Gravity Versus Gravity, page 12
“Not really. But a young woman put me into some doubt a few minutes ago. I need to check the trajectory once again.”
“I’ve saved all your equations and simulation data from your last three sessions on terminal number 3.”
“Thanks, David,” Al said. “You have made my work easier.”
“If you need anything, let me know. I’ll be either at the desk or in the corridor. I’ve spent the whole day working on the new data analysis program on sun flares. I don’t think I’ll be able to spend any more time at the terminals.”
“Okay, David,” Al said. “You can relax. If everything is correct, I’ll be done in about an hour. I’ll call you at the end to go through the equations.”
“Done,” David replied, leaving for the registration desk.
Al started from the first equation. He put data into the variables and went from one equation to another. After about thirty minutes, he ran the simulation. Everything went off well just as he had expected.
“Yes,” he said, overjoyed.
He felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned back. Samantha was standing behind.
“Oh! You are here,” Al said.
“I’ve been here for three minutes already. I saw that you were too engrossed in your work. I did not feel like disturbing you.”
“I’m successfully done with the first part.”
“Time for a break?”
“Yes. Time for a break,” Al replied, getting up from his seat.
“I’ve kept your sandwich in the corridor,” Samantha said.
“Hope you got an extra one. David is also here.”
“I’ve brought several.”
David was reading a journal leaning across a wall on the corridor. He had a sandwich in his hand.
“Good one,” he said when he saw Al and Samantha.
“How rude!” Samantha said. “These sandwiches are not meant for you.”
“Really?” David said. “You can take this back.”
“Joking,” Samantha said. “Al was wondering if I had some for you. And here you are finishing off his share.”
“You came on time,” David said. “Otherwise I would have indeed eaten Al’s share, too.”
“You knew that you were supposed to be here. Why do you not make arrangements for yourself?”
“Every evening someone like you and Al comes to the ASD Center. And mostly, I get fed, too along with them.”
“And what happens when no one comes?”
“I don’t eat anything.”
“Wow!” Al said.
“I’m like a camel,” David said, tucking into another sandwich. “I eat a lot when I get to eat. And then I can go without eating for a long time.”
“I better take my second sandwich,” Al said.
The three of them stood in the corridor chatting after Al and David had finished off the sandwiches.
“Sometimes our work seems very surreal to me,” Al said.
“Yes. I agree,” David said.
Al continued, “Out there we have people going on with their lives doing things which most other people can relate to. They deal with each other. And when you are dealing with people, you have someone in front of you who shows emotions. If you are wrong, the other person reacts. If you are right, the other person reacts. We deal with machines and supercomputers and telescopes. We are at one end and at the other is a dumb machine.”
“I agree,” Samantha said. “The work at the airport was great fun.”
“Well, as for the fun part, I find my work very enjoyable and satisfying,” Al said. “I just meant that it feels surreal.”
Samantha felt that if the conversation went further, it would either lead to an argument or she would get confused. “We have been in the corridor for almost fifteen minutes,” she said, looking at her watch.
“Yes, I need to finish the rest of my work fast. I should be done in about thirty minutes,” Al said.
“If everything goes okay,” Samantha and David said in unison.
Al went inside while Samantha and David continued standing in the corridor talking. He ran the second simulation after fifteen minutes. The triangle of the gravitation pull of the binary comets in perigee fell above the earth’s surface. He adjusted the parameters. Again, the same result.
Al started having doubts. He thought, what if the young woman was right? What a clown I would look like if the second zero-gravity event doesn’t take place.
He was scared to run the simulation a third time. He went out and asked for David’s assistance. David went through both the simulations. “I think I’ve understood where you have gone wrong,” he said.
David went to terminal number 5, his favorite terminal and worked on the simulation. “Run now,” he said to Al after five minutes.
Al ran the simulation again. His heart pumped hard in the fifteen seconds before he saw the results. Bingo! Everything went off well as during the earlier sessions. Al was correct. The first young woman was wrong.
“What did you do?” Al asked.
“You had forgotten to integrate the seventh and the eights equations,” David replied coolly.
“That was very sharp of you,” Al said, smiling.
“Samantha’s sandwich helped,” David said.
“Time to go. I hope to sleep well tonight,” Al said. “How long are you going to stay here?”
“This is my den. I like this place better than my house.”
“You’ll spend the whole night here?”
“My shift ends in a moment. But I’ll stay back.”
“But, you said you were tired.”
“I’m tired of working at the terminal. Not tired of ASD.”
Al had always thought that a degree of eccentricity was needed to be a good space scientist. David was a right fit for this theory.
“Good night then,” Al said.
Samantha was at the registration desk reading a newspaper.
“Done?” she asked as Al came towards her.
“Done,” Al said. “But for David, I might have been stuck here for several more hours.” He looked at Samantha contentedly and continued, “And thank you for getting the sandwiches. I would have lost another hour if I had gone home for dinner.”
“Home. That’s good,” Samantha said. “You seem to be liking your place.”
“Yes, I could not have expected a better place to live in the UK.”
“It’s good to live in an independent house. But after some time, one longs to get back to the coziness of a flat.”
“Maybe. But till now, I’m enjoying my place. How are you liking yours?”
“Not bad. My flat in Benthal Green was small and cramped. I could never gather enough strength to shift to a bigger flat or tidy up my own. But the best thing about this place which I’ve started to appreciate more over time is the time that I’ve to myself. I’ve caught up with my reading, talking to my relatives over the phone and cooking for myself.”
“Cool,” Al said. “In my case, it has been the opposite. Although I appreciate the peace with which I’m able to carry on with my work here, I feel overwhelmed at times.”
As they walked down the cobbled pathway, Al’s hand would sometimes brush Samantha’s. He would feel conscious every time this happened. He would then move a little further towards the side to increase the gap between them. But this kept on happening after almost every minute.
Soon they reached Al’s house. As they stopped in front of the house, Samantha said, “Tiring day?”
“Yes,” Al said. “But I’ve become used to such days. Seen many of them in the last one month.”
Samantha stood in her place. She did not move. Al wondered if her question was to really get a frank answer from him. There were a few seconds of awkward silence. Then Samantha said, “Beautiful house, eh!”
Al did not go on a commentary about the house. Instead, he said, “Want to have a look from inside?”
“Some other day,” Samantha replied.
Al cursed himself for having asked the question.
Samantha sensed Al’s uneasiness. She said, “Let’s have a glass of wine in your lovely garden.”
Al’s eyes lit up. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll get two chairs.”
Al opened the door. Samantha came inside with him. She said, “Why don’t you get the wine? I’ll get the chairs out in the meantime.”
“Thanks, Samantha,” Al said, rushing to the kitchen. When he came out, he saw Samantha struggling with the second chair.
“Why don’t you sit down,” Al said, putting the glasses on the table. “I’ll get the chair out.”
“I never realized the chairs are so heavy,” she said, picking up the glasses. “And these glasses, too, are not light.”
“The wine is,” Al said.
“Cheers to your fruitful day,” Samantha said, raising her glass as they sat down.
“Thanks, Samantha,” Al said. “I really appreciate your company. Everyone here is very good and helpful, but all I can talk with them is about my work. It’s good to be able to share things beyond work with someone.”
“I understand,” Samantha replied. “You are far away from everything that you can call yours. It can be a very frustrating experience.”
“I really want to go back after the mission is accomplished. The only place that I’ve been outside the US in my entire life has been a trip to Canada when I was in college. I had never imagined a life out of my country. I hope I don’t have to spend the rest of my life somewhere else.”
“Everything will be okay,” Samantha said. She took a sip from the glass and continued, “Have you ever read the ancient Hindu scriptures?”
“No,” Al said. “What is that about?”
“Well, several of them are about the deep philosophy of life. And I’m reminded about a line from the Bhagwad Gita.”
“Bhagwad what?” Al said anxiously.
“Bhagwad Gita is part of the Hindu epic Mahabharata. It’s about the sermon of Krishna to his disciple Arjun when Arjun refuses to wage the great battle Mahabharata against his relatives.”
“Sounds interesting,” Al said. “I should read them after I’m done with this mission. After all, the first zero-gravity event happened in India.”
“Maybe you should make India your third country to visit abroad should your mission be successful.”
“I’ll,” Al said. “Only if one condition is fulfilled.”
“Which?”
“If you come along with me.”
“We’ll see when the time comes,” Samantha replied, trying to digress.
“Okay, so tell me what were you reminded of from the Bhagwad Gita?”
“It says “Karmany evadhikaras te ma phalesu kadacana.”
“Wow! What language is that?”
“Sanskrit?”
“How do you know it?”
“I’ve specialized in Indology. I studied Sanskrit in college. I also did my doctorate on the linkages between Sanskrit and English languages.”
“You have a doctorate?”
“Yes,” Samantha said. “This means that you never bothered to read my CV.”
“Sorry for that. But what were you doing with a doctorate degree in airport protocol?”
“That is a different story. I’ll tell you that later. But first, let me tell you the meaning of the line in Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, such lines are called Shlokas. The line means - You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. In other words, you should continue doing your work and not worry about the results.”
“Great!” Al said.
“And with those great words, it’s time to go.”
“I thought that the conversation was just going to get more interesting.”
“A space scientist should be sober. All of the UK needs you. If you don’t get up on time tomorrow and reach the Center on time, I want to be the last person responsible for that.”
“You are such a mature person,” Al said.
“The drink is already taking effect.”
Samantha picked up the glasses and went inside. Al followed with the chairs. She offered him her hand and said, “Good night.”
Al saw her walk out of the door. She turned to look back once when in the garden, gave a smile and carried on.
Al could not wait for the next day to begin.
The next day, Al reached the Center sharp at nine. Samantha was not in his office. Al switched on the computers and went to Samantha’s room. She was not there either. Al was feeling awkward about the earlier evening. He wondered if Samantha was, too, and, therefore, trying to avoid him.
Al remembered that she had smiled and looked back while she was leaving. Was that the effect of the wine? he thought.
He chided himself for getting distracted. My main mission is what I’m here for, he told himself. While everything else is good, I should always have the mission as my priority.
“Looking for me?” Samantha said, entering the office. She was wearing a red dress and high heels. Al’s thoughts about the mission disappeared.
“No, no,” he said flustered. “I mean I was checking if I’ve forgotten my orbital matrix in your room.”
“You never bring any papers to my room,” Samantha said.
“I might have then forgotten in the ASD yesterday,” Al said, hurrying to leave.
“I’ll go to the ASD and check. You can go to your office. Dr. Wardle said that he would come to you in the morning.”
“Anything important to discuss?”
“He did not tell me anything,” Samantha replied.
Al could not help noticing how beautiful Samantha looked in her dress. Her hair rolled down in tresses on her shoulder. The dress fit her well and suited her curvaceous figure. In her high heels, she was almost as tall as Al.
Al did not give any compliments.
Too early in the morning to get romantic, he thought.
“I’ll be right back from ASD,” Samantha said.
Back in his office, Al felt satisfied that he had been able to control his emotions. He hardly knew Samantha. If he carried on like he had done the day before, he would, in a short time, make himself look like a clown in front of her.
Al switched on the computer and started his preferred program Cometarium to track the binary comets. He followed them using three programs, one of which he had come across in the Center. The other two he had used in Ohio. He liked Cometarium because it was more image-based than the other two.
While the program loaded, he switched on the other computer to calculate the current speed and location of the binary comets. He used a simple BASIC program to do this. His favorite professor during his under-graduation days, Dr. Morris Jackson, used to say, the best way to understand astronomy is to keep it simple. Al had learned BASIC as his first program for checking astronomical equations. He had stuck to it.
Once Al had the got the figures from the second computer, he fed them into the first computer. The results matched.
Al had learnt that in astronomy nothing is correct till it’s verified and cross-checked. He repeated the process. The results matched again. He was happy.
“Everything seems to be going well,” Dr. Wardle said, entering the room. He had seen the smile on Al’s face.
“Good morning, Dr. Wardle,” Al said. “So far, so good.”
“I remembered yesterday that you had told me that today is when the binary comets go out of visibility for ten days. The magic of natural dielectric composites. The comets disappear even before they go behind the sun. Am I right?”
“Yes, Dr. Wardle,” Al said. “How can a genius like you ever forget such things?”
“You are our genius man, Al,” Dr. Wardle replied. “I’m yet to discover binary comets or forecast a zero-gravity event. I’ve been in this field for more than twenty years.”
“You are very humble, Dr. Wardle.”
“Will the comets appear again before their journey behind the sun?”
“Yes, the invisibility now is because of the combined effect of dielectric composites and sunlight reflection due to the position of the comets.”
“And how long is the journey behind the sun?”
“About ten days.”
“Good,” Dr. Wardle said. “What else?”
“Just now, I cross-checked my equations with the positional chart.”
“Everything fits into place?”
“Yes.”
“Which programs do you use?”
“For positional tracking - Cometarium and for equations – BASIC.”
“BASIC?” Dr. Wardle asked in surprise. “I thought that no one uses that language nowadays.”
“Somehow I’ve become so used to it that I cannot make myself choose any other program.”
“While I don’t doubt your abilities, let us run my favorite astronomical algorithm.”
“Okay,” Al replied.
“I’ve it on the third computer,” Dr. Wardle said, moving towards the third computer. He switched it on. Al handed him over the list of parameters.
“I’ll prefer if you read them out to me,” Dr. Wardle said. “My eyesight is not too great, and the numbers on your chart are in a very small font.”
Dr. Wardle would ask for a parameter, and Al would read out the number. They continued for about ten minutes. Dr. Wardle said, “I think I’m done. Time to run the program.”
Al waited in anticipation as the program guzzled up the data to put out the result.
“Seems a bit different from my figures,” Al said when the results were displayed on the screen.
Al fed the results on the first computer. The results did not match with the positional chart. The two of them went through the process a second time, then a third time. All the while, the results on the third computer were the same.
Where has Samantha disappeared? Al thought. She should have been back long ago.
“Looks like we have an issue,” Dr. Wardle said. “We’ll have to get a third person to give the final verdict.”
“Who?”
“Piers Andrews?”
“The programming guy?”
“Yes, he is our best programmer. He knows every programming language that has been used in astronomy.”
“I’ve heard of him. Met him once in the canteen.”
Dr. Wardle called his office and asked Piers Andrews to be sent to Al’s office.
