Schechter in Santiago

                                                               Schechter

 

Solomon Schechter was born in Vienna in 1934. His Jewish parents arranged for friends to take him to England in 1937. Schechter grew up in London where German was spoken in his home and English at school. He could remember nothing of Vienna or his parents and never saw them again. His "parents", who were non-Jews, told him that they left Austria because of the difficulties the war brought.  He was told about his parents and his origins when the war was over. He was 11 years old at the time. Up till then, he had to suffer the taunts of his classmates who called him  a "stinking Nazi" for his accent and "parents" who were Austrian nationals. Like so many refugees, after the war, Solomon was forced to confront an identity crisis in a world that had no real place for them. Like so many orphans walking through the rubble of the aftermath of WWII, from Paris to Moscow, from Shanghai to Tokyo, across North Africa, Indonesia,  and the once bright coastal resort cities of the Mediterranean, children wandered homeless and hungry with no real place to go. After the war of Independence,  Solomon went to Israel for a trip and decided to stay. He had found the closest thing to a home available to him.  

Now it was 2013 and President Romney and Vice President Ryan had been inaugurated, The world waited to see what this new administration would do to correct the very heavy economic crisis and hoped that stresses would be relieved around the world. The new president had vowed to unite congress toward this end. 

Schechter scanned through some news stories and then brought up the most recent data from their Doppler study and started graphing the results. "Mark will not be particularly happy about this", he thought. He looked at the fountain in the middle of the courtyard from his study. "I hope they enjoy their stay anyway".

 

It was late afternoon when Michael, his family and Laura arrived at Schechter's villa in Santiago. There was music coming from the courtyard, already in shade, and tables had been set up around the fountain as they made their way inside. There were already many people there and many introductions were needed. Dr. Schechter had gone well out of his way to make sure his guests would be comforable. Laura noticed Jan standing by the bar with a glass of something in his hand which he held up in greeting when he recognized her. She smiled at him and made her way over past three musicians dressed in colorful serapes, jeans, boots with spurs, and Chilean sombreros. Their music was sweet and special, spontaneous as if designed for this very evening. It was one of those moments when all things seemed to coincide into a perfect harmony. "Laura, so good to see you", Jan kissed her cheek. She was thrilled at it all. "And you Jan, likewise. How long have you been here?" "Since yesterday morning, but we've only been drinking an hour or so." Laura giggled and noticed his slightly inebriated state. "Have you eaten yet?", she asked. "Only hors d'oeurves, the shrimp are excellent", he answered as the music rose slightly and ended. "Come let's sit for dinner. Dr. Schechter has something he's going to tell us." "I hope we've  found something significant." Laura said as they made their way to the dinner tables. Michael will be so happy."

Exit 51

                                                       

                                                                             Exit 51

Exit 51 was part of the Oklahoma City major junction. It's official designation was  J1OK-51 but it was known as Geronimo by everyone who worked there and most of the locals. It was one of the eight primary "feeder" exits of the junction and was located about 20 miles southwest of the center of the complex. Geronimo carried three complete transport conduits which included 16 lanes of ordinary civilian surface traffic and one high speed rail line each. Four of the surface lanes were high speed as well. A total of sixty miles of the exit run could be covered in less than five minutes with translucent fabric in the event of weather risk beyond safety tolerances. The average thru traffic of Exit 51 approached 800,000 tons a minute!

Mark Green was the executive director of Exit 51. Lauren Bielec was his administrative assistant. There were over 20,000 employees at Exit 51; more than half of them were full-time. The year was 2294. 

Mark stood on the roof of the observation building and took a wide look along the intersecting concrete and steel lines of the exit. It was late afternoon and lights were already coming up into the darkening blue gray sky from the exit thru-ways.  He finished a cigarette and gulped down the rest of a cup of coffee. He was worried about their budget and whether they would be able to improve their kiloton rate  this next quarter. He liked to gauge the traffic flow  by the sound of the traffic hum. He came back into the administrative office and hoped Lauren wouldn't notice his smoking. "It's moving along out there, but I don't think we'll see anything positive tonight She had turned in her seat, away from a broad bank of viewing screens and replied, " We'll take the pictures and analyze them as usual." She looked right at him, her eyes direct and kind and her pretty little face framed by dark curls and added, "You've been smoking again Mark, you know it's no good for you". He was annoyed at her familiarity. After all, he was the executive director. All he could think of was the half eaten snacks she left in her desk and the equipment she would sneak out of the office. Somehow he remembered her sensitivity and that she "lived" here and decided to ignore his reaction. "Yes, we'll just go ahead with the observations and hope for the best. Gosh, I hope they give us some feedback on our budget soon." Mark looked at her and saw his own anxiety reflected in her face. So much depended on the expansion program approval. "I'll talk to Sam again in the morning", he said, trying to reassure her. He had a very strong feeling that they'd been through this before, but all he could recall was a light green and gray colored room.

The Seed

                                                                            
                                                                     The Seed

"You must have been really tired." Michael mentioned to her on their way up to their rooms. "I was totally out" she answered. "I was so deep into this strange dream that I thought I was in another room,  all white and green and gray and no windows and doors. I heard knocking from about a light year away! It was so odd till I finally woke up."  She looked at Michael. He seemed distant. "What is it?" she asked. "Nothing", he paused and added,  "It was probably the fish we ate at the cafe, or maybe all this Spanish." Michael smiled. "We were both very tired from the trip. Let's get some good rest. Good night." Good night Michael."  What he didn't tell her was that he vaguely recalled a feeling of being trapped in a room without windows while napping.

The morning was cool and the coffee sweet. Michael and Laura skipped breakfast and grabbed some coffee cakes and headed out to the "Rover", a Jeep Cherokee they used to shuttle the astronomers and crew up from the residence to the observatory platform. The driver smiled and spoke English with some sort of European accent. "I'm Jan, a graduate student assisting Dr. Schechter. Good Morning". He introduced himself and several landmarks on the way up. He was tall and thin and had reddish blond hair. He couldn't have been more than thirty, if that. He had not shaved for a week or so and he grinned broadly when he spoke. Laura took an immediate liking to him and his casual, modest,  and informed way. "So that's the seacoast?" She followed his words. "Yes, you came here from Antofagasta, just over there - see?"  "This place would make a great observatory", she joked.

They all laughed. "Indeed, and the richest view on this earth of the Milky Way at night. It's breathtaking."

The observatory included four huge large telescopes, each with hexagonal cell mirrors adding up to an 8.2 meter diameter. The platform also included several auxiliary telescopes. The large telescopes were housed in huge rectangular large box-like domes with metallic sheathing. The four of them together presented something like an advanced, space-age apartment complex appearance. All sat on an extremely large field, much like an airfield tarmac, perhaps more like a "spaceport". The platform stood close to 8000 feet above sea level and afforded extremely wide views of the desert, and, of course, the sky above.

The "Rover" party arrived at UT1, or "Antu" it's Chilean Indian name and entered the building through a lower side door. Up a set of steps to the main floor, they found Dr. Schechter by the instrumentation with a rolling cart and a single lap top connected to a high resolution visible and near-UV spectrograph. "Good morning Michael. Good morning Laura. We're just now setting up for tonight's measurements. Let me show you what we have so far."  Orange peaks surrounded by dotted lines that represented probable errors appeared on his computer screen. "Here's the 13.2 billion light year object, Fuzz ball we call it, and here's the sun behind it. Both are for hydrogen." Michael took a look at the two peaks, one superimposed on the other. "OK, he said. What about closer in?" Schechter showed him the next pair and Michael looked at him. "Well?"  "They're both just

where they should be. Sorry!" Schechter was matter of fact. "You mean all that work at Keck was just instrumentation errors?" Michael asked. "Possibly atmosphere or any number of subjective errors." He looked disappointed as well. "Well there goes that paper" Michael was visibly upset. Like so many scientists before him, he was looking at a null result. For every glowing radium experiment, there were thousands that just sat there and did nothing at all. One of the most famous null results was the Michelson-Morley Ether experiment which ultimately disproved the existence of a cosmic "ether" and yet opened the way to an entirely new set of theories about light and its propagation. This was on Michael's mind as Schechter interjected. "Not at all. We have good data and like all good little scientists, we'll complete the program and report our results. It's our job." "Yeah, another UFO story disproven. I don't like being classed as a "little green men" astronomer" Michael said sarcastically.  Schechter added, "Neither do I". They looked at each other for a long moment and then both of them started to laugh. This lightened the tension and soon Jan and Laura started laughing too. "We'll just do the job. After all, that's why we're here. Might as well enjoy it." Laura had a way of summarizing realities.