Not alone at all

By

Roy Marshall

 

 

 

The murmuring of the crowd lessened as one man, Jason Anders, doctor of many studies, walked over to the microphone center stage. Tapping the mike, all became quiet. He leaned over and simply said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, here’s Doctor Dennis Steiner.”

The brevity of the introduction sort of took all in attendance by surprise, there was a smattering of clapping, half hearted and trailing off to nothing within seconds. The entire building was silent as the tall ungainly man walked toward the microphone.

It was a packed house.

Reporters filled the hallway. Most of the seating in the front of the assembly hall, sort of the orchestra pit area, was filled with all the various tech crowd with their computers. The largest part of the auditorium was filled with dignitaries, plus the senators and congresspeople that approved the three billion in funding. That left just sixty seats for the press in back. Those were prime real estate for media. There were teams of them in the parking lot as well. All eyes that could possibly be fixed upon the giant screen behind the stage watched as Dr Steiner came and stood before them.

He had to bend quite a bit to get close to the mike, then started with, “Well, that was short.”

Jason, walking off to the side yelled loud enough for everyone to hear, “Everyone knows who you are Denny.”

Laughter escaped about half those there, the other half were just uninterested and their presence was an expectation of their position, rather than a desire.

Dr. Steiner smiled at the crowd, then raised the mike a foot and a half to a more appropriate level. “Perhaps, it’s just not something I ever anticipated. I was just a kid from Phoenix who looked up at the stars and wondered. Telescopes fascinated me. My first was tiny, and yet it opened a whole new world for me.”

Pausing to look around the auditorium, he smiled. “Surely some of you here felt that same wonder at the skies above us.”

Most of the techs in front applauded then. As the silence returned, Dr. Steiner began again. “The Hubble was a peek into a new, a vibrant and exciting world for us all. Then when the bigger, more powerful James Webb came on line, those that study the stars above us were in awe. As was I, even though in my life, I followed a different path. Computers became my life’s work, but my heart, my love, has always been with those that look toward the stars and study the universe about us.”

The pause was effective, even those that didn’t care all that much, gave the appearance of paying attention. “And that as they say, was when the ideas came. It’s also when I met the usually incredibly verbose Jason Anders. The man with the vision to bring the idea of one backyard astronomer into the limelight and get us to where we are today.”

Jason jogged to the center of the stage before pulling the mike stand over so he could speak into it. “Thanks Denny, but the concept was all you.”

Releasing the mike, Denny took over. “I think now we should talk about the telescope itself. Back about eight years ago I came up with the concept. My first attempt was just a simple parabolic contraption I cobbled together with some aluminized Kevlar. It was simple, just big five meter long triangles that I attached to each other. There were little balloons I put in between the triangles and when inflated, they formed this nice eight meter parabolic reflector. Actually, it looked like an umbrella.”

Jason now grabbed the mike again and pulled it over to his height, “That’s when he came to see me. Let’s face it, it didn’t work, did it?”

Taking back the mike, “No, no it didn’t. but that’s where my aptitude for software became paramount. Even though to us, the inside of the reflector looked smooth and it easily could focus sunlight onto a two by four to make it explode, it wasn’t any good for looking at the heavens.”

There was quite a bit of laughter at the thought of the childish antics. As the laughter died away, he continued, “To me, it’s simply a software problem. If we digitize the reflected light then it simply is a matter of filtering the manufacturing flaws and giving me a nice clear picture. Guys, can you put the pictures up?”

The giant auditorium screen was filled with a picture of Dr. Steiner standing next to his upside down umbrella that dwarfed the computer whiz. “As you can see, the thing was pretty fair sized. The possibilities of such a device were readily apparent to people like Jason here. And pretty much everyone that heard about it.”

Jason then grabbed the mike again, “Most of you know how much telescopes cost, they aren’t cheap. We spent over a hundred eighty million dollars on the Gemini eight meter telescopes. Denny, how much did you spend making that giant thing?” As he handed the mike back, he pointed up at the screen.

“Yeah, well, it was a hobby. A simple experiment to see if I could get it to work. But I spent about three grand. That included the motor driven equatorial mount.”

Jason took over, “Yeah, three grand. Can you put up the next slide please?” It took a moment then a picture that most would recognize, the car driven by Apollo astronauts. “And that is just pretty amazing, the Lunar Rover as seen through old Denny’s eight meter umbrella reflector. The possibilities were now proven.”

Applause again, this time quite a bit more enthusiastic. As it always does, the level faded. Denny took the mike back. “So, there was little else to do except go around and ask people, mostly those sitting out in the audience here, well, for money.” Another smattering of applause as everyone acknowledged the only function of a large part of the audience. “I guess we need to thank all that helped fund this project, science can only move ahead when it’s well funded. Jason keeps telling me that. He’s probably right, I mean, we’re all here waiting on the big reveal.”

Jason now takes back the mike, and he’s sort of talking to a couple of the techs in the pit. Nodding his head he’s suddenly all smiles. “Well everyone, we had a truly truly boring presentation, lots of pictures of the new telescope. I’ve sort of nicknamed the thing, the ‘Deniscope” which he doesn’t particularly care for. We had lots of pictures, the making of the actual reflector itself. Plus just some cool cool photos of how Denny figured out how to attach the secondary mirror as well as the camera, the sun shields protecting the electronics, and the launch as well. Let’s face it, a kilometer in diameter telescope is pretty big.”

Pausing again for effect, he drew in a deep audible breath, “But screw all that, it’s almost time. Ladies and gentlemen, we have determined that Arcus 22-45B which is about twenty or so light years from us, is an Earth sized planet in the habitable zone around its sun, Arcus. We also have determined that the planet has a fair sized moon orbiting it as well.”

The screen behind the pair went blank, then a blurry picture of a round object appeared. Jason continued his recitation, “As we fine tune the image from the Deniscope, let me remind everyone that this image is twenty light years away. No telescope up until now, has had the capability to gather enough light to make an image even this detailed from that distance. Old Dennis had a pretty brilliant idea with his kilometer sized concept telescope. And I think,” Jason looked down into the pit with the techs as one gave him some sort of sign. “Okay, just a little fine tuning with the software, and our image should clear up quite a bit.”

Just then, the image came into focus. Still, not a complete perfect image, but it was pretty spectacular. An exoplanet some hundred and ninety trillion kilometers away. And in the left corner of the screen, another smaller round dark object appeared and was moving ever closer to the planet.

As the focus became ever sharper, the right side of the planetary disc was seen in the daylight of the sun, Arcus. Just a crescent of light and the entire left part was in darkness. Except, it wasn’t completely dark. There spread out across the darkened landscape, were patches of light. Big ones, small ones, tiny dots. Denny grabbed the mike away from Jason and exclaimed, “Oh my god, are we really seeing this?”

There was a general murmuring from the crowd as the realization of the enormity spread throughout the audience. The brighter ones telling the dignitaries and they then explaining the significance to the politicians and hangers on that accompanied them.

Jason now takes over. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a lot greater unveiling than we ever thought would happen. If you look to the left side of the screen, we can see the moon moving right and it’s about to make a transit of the Earth like planet. But as we can see, the planet is considerably more Earth like than we expected with all the lights spread out over the night side of the planet. That’s I think something that we call proof of life. I’m unaware that any natural phenomena can create lighting like that.”

Both Denny and Jason turned away from the screen and looked over the murmuring crowd before them. Smiling big, knowing that they did something no one else had ever done. Then there was a scream from the audience, “Look, what’s that?”

The pair turned, and every eye in the building watched as a huge brilliant flash lit up a portion of the landscape nearly dead center of the disk. Then, a moment later, another brilliant flash, then another, and another. Within two minutes, the entire disk was lit up with brilliant flashes of light.

Another few minutes passed and the landscape was dark, with only the red lit dullness of flames hidden slightly as the moon transited across the planet. The final moments of the original event that had been planned for the celebration. Where once there was proof of life, now there was but destructive remnants of the end of a civilization that had technology, had cities and developed a culture that we, humans,  living in a different solar system, had viewed using the largest telescope ever conceived of by one small representative of our own distant culture.

After the lights faded to nothing but flames, Jason turned and faced the audience. “I’m at a loss for words. It would seem we discovered another civilization, only to watch as they destroyed themselves. There can’t be any doubt that those were nuclear explosions going off. My god, what a waste.”

And then one senator stood in the audience and expressed his opinion, “Well you can bet the best and brightest are still alive out there getting’ ready to take over that’s left!”

The end