Gravity Versus Gravity, page 18
“Surprised?” Peter asked, breaking Al’s train of thoughts. Al had more patience than other people of his age. He did not easily get perturbed. It was almost impossible to make him loose his cool by talking about personal things. However, when things crossed limits at work, he could change. And if his work was challenged, he could seriously change.
“Yes, a bit. I was trying to figure out what we could have missed.”
“A very significant thing,” Peter replied. Al was now almost on the verge of losing his temper.
“Like?” he said in a raised voice.
Peter did not pay attention to Al’s change in behavior. “Like the effect that the binary comets would have on objects in the air?” he said calmly.
“Things will go up in the air only after the zero-gravity event begins.”
“No, there would already be objects up in the air before the event.”
“How can that happen? Have you discovered any other zero-gravity event before the one that I’ve discovered?”
“You don’t always need a zero-gravity event to get things up in the air. There already are things up there.”
“Like?” Al said.
“Like satellites and aero-planes.”
“Wow!” Al said. “I had completely forgotten about that.”
Al’s temper went down in a second. This man has come to talk serious stuff, he thought.
“So how is this revelation?” Peter asked.
“Great,” Al said impressed. “It’s nice to have great scientists like you in the Center. We got so engrossed about the effect on earth that we forgot about other things.
“But you need not worry. I may have the answer.”
“Tell me about it.”
“For that, I’ll need access to more accurate data that you have.”
“You are most welcome,” Al said. “Let me show them to you on the computer.”
Al showed Peter the data that he had on his computer. Peter took soft copies of information that he needed. After an hour of questioning and copying from Al’s computer, Peter said, “That should suffice. I’ll get back to you by tomorrow.”
Al shut his office shortly after Peter had left. He peeped into Samantha’s room. She had fallen asleep on her desk.
“Samantha,” Al said softly.
“Leaving?” she asked, lifting her head.
“Yes,” Al said. “Care for a cup of tea?”
“Looks like I need one,” Samantha said. She closed her office and walked along with Al. They went to Al’s place where he made two large cups of tea. It had started to drizzle outside.
“I’ve been feeling run down the whole day,” Samantha said, sipping her tea.
“I was planning to have shepherd’s pie for dinner. Why don’t you join me?” Al said.
“I’d love to, but I don’t want to burden you.”
“Come on,” Al said. “Whether I cook for one person or two doesn’t make a difference.”
When they had finished their tea, Al brought some snacks. Then he brought some more. Then came some wine. Samantha joined him in the kitchen to see Al doing the cooking.
Al’s shepherd’s pie came out better than ever before. The two of them sat down for dinner. “To your success,” Samantha said, raising her glass of wine.
“Thanks for accepting to work with me. I’m indebted to you,” Al said. He bent forward to plant a kiss on her cheek. Al’s hands moved forward to touch Samantha’s hair. The silence was broken by a ring at the door followed by two heavy knocks.
Al rushed towards the door thinking it was Dr. Wardle with some important news. Instead, Peter stood soaked in the rain.
“You?” Al said.
“Yes,” Peter said. “I told you that I knew the answer.”
“You could have told me tomorrow. There was no hurry.”
“I could not have kept it to myself till tomorrow. I’ve to tell you or the excitement will kill me.”
“Come in,” Al said.
Peter came in and sat down on the sofa. Samantha was observing from the dining table.
“It’s like this,” Peter said, wiping the water from his forehead. “All satellites are safe. Most aero-planes are safe. Anything that travels in air over three hundred miles per hour is safe. They’ll not be influenced by the binary comets.”
“Good,” Al said. “This means one problem less.”
“The minute it had struck me that satellites and aero-planes would be much closer to the binary comets than objects on earth, I had wondered what the effect of gravitational pull of the comets would be on them.”
“Have you told Dr. Wardle?”
“I’ll tell him tomorrow,” Peter said, getting up to leave. He turned and said, “I’ve slipped all the papers and discs under your office.”
“Thanks,” Al said, shutting the door.
By the time Al got back to the dining table, the pie was cold, Samantha had finished her glass of wine and looked at Al as though it was his fault that Peter had come at the wrong time. Al finished his pie and wine. They sat in silence for a few minutes. Afterwards, Al escorted Samantha to her flat.
13
Dr. Wardle took Al and Peter along with him when he went to meet Michael Evans, Director of Civil Aviation. Dr. Wardle had known Evans for over a decade. They were then department heads in their respective organizations. They had risen together to become Deputy Director and then Director of their organizations. All throughout they had been in touch, although not very regularly. They had respect for each other but had not developed a personal chemistry which would have allowed them to be in contact more often.
Dr. Wardle had called Evans a few days after he had heard from Al about Peter’s observation. He had said, “Michael, I’ve to meet you tomorrow.”
Evans had replied, “You can meet me any time. I’m always at your disposal. If tomorrow is what you have decided, I’ll surely meet you tomorrow. If you let me know the reason for your arrival, I can prepare in advance so that our meeting is productive.”
“I think it will be better that we discuss what I want to discuss when we meet tomorrow.”
“Okay, if you don’t want to tell over the phone, you can send me the papers. You always do.”
“I cannot do that this time.”
There was a moment of pause from Evans. He had said, “Hmmm! If Dr. Wardle doesn’t want to say a word now or even send a paper, it means something serious is brewing.”
“You can guess what it’s about.”
“I know it’s about the zero-gravity event but can’t figure out what it can be.”
“Yes, it has to be related to zero-gravity. There is nothing else that I’m engaged with right now.”
“Why don’t you come over in the evening today?”
“I’ve to be in the Center at least till midnight today. We have three review meetings. And then I must check the automated charts. The first thing that I’ll do tomorrow is to leave for your office.”
“I’ll sleep badly today. Your suspense will keep me busy guessing.”
“Don’t worry. We have been sleeping badly for several months.”
Evans’s eagerness had brought him to the entrance to receive Dr. Wardle. He had called him thrice on his mobile to check how far they were from his office.
“You look tired,” Dr. Wardle said, shaking Evan’s hand.
“I had told the reason for it yesterday,” Evan replied, not wanting to embarrass himself before the other visitors.
“This is Al. This is Peter, and this is Samantha,” Dr. Wardle introduced his team to Evans. “You already know them. Now you can see them in person.”
“Nice to meet you, Al,” Evans said. “I’ve, of course, known you before Dr. Wardle mentioned in our telephonic conversation yesterday. I’ve seen you several times on television.”
Evans turned towards Peter and Samantha and said, “Hello” to them.
Evans walked in brisk steps towards the lift. Dr. Wardle and others followed behind.
“See, how eager he is to hear what I’ve to tell him,” Dr. Wardle whispered to Al.
“I can see that,” Al said.
“But once he knows that we have brought him a lot of work, his eagerness would disappear.
“Let’s see,” Al said.
Once inside the lift, Evans said, “This lift is really slow.”
“Seems slower today,” Dr. Wardle said. Al smiled.
As soon as they were out of the lift, Evans walked in big steps towards the meeting room. Others, too, hurried behind him. He sat down and said, “The decisive moment is finally here.”
“Michael,” Dr. Wardle said, “you have always been a great support to our Center.” He looked towards others and said, “Mr. Evans has come to our rescue often when we have needed spare parts and technicians urgently.”
“Dr. Wardle has been a knowledge bank for the Directorate. We have depended on him for complex aerospace solutions,” Evans said and then looking towards Dr. Wardle continued, “Come on, Peter, I cannot wait any longer.”
“If you get angry at the end of our meeting, blame Peter for that.”
“Why Peter?”
“He is the one who found the problem and only part of the solution. Well, you can say that he has found the solution, but we’ll need your cooperation.”
“Go ahead,” Evans said.
“We have taken care of the stuff on the ground for the zero-gravity event. I mean, DIMA and the Borough Councils have been very active. The work is almost done. I don’t think they would be able to remove everything. But before the zero-gravity event starts, nearly all loose stuff on the ground would have been either secured or removed from the zone.”
“That must be a lot of job.”
“Yes, indeed it is. DIMA officials have been working without a break for the last several months putting in fifteen to sixteen hours of continuous work every day. The work has been going on round the clock since the last one week, and this will be so till the zero-gravity event has passed over Central London.”
“I cannot see how my Directorate or I can fit in there.”
“You don’t fit in there,” Dr. Wardle said. “You fit in above as always.”
“I think I’m almost getting what you are trying to explain. But please go ahead.”
“It’s about the airspace and everything in the air. Our satellite navigation team is taking care of the satellites, which we are almost sure would be safe. But we need your assistance to deal with the planes.”
“Close the airspace?”
“Yes, that is one possibility.”
“For how many hours?”
“Three days.”
“Three days,” Evans said, springing up from his chair, “That would be disastrous. The airlines would suffer huge losses.”
“But that is better than losing lives. Before you close your mind to this idea, let me also clarify that closing the airspace for three days is the worst-case scenario for you. Although that is also the best scenario for us since this would mean not taking any chances. The other possibility is to divert the planes at particular times on the zero-gravity day and closing airspace at intervals in coordination with our Center.”
“That looks more plausible,” Evans said.
Dr. Wardle looked at Al and Peter and said, “Does any of you want to add something?”
“Peter is the boss here. Let us hear him first,” Al said.
“If you look from the position of the binary comets, the zero-gravity event is a large cone. The tip of the cone touches Central London and causes the zero-gravity event on the surface. But as we go higher, the area covered by the cone is more. Plus, objects on earth, which are obviously stationary, would experience zero-gravity momentarily. The time of the event would be higher in space. And if the plane or the satellite is moving in the same direction as the binary comets, the effect may be much longer.”
“I get that point,” Evans said, shaking his head in approval.
“Therefore, my suggestion is that you should have a no-flying order for as long as possible,” Peter said.
“Yes, I’ll try that. But I’ll also try that flight disruption is as less as possible.”
Dr. Wardle looked at Al and said, “Al?”
“Peter has made a very valid point,” Al said. “While the zero-gravity event is indeed in the form of a cone as seen from the comets, the cone is not really uniform. It’s not very symmetrical on all sides either. This is because, in the region covered by the cone, the air becomes thinner sucking in air from the region around it. Therefore, even objects in the air at some distance from the cone may get affected.”
“How does one know how large the area would be beyond the cone?”
“That is one of the weakest parts of our mission. We have learnt a lot in the last few days since Peter brought this to our knowledge. However, the accuracy is nearly five times less than the accuracy that we have been able to get for the effect on the earth surface.”
“That will complicate our work,” Evans said. “Do keep me updated.”
Samantha, who had been attentive till then, went into day-dreaming mode. She looked at the giant screen on the wall. It had all major airports of the UK. One could see in real time flights taking off, landing, on the taxiway or parked in these airports. Every second, several flights would take off, and several would land in various places.
Samantha was thinking, these flights look like toys from here. But all of them have people - from a few to several hundred. All of them are going somewhere or arriving at their destinations. The journey is over eventually. But the flights are never-ending. And, so is the action on the screen here.
Al looked at Samantha. She was looking attentively at the screen. Nostalgic about her airport days, he thought.
Evans said to Dr. Wardle, “If there is so much uncertainty about the effect on aero-planes, what about the satellites?”
“For one, we don’t have as many satellites as planes. Secondly, all satellites are controlled from the ground. Thirdly, we don’t lose much if we tweak the movement of satellites a little bit. All it requires is a tiny effort to do this and then a little more to put things on track. Finally, and most importantly, the satellites have an almost zero probability of getting under the influence of the gravitational pull of the binary comets because of their speed,” Dr. Wardle replied.
“Will Peter be handling the satellites?”
“He is our champion of aeronautics. We’ll be taking his help throughout, but we have a separate team to deal with the movements of satellites.”
Peter had not felt as elated in several years as he had felt in the last few days. He had several research papers to his credit in the best science and aeronautical journals of the world. But in his own Center, his work never seemed to have been appreciated. Until now. In this aspect, he was very different from Al.
Al always had this feeling that he was just an average astronomer. He was intelligent, but many astronomers were more intelligent than him. He could work hard, but he had seen many in his lifetime who could easily beat him on this. He had liked his research papers, but when he saw brilliant research papers every day, he considered that he was only a drop in the ocean.
“Dr. Wardle, there are many questions moving around inside my head. You have this core team here. I cannot stop myself from asking questions. But feel free not to answer and let me know frankly when it’s time to go,” Evans said.
Peter, who was enjoying his place in the sun the most, blurted before Dr. Wardle had replied, “It’s our pleasure, Mr. Evans. Ask as many questions as you want.”
“In that case, my first question is to you, Peter,” Evans said.
Peter sat up straighter and got ready for the question.
Evans continued, “Consider a hypothetical situation. I’m calling it hypothetical since this will not happen in London. We don’t have tornadoes here. But suppose, a tornado was to brew right inside the cone. What would happen?”
“I can only guess since I would need a simulator to work out the effect. The tornado would be as influenced by the zero-gravity force as anything else in the air. The force of a tornado, no matter how big, is miniscule compared to the effect that the binary comets would have.”
“What would be the behavior of the tornadoes?”
“I’ll request Al to answer this since he has studied the effect on objects due to zero-gravity.”
“The tornado will be deformed. It would become more cylindrical in shape than conical. It would rise above and move in the direction of the movement of the binary comets. The debris inside the tornado would be separated and would travel faster than the tornado itself. Over time, the tornado would be stripped of its force since the pressure difference in various parts of the tornado would decrease till it becomes equal everywhere,” Al said.
“I would have thought so,” Evans said.
Anticipating that there would several more questions from Evans, Samantha said, “I’ll be back in a while. I’ve to make some calls.”
Evans carried on, “What are the surprises that you are expecting on the zero-gravity day?”
“We have scoured our brains and taken action on whatever could go wrong on that day. But we are sure that there would be surprises. And if we knew them and their solutions, they would not be surprises anymore,” Dr. Wardle said.
“Very true,” Al said. “On one hand, the zero-gravity event is very simple. Binary comets nullifying the gravity of earth on a small spot. There is zero gravity in this area. Everything that can go up goes up. On the other hand, we have more than five thousand charts, more than eight hundred simulations, about a thousand equations and over a hundred models. Yet, we are not sure if we have covered everything.”
“Are we expecting fixed objects to go up in the air?”
“No, anything fixed to the ground or tied with a secure thick rope would not go up in the air.”
“Men? Animals?”
“Same is true for both animate and inanimate objects. If you don’t tie a man securely, the man would go up.”
