The Twins Paradox, Alan Gasparutti [online e reader txt] 📗

shock, Arthur.”
“I accept my views may be controversial, but I happen to believe in them,” Arthur replied. “Are you saying you wouldn’t have selected me at my interview if I had raised those views?”
“No, no, I’m not saying that,” back-tracked Dermot. “I can’t speak for the other members of your interviewing panel, though.”
“But surely, we are all entitled to our own views and ideas, are we not?” Arthur insisted. “That’s the nice thing about Earth, or most parts of it anyway, where we can hold our personal opinions.”
“I know I’m no astronomer, but I find Arthur’s views of the Big Bang more acceptable than about matter and anti-matter annihilating each other in thousandths of a second,” Clint argued. “I’ve queried this with Frank several times, remain to be convinced, and still find it difficult to accept.”
At this point Frank mumbled something to let the others know he was still there, but his mind was on other things.
“The universe would never have expanded to it’s current state if that didn’t occur,” replied Dermot in an effort to convince his colleagues.
“Yes, but that’s only one theory,” said Arthur. “If matter annihilated anti-matter, how come there is still anti-matter at all corners of the universe?”
“The anti-matter will have built up over trillions of years,” argued Dermot. “I’m not so sure about the equation myself, but I reckon matter annihilated something or we wouldn’t have evolved to where we are today?”
“But what was annihilated?” queried Arthur.
“We don’t know – it was annihilated trillions of years ago, whatever it was,” replied Dermot.
“But that’s just theory,” argued Arthur. “It’s no more certain than my own theories. Ptolemy was well-respected in his day but how many of his views have since been disproved?”
“He’s got a point,” chirped Frank.
While Arthur and Dermot were in debate, Clint took his keys out of his pocket as they approached his Chevrolet, and aimed his fob at the car to open the doors. As they got inside Clint’s car, Dermot and Arthur said how impressed they were with it, though Arthur queried how fuel-efficient it was.
“It uses about a litre of gasoline every 25 to 30 miles,” Clint told him. “I know that doesn’t sound particularly economical, but it’s pretty good over here in the US.”
“Surely there are cars which give better miles-per-litre rates than that?” commented Arthur.
“There are, but I need a car like this because it’s very hilly where I live, to say the least,” said Clint. “It wouldn’t be too easy getting up mountains to get to the local observatory, nor to visit Frank for that matter.”
“There are vehicles in Europe of similar size, but are more economical than that,” commented Arthur.
Sensing Professor Wagstaff was about to comment further on how un-environmental the car was, Dermot referred to Frank in an effort to change the subject.
“Hey, who do you think that gunman was trying to shoot in the conference centre today?” he asked.
That was the last thing on Clint’s mind as he looked over his shoulder before pulling away when the road was clear.
“You don’t suppose someone hired him to assassinate the Governor of California, do you?” asked Dermot.
Clint had by now ascertained what the new topic of conversation was, and would have preferred to argue with Professor Wagstaff about his Chevrolet. He wanted to join in the discussion to try to deflect attention away from Frank, before he told the others about his retirement arrangements’. While he was driving though, Clint knew he couldn’t afford to say too much.
“You know what,” Frank said to Dermot. “I reckon the gunman was intending to shoot me.”
“What?!” replied an astonished Dermot. “Why in God’s name would anyone want to kill you?”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about,” Frank replied, to which Dermot wanted to say something but was unsure of what to say.
“You don’t have any murky secrets, or any skeletons in your cupboard, I hope?” Arthur said to Frank.
“If there’s anything like that, we don’t want to know, thank you,” said Dermot.
“I have nothing like that to hide,” Frank replied. “Certain secrets were ‘forced’ on me.”
“Don’t say anything, Frank,” Clint said to him, at which point Dermot and Arthur turned their attention. “Don’t look at me!?” Clint then told them, “I’ve got nothing to hide either.”
Attention then turned back to Frank. He was unsure what to tell Dermot and Arthur. He knew he was sworn to secrecy, but at the same time could see that Dermot and Arthur were aware that Clint knew something. He had already broken his word, though nobody knew it. Frank couldn’t be sure of this, however. Perhaps that was why the gunman had been sent to dispose of him?
Dermot and Arthur became rather baffled, and a little worried. Arthur suggested they should turn back, but by now they were on the highway and the next junction wasn’t for another eighteen miles.
Frank began to wonder about Clint - had he blurted something out? Surely not, he thought to himself. Clint was always quiet and discreet, not the sort of person who may divulge a secret. But then he remembered that Clint had been sent on the asteroid-mission by the state. Frank tried to convince himself this was ‘out of proportion’, but couldn’t be sure. In the end, he wasn’t too sure of anything anymore and decided to spill the beans.
“I was forced into retirement last year,” he confessed to the others. “In actual fact, you could say I was bribed into retirement.”
Dermot and Arthur were surprised to say the least, but decided not to comment.
“After the asteroid was safely diverted into orbit, I was offered an excellent retirement package,” Frank continued. “I hadn’t even considered retiring at that point and wasn’t too keen on the suggestion at the time.”
“Suggestion?” queried Arthur. “I thought you said you were forced into retirement?”
“When I said I hadn’t thought about it, I kept being told how much I deserved a long break, how good the retirement terms were, and that there was nothing to think about,” said Frank.
“But no-one can force you to retire,” Dermot said to him. “It has to be your own decision, surely?”
“I said I still wasn’t sure, that it had come as a big surprise,” Frank explained. “I needed time to think about things, so he agreed to meet me about this a few days later.”
“Who agreed to meet you about the matter?” asked Dermot.
“I’m not at liberty to say,” replied Frank.
Dermot and Arthur then looked at Clint.
“Don’t look at me, I’m not at liberty to say either,” he told them.
“So what happened next?” the ever-inquisitive Dermot asked.
“When I spoke to Jeanette she was all for it, especially when considering the terms offered,” said Frank. “So I agreed to take early retirement.”
“That’s not what I’d call forcing you to retire,” Dermot commented.
“No, but after I signed the terms and conditions I was ‘asked’ to do one final thing at NASA,” said Frank.
“What was that?” asked Arthur.
“To close the case on the asteroid,” Frank replied.
Dermot was surprised, though Arthur had had a feeling at the back of his mind that the asteroid may have had something to do with the matter.
“But why would NASA want to close that case, of all cases?” quizzed Dermot. “I don’t understand? Besides, I thought you were the chief at NASA?”
Dermot and Arthur now began to piece things together.
“It was someone high-up who ordered you to close the case, wasn’t it?” queried Dermot. “Was it the President? Or perhaps the Vice-President?”
“It was someone in authority, but I can categorically state that it was neither the President nor the Vice-President,” Frank told them.
“But I can’t understand why the state would want to close such a case,” said Dermot. “NASA had wanted to study asteroids for sometime - surely, here was a brilliant example to study, which you didn’t even need to travel far to visit.”
“That’s what I believed,” said Frank. “I told them this was what NASA had been planning to study for years, but was told that the government didn’t have enough funds.”
“But asteroids don’t come along everyday,” commented Dermot. “Besides, I doubt it would have cost billions of dollars to send a probe to the asteroid, or did they forget that a space shuttle had recently been to more-than-observe the asteroid?”
Dermot then looked at Clint curiously, as if seeking confirmation that the shuttle had actually been to save the Earth from the asteroid, and that there was no cover-up.
“Everything that you’ve heard about the shuttle mission happened,” Clint told him.
“I emphasised the shuttle mission to him,” said Frank. ”But they clearly wanted the case closed. When I asked why, I was told that NASA had already viewed an asteroid, and that money had to be deferred for other projects elsewhere.”
“Like Iraq and Afghanistan, I suppose?” Arthur chipped-in.
“I suspected all along that this was no ordinary asteroid,” Frank confessed. “The speed the asteroid was traveling at, the fact that it altered it’s speed on a handful of occasions. I thought there was something very peculiar about the asteroid, and I think someone in high-office also suspected something too. And before you ask, I’m not at liberty to say who.”
“Yes, but even taking in all these things, why would the state want to shoot you?” asked Arthur.
“Frank has become rather concerned over the last couple of days, after what had happened to Steve,” Clint then explained.
“You mean Dr di Pierri?” queried Dermot.
“Yes indeed,” replied Clint. “To be totally honest, I’ve become a bit concerned, too.”
“When you hear about a car bomb, the first thing you think of is that someone out there want’s to kill you,” said Frank. “I don’t consider the pentagon as terrorists, but with all that’s been going on recently, this could easily be made to look as an act of terrorism.”
“If this was terrorism we’d have heard about it by now, not only in Colorado but probably all over the world,” said Clint. “What is concerning is that we heard nothing, as though the whole matter was kept quiet.”
“Kept quiet by who?” asked Arthur. “The US government?”
“You said that this probably occurred at around the same time as the asteroid vanished?” Frank queried, to which Dermot nodded in confirmation. “I know Steve, and I believe that he would have asked for the case to be re-opened, when the asteroid was found to have disappeared.”
“And because someone senior wanted the case closed they had to do something to get Steve out of the picture, so to speak?” queried Arthur, who became very interested in the case.
“Precisely,” Frank replied.
“That’s not the end of the story either,” added Clint. “After we heard this, I tried to contact my ‘partner-in-crime’ on the shuttle last year, Corny.”
“And what did he have to say about Steve?” asked Dermot. “Had he heard about the incident?”
“I don’t know,” replied Clint. “I was informed by Corny’s daughter that he had recently been sent to Afghanistan.”
Dermot and Arthur looked at each other, though for different reasons; Dermot in astonishment while Arthur, who had been considering ‘spilling the beans’ himself was now becoming rather concerned at some people on Earth.
“Perhaps you can see why we’re so concerned?” Clint said to them. “I’ve been in the military all my life and have become used to battles, and the dangers of death just around the corner. So it’s not very often when I get worried about ‘invisible’ threats. But can you imagine how someone like Frank must feel all of a sudden?”
Arthur was considering telling the others about the whole matter, and