Eden Rescue
Copyright© 2014 by Colin Barrett
Chapter 3
It was a matter of routine for the Space Exploration Service to record and chart all newly discovered novae. Not that there were so many of them, a nova is a rare event indeed and especially within the comparatively tiny realm of charted space.
Even so it would, to say the least, be an embarrassment if one of SES' exploratory ships were to emerge from worm space—the uncertain hyperspatial dimension through which they bypassed the limitations of the known universe to travel far faster than the speed of light itself—in the path of a known stellar explosion. And much more, of course, than an embarrassment to the putative vessel itself and its crew, which and who would be instantly destroyed.
Once Chen's nova had been confirmed (and that soon became its formal name, "Chen's nova"; St. Jean had been right that its first observer's name would be commemorated), SES began its calculations. Computerization made the process quite rapid; within hours they were complete and the bureaucrats could breathe a collective sigh of relief. No new expeditions would pass anywhere close to either the star itself or within range of its sphere of destruction.
At that point the agency's interest evaporated. It simply cordoned off the comparatively small sector of space adjacent to the nova to ensure that the area wouldn't be visited and forgot about the whole thing.
For the astronomical community, however, the nova was of enduring interest. Partly that was because of its comparative proximity to Earth, offering the hitherto unparalleled opportunity for close-up (relatively speaking) study of such a rare phenomenon, partly because it was so recently discovered, and partly just because anything unusual—and it was certainly that—invites such interest. Scholars in the field, especially those in academia seeking publication attributions to bolster their credentials in search of tenure, vied to be first to identify detailed attributes of the bright new star in Earth's firmament.
It was one Callista Nguyen who first set in print her surprising finding about alignment of the magnetic and geographic poles of Chen's nova. But she somewhat missed the real significance; only in pre-publication peer review of her analysis did St. Jean recognize what it might mean. After somewhat contentious discussions the two women agreed that co-authorship of the paper was acceptable to both, and it was so published.
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