Lightship Effect
Dr. Warren Burch and Dr. Sydney Egerton, professors of astrophysics and astronomy, longtime friends and colleagues, strolled past a line of buildings that housed classrooms and various other facilities of the Jodrell Bank science center complex. Off to their right, perched on its pure-white metal latticework and immense leg-like struts, rose the massive seventy-six-meter diameter Lovell radio telescope framed by a stunning orange-red sky and pink-tipped cobblestone clouds. They could glimpse the sun as it glimmered on the horizon between some trees. Shadows expanded, and a cool breeze swirled fallen autumn leaves.
Dr. Burch, stocky and of medium height, dug his fists into his jacket pockets. He tried not to let on how worried he was. “Sydney, perhaps you should consider taking a vacation,” he said.
Dr. Egerton smiled. He stretched out his long arms and breathed deeply. He was tall and lean and wearing a pale-blue cardigan. He didn’t appear to care about the chilly air. “Such a beautiful place,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed working here.”
They turned onto the asphalt roadway that led directly to the MERLIN Observing Rooms and the Lovell control room buildings. There was a faint electric smell to the air with an undercurrent aroma of wood-smoke and damp vegetation. The Lovell towered ahead of them, pointing straight up like an incredibly huge bowl atop a lacy geodesic hemisphere; it was a dark silhouette now as the twilight spread.
Burch furrowed his brows, pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “Are you thinking of leaving?” he asked. His heart pounded. Professor Sydney Egerton had been his closest friend for thirty-five years, satisfying all the cliches; best-man at his wedding, godfather to his children, colleague, co-researcher, confidant. But in the last few months, during the past few weeks, it seemed something changed. His friend had always been a loner, and never married, but lately Egerton seemed more introverted and insulated, less connected to the environment around him, less concerned with accuracy and the intense, daily minutiae of their work.
Egerton stepped in a jaunty way, his hands now in his pants pockets, a grin on his face. “Not sure,” he said. “Can’t really say,” he added.
Burch stopped and reached out an arm, bringing the other to a halt as well. “Seriously?”
He patted Burch on one shoulder, and continued walking at a slow pace, waiting until the other joined him before saying, “We’ve been studying pulsars and neutron stars for many years.”
“Yes…..” Burch answered. “And teaching at Manchester and Cambridge, as well.”
“Have you ever considered that you all, we all, might be completely wrong in our suppositions?”
“Not really, Sid. We’ve been building on a world-wide database, using the most advanced tools and theoretical models of physics, of science.”
All the buildings were alight, and the various radio dishes were illuminated. The Lovell looked like an exquisite and arcane carnival ride, with the spots shining and its infrastructure and framework gleaming in the dusk.
“Yes, I know, but what if, just what if….” He paused and turned to face his friend. They were in front of the entrance to the control room building, where they had been given permission to work for the next several hours. “Suppose everything we think we know about pulsars, isn’t correct. Neutron stars do exist, of course. But wouldn’t it be amazing if our lighthouse analogy for pulsars was closer to the truth than any person on earth suspected!”
Burch glanced at the glass and metal door, then checked his watch. He adjusted his glasses once again. “Sid, I know you’re a science fiction fan….”
He chuckled. “Indeed I am,” he said.
“But I am not. The astounding things we’ve seen, we’ve discovered, we’ve heard from space; we’re turning fiction into reality! This is better than any fanciful work of speculation and imagination.”
Egerton tilted his angular head slightly to the side, in the way that usually indicated he was bemused by some mildly insulting or ignorant statement Burch had made. He sighed, and gazed up at the Lovell dish as it began to move once more. “Listen, Warren … suppose that pulsars really are vast and ancient lightships in space, constructed by technology so advanced from yours that even the most brilliant human minds will never be able to visualize or understand it. What if a neutron star could be harnessed given its small size, yes even with a mass one-hundred million million times as dense as lead. Even with a magnetic field one-million million times stronger than earth’s. Try to conceive of a twenty-kilometer-wide spinning ball of packed neutrons with the iron crust and the superfluid core rotating faster and faster, encased in electromagnetic gyres and vast rotating rings, and spheres inside spheres constructed to withstand the pressure, the radiant energy, the gravity….”
Burch removed his glasses, checked them in the semi-light, put them back on, carefully sliding the earpieces in place. “Sid, that’s nonsense,” he finally said. “Honestly, you can’t expect me to respond to this any other way….”
Egerton laughed lightly. He folded his arms loosely and stared down at his feet as he moved one shoe in an arc on the cement surface of the pavement. “Well, suppose that the bending of space and time — the way neutron stars warp space and affect time … could be utilized. Suppose that these space-lightships were the size of a city, and inhabited by the descendants of the beings that built them, for uncounted generations. Adapted to their environment and purpose, able to sense the winds and waves of space, the tides of dark-matter, dust and gas, radiation and plasma … able to detect anomalies…. Think of these space-lightships scattered through the known universe, sending out beams to warn any form of life intelligent enough to discover space travel. Like the old lightships and lighthouses on this world warned of shallows and shoals and reefs and dangerous currents…..”
“That’s fine, Sid. I’ve heard enough,” Burch interrupted. “We’re expected inside.” He avoided eye contact, and turned to walk towards the entrance.
“Wait, Warren,” Dr. Egerton called after him, his voice uncharacteristically heavy and emotional. “Wait, listen…. Hypothetically speaking, what if these space-lightships also warned of coming storms. Hurricanes and winter gales like the ones that often batter the British coast. Only these would be gamma-ray bursts, or monstrous stellar explosions, or hurtling black holes heading for inhabited worlds. I mean, if you were a member of a civil service organization, and got warning that an Atlantic storm was heading for the southern coast with over one-hundred mile-per-hour winds … what if your organization sent you to the coast ahead of time, to help the inhabitants prepare, to help them survive….”
Burch shivered. He faced the automatic glass door as it slid open. He felt cold inside, as if his bones were on ice. He suddenly had the urge to see Egerton’s face in the dimness, to perceive something in his old friend’s expression that would explain this sudden effusion of fancy, this completely unexpected and exceptional display. He started to turn, then quickly came completely around as he registered the fact that Egerton was gone. Burch remained grounded, frozen for a moment, then called, “Sid, Sid, where are you off to?” He swung to the right, expecting to see the back of Edgerton in front of the Visitor Centre. No one was there. He scanned the field across the road from the buildings. It seemed empty in the dark except for murky clumps of trees and dozing sheep.
He slowly confronted the control room building’s entrance once more, and noted a security guard and two staff members were heading in his direction. His mouth hung open. A kind of numbness rushed up his legs, into his belly, and shock made his ears ring. He glanced up, without thinking, at the massive telescope apparatus looming over the roof above him.
A crackling, bluish glow coiled around the spans and supports, then filled the huge dish like St. Elmo’s fire.
