The Pathfinder Project (39 page)

“Well, it’s in the design…”
Adam started to say before catching himself. He abruptly trailed off, deep in
thought.

The Chaplain smiled. “Did you
just say ‘
design’
my friend?”

“That’s…” Again the elder Roh
hesitated.

“That’s a really solid,
inexplicable point,” David chuckled, interrupting him before he could finish.
“The Chaplain is right, too – every gravity generator on this ship merely
simulates gravity – it does not and to my knowledge cannot – create it.”

“I like your example too,
Father,” Thomas grinned, drawing an irritated scowl from his brother. “Using
the simple example of gravity you’ve demonstrated that some parts of science
are still beyond us and not immediately provable, while at the same time shown
us what might actually constitute a spiritual act. Boggs-Higson research is
still widely debated, even though they really think they’re onto something
there.” He paused to think about the Chaplain’s action. “Why
does
your
legal pad hit the floor when dropped? Can a physical law like gravity be
considered magical or miraculous? Those are really excellent observations,
Father.”

“Thank you,” the Chaplain said,
nodding humbly and shooting a glance at Adam. “
I
read your memo.”

“Gravity is a physical law of
our universe which we have learned to break by generating enough thrust in the
opposite direction of its attraction. That’s how we attain orbit around a
planet or a moon,” said Kaufield. “And the commandments we are given by God are
moral laws of our universe, which we personally – each and every one of us –
have the opportunity to choose or choose not to obey.”

“Back on Earth I once helped a
man build himself a new home,” Father Dixon continued. “He was a poor but
really impressive member of my Church who saved for years so that he could
finally afford a new house for himself and his family. This man’s skills
working with wood were truly unmatched. So we worked and we worked and some
things would not be perfect and I would watch this man take extra pieces of
leftover wood that most people would throw away. If we sawed too much off
somewhere he could fill it in and cover it up so well that no one would ever
notice. If we didn’t saw off enough he would re-measure the distances and shape
everything just so and not stop until it looked as perfect as he could make
it.”

“I’ll bet he ended up with a
nice house,” Jeff spoke up. “My brother was the same way when he would build
things. Me, I just slap everything together. That’s why they have me building
barns in the Livestock wing!”

“Yes, but the work that this
man and I did together
truly
enlightened me in brand new ways,” grinned
Dixon happily. “I had always been taught that water and sunlight were our most
precious resources and the reason that all life exists. Plants couldn’t grow
without them and animal life couldn’t exist without the plants and the rest of
the food chain. But watching my friend put the finishing touches on his new
house was truly eye-opening for me.” He glanced around the table at everyone
and smiled. “My first thought was of the coastal regions and their constant,
unpredictable Earth quakes. What good does it do to make sure everything is
perfectly aligned with the floor and then have the floor shift on you
unexpectedly and tear everything apart? Then I thought of gravity in general.
Without it you can still nail stuff together and secure it to the ground, but if
you don’t everything would just float away. Even the surface soil that makes up
the ground would probably dissolve away into space. Gravity is yet another
truly remarkable reason why life here in our universe is possible.”

“There could still
be
life without gravity, but certainly not in the way we’re used to encountering
it,” decided Dr. Simmons. “It would have to be something like the bacteria we
found on the mineral rocks, or a life form capable of surviving for extended
periods by floating in empty space.”

“That’s why I – a man of holy
faith – am not afraid of what science discovers, proves or disproves,” Dixon
said. “The intricate details that make up our universe continue to astonish us
– and always seem to keep us wondering – no matter how much we manage to learn.
Life is truly an incredible experience, to say the least.”

“So how has the feedback been
from the parents on
Pathfinder
?” Kaufield asked, pointing at the donut
box still sitting in front of Anne. Do they think you’re teaching too much or
too little regarding Intelligent Design?”

“Primarily they’re concerned
that we are not teaching enough,” she replied after pausing for a moment to
carefully consider the matter. “Traditionally it has always been our policy to
focus primarily on the sciences of life. Most parents – back in America anyway
– would already have a Church picked out for their children to attend. Some
would even take the spiritual side of their development a step further by
enrolling them in a private school that focused on a solid, religious doctrine.
But we don’t have that option here on the ship, and that’s why we’ve been
trying to convince the parents that they may have to be willing to step forward
and play a stronger role in the spiritual development of their children.”

“And then there are those
people who don’t want
anything
spiritual taught in the classroom,” Adam
said. “Atheism is almost a religion unto itself – certainly it qualifies as a
belief system. I never gave the issue a thought one way or the other until
Noriana became pregnant. Since I’m going to be a Dad I guess I’m going to have
to start paying more attention to these types of things.”

“I’ve always believed that it is
a parent’s right – if not an obligation – to teach and pass on their religious
beliefs to their children,” commented Mary. “Some parents decide to expose
their children to spirituality and then let them make up their own minds while
others have a very specific role picked out for them right from the year that
they’re born.”

“We may end up adding an optional
class or two to the curriculum and then let the parents choose whether or not
they want their kids to attend,” Kaufield speculated. “But I think that
teaching Intelligent Design and the sciences side by side at this time would be
a mistake. When Elizabeth was alive we used to consider religion and our
spirituality a very private,
family
affair – we didn’t
want
the
schools meddling too much with Joseph’s belief system. We talked about it often
enough even before we married because we wanted to make certain that our son
got a really good look at Church objectives and learned firsthand how having
faith can add to your character. Ultimately what he chooses to believe in as he
grows up and matures into an adult is totally up to him, but we wanted to give
him the opportunity to learn.”

“Enough about our classrooms
and the educational curriculum,” Anne said. “We’ve got a good system in place;
it’s just a matter of tweaking it here and there.” She grinned and shoved the
donut box at Father Dixon.

“Oh no,” he replied, shaking
his head back and forth quickly. “I’ve said more than I intended to already.”
He shoved the box at Kayla. “You’ve been pretty quiet. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m fully locked into my
listening mode. I want to know more about this dark matter thing,” she said,
causing Adam to groan and lower his head into his hands. “Really,” she said.
“We set out to explore the universe and it really sounds as though we’ve found
something truly interesting. How close are we to peeking outside of it and
finding out what’s beyond?”

“Some feel that there is no
boundary… that our universe is infinite,” pointed out Glen.

“Now
there’s
a theory
we’re about to disprove,” Thomas grinned eagerly.

“No really,” Glen asked. “If
there is a boundary to our universe, then what would be on the other side of
it?”

“A really big planet?” Colonel
Neeland suggested, grinning from ear to ear. His comment sparked a series of
nervous laughs around the table. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.” He said as the
room quieted back down.

“What we would call the overall
cosmos, the larger universe, or an Omni-verse. The ‘universe diagram’ we
received during that mystery transmission has us climbing the walls in the
Observatory,” Kari noted. “Everyone’s excited at the possibility that our universe
does have boundaries and that we may possibly get the opportunity to probe
outside of it.”

“That diagram demonstrates a
need to expand our definition of the word ‘universe’,” Kayla said, smiling.
“Our own may have an outer boundary, but the space containing us and all those
other Big-Bangs – how do we find the outer edge of that?”

“Do we want to?” Thomas asked.
“Everybody always uses the cliché about the room with a million monkeys with a
million typewriters. Given the option that they have an infinite amount of time
to type, it has been theorized that at least one of them will eventually type a
passage from our scriptures… or one of the classic novels from our greatest
authors.”

“Eventually they may retype
your
memo
,” Adam said sarcastically. Everyone laughed out loud at his
joke and the tension in the room – which had begun to build – eased. Several
people settled back in their chairs and took some time to reflect for a moment.

“I
am
trying to make a
point,” Thomas insisted. “If the vastness of all of creation does have
boundaries then infinite possibility becomes false. So that makes it a lot more
difficult to believe that an unlikely series of events could eventually take
place.”

“Meaning?” Adam asked, frustrated
and curious as to his brother’s elusive point.

“Meaning that we sit here right
now in Observation Dome Two,” continued Thomas. “And time has passed while we
have held this morning discussion. So if we take the monkey cliché to a whole
new level and the cosmos – multiple universes and all – is
indeed
infinite
then there should also be a never ending series of chances out there that
something with faster than light capability is on a direct, instantaneous
collision course with this room and will hit us and destroy us all. And yet,
here we sit, undamaged.” He smiled and tapped the table with his forefinger.
“That type of example proves for me personally that the infinity theory has its
limitations. We may not be able to
see
all the way to the end, but that
doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”

“Even back on Earth we had
already
seen all the way to the end of our universe,” Kari pointed out. “Orbital
telescopes like the Hubble were aligned and used in combination with our
computer models in a series of experiments that we designed to define the
amount of time that had passed since the initial Big-Bang. Often we left them
focused on the same spot in the heavens for days just so that they could pick
up some of the faintest light images that traveled to us from so far away so
long ago. It was a spectacular way to literally ‘look back in time’ since that
light traveled so slowly – limited by the maximum speed of  light – and was
just then reaching us.” She smiled warmly at the memory. “In Astronomy there
are very few exciting days – mostly a lot of boring ones. But it was certainly
a really big day when we calculated 14 billion years since the initial Big
Bang. One item that really had us ecstatic were the telescope images that
revealed stars and baby galaxies were already forming as early as 13 billion
years ago. So the traditional stellar objects have obviously been around for a
while.”

“Now that we’re further out,
have you been able to see farther?” wondered Colonel Neeland. He glanced
curiously at Kari.

“Until this morning, that was
an issue that concerned us,” she replied. “Up until now, we have traveled an
estimated 62 percent of the journey needed to take us to the outer edge of our universe.
We didn’t start in the exact center of the Big Bang, of course, but as we’ve
traveled outward our astronomers expected to be able to see further – if not
beyond – the outer event horizon of the universe. Instead we see the same thing
that we did back on Earth – complete and utter darkness. If there’s anything
visible beyond the perimeter it sure must be far away.”

“The mystery diagram
transmitted to us is designed to fit on a standard 8 ½ x 11 inch piece of
paper,” observed Kaufield. “So if there
are
many universe Big-Bang
bubbles out there like our own they may be spread a lot thinner than the image
we received indicates. Take this room for example and imagine two bubbles, one
on each side. If you increase the scale to match our universe the distance
between the two would be nearly incalculable.” He was about to say something
additional, but stopped to look quizzically at Kari. “Did I hear you correctly?
Did you just say ‘until this morning’?”

“Could I have a donut, please?”
Kari asked, her downcast expression failing to conceal her excitement. Kayla
nodded and slid the box over to her. Kari carefully picked out a
cinnamon-covered long john and handed the box to Thomas. “I’ll let Thomas
explain
Poseidon
to you,” she decided. “The discovery that we’re in the
process of mapping is one of the most spectacular things I have ever personally
witnessed. It’s the reason that Dr. Markham was unable to attend this morning.
She’s got every telescope focused on this breakthrough – it could literally
prove or disprove
everything
that we’ve already documented in all our
years of gazing at the stars.”

Everyone at the table turned
expectantly toward Thomas. He looked a bit startled. “What?
Me?
” He
glanced back at Kari and she ignored him, carefully taking a bite of her donut.

“Yes, you!” Kaufield said,
pointing at Thomas. “Enough with the theatrical melodrama, you two! What
exactly is
Poseidon?
”