Dark Star Rising Second Edition (Pebbles in The Sky) (7 page)

Susan giggled and whispered. “Someone has kidnapped my uncle and left an imposter living in his house.”

Dr. Casselman looked up, and seeing his guests had arrived, he waved his hand at the wicker chairs around his patio table indicating they should take a seat.  He saw that they were looking at his leisure time garb and he gave them a grin.  “What are you guys staring at, can’t a guy relax on the weekend?  This is southern California you know.”

Peter tried his best to reply in a serious tone.  “I am not sure how this would affect your reputation as the Bear back on campus Dr. Casselman.  If any of the undergrads saw you like this
, it would be the death of your God-like status.”

Dr. Casselman grinned and said, “They won’t.  Only my close friends, family, and professional colleagues see me in my true form.  Tomorrow
, I will undergo a metamorphosis back to the alter ego that all my students know.  On that subject, I am promoting you two to my close knit group of qualified people who are fit to see me and call me Eric here off campus.” He winked at Susan.  “You may call me Uncle Eric if you prefer my dear.  As for you Peter, very shortly you will be able to fit the professional colleague criteria, so it is Eric to you.”  He set a plate of burgers and hotdogs on the table and said, “grab’em while they are hot.”

The three of them chit-chatted about the weather, how crowded the beach had been, traffic, and other small talk until they had all eaten their fill.  Then, Eric pushed his plate back and leaned back in his chair.  “Peter, my boy, I hope you did not forget that draft of your
paper.  I would like to look it over, and then you can have someone with good typing skills polish it up for you.”

Peter leaned forward and spoke. “Dr. Casselman, excuse me, uh, Eric.  I need to know what you found out about the abnormality on the Spitzer Images.  I will have to incorporate that and explain it before I will be able to use those images to support my theory.”

Eric pondered his response for a moment.  He finally spoke to Susan.  “My dear niece, how come you are going out with someone who is so obviously intelligent, but has tunnel vision so bad he can’t see the forest because of the trees?”

“Why Uncle Eric,” she replied, “That is exactly how we met.  He was so locked in on watching the TV over the bar that he ran me down without ever seeing me.”

Peter started to turn red at the discussion of how he had met Susan by his lack of attention that night in the bar.  “Let’s change the subject, shall we?” he intoned.  How about those dead whales that washed up on the beach a couple of days ago?”

“Not so fast, my boy,” said Eric.  “We were discussing your paper and it looks like I am going to have to pull some teeth here.”  He glanced at Susan. “Hopefully, this will not be too painful, so here goes.”  Using his best lecture voice, he started in.  “Peter, what sources of energy would Spitzer have seen while looking out into the universe?”

“Well,” said Peter, “It was designed to use the infrared spectrum.  Specifically, it would have picked up sources of heat, such as from stars or groups of stars in distant galaxies.  It could also have picked up an object close to a star that was receiving and radiating heat that it had absorbed from that star, such as a planet.”

“Correct,” Eric nodded.  “Now, what else out in space, away from the energy source of a star
, would radiate heat or light into the infrared spectrum that Spitzer could pick up?”

“Well, it would have to be something with an internal energy source, either from radioactive decay, chemical reactions, or some type of combustion,” Peter replied.

Eric nodded and led him on.  “Ok, for the sake of argument, let us say that ET is not coming to pay a visit in some huge fusion powered starship that is dumping waste heat into space.  What else does that leave?”

Peter contemplated for a moment and replied.  “Well, that would still leave the possibility of a very large rogue planet that was still cooling off or a Brown Dwarf.”

Eric sat back with contentment and an expression of success, as a wave of comprehension washed across Peter’s face.

Peter was speechless for almost a minute then spoke.  “If the source of the infrared artifact was a Brown Dwarf, it would have to be pretty large one, probably almost as big as an M class star. It would be very far off, unless, unless it was a very small one and it was very close.  If it was a Y class, that would mean it would have to be very, very close to be seen, and...”  Peter stopped speaking and looked at Eric.  He then spoke slowly.  “The infrared output was growing stronger, and there was no noticeable bearing shift at all.  It was barely detectable by the first Spitzer images but grew stronger over the four year span of those studies.  With the positive Doppler shift that means…” Peter grew silent.

Susan looked back and forth between the two of them and Peter’s look of concentration.  “What?” she said.  “Would one of you please explain what your guys are talking about? You have lost me.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Peter.  “I think I have found a Brown Dwarf heading almost right at us.”

“You finally connected the dots, even if it did take a little pushing and prodding from me,” exclaimed Eric.

“I don’t understand,” said Susan.  “I am only a biology major, but I do know a little bit about astronomy.  Isn’t a Brown Dwarf a baby star?”

“Not exactly,” said Peter.  “It is more like a star that never quite made the cut to join the other stars.  It never gathered enough mass to start a nuclear fusion process.  It is sort of like a giant planet, only much denser.  They can give off some heat and infrared light as they slowly cool, but they will never be a fully-fledged hydrogen fusing star like our sun.  Damn, this is going to be an opportunity of a lifetime.  Depending on how close it passes the solar system, we can study it and put to rest a lot of theories about the evolution and formation of the stars and galaxies.”

“So this is a good thing, lots of people will be excited about this, right?” asked Susan.

  Eric nodded, “Your right, my dear.  Astronomers are going to go crazy over this and your boyfriend here is going to become somewhat of a celebrity when the word gets out.”

Susan stood, walked over to Peter
, bent down, and hugged him. She stood back up and exclaimed, “That is the first time I have ever hugged a famous person, it feels rather nice!”  Then, a sad expression came over her.  “This means you will probably travel around and met all sorts of important people.  There will be lots of pretty girls around and you will forget all about me.”

“I
could never forget you, Susan.  Nobody can wait tables with the grace that you can,” Peter grinned.

  She grabbed both his ears and twisted them hard until he yelled, then she sat on his knee.  “You better not forget about me, Peter Rockwell!”

Peter thought for a moment and then said, “You know, this could really help me in my job search.  It will really get my name out there.  What a resume.  I could just write that I was the dude who discovered the Brown Dwarf and anybody that is somebody will probably know me.  I could even do talk shows.  I may have no trouble getting a job at all now,” he beamed.

Eric interrupted his day-dreaming.  “Quit dreaming of Hollywood
, Peter.  You already have a job right here at Cal Tech.”

Peter frowned and said, “No offence Eric, but you know by now that teaching is not for me.  I
would not be happy being an instructor for the rest of my life.  I want to be involved in some new project.  I want something challenging and exciting.”

  Eric just looked at him with amusement.  “I am appalled that you do not think that teaching is an exciting challenge, but that is not the job I am talking about.  Mike Banscott from JPL called me this morning.  He is the one that I talked to about your discovery.  He has talked to David Honstein, the chief administrator of NASA, regarding your findings.  It seems like your little discovery has gotten some people in high places very excited.  Mike has been placed in charge of forming a team to study this Brown Dwarf interloper as it gets closer.  He informed me that you are now hired as his assistant, if you want the position, that is.  You will be setting up shop right across campus at JPL.  So, you may not going anywhere after all it seems.  Susan will still be able to keep a very close eye on you.”

Susan gave a squeal of delight and hugged Peter so hard that his chair flipped over backwards spilling them both laughing onto the patio.  Peter exclaimed, “JPL, I cannot believe it.  That has been my dream since the day I was given my first telescope by my grandfather.”

“I am very happy for you Peter,” said Eric.  “However, I am afraid I am going to have to dampen your celebration just a little bit.  Mike said that David Honstein wants to keep this under wraps until a little more information can be gathered.  He is afraid all the end of the world nuts and religious lunatics will whip everybody into a frenzy if
word was to leak out before we have more updated data on the object.  The President would have David’s ass for causing her problems with the press and the last thing NASA needs right now is negative publicity.

I believe that David and Mike are already working on getting some
additional up to date data on your newly discovered visitor.  Hopefully, within a week or so they, will be able to release the news to the press.  I think that they will have to work fast though, because just as you accidently stumbled on this, it may not be long before someone else does the same.  So, the condition of your employment is to keep mum for the time being on this.  Since you will be working for Uncle Sam, they can sort of put a muzzle on you regarding things like that.”

He glanced down at Susan. “And you young lady, will have to keep this quiet also if you want Peter to have this job and stay close to you here.”

Susan looked at Peter and put a faked starry eyed expression on her face.  “What girl would not want a famous astrophysicist as a boyfriend?  All my friends will be so jealous.”  She planted a big kiss on Peter’s lips.

Eric looked at her fondly, and then said sadly, “There are some women who would not my dear
.  I knew one myself.”

Chapter 6

March 14
th
, 2016

Boston
,
Massachusetts

Monday afternoon found Jessica and Brett sitting across the table from Doctor Harold Berkshire, their grant coordinator from the National Institute of Health.  Doctor Alec Souse, director of immunology studies at Merck Incorporated was also sitting across from them.  They sat in silence as both the men across from them read through the synopsis of their findings to date.  Both finished at about the same time.  Dr. Berkshire rubbed his chin thoughtfully and spoke first.  “If this plays out like you two propose, and your rather unorthodox research can be verified, and I do stress very un-orthodox,” he said while giving Brett a big frown, “then you may have just changed the future of mankind.

“The implications are much greater than what you two see,” continued Dr. Berkshire.  “You were given a grant to find a way to rapidly identify, catalogue, and report the genome of new viral pathogens.  I will agree that your data seems to support that you have more than accomplished that goal.  Then, using your left over grant money, without authorization I might add, you took this a step further and did what no other major research lab has done with all the billions of dollars that have been poured into this area.  I find this very hard to believe, but your data does seem to collaborate your findings.  All of your work will have to be reviewed and verified independently I warn you,  but frankly, I am utterly amazed, if still a little bit skeptical.”

              Dr. Alec Souse leaned forward over the table and gazed at the two of them.  “If your findings are substantiated, do you realize what you two have probably done?” he asked.  Jessica started to speak but he held up his hand to silence her. He then continued. “If your research pans out, then you have probably cost me and thousands of other immunological researchers our jobs.  In addition, there are going to be thousands of stock holders in the pharmaceutical companies that are going to lose their life time savings because of you two.”

Brett finally spoke up. “Dr. Souse, I really am not sure what you are talking about, we have merely made possible a cure for some of the most dreaded diseases that infect mankind.”

Dr. Souse snorted and leaned back in his chair.  It was easy to see his mind was rapidly working on interpreting what all of this could mean to his company.

Dr. Berkshire cleared his throat and spoke again.  “Doctor Driskall, or pardon my Latin but shall I say Doctors Driskallae,” he chuckled at his lame attempt of humor.  “Try to think about Dr. Souse’s perspective.  He works for a pharmaceutical company that makes money making drugs to treat diseases.  The drugs usually do not eradicate the diseases; they merely attempt to treat the symptoms for that patient who may have the disease.  As cases of a particular disease keep popping up, the medicines will continue to be sold to fight them.  Thus, the drug companies sink billions into research to develop new drugs that they can sell to treat disease.  The companies recoup their cost and make a profit off of the sales of the drugs they develop.  In one fell swoop you may have just found a way to completely cure these diseases; they can be completely wiped out.  After everyone is vaccinated against a disease, there is no more treatment needed, poof, it is gone.  Think about the process of wiping out Smallpox.  We are on the brink of that accomplishment today, but it has taken decades and billions of dollars of research to develop a vaccine for that one virus. And now, in just a couple of years using a shoestring budget, you have developed a much more efficient, very economical process that could wipe them all out in just a few short years. Therefore, all the billions of dollars in stock in these drug companies is going to vanish overnight.”