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

was, don't you?" Frank then asked him. "It was travelling at speeds we could never have imagined. And on top of that, it’s speed reduced more than once."
"But we thought that happened when it approached the Kuyper belt and the asteroid belt," said Steve.
"Come on Steve, no ordinary asteroid could travel at the speeds that asteroid travelled at, you know that," Frank replied. "And no ordinary asteroid would have disappeared like that one."
"Even if it had exploded into millions of tiny pieces, we would have noticed it on Earth," added Clint. "Instead it just disappeared, never to be seen again."
Frank then recalled that Arthur had said he saw a similar asteroid in the inner asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and told Clint and Steve so.
"You don't suppose that's the same one?" asked Steve.
"I don't know, I don't know," said Frank. "What I will say is that we shouldn't discount this. All this may sound weird, but Copernicus was laughed at when he proposed the Earth revolved around the sun, and Galileo was disowned by the church."
"I accept that, but surely, if you informed some official body about this, they would have taken the matter a lot more seriously than the church may have done four hundred years ago," Steve insisted.
At this point, Clint and Frank looked at each other, each unsure whether to inform Steve of what else they were suspicious of.
"Are you two having me on?" Steve asked. "Or is there something else I should know?"
Frank and Clint looked at each other again, to which Clint nodded to Frank, as if to gesture to let Steve know.
"This is confidential information," Frank then told Steve. "This is to remain secret, between the three of us."
"You know me, Frank, I'm not the sort of person to devolve anything confidential," Steve replied.
"You recall I took early retirement last year?" Frank then said to Steve. "Well that wasn't actually my intention."
"What are you saying, Frank?" Steve asked him curiously.
"I was 'offered' to retire," said Frank. "I was given an offer I couldn't turn down. And when I signed on the dotted line, I was asked to close the case on the asteroid."
"I thought it seemed odd you retired with such short notice," said Steve. "I thought it was odd when you closed the asteroid case, too. Who said this to you?"
"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say," Frank told him.
Steve then thought about this all for a few moments.
"Are you trying to tell me that someone senior, somewhere, tried to get rid of me?" he asked.
"We're not trying to incriminate anyone, but we'll let you draw your own conclusions," Clint replied.
"But no-one else has been attacked, or blown to smithereens," Steve stated.
"That's probably because you're the only person who tried to re-open the case," Clint told him. "Besides, someone else here has been targeted."
"You mean to say one of you was shot at?" an astounded Steve queried. "When was this?"
"You were in hospital at the time, but you must have heard about an attempted assassination of the Governor of California, at the convention earlier this year," Clint told him, at which point he turned to Frank.
"It was me the assassin was after," Frank confessed.
"How did you work that one out?" asked Steve, at which point Frank and Clint looked at one another.
"Arthur told us," said Frank.
"Is this the guy from outer space again?" Steve queried. "I suppose he could see the assassin up on the stanchion, or wherever he was, and used his Darth Vader force to bring the assassin down."
"Pretty much," said Clint.
"I think we've said too much about this case already," Frank then suggested. "I'd appreciate it if you kept this to yourself please. Is that okay Steve?"
"That's fine by me," he replied
"So, tell me, how are you feeling to be out of hospital?" Frank asked him.
"Great," said Steve. "I was treated well in there, but I did get fed up in the end, just lying around all day long."
"It looked a pretty good hospital," commented Clint. "Presumably it was private."
"Oh yeah," said Steve. "At least my life assurance hasn't been wasted."
"Will you be going back to NASA when you're back on your own two feet once again?" asked Frank.
"Probably, but in what capacity I don't know," said Steve. "I don't see as there'd be any problem picking up from where I left off, but I'm not really sure I want to go and do the same thing."
"Perhaps this is an opportunity for you to diversify, to move somewhere else, into another field perhaps?" Clint suggested.
"To be honest, after what you two have been telling me, I'm not too sure I want to go back to Houston, to tell you the truth," Steve admitted. "The thing is, it's not just my life that would be affected if we moved away."
"Do you think Laura would mind?" asked Frank. "How about your children?"
"Well that's just it," said Steve. "I'm pretty sure Laura would quite like to move to somewhere like this, and to get away from Texas. We don't want to disrupt our children's education, though especially at such an important stage."
"Do you still hear from colleagues at NASA?" asked Frank.
"Quite a few people came to visit early on, but Robert's the only person who came to visit me regularly," said Steve.
"How is Rob these days?" Clint asked.
"Rob's fine," said Steve. "He was covering my role while I was in hospital."
"How has the new Astronomer-in-chief, Dr Ferguson, been?" asked Frank. "We didn't get to see much of him at the convention."
"Dr Ferguson seems okay," said Steve. "He came to visit me once, though he didn't stay long. Rob invited him along once or twice but apparently he was too busy.”
"Dr Ferguson seemed okay," said Clint.
"Have either of you heard anything from Corny recently?" asked Steve, at which point Clint and Frank looked at each other again. "He hasn't been shot or blown up, has he?"
"Not as far as we're aware," Clint added. "Last time I rang his number, I was informed that he'd been sent to Afghanistan."
"When was this?" asked Steve.
"About four months ago," said Clint. "It was while we were at the convention."
"Shouldn't he be back by now?" Steve queried. "I've got his number somewhere on me, I'll give him a ring. I used to contact him before my ’accident’."
Steve rang Cornelius’ number on his mobile. Corny's daughter answered the call. She recognized Steve’s voice, even though she hadn’t heard from him for a while. When he asked about her father however, she told Steve that he had been requested to remain in Afghanistan for a few more months. She didn’t seem too sure what was going on, but suspected something, somewhere.
After Steve wished her well and finished the call, he told this to Clint and Frank, who each seemed pessimistic. Before they said anymore about the matter, Frank brought up the new business once again, in order to change the subject.
Frank was feeling ever-confident about the new business, and had a few people in mind for some roles. He wanted an engineer, preferably someone young and with a view to combating global warming, at which point Steve mentioned that a couple of engineers may be made redundant at NASA.
"Why's that?" asked Frank.
"I don't know really, I only heard this from Rob a couple of weeks ago," admitted Steve.
"It probably has something to do with the credit crunch," speculated Clint.
"He's right, you know," said Frank. "Even NASA will be affected by financial constraints at a time like this."
"Aren't you a bit apprehensive, starting a new business in a recession?" asked Steve.
"To be honest, I haven't had time to think about the current financial situation," Frank admitted. "The business won't begin to take off until next year anyway, as the factory has to be completed and positions to be formalised and filled first. Say, aren't you considering diverging from your current role?"
"I am considering what I should do next, but I don't think I'm cut-out to be a car manufacturer," Steve replied.
"I never really thought of you as shop floor staff," Frank chuckled. "No, I thought you might fancy something like a production analyst. Even before we can start to consider vehicle production, we first need to analyse the market, where we can get the best sales, what types of models have the biggest demand, which sort of society would most want an environmentally-friendly vehicle."
"We don’t have the best environmental record in the world," Clint reminded him.
"You've analysed plenty of data over the years," Frank emphasised to Steve. "This should be right up your street."
"I'll have a little think about it," Steve replied politely.
"Well if you're considering quitting NASA and looking for something to keep you going, just let me know," Frank told him.
“Do you really think the American public will want to purchase new environmentally-friendly vehicles during a recession?” asked Steve.
"They should do. They have to," said Frank. “Above all else though, if we have the Governor of California to advertise our product, I’m sure we’ll receive plenty of orders for the new vehicles.”
“I wish I had your optimism,” Clint sighed.
"Are you due to receive compensation for what you suffered?" Frank then asked Steve.
"I have a lawyer on the case, but quite frankly, pardon the pun, I don't have a lot of confidence in the matter," Steve confessed.
"Why's that?" asked Frank.
"The thing is, no-one's been caught for the incident," said Steve.
"Surely there must be a CCTV at the car park where the incident occurred?" queried Clint
"Surely you should be entitled to something," said Frank. "Even if the FBI can't find the perpetrator, you should be entitled to something as what happened was a terrorist action."
"Unfortunately, I don't think the Texas state authorities see it like that," Steve told him. "It seems that there were no suspicious movements captured on the CCTV, so there's nothing to go on."
"Surely the local police should have raised this case on TV, to ask for any witnesses who may have recalled seeing someone or something unusual," Frank insisted.
"I don't really know," said Steve. "All I know is that Rob said he couldn't remember seeing anything about the case on TV. No cops came to see me in hospital."
"'Sounds dodgy to me," Clint commented. "I think you'd be best to lye low for a while."
"On reflection, I think I will," said Steve. “Hey, Frank you know what, you sound several years younger,” Steve said to Frank. “You remind me of how you were years ago, when we were planning that venture to Mars. Before that asteroid came along.”
“Thanks,” said Frank "America is slowly coming round to the fact that increased pollution is creating an unfriendly and unsafe environment. If the temperatures increase at the current rate there will be catastrophic consequences - we're already seeing the effects."
Frank remembered a telephone conversation with Arthur, where he was told of the possible consequences to the planet if nothing was done to combat global warming. He then gave a brief lecture of this to Clint and Steve.
"It won't affect us in our lifetimes," said Clint, who had accepted that global warming could happen, but was still a little sceptical about it all.
"Even if it doesn't affect us, it will affect our children," Frank emphasised to him.
"With all due respects to both of you, I'll probably still be around when the worst affects take hold on the planet," said Steve.
"You could, you could indeed," confessed Frank. "The thing is, global warming is happening