The Present
“This light is being radiated from gasses or metals…or combinations of both…that are completely alien to mankind! This is big, Broc! Huge! This line right here,” he emphasized with several taps of the pen, “has blue-shifted to such an extreme that it would indicate, providing that the composition of its elements aren't foreign to us, that this light source is traveling toward us at a speed greater than that of light.”
“But that's not possible.”
“Correct! Its mass would be infinite.Einstein's theory of relativity would have to be completely deconstructed. Either Einstein was incorrect, making light speed and beyond possible. Or he was correct, and this is a representation of matter that defies our knowledge of sub-atomic particles. Whatever it is, our bell-curve of knowledge has just undergone its first distortion.”
“Your speculation?”
“Matter. Appears to be, anyway. My initial calculations indicate that it's traveling below light speed.”
“Size?”
“Nearly insignificant.”
“No threat to the planet?” Gene shook his head.
“You said it's moving in our direction?”
|“I certainly did. Preliminary trajectory calculations indicate that we lie in its direct path.”
“Meteor?”
“They can only be observed when they fall into the earth's atmosphere, where friction causes them to temporarily incandesce.”
“Ah! A comet?”
“Possible. Highly unlikely. Too small. No trail.”
“No real imminent danger?”
“More light than matter. Its size is what has enabled it to elude detection thus far.”
“But you can measure its size…and its speed?”
“Absolutely.”
“Any guess as to how far out it is?”
Ignoring the question, the physicist would only stare at the miraculous Fraunhofer line with unrelenting attention. He inhaled deeply. Then, as if his mind had shifted to a higher plane of analysis, he said with ominous portent, “This will change the world.”
“Then we must have it!” Broc was jubilant.
“It’s imperative.”
Following this momentous February evening, each man began to incubate feelings of omnipotence and grandeur. This propelled them through and beyond the barriers of moral and ethical thinking, where they entered a dark, vertiginous spiral.