Douglas Kendall

by Jason the Rescuer

  But, there were no big changes coming. Except for one big one that he did not know about yet!

  He went over to an empty storage locker, crouched down, then stashed the gold securely so that it would not jostle loose during liftoff, or through the passage out of the first event horizon. Then, he remembered something and stood up quickly.

  "Computer," he said addressing the ship's sophisticated control system. "There's no one in the ship besides me, is there?"

  The ship's computer answered in a pleasant, female voice,

  "No."

  "Has anyone else but me been in the ship?"

  "No."

  Satisfied, Jason wondered what to do next. He probably should have gone to bed. It was 9 P.M. Or, he could actually lift off now. Everything was ready!

  He stood there in the cargo hold rubbing his chin. And, the more he thought about it, the more excited he felt about the prospect of being up in deep space again. Master of his own fate! Tearing through the gravitonic currents in his wonderful, late-model sailship. Adrenaline and other hormones started to course through his veins. The miraculous PILL kept a man young feeling forever! Unfortunately, this tended to result in rash decision-making on the part of some men of Infinity City. So much so, in fact, that political control had, through the eons, and for the sake of security, been taken over by Infinity City's grand ladies: the Grand Dames.

  With a little chuckle, Jason suddenly headed toward the center of the ship, the apex of the pie-shaped cargo hold. Here, a door opened into a high, circular central chamber with three other doors, the one on his left opening into the hardware workshop, the one across from him opening into the living quarter and the one on his right opening into his "software sanctum." A vertical ladder recessed in a shallow slot in the wall ran up one side of the chamber, from the floor up to the ceiling and on up through a hatch which opened up into the pilot room. The "floor"

  was actually an elevator, designed for moving the heavy components of the gravitonic sail system and other equipment into the conning tower of the ship. The sail control systems occupied most of the conning tower, surrounding the small pilot room at the center.

  Jason always used the ladder because frequent exercise was important, during the boring months of space travel, to keep a clear head. The hatch in the ceiling automatically slid open, recessing into the bulkhead, as he neared it. He clambered up into the little pilot room and the hatch slid closed again.

  A shiver of excitement ran through him, as he looked around the pilot room at all the sophisticated control panels, computer displays and all the panels containing the powerful gravitonic generators and other systems rising all around behind. IT'S ALL

  MINE! he thought to himself, with swelling pride. He had started life humbly. For his first rescue mission, he had to borrow a dangerous old, barely space-worthy sailship. But, it had been a financially rewarding Adventure as were almost all of his following rescue missions. He had purchased this amazing craft only a few years ago. It was not only his ship; it was his home.

  He looked up. The roof of the conning tower was a transparent dome. Through it, he saw the night sky of Infinity City. High overhead, very far away, was the red "eye" of the first event horizon, his target. Streaming down from it were soft, multicolored streamers of crushed matter. Beyond the space port, he could see an excursion skip floating along, with hundreds of bright, twinkling little lights all over the open basket carrying the passengers. The gravitonic sails billowed above.

  WHAT A CITY OF MAGIC! He thought. And, yet, it was the challenge and mystery and Adventure of outer space that attracted Jason.

  Grabbing the back of the luxurious, thickly upholstered control chair in the center of the pilot room, he swiveled it around and plopped down into its accustomed comfort. He pulled the arms of the control chair inward and rested his arms on the pads, the fingers of his right hand resting on the main control keyboard and the fingers of his left hand surrounded by the dozens of critical special function buttons. His feet were on foot-rests with controls for rapidly swiveling the chair left or right, to face any of the control panels surrounding him. Above the control panels, at eye level, were several computer display screens. From this central location, he controlled every function of his ship: The gravitonic sail propulsion system, the ship's environmental and life-support functions, defensive and offensive capabilities, even the service robots and external mechanical manipulators. And, yet it was all dormant, still and dark, completely turned off, until he, the spirit, the life-force controlling the ship, decided to turn it on. The talented designers of the ship had made the pilot room an amazingly efficient and intuitive interface between man and machine.

  He looked around with satisfaction and happiness, feeling that strong emotional attachment humans have always had with their vehicles.

  He grinned, shook his fists with excitement and cried, "It's all mine! COMPUTER! ACTIVATE ALL SYSTEMS!"

  The pilot room burst into immediate life! Panels lit up with countless little lights and meters indicating the entire condition of the ship. The many flat, computer screens snapped into instant life, showing windows of graphical data with fields of various bright colors. He heard the sound of cooling fans whirring up to speed. And, then the low, powerful rising hum of the gravitonic systems in the surrounding panels.

  His wonderful, fantastic ship was now alive! He felt it!

  After years aboard the ship, he was intimately familiar with every detail of its design and operation. What a perfect extension of the body! What a perfect vehicle for the mind!

  What a... WHAT WAS THIS?

  Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a small, flashing yellow light at the environmental control panel, indicating a minor malfunction. He looked closer and saw that it was just a broken sensor of some cabinet in the living quarter. A non-critical system. He punched in an acknowledgment and the little yellow light stopped flashing. There would be plenty of time to fix that once he was outside the black hole. The trip to the whirlpool would take about four months! There would be plenty to do. Repairs about the ship. New talents to cultivate. An abridged copy of the Infinity City Library to explore and study.

  The ship's computer was an intelligent companion, but still not human. He would be alone. That was the tough part. All of his activity had one main purpose: To keep his mind off loneliness.

  Ah, well. Someday, he knew that he would meet the perfect girl. The perfect companion for his infinite life. Someone to understand him completely, to enjoy the same things he enjoyed, to always take his side. He simply could not understand why it was taking so long! Maybe on this trip, he would meet some sweet, little colonist, sweep her off her feet and talk her into coming back with him to the splendor of Infinity City.

  Jason was now anxious to lift off. He quickly checked all the panels. Everything else was fine. "Computer, perform all pre-flight tests, now," he commanded. The computer's main response screen displayed the details of the pre-flight testing of all systems, which simply verified the status already displayed by all the surrounding control panels. The testing now in progress was actually carried out completely by the ship's backup systems, which also included a backup computer, to check out their redundant functions. This was a tough, safe sailship; the best that the money from his missions of rescue could buy!

  Once all primary and backup systems checked out, it was time to coordinate the liftoff through Launch Control in the space port's control tower, the tallest structure in Infinity City.

  Jason activated the closed circuit TV connection to the tower and directed its display to the screen before him. The crest of the family responsible for the space port appeared. He scowled.

  AREN'T THEY EVER THERE IN PERSON? This meant that the last voice he would hear from Infinity City would be that of the space port computer. Oh, well... A flat voice spoke from the screen,

  "Infinity City space port control. Please identify."

  "This is J. Jason, commanding class-E sailship, ID: Jason-Rescue-Thr
ee. Request immediate, asynchronous launch..."

  Jason's full name was JASON JASON. His father's full name was JASON ALEXANDER WYNN. Jason had decided to take as his last name the patronymic, his father's first name, instead of his father's surname, a fashionable practice of Infinity City at the time Jason was an adolescent. He took the name JASON JASON reflecting his sense of humor, which often seemed to go a little too far.

  Also, this avoided the attachment of JR. to his name, which would have dampened his pride. Many individual men of the larger Families or 'Houses' took the patronymic to keep their Family or

  'House' identity a secret for various political, business, or romantic reasons.

  Jason's family, as far as he currently knew, consisted of just himself, his mother Maynyn and his father Jason (Sr.), not big enough to be considered a Family or a 'House.' However, there was an importance to Jason's family that he would learn in time...

  "Immediate, asynchronous launch granted. Next scheduled launch in seven hours, 35 minutes. First horizon status: Normal."

  BOY, WAS THAT A MISNOMER! Jason punched a special function button initiating the launch program that he had set up a few days ago, instructing the ship to lift off and follow the imaginary Horizon Normal Line through the first event horizon and out into the Galaxy, arriving into the 'Present'.

  Time within a black hole is independent of time outside in the Galaxy. When leaving a black hole, the angle between the ship's exit trajectory vector and the imaginary NORMAL line between the first and second event horizons (Within the black hole, both horizons appear as points.), the HORIZON NORMAL LINE, determines the point in time at which a ship arrives outside in the Galaxy. The farther a sailship's angle of trajectory from the normal line, the farther back in the past it arrives. The closer to the normal line, the closer to the actual, unraveling present. There was no known way to travel into the future theoretically because it had not 'unraveled' yet.

  Then, he would manually pilot the ship along the unpredictable, trans-Galactic gravitonic currents until he reached the whirlpool that, he theorized, had tossed the colony ship off-course.

  The gravitonic generators whined as they spun up to the power required to overcome the artificial gravitonic field enveloping Infinity City. Jason felt the vibration of the sail struts being deployed. From four points along the lower periphery of the sailship, and also from four corresponding points around the conning tower, the gravitonic sail struts rose above the ship in angular geometric patterns like long, thin spindly metal fingers. Jason looked up and could see the struts rising smoothly on all sides, sub-struts angled between the main struts, connecting and giving the entire gravitonic sail support structure enough strength to withstand the turbulent gravitonic currents of space.

  The screen from the control tower spoke, "Jason-Rescue-Three, flight plan received and validated. Have a safe Adventure! Do you wish to log an expected return date or duration of Adventure?"

  HEY, THAT WAS NEW! "What's that for? Is there an official search plan, now?"

  "No. Our family has simply agreed to relay the information to the INFINITY CITY JOURNAL OF RECENT ADVENTURE, to be published only if the craft does not return before the expected date, or within the expected duration of Adventure."

  Why publicly announce you are missing? Well, for legal and business reasons it made sense. The length of a voyage was often kept secret so competing Adventurers could not figure out the destination. But, signaling publicly that you were delayed might help your affairs from getting too tangled up until you got home.

  Well, it was difficult to predict how long he would be in space. First, he had to find the colony ship. Then, repair it and return home. But sometimes he was invited to stay aboard a friendly spacecraft, enjoying the hospitality of the grateful folk on board, until they grew anxious to be on their way. There had been one fantastic episode with a transport ship full of several hundred single women bound for a mineral-rich new world of almost all men.

  Now, clicking power relays and complex humming and buzzing accompanied the reeling out of the amazing gravitonic sails. As they were run up the struts, they billowed slowly out between, moved by the gentlest of breezes due to their thickness of only a few molecules.

  The computer sent a sharp charge of electric power into the sails, pulsing with just the right phase characteristic to cause a resonance contraction of the sails, snapping them into place for a crisp launch.

  His computer spoke, "Request final launch command." The voice it used in the pilot room or when there was trouble, was male.

  He loved this moment! He eye-balled all the control panels.

  Everything was ready for launch. He thought to himself: GOOD-BYE, INFINITY CITY! GOOD-BYE, MOM & DAD! He remembered the tape they had given to him. He'd have to listen to it after he was out of the black hole.

  He tapped the button marked LAUNCH. A sharp humming vibration sprang up as the breakers dumped the full power of the gravitonic generators into the sails. Telltale meters jerked and swung, indicating the jump in power consumption and change in sail status.

  Then, the ship lifted up and off the space port. Jason loved the feeling of vertigo as Infinity City's gravitonic field pushed against him, trying to pull him back down, as his majestic ship rose steadily higher. Outside, through the transparent dome, he saw for a brief few seconds the colored lights of Infinity City at night spreading away on all sides. Then, they disappeared below the edge of the ship, as he moved higher and higher.

  "Jason-Rescue-Three proceeding normally on validated course," reported space port control.

  The ship, with its arching, gravitonic sails towering high above the ship, pulled out of Infinity City's atmosphere, gained speed rapidly and swung around toward the imaginary Horizon Normal Line. Just as it neared this, it suddenly swung about, now exactly along the Horizon Normal Line, heading in a straight line toward the red point of the first event horizon, the only path that would lead a sailship out of the black hole, into Present Time, as opposed to going back to a past time. His view of the inside of his black hole now dwindled as thick protective plates rotated together covering the transparent top of the conning tower.

  Anyone on the disk-shaped world of Infinity City watching with a telescope would see the ship and its huge sails, grow smaller and smaller, compared to the red, first event horizon.

  Then, the ship would appear to begin turning red itself, seeming to merge with the first event horizon, until it could be seen no more.

  4. OUT OF THE BLACK HOLE

  Anyone watching the black hole from the outside would see a black sphere, about the size of a small planet. Actually, there was not anything to see. The black hole swallowed everything that touched it, even light. The shell surrounding the black hole WAS the first event horizon. The black hole was surrounded by a halo of fiery red-appearing intense radiation of many wavelengths, as particles from a distant star (about which the black hole slowly orbited) accelerated to oblivion as they passed the first event horizon. Nothing that went in ever came out again, except for the sailships of Infinity City. To them, the black hole was just a gravitonic valve between the Galactic universe on the outside, and the quirky micro-universes on the inside.

  If someone watching could now actually "see" the shell that was the first event horizon, they would see it suddenly dimple deeply inward, like the effect of the blunt end of a pencil pushed into a balloon, forming a deep depression extending toward the center. This was the phenomenal effect of a sailship's amazing gravitonic sails, backwashing the torrent of gravitons back up and out of the black hole, pulling in a depression in the first event horizon as the backwashing gravitonic flow reduced the black hole's universe ripping effect.

  As soon as the depression reached the black hole's exact center, out popped the tiny sailship, right there at the center, to be slung out into the universe by the receding depression in the event horizon as it inflated back up to once again form the perfect sphere of the first event horizon.

  Jason's shi
p was now out in the limitless velvety blackness of mid-Galactic space. Far-away bright stars surrounded him on all sides as he left the dull glowing red of the black hole far behind. So many stars in fact that in some areas they appeared as cloudy swoops and swirls. The black hole's orbital primary star was safely far away but still the brightest Jason could see. Leaving a black hole was much safer and easier than entering one. A sailship naturally followed the most tranquilly gravitonic currents out, which were actually the path of least resistance, graviton-wise.

  Jason, still at the helm of his ship, instructed the computer to verify their temporal coordinate by checking the configuration of several known land-mark stars. Knowing the path these stars continually followed, the computer could accurately calculate exactly the position the stars should be in for any point in time within a few ten thousands of years on either side of the present. The check took a few minutes, as recessed crystalline telescopes slid open here and there around the outside of the ship, and scanned the starscape. Everything checked out. The computer reported that they were at the top of time, the universal Present.

  Jason had always avoided travel into the past. There were strange paradoxes that could occur. Like meeting oneself. That was a disaster of unthinkable proportions, to be avoided at all costs. (See subsequent I.C. chronicles...) But, it had happened. Only once every few hundred years. The stories were fantastic and frightening, and told by Grand Dames over and over to young men in the hopes of subduing their dreams of back-bouncing Adventure. *7.

  Jason began searching for a major gravitonic current in the direction of his destination, which was the whirlpool that supposedly had tossed the colony ship off-course. The ship's sensors detected a huge, lazy current on the other side of the black hole's star, which headed off toward the direction of the whirlpool. Great! He could take advantage of the nearby gravitonic stellar wind, and tack easily over to it.