and hesitated a little longer at the door.
“You know, Arnold, I am the chief scientist here. I’m supposed to oversee the team. Yet, I still don’t know what it is you are researching. Why can’t you tell us what you are working on?”
“That’s a ridiculous suggestion,” Arnold replied. “You already know.”
“No, I don’t. I know your area of expertise. I know you’re making use of our facility. I was told to make space for you here, and I have done that. I realize I get little say in who they send me anyway. But don’t forget that I am the director.”
Arnold gave a small shrug.
Michael gave Arnold a dismissive wave of his hand. “Yeah, well, go on then. Oh, wait! There’s one last thing.”
He felt like an idiot having to ask the question.
“You are really from UCSC, aren’t you?”
“Yes, of course I am!” Arnold said with a look of surprise.
Arnold remained where he was, his jaw working as if he had found a piece of food lodged between a gap in his teeth and was working it free.
“You know—I find your observations interesting,” he told Michael, his eyes blinking behind the thick lenses of his spectacles. “But, frankly, I would much rather you keep those kinds of ideas to yourself. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.”
“Sure, no worries,” Michael replied. “When the symposium is over, I’ll publish my findings and that is when the real debate will begin.”
“I don’t think you should do that,” Arnold frowned, his hand still on the door knob. “Publishing your paper will present a problem for people you would do best not to annoy… But why did you ask me if I am from UCSC?”
“Just curious,” Michael muttered darkly.
“Oh,” Arnold said.
He glanced away with eyebrows raised and a nod of his head and closed the door softly behind him.
“—to know if you’re from a different governm
ent agency,” Michael continued.
The director of Siding Spring Observatory strode across the room and opened the door after Arnold.
“There’s a second solar wind in our system, and I know you know something about that! You’re keeping it to yourself. What good is that to us or to anyone else”
Outside the boardroom, the door to the stairwell slammed shut with a loud clang.
Karl sat immobile at the table staring at the papers in front of him.
Arnold’s oversize boots echoed on the metal steps.
“The secretive bastard!” Michael muttered to himself when he was back in his office, the door closed behind him. He dropped into his chair and stare at the desk, rubbing the tips of his fingers into the graying hair at his temples as he often did when frustrated. Arnold was an unknown quantity. Several months of working with the man and he had already decided he trusted the arrogant shit about as far as he could throw him. Yet, they were both scientists and shared similar fields of interest. He didn’t like the thought that Arnold was sent to Siding Spring to monitor his work. It would be so bloody inconvenient if it were true!
After several more minutes of pondering, he shook his head and sighed. Until he found hard evidence Arnold was up to no good, he would have to put up with the man’s irritating presence until the man’s placement at the observatory ended.
He leaned back in the chair and stretched his arms over his head. Perhaps it was best to be philosophical about the situation. There must be hundreds of Arnold’s in Astronomy. Yes, he had been awfully lucky to avoid working with someone like Arnold for this long.
As a kid filled with purpose and naturally inquisitive, Michael had never limited his ambition to discovering a comet and having it named after him. He had dreamed of discovering entire solar systems! He told himself if he never discovered anything of significance, at least it would not be because he feared the truth.
Indeed, Michael Boulos understood true scientific accomplishment most often requires there be no compromise or quarter given. Yet it was a fine line. Because all orderly systems had preconditions, and science as a whole was no exception. It would be a foolhardy scientist who ignored the tightly drawn constraints imposed by mainstream science. Yes, there was certainly always a price to pay for scientists who ignored those constraints.
Unfortunately for Michael, he was all too soon to discover how high that price could be.
Good Memory
When Penny invited Storm to Franchette’s, he thought the request came from her mother. It was Michael who met him in the hallway and ushered him into Franchette’s front office, where he closed the door behind them.
There was little time to brace for the onslaught he was sure would be coming his way. Dragging Michael’s only child through a protest in Sydney was bad. Sharing a hotel suite with her was probably worse.
“Penny tells me you have an extraordinary ability to memorize long sequences of numbers,” Michael asked sitting on the edge of Franchette’s desk.
Storm wriggled in his chair. It looked like he had dodged one bullet only to have Michael fire another his way.
“She promised me she wouldn’t talk about it,” Storm said.
“Do you find the subject embarrassing?” Michael asked with raised eyebrows.
“I didn’t want her to talk about it, that’s all,” Storm said, his discomfort increasing.
“Why would you want to hide such a talent?” Michael said. “It’s not like you’ve been asked to put it to any great use so far.”
“How would you know?” Storm growled, forgetting all about the retribution that might be still to come from Penny’s father.
“I am sure she would have mentioned as much to me when she told me about your gift,” Michael replied hurriedly. “Look, Storm. My daughter can’t keep a secret even if her life depended on it. There are things I have wanted to tell her, but I never have. Do you realize there are scientists like me would give their right hand to have your ability?”
Michael saw caution and confusion in the boy’s eyes. He needed to win Storm’s complete trust, and it was clear to him that doing so would not be easy. The problem he knew he faced was the small window of opportunity he had to get people to listen in time to be able to save them. It was going to take a worldwide alert.
He picked up the coffee pot on the tray Penny had left them and filled two cups. Without asking he spooned sugar into both and stirred them noisily. He gestured to the plate of biscuits and was pleased to see Storm take one.
“So how good are you at remembering things?” Michael asked.
“Pretty good,” Storm replied with a shrug.
“Only with numbers?”
“I can memorize photographs,” Storm replied. “Other stuff as well.”
“What about sequences of numbers and letters?”
Storm took the hot cup offered to him. “Anything—once I make the effort.”
“How long before you forget?”
“I don’t ever forget,” he replied. “I can’t,” he added quickly.
Michael took a sip from his cup. He was trying his best to relax the boy. On reflection, perhaps coffee was not the best way to go about it.
“It must be getting a little cramped for room in your head,” he said with a smile.
“You would think so,” Storm asked, swallowing the last of the biscuit.
It was clear Penny’s father had asked him over to the house to perform tricks. He couldn’t help but feel disappointed in Michael.
“Sounds to me like you have a photographic memory?” Michael prodded.
“I can bring up a page in my head from any book I’ve read like it’s still in front of me,” Storm told him.
“Do you know how you do that?”
“I think each memory has a compartment,” he said with a shrug. “They don’t get muddled and they can’t get wiped.”
Michael sipped his coffee. This wasn’t his field of knowledge, but he had read a few books on the subject, even a journal paper or two. He recalled reading studies of children who had suffered deep and re-occurring trauma that resulted in their brain becoming compartmentalized. Yet Storm didn’t appear to be psychologically damaged. He was at least as stable as the majority of Michael’s acquaintances and colleagues.
“How well do you know your way around Canberra?” Michael asked.
“If you show me a map, I should be fine.”
Michael set down his cup and gazed steadily at the boy. It was time to get right to the point.
“Storm, I would like to ask you to run an errand for me. I want you to take a message to a friend of mine. He’s an astronomer just like me. No, that’s not right. He’s a better astronomer than I am. He’s actually my old teacher.”
“Why don’t you go yourself?” Storm asked.
“If I did, I would place my old friend at risk. So would sending him an email or a letter.”
“Yeah, but then what about me?” Storm asked with a wry grin. “Wouldn’t you be placing me at risk?”
“No one will know,” Michael said, a little awkwardly. “You carry it all in your head. That’s the beauty of it. If you are stopped and searched, what will they find? I’m not saying there isn’t any risk involved for you. There is always a risk in undertaking a challenge. I don’t think you have much to worry about.”
Michael knew only too well he was manipulating the boy with the hope that everything would be okay. The truth was that Canberra was a virtual enclave, one that employed an extraordinary level of high security to protect its secrets and those who kept them. It was indeed a risky undertaking for Storm, but he had to get him to agree. The mission was too important to abandon, with far too many lives at stake.
“And—you will be doing it not only for science but for everyone!” He added, hoping he was not sounding as desperate as he felt.
“Sounds like it’s worth doing, I suppose,” Storm said, not entirely convinced. “Who did you say would be searching me?”
“A
h, airport security. The police might… You know how paranoid they have become in Canberra.”
“I guess so,” Storm said.
He was actually relieved Michael had not invited him to Franchette’s to interrogate him over the trip to Sydney.
“Sure! I don’t mind doing that for you.”
“Okay then!” Michael said slapping Storm on the back. “This is a coded message I am giving to you. If it was otherwise, then I definitely would be placing you at risk.”
“Cool. A code. I got you.”
“I am going to give you the message tonight. I need you to leave for Canberra as soon as you can, within a couple of days. It’s urgent.”
“I can leave first thing tomorrow if you like,” Storm said. He was excited by the prospect of doing something different. Something useful. “I’ll ring the farm and tell them I’m sick.”
“Shouldn’t you give at least a day’s notice?” Michael asked.
“I guess,” Storm said.
“Very good! Then you leave the day after tomorrow. I will book the bus and the plane.”
Michael took a sheet of paper and a pencil and began writing.
“The man you are going to deliver the message to is Professor Samuel Blenker. This is his address and phone number.”
He stared at Storm. “How long does it take to remember all this?”
“Already done.”
“Okay,” Michael pointed to the characters he had carefully written at the bottom of the paper. “This is the content I want you to give him. Each number and letter must be in the correct sequence. Including the spaces between each character. It must be exact.”
Storm looked at the paper. “Is that all?”
“That’s all I have for you,” Michael said. “Are you sure you have memorized all of it?”
“Test me if you want,” Storm told him.
Michael turned over the sheet of paper. “Tell me what I told you.”
When Storm finished reciting the message, Michael nodded in satisfaction. He bent down and pulled a metal waste bin from under the desk and shook the contents onto the floor. He folded the paper into a thin strip and held a lighter to it. A lick of flame burned his fingers, and he dropped the smoking stub into the bin. When he saw the flame die and the blackened residue of the paper curl he glanced across at Storm.
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