The Death of the Universe: Ghost Kingdom: Hard Science Fiction (Big Rip Book 2)

by Brandon Q Morris

  In fact, it had. She discovered a raised circle, about 50 centimeters high, where normally the hatch would have been at ground level. Whoever had been at work here had left the maintenance tunnel intact. That was smart, because if it had been left open, the sphere would have sent an alarm signal to the Convention. This way it wouldn’t.

  Valentina checked the cover. It appeared untouched. That just made the whole situation even stranger. There had already been cases where someone had tried to siphon off energy from the sphere without paying for it. To do that you had to somehow get inside. But something else seemed to be going on here. And whoever was responsible must at least have realized that it was better not to damage the maintenance tunnel.

  Valentina identified herself by entering the Convention’s code into the small keypad in the middle of the cover. It opened. She was looking into a dark pipe. But then the lighting turned itself on. There were metal steps on the wall of the pipe. They were basically unnecessary, because there was no gravity there. Valentina swung herself into the shaft and pulled herself down using the steps.

  Other tunnels led off from it, roughly every two meters, which could be used to inspect the structure of the sphere if necessary. The interior of the shell had elastic elements that regulated the shape of the ellipsoid. They were necessary because there were always various forces, both from inside and out, that affected the sphere—stars passing by, the black hole changing its mass, et cetera. The Gigadyson looked massive from the outside, but in relation to its size, the 30-meter-thick shell was far thinner than an eggshell.

  A stable shell couldn’t have been achieved with a purely passive construction. The Gigadyson depended on its ability to adapt to the effects of these forces. It could even increase its thickness in places. It didn’t sit at all well with Valentina that someone had obviously been on the outer surface, playing around with the balance that had been figured out personally by Le Corbusier.

  She reached the end of the shaft. Even though nothing could happen to her here, she instinctively attached her safety line, because she knew the environment that awaited her. She typed the code into the keypad on the inside of the hatch, it slid to the side, and Valentina fell into infinity. That was really how it felt. Beneath her was a gigantic nothingness in which a glowing bubble billowed. The former core of the Milky Way had been reawakened into a new, very energetic existence. It took up about a third of the Gigadyson and heated up its walls like a lump of glowing coal inside an oven.

  Although Valentina’s suit offered her some protection, she couldn’t stay too long near this star-like fire. The majority of the energy emitted by the black hole was in the form of jets, giant outward streams that formed at its North and South Poles. Because the black hole was rotating, they reached every part of the interior wall, like the beam of a lighthouse. If she got in the way of one of the jets, the suit would be useless. She’d be roasted like meat on a spit.

  Still, Valentina let herself drift down a little further toward the black hole. That way she had a better view of the interior wall of the sphere. She analyzed the surface with the sensors integrated into her helmet. There were no deviations from the norm. Whatever had happened up top, it hadn’t affected the interior.

  Valentina pulled herself slowly back to the shaft with the safety line.

  Cycle GN 4.3, Gigadyson

  “Iron, magnesium, titanium, lead, and a load of lighter elements deposited by the interstellar medium. The samples look clean,” said Valentina.

  Ada swiped downward with one of her right hands and the representation on the wall scrolled accordingly. The analyzer had prepared a list of the component materials and sorted them according to frequency. Ada hesitated. “But look, there’s an unusually high amount of silicon,” she said.

  “It could be from the interstellar medium. Silicon exists in stars at the end of their life cycle.”

  “I know,” said Ada. “Although I’m primarily a pilot and a programmer, I do know a bit about cosmology. But take a look at the isotope ratio. That doesn’t match silicon that’s being blasted into space by a supernova. And you’re forgetting that the upper layer, which would contain the deposits from outer space, is what’s missing.”

  “That’s true,” said Valentina. She paused for a moment and massaged her chin.

  Ada loved this boldly forward-jutting portion of Valentina’s face.

  “Oh, you’re thinking of the autonomous unit,” said her girlfriend.

  “Yes. The probe contains silicon in its solar cells, electronics, and various glass surfaces,” Ada replied.

  Valentina zoomed the image out. “Look at these low values. If the autonomous unit had crashed into the sphere, these should be much higher.”

  “Correct,” said Ada. “Something must have pulverized the probe. That would have caused the silicon to disperse itself over the entire area.”

  Valentina moved her hands and the table on the wall changed.

  Ah, she is analyzing the areal distribution, thought Ada. That was smart. If the probe had been at a particular position above the sphere when it was destroyed, more silicon should be evident there.

  “See?” asked Valentina.

  Ada saw it. The probe had been almost exactly where the Mario was now suspended. Ada cast a quick sideways glance. The space in their immediate vicinity was entirely empty. They weren’t in any danger.

  “And look at this!” Valentina was pointing at an area in the direction of the rotation of the sphere. The chart showed fewer points there, which meant less silicon had made it onto the surface. “Something must have shielded this area from the pulverized silicon,” she said.

  “Could we estimate the size of the object based on the shadow?”

  “Intercept theorem, Ada. We’d have to know the distance of the object from the autonomous unit.”

  “An estimate should be enough.”

  “Wait a moment.” Valentina stood directly in front of the display and typed something. Then she took a step back. She looked satisfied. “Five hundred to two thousand meters,” she said.

  “A spaceship?”

  “Very likely.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “It’s simple, Ada.” Valentina swiped the display to pull up a graphic representation. She pointed at an elliptical area shaded in red. “The shadow thrown by the object is elliptical at the end. If you take into account the oblique perspective,” Valentina pulled up another image, “you can see that the object must have been spherical at the end.”

  Valentina was clever. Ada was proud of her girlfriend and placed her lower left hand on her shoulder. “A dark matter drive,” said Ada.

  “Yeah. It looks like the probe was destroyed by humans,” said Valentina. “And they must have had a reason for it. The autonomous unit must have caught them doing something they didn’t want anyone to know about.”

  “Then at least this part of their plan must have been unsuccessful.”

  “Not necessarily. Or do you know what all this was about?”

  “We need to inform the Convention,” said Ada.

  Cycle GM 1.2, Gigadyson

  Autonomous unit BM13 was happy. She had just received a system command to investigate a possible disturbance. When assignments came directly from the system, the chance that it wasn’t a false alarm was much higher than if she’d received a tip from a neighboring probe. One of her sisters had found something, but wasn’t in a position to resolve the problem herself. That wasn’t unusual. BM13 couldn’t simply steer toward any location on the Gigadyson. She had to reduce her orbit by braking at just the right moment. Her average distance from the surface was currently only 30 meters.

  BM13 went through the details of the assignment one more time. It had been four weeks since the other probe had observed the anomaly. That was her greatest concern. The problem may have solved itself by now. It often happened that by the time she finally reached the coordinates, there was nothing left to do.

  An energy loss had been
recorded. That could have various harmless causes, and one dangerous one—a disturbance in the shield. But if the shell of the sphere had really been damaged, the system would have summoned more than one autonomous unit. In that case, numerous engineering probes would be on their way, because any instability in the shell had the tendency to spread.

  So it must be something harmless, and she would take care of it. Maybe an unannounced visitor to the sphere had come too close. Or two asteroids had collided nearby. The system was unable to deliver more precise details, but that just made her job more exciting. Her sensors had been running at full resolution for days. It was apparent now that the area was clear above the coordinates the system had sent.

  Since the disappearance of ZT34, all manner of rumors had been circulating among the autonomous units. Whenever two probes approached one another in orbit, they exchanged data, and what seemed to emerge from this collection of data was that ZT34 had encountered a spaceship before she was destroyed. But other rumors contradicted this. There had supposedly been a tiny wormhole along ZT34’s orbit that was responsible for its disappearance. It was allegedly the third autonomous unit to be destroyed that way, but the system kept all information about it secret.

  BM13 didn’t believe in such theories. Even the idea that a ship was involved seemed very unlikely to her, because in that case the system would have drastically increased all precautionary measures. The sphere was sacrosanct, because it secured the existence of humanity. That was of the utmost importance to BM13. She would even give her life for it, although she didn’t know or even ponder why.

  She began her descent. BM13 started up her corrective thruster and sank meter by meter down to the sphere. The coordinates of the disturbance were in sight. She just had to get past one more honeycomb section, then she could land. She pointed the thruster upward and fired. Her six legs touched down on the hard surface. The impact was cushioned by the joints in the middle of her limbs. BM13 turned off the thruster. She’d arrived.

  Now she had about half an hour. That’s how long her batteries would last. After that she’d have to fire up her thruster to refill them. BM13 walked determinedly toward the point specified by the system. It was the end of a maintenance tunnel. When she was ten meters away, BM13 recognized that something was wrong, because the hatch was open. Why was the security system not sounding the alarm? BM13 was simultaneously anxious and pleased. This didn’t look like an innocuous problem anymore.

  She reduced her speed. She stalked slowly around the hatch on her six legs. The material was cold. If someone had been here, it must have been a long time ago. BM13 extended a sensor head from her belly. On the end of a flexible stem, the football-sized head circled around the entrance to the shaft. There was a hole on the outside at the right. BM13 called up the plans for the internal electronics in her mind. The hole was located in precisely the right place to disable the alarm system. The circuit had simply been ground away when the hole had been drilled. The intruder must have known very precisely where to do it, and for that, would have had to possess knowledge that wasn’t freely available.

  But that didn’t explain what had happened here. Disabling the alarm system wouldn’t open the hatch. BM13 touched the cover and photographed it at the highest resolution. There was no sign of manipulation. It was all quite puzzling. The hatch must have been opened with a code from the Convention. But shouldn’t the system know this had happened? BM13 thought of the rumors she’d heard. Was she on the trail of a conspiracy? No, that was nonsense. Surely there was a reasonable explanation for everything.

  Before she could close the hatch again, she had to check the shaft. BM13 inserted her sensor head into it. Maybe she’d find some kind of evidence in there? Her multi-jointed neck extended out to its maximum length of 20 meters, but even in the depths of the shaft there were no heat signatures or any other signs of the presence of an unauthorized person. The hatch to the interior was properly locked. That really made no sense. The only conceivable reason for breaking into the outer hatch would have been to access the energy supply in the interior. BM13 slowly retracted her head.

  But then her movements faltered. BM13 was frightened. She had commanded her neck joints to contract, but they weren’t responding. She ran a system test. It wasn’t the motors. They were working and receiving commands. They just couldn’t carry them out, because something was blocking them. The sensors were all in the shaft. From there she couldn’t tell what was holding onto her body. But she couldn’t pull her head out either, because her neck was somehow stuck. BM13 was blind.

  No. She couldn’t afford to panic. Each one of her motors was also a sensor. She tensed all her joints. Her neck was stuck, but her body seemed to be free. The tiny, experimental movements she was making, which were externally invisible, encountered no resistance. BM13 mentally pictured her body and the environment including shaft. She saw herself standing on the surface of the Gigadyson, her front legs slightly bent, her sensor head in the shaft.

  The object that was obstructing her movement must be inside the shaft near the entrance. It was holding onto her neck there. It wanted to make her blind and immobile. It was obviously a malicious action. This authorized the unit to defend herself with an appropriate level of violence. But she had to be careful because, as a repair probe, she had no license to kill.

  She would use her middle pair of legs. She established a firm hold with her back legs. Her front appendages were bowed and took longer to free themselves up for an attack. The middle legs were perfect. She wouldn’t need to upset her balance at all.

  BM13 attacked with both legs at once. The metal structures lifted themselves off the ground, folded forward around her body with lightning speed, and attacked whatever it was that was gripping her neck. But they encountered nothing. Her opponent must have guessed what she was trying to do. Or her simulation was incorrect.

  Her neck was still stuck. Following a sudden impulse, she immediately struck again, and this time her right leg encountered an obstacle. It was soft. BM13 felt her leg break through an outer layer into an amorphous mass. Then the obstacle flew away. Her blow had presumably flung it. Was that still an appropriate level of violence? BM13 was worried. If she had miscalculated this, the system would decommission her. She tried to pull her neck out of the noose. And in fact, her head moved up a few centimeters.

  Then a shock flashed through her consciousness. BM13 still had time to be astonished. That was impossible. And it wasn’t fair. She had only been trying to effect a repair! With that thought, she died.

  Cycle GO 6.1, Kepler-1229

  “So, do we absolutely have to go back to K2-288b?”

  “Yes, Johannes, I told you, I have something to clear up there. But you’re welcome to stay here.”

  Kepler shook his head. He was not enthused by the idea of spending a few thousand years without Zhenyi. Well, he could put his body into storage and reduce the clock speed of his consciousness almost to zero, but it would be a shameful waste of time. He sometimes missed the naive attitude to the passing of years that humanity had still indulged before it became clear that the end was near. Today, you had to really consider whether to take a long trip across the Milky Way, and it wasn’t about saving energy.

  “You’re all welcome to stay with me,” said Newton. “I mean on one of my planets.”

  That had actually been Kepler’s plan, but his girlfriend insisted on visiting her base on K2-288b. He thought gloomily about the ice-cold surface of the planet. And yet that’s where it had all begun—the visit from the Curies way back then was what had led him on his own search for Zhenyi. Maybe it would be nice to light the fireplace one more time? Did the genuine wood that the butler had burnt for him in those days still exist? Hopefully it had been stored in such a way that it hadn’t been affected by the passing of the millennia since they were last there.

  He turned the chair in front of him sideways and rested his feet on it. He already missed the perpetual summer on the new planet of the Herbae. They w
ere now sitting in Newton’s base on the asteroid, under the dome that provided a clear view of the local sun and the universe.

  “Newton, can you show us the Gigadyson?” he asked.

  Kepler watched Newton gesticulate wildly. The controls didn’t react immediately. Then the picture on the ceiling changed. The glass roof functioned as a telescope. The sun grew and then wandered out of their field of view. The more the telescope magnified, the darker it became. There was still nothing to be seen of the sphere.

  “I’ll switch to infrared,” said Newton.

  “Thanks.”

  Now there was finally something to see. The entire background shimmered a dark red.

  “That was probably too close,” said Newton.

  The telescoping roof appeared to zoom back out. Kepler noticed this because pitch-black edges appeared to the left and right. The dark red object took the form of a huge ellipsoid. Humanity had laid an egg in the center of their own galaxy. What might hatch out of it? Hopefully, nothing at all. The egg would continue to supply them with energy until the universe died a natural death at some point.

  He felt a draft and something creaked. Someone was probably entering the base. It must be the butler. He had the task of preparing Zhenyi’s ship for the long journey home.

  “Everything is ready for departure,” said the butler. “But we’ll have to refuel halfway.”

  “Then we should board as soon as possible,” said Zhenyi.

  That was typical of her. Once she’d made a decision, things couldn’t happen fast enough. Kepler took a deep breath in and out. It was going to be a long trip.

  “But you’ll eat with me first,” said Newton. “I’ve cooked for three.”