Dark Star Rising Second Edition (Pebbles in The Sky) (8 page)

Dr. Souse nodded his head in agreement.  “You two could have just destroyed my career.”

             
Brett sat back and let out a whistle, and Jessica sat in stunned silence.  Brett spoke after a minute or so to break the complete silence in the room.  “Neither Jessica nor I had really thought about all the financial implications of our work or this discovery,” he said.

Jessica nodded her head and agreed.  “I really had no thoughts at all as to what would happen after we completed our work other than helping all the people who suffer from these diseases,” she surmised.

Dr. Berkshire stood up and said, “Dr. Driskall and Dr. Driskall, please excuse Dr. Souse and myself for a moment while we have a private word.  We shall return in just a few minutes.”  They got up and left the room.

“Holy crap Jess, I had not thought about all the ramifications of our work.  The shit is going to hit the fan big time,” Brett exclaimed.

Jessica gulped out a reply.  “We are going to have lots of friends and maybe just as many people who do not like us very well.  But, think of all the suffering and death that we can stop.”

Brett started to reply but Dr. Souse and Dr. Berkshire came back into the room.  Dr. Berkshire looked over at Dr. Souse and spoke.  “You two have fulfilled your requirement to notify your grant providers of your intent to publish your findings and work.  You want us to help fast track a human clinical trial for your vaccine process.  We will agree to attempt to do this for you on one condition.  Due to the ramifications of your work, I need to talk to some colleagues about where this is going to go.  Dr. Souse will need to talk with his company board about the financial ramifications of the announcement.  So, in return for agreeing to help fast track your human trials, we ask that you give us two weeks to confer with our colleagues.  In the meantime, you have to agree that you will not share your findings with anyone else.  There is no legal ruling binding you to withhold publishing, but you will find that the process to get approval for human clinical trials can be very tedious and take years to complete.  We can help you shorten that process if you will cooperate with us and give us two weeks.  The choice is yours.” 

              Jessica looked at Brett and spoke, “So, if we agree to wait two weeks you will help us get fast track approval for human trials?”

              Dr. Berkshire nodded.  “You have my word that we will do everything in our power to get you your approval.”

“Well,” said Brett, “I guess we have a deal.”

Chapter 7

March 14
th
, 2016

Washington, DC

Mike Banscott woke up Monday morning much more refreshed than he had been over the weekend.  After he had left David Honstein’s house Saturday afternoon, he had been going non-stop making up plans and a myriad of notes on a to do list for himself.  Setting up a team and office to oversee the investigation of the Brown Dwarf was no easy task.  He had called Eric Casselman Sunday morning and taken care of the situation with getting the wraps on everyone who knew anything about the discovery.  Offering a position as an assistant to Peter Rockwell would not have been his first choice,
but, if he was as bright as Eric said he was, he might just be a big help.  At least this way he could play the “I’m your boss, do as I say,” card if he had to.

He understood the importance of keeping the discovery under the radar of the press for as long as possible.  He also understood that they were operating on borrowed time. The data used to make the discovery was over four years old and it was amazing that no one else had picked up on it yet.  It was only a matter of time though.  Eventually, the Brown Dwarf would be easily visible by Earth based instruments and then all hell would break lose unless they were able to prove to the public that this was merely a scientific curiosity and not the end of the world.  “Hell,” he thought, all the excitement this would cause might just very well work in NASA’s favor to get the space budget increased in size.  It would be really nice not to fight for funding for once.

After eating breakfast, he tried to call David Honstein but just kept getting his voice mail.  He called the NASA administrator’s office but was told that David was in a very important meeting and had left directions not to be disturbed.  It was too early for Mattie, his secretary, to be in his west coast office yet and since he had nothing more he could do at the moment, he decided to play tourist for a couple of hours.  He grabbed a windbreaker and hailed a taxi to take him to the National Mall.  He had never visited the national monuments in the spring when the cherry trees were just beginning to bloom and if he had time he might just take a walk through the Smithsonian Aerospace Museum.  He was curious to see the exhibit for the retired space shuttle Discovery.  He felt a moment of sadness.  The Space Shuttle Program had started the downward spiral of NASA and the funding for future space programs.  Even with the International Space Station, there was just not the excitement and public involvement that had been present for the Apollo Program and the subsequent race to the moon.

After arriving at the National Mall, he paid the taxi driver. The man was a foreign national whose extent of the English Language was probably limited to street names.  Mike figured the man did not even know who Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson was.  He was probably a recent immigrant to the country working under a visa and was only concerned with feeding his family.  American history probably meant nothing to the man, only American dollars that would provide for him and his family.

He strolled down the mall, pausing at the war memorials, the Washington Monument, and he finally reached the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.  Just as he was about to enter, his phone rang.  Looking down at his phone, he could see it was Mary Beth Davis, director of the Hubble Space Telescope program.  He answered the call and said, “Good morning Mary Beth, how are you this glorious spring day?”

“It is very early in the morning here
, Mike.  Believe it or not, I have had no caffeine yet.  I called your office and Mattie said you were in Washington.  What are you doing there?”

”Actually,” Mike said, “I am sightseeing at the Air and Space museum.”

“Oh, I love the cherry trees there this time of year, but I thought you might like to know that I have something else you might be interested in seeing,” said Mary Beth.

Mike looked around and stepped away from the line of people waiting to enter the museum.  “What did you find Mary Beth?” he inquired excitedly.

“Well,” she replied, “We found something where there is not supposed to be anything.  Have you happened to lose a Brown Dwarf recently?  At least that is what it appears to be.  It is so faint that Hubble can barely make it out.  The best verification that we had in identifying the object was that it was doing a little gravimetric lensing of the visible light from a star behind it. My guys in operations are curious as to how you knew where to look.”

“Mary Beth, listen to me,” Mike said.  I need that data sent to my secure government email with PKI encryption ASAP.  Could you also send it to David Honstein? And one more thing Mary Beth, put a muzzle on your guys there in operations, we don’t want this to leak out yet.”

“Calm down, Mike.  My guys have been with me on this project for years now.  They know not to release data that has not been confirmed,” Mary Beth said.

“Listen Mary Beth, can you tell how far away it is? Does it having any bearing change? How long do you think before it is noticeable by other Earth based observatories?”

“Whoa, Mike, slow down!  We only observed it for about six hours yesterday.  I had to turn the scope back over to the people who had been approved observation time before they had my hide.  I just cannot tell you much more than there is something there.  It appears to be a Brown Dwarf.  If so, it has to be within a light year of our sun, and I don’t think it would be visible to Earth based instruments yet, unless they knew exactly where to look and had perfect conditions.  That really is all I can tell you.  I hope this helps, and I expect you to let me in on this as soon as you can. You definitely have my curiosity stirred up.”

“Thanks a million
, Mary Beth.  If you will send that data to me ASAP, I will let you know more when I am able to,” Mike said.

“I am sending it now Mike.  Enjoy the flowers.  Bye now,” Mary Beth said as she broke the connection.

Mike wanted to get back to an office at NASA headquarters where he could access his secure government email, but he figured what the hell, while he was here he really did want to see where they had built the shuttle exhibit.  From the sound of things, it may be a while before he ever got the chance to come here again.

He was on his way back out of the Smithsonian when his cell phone rang.  This time, it was David Honstein.  “Hey David, how are the pictures Mary Beth sent?  I have not seen them yet.”

“Not much to look at Mike, but the fact that they found the object is important enough.  Where are you?”

Mike laughed, “At the Smithsonian trying to find an exhibit on Brown Dwarf stars.  They do not have one, although that may change very soon.  Listen David, Mary Beth said under the right conditions this thing would be visible from Earth based instruments.  We are on borrowed time here I think.  Someone else is going to find this thing very soon.”

“That is exactly what I have been worrying about since I talked to you Saturday,” said David.  “I need you to get back over here to the administration building right away.  I just finished up a meeting with Donald Masterfield, the President’s National Science Advisor.  The Hubble data arrived in time for him to see it. He is a believer now.  He is trying to arrange a meeting for us with the President this afternoon.  I need you to get over here and prepare a briefing at a technical level that she will understand.  The President is a smart lady, but I do not think that astrophysics or astronomy is one of her strong points.  So, make it detailed enough so that she understands the significance of what has been found, but simple enough we do not overwhelm her with minute details.  Come see me when it is ready.”

“On my way,” David replied.  “Wow!” thought David,
“a meeting with the President today; this is moving faster than I thought it would.

David Honstein hung up his phone.  He knew Mike was a good man and would get the ball rolling for the briefing with the President.  What he needed now was some assets to be put at his disposal for studying this thing.  Those assets unfortunately were just not under his control.  Hopefully their meeting with the president would change that.  In the meantime, there was one asset that he could take control of.  He buzzed his secretary, Alice. “Alice, I need you to get me Mary Beth Davis in the Hubble office at JPL.  Put her through when you have her.”  He looked at his schedule for today.  His meeting with the Senate Oversight Committee was going to have to be re-scheduled as well as a lecture to a group of visiting elementary school students who had won their school’s science fairs.

His intercom buzzed, “I have Mary Beth Davis on the phone sir, and you have the line now.”

“Hi David, this is Mary Beth, how did you like my vacation photos I just sent you?”

“I got them Mary Beth, but they were a little faint and blurred, is that the best your camera would do?”

  “Sorry David, but this is not the best type of camera for that type of photography,” she answered.

  “Well, at the moment it is the best we have, although I am working on that.  I need some more photos though,” he said.

“David, the ESA has the instrument all this week.   They will have a shit fit if I take it away from them again.  They raised hell about the six hours I did take,” she warned.

“They will just have to get over it,” David replied.  “As of right now the Hubble is broke and your guys are trouble shooting it. Tell the ESA guys that.  Maybe they will buy that story for a little while.  I want that scope watching this thing.  I need to know how far away it is, and if it is stationary or moving.  Mike Banscott is in charge of this project and the observation time is his alone until I say otherwise.”

“All right,” said Mary Beth. “You’re the boss, but when those ESA astronomers start trying to beat down my doors I am telling them to go talk to you.  We’ll get the instrument re-directed as soon as we can.  Talk to you later.”

“Ok,” said David to himself.  “That wheel is rolling now.”  Now he had to figure out how to convince the president that he needed some additional satellite assets.  He knew that General Robert Preston of the National Security Agency was not going to want to let him play with his toys.  We’ll just have to see how that goes.  He went back to work trying to figure out how to shift around his schedule because he knew that the days ahead were only going to get busier.

Chapter 8

March 14
th
, 2016

Washington, DC

President Paula Montgomery sat back down at her desk in the Oval Office.  She had just finished greeting a group of Girl Scouts that had won a tour of the White House by raising a large amount of money for the Habitat for Humanity Program.  She smiled to herself.  Fourteen thousand dollars was not much in the great scheme of things, but for a group of eleven and twelve year old kids it was quite an accomplishment.  If only she could harness that same energy and enthusiasm, and get more like it
, from everyone else in the country.  Then, there would be nothing that the United States of America could not accomplish.  Instead, she thought, we have this morass of individual agendas, greed, and self-serving people who want to do nothing unless there was something in it for themselves.  It seemed that Congress was full of people who cared nothing for the people who elected them.  The Senate and House of Representatives could not agree to disagree on anything, much less try and do something that was right for the country as a whole.

She thought about where she was sitting right now.  She was the forty sixth
President of the United States of America.  She was probably the most accidental, and unelected president there had ever been.  Her present position was one of pure luck and circumstance and not one she would have expected to be in a year ago.

She had been the running mate of Senator Malcolm Culverson, the Democratic candidate for the 2016 election.
  Malcom Culverson had chosen her as his Vice Presidential candidate not just for her experience, even though she had served three consecutive terms as a senator from New Hampshire. Her ultimate appeal as a running mate was the fact that she was a woman. Added to that was the fact that she was immensely popular with her constituents in her home state as well as many of the other citizens in the Northeast.  Her popularity was widely based on the fact that she had sworn that she would never take a dime of money from a lobbyist.  And to date, she had kept her word.  As a matter of fact, most of the leeches that were called lobbyists had even stopped trying to cozy up to her by her third term as senator and spent most of their efforts trying to support someone to beat her so they could have some influence with them.

She was what she felt a politician should be; free of the influence of the powerful lobbying groups that had corrupted Washington.  The people voted for her because she tried to do what was right for her state and the country as a whole.  She actually cared, and she was considered an idealist in the eyes of her fellow senators. To many of her political adversaries, she was Satan in female form, because she was the anti-thesis of what most politicians had become.

Malcolm Culverson did not have a chance in the election initially.  After the countries experience with a democratic president for the previous eight years, Washington had been ready for another change.  The big money in super PACs and the other powerful lobbyists had settled all their hopes and millions of dollars in campaign contributions on the Republican candidate, Senator Jason Retty from Texas.  He was pro-business, and had no telling how many lobbyists and special interest groups sitting down to dinner with him nightly at fund raisers. They lined his pockets with money and practically slept with him every night.

Six weeks before the election he had a twenty three percent lead in the margin of votes over his Democratic competitor.  It had looked like it was going to be a land slide victory and a huge embarrassment for Senator Culverson and his running mate, Senator Montgomery.  Then, the unexpected happened.

It seemed that lobbyists were not the only ones that Senator Retty had been sleeping with.  A reporter from the New York Times had stumbled on evidence that the very much married Senator Retty had been keeping a mistress for the past six years.  Senator Retty had broken off the relationship when he entered the presidential race and either a supporter of his candidacy or Senator Retty himself had paid his ex-mistress six million dollars to quietly disappear and forget she had ever known him.  The woman had eventually decided that the six million dollars was not sufficient to maintain her life style, and had demanded ten million dollars more from the Senator.

Someone then had evidently threatened her life if she exposed her relationship with the senator.  She had become so paranoid that she would suffer a convenient accident some night to keep her permanently quiet that she had gone to a reporter and told her story.  A private detective that had been hired to keep an eye on her reported to his employer that she had made contact with a reporter that was not sympathetic to the Senators campaign.  As the woman had feared, an attempt had then been made on both her life and the reporter’s.  She
had been severely injured in an automobile accident when her brakes had suddenly failed for no obvious reason and the reporter had been shot three times in a supposedly random drive by shooting.  The woman ended up in a coma with little hope of recovery.  In retaliation, the reporter who had survived the shooting incident, published the whole story.

Senator Retty’s campaign went down in flames and he was now awaiting trial for accomplice to murder, perjury, and bribery.  The other Republican candidates had tried to get back into the campaign but in a massive public backlash, anyone with any ties to a lobbyist did not have a chance.  Senator Malcolm Culverson ended up winning with the largest percentage of the vote in United States history and Paula Montgomery had become the first female Vice President.  Life was good, she had thought at that point.

Six days after taking office, President Malcolm Culverson suffered a massive heart attack and died before he could be transported to the hospital.  Thus, Paula Montgomery became the first female president in the history of the United States.  Becoming president as she had, she felt that she had a mandate that she could actually make a difference and straighten the country out.  Now, five months later, she was already sick and tired of those lousy pompous asses that made up the majority of the Senate and House of Representatives. She was beginning to feel the heavy burden of her task and she had started to lose hope and worried that her efforts would be futile.   Washington was a beast that fed upon itself and had no desire to change.  That was the very reason why she enjoyed meeting and greeting people who were actually trying to make a difference, like the group of Girl Scouts that had just left. 

Elliott Dewey, her Chief of Staff knocked on the door and stuck his head inside. ”We are ready for the meeting with Doctor Honstein, the Director of NASA, Madam President.”

She sighed and said, “I will be right there Elliott, please give me just a moment.”

Elliott nodded and shut the door.  It was four pm and this meeting had not originally been on the day’s schedule.  The President’s science advisor, Donald Masterfield
, had convinced Elliott that this meeting was urgent and needed to happen today.  So, it was turning out to be a long day.  Doctors David Honstein, Mike Banscott, and General Robert Preston, the head of the National Security Agency, were already in the briefing room when she arrived.

Elliot Dewey opened the door and spoke, “Gentlemen, the President,” as President Montgomery walked into the room. Everyone present stood until she sat at the head of the table.  Elliott Dewey then entered with Donald Masterfield, the president’s science advisor
, and sat to her right with General Preston. David Honstein and Mike Banscott sat across from them and David Masterfield sat down at the far end of the table beside Mike Banscott.

David Masterfield spoke, “Madame President, I had requested this urgent meeting because of a discovery that may have a significant impact on the stability of this country, and probably the world at large.”

“You have my undivided attention then,” said President Montgomery, “please proceed.”

             
David Honstein stood and spoke, “Madame President, I would like to introduce Doctor Mike Banscott, he is a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.  He will be conducting this briefing as he is the most up to date on the findings that we wish to discuss with you.”

David sat down and Mike stood and cleared his throat.  He had never given a presentation to the most arguably powerful person on the planet before.  He took a deep breath and began.  “Last Friday, an old colleague of mine brought some information to my attention, asking for my advice and opinion.  One of his graduate assistants who is working on his thesis at Cal Tech has unknowingly uncovered evidence that a Brown Dwarf Star is approaching our solar system. 

Looking at the intense faces before him, Mike realized he had their full attention, so he hurriedly continued. “To bring every one up to speed, a Brown Dwarf is a star that never really attained enough mass to start the process of hydrogen fusion in its core.  It is basically a dud star.  They are very faint, hard to detect, and there is still some disagreement whether or not the smaller Brown Dwarfs are really failed stars or just giant planets.  Regardless, it seems that we have one quite close to our solar system and it is getting closer.”

             
President Montgomery sat in silence so General Preston spoke up.  “How is it that we spend billions of dollars on space telescopes, observatories, and space stations, and this thing was found by a college kid?  I would think that of all the highly paid scientists floating around someone would have seen this thing before.  Hell fire, there are damned amateur astronomers out there watching our supposedly top secret satellites and reporting their positions to the press on a daily basis.” 

Mike could not help but become defensive under the General’s scathing sarcasm.  “This college kid happens to be a very bright astrophysics graduate student at one of the best schools in the country.  He was using data from one of those billion dollar satellite telescopes you speak of General.  The data he was using is actually seven to ten years old and he chanced upon this discovery purely by accident.  He was looking at images in a location where no one would really have expected this object to be.”

The General leaned forward, “You mean this thing has been coming at us for more than ten years and no one knew about it?”

“Actually General,” replied Mike “This thing, as you call it, has probably been coming at us for thousands of years and nobody knew about it until Friday.”  The General sat back in his chair, his face turning red.  David kicked Mike under the table.

              President Montgomery, growing tired of the bickering that reminded her too much of senate debates spoke up. ” Doctor Banscott, please educate me a little more.  Explain to me what a Brown Dwarf is.”

Mike turned on the wall projector and started the slide show he had prepared.  “A Brown Dwarf is, as I said, a star that wasn’t.  Looking at this diagram you can see that the smallest and dimmest object that we presently classify a star is an M class star.  It barely has enough mass to obtain the pressure and density at its core to maintain a hydrogen fusion process.  Below this critical mass, we have what is called a Brown Dwarf.  They have insufficient mass for hydrogen fusion although they may for a short period of time have a fusion process that involves Deuterium or Lithium.  These processes quickly exhaust their fuel supply so that even the largest Brown Dwarf will not continue a fusion process for much more than a few million years.  Brown Dwarves are classified as an L class, T class, or Y class.  The L is almost but not quite an M class star and the Y class can be as small as a giant gas planet.  Basically we consider any thing that is at least sixteen times the mass of Jupiter, the largest gas planet in our solar system
, as a Brown Dwarf.  We have classified this object as a potential smaller Y class.  It is probably in the neighborhood of twenty to twenty-two times the mass of Jupiter.”

             
“Doctor Banscott,” said the President. “I have to side with General Preston here.  How come no one has seen something twenty times the size of Jupiter?  I can look out my window at night and see Jupiter with my un-aided eyes.  Surely with the huge telescopes we have, it could be seen.”

“Let me continue, if I may Madam President,” Mike said.  “We believe this Brown Dwarf to be about twenty times the mass of Jupiter, not twenty times as large.  As a matter of fact, it is believed that all Brown Dwarves are about the same size of Jupiter.  It is the mass that differentiates them.  For example, our own planet Saturn is nearly the size of Jupiter but it has only thirty percent of Jupiter’s mass.  This is why Jupiter is almost like a solar system of its own.  If it was a star, then all of its moons would be its planets.”

“But I thought Jupiter and Saturn do not give off heat or light,” interjected the president.

“They don’t give off very much, but both of them in fact do give off more heat than they receive from the sun.  This is mostly due to convective processes and some minor gravitation stresses from their moons.  This Y class Brown Dwarf is very similar.  It is roughly the size of Jupiter, but has twenty times the mass or so.  It is also giving off a little more heat.  If it was possible to stick a thermometer into its atmosphere it would probably read about eighty degrees Fahrenheit.”