"Class, I'm rather disappointed that none of you have any suggestions."
They all sank into their chairs, including the most socially repressed and intelligent of the group, dreading on Professor Rasi's gaze. He had just given them all back their midterms from last week, with only one person managing to score above a '45.'
"Seriously? None of you can tell me what the Gravitational Constant is? After all the work we've done this semester, all the times I've spent my good time telling you . . ."
Paul hated Rasi. He hated how Rasi never should have been made a teacher. Oh, Paul knew he was quite intelligent. But he also had no knack for human interaction. If not for the economy, he probably would've stayed in his research position, but instead he was here. Paul also knew how tight he was with the French teacher, wondering if she wasn't the reason Rasi even got his job.
"Paul, what about you? Would you like to redeem yourself for your poor performance on the midterm? I know you're just in high-school, but there's no preferential treatment here."
Paul grit his teeth, as the kids around him sunk even further into their chairs. Paul heard Rasi was the only prof who mentioned scores of his students aloud, always embarrassing those who didn't pass. Ad he never missed an opportunity to remind Paul that he wasn't a college student, implying that he didn't really belong there.
"Now come on, Paul. I want you to get up here and stand in front of this whiteboard, and write out the equation leading to the gravitational constant."
Paul slowly got up, feeling the stares of his classmates. Rasi had embarrassed him three times before in this semester, and each time Paul choked, even though he knew the answer. But this time, Paul grasped the marker with confidence.
"So, you'd like the equation leading to the gravitational constant?"
"Yeah," said Rasi with a sneer. "And how long will it take you?"
"Not long. But speaking of gravity, let's say we wanted to cross the space between galaxies?"
"What?"
Paul drew two points on the whiteboard. "Yes, suppose we wanted to cross between Earth and a point within Andromeda, and we wanted to do it within fifteen years. We would need external forces to accelerate the craft, as engines that massive would collapse under their own weight. Perhaps . . . a path of collapsed stars." He drew seventeen black circles. "A 'starbridge.' And the ship would pass in-between those singularities, drawn from one to the other by their gravitational pulls. Now, what equation would give you the exact path of balance? Do you know, Rasi?"
"Now's not the time for science-fiction, Paul, it is . . ."
Rasi shut his mouth, as Paul wrote a twenty-line equation on the whiteboard. When he finished, Paul said; "this is an equation that would that could be used to navigate a precise path between multiple singularities."
Paul stood for a moment, as Rasi stared at his work, slack-jawed. Then, in an instant, Paul grabbed the eraser and wiped it all down.
"No! No!" shouted Rasi, as he tried to stop Paul. "What are you doing?"
"Maybe in a thousand years you'll be able to remember what you saw. But you don't deserve it now. You're an awful teacher, who has killed the desire within each of us to become physicists. You've got a lot of smart people in your class, but they need encouragement and nurturing, not insults and ridicule."
His classmates cheered him, his professor cried at what was lost, and Paul, for his part, for the first time felt like he could control some aspect of his life.