Free The Orthogonal Galaxy by Michael L. Lewis Page A

Joram watched
the pair intently, while the rest of the class turned off their
note tablets, and fumbled for their backpacks. There was no
exchange of words as the two met up. Instead, Scoville gave a
slight nod and gestured towards the door in the back of the room
where the two swiftly disappeared from sight.
    “ What do you think that
was all about?” Joram asked Kath.
    “ Huh?” Kath asked looking
up at Joram as she zipped her pack. “Oh, you mean Scoville and
Zimmer? Don’t know… it looked pretty important though.” Then,
shrugging off the incident, she continued, “Hey, I’m thirsty. Let’s
go get something to drink.”
    As they left the
planetarium, Joram looked back towards the closed door as if
expecting to see it reopen or otherwise gain some knowledge as to
the urgent departure of the two professors. Realizing that he would
gain no further insight, he shrugged his shoulders and bounded up
the stairs to rejoin Kath.
    …
    At Johnson Space Center,
two engineers sat quietly in a control room where panels of
computer screens monitored activity on Camp Mars. The main screen
contained an image of the camp as captured from a digital camera
mounted on a satellite orbiting the planet. Other screens contained
various waveforms and pulses which monitored environmental and
meteorological activity. Side-by-side screens titled Boronov and
O’Ryan contained the vital signs of the two astronauts. Another
charted the progress of the Shuttle Nevada recently departed from
the crater and heading on a direct bearing for the Moon.
    Staneck Rodgers and Physon
Edwards had worked this station together for years. They were
intimately familiar with the operations and mission of the
astronauts on Camp Mars.
    “ Hey, now that Ayman’s up
in space, it looks like everything is stable here,” announced
Rodgers. “I’m going to go use the rest room. Be back in a few
minutes.”
    “ Sure, no problem,”
Edwards agreed. “I’ll stand watch. It should be pretty boring for a
couple of days, while Boronov shows O’Ryan the ropes.”
    As the door shut behind
Staneck, Physon received a communication from Mars: “Boronov to
Mission Control. The Nevada has successfully taken off and we are
heading to fuel tank number one for pressure gauge malfunction
assessment and repair.”
    Physon leaned back in his
chair and cradled his hands behind his head. “Yep... it’s gonna get
boring around here until mission operations resume next
week.”
    After a few minutes of
idle daydreaming and casual monitoring of the data, Physon’s life
got less boring very quickly, as he heard a pulsing beep coincide
with an alarm light on control panel in front of him. He leaned
forward to examine the alarm.
    “ Odd,” he said to himself.
“I’ve never seen that alarm malfunction before.”
    The alarm read “Satellite
Two Communication Failure.”
    Within moments, another
pulsating sound: “Satellite Three Communication Failure.” With this
alarm the main screen showing the video image of the Camp Mars
crater went blank.
    With the blackness of the
screen ahead of him, Physon leaned forward in his seat, his mind
reeling at this puzzling chain of events. He considered the events.
“That’s not good… what could cause two satellite link failures
within moments…”
    Physon was trained to not
panic in these situations. False alarms were part of the business
of inter-galactic communications. Solar events, asteroid eclipses,
even the Earth’s own magnetic field would occasionally interrupt
the otherwise weak signals emanating from the Mars
satellites.
    Quickly, however, Physon
was required to enter a state of panic, because a litany of alarms
went off simultaneously, and all of the monitors on the wall went
dark. “Satellite One Communication Failure,” “Astronaut One
Vitals,” “Astronaut Two Vitals,” “Satellite Array Failure,” “Audio
Comm Failure,” “Shuttle Comm Failure.”
    The room was awash with
flashing lights and beeps and buzzes