Quark in the shoulder.
“No I’m going to ask Ali if he will give Quark a shot.”
“Really?”
“Do you want to help?” Quark interjected with optimism in his voice.
“Are you going to be in charge?” she said looking at Brine.
“I was going to leave it up to Q. It was his idea. I don’t wanna hork the credit, or geep the blame,” he concluded under his breath. “I’m kidding…they wouldn’t let me off anyway. ‘Specially not if you burned a hole in the hull.”
“I’m tired, probably not,” she said.
“We won’t be doing it tonight. We don’t even have permission yet. C’mon come with us. You know you the best science is always a little crazy.”
Quark burst in with, “You know Tesla had this idea whereby the whole of Earth would have had free power. He was going to build a tower outside the first New York and have it shoot balls of electricity to any house that needed it. That’s how crazy you have to be to change the world.”
“Tesla was in love with a pigeon that he thought shot lasers out of her eyes. Have you been conversing with some pet I should know about?”
“C’mon,” Brine pinched her shoulder and finally she relented.
Brine smacked the observation deck door one last time for good measure. “It’s a good thing Ali can’t see you from his office, huh.”
And indeed Doctor Ibrahimzade’s office sat nestled away from the whirl and hum of the pulsing central core room. Brine stuck his head through the half open door and knocked, “Sir can I steal a moment of your time?”
“Yes yes of course Mister Slurry. What can I help you with?”
The old door creaked as Brine swung it open. Andromeda followed then Quark slowly entering like a little brother tagging along. “Well what are so many of you doing?”
The office seemed like a closet and there were only two free chairs. Quark stood in the corner holding his tablet looking at Ibrahimzade with pursed lips and rocking from foot to foot. Brine began, “This is my friend Quark. You met him when the internship began. You thought he was a member of the core team, remember?”
“I don’t want to be rude, but I also do not want to lie. But there are so many faces coming and going; I’m sorry we have to be introduced a second time Quark. You may call me Ali,” he smiled, stood and extended a gentle hand, “I try to be on friendly terms with those outside the core team.”
“Thank you. I respect your work very much and I’ve read up on your metallurgical background and research into transforming solids into plasmas.”
“You understood it?”
Quark thought a moment: having understood the text would impress Ibrahimzade to be sure, though he could be caught in a lie and thus sabotage his chance at a life in science. A scientist must above all be honest. If one cannot trust the gatekeepers of fact with truth the world will descend into solipsism. “Honestly…I am trying, but it takes so long to get through the texts and I have so very little mental energy after working, and that is diverted into my own science.”
Andromeda bit her fingernails waiting for Brine to speak, “Sir that’s exactly what I came to ask you about. You see, Quark wanted to be a part of the core team; or any science team-”
Quark interrupted leaning closer, “Physics of any kind, chemistry or maybe geosciences or energy of some sort.”
“Maybe you could help him?”
“Now it is I who owe you an apology Quark. The core team is filled and unless someone fails the internship, which I don’t think anyone will, the core team will graduate and return to their respective universities.” Andromeda reached out and took Brine’s hand squeezing with the thought of the inevitable arrival of that day.
“Well, I think he had something else in mind sir,” said Andromeda. “Quark came up with an interesting idea. It could be impressive enough to earn him a second internship, maybe delay his return to university by a year. That’s happened I know it. Nugget is actually on his second internship up from chemical physics.”
“How do you propose to proceed? Which is to say, what do you ask of me?”
There was a plasma board hanging from the far wall, Quark approached picked up the laser pen and after getting permission to begin a new file, explained his hypothesis. There was some resistance on the part of Ibrahimzade. Quark went too far as to introduce Polymath letting her explain the physics behind the equations. And still the gentle doctor shook his head giving Quark a puzzled look of disbelief. He knew that look. It was the look of a man who two decades before could have stood in the intern lounge and rolled his eyes at a novel idea.
Before the doctor could wave them away Andromeda interrupted, “It’s important to him. And if you need any proof that he has a good and strong mind consider Polymath. If you’ve not heard of her, well, go to a water fountain and listen to the gossip. The ship’s AI has the biggest mouth you’ve ever heard. And frankly, I think it is in love!” If Poly could blush she would have; Quark could and he did.
“You have good friends. And you are a brave young man, perhaps even a bright young man.”
“So you’ll give him a chance. So you understand?” said Brine.
“No.”
For the first time since entering, through the hour and more explaining the hypothesis in detail as precise as a physicist tracking an electron, Quark felt the chill of the air conditioning. Streamers tethered to the vent above blew down and cooled the rose color in his cheeks. Quark fell a few inches towards the wall with exhaustion. He wanted only his bed.
“But I will give you a chance,” the room came alive. Andromeda and Brine smiled for Quark, Ibrahimzade smiled as well. “I’m not giving you the chance because I understand. I’m giving you the chance because I don’t understand.”
A silence filled the room, but joy was evident. Ali continued, “I’ll set up the experiment when you are ready. Be brave; this is the key to science. Be brave and perhaps one day we’ll see you in the history books.”
“There must be something to it if…”
“Why would he…”
“…maybe we shouldn’t have laughed…”
Heat regulation occurred thirteen decks above the terminus of the central core shaft. Looking down from the dais in the center of the room red pipes marked with an arrow leading away from the cylindrical core, blue pipes were marked with an arrow leading towards the same. A loud rush pulsed in increments of ten seconds growing louder thundering and fading, a muffled Doppler effect. On the dais sat an experimental table covered with a bituminous-black heat sink. Three tubes the diameter of a cup extended vertically from the center of the table. One tube was marked with the green electrohazard symbol, the other two with pink magnetichazard symbols.
Doctor Ibrahimzade paced the dais, hands behind his back humming and looking at his finely cut shoes. Brine stood next to Andromeda and Nugget leaned beside her. A dozen interns leaned against the railing, leaving enough walking space for Quark.
He was five minutes late, but he had shown up. “I’m sorry closing out the inventory took longer than I thought. Thank you again. And thank you all for coming.”
No one spoke. Brine bit his lip, Andromeda mimicked him. Quark cleared his voice and briefly explained the experiment. Though he had rehearsed the presentation for a week he still stuttered and tripped over terminology. His tablet stood open on the table Poly looked out at the students smiling.
As he prepared for his experiment the whispers began again.
“…is that her?”
“…do you think he made it…”
“…not on his own…”
Captain Dross appeared from the shadows of the poorly lit hallway like a phantom particle interrupting an experiment. He said nothing but nodded to Ali who nodded back.
Quark affixed a half-meter by half-meter beige storage box to the anode and diode. “When we move we should capture a predictable quantity of energy in this miniature storage unit-uh-and well-what we can do then, is we can use a little ener
gy for the initial burst of the thrusters-ah-and then we should be able to keep going-it’s because of background, BCM, CMB, CBM I mean.”
Twenty seven minutes had passed and the voltmeter had jumped three times but never detected a continuous feed of current. “Do you think we should wait a few more minutes?” Quark said looking at Ali.
“No,” said Ali.
“Well, is the ship moving at the correct speed?” Quark asked. Captain Dross nodded once without a word. The move felt stern like a vice squeezing wood until it breaks. But the pressure subsided as Dross removed himself from the dais.
“This has confirmed what I thought when you showed me the math. The experiment has failed,” Ali announced to the audience.
Snickers erupted behind Quark. Brine and Andromeda looked at one another with eyes watching the day’s hope escape. This was it. He may never return to the core. Maybe not even to say hello to friends old or new.
“Who are you laughing at? He failed. There isn’t a punchline in that,” said Ibrahimzade with authority. He clasped his hands behind his back and paced in front of his students like a villainous schoolmaster.
“I am ashamed to call you my students. You perform your assigned tasks, this much is true. But not one of you has approached me with an experiment half as daring. Perhaps I have failed to show you leadership.”
No one laughed.
“You knew my math was wrong,” Quark raised his head and turned to Ali.
“I suspected as much.”
“Then why did you let me