¡ Chapter Uno !
H.A.I.K.U Lab
Hawaii Astronomy Institute - Keebler University
Mauna Kea Volcano
The Big Island, Hawaii
Josh was not a Jew. He made that abundantly clear to anyone brave enough to ask for clarification. His last name was Jew. He was Irish Catholic. The family surname had been Hugh back in the old country. Thanks to a speech impediment on his great-great-grandfather’s part and an Ellis Island official with a cruel sense of humor, the family name was changed to Jew. The ID badge on his lab coat read only Josh. He had covered up the last name with an Eric Cartman sticker.
Like it or not, he was a Jew. Ironically enough, he was a Jew because his mother was a Jew. He could have excused it, if his father had been a Jew. Instead, he secretly loathed his mother for not having the decency to marry his biological father and spare him a lifetime of torment. It didn’t even have to be his father, it could have been anyone. Anyone. He would have gladly been a Lee, or a Stevens, or even a Switarski. Anything but Jew. His grade school counselor had told him he was a self-hating Jew, proving that one could be right, even if their reasoning were wrong.
Secretly, he hoped that was the case with his current problem. Josh didn’t care if his reasoning was wrong, as long as he was ultimately right. He crunched the numbers again, for the fourth time that day. His shift at the observatory was long over and his presence was making the other grad students nervous.
He was sure. Beyond sure. The data bore out his suspicions. There were objects amassing on the outer rim of the Milky Way, moving objects. The measurements spit out by the computer and quadruple checked by Josh and his roommate, Warren, clearly showed detectable masses entering the galaxy from the Magellan Exo Galaxy.
The formation of stars was nothing new in the Large and Small Magellanic clouds. The outer lying galaxy was a hotbed of star birth, had been since its discovery. The masses reflected in the data were anomalous for two reasons. They were smaller than the tiniest of growing stars and they were moving, fast. Six separate surveys of the same control subset tracked the movement and distance of the objects.
Most people imagine the larger observatories to be giant telescopes aimed at the skies above, constantly monitoring outer space. Some are giant telescopes. Others are made up of laser arrays, infrared technology, sonic radio monitoring, signal transmission and more. The only thing all the observatories on Mauna Kea had in common were their dwindling budgets. Technology of that magnitude was incredibly expensive to operate. Many of the leaseholders on the dormant volcano were forced to enter into multinational co-op agreements to keep the lights on and the lenses pointed upward.
The HAIKU observatory was operated by Keebler University through generous grants from the governments of Northern Ireland, Uruguay and Morocco. The 'scope was currently sizing up a distant star in the southern hemisphere. The star was the focal point of the Sansa constellation, a constellation recently "discovered" by a Yale undergrad and named for a female character from the Game of Thrones TV show. The show, not the book, the nerdy Yalie hadn't even read the book and still felt compelled to name his "discovery" after the red-haired daughter of Eddard Stark.
Whatever happened to misanthropes attempting regicide to impress Jodie Foster? Josh refused to acknowledge the new constellation and used air quotes whenever speaking of it. Constellations were derived to segment the night sky and provide easy direction towards specific fields of view. Thanks to the internet, amateur astronomers everywhere were able to play connect the dots on GoogleSky™ and claim to have discovered a new constellation.
