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Chapter thirteen

Passionately Curious

Josh

“Have you chosen your path, Nati ?”

I gaze through the open window as night falls over Rusirani. A shimmering trail of stars leads off to the right of the ancient village while another path points toward the left. “Not yet, Nani . I don’t know which way I should go. I need your wisdom to guide me.”

“What did I tell you last time?” Grandmother turns me to face her, placing a hand on top of my chest. “The heart has its own wisdom. You must let it guide you towards your path.”

“But Father says I need to use my head,” I groan in frustration. “He says that the choices I make today may affect my entire future.”

A smile wrinkles the corners of her eyes. “Your father is right, in part. If you want to know what the future holds, simply look at the choices you make today. ‘As one acts, so does one become.’ Your deeds become your destiny. It is the Law of—“

“Karma!” I gasp. My lightning-storm dream flashes before my eyes, every detail vivid from start to finish. I remember Grandmother telling me that I would marry a prince, that I should search the stars for clues, that I must follow the law no matter where the road leads me. Real-life memories also flood my mind: Karma’s tattoos… our talk about poems and prophecies… the rumble of thunder on the North Quad. My mind swirls—forgotten dreams blending with actual events—making me question what is fact and what is fantasy.

“Pay attention, Child of Fire,” Nani warns me. “Consider your path, and remember to follow your heart.”

Lightning flashes across the night sky, lighting up the small Indian village. I jerk away from the window—

—to find myself sitting bolt upright in bed, the sun rising over Hannah Harbor. My heart pounds as I try to catch my breath. Grandmother’s words, both past and present, echo through my mind.

I scramble out of bed, all hope of sleep gone. I’ve got to get out of here. As I throw on some clothes and stuff books in my bag, one question repeats in my head.

What the heck is happening to me?

“The universe is expanding. You may ask, ‘ So what?’ What difference could that possibly make?“ Dr. Yoshida strides back and forth in front of the whiteboard as he speaks to us. “Why should an ant care if the forest is growing? Why would a fish in the Arctic Ocean wonder about changing currents in the Caribbean?”

A hand shoots into the air, and the head of the Cosmology department chuckles. “It was a rhetorical question. I’ll ask many of those this summer. I’m not looking for an answer—I’m simply encouraging you to ponder. It is the questions we ask that define us.”

Oh my god, this internship is going to be amazing! Six observation seasons by DES scientists have generated fifty terabytes of data. That’s fifty million megabytes! Dr. Yoshida will lead a small team of university students as we analyze some of that data, looking for clues to the nature of dark energy. I can hardly wait to get started!

“What do you hope to focus on during your internship, Charlotte?” The professor points to a graduate student with sandy-brown hair and freckles.

She looks at the rest of us, then clears her throat. “Um, well… my thesis is on gravitational lensing to measure the structure of dark matter.”

“Good, good,” Dr. Yoshida murmurs. “And you, Gabriel? What knowledge do you seek?”

A dark-haired student with glasses sits up straight in his chair. “I’m gathering dark energy data for my postdoctoral fellowship. My primary focus is on measurements of the cosmic microwave background.”

“Mmm, I see.” The professor offers him a faint smile before turning to the next student. “And you, Petra? What are you most interested in learning?”

The petite blonde answers, “I want to concentrate on the data management side of DES. I’m applying for a position at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory—you know, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope they’re building in Chile? It will use the world’s largest digital camera to conduct a 10-year survey of the sky. Over a petabyte of data will be collected every year.”

”A peta byte ? “ I yelp. Holy crap! That’s a thousand terabytes . Per year!

“That is a lot of data.“ Dr. Yoshida chuckles softly. “And what about you, Josh—what questions would you like to ask this summer? Which subject will you focus on?”

How could I possibly narrow down all of my questions to one subject? Dark energy, dark matter, more data than I could analyze in a lifetime… “I want to ask everything! Why, how, when, what if?” Question after question fills my mind, each more intriguing than the last.

A grin flashes briefly across the scientist’s face. “A man after my own heart. And what do you hope to gain after you’ve asked all of your questions?”

“Understanding,” I answer the cosmologist. That’s enough, isn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to grasp the secrets of the universe? To understand even the smallest cosmic question would be like ‘holding Infinity in the palm of my hand’ .

The professor sits down in the seat next to mine, his dark eyes studying me. “Yes, but how will you apply this knowledge, Josh?”

Oh. My stomach drops. The head of the Cosmology department probably expects the DES data to be put to good use. Why would he want to waste his time on an Aerospace Engineering student with a bunch of childish ‘hows’ and ‘what-ifs’ ? The other interns’ goals are serious and worthwhile.

“I’m just curious, Dr. Yoshida,” I say, sinking into my chair.

Crap. How much worse can this day get?

“Hey, Moonbeam,” Karma calls to me from the corner of the student writing center. He’s standing next to ‘our table’—there’s a notebook on it, along with a handful of heart-shaped chocolates and a single red rose.

Maybe today won’t be so bad, after all.

Memories of our moonlit walk in the park wash over me… the bubbling fountain, the romantic poem, our magical first kiss. “Moonbeam?” I ask as I join him in the cozy nook. “If I’m a moonbeam, does that make you the sea?”

He brushes his lips across mine. “Mmm… the Pacific, the Atlantic… I’ll be whichever one you want me to be.”

Good answer. Maybe I should ask him if I can go skinny-dipping.

Karma pulls out a chair, waiting while I take a seat in it before sitting sits down across from me. “How’s your day been?” he asks.

Oh, that. My shoulders slump. “I think I just lost my summer internship. I made such a fool of myself.” A rock settles into the pit of my stomach. Why did I say something so stupid?

He reaches for my hand, giving it a squeeze. “Oh, no. What happened?”

I shouldn’t have brought it up. Once Karma hears how awkward I am, he’ll probably dump me, too. “Oh, um… I kind of told the head of the Cosmology department—as well as the other interns—that the only thing I have to offer the team is basic curiosity. Could I have said anything more childish? They all must think I’m an idiot.” Tears well up in my eyes, and I duck my head to hide them.

Karma puts a finger under my chin and lifts it. “Curiosity isn’t a bad thing. Albert Einstein himself said, ‘I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.’ You wouldn’t call Einstein an idiot, would you?”

“Of course not,” I say, pulling a tissue out of my pocket and wiping my nose with it. “In fact, the DES project relies heavily on his work. Did you know that the cosmological constant—which Einstein called his biggest blunder—may, in fact, be true? It could explain a mysterious force called dark energy.”

He grabs a pen and pulls a notebook toward himself. “Dark energy? You mentioned that before. Can you tell me what it is?”

Hmm… I can tell him some scientific theories. “It seems to act like anti- gravity, drawing galaxies away from each other. Where gravity pulls things together, dark energy tugs them apart. Cosmologists believe that it accounts for over sixty-eight percent of space, and that dark matter accounts for another twenty-seven percent, though they’re both invisible to us. That leaves only a tiny fraction—less than five percent—for the things that are visible, like the trillions of stars in the observable universe. Isn’t that incredible?“ I bounce a little in my chair. I could talk about this stuff all day.

“Whoa. Really?” Karma jots a few words down in his notebook before glancing back up at me. “If you can’t see dark energy, how do you know that it’s there?”

“It leaves clues—signatures, patterns, gravitational effects—which can only be explained by the presence of something else… something more than can be seen with our current instruments. By applying math and reasoning, we can deduce its existence even before we can see or understand it.“ I stop, watching as the blond scribbles another sentence across the paper. “What are you writing, Karma?”

He looks up from his notebook, tucking a stray lock of hair behind his ear. “I’m taking some notes for your speech.”

“You don’t think I should talk about dark energy at graduation, do you?” Sure, the research is fascinating to me , but what about everyone else? “I don’t want the audience to think I’m boring. My family will be there. My speech needs to be perfect.”

“Don’t worry. We just have to make the subject relatable,” Karma says. “Everyone’s got dreams or something that inspires them. Once we add a few details about your dream to the speech, you’ll have the audience eating out of the palm of your hand.”

I’m not so sure about that. Even if Karma is a great writer, he can’t change the fact that I’m nothing but a science-nerd. At least I have one idea for my speech. “Can you help me find a way to mention my friends? I would’ve been lonely at Spartacus University without them.”

He looks up from his notes, his eyes bright. “That’s a great idea! Who doesn’t love a good shout-out in a speech? But maybe I should meet them first, that way I can help you pick out details about them. What do you think? Are you busy this weekend?”

“You want to meet my friends?” Gulp.

Karma sets down his pen, then picks up my hand, lacing our fingers together. “I’d love to meet your friends. Besides, I should probably get their approval if we’re gonna continue to date.”

“ Are we going to continue to date?“ My heart flutters in my chest.

“I hope so.” He squeezes my hand. “Maybe we can go on our own private date after we hang out with everyone. We could go somewhere romantic, just the two of us.”

Now he’s speaking my language. I’ll do whatever it takes to spend time alone together—and I mean alone -alone. If meeting my friends is the cost of a little ‘private time’, it’s a price I’m willing to pay. My order from Andrew Christian should arrive by Saturday…

“Are you free on Sunday?” I ask him.

“It’s a date, Moonbeam,” he says.

Holy crap! I hope ‘receiving gifts’ is Karma’s lust language. Just wait until he sees the package I plan on wrapping up for him!