Pi in the Sky Read online

  I force myself to let that go without comment, although it’s difficult. “Thank you,” I say instead. “Let’s start at the beginning. What would we do first?”

  The professor begins to pace the small room, a bounce in his step. I think he’s happy to have students again.

  “All right, first we need to establish what you mean by the beginning. Is it when primordial dust and gas left over from the sun first clumped together to form Earth? Or once the first microorganisms filled the oceans of our water-covered planet? Or once the growth of blue-green algae created enough oxygen to fill the air and give rise to more complex life?”

  Annika and I exchange a look. “Those are a lot of long words,” she replies. “But actually it’s more like the whole solar system. Where we have to start from, I mean.”

  His brows rise. “That’s certainly an ambitious project. Your friend here must need a lot of extra credit.”

  “But it’s possible?” Annika asks with a hopeful tilt of her head.

  Professor Sagan begins to pace again. “Let’s see. So your goal is to rebuild our solar system so that life arises and evolves exactly the same way that it did the first time—your new planet will be the same size and weight, be the same exact distance from the sun, with a moon the size and location of ours, correct?”

  We nod.

  “And of course you’d put Jupiter in exactly the right place to protect the young Earth from constant bombardment by comets and asteroids?”

  “Of course,” Annika replies. “Can’t forget something as important as Jupiter.”

  He continues pacing. “And every single one of your direct ancestors will live long enough to have a child, until eventually, four and a half billion years after the planet formed into a sphere capable of one day supporting life, Annika Klutzman, the apple of her parents’ eyes, will be born in the small midwestern town of Richford, Ohio?”

  Annika looks a little less confident. “Um, yes?”

  “Well, in that case…” Professor Sagan shakes his head. “Nope, sorry, totally impossible. If I were you, I’d ask your teacher if you could do something on a smaller scale. Turning a potato into a clock always wins big at school science fairs.”

  When neither of us replies, he says, “I could show you how to make a tiny volcano erupt using baking soda and vinegar. A little messy, but educational and fun at the same time.”

  “Thanks,” I say, “but we really need to try this one first. The volcano can be plan B.”

  He puts his hand on my shoulder. “I admire your ambition, young Realms dweller, but there are so many steps to follow. First of all, you’d have to create the sun, and to do that you’d have to create the earlier stars, the ones that went supernova so the heavier elements they ejected into space will get absorbed into our sun. Without those, no rocky planet, no life. Only hydrogen and helium. You can’t make people out of the primordial elements.”

  I clear my throat.

  “Oh, sorry!” he says. “Present company excluded, of course.”

  “So we make the sun,” Annika says. “Then what?”

  “Well, then you’d take the dust and gas left over, allow it to clump together for about two hundred million years, until it makes one giant rock with an iron core. Then hurl another really big rock into your new planet so the pieces can fly off to form the moon. Without the moon, Earth would be unstable and its climates too severe for any complex life to survive. And make sure to tilt your planet’s axis exactly twenty-three and a half degrees so you’ll get the seasons.”

  “Seasons, got it. What’s next?” Annika prompts.

  He shakes his head at her, clearly amused by her unwillingness to give up, but continues. “You’ll need movable tectonic plates, of course, to keep a steady supply of nutrients at the surface. And don’t forget the oceans. You’d have to fill them. Take some water-bearing comets, add some volcanoes, and the atmosphere will start to fill with water vapor. Then here come the rains! And once you have water, and much later breathable oxygen, then—”

  I know time is relative and all that, but his is surely running out. “Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’m sure you’ve seen all the galaxies and planets now that you’ve been in The Realms awhile, right?”

  “Indeed I have,” he says, his eyes glowing again. “The wonder of it all! The sheer number of planets harboring life. More than I ever would have guessed.” He lowers his voice and whispers to Annika, “You should see some of the folks here in the Afterlives. Pretty bizarre.”

  “Really?” Annika asks, lowering her own voice.

  “Can we focus, please?” I ask. “You can tell her about the purple-toed, three-eyed, five-armed Gordomorph later, okay?”

  “Of course, of course.” He winks at Annika and gestures with his hands like he’s making an elephant’s trunk from his nose.

  Annika giggles.

  Forging ahead, I say, “Even though my grade was less than stellar, I did learn a few things in Planet Building class. What you just told us could describe how almost all the terrestrial planets out there are made. What I really need to know are the specifics—the exact chemicals that are in the ground, in the air, in the people. How far exactly Earth and the other planets are from the sun. How and when life began there. Basically the details that make Earth different from all the other planets. I had this information, and then, well, I lost it.” I can’t bring myself to admit the data dots were stolen. It’s still hard for me to accept.

  As I wait for his answer, I notice a subtle shift in his appearance. He doesn’t seem as solid. I glance at Annika, but her expression hasn’t changed. She can’t see it. I turn back to the professor. The colors have now leeched from his clothes, his eyes, his skin. This is how it happened with Annika’s grandfather. Sagan and I lock eyes. He knows something is wrong. His eyes flicker from panic to surprise, to understanding, to determination.

  He digs into the pockets of his trousers and pulls out a small black tape recorder. It looks so old-fashioned and primitive, but it was probably the height of technology in his day. He also pulls out a small notebook held together by a rubber band. He hands the notebook to Annika, along with a pen. “Here, sweetheart. Why don’t you number each page from one to twenty.” He motions for her to sit in his folding chair. “Then I’ll tell you and your friend what you need to know, okay?”

  “Great,” she says, undoing the rubber band.

  He watches her wistfully, like a proud grandparent. “I’m really glad I got to know you,” he tells her, his now-almost-colorless eyes shiny with more than just his usual enthusiasm.

  She smiles up at him. “We named our cat after you.”

  The professor turns away to wipe his eye as she begins to write in the notebook. He beckons for me to follow him to the other side of the room. I know he is trying to keep her busy so she won’t notice what’s happening to him. His kindness at protecting her forms a knot in my throat. I don’t know what to do. I want to get the information from him, but this is all happening so fast.

  “I don’t have long, do I?” he asks me, his voice low.

  I shake my head. No use keeping it from him now.

  “You’re not really doing this for extra credit, are you?”

  I shake my head again. He is now not much more solid than one of our hologram projections.

  “Get it back, okay?” He reaches for my arm. His grip feels no stronger than a breeze. “Earth’s atmosphere is seventy-eight percent nitrogen, twenty-one percent oxygen, and a pinch of argon, carbon dioxide, and water vapor.” He says this firmly, as though focusing on facts and figures will ground him here in the Afterlives. I glance at Annika. She is still hunched over, still dutifully numbering the pages. She can’t hear him anymore. His voice has faded to a range humans can’t pick up.

  “The outer layer of Earth,” he continues, balling up his fists in determination, “is mostly made of only eight of the ninety-two naturally occurring elements. Sixty-two percent oxygen, twenty-two percent silicon, six point five p