Read Online Overture (Earth Song) by Mark Wandrey - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mark Wandrey
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overnight,” he told his assistant.
“ That’s going to be very expensive to arrange, sir.”
“ Does it look like I care what it costs? Find a contractor that says they can do it; then tell them what’s at stake if they fail to follow through and see if they say they can still do the job. Make it happen.” The man said he would and quickly left to make arrangements. Volant plopped into his chair in the commandeered command trailer and rubbed his eyes. It was more than 24 hours since he’d last slept. In prior years he could have done a day without sleep and never batted an eye, but now he was pushing fifty. “Getting old,” he mumbled as he rubbed his red eyes.
“ You say something sir?” asked another assistant.
“ No, just talking to myself. I’m getting loopy.”
“ There’s a cot in that room. No one’s using it right now.”
“ Thanks, son. I think I’ll take you up on that. Wake me up in four hours.” The young agent nodded his head and Volant shambled into the room where he found a metal frame cot as promised. Simple and far too narrow for his widening frame it nonetheless felt like a feathered four-poster bed. Like Harper, his mind was alive with whirling possibilities and questions, but unlike the restless police officer that was a normal part of his job. He was asleep in minutes. “I do my best work when I’m asleep,” he often bragged to his agents. As the powerful man dreamed he began to work through the confusing problems and look for ways to use them to his nation’s advantage.
April 10
For Dr. George Osgood this had become the most frustrating job he had undertaken thus far in his career. Half of his staff from Houston was now in New York working out of trailers and offices of the nearest university. He had access to all the state-of-the-art equipment possible under the current circumstances. The greatest minds in the country were at his disposal via e-mail and indirect personal inquiries. After working for almost three weeks on this mystery, he was no closer to a reasonable conclusion than the day he started. All that remained was an unreasonable conclusion that he was not yet prepared to embrace.
“ The latest particle physics reports just came in from Caltech,” informed a physicist working under Dr. Osgood. Caltech was not “in the bag” as they had come to refer to a scientist or institution that was aware of what had been found here.
“ Did they have anything useful to say?”
“ Mostly they wanted to know where we came up with such a unique set of readings, and they accused us of making up data to run them in circles.”
“ Figures. It’s their way of not admitting defeat.”
“ They said the readings from the particle target are indeed indicative of high energy neutrons.”
“ Well, we knew that already. Can they explain why we would be getting flashes of gamma rays almost sideways off the target?”
“ The description on that question is the most protesting of all the replies.”
“ Protesting?”
“ It almost sounds to me like they are whining about having to postulate on those sorts of particle emissions.”
“ Well, what did they say, besides protesting?”
“ They said it seemed to be indicating that both high energy neutrons and anti-neutrons were present.”
Osgood put his pen down and turned to face the younger scientist. “I see why they were whining. It’s a violation of a couple laws of physics to suggest the same source could emit both neutrons and anti-neutrons.”
His assistant chuckled as he read a line on the report. “To even suggest such emanations were possible from any source would be to put forth the premise that the laws of physics as we know them are nothing more than rules to be bent and broken as the situation dictates.”
Osgood had a good laugh at that. His assistant was right, that was a protest all right. Well, if he’d been forced to come to any sort of conclusion based on the data they'd sent, he doubted
“ That’s going to be very expensive to arrange, sir.”
“ Does it look like I care what it costs? Find a contractor that says they can do it; then tell them what’s at stake if they fail to follow through and see if they say they can still do the job. Make it happen.” The man said he would and quickly left to make arrangements. Volant plopped into his chair in the commandeered command trailer and rubbed his eyes. It was more than 24 hours since he’d last slept. In prior years he could have done a day without sleep and never batted an eye, but now he was pushing fifty. “Getting old,” he mumbled as he rubbed his red eyes.
“ You say something sir?” asked another assistant.
“ No, just talking to myself. I’m getting loopy.”
“ There’s a cot in that room. No one’s using it right now.”
“ Thanks, son. I think I’ll take you up on that. Wake me up in four hours.” The young agent nodded his head and Volant shambled into the room where he found a metal frame cot as promised. Simple and far too narrow for his widening frame it nonetheless felt like a feathered four-poster bed. Like Harper, his mind was alive with whirling possibilities and questions, but unlike the restless police officer that was a normal part of his job. He was asleep in minutes. “I do my best work when I’m asleep,” he often bragged to his agents. As the powerful man dreamed he began to work through the confusing problems and look for ways to use them to his nation’s advantage.
April 10
For Dr. George Osgood this had become the most frustrating job he had undertaken thus far in his career. Half of his staff from Houston was now in New York working out of trailers and offices of the nearest university. He had access to all the state-of-the-art equipment possible under the current circumstances. The greatest minds in the country were at his disposal via e-mail and indirect personal inquiries. After working for almost three weeks on this mystery, he was no closer to a reasonable conclusion than the day he started. All that remained was an unreasonable conclusion that he was not yet prepared to embrace.
“ The latest particle physics reports just came in from Caltech,” informed a physicist working under Dr. Osgood. Caltech was not “in the bag” as they had come to refer to a scientist or institution that was aware of what had been found here.
“ Did they have anything useful to say?”
“ Mostly they wanted to know where we came up with such a unique set of readings, and they accused us of making up data to run them in circles.”
“ Figures. It’s their way of not admitting defeat.”
“ They said the readings from the particle target are indeed indicative of high energy neutrons.”
“ Well, we knew that already. Can they explain why we would be getting flashes of gamma rays almost sideways off the target?”
“ The description on that question is the most protesting of all the replies.”
“ Protesting?”
“ It almost sounds to me like they are whining about having to postulate on those sorts of particle emissions.”
“ Well, what did they say, besides protesting?”
“ They said it seemed to be indicating that both high energy neutrons and anti-neutrons were present.”
Osgood put his pen down and turned to face the younger scientist. “I see why they were whining. It’s a violation of a couple laws of physics to suggest the same source could emit both neutrons and anti-neutrons.”
His assistant chuckled as he read a line on the report. “To even suggest such emanations were possible from any source would be to put forth the premise that the laws of physics as we know them are nothing more than rules to be bent and broken as the situation dictates.”
Osgood had a good laugh at that. His assistant was right, that was a protest all right. Well, if he’d been forced to come to any sort of conclusion based on the data they'd sent, he doubted
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