Chapter 12 - Science

Mr Hoskins was conducting science in class today. From time to time the seating of the students changed as classroom politics changed. As students acquired new abilities and ambitions through the teenage years the would break old alliances and form new ones. However not in his wildest imagination would he have expected Brian Jenkins on one table and Daniel Monkton on the next with Daniel looking totally at ease. The only person separating the two was Imogen at Brians table, who whispered something to Daniel as the class quietened down. How was he going to be able to put Daniel back together again?, he asked himself.

"Today I want you to jump out of the box, so to speak, and talk to you about biology and physics together. Does anyone know why I would want to do that?" asked Mr Hoskins.

He looked around and saw the struggling expressions on most of the faces. Some knew the answer already, a few holding back due to uncertainty, Imogen holding back, Mr Hoskins felt, to see how the other students would cope. "Because living things need energy, Sir", Felicity offered.

"Good. All living things need energy, but what happens if they get too much energy?"

"They end up looking like Stevens"

Stevens turned in his chair and while obstructing the view of his teacher gave his distracter the finger.

"Don't you think you have worn out the record enough, Jones"

It was a favourite saying and Jones considered a reply about bit torrents and mp3, but changed his mind when he saw the expression on his teachers face. "Sorry Sir"

"I was thinking in terms of sunlight, since all life ultimately gets its energy from there."

"They get frazzled, like putting nitro in your car engine", said Brian.

Hoskins was impressed by the change in attitude. So far Imogen had been a good influence on him. So far. "Not all life", Imogen interrupted his thought. "Li-Hung Lin discovered Firmicutes living over 2 km down in a South African mine. The short story is that radiation splits chemical bonds which the bacteria uses for energy."

"There are also radiotrophic fungi which gain energy through their melanin directly sir. They have been investigated by NASA as a radiation barrier.", said Daniel.

Hoskins thought quickly. "The good thing about science is that the more we know the more our sphere of knowledge comes into contact with the sphere of the unknown. I had heard of the bacteria in the mine but not the fungi, although I'm sure you could find your reference. For the benefit of the rest of the class these bacteria in the mine are living of the reduction of sulphides to sulphates. This is not, in itself, particularly unusual. What is unusual is the situation that these bacteria live their lives and their ultimate source of energy is the radiation from the uranium."

"So what we have with the Earth is that it is at the right distance from the sun..." he thought about the next sentence carefully "...for there to be liquid water on the surface all year round. If it was too close to the sun the oceans would boil and if it was too far the oceans would freeze permanently. This not too hot not too cold is known as the Goldilocks zone. It was thought that life could not exist outside this zone but science has thrown up a few interesting possibilities. Can anyone think of any?"

Felicity raised her hand "They think there's a sub-surface ocean around Jupiter's moon Europa. There maybe something living there, I think there is"

"So what we have here class is a hypothesis. There maybe something there but we have no evidence to back it up. We have plenty of evidence for a sub-surface ocean, some intriguing evidence of sufficient energy and organic molecules can be assumed unless there is evidence to the contrary. But just because you have the conditions for life that does not make it inevitable. Remember with the Earth you have a sample size of 1, which can be misleading. Yes Imogen."

"Since you would have several kilometres of ice to get through you would have to have a spacecraft using nuclear fuel to melt its way through the ice and take samples."

"Good thinking. That's about the only way you could do it. Anything that may be living on Europa is trapped under there. As the sun expands in billions of years from now the ice may melt freeing life to see the larger universe only to have it freeze over again for eternity."

"Life always finds a way - that's from Jurassic Park, Sir" added Felicity.

Imogen shot her a steely gaze, it only lasted a split second, but Felicity felt a chill go through her very being.

That night Imogen came around Daniels place, "so you've got rid of Moses eh?"

"Finally yeah!"

"I want you to ride over to my Dad's business and install your software on one of his computers."

"What if he gets mad at me?"

"You've had an abusive childhood, that's unfortunate. Now I want you to listen and I want you to listen real fucking carefully. Don't waste your life by trying to reconcile those who mistreated you, you will only give them a second chance to shit on you. Hate the pain away, directed at the bastards who deserve it. Having done that put all that shit behind you and get on with your life. As for ambition, you need someone on the inside. That's me."

"Got you." Daniel changed subject. "So I've got a bootable DVD, a bootable memory stick just in case, a second memory stick with the scripts on it. Do we need anything else."

"Yeah, a cute guy with brains. That's why you're invited."

"Does Christine know about this?", asked Roger.

"No Dad, I was going to start training her tomorrow."

"So what does this software do?" According to Christine Imogen had been making some incredible strides in office efficiency. It seemed the end was in sight for the backlog of endless paperwork. Unlike the many solutions he had tried over the years so far his daughters approach had not cost him a cent.

"It's a collaboration database. A databased diary where entries are classified by project. An entry may belong to more than one project. There's also fields for date, department, a photo, a webpage and reminders. Basic use is simple. Advanced use takes practice."

"You mean it's going to get hard", Roger stated.

"Not as hard as the shit you've been through all these years."

"Language"

"Well once you think you should be able to do more with it you'll have all the basic stuff on autopilot. Then I can take you go the next level with it."

Roger was somewhat sceptical, but he wanted to do the right thing by his daughter and, so far, she hadn't put a foot wrong. "OK so how do I drive it."

"All entries are stored in the server in the office. As far as your tablet is concerned its just another website. Once you've signed in a cookie will remember who you are. If you ever lose your tablet you can sign in from another device, explicitly log out and that will log you out of all devices. This button take you to ..."

Darlene could hear them talking in the other room. It was a great relief to her that Imogen was doing so well, not only that but the business was starting to pick up due to smoother admin. It was like everything was starting to fall into place. She made them a coffee each to whet their whistles.