Dark Star Rising Second Edition (Pebbles in The Sky) (6 page)

David came back out on the patio with two more cold beers. “I may have an idea,” he said as he handed a beer to Mike.  “President Montgomery has her monthly science briefing next Thursday.  I will try to get hold of Donald Masterfield, her science advisor, and see if he will add us onto her briefing agenda.  If so, we can try and make her see that this is serious enough that we need to devote more national assets to check this out.  Someone else will eventually discover this thing, and when they do, all hell could break lose.  If you think the end of the world nuts were crazy when they predicted the world was going to end in 2012 then you just wait.  They will all say this is the mythical planet Nibiru come to destroy the world.  We have got to study this thing and get the facts out before a lunatic announces it and the world goes nuts.  I want you to stay in Washington until the briefing on Thursday.  See what information you can get from any other observatories that have a view of that area, but do it discreetly.  I do not want this getting out of hand and the information being prematurely disseminated.”

“David,” interrupted Mike. “I am not sure I can stay until Thursday.  I have several things going back at JPL that I cannot just let drop.  There some other people who may be of more use to you.  I probably need to get back to my work now that I have brought this to your attention.”

“Bullshit,” replied David.  “Michael Heckerman, your old boss on the Spitzer Telescope gave you rave reviews in your annual evaluations.  He said you practically ran the Spitzer Project while he did paperwork.  He had highly recommended you be given your own project to run. Poor guy is now drooling spit down his chin in a nursing home here in Washington.  Alzheimer’s is not a pretty way to go out of this world.”

  “Ultimately, I am your boss since JPL is under NASA, and as of now you are in charge of organizing the observation and study of this Brown Dwarf.  Get yourself an assistant if you need too and I want you to set up an office and get organized for this task.  JPL is probably as good a place as any to set up shop since you are already out there, but I want you to stay here until Thursday.  I will get some discretionary funding released for whatever you need, as long as it is not too crazy. And remember, keep this on a need to know basis for the time being.”

“I sort of preempted you on some of that,” Mike said.  “I asked Mary Beth over at Hubble to divert some telescope time to look for our object of interest.  Maybe by Monday, she may have some more information.  I think I hear your wife and granddaughter coming back in.  I guess I will go grab a few hours of sleep and figure out who I can turn over funding requests to back at JPL,” Mike said as he stood to leave.  “Give my thanks to your wife for dinner.”

“I will call you Monday morning,” David called after him.  “Hey Mike, it might be a good idea to try and put a muzzle on that Grad student for a few weeks until we can work all this out.  Not really sure how you can do that.  Maybe you can lean on Eric Casselman, his professor, to rein him in.”

Mike turned around and grinned. “I have a better idea; you said to get an assistant, so what better way to keep him under wraps than to have him working for me.  I will talk to you on Monday.”

Chapter 5

March 20
th
2016

Pasadena, California

Dr. Eric Casselman hung the phone up and sat back down to his routine breakfast of oatmeal and dates.  “We are such creatures of habit,” he thought.  “I have had the same breakfast every morning for years and years.  If I do anything different at all, it is to use raisins
instead of dates in my oatmeal,” He chuckled to himself.  “It is no wonder that I never married.  I am forty three years old and have yet to meet a woman that would tolerate me.  I am getting old, set in my ways, and my work has always been more exciting to me than any woman.”  There had been one woman about twenty one years ago that had caught his eye.  They had a quick and intense summer relationship and then he had lost interest in the relationship. She had realized that he would always be married more to his work than he could to any woman.  She had left college and moved back out east where she had an aunt that she was close to when she realized that their relationship had started to wane.

His thoughts turned back to the phone call that had interrupted his Sunday morning solitude.  Mike Banscott had just called him from Washington.  Evidently, the Brown Dwarf, if that was what it was proven to be, was starting to stir the cold congealed pot of porridge that NASA and JPL had become with all the recent budget cuts.  He looked at his own oatmeal and smiled.  Comparing NASA to his own breakfast, it was probably good to stir in something new to that bowl of
oatmeal. He glanced at the clock on the stove.  It appeared that JPL shared his evaluation of the data that Peter had dug up.  “I believe,” he said to himself, “that the field of astronomy and astrophysics is going to become a very hot subject in the near future.”

Mike had asked him
to try and contain the information about Peter’s discovery for a few months, if possible.  With that thought in mind, he picked up his phone again and called Peter Rockwell.  “Good morning to you, Peter,” he said when Peter answered his phone.  “I just got off the phone with an old friend over at JPL and I believe that it is going to be safe to say that you can use that data after all. Yes, yes, I am sure that is great news to you.  Do you actually have a rough draft of your paper done?  Excellent.  Listen, why don’t you bring it over this afternoon around four pm and leave it with me to look over.  Matter of fact, why don’t you bring Susan with you and we will grill some burgers and dogs and celebrate with you. Yes, he did think he knew the source of the artifact you were having problems with. No, I will try and explain all that when you guys come over.  I will see you both at four.”

Eric stood up and went to get his golf shoes.  If he was lucky, he could get in eighteen holes, grab some burger supplies, and still be home by four.  He grimaced as he had a dark thought that there may not be as much time for golf in the future if things panned out the way he was afraid they would.

…

After Dr. Eric Casselman hung up, Peter was dancing around his apartment in ecstasy.  He could use his data after all. That meant that all he had left to do was just a few final touches to his paper and he would pay someone to do a final edit for grammar and syntax.  He would be done. He could submit it to the Astrophysics Department for review and analysis and then prepare to defend his theory.  He would be done with all his post grad requirements and the culmination of his work for his Ph.D.  “Damn,” he said to himself.  “After this semester I will have to look for a real job.”  That thought brought him back down to Earth, only for a moment though.

He grabbed his beach bag and headed out the door.  He had to pick up Susan at her apartment and then they were going to the beach.  On the way home
, they would stop at Dr. Casselman’s for burgers.  Peter was halfway to his car, when he stopped and shook his head.  Damn, he had left his rough draft back in his apartment.  He ran back to the apartment, grabbed the draft copy, and his sunglasses that he had also forgotten, and ran for the car.  He could not wait to pick up Susan.  He hoped she would be happy for him after she heard the news he could use his data.  He was sure she would be thrilled that Dr. Casselman wanted to review his draft paper himself before Peter submitted it.

Susan was sitting on the curb waiting on him as he pulled up to the small bungalow that she shared with three
other girls that were also studying biology at Cal Tech.  Even before he glanced at his watch, he knew from her expression that he was late again.  She climbed in his old beat up Toyota Tacoma and leaned over to give him a kiss.  “I am going to buy you a new alarm clock,” she said.  “It is awfully funny you can calculate the orbits of planets and stuff down to the second, but you can never pick me up on time.”

Peter pulled out into the flow of traffic and just beamed a radiant smile at her. “That might not be a problem much longer baby.  You will not have to compete for time
while I work on my research paper any longer.  I just got off the phone with your uncle and he thinks that I will be able to use my data after all.  He patted the stack of papers beside him.  This is my rough draft and he wants to review it.  This time three months from now you may be dating Doctor Peter Rockwell.

“Oh Peter,” she said, “I am so happy for you.  This is what you have been working so hard for.” After congratulating him she sat back and grew quiet, deep in thought.

Peter merged onto the freeway and they headed for the beach at El Matador. He looked over at her and slyly said, “Oh by the way, we are also having burgers and dogs over at your uncles to celebrate my ordeal coming to a close.”  Peter turned on the stereo and found some beach music.  Cranking up the volume, he sang alone quite out of tune the rest of the way to El Matador Beach.

Susan remained quiet for the rest of the drive.  She did have to smile to herself as Peter did his best to harmonize with some old Beach Boys songs.  It is a good thing that he did not study music, she thought to herself.  They pulled into the sand and gravel parking lot and distributed the cooler, beach chairs, and towels between themselves before heading down the cliff trail to the beach.  The beach was quite crowded, it being a Sunday, but they found a little recess at the base of the rocks where there was a smaller risk of getting hit in the head by a Frisbee or errant football.  After setting up their chairs, they sat back and Susan pulled them both a bottle of cold beer from the cooler.

Peter looked over at her.  “You have not said a word since we left your house,” he accused.

“Yes I have,” she said with a hurt look.

“No,” he countered. “You went all quiet and serious like on me.  Do you want to tell me what is wrong?  This is supposed to be a fun and happy day.”

“I am happy, Peter.  I am especially happy for you!  I was just admiring your musical talent on the way here.”

He just looked at her.  “That’s not likely.  What is really bothering you, did I say or do something wrong?”

She sighed and looked him in the eyes. “Peter, we just met a little over seven weeks ago.  I agreed to go out with you only a little over a month ago and
now it seems like I have been with you for years.  My time with you has been a very happy time for me, and I hope for you too.  I think I, uh, I think I have grown very fond of your perpetual tardiness and silly singing.”

Peter looked confused
. “Then what is wrong?”

She shook her head and looked down.  When she looked back up she had the smallest hint of tears in her eyes.  “Peter, you do not like to teach.  Your dream is to do research.  You want to do big time research and to do that you will have probably have to go somewhere else than here for a job. You are going to have to look for a real job. I realize that means you will be moving away and it will be hard to maintain a close relationship that we have only had a month to build upon.  I am very happy for you, but also very sad that I may lose you just when I am beginning to have some serious feelings for you.  I will be right back.  I need to cool off.”  She jumped up and walked down the beach toward the surf. 

Peter watched her cross the beach in her yellow bikini.  She is quite the looker, he thought to himself.  He also noticed that quite a few of the guys in their vicinity were looking at her with probably the same appraisal that he had.  She had waded in to about her waist in the surf and just stood there looking out to sea.  He thought about what she had said and saw the truth of it.  In a perfect world he would be offered an understudy or apprentice position across campus at JPL and work on a space project that was being planned and developed for the near future.  He realized that with the current economy and the federal budget cuts that he could probably forget about that. His best bet was getting an internship at one of the big new observatories down in South America.  It seemed everyone had decided that high up in the Andes Mountains was the ideal place to build observatories that were not affected by bothersome things like the weather.

  He had not really thought about how his completion of his doctorate might affect his evolving relationship with Susan. He realized that he was actually becoming quite fond of her.  She had a way of opening up his eyes to things in the world that had not really mattered to him in the past.  He could see that she cared for him.  He understood her fear their relationship might not survive the distance and separation that his taking a job might bring about. The only real option that he could think of was if he took a local teaching position, if he could find one
. He knew that he would not be happy doing that.  He would probably end up hating her for taking his dream away from him. He forgot all his worries in an instant when he caught a cup of cold sea water right on his bare chest.

Susan stood there grinning at him. “Come on and walk in the surf with me, Mr. Serious. This is supposed to be a happy day.  Let’s go for a walk and then get some sun before we go eat with Uncle Eric.”

Later that afternoon Peter and Susan pulled up in front of her uncle’s house as they had been invited on the way home from the beach.  As they walked up the sidewalk from the street it was obvious that Dr. Eric Casselman had not waited until they arrived to light the grill.  The smell of burning mesquite charcoal was wafting over the house, so they skipped the front door and went around in back of their house to the patio.  Peter elbowed Susan in the ribs as they stopped and stared at their host.  Dr. Casselman was happily flipping burgers.  Dressed in a very bright flowered Hawaiian shirt, orange swim trunks, and flip flops, he could have fit in with any aging crowd of Jimmy Buffet Parrotheads.  This was not the Dr. Eric Casselman that Peter had come to know at Cal Tech that all the students were terrified of.