The Legend of Miaree

Chapter Twenty-One

You read well, my dear. Thank you. We have covered much ground today, and there is little time. I hope that all of you have been thinking ahead toward the paper which I told you I would ask you to write giving your conclusions and your feelings toward the fable. Now. In form, the section of the fable we have covered today is somewhat episodic. By slaps and starts, it covered a period of how many years, Tomax?

Twenty, sir.

Are there any among you who have not been stimulated to the point of being forced to finish the final portion? Ah? Elizabeth? LaConius. But LaConius knows, eh, LaConius?

Sir?

Elizabeth, no curiosity?

Sir, I was dying to finish it, to find out what happens, but the dorm matron forced me to observe lights-out, and the charger in my privacy light has failed, so I could not read under the sheets.

Then we will allow you to read the conclusion tomorrow. Now, in the brief time remaining before we partake of sauteed olix steak, fresh in from Alaxender's home on Trojan, I would like you to consider this passage, or this series of excerpts, from a paper done by our sleepy LaConius. For which, incidentally, he has earned the honors in this particular project. LaConius has handed me the paper, a project undertaken in his astrophysics class, with a request for proofreading. I fear that our LaConius is a rather atrocious speller. Nonetheless, the paper is of some interest. The subject is the Q.S.S. phenomenon. Q.S.S. or Quasi-stellar Radio Sources, are rather puzzling astronomical objects located—as determined by the calculations of the red shift—some one billion light years away from our galaxy in the general direction of the constellation Cygnus.

But let me quote young LaConius: 'Radio generation in the Q.S.S's, broadcast on every frequency known to man, is thought to be the result of acceleration of ultra-high-speed electrons moving in a powerful magnetic field. Although a thorough and lengthy study of the Q.S.S's has failed to provide a range of answers, it is believed by authorities in the field that the electrons were freed in some cataclysmic explosion. The release of energy is not a strange happening in a universe built on the explosive energy of the hydrogen atom, but the amount of energy radiating from a Q.S.S. has led astrophysicists to believe that the energy originated from an entirely new type of energy source. The power generated by a typical Q.S.S. is measured in the area of 4 X10 to the 46th power ergs per second, or ten times the amount of energy radiated by the largest known galaxy.

"The bafflng thing about the Q.S.S. is that a typical diameter measures only fifty light years. When we consider that our own galaxy is eighty thousand light years in diameter, the amount of power emanating from the relatively tiny Q.S.S. becomes even more astounding. Estimating mass from the observed size of a typical Q.S.S., the amount of energy released totals more than the energy in all of the available electrons. If a small galaxy were exploded by thermonuclear processes, the energy released would not equal that of a Q.S.S. Spectrography indicates that the Q.S.S.'s are moving away from our galaxy at a uniform speed. Emission lines in the optical spectrum indicate the presence of hydrogen, magnesium, ionized neon, oxygen, and other gases."

There is more, but I think that much will give you the idea. Questions? Alexender?

I can only conclude, sir, that a Q.S.S. cannot possibly exist, and yet it does.

Yes. Ah. The dining hall signals its readiness.