Oct. 18th, Ny Ålesund, Arctic Science Village

In Ny Ålesund, a former mining village that is now an international center for climate research, most of the two hundred researchers and technicians have left for the season. But at the Alfred Wegener Polar Institute, a German engineer still remains, for a whole year in this inaccessible outpost, to repeat the same experiments every day.  In one he releases a large white weather balloon, each day at 1pm, which rises and drifts into the stratosphere before exploding when it gets too high, but not before transmitting essential data from its disposable radio which will never be found.  Then at night he shoots a high energy laser beam straight up into the clouds, of such power that even a tiny fraction of its bright beam is diffused back through the cloud cover and can be registered by the naked eye. The beam bounces through the building inside a complex and irregular rectilinear box, down to the floor off a large telescope mirror, then straight up through a hole in the roof.  The green ray heading skyward looks like it is strong enough to reach the moon.

The German engineer speaks extremely precisely.  He will not answer any questions around which he has even the slightest doubt.  "Why do the stars here in the North flicker with such visible multiple spectra of color?" I ask, "shimmering from red then to green and to blue." 

"I know of what you speak," he nods. "But I do not know enough astronomy to say anything more."

"And what," I point, "is that big wooden contrabass case doing next to the laser mirror, the beaten-up box that says ‘Berliner Philharmonische Orchester' on it?"

"Oh," he smiles.  "Usually there is a instrument in there, but not right now. It is not mine."