BASKING IN THE LIGHT
Jason Uhlrich mopped sweat from his brow with a soggy handkerchief.
“You’re doin’ fine,” said Edie Elgin, smiling brightly at him.
Sagging back in his desk chair, Professor Uhlrich asked, “How many more? I never realized there would be so many—”
“Two more interviews,” Elgin said. “Science International and then Selene University’s news bureau.”
Uhlrich nodded. “Do I look all right?” he asked. He felt limp, exhausted. He had lost count of the reporters who had interviewed him during this long, wearying day. In the morning, when they had started, Uhlrich had felt fresh and eager, happy to explain to his interviewers the importance of the discoveries he had made about Sirius C.
Now, after a whole day of answering the same tired questions, many of them dealing with trivial matters of personality, he wished they would all go away and leave him alone.
Be strong, he told himself. Some of these interviews will be watched by the Nobel committee. Be positive, be charming, be knowledgeable. Let them see you as you would be on the stage in Stockholm, accepting the prize.
Edie Elgin broke into his thoughts. “You’ll be talking to Patricia Seery, of Science International. They’re the absolutely biggest science-oriented news organization on Earth and she’s one of their top interviewers.”
Uhlrich nodded again as he brushed his fingers across his tactile screen. In his mind he saw a beefy-faced woman of stern expression. No nonsense. Strictly business.
With a nod, he said, “I am ready.”
He had no tactile image of Edie Egin’s face, so Uhlrich had to compose her features based on audio input alone. She sounded fresh and vivacious. His visual cortex drew an image of a young flaxen-haired student he had known in his earliest years as a teacher, back when he himself was a young and too-shy lecturer, long before he had lost his eyesight.
“Here’s Patricia Seery,” Elgin said softly.
Looking into his desktop screen with his sightless eyes, Uhlrich put on a smile and murmured, “Ms. Seery.”
“Professor Uhlrich.” Seery’s voice was girlishly high, a strange divergence from the image he’d already formed of her.
“Before we begin,” she said, “I want to tell you how great an honor it is to interview you, sir. I think the work you’re doing is very exciting.”
“Why, thank you,” he replied, breaking into a genuine smile. “It’s very kind of you to say so.”
“Now then,” her tone hardened, “the discoveries you’re claiming to have made about New Earth are based on a single observation. Don’t you think your announcement was premature, to say the least?”
Stunned by her change of attitude, Uhlrich stammered, “No … not at all. I … that is, we … my assistant and I … we decided to release the findings at once because … because they were so … so … important.”
“You wanted to claim priority of your discovery, didn’t you?”
Straightening in his chair, Uhlrich said, “The discovery of an Earthlike atmosphere on an Earth-sized exoplanet is important enough to warrant immediate disclosure.”
“Before anybody else could make the same discovery and cloud your claim to be first,” Seery said.
Bristling, Uhlrich snapped, “No other astronomical facility on Earth—in the entire solar system—could duplicate the results of our hundred-meter telescope!”
“So there’s no way that your claim can be independently verified, is there?”
“The data speaks for itself!” Uhlrich insisted. “We are preparing a full report, which will include the details of the telescope’s specifications, its capabilities. Detecting oxygen and water vapor on Sirius C is well within our telescope’s power.”
“But according to the astrophysicists I’ve talked with, that planet can’t have any atmosphere at all, let alone such an Earthlike one. Any atmosphere that New Earth once had would’ve been boiled away when Sirius B went nova, eons ago.”
Sucking in a deep breath, Uhlrich commanded himself to stay calm. Remain tranquil, he reminded himself. Do not let her upset your composure.
Measuredly, he replied, “My dear Ms. Seery, the astrophysicists have their theories. I have actual observations. Sirius C has an atmosphere. An atmosphere very much like our own Earth’s. How this can be so is unknown, as yet. But it is so. There is no doubt of it.”
“You may have no doubt of it, Professor, but—”
“No buts! I have the data. I have published the data for all the world to study and examine. I am in the process of writing a complete report that will allow scientists everywhere to see what I have done and how I have done it. There is no question about it. Sirius C is an Earth-sized planet with an Earthlike atmosphere. When Farside Observatory completes construction of its two additional hundred-meter telescopes, we will be able to obtain imagery of the planet’s surface. I have no doubts that we will see oceans of liquid water and green, chlorophyll-based plant life. Sirius C truly is a New Earth.”
He sensed the interviewer smiling at him. “Thank you, Professor Uhlrich. That was wonderful.”
His brows rising, Uhlrich asked, “That’s it? That’s all you want to ask?”
“That’s plenty,” Seery replied. “Great interview. Thank you, sir.”
He slumped back in his chair, suddenly drained of all his energy.
“We’re clear,” Edith Elgin said. “You did fine, Professor. Terrific. I like that spark in your—”
“EMERGENCY,” the overhead speakers blared. “AIR PRESSURE DROP IN MIRROR LAB. EVACUATE MIRROR LAB AT ONCE.”