Encounters 1: The Spiral Slayers (23 page)

When they got back to the situation room, refreshments and
sandwiches were brought in and a follow-up meeting was held. The President and
the two other high ranking men teleconferenced into the meeting also had lunch
brought in.

“I can’t believe that they just did nothing! Did they just stand
there and let these aliens wipe them out?” Leewood said.

“You can’t apply human values to them,” Woodworth said.

The President shook his head as he stirred his cup of tea,
“True, but Leewood’s question is a good one. I mean…what did they do when the
ship started firing at them? Did they run? Did they hide? Or did they just
stand there and die?”

Adamarus washed down a bite of ham and cheese sandwich with
mineral water and dabbed his mouth. “Well, we won’t be doing that, right?” He
got nods from the others. “And I’m hoping the Loud will see things our way and
help us – if not directly fighting, then by using some of that thousand years
of advanced technology they have to improve our chances!”

“Absolutely! And that’s what we’ll discuss with the Loud
tomorrow,” the President replied.

Woodworth spoke up, “If I may ask, what, if anything do we
have right now as far as weapons of war? The last war we fought was over fifty
years ago. Are we pretty much starting completely from scratch?”

Leewood said, “Almost. We still have the ten battleships that
settled our last conflict, though I cannot say what shape they are in.”

Woodworth replied, “About fifteen years ago I visited
Anderson, and while there, I toured the Leviathan class Battleship Victory. It
seemed to be well maintained, but whether or not it still worked…” Woodworth
trailed off as he looked over to the one man who would know – the President. Then
everyone followed suit.

The President, noticing all eyes on him, gave a helpless
smile. “Honestly, I’m not sure, but I will find out and let you know.”

Adamarus spoke up, “Mr. President, we need to take stock of
what we have and then decide how best to use the time we have left to prepare
for this alien ship. What about the original facilities that built those
ships?” He looked around to see if anyone had the answer, but saw that everyone
was looking at Wicker, so he turned back to the President as well.

President Wicker set down his cup of tea and looked back at
them. “I guess I need to explain that there are certain things that I cannot
disclose without going through proper channels. Safeties were put in place to
protect everyone – it is that system of checks and balances – remember that? Rest
assured this will be my top priority, but it may take several days…” the
President looked away for a moment then refocused on the camera, “…it might
take as long as a week, I guess. This has all happened so quickly. Under the
circumstances, I think I can tell you that we have things…that will help. We
won’t be starting with only ten fifty-year-old relics but,” he held up his
hands in an apologetic manner, “more than that I am not at liberty to say just
yet. However, even if it were just those ten battleships, one big problem we
face is trained and experienced people. No crew has manned a battleship and
very few have flown a fighter craft in forty years.”

---

The next day, at the second meeting with the Loud, “We need
to understand this a little better, Bugs, and we’re hoping you can help us.” Leewood
said. The same group as yesterday was gathered and to everyone’s relief, Bugs
seemed less stressed…less robotic. Also, before Bugs had joined the group,
Harrington had initiated a strategy at the start of the meeting – she had
refused to sit down. When asked why, she told them that yesterday it had been
uncomfortable with everyone sitting while Bugs had remained standing. At once
everyone had agreed, so they were all standing, some holding the backs of their
chairs, some standing at parade rest and others, like Leewood, pacing back and
forth. The meeting had only just started, but it was obvious by the way Bugs’
head swiveled from one of them to another that he had noticed something.

It was the third day since they had found out that a
civilization that was a thousand years more advanced had been wiped out…in a
single day! Found out that the thing that had done this was an unbelievably
huge black hole that was now coming straight for them and coming at almost the
speed of light. Every person there looked ten years older…as if the Loud’s
anti-aging treatment had stopped working.

To one degree or another, everyone assembled there was in a
state of disbelief and shock. And everyone there was utterly exhausted for no
one was sleeping much. Some of them had broken out in welts or hives. Irritability,
tempers, headaches, bloodshot eyes, stomach-aches and chest pains were all
signs that the stress was taking a heavy toll. In these circumstances, humans
always sought a release of some kind, so when they found themselves all
standing instead of sitting, and Bugs’ looking from person to person and then
chair to chair, all of them had trouble keeping a straight face, despite the
dire circumstances.

“Of course, I will do all I can to help you.” Bugs replied. Its
head swiveled from one person to another again, and then it looked lower and
went from one chair to another again.

“Excellent,” Leewood said. “Right now the alien ship looks to
us like an enormous black hole – its diameter is ninety million miles. Do you
know, from the ship that left your system, if the object we are seeing is
similar to what your planet saw?”

“Yes, it is the same.”

Leewood stopped pacing and turned to the Loud, placing his
hands on his hips. “While we know this object is moving in ways that a natural object
– indeed a natural black hole – could not…we cannot imagine how this black hole
can be an alien ship. Your race is more advanced than ours, and so we are
hoping that you understand how this black hole could possibly be a ship. Can
you help us understand this?”

Bugs stepped forward and grabbed the back of his chair with
both hands imitating how some of the humans were standing. “Sometimes I wonder
which of our races understands ‘certain’ things better.” He pulled his chair
out, stepped around and turned as if he were going to sit, but then remained
standing and crossed his arms in a very human-like manner. “But I believe one
thing is true,” one arm raised up and rubbed what would be the closest thing to
a chin the robot had, then he sat down in the chair, scooted it up to the table
and then placed his arms upon the table. Being only five feet high, the chair
was definitely too low for him. “Your race appears to be a lot sneakier than
ours.” He opened his arms indicating that the rest should also sit. Everyone
laughed as they sat down, a release they disparately needed. Now they looked
down at Bugs and it had to look up at them. “But your antics to gain slight
psychological advantages…” his neck began to extend out from his chest, raising
his head until he was again looking down at everyone else, “…is at times too
obvious.” Bugs then said, “Are we all more comfortable now?”

Leewood smiled widely, “We are all glad that you seem to feel
better today.”

Bugs said, “Improving moods, even in dire circumstances, seems
to be a gift your species has and, I must admit, one that we could use more of.
There is no doubt that this improves functionality and it is during dire
circumstances that this is needed most.” The avatar looked around and then
shocked everyone by drumming the “fingers” of one manipulator. “But returning
to the business at hand, actually the ship that returned with us, during its
voyage here, gave a lot of thought to the Blackship and how such a thing could
work.”

Leewood interrupted, “Blackship?”

“This is what we call this type of ship because it is powered
by a black hole. As you know, our ships are powered by engines that use gravity
waves. This knowledge was one of the first useful things that our translators
extracted from the super speck vibrations. The basic principles are the same
but on a much larger scale. In addition, methods, technologies, and exotic
materials for manipulating a singularity which are unknown to us are being used.”

Leewood nodded. “But where is the ship? Is it inside the Event
Horizon?”

“This is not my specialty, but I had a briefing on this so I
will try to answer your questions, and if I can’t, I can probably find out. Yes,
to the best of our knowledge, the ship resides within the event horizon.”

“How can it survive there?”

“Gravitational forces, no matter how strong, can be bent,
reflected and reversed so that a ZOB or zone of balance is created. Upon this
structure, a BOS or bubble of stability can be created. The ship may sit above
the singularity controlling it with some sort of zero mass structures.” Everyone
was lost and it showed. Bugs seemed to sense this. “Some of these techniques are
known to us and, on smaller scales, have been created in our labs. Although I
know and can quote some of the basic principles and techniques, as I said, this
is not my specialty and I do not really know the underlying science.”

Leewood had lost track of his line of questioning and had to
consult his PDA. “Let’s see…from our studies and our theories of black holes,
nothing can escape once it is inside the event horizon. Does the ship simply
stay there…was the attack which you said you detected on your tachyon scope
somehow made by forces or devices which are outside the event horizon?”

 “This is another problem we have been studying,” Bugs
replied. “As I understand it, they may be using a mathematical anomaly. It has
to do with singularities which…”

President Wicker interrupted in an uncharacteristically meek
voice, “I must ask a stupid question…”

Leewood, attempting to save face for Wicker, evoked the old
adage, “There are no stupid questions, sir.”

The President gave him a grateful look, “Yes, well then, what
exactly is a singularity?”

Leewood turned to give his full attention to President
Wicker, “I will try to explain, Mr. President. Picture an immense star – a red
super giant a thousand times larger than our sun. It has enormous volume (i.e.
its size or the space it takes up) and it also has enormous mass (how much
matter it contains). While the nuclear reactions at its core are strong enough,
it holds off all the gravity created by the star’s mass and the star’s huge
size is supported. Do you have that picture?”

“Yes, go on.”

“Now imagine that the nuclear reaction runs out of fuel and
stops. Suddenly the immense gravity causes the star to collapse inward and the
massive star gets smaller and smaller. As this happens, its gravity grows
stronger and stronger because it is all contained in a smaller and smaller
volume. This in turn causes the star to fall in on itself with more and more
force, faster and faster. Now, for simplicity, I’m going to skip some of the
details okay?” The President nodded.

“The giant star’s matter is getting packed together tighter
and tighter (i.e. the star’s density is increasing). Soon it becomes packed so tight
that atoms are crushed together, and then the subatomic particles are crushed
together. All this time, the star’s gravity increases as it gets smaller and
smaller until its volume becomes microscopic and finally zero – there is no
volume. At this point, its gravitational force reaches infinity. This is called
‘the singularity.’” Leewood paused to let this sink in then continued. “At this
point, even light gets trapped by the gravity. Light tries to radiate away from
the singularity, but at some distance away from the singularity, the light is
pulled back. The distance depends on how much mass the singularity contains. So
the point at which light is pulled back is called an ‘event horizon’ because no
‘event,’ that is, no information, not even light, can escape beyond this point.
All is trapped within, and anything entering the event horizon is trapped as
well.”

Although the President’s eyes looked a little glassy, he
nodded and asked, “So, the event horizon is what you see when you look at a
black hole…what does it look like?”

“The event horizon forms a sphere around the singularity, and
this sphere would be invisible except that a certain kind of radiation comes
off its surface which makes it appear a deep purple.” Leewood rubbed his chin
realizing that, technically speaking, his statement was misleading. Unless… “So
if it were someplace where only faint light sources were in the background, say
outside the galaxy, it would appear as a purple sphere. However, normally there
are stars in the background and all light passing near the event horizon which
does not get trapped within it gets bent and distorted, so what it really looks
like to the human eye is a powerful lens distorting the stars behind it.”

The President nodded and after a moment signaled a resumption
of the meeting.

Everyone looked back at Bugs and it attempted to answer
again. “As I was saying, there is a possibility that the aliens are using a
mathematical anomaly. It has to do with a space time construct we call…” the
translator stumbled for a minute then found what it needed, “…an I-Sink. Essentially
it is a space time fold which has infinite storage capacity. It takes vast amounts
of energy to place and retrieve anything in an I-Sink. Essentially the black
hole, along with its influence, would vanish for as long as needed, and then
reappear when needed.”

Leewood leaned back and steeped his fingers. “Bugs, what’s
wrong with a much simpler scenario? Like…like a black hole just happens through
your solar system causing your sun to explode?” asked Leewood.

 Bugs looked at him for a beat then replied, “That scenario
does not match the data. Given the data, the black hole reduced its speed and
size until it came within the orbits of the gas giants. At this point it was
traveling at about one percent the speed of light and it was about half the
size of your smallest gas giant. Then, the black hole simply vanished. Something,
we assume a ship, then carried out the attack. This is what the tachyon scanner
data indicated to us. In addition, entering a solar system any deeper with the
black hole would be dangerous – if it accidentally destabilized our sun, this
could disrupt the alien ship’s control over the black hole.”