Fighting Gravity (5 page)

I lost several minutes just staring at his back. He was a large man, shaved bald, his head shiny and purple-black. I stood for a long time waiting to be acknowledged. As the minutes passed, I began to fidget. “Sir?” I ventured.

He held up a hand. “One minute…”

I waited. Several minutes later he turned to me with a broad smile on his face, his teeth stark white against such dark skin. “So sorry about that, young man. Delicate measurements. I’m sure you’re familiar with that.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied, though I wasn’t.

“Well, I suppose you’re wondering why you’re here,” he continued. “But introductions first. I’m Adom Okoro.” He offered his hand. I shook it, bemused.

“Jacob Dawes, sir.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He turned back and searched around on the table behind him for something. Picking up and discarding several tablets, he—with an exclamation of “Aha!”—found the one he wanted and handed it to me.

“You recognize that, I assume?”

On the tablet I found the equations and scribbles that Dr. Noh had confiscated from me the day before. “Yes, sir,” I said, hanging my head to convey the proper contrition, but inside I felt a rush of relief that they had been saved somewhere. I tried to calculate how long it would take me to send them to my desk and if that would be fast enough that he wouldn’t have a chance to stop me. It was frustrating and confusing that this should be coming up yet again, and from someone I didn’t even know. “I was doing this during class time instead of working on my assignment. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Well, I’m not. That’s interesting stuff you’ve got there, young man. How did you come up with this?”

I hesitated. I had no idea what was going on. “In Dr. Laan’s class we were learning about the properties of light. So then in the next hour, when Dr. Noh was teaching us new equations, well, it looked like they could apply to the things I’d been thinking about since the physics lesson. I just started jotting down my ideas…”

He was grinning, and I didn’t understand why. “Is this as far as you’ve gone with it, or do you have more elsewhere?”

“I…I just did this in class yesterday. I’ve been thinking about it, but haven’t had the time to research any of this yet. So is it right, then? Is this how it really works?”

“Is what right?”

“This.” I pointed to the tablet. “What Dr. Laan showed us about light waves, does it mean this is true? Or is it wrong?”

He stared at me for a long moment. “Are you asking me if your theory here is correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

He leaned back and laughed. “I don’t know. I’d like to know the answer to that, myself.”

“Sir?” A moment before, I’d been sure I was here to be scolded, even punished again. Now he was laughing and asking me questions about my scribbles. I didn’t understand.

“Mr. Dawes, what you’ve got here is a fascinating view of how light waves react. If you follow this line of reasoning, the logical end of this string of equations, well, if it pans out the way you’ve theorized, it would represent a major discovery in the understanding of the physics of light. I don’t know if you’re right. Nobody does. But I’m very interested in what you’ve got there. I’d like to test this theory and see where it goes.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied. My head was spinning and I didn’t know what kind of response he was looking for, but silence seemed rude.

“Of course, there are your studies to consider. I was a student here as well, once upon a time,” he winked at me, “so I know that’s not an insignificant consideration. You haven’t been here but a few weeks, so you’ll still have quite a bit of settling in to do, perhaps still catching up on the workload. Hmmmm… We’ll have to consider the timing.” He almost looked disappointed.

“Why, sir?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t understand. What does my schoolwork have to do with this?”

“Well, young man, no matter how fascinating your theory, I can’t get you excused from your studies.”

“I...still don’t understand, sir.”

He gave me a long, considering look. “I see. Perhaps you don’t realize how seriously we take the concept of intellectual property.”

I didn’t know the term, so I said nothing.

“This is your work, your idea, and it belongs to you. If I were to pursue this theory myself, it would be considered stealing. No one has the right to pursue this theory now but you. I find your ideas fascinating, but I wouldn’t dream of doing the experiments necessary to explore them without you.”

I felt weak in the knees. It was too much to process. My scribbles, the product of only one of the many ideas that floated through my head, had been picked up by a physics fellow at the Imperial Intellectual Complex and he wanted to research them. He called my ideas fascinating. I almost couldn’t breathe.

“I can do it, sir! I can get my homework done and then be here every night after dinner.”

He gave me a searching look. “Are you sure about this? Because it’s quite a commitment you’re making. You should take some time to think about the matter—”

“I don’t need time to think about it.” I bit my lips together, hoping he wasn’t angry, but he didn’t appear to notice.

“Well, we could always give it a try and stop if it becomes too much for you.” He grinned. “In that case, let’s discuss how we’re going to go about this. We’ll need to start by hammering out our hypothesis…” He laughed. “I’m so excited I’ve already forgotten to be sensible. Your homework for this evening, you’ll need to take care of that first.”

“It’s finished,” I said in a rush.

He stopped and looked at me, frowning. I felt myself flushing with shame for the lie. “Mr. Dawes,” he said, “if we’re to work together, I need to be able to trust you. Can I expect to be able to do that?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”

“All right, then,” he said, patting my shoulder. “Go finish your work for the evening. Tomorrow, after your homework is done, if it isn’t curfew yet, come find me and we’ll see what we can accomplish.”

I perked up. “Yes, sir! I’ll get it all done before dinner.”

He squeezed my shoulder and smiled. “Take as long as you need. If we don’t have time tomorrow or even the rest of this week, there’s always the weekend. Now, run along and get your work done. I’ll see you tomorrow if all goes well.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir!” I hurried out the door and back to my room in full defiance of gravity—I’m sure my feet never touched the ground.

-

With the promise of uninterrupted time in the lab with Dr. Okoro as the reward for my focus and productivity, homework was no obstacle. Most days, I finished it before the dinner bell. When I hadn’t, I would take my homework with me to the lab. It always got done at some point.

The very first evening we worked together, Dr. Okoro asked me about my previous experience with lab work. When I told him, he stared at me.

“Never? You’ve never worked in a lab before? Never done any practical or applied work in any scientific subject?”

It didn’t seem so astonishing to me. I was only eight, and until a few weeks before, I had lived in a place where I couldn’t even count on having electricity.

“No, sir. Never.”

“Didn’t your parents and teachers know about your interests, and your potential? Didn’t they encourage your talents and help you pursue your education?”

I chuckled. I couldn’t help it. The thought of either of my parents—or in fact, anyone from my old neighborhood—even setting foot in a lab was too absurd. “No, sir. I’m from Abenez.”

He gasped. “Abenez?”

“Yes, sir.”

He looked at me with pity on his face, and I turned away to hide my anger. He’d been kind to me as no other adult here had, but his reaction birthed a fear that he too would prejudge me, reject me, for something so meaningless as the place of my birth.

“Then I’m even more grateful that you’re here now, Mr. Dawes.”

My chest filled with happiness and I returned to my work, smiling.

fg
6

At first, Dr. Okoro was scrupulous about the rules. He would set an alarm to remind me to go back to my room in time for curfew. But as our project progressed, he grew lax, sometimes ignoring the alarm or forgetting to set it altogether. When this would happen, he would record an authorization for me so that I wouldn’t be penalized for missing curfew. Sometimes the Head of Dormitories wasn’t in the mood to honor the authorization, but on those occasions I took my punishment without complaint and kept Dr. Okoro in the dark.

Dr. Okoro turned out to be single-minded in the pursuit of his science. I soon learned the reason for the blanket on the couch. We often worked late into the night, taking turns napping on the couch when our enthusiasm made it seem reasonable to push past the body’s need for actual sleep.

One night I was already fighting my drooping eyelids when he said, “I’m not sure this is going to work. Hansen would roll over in his grave if he saw this.”

“Hansen?”

Dr. Okoro looked at me as if he’d forgotten I was there. He grinned and ruffled my hair. “Hansen, Hansen’s Law of Thermodynamics. If he’s correct—and he’s been correct for centuries—this is impossible. We’ll be generating too much heat in too small an area.”

I was a bit groggy at that point, so ignoring everything I should have known about thermodynamics seemed like a sensible option. “Not if we increase the conductive properties of the medium. It’s easy, if you do that thing you were talking about with that Lavin theory.”

He chuckled. “That was an entirely unrelated discussion. Lavin’s theories have no bearing on…” he trailed off into silence, his eyes unfocused and staring off into nothing. “Lavin’s…well, yes, that is…of course. Well of course!” He scooped me up in a hug. My feet dangled off the floor.

“Why that’s just brilliant, Jacob. Brilliant! You’re right, if you think about it…”

His words began to blend together, as they often did when he got completely absorbed in what he was thinking; he seemed to forget his mouth was even operating.

I tingled all over in the aftermath of his hug, pinging with more emotion than my body could contain. I wasn’t tired anymore. I couldn’t have slept then had my life depended on it.

-

Dr. Okoro and I worked together on the project for eight months. I devoted the majority of my spare time to our research. Only sports with Chuck and time with Kirti could lure me away. Dr. Okoro would encourage me to spend more time in recreational pursuits, but never objected when I showed up at the lab instead.

We were colleagues, comrades, partners in crime. I came to love that kind, brilliant man with all the thwarted affection I’d never given to my father.

One afternoon when he realized I was skipping one of the infrequent class trips into the nearby town, Dr. Okoro reached over and patted my cheek.

“Get out of here and go do something else for a change, son, the universe will still be here when you get back.”

The Earth stopped spinning, my heart felt like it would burst out of my chest. Maybe there were other things in life more important, more significant than being called “son” by a man like Dr. Okoro, but I couldn’t think of any.

-

Before my ninth birthday we brought the project to a close. My ideas, and the hypothesis we formed from them, had proven themselves in experiment after experiment. The resulting new theorem had led to the development of a new kind of laser device. It created more compact beams which emitted less energy as heat than any laser previously invented, by quite a significant margin.

Our discoveries and invention were to be presented to the Physics Committee. Dr. Okoro spent at least a week teaching me how to structure a presentation, and practicing his delivery.

But when we stood before the Committee and were told to begin, Dr. Okoro turned to me. “Jacob. You may proceed.” I stood stock still in panic for only a second before locking my knees and launching into his prepared talk. I guess I had realized that his plan all along had been for me to present my own discoveries, but he had hidden it from me so that I wouldn’t have time to be nervous.

The looks on the faces of the assembled scientists were disapproving, as if they assumed this was some sort of stunt; a waste of their time. But as I spoke, they became attentive, even interested. I know I wasn’t in any way impressive in my delivery, but I’ve since observed that many scientists are not orators, and some are downright incomprehensible before a crowd. I did as well as many.

By the end they seemed to have forgotten my age. They posed question after question, and I could answer most of them. After the presentation, none of them could question whether I had been an equal partner in the research and development.

Next we presented to the entire membership of the IIC. The final presentation, held in one of the auditoriums in the main building, was exhilarating. Afterward, there was a reception with VIPs, where Dr. Okoro and I were congratulated and our work was celebrated. It was there that Director Kagawa asked Dr. Okoro what he planned to call his new laser device.

“The Dawes Laser,” was Dr. Okoro’s answer. My mouth fell open. Director Kagawa’s nearly did.

“You can’t be serious,” he protested. “It’s not fitting to name an important new invention after a student.”

Dr. Okoro bristled. “When it is
his
theory and
his
invention, then I’d say it is more than fitting to apply
his
name to it.”

“But it was not his work alone!”

“It was his discovery. I merely assisted him,” Dr. Okoro insisted.

I half believed that Dr. Okoro had only come up with the name in order to vex the director, and that we would call it something different in the end. I was wrong. The Dawes Theory of Stimulated Emissions and the Dawes Laser were officially recorded, and would remain my most well known accomplishments for many years to come.

-

My success and the resultant fame of my accomplishments improved my reputation at the IIC and therefore my treatment, though not with everyone and not as much as might be expected. Dr. Noh, who had already been neutral or better to me since Dr. Okoro showed interest in my scribbles, created some minor fame for herself as having been the one to first recognize the potential of my idea. She gushed over me, favoring me to a degree that made me wish she still disliked me.