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through in the room as people speculated
over the meaning of these specks of light, but the buzz stopped
suddenly when the first image of a large, partially lit sphere
appeared. MaxNi showed the second sphere then pointed out how, in
different images, they appeared to have moved across the background
of spots.
    Some people became upset and
shouted at MaxNi to stop. They claimed that what were seeing was
not true, that it was dangerous, but perhaps they feared that it
was real and dangerous for being so. MaxNi did not respond, but
again stepped back to show the first sunrise ever seen on ObLa. The
camera had moved around while taking these pictures and when viewed
that way spectacular, but quite confusing. He showed these images
again, but this time the source of light remained in the center of
the screen. The rise of the sun over the slightly curved horizon
unfolded like a magnificent, luminous flower. There was no more
talk. The sense of wonder and transformation captured
everyone.
    MaxNi briefly rose to explain how
the appearance of the sun was accompanied by a rise in temperature,
but by then he held no one’s attention. The images were now of thin
white streaks composed of the highest ice crystals and down toward
the billowing heights of soft bright white cloud layers with their
deep purple shadows leading to an even more intricate depths and
shapes. The pictures ended abruptly when the balloon fine skin was
breached and the camera fell toward ObLa.
    From beneath its thick opaque layers and
ever-present mist, the dark and featureless ObLa had been shown to
be a beautiful dynamic mass. Many were overcome with emotion and
pride that they had never before experienced. Some rose and left
the room, much as MaxNi had, to move into a new world that had
changed in wondrous ways from only moments before.
    The world was changing in other
ways for MaxNi. In this new land, he was days away from being
ObLa’s most famous scientist, and the dumpy old COW would become a
shrine and tourist haunt. The world beyond ObLa became larger than
MaxNi and the COW could manage. Within weeks, a consortium of
cities was formed to explore the universe. MaxNi became a public
figure and a source of information for other agencies that intended
to move beyond the limited technology that the Center could
assemble.
    The data and images from MaxNi’s
famous flight were made available to every ObLaDa who wished to see
it. Which was just about everybody, so when MaxNi finally had some
time free from his fame to consider the motion and spatial
relationships between ObLa and its moons and sun, he was one of
hundreds who were tackling the same problem. The consensus opinion
was that the light emitting bodies, the sun and all of the stars
were distant and stationary and that the two reflective bodies were
close and in motion. Most agreed that the moons circled ObLa,
although the data was so limited that only the crudest estimate
could be made of their orbits.
    This awoke an old memory and MaxNi
went back to his work with RaLak LemTer on the Fickle Flow of
Filim. They had determined the cycles of the three forces that
matched the micro tides in Head and Foot lakes, and MaxNi wanted to
see if these might correspond to the luminous bodies that he had
found. Indeed they did. Old RaLak had used his data to predict the
orbits of the three bodies, assuming there were such things. MaxNi
reprinted RaLak's little paper with an addendum showing how well
the orbits that RaLak predicted matched the movement of the newly
discovered sun and moons. Indeed, they were the most accurate then
available.
    Six months later, the Space
Exploration Agency launched a new balloon that remained aloft for
weeks and confirmed everything. The fact that someone could gaze at
the water flowing through the Filim channel and describe the
motions of the unseen sun and moons through the heavens raised
RaLak and MaxNi to the rank of legend and assured that ancient YoLa
MeSom had all the