COLD DARK MATTER
For my parents, Joan and Peter, with gratitude and love.
COLD DARK
MATTER
A Morgan O'Brien Mystery
Alex Brett
A Castle Street Mystery
Copyright © Alexandra M. Brett, 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Editor: Barry Jowett
Copy-editor: Andrea Pruss
Design: Andrew Roberts
Printer: Webcom
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Brett, Alex
Cold dark matter / Alex Brett.
ISBN-10: 1-55002-494-9
ISBN-13: 978-1-55002-494-4
I. Title.
PS8553.R3869C54 2004 C813'.6 C2004-901389-0
1 2 3 4 5 09 08 07 06 05
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Printed and bound in Canada
Printed on recycled papere
The author wishes to thank the Gemini Telescope — GMOS Team for their generous permission to use the cover photograph. This image of spiral galaxy M-74 was obtained using Gemini's new multi-object spectrograph, an instrument jointly designed and built by Canada and the United Kingdom. For more information and images see www.gemini.edu. Support your local astronomers.
Author's Note
Truth is stranger than fiction. One of the greatest challenges in writing fiction is to take those aspects of a story based on fact and make them believable to the reader. Cold Dark Matter is a work of fiction. The people in this book do not exist. Although many of the book's locations appear similar to real places, they are not. All my locations have been purposely distorted through the lens of fiction. The underpinnings of Cold Dark Matter, though, and the most unbelievable aspects of the story are based on fact. The summit of Mauna Kea is one of the world's foremost sites for optical astronomy. Dark matter was discovered by the method described in this book, albeit by an intrepid woman astronomer from the United States. And the Fruit Machine was built and used. Real science. Real events. Real technology. Perhaps we can learn from our errors.
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise
in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful
of the night.
Sarah Williams
"The Old Astronomer to His Pupil"
chapter one
In the world of science to see is to believe. To observe is to know. That which is tangible, which can be recorded and measured, is defined as the truth. Yet over 90 percent of the universe is completely invisible to us. Astronomers know that this dark matter exists because they observe its effect on all visible objects, but where the dark matter resides, and what it might be made of, remains a mystery.
Yves Grenier had been working on dark matter.
I remember thinking, as I glanced through the reprints, that this must somehow connect, it must be important, but the drone of the jet engines, the Merlot served with dinner, and the stress of my hasty departure from Ottawa had all taken their toll. I could no longer concentrate on anything but sleep. I closed the folder, tucked it into the pocket under my tray table, and extended my seat back the few centimetres that it was willing to go. If I was lucky I might get a few hours of cramped, stale slumber before the plane landed in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. I closed my eyes and tried to relax, but instead of falling into dreams my mind moved inexorably back to Ottawa and the gruesome image of Yves Grenier that had put me on this plane.
chapter two
The body was not celestial. There was no flicker of ancient light, no rings or orbiting moons, just a dark, lifeless form dangling from a cable high in the telescope's struts. From this angle, from the observing floor some twenty metres below, it looked like the corpse was bowing its head in a final tribute to the giant mirror at its feet. I pushed the photograph back across the table.
"I take it he's one of ours."
Duncan took the picture and, studiously avoiding the image, slipped it back into a plain brown envelope. I'd forgotten he was squeamish. When it was safely back inside he slouched forward, wrapped his hands around his coffee cup, and stared into the black liquid. The deep lines and dark bags beneath his eyes were thrown into high relief.
A customer squeezed by our table making for the door. It was an odd place for a meeting, a rundown café on the wrong end of Wellington Street, but it was also far from the hustle and prying ears of Parliament Hill, which was, I assumed, why Duncan had chosen it. Finally he looked up.
"He was one of ours. That," he motioned to the envelope, "happened yesterday. Dr. Yves Grenier, resident astronomer at one of our telescopes in Hawaii. Bright, young, and talented. What an unbelievable waste." He shook his head and, with a weariness I don't remember ever seeing before, slowly lifted his cup. This was not a social call. Duncan had phoned me just around noon with an urgent request to meet him at this out-of-the-way location. He'd arrived at our rendezvous looking shockingly rattled for a guy who approached all drama with analytical calm.
"At Gemini?" I asked, referring to the jewel in our astronomy crown.
Duncan shook his head vaguely. "FCT — the FrancoCanadian Telescope." Then he seemed to pull himself together. "The day before yesterday Grenier goes to work as usual. He arrives at the telescope in the early evening, then spends the night working with one of the French astronomers and the telescope operator on duty that night. By all accounts they have a stellar night of observing, if you'll forgive the pun, and neither Mellier, the French astronomer, nor Aimes, the telescope operator, notice anything amiss. Mellier leaves first, around 3:00 a.m., with a massive high-altitude headache. Grenier and Aimes finish up around 4:30 a.m. and leave together, but in separate vehicles. Aimes checks in at the Astronomy Centre halfway down from