Spruance Del Curtin didn’t usually go down to IT to talk with Lou Corlin. But after Dr. Doorne had given him a totally new group of data sets, he wanted to talk to Lou where they’d have ready access to the heavy iron.
Especially if this is part of something that IT’s processing.
Lou was back in one of the big server rooms, busy at a terminal of some sort. He looked up as soon as Sprue walked in.
Lou’s dark eyebrows drew down in a scowl. “Who sent you back here? This area is supposed to be authorized personnel only.”
Sprue jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the corridor. “The girl out front said you were back here. She didn’t say anything about having to wait while she got you.” He pointedly didn’t add that he’d spent several minutes flattering her before asking Lou’s whereabouts, buttering her up so she’d be more likely to let him through.
“Dang, Julie’s brand new down here. You do realize you may have just gotten her in a whole lot of trouble, if Steffi comes around and finds you back here with me. These are supposed to be secure servers that handle sensitive information. They don’t even have direct Internet connections. If we have random people coming and going, we don’t have secure servers any more because someone could just help themselves to the data.”
“Crap. I didn’t realize it was that big a deal. I just wanted to ask you about some data Dr. Doorne was having me work on. The stuff she had been having me go through is pretty clearly demographic, and I think it has something to do with the pandemic. But this stuff is completely different. I mean, the fundamental structure of the data is different.” Sprue described some of the variables that he’d been working with.
“That sounds like astronomical data. The drives that came in from Mars on the Soryu must’ve finally cleared quarantine and been cleared–“
“Data from Mars? What would she be doing with that? I mean, she’s a radio astronomer, not a planetary geologist.”
“Hasn’t she told you anything about her work? She’s one of the principal researchers in a big study that’s using FSRA and the new radio array on Mars as a truly gigantic baseline radio telescope. It’s a really complicated thing that has to adjust for general and special relativity to pull all the data together, so her background in signals analysis is absolutely critical. They’re hoping to be able to detect objects further away than ever before, and thanks to the speed of light, that means further into the past. If they’re right, they may be able to sort the last echoes of the first few mintues after the Big Bang from the cosmic background radiation from the Big Bang itself, and determine if the universe is actually part of a multiverse of universes that interact at the quantum level.”
“Wow. That sounds pretty cool.”
“Which is why you’d better get out of here, now, if you don’t want to get kicked off all her projects with a big fat black mark on your permanent record. Come over to our module lounge after supper tonight and I’ll tell you more.”
Although Sprue didn’t like being dismissed, especially not by a clone of a member of the third astronaut selection group, he could tell that persisting would only risk attracting attention. So he took his leave as gracefully as he could manage, hoping it wasn’t too obvious just how intense a curiosity was burning inside his mind right now.