Jubilee Year

by Gerard O'Neill

  The fact he lacked hard evidence that Arnold was up to no good complicated things. He would have to put up with the man's irritating presence for the time being.

  He stretched his arms over his head. Perhaps it was best to be philosophical about the situation. There must be hundreds of Arnold's working in the field of Astronomy. Yes, he had been awfully lucky to have avoided working with one of them, right up until this year.

  Michael never limited his ambition to discovering a comet and having it named after him. As a kid filled with purpose and naturally inquisitive, he had dreamed of discovering entire solar systems! He could say proudly that if he never discovered anything of significance, it was not be because he feared the truth. Indeed, Michael Boulos understood true scientific accomplishment required no compromise be given.

  Yet every orderly system had its preconditions, and science as a whole was no exception. It would be foolhardy for him to ignore the rules imposed on him directly and indirectly. Yes, there was a price to pay for a scientist who ignored such constraints.

  Michael was soon to discover how high that price could be.

  23

  A Good Memory

  When Penny invited Storm to Franchette's, he thought the request came from her mother. It wasn’t Franchette, but Michael who ushered him into the front office. Once they were both inside the room Michael closed the door.

  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.”

  “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.

  Michael saw caution and confusion in the boy's eyes. He needed to win Storm's complete trust. There was very little time to get people to listen. The time he needed to save them was about to run out. It would take a worldwide alert. “I am sure she would have mentioned as much to me when she told me about your gift,” he 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 scientists like me would give their right hand to have your ability?”

  He carefully poured two cups of coffee from the pot on the tray Penny had set down on his desk. Without asking he spooned sugar into both cups and stirred them noisily. He gestured to the plate of biscuits and was pleased to see Storm take one.

  “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?”

  “Anything—once I make the effort,” Storm said taking the hot cup offered to him.

  “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. “You must be getting cramped for space in your head,” he said.

  “You would think so,” Storm replied, swallowing the last of the biscuit. It looked like Penny's father had asked him over to perform tricks. He was disappointed.

  “Sounds to me like you have a photographic memory. Is that what it is?” 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 books on the subject. Even a few journal papers. He recalled studies of children who had suffered deep and re-occurring trauma. Their brains were found to have compartmentalized. Yet, Storm didn't appear to be suffering the psychological damage found in those children in the studies he had read. 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?”

  Michael was manipulating the boy. The truth was that Canberra was a virtual enclave. One employing an extraordinary level of high security to protect its secrets and those who kept them. It was indeed a risky undertaking for Storm. It didn’t matter now. There was too much at stake. He had to get the boy to agree. The mission was too important to abandon. Far too many lives were at stake.

  “No one will know,” he said, a little awkwardly. “That you can carry it all in your head is beautiful. If you are stopped and searched, what will they find? I'm not saying there is no risk, but I don't think you have too much to worry about. And—ah—you will be doing it for science. For everyone. Maybe for the world!” He hoped was not sounding desperate, but using Storm to connect with the professor was the last safe option he had.

  “Sounds like it's worth doing,” Storm said, not entirely convinced. “Who did you say would be searching me?”

  “Ah, airport security. The police might... Well, you must have heard about how paranoid they’ve 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 happy to do something useful for Michael. He was thankful the astronomer had not mentioned the disastrous trip to Sydney. Canberra, the capital city, was probably the most boring on Earth, or so he had been told. Nothing would go wrong on this trip.

  “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.

  “You are delivering the message to Professor Samuel Blenker,” Michael said. “This is his address and phone number. How long will it take you 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 memorize. Each number and letter must be in the correct sequence, including the spaces between each character. You must be able to write this down in front of my colleague exactly as you see it here.”

  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. “Alright, tell me what I wrote down.”

  When Storm finished reciting the message, Michael pulled a metal waste bin from under the desk and shook the contents onto the floor. He folded the paper with his message into a thin strip and held a lighter to it.

  When the flame licked his fingers, he dropped the burning stub into the empty bin and grunted in satisfaction when he saw the blackened residue curl. When he turned to Storm, it was with a stern face.

  “Doing prison time doesn't reflect well on you—or my daughter. Do try not to get yourself arrested this time.”

  24

  Marsfield

  He stood on the lip of the plateau, the highest point on the peak, observing the faint glow of the sky above the line of cumulus clouds streaming along the horizon. He watched them as they formed. In another half an hour, the first rays of the Sun would lick the broad cloud base.

  He watched the blooming formation reach into the upper atmosphere as he had done only a few times before when the morning sky was clear enough to allow it. It made no sense for the cumulus formation to do that. Certainly not in these parts.

  He pulled out his smartphone. He didn't need an app to recognize known objects in the sky, but they could be useful. He adjusted the settings and selected a bird's-eye view. The graphics showed a representation of the peak relative to the position of sunrise. He switched to the celestial sphere. An image filled the small display that showed the current position of the Sun. He switched between the relative position of all the planets and the background constellations.

  While it was too early for sunrise, the sky in the East had already begun to brighten. There was a pale blue strip that had the satin smooth luster of metal hanging long and oblique above the desert.

  It had to be man-made. That was the only rational explanation for it. How the hell did they do that? They were hiding something.

  He waited for the objects and soon they came into view. They were barely visible and soon the growing cloud mass and the glowing sheen covered the reflecting sunlight off the objects that lay beyond Earth’s atmosphere. He could no longer see them.

  It didn’t matter. He had an approximation of their various trajectories and he knew they were still there just below the horizon.

  A tear line appeared between the land and firmament. Sunrise was minutes away. Michael sat in his folding chair and pondered the implications of his morning observation. There was a lot of compiling to be done over the coming days. He would need to tweak his model.

  He pondered the extraordinary nature of what he had witnessed, and the fact he was one of a very few who might have more than an inkling of what was happening inside the solar system. The event was at once beautiful and terrifying in its implications. He yawned. It was time to walk back to the office for his morning coffee.

  He froze in mid-stretch when a movement on the edge of the plateau caught his attention. He leaned forward in the chair and squinted at the bush line as the foliage rattled and parted. Michael had never been aware there was a direct walkway up the steep slope from the bushland below. But, there was the head and shoulders of a man emerging onto the flat top of the peak.

  It was a solitary figure that trudged with deliberate steps toward Michael. The old man stopped a yard away from the scientist, to lean his weight on a long staff. A wide smile displayed a mouthful of healthy white teeth.

  From the old feller’s stoop and from the look of the deep lines in his face, Michael guessed his visitor to be in his seventies. The man’s smile was familiar, but it faded quickly to be replaced by a look of concern.

  Without speaking a word, the old man straightened and turned back in the direction he had come. When the old man reached the edge of the sharp descent, he turned to look back. He saw that Michael was still in the chair, staring at him open-mouthed. The old man gestured for Michael to hurry.

  Michael stopped at the decline to peer suspiciously over the edge. The skinny figure was quickly disappearing into the scrub below when his curiosity finally took over. Michael’s boots slipped on the gravel as he stumbled in his haste. He could catch only glimpses of the old man's red and yellow cotton shirt between the trunks of trees. The old feller was as agile as a mountain goat.

  When they reached the bottom of the peak, the trail merged with another much larger track. Michael recognized it as the walkway he had taken with Franchette during their first months at Siding Spring. He remembered the series of expeditions they had done together in those early days. They told themselves it was a search for rocks and fossils. Back then, they thought rural life would allow them plenty of free time.

  Michael froze on the track when he heard a single pop. It sounded almost like gunfire.

  The old man looked back to see the astronomer's had turned to look back.

  “Hey, boss!” The old man called. “We best hurry!”

  “Where are we going?” Michael asked, bewildered at the unexpected turn his morning had taken.

  “You’re in trouble, boss.”

  “I've seen you around here, haven't I?” Michael asked. Now he was sure he knew the grizzled face.

  “A year or two back you walked here with your woman,” the old man stated, quickening his pace through the coarse bushes.

  “I knew it! We saw you on the track. Is your house close to here?” Michael asked.

  He was anxious to help the old man back to his home. Wherever that might turn out to be. Then he had to get back to the office.

  “Where's an old fella like me gonna live around here? No, I live with my son in Marsfield.”

  The old man pointed in the direction of the scrub-covered hills.

  “He's a national park ranger.”

  “Look!” Michael said. “I have no idea where you're going, or even why I am even following you, but I have to get back to my work.”

  The old man turned with surprising speed and stepped within a foot of Michael.

  “There’s trouble up there, boss,” he said. The old man’s gaze was unwavering. “You best come with me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Michael asked in alarm.

  “We've no time to yabber,” the old man called out over his shoulder as he started off again at a faster pace.

  The brush opened up in front of him in a clearing, and Michael saw there was a dust-covered Jeep parked under a tree. The old man was already behind the steering wheel. He threw open the passenger door, waving for Michael to get in.

  The astronomer stayed put.

  “Look, if you don’t mind. I’ve been up all night, and I have a ton of work waiting for me in my office,” Michael said. “Unless you can tell me what the hell is going on, I'm heading straight back to the observatory!”

  “In a few minutes, it will be gone!” The old man said leveling a steely gaze at Michael. “This is a good day for you! You are alive.”

  “You had better tell me something that makes sense, and be quick about it,” Michael said.

  “Bad men come looking for you, boss.”

  “What?” Michael said. He suddenly felt sick. “Why?”

  “They want to hurt you.”

  There was a succession of dull thuds from the peak. Michael felt the percussion through the soles of his feet. He spun around, expecting to see flames and smoke, but he saw only the tree tops.

  “Jump in,” the old man called out, jabbing a finger at the empty seat
beside him.

  Michael hesitated, but when he looked back a second time, he saw a thick column of black smoke rising over the treetops. The ground shook with another thud and before he realized it, a strong hand had grasped his arm and he found himself in the cab.

  The sound of a vehicle traveling at speed came from the direction of the peak. Vehicle tires screeched on tight corners. Beyond the trees, in the direction of the main road, a truck engine roared into life. Hidden by the trees they heard the screech of tires again as the driver turned off the road from the peak.

  “Was that them—the bad guys?” Michael asked when the sound of the vehicles had faded into the distance.

  He didn’t need to ask. He already knew the answer, but he hoped there was a perfectly rational explanation for the explosions and the speeding vehicles.

  “They were looking for you!” the old man said, then he put the Jeep into reverse and spun the steering wheel like a professional.

  They accelerated forward, and the astronomer grabbed at the handle of the door. The tires jumped the rough ground, each bump lifting Michael from his seat and threatening to slam him headfirst into the dashboard. He found his seat belt and snapped it into place.

  The old man swung the vehicle wide as they hit the bitumen. Even while he fought the steering wheel to bring the Jeep back onto the road, the old man was gazing up into the rear vision mirror.

  “Look behind us,” he called out over the noise of the engine.

  Michael turned his head, and his heart sank at what he saw. Heavy clouds of thick black smoke were coiling up from the peak. As he watched, he saw there were tongues of fire between the trees.

  “You turn around, right now!” He bellowed at the old man.

  “There’s no point in us risking our necks,” the old man said softly. “They won't be alive.”

  “How do you know? Turn back!”

  “I’m taking you to Marsfield to hide you,” the old man said.