Fallen Masters Read Free Page B

at that awkward age, you know.”
    “Oh, I know all about awkward, Mr. President.”
    POTUS laughed. “See, that’s why I want you to visit us. You’re down to earth for such a big celebrity.”
    “Well, I can now say the same of you, sir.”
    POTUS hung up the phone and thought how such beauty could coexist with such sadness in the world. And how one voice singing in the darkness had a way of lighting the way. He hoped that this thought would sustain him as he dealt with the crisis in Turkey.

CHAPTER
    4
    Johnson Space Center, Houston
    Dr. Jason Chang, a trim, middle-aged Asian-American, had been a space shuttle astronaut in the late 1990s and early 2000s, having logged more than sixty days in space. He had gained fame during one spacewalk when, as he and a fellow NASA astronaut had been repairing the shuttle’s exterior, a freak accident occurred. A piece of space junk severed the other man’s all-important EVA line and he had risked his own life to save his colleague.
    No longer an astronaut, Chang was now one of the premier astrophysicists, not only in NASA but in the entire world. He was the “go to guy” for any anomaly, from errant asteroids to black holes, from star nurseries to black matter.
    Dr. Chang put double cream and double sugar in his coffee as he looked at galaxy cluster Abell 2744, nicknamed Pandora’s Cluster. The presentation pieced together the cluster’s complex and violent history using telescopes in space and on the ground, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, the Japanese Subaru telescope, and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The slides were time sequenced with one second representing twenty-four hours.
    “Whoa,” Chang said. He moved the presentation back by two months, then reviewed it again, this time taking as long as thirty seconds with each frame. After that, he did a quick calculation.
    “Craig,” he said. “What is the redshift of Pandora’s Cluster?”
    Dr. Craig Walcott laughed. “What are you doing, Jason? Testing me? It is z equal to 0.308.”
    “Uh-uh,” Chang said. “Take a look at this.”
    Craig looked at the figures, then at the screen, then at the figures again. “Wait a minute,” he said, “0.512? This can’t be right.”
    “Run them yourself.”
    “No, I wouldn’t question you. I mean you are the—” Dr. Walcott stopped in midsentence and reran the figures. “Damn,” he said. “I don’t understand this. Did we make a mistake with the first calculations?”
    Chang moved to another computer, tapped in a few keys, then brought up the initial photos of Pandora’s Cluster. He ran the figures on that. “ Z equals 0.308,” he said.
    “Abell 2744 has not almost doubled its distance from us in twenty years. That’s impossible,” Craig said.
    “What time is it in Moscow?”
    Craig looked up at the array of clocks on the wall. “Sixteen thirty,” he said. “You’re going to call Dr. Kolnikov?”
    “Yes. I have a theory about this, but I want to run it by him first.”
    Chang initiated the call, then after a moment said, “Dmitri?”
    “Jason, my friend, it is good to hear from you. How is young John? Are you still raising him to be a cosmonaut?”
    “Astronaut,” Dr. Chang said. “We raise astronauts in America.”
    “Ah, indeed.”
    “Dmitri, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to take a look at Abell 2744 and give me the redshift.”
    “ Z equals 0.308.”
    “Is that your calculation from the latest photos?”
    “Why do you ask?”
    “Please, just take a look at the latest photos and do a new calculation. I’ll wait.”
    “Very well,” Kolnikov said.
    While he waited, Chang took a swallow of his coffee, then made a face. “It’s grown cold,” he said.
    “I’ll get you another cup,” Craig offered.
    “You know how I like it?”
    “Yes, you like a little coffee with your cream and sugar.”
    As Chang held the phone, Walcott poured a new cup of coffee for him