Gravity Versus Gravity, page 4
“Ban me for two years, Dr. Blackstone,” Al said confidently, “if you don’t like what I’ve to say in the conference.”
“Okay, then we’ll see you on Thursday at half past eleven.”
It was as simple as that - at least as far as Al was concerned. All senior members of the Center, including Dr. Blackstone, knew that Al would not make a request if he did not feel it was worth it. The last time, the unappealing presentation was due to Rob’s insistence that he would take care of it. Rob had not worked on the mission for three weeks and then prepared the presentation on the last day. When Al had looked at it, he knew it would be a disaster. But it was too late by then.
When Al returned home, he could sense that Sam was not in the house. The light in the hall was on, but there was an upsetting silence that Al had not experienced earlier in the house. Sam’s car was not in the garage. He opened the door and went inside. As he walked towards the sofa to crash on it, he saw a piece of paper on the table. It was from Sam. Al, it hurts me that you care much more about your work than me. You apologized for coming late to the restaurant. And then you were gone within minutes as though I don’t exist. I’ve been suffering for long. And I really think that something is wrong with you. Lately, you even fail to recognize my presence. I cannot take it anymore. I’ve decided to leave. I’m moving in with Beth for the time being. Please don’t come looking for me.
Al put down the paper and sighed. In the time they had been together, Al and Sam had shared happy moments and had gone through difficulties. But, they had drifted apart rapidly in the last two weeks. Whenever they had differences in the past, they had patched up and moved on as though nothing had happened. But this time, it seemed different.
Sam would have called him instead of leaving a note if she felt the way she felt earlier when she got upset with him. Al could sense a heaviness in his heart, but he decided to let fate take its own course. If he was to be with Sam, nothing could stop this from happening. If he was destined otherwise, no force could help.
He looked at the photo frames on the wall. There seemed to be one from every season that the two had been together. Sam was laughing or smiling in all the photos, something that Al had not seen her do for some time in real life.
The next day, Al left for office before sunrise. He did not go to Beth’s house to see Sam. He did not even call her. He ate in the office, slept on the sofa at night and did not go home.
On the second day, when Ellie came to take over from Rob, the two of them winked at each other when they looked at Al. He was fast asleep.
“Why do you think he is behaving this way?” Ellie asked.
“He has become obsessed with some comets. I’m reminded of the story about Dr. Dan who worked in the Center four decades ago,” Rob said.
“I haven’t heard the story. Who was Dr. Dan?”
“Dr. Dan was one of the greatest experts on extra-terrestrial life that the Center has ever produced. One day he had an artificial signal. He believed that he had found evidence of alien life. He gave up everything to find the source. He went on and on for three years, but he got nowhere.”
“What happened after three years?”
“He went mad. He would, thereafter, come every day to office, run the same program every day and go back home. He did this for ten more years before he retired. After the Center refused to let him carry on with his work, he tried to sneak in by jumping the wall. He was electrocuted, and that was the end of Dr. Dan and his work on extra-terrestrial life.”
“Do you feel that Al is going down that road?” Ellie asked, trying to imagine how things would end in case of Al.
“I’ve no doubts about it. He is stuck to an idea that makes no sense. He talks to himself. He has been at the Center for more than a day. He has not gone home. He has been working when he has not been sleeping.”
“God save him. I’ll tell Dr. Blackstone about it if he goes on like this.”
Al had started to turn and curl.
“He is getting up. You better leave now,” Ellie told Rob.
On that day, Ellie’s main engagement was observing Al’s behavior. She would get startled when Al would say something. She almost fell off the chair once when Al came to her to take a sheet of paper.
When it was time to leave the office, Ellie felt relieved. This was the first time in the day that she talked to Al normally. She said, “Al, the stubble looks good on you. But I think you should have a shave.”
“I’ll shave and groom myself tomorrow,” Al said, working at the computer without looking at Ellie.
Ellie did not believe that Al would shave the next day or any other day. She imagined his stubble growing into a small bush around his face and then growing bigger till it was a foot-long full beard.
However, the next day, when Ellie came, and Al opened the door, she was amazed to see a very different Al. He was cleanly shaved, and a fresh waft of cologne hit Ellie. Al had put on a new costume. He was looking better than when he had been the best-man at John’s wedding. Ellie stared at Al with her mouth open.
Her first thought was, from where did he get this? He never went out.
“Good morning, Ellie,” Al said with a smile.
Rob’s theory doesn’t seem to be working, Ellie thought, getting inside the room.
“Good morning, Ellie,” Al repeated.
“Why this sudden change?” Ellie asked.
“I thought you and Rob were invited,” Al said.
“No, I’m not invited anywhere. And I don’t think Rob is either.”
“That’s a surprise. I always thought that colleagues were automatically invited to the conference.”
Ellie went red with jealousy. So, this is what this bright chap is up to. He filled up the form the other day. He must have made a special request not to invite us. And now he is pretending as though it’s the Director’s mistake, she thought. “All the best,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll have a great time at the conference even without us.” She then paused and asked, “Are you making the presentation alone?”
“Yes, I am,” Al replied.
Ellie did not say anything. Inside somewhere, she knew about Al’s capabilities. There was a fair chance that he would pull it through. She went redder with jealousy and got onto her work without saying another word to Al.
Al had finished his work late in the night. He had had a good sleep and was full of energy in the morning. He did not even switch on his computer. Five copies of his presentation, spiral bound, were neatly placed on his table. The two soft copies of his presentation were inside the white envelope on top of the five folders.
Al looked at the clock. He still had fifteen minutes. In the last three days, he had felt that he might not have enough time. Now, he did not know how to kill fifteen minutes.
Al looked at Ellie, slouched over her keyboard and looking seriously at the computer screen. He looked at the two tall cupboards in the room carefully for the first time. One had papers and the other had charts. Both were filled to the brim. He remembered how he had to maneuver if he had to take out a chart or put in a new one. The papers were so closely stacked that he wondered how he and his colleagues were able to find the ones that they needed.
Are there papers that we can shred? Are there charts that we can throw away? Should we get a new cupboard, or should we replace these two with better ones? Al thought, and his train of thoughts continued on to how to make the room more spacious. He was thinking about everything but the conference.
The clock struck nine. He looked at the clock and then at Ellie. Ellie was still in the same position. He wondered if she had fallen asleep.
Al took the folders and the white envelope, and as he went towards the door, he gave a look at Ellie. She was motionless. Al shut the door slowly and walked briskly towards the conference room.
He was all right till he had reached the conference room. His heart started pounding faster as soon as he entered the room. The realization dawned on him that this presentation was in some ways a watershed event for him. It could define the course of his career. If he had it wrong after the kind of effort he had put in, he would be hesitant to carry out any major mission on his own in future. If he was successful, the sky would be the limit for him or as his professor at the university used to say, for an astronomer, the sky is not the limit. It’s the beginning. For an astronomer, the end of the universe is also not the end but the beginning of another universe.
Every Deputy Director and every Assistant Director was present in the conference room. So were Dr. Blackstone and Dr. James Schultz, the First Deputy Director. Even Chris was present. He kept staring suspiciously at Al.
Dr. Blackstone looked at Al and said, “Al, you have fifteen minutes. That includes the question and answer session.”
“I’ll not even require that much,” Al said.
Al put his pen drive on the computer. The first frame zoomed on the screen.
“If one doesn’t take into consideration the distance, the answer is obvious to anyone. It looks like a distant supernova, but it’s not. The shape is very similar. But a supernova is ruled out because of the distance. What we are seeing here is a comet where the tail has not yet formed properly.”
He showed the next frame, “You can see the tail now.”
“Seems like a comet,” an Assistant Director said, “but it’s not.”
“Yes, it is,” Al replied.
“But why does it look so blurred more like a supernova?” another Assistant Director asked.
“Show us the trajectory,” a Deputy Director said.
Al showed the equation that he had got for the trajectory. Everyone looked at it with a frown. The equation was not like any that the scientists had seen earlier.
“What a joke! That is not a trajectory of a comet. I’ve been an astronomer for thirty years if I don’t count the time spent in the university and I’ve not come across any equation as ridiculous as the one you have put there,” Dr. Schultz said.
“Let’s not make general disparaging statements,” Dr. Lawrence Wiggins, Deputy Director and Head of Asteroid and Comet Watch said.
“It’s not a normal equation because these are binary comets. The smaller comet behind is making the image blurred. Its gravitational force is influencing the trajectory,” Al said.
“Bull shit,” another Deputy Director said. “There is nothing such as binary comets.” He looked at the slide and asked, “What are the figures that you have there?”
“Those are the velocity and distance figures of yesterday.”
“How long have you been tracking?”
“Nearly two weeks.”
“Show me the velocity-distance chart then.”
Al was glad that he had inserted the chart in the presentation. He made a few clicks, and the slide came on the screen.
“Again, this, too, doesn’t make any sense to me. I’ve been used to seeing a different kind of graph when we talk about comets. The graph is just too shallow,” the Deputy Director said.
“That is because we don’t have one comet but two. And they are so close to each other that they are slowing each other down.”
“Why haven’t the comets then merged?”
“The velocity of the larger comet is just high enough, and its gravitational pull just not sufficient enough to do this. Besides, if the smaller comet were ahead, the probability of a merger would have increased.”
“These are very theoretical explanations,” Dr. Schultz said. “What are the numbers?”
“Two hundred and ten million kilometers away and eighty hundred and one thousand kilometers a day.”
“In one of your slides, you showed that the comet or binary comets, as you call them, would reach earth in about six months. How is it possible with that speed?”
“The binary comets would pick up speed just as normal comets do as they get closer to the sun.”
“Wouldn’t the binary comets get separated if the speed increased by more than fifty percent of the present speed?”
“Unlikely. The inter-gravitational pull is strong.”
“Why is it so?”
“I’m still trying to figure it out.”
“Whatever you have been saying doesn’t make sense to me.”
“If you permit me, can I ask a question?”
Dr. Schultz was perplexed. He looked at Dr. Blackstone. When Dr. Blackstone did not say anything, Dr. Schultz said, “Okay, go ahead. But remember that you are making the presentation. It serves no purpose if you are trying to win an argument and we are not convinced.”
“What do you think this object is then?”
“I could write a book on that. It could be an asteroid. It could be a nebula. It could be a distant star crashing into another. It could be the fictional planet Nibiru, which might be on its way to crash onto the earth.”
Dr. Schultz looked at Dr. Blackstone and others again for some support. All of them wore an emotionless face as though waiting for the presentation to get over.
Dr. Schultz continued, “None of your slides are corroborated by facts that we would like to see. The distance is not clear. The object could be from several light years away. Yet you want to convince us that it’s in the solar system. The telescope could have made a mistake. The computer program may have gone haywire. More importantly, your equations might be completely wrong.”
Everyone seems to have come with a closed mind. I’ve shown everything clearly on the slides. I had written the details in my request for the conference. Why did the Director call me at all if he thought that my mission made no sense? Al thought.
Dr. Blackstone was getting restless. Finally, he broke his silence and said, “I’ve made a mistake. Last time, it was clear that Rob had goofed up the presentation. I felt sorry for Al and thought I could compensate by acceding to his request this time. I wonder if he would have made a worse presentation if he had done it instead of Rob last time.”
He bent towards the Deputy Director to his right and whispered, “Till the time I’m the Director, Al will not get another chance at the conference.”
“Dr. Blackstone,” Dr. Schultz said, “I don’t think that the conference is interested in hearing about a comet or a supernova.”
“Yes, I too think so,” Dr. Blackstone replied.
He looked at Al, who had put the latest slide in which the comets seemed to have developed a distinctive tail. Some of those present were looking down at the table. A couple of them were reading their papers. Others were looking at each other. No one was looking at the slide.
Dr. Blackstone said, “Al, your session is over.”
Al looked in surprise at Dr. Blackstone. He closed his presentation, took out the pen drive and gathering his papers made his way to the door.
As he was leaving, an Assistant Director asked Al, “By the way, are those binary comets going to crash into the earth or fade into the sun?”
“They are going to be only twenty-five thousand kilometers from the earth after a hundred and eighty-five days, and when they do so, they’ll lead to zero gravity in a small area on earth.”
“Zero gravity!” everyone said in unison and roared in laughter as Al shut the door behind him.
2
“BHIM,” VEERA, BHIM’S FATHER SAID. “Get up. It’s past eight.”
Bhim opened his eyes, looked at his father, and pulled the blanket over his face. It was still cold. Veera’s thatched hut, one of the smallest in Kasba, gave little protection from the chilly nights of Thar Desert.
“Get up Bhim,” Bhanu, Bhim’s mother called as she put a pot of water inside the hut. “Others have already started to gather their herds.”
Bhim pulled the blanket a little more over his face and held it tightly with his hands on one end and with his legs at the other. For him, the worst way of waking up was when the blanket was pulled off completely from him with a jerk exposing his lean body to the cold.
Bhanu lit the fire outside. If everything else failed, she knew that the smell of tea would wake up Bhim. As she put the kettle on the fire, Shamu, her elder son waved at her. “We are leaving,” he said. “Tell Bhim to join us when he gets up.”
“Okay,” Bhanu said. While making tea, she was thinking, how tough it’s for my thirteen-year-old child! At this age, children from well to do families don’t have to do anything but eat, sleep and study.
She continued to blow on the fire. A flame burst.
“But in which direction are you going today?” she asked and looked up. The boys had left. She could see them at the bottom of the sand dune in front of the settlement. The sheep had climbed up the hill, and the boys were running to catch up with them.
Bhanu poured two cups of tea and took a cup to Bhim. She slowly shook Bhim, who pulled down the blanket to peek. He sniffed the tea and sat down with a smile on his face. Bhanu ran her fingers on his hair.
Taking the cup from his mother, he asked, “Have others left?”
“Yes, long ago,” Bhanu replied. “Your sheep are getting restless. The hay that we put at night is long over. I know that you find it difficult to get up early in the morning. But it’s important that you are out of the hut by eight. The sheep would become lazy like you if they don’t have a routine.”
Bhim took several quick sips of the tea. Bhanu went towards the courtyard to get her cup of tea.
“In which direction did they go?” Bhim asked his mother, getting up from his cot.
“I forgot to ask them,” Bhanu replied.
Bhim finished his tea quickly. He put the towel hanging on the wall on his shoulder and was in the courtyard within seconds.
“That’s like a tough boy,” Bhanu said, sipping her tea. “You have got yourself ready at the speed of lightning.”
Bhim went to the stack and opened the wooden gate to let out the sheep. They rushed towards the hill. Bhim tightened the cloth on his head, closed the wooden gate and ran behind the sheep, which were by now some distance away.
“Don’t forget to take your food. It’s hanging near the entrance. And change the water in the gourd shell. You should drink only fresh water,” Bhanu said.
