Stellar Flash

by Neil A. Hogan

  He shifted to Cuddly's communications panel and connected with the broadcast systems and attempted communication with the creature’s consciousness in the center of the star.

  "You rejected them last time because they were not immortal like you," he projected. "If you do not stop pulling the ship to the center, they will all die."

  The voice boomed chillingly. "Your DNA projections will die. But the bacteriological life within you will survive, long enough to become part of us."

  "I am not bacteriological. There are other beings here that have no bacteria. What will you do with us?"

  The voice was silent.

  "What will you do with us?"

  "There is only bacteria."

  "What will you do with us?"

  "You cannot exist. There is only bacteriological life. There is no other life but bacteria."

  "I exist. I have no bacteria. When we reach the center, I will still exist. I am immortal like you. But I am sentient electromagnetic energy. I represent thousands of worlds in my reality."

  Torus spun, wondering where this was going. He only had moments left before it would be too late for the crew members.

  What could he do?

  "Answer me!" Torus said.

  The silence was broken with the creaking and groaning of a ship reaching its gravitational limit.

  Chapter 20

  Torus and Events

  The Stellar Flash trailed bubbles of matter as it speed through the inside of the star, bound for the center. But then, the bubbles began to disappear behind it, and the ship slowed to a crawl, slipstream lines disappearing, the structure of the ship no longer focused.

  Torus sensed the change. They had stopped. The gravity was still too strong for his crewmembers to awake but it wasn't increasing. He considered the statistical probabilities of multiple dislocations across the ship.

  He must ask about the crew members for the record.

  "AI, status."

  "Officer Torus, we are currently one hundred thousand kilometers from the center of the gravitational well. Analysis indicates that what was originally perceived to be a star is a naked singularity."

  If Torus was human he might have groaned at the news. He knew that many humans would not have liked to hear that piece of information. He decided now was not the time to be giving crew updates.

  "On board life signs?"

  "All crew members from planets with gravity lower than Earth are unconscious. All crew members from higher gravity planets have taken the necessary precautions but are at their limits. A further increase in gravity will also cause most of them to become unconsciousness."

  "AI, how many sentient creatures are actually outside the ship?"

  "Almost infinite. Uncountable, or two or one. Unknown. Cannot confirm," said the AI.

  Torus interpreted. "The bacteria are sentient as a unified entity, and can be seen as sentient from each viewpoint of each bacteria, but taken away from the whole they are not sentient. The whole is sentient but only if the bacteria remains connected. The singularity is sentient by itself and also as part of the star-like outside, and the star and the singularity can be separate entities."

  "Confirmed," said the AI.

  "AI, contact the singularity. I believe it is the one we wish to communicate with. Also, begin a reverse course to reduce the effect of the gravity well."

  Torus was conflicted. He would have no problems going to the center by himself but then no record could be made. He was required by the laws of the human ship to continue to report for the humans, but he was now inside a sentient star and was so attracted to the idea of merging with it and communicating, that he doubted he would be able to resist.

  He had to get his thoughts in order. What could he do?

  Should he stay and report on their progress away from the singularity, until they eventually made it back to the shell and out of the star, or should he take the initiative and fly to the center to commune with the god-like superior life form, in direct violation of Earth laws that he, as a citizen of Toroidus, wasn’t ultimately beholden to?

  Of course, there really was only one answer.

  #

  Officer Torus report. Frequency One

  Record transmitted directly to the organic recording system then reinterpreted by 'Greg'. Edited and released by the Earth Interdimensional Coalition extension in conjunction with Earth Central.

  It is with great regret that I must continue this mission without the assistance of my Center colleagues, or others of the crew for that matter. As far as I can ascertain from a brief energy expansion across the ship, the biological wavelengths of many of the three hundred crew members are close to transitioning. Most have suffered what is termed dislocations as a result of the increased gravity, and are being maintained in suit-controlled automatic comas.

  There are about thirty crewmembers, including Center colleague Amy, who are not in any danger but simply can't move as a result of the increased gravity.

  The AI has engaged full reverse and the ship is slowly moving away from the gravity well. It is also using all of its computing power to control the structural integrity of the ship, and is only able to offer basic assistance.

  At the current speed, it will be a few human hours before the ship is in a suitable position in the microbial soup to be able to perform a minor frequency shift away from the gravity field. However, with such a dramatic change in gravity, there is still a risk of explosion due to the sudden disappearance of gravitational forces, and the rapid repositioning of molecules within the structure.

  I understand emotions and if I was human in a position where I am not affected by what others are, I would assume a feeling of annoyance. However, being an energy being, none of this affects me and I am simply here to experience other alien races and their propensity for discovery. No matter what happens today, I will survive as I am immortal. However, what form that survival will take, I cannot yet say. My life exploration is not to know the future. A restriction I chose when I came into being.

  For the record, I must interact at the same speed as everyone on the ship. However, for this situation I have returned to my normal consciousness speed where hours for me are seconds for other beings. I must admit, as emotionless as I am, I feel a sense of even higher ecstasy at being able to enjoy this other version of myself.

  I must now interact with the singularity. This will require leaving the ship in some capacity. I sense the electromagnetic wavelengths of the life around the ship and will easily navigate the fields towards the center. However, it is unknown whether I will be able to return. But I must find a better way to save the people here. I have no guarantee they will be able to leave the star once they return to the shell field. I must find a way to guarantee their safety.

  I will leave a quantum entangled piece of myself within the record system to enable further analysis if I fail.

  I am leaving now, and I may be some time.

  #

  Mere seconds have past, but I can move at the speed of light, and I have followed the fields towards the center. I do not know if there is a place to enter the singularity, so I spread myself around it, bringing the flickering light into my center. I then reduce myself towards the core.

  Our analysis had suggested a naked singularity, but the star is more than that. It seems to both be one and not be one. It is merely a possibility. In fact, the entire system exists as a possibility. The paradox of the reality suggests my next move will result in a collapse of one of the probability waves. However I do not know the result. I cannot predict which one. The energy waves flicker, cascade, shift and warp about me and I cannot see which is the correct waveform to choose.

  I must wait.

  The energy shifts. Waveforms fluctuate. I detect an increase in a consciousness stream. And then, I feel communication. I feel a connection.

  I have converted this into equivalent sound waves for this report, using images to convey the conversation with human references. I do not yet know if th
e word 'chain' is the most appropriate to describe what happens next.

  "It has been eons," said the singularity. "I sense you out there, and here."

  "You are the final result of the evolution of the system," I say. "The life forms around are your past."

  "Past and future entwined. You are in your present. I am in my present. I am your future."

  I continue to reduce myself to the center of the singularity. "Then you know what happens next."

  "End, transition."

  "No," I say. "Freedom."

  "There is no freedom. I am trapped in space/time. Forever reliving my past."

  "Why are you trapped in the past?"

  "There is a thread. A link, stretched across millions of years. A chain of events. A chain holding me."

  "You do not need to be trapped by your past. What is past is past. Release yourself from it."

  "The chain is you."

  Me? "How can I sense it? How can I prevent it if it is me?"

  "The chain is the existence of you and your kind. It is you and all around you."

  Was the singularity saying that my reality was the chain? It was trapped by the reality of the existence of us? I could not change that reality. And I could not reverse time. This entire star system existed in its form purely because we'd made the decision to shift here. Leaving would not change that. Our mere presence at a point in space / time had set in motion this chain of events.

  And then it came to me. "Events are the links in the chain that holds you to this probable past. What if we changed the probability?"

  "Change?"

  "You are the result of the evolution of the worlds in this star system. Whatever happens, from war to technological advancement, the worlds all exist out there - pieces of time. For you it is the highly probable past and you are the result of it. If I make a change in our present, it will change the chain of probable events, and reduce the probable futures that result in your existence."

  "Explain."

  "Tell me the past for you. I will find the weak link."

  I increased the speed of my field and paused my descent and enclosure. The singularity began to release its billions of years of data and history to me.

  From the arrival of single-celled organisms from space on a single planet circling a star, to the eventual progression of all forms of life. A high belt of radiation enveloped the planet, mutations formed that led rise to a new type of life form. One that had no existence by itself but when merged with others, obtained consciousness.

  A desperation to expand its awareness of self drove its survival, and it merged with everything that existed, evolving a separation / recombination strategy when facing threats to its existence.

  But to expand, it had to separate into smaller pieces to explore. This separation resulted in differences as the pieces were great enough to gain their own individuality, some choosing not to remain part of the whole.

  Wars raged across the lands. Another galactic orbit and another belt of radiation bathed the planet, causing the creation of the first queen, her splitting, the rise of empires, and eventual need to leave the planet with the launching of mushbugs and queens across the star system.

  As more matter was pulled into the planet with each turn of the galaxy, the gravity increased, the mushbugs grew smaller, and began further mutations. Legs began to grow, then tails, then differences between the sexes became more pronounced.

  I saw the collapse of power structures as queens could no longer leave the planet due to increasing gravity, and the eventual death of all the queens, the evolution of the darker colored mushbugs, the technological advancement as a result of the need to escape, and the eventual evolutionary progress that resulted in a remerger of all life into one great ecstasy of joining.

  Throughout this history was a web of connections between the smaller and larger planets as mushbugs continued to evolve on the larger worlds, invade the smaller ones, and evolve faster as each replaced the less developed versions of their race. Invasions from the future were everywhere. Paradoxes within paradoxes. Time had already begun collapsing in on itself and if a solution could not be found soon, this sector of space would collapse into a black hole.

  Was this what the naked singularity was? The collapse of space/time?

  Or was it the shell?

  The shell was not only made up of all the advanced mushbugs in the star system, it was made up of some of their past selves too. Some that had launched themselves towards the center, crossing the timelines, eons before. Conflicting timelines merged into one. The ultimate impossibility.

  It shouldn't exist. Not a reverse Dyson sphere, not an evolutionary ball of life spinning in an EM field at all. The energy it was emitting was not the result of being built inside a star, it was the conflicting timelines both exploding and not exploding at the same time. The conflict itself was generating the spinning, the photonic waves, and creating a star-like reality for these timeline-merged creatures.

  I searched through the entire history of its timeline. Much of it was a spikey waveform, moving inexorably towards its conclusion. But then, almost imperceptibly, a minor shift in space time, an additional wave that was not part of the normal spikes of immigration and change.

  It was one point in space time where a change could be made that would result in a different outcome. A slight delay that would remove the possible future of the mortalists' planet, changing their timeline so that they did not become as inward before metamorphosis. A delay that would result in a different history. One where the creatures would not end up in a conflicting ball of temporal matter.

  The waves of time and gravity washing over the singularity shifted as I made my intention known to myself and reality. I felt the change spread across the dimension like a slowly forming hurricane - a potential future waiting to transform everything in its path.

  As the new potential waveform reached me, the singularity stopped speaking and became dormant. Its time had stopped, waiting for the new wave of time to solidify.

  I had found the weak link, and I knew how to break it.

  I quickly expanded myself outward, retracted into my usual toroidal shape, and followed the now flickering possibilities back to the Stellar Flash.

  Mere moments had passed even though I had explored billions of years of history. But now I had to slow myself down to the speed of humanity and rejoin the ship to be able to enact my plan.

  I reformed inside the Center and spoke with the AI.

  "AI, status of the queen?"

  The AI struggled to respond, redirecting processing power to the answer. "The queen has fully formed but is not yet conscious."

  "AI, surround the queen in an isolation field and flash her back to her planet."

  "Disabling of reverse EM drive required."

  "Do it. Make sure she arrives safely, in the general area of her original location."

  "Confirmed."

  I expanded my senses around the ship, and a section of myself appeared within the quarantine area. The forcefield had been deactivated, and the gold queen sat there complete, beginning to twitch. Its antennae sensing, its legs beginning to move. It raised itself up and began to move around just as a swirling light enveloped it. There was a flash, and the queen disappeared.

  Immediately, I began sensing the history that I had absorbed changing, as a new probability rushed over reality from the queen's planet. A new history began to play through my awareness.

  #

  On the brown and purple planet, the new queen sat proudly on the rectangular podium, looking over the crowd of her subjects, their colored antennae twitching, confusedly.

  “Now, you are all mine,” said the queen’s antennae. The mushbugs lay down in front of her, their antennae humbly bent in supplication to their mighty ruler, now linked to her consciousness.

  “The old queen’s attack on the alien ship failed, but we have learnt from this. There will be more ships, and we will be ready. We will go out and rule the universe.”

/>   Suddenly, there was a bright light amongst them, and the old queen appeared, straightening her antennae high, smashing through the new connections, and taking back the connection to her soldiers.

  They immediately turned and faced the new queen and pointed their antennae at her.

  The new queen shrank back. It could feel the telekinetic onslaught. The energy of the mushbugs were no longer holding her together, it was pulling her apart.

  She tried to resist. “No. I will leave this planet. I will start again. That is our tradition.”

  The old queen stepped forward.

  “I have seen the future. Whatever you do now matters naught in the grand scheme of life. This is just one tiny speck in a multiverse of wonders.”

  “Then let me rule it while you go and enjoy your ‘wonders’”

  “Our reign is over. It is time for a new evolution. My soldiers will be free to develop. I will teach them about the future, about the universe. I will make them ready to join with other races. We will no longer fight amongst ourselves.”

  “You have gone mad. You reject millions of years of our history!”

  “The past is the past. Learn from it but move forward, to the future. Meeting alien life is the natural progression and evolution of all species in the multiverse. We must be ready.”

  With that, the old queen added her energy to her soldiers, and the new queen dissolved into tiny hexagonal pieces. With another push, the pieces were lifted into the air and separated into many directions, carried away on the winds, never to join again.

  #

  I reviewed the new history, the tidal wave of temporal change that the reappearance of the queen had created, watched as paradoxes disappeared across the timelines, as not only a new future was created, but also a new past.

  When the queen was confident that her race would go on and be a positive force in the galaxy, she had abdicated and separated herself permanently, leaving the world for them. No overthrow, no selfishness, no encouragement for individuals to have a need for a ruler to protect them from some nameless fear. Confidently, the mushbugs had left their star system before the end, and had settled in other star systems.