Out of the Fire

Part 1 - The Astronomer

Rodge and his team had started by analysing the initial data from twenty years ago, it was quite detailed considering the technology of the time, but something about those figures perplexed the team. The data initially indicated that within the study arc, and at an enormous distance, was, what the team believed to be a pulsar. The radio pulses were very faint and it had been previously been concluded by the scientific community that there was probably not a pulsar within the research arc. The consensus at that time was that the data actually indicated a reflection from a pulsar or other radio source well outside the study area. The new data collected within the last three years by the Singtel team did nothing to clarify the mystery, was there or was there not a pulsar within the study area? This mystery was what Rodge and his team hoped to resolve.

Their new data set from the current sequence of the elusive radio pulses with the background signals filtered out was ready so Rodge initiated a comparison scan against all the previous pulse data sets. Almost immediately the, by now expected, variation to the historical signal became obvious. As with all scans against earlier samples of the signal, there was an almost imperceptible but predictable increase in both frequency and strength of the radiation pulses. He added the results of the scan to the queue for the next analytic process, pushed back his chair and headed to the kitchen to make a coffee.

Taking his mug, he grabbed a couple of stale cookies from the jar on the fridge and wandered out to the front of the building. He was still sitting on the stainless steel park bench, absorbed in his pulsar problem, when Gundar and Lei materialised out of Gundar's new electric limousine. Dr Gundar Singh was independently wealthy, having inherited his parents successful real estate business, but he was also an acclaimed author of popular science books in his own right. One of his most popular science books had spawned an award winning TV series making him a celebrity of the nerd set.

As usual, with their arrival, Gundar and Lei proved to be the vanguard for the rest of the staff. While Rodge exchanged morning pleasantries with them, other vehicles crunched, with various levels of aggression, into their respective parking bays. The chatter of the younger staff, graduates and undergraduate interns, signalled the end of introspection time for Rodge, so he followed the crowd back into the observatory, flicking the cold dregs from his mug onto the white gravel in front of his car. Pouring another coffee and liberating a couple more cookies, Rodge dropped resignedly into his swivel chair and stared hopefully at his monitors.

The process Rodge had set running, analysed and sequenced the pulsar data and then extrapolated the results forward by another thousand years. The process had finished graphing the results for the next hundred years by the time Rodge returned, and showed an exponential increase in the strength of gamma radiation with only a linear increase in frequency. These results were simply not possible if the radiation was originating from a pulsar outside the study arc. The results were also not what should be expected from a pulsar within the study arc but as distant as all the other data indicated it was.

"Crap!" Rodge exclaimed loudly. Hearing this, Lei poked her head around from her own office and with an enquiring look asked if he was ok. Rodge beckoned her in and flicked a quick instant message for Gundar to join them. While waiting for Gundar, Rodge indicated the slowly growing graph on the monitor.

"That is impossible," exclaimed Lei.

"What is?" asked Gundar as he pushed past Lei. "Oh, oh dear," he observed "that is not supposed to happen, we must have made a mistake with the algorithm."

"Well, I suppose we had better all take a look at the coding and find where we went wrong," Rodge informed his team "at least before the Astronomical Society finds out and burns us at the stake," he added with a touch of bitterness.