He watched for the time it took the Ancient ship to fly over the black hole, no more than a hundred kilometers above the event horizon. Its trajectory was altered as it was pulled into a curved orbit just above the horizon, to begin the fall into the gravity well from which there was no escape. The Emperor only hoped that tidal forces had already killed the aliens, so they would not have to suffer the time dilated eternity of their end.
Chapter Twenty
The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. Rabindranath Tagore
“They’re here,” came the call over the intercom.
Dr. Rafael Rodrigue sent an acknowledge code over his implant, then headed toward the central control room. Being chief of the entire project was a new position for him. He had spent five years as the chief of portal one, one of the two units that explored the other spaces from which the Other Universe Project got its name.
Five years of staring into strange spaces, some not meant for the human mind to contemplate, had changed him, and not for the better. But he had hung on, hoping to get the Directorship, and it had finally come his way. Only to have this happen.
“We’re picking up two hundred ships moving through hyper, Director. They are on a heading straight for us.”
Rodrigue cursed. He had hoped the bastards would come in without knowing where the project was located. They were, after all, a small planetoid, sitting out near the hyper barrier in the cold of space. They had powered everything down, presenting a cold image, or so it was hoped. Fool’s hope, thought the director. The planetoid should have been about the ambient temperature of space around it, but instead was sixty-two degrees above that temp due to their extended activity. It was cooling down again now that the fusion plants were off line. About a degree every couple of hours. Not enough.
The people on the planetoid had hoped the Cacas would come in and head straight for the planet that was being terraformed in the life zone. That they weren’t showed that they had some intelligence about this system, things they shouldn’t have known.
The Director really didn’t see what they would be looking for on the planetoid. They had opened over fifteen hundred dimensions, most of them dead ends. Some were early universes where the matter hadn’t shifted far enough from the start point, and stars were in the early stages of forming, much less galaxies. Others were dead, having gone through all of their hydrogen, or at least as much of it as made no difference. Some of those were still expanding, doomed to spread forever as cold lifeless places. Others were collapsing, so they would eventually, in tens of billions of years, become living universes again. Some were made up of negative matter, others of antimatter. The major problem with those was that the deposits that would make exploitation worthwhile were light years from the portal, and no crew would hazard a ship in that space.
They had even found two dimensions where time seemed to run in the opposite direction from their own. One, in which a second in their universe equaled a reverse hour in the other, was full of killing hard radiation. The other was traversable, but the one for one second transformation didn’t seem to be too useful. But the Cacas must have thought the data from the project was worth it, or they wouldn’t be heading straight for the planetoid.
“They’ll be entering normal space in about four hours,” said the tech who was operating the sensor console.
“And the damned liner hasn’t arrived yet,” said another tech, telling Rafael something he already knew. The liner/supply ship had not been due for another three weeks. The cruiser being sent to help them wouldn’t have room for everyone, so they had been promised another liner as well. But they wouldn’t be arriving for another twenty-three hours. The crews terraforming the planet had enough lift to pick up everyone, but all of their ships with the exception of one courier were interplanetary only. They were on the way to evacuate the planet to one of the asteroid belts, where they might be able to lay low and escape notice. Might.
“How are we coming on unpacking the lasers?”
“We’ll have one free in about seven hours, sir,” said the chief engineer over the com.
Which is completely useless, thought Rodrigue. It had been worth a try. The multi-hundred pentawatt lasers could have destroyed a capital ship. They wouldn’t have the kind of targeting that military lasers had, but a lucky hit might have killed at least one or two of the enemy ships. Only there weren’t one or two of them coming, and they didn’t have seven hours.
“We’re totally screwed,” said Dr. Gamet, the director of portal two. “Unless we can use something from the project to defend us.”
Rodrigue in his right mind wouldn’t have thought what he next did. The idea was just too dangerous, and he wasn’t sure if they could do it anyway. But it looked like their only chance.
“Fire up the fusion plants. Start moving the portal two apparatus out of containment. I want it in space within three hours. Then I want it hooked up to all of our tugs.”
Gamet gave him a curious look. “You’re thinking of opening a portal in front of them? What the hell good will that do? You expect them to just head into one on their own?”
“No, I don’t expect them to be stupid enough to run into something they’ve never seen before. No, I want to put something out there that goes after them.”
“Not six oh one?” Gamet’s eyes widened as he said the words. Six oh one was the one universe they had never wanted to open again. It contained a threat much worse than hard radiation or incompatible matter. They really had never figured out what was there, but whatever it was, it was deadly.
“But, if we let it out in our universe, there’s no telling…”
“We have no reason to believe it can go faster than light, at least not in our universe. It won’t be a risk to our universe, not for thousands of years. And by that time we’re sure to figure something out. I think we’ll let whatever’s there out and let it play with the Cacas.”
“It will still be a threat to us,” said Gamet, pointing a finger in the director’s face.
“And the Cacas won’t. They’ll kill us, except for those they’ll want to torture information out of, and take all of our data anyway.” Rodrigue looked over at his chief tech. “Prepare to purge the data banks, just in case.”
There were a lot of unbelieving looks coming his way, but people were moving, obeying his orders. No one wanted to die, and even a slim chance was better than none.
* * *
The Caca force, one hundred and eight-three ships, translated from hyper just beyond the barrier. They had entered normal space at a low velocity, just what was wanted for this mission. The target was just ahead, five light minutes, an hour at current deceleration.
“They appear to have no fleet here, my Lord,” said the tactical officer of the flagship. “We’re picking up graviton emissions from the inner asteroid belt. And more from the habitable planet.”
“Is that what I think it is?” asked the task force commander.
“It appears to be world they are terraforming into a living planet,” said the sensor officer, distaste in his tone.
“Sacrilege,” spat the tactical officer.
“Detach a small group and send them toward the planet. We will make sure, then destroy it. The rest of the force is to come to a stop one hundred thousand kilometers from the target. Then we will take what we came for.”
The ships continued in, decelerating the whole way, on the lookout for anything that might be a weapon and spotting nothing obvious.
“What is that?” asked the sensor officer as the viewer focused and zoomed on an object in space between them and the planetoid. “It’s giving off the graviton emissions of a multi-billion ton object.”
Which meant it was giving off very faint emissions, like a massive natural object, and not those of something with grabber units.
“We’ll probably want a look at it, so don’t fire,” said the group commander. “Make sure the force is spread out enough so we are not all in danger if it d
oes turn out to be something to concern us. And lock weapons on, but do not fire until I give the order.”
* * *
“They’re coming in, sir,” called out the tech operating the sensor panel.
The facility had a rump battalion of Marines as security, and they had some people who were used to running tactical sensors on assault shuttles, but the director preferred to have his own people handle this. The four hundred and fifty odd Marines would be there to handle a landing by the Cacas, though he doubted they would last long in any case.
“Shall I open the portal?” asked Dr. Gamet, the man who was handling the actual opening to another dimension.
“Not yet, Dr. Gamet. Patience. We don’t want to give the game away too soon.”
The lasers on the planetoid were also manned and powered up. The weapons had been emplaced with the intent of chasing off pirates. They might just be able to take out a cruiser at best, with some lucky hits. Against the force coming at them, not a chance. They also had some missile batteries, with destroyer class weapons. Again, not enough to take out anything much larger than a light cruiser. They were the last resort weapons, maybe enough to make the Cacas fire everything they had at the planetoid and make sure they were all dead. Rodrigue put his hand on the particle beam pistol by his side, his personal last resort, though he wasn’t sure if he would force the Cacas to kill him, or just do the job himself.
“Get ready,” he ordered as he looked at the view of the apparatus, now sitting over a light second from the planetoid, approximately three hundred and eighty thousand kilometers. Twelve black holes were held in place by arms that were more massive than a dozen battleships each, connected in the middle. Microwave dishes speckled one side, while twelve huge tugs prepared to boost in place to hold everything together.
Some had thought it a bad idea to have the portal rooms accessible from space through massive hatches. Rodrigue had disagreed, though he had thought they would only be of use to get rid of the black holes in case of an emergency. If released into space, they were small enough that they would radiate down to the size where they couldn’t hold together in a couple of weeks without a constant infusion of matter.
“Now,” shouted the director, pointing at Gamet.
The scientist nodded and pushed the engage key, setting the entire programmed process into motion. The microwave projectors on the surface of the planetoid shot gigawatts of energy to the apparatus, while the arms, now powered, set the black holes to vibrating at a specific frequency as they pulled them apart. Space began to rip open between the gravitational point sources, until a tear appeared, leading into the inky blackness of another universe.
* * *
The unnamed being had waited in this region of its space ever since the portal to the other dimension had opened years ago. There was no more energy on its side of the dimensional barrier. It was not a large universe, only a hundred light years in expanse. It had never contained what beings in other universes would have called stars, only a couple of hundred brown dwarves. Life of a sort had still evolved here, and had spread, until the Eater had come into being. It was the culmination of evolution in this universe, the final stage, and it had eaten every other life form it could find, until it was the only life in its universe. After that it had absorbed all energy from the stars, growing as it did, until all of its space was barren. Then came uncounted eons of time, while it starved and ate its own substance, until it was a mere shadow of its former self.
When the portal had opened to the other universe, one full of energy, uncounted life forms on the other side, it had thought it had found salvation. But the lifeforms of that universe had been able to push it back into its space and seal the portal.
Now that space was open again, real space, not the enclosed area it had seen before. And here before it were a number of objects radiating energy, and full of lifeforms. With that thought came action, and it used some more of its last reserves of stored energy to fly from the opening towards the food.
* * *
“What is that?” said the tactical officer, pointing a lower left hand index finger at the viewer.
The object they had been looking at, the strange huge thing with the twelve arms, was now opening like some kind of grotesque flower. In the opening was an inky blackness, something that didn’t look like the black of space. It just looked, wrong.
“We’re picking up unknown radiation from ahead,” said the sensor officer.
The Ca’cadasan commander felt a shiver run down his spine as he looked at it. It made him feel a peril such as he had never imagined. And then the blackness leapt from the opening like a predator, which the commander was sure it was.
“Open fire,” he yelled. “Kill that damned thing.”
His people stared at him for a moment, many not knowing why he was yelling kill it. Kill what, their eyes seemed to ask.
“Fire at that dark thing. Order all ships to fire at that dark thing.”
The creature had by that time swung out a half a hundred dark tentacles that went through and into the bodies of that many vessels as if they were made of a gas. Screams started coming in on the com, including from within the flagship. By this time the Caca fleet was firing, lasers, particle beams, even a few missiles. Lasers and particle beams tore through it, dissipating some of its substance. Missiles flew through without effect. And fifty Ca’cadasan warships died.
The rest of the warships fired, trying frantically to maneuver away from a creature that could move like a sea predator through space. And then the first of the antimatter containment vessels breached aboard the dead ships, and bright flares of light blotted out areas of shadows.
* * *
“Close it,” yelled Rodrigue as he watched the Cacas fight it out with death incarnate.
Gamet hit the panel, and nothing happened. More Caca ships were engulphed, more exploded, and the portal remained open.
“Close the damned thing.”
“I’m trying. But it won’t close.”
The director wondered what he had done. It had all seemed so logical when he had thought about releasing the creature into their universe, knowing that it would take years to get to another star, knowing that surely the fleet would be able to take care of it at that time. But seeing it in action was quite another thing entirely.
The gate mechanism was hit by something that caused a bright flare, probably a Caca missile, and collapsed in on itself, all of the black holes joining into one mass that sucked in all the other matter of the gate.
The creature recoiled as if it had been cut in half, which it might well have been when the door to its home slammed shut. It had enveloped the entire Caca force by now, and was still trying to feed on them. When a space ship exploded from antimatter breach it appeared as it a section of the creature disappeared with it. So it wasn’t getting its own way, and the weapons of the big aliens were hurting it.
Suddenly it was over. The Caca force was gone, along with most of the creature. What was left was no larger than a superbattleship, and much less massive. It was having trouble keeping itself together, and would soon start looking for an energy source to help it grow back to size.
“All missile batteries. Lock onto that thing and fire.”
“We’re not getting a target lock on it, sir,” called out the tech manning the defense board. “It’s not solid enough.”
“Then fire everything you have into the center of it, set to go off when they reach that point.”
The batteries fired, all ten of them, each sending ten destroyer class missiles with two hundred megaton warheads into the thing. They all went off within a millisecond of each other, a blinding flash that illuminated the thing. When the flash cleared, the thing was gone.
* * *
The Eater felt its substance dissipate under the fury of antimatter fire. What little consciousness remained fled, and all that remained was a tiny patch of the creature. A tiny patch which followed its instincts and compressed down into a solid
pellet no more than ten centimeters across. And so the remnants were cocooned, to drift through space, until they neared an energy source that would awaken it and allow it to again grow.
Chapter-Twenty-one
Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind. Nathaniel Hawthorne
FENRI SPACE. JUNE 19TH, 1003.
“They’re doing just what you thought they would, Admiral.”
“Of course,” said Mgonda. “Don’t you know I can read their tiny little minds.”
The people in the staff room laughed. Mgonda had hoped that the enemy would consolidate after he had destroyed all three fingers of their left wing. He hadn’t been sure they would, but they had to react to his ability to take their forces under fire one at a time. Which meant that the six fingers of the other two groups were starting to collapse onto their main wings. Not all the ships were moving. The enemy obviously didn’t have enough wormholes to communicate with all of their task forces, and some would be picked off before they could get word. And the leftmost of their right wing was surely doomed, as twenty thousand of his ships closed in on the seven thousand vessels in that force.
Some of his people still looked distracted, and the news of the near disaster back home was all that many could talk about. According to the news, a group of terrorists under the leadership of a renegade nobleman and a discredited scientist had tried to change time, after infiltrating the Donut. Taelis knew the truth, or as much of it as anyone knew. He hoped that those in the Capital could keep the young hothead under control, and not allow any more disastrous decisions to be made.
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