The Hole

by Brandon Q Morris

  “Yes, Masha, I will be there in a moment,” Doug said. He gave a push to the empty cargo crate he had brought from Kiska. The life-support system kept blowing gusts of fetid air into his face, and he would have rather left his spacesuit in the airless airlock. He pushed the crate into the airlock and followed it.

  The other crew members were already waiting for Doug in the living room. Once he had taken a shower and put on clean clothing, he felt like a new man. Sebastiano floated above the table, holding the champagne bottle in his hand.

  “Shall we open it today?” the cook invited.

  Doug waved him aside and said. “When we get back, okay? I am not in the mood for celebrating today.”

  Sebastiano looked disappointed. Did he think their impending journey was just some nice little family vacation? Doug still thought they could only lose and should instead stay here. His crew was more open to the idea of going, but they also did not have Shostakovich breathing down their necks. Who knew what else the Russian would demand from him? Once more, Doug felt the urge to bring everything out into the open. However, then his fear might come true and Maria would reject him. That would be terrible.

  “Now what?” Maria asked, first looking at Sebastiano, then at Doug.

  “I am certainly not going to give a speech,” Doug said.

  “Then, let’s get going,” Sebastiano said. “Watson, could you place the station into hibernation after we leave?”

  “But not the greenhouses,” Maria added. “Did you program the automatic system correctly, so my plants will be taken care of?”

  “Everything is prepared, “Watson’s voice said from a loudspeaker above them. “Siri took over programming the automatic system. You can trust her.”

  “If you say so,” Doug replied. “Launch in 60 minutes.”

  About an hour later they were all sitting inside Kiska.

  “Status, Watson?” Doug asked, as commander.

  “All systems as expected,” Watson replied.

  “Start the countdown,” Doug said.

  “Starting countdown.” Watson’s voice began to count down the numbers. “T minus 60, 59, 58...”

  Doug once more checked his safety belt. He looked around. Maria had her eyes closed. It was only her third launch in Kiska, but it would at least be more pleasant, he had promised her, than the launch from Earth that had occurred back at the beginning.

  Three, two, one. At zero, it seemed as if an invisible figure sat down squarely on his chest. Doug moaned in surprise. Spending a long time in zero gravity had made him a weakling, and the training in the basement had not changed that. The ship accelerated faster than the previous time, when they had first found Watson. Kiska had to reach 1.3 g, otherwise they would miss the black hole. Doug raised his head and activated his display. He definitely wanted to watch the launch and see the asteroid disappear below them.

  Everything went faster than expected. The giant boulder became a lonely rock in space, and finally a speck of dust. Doug felt sad. No matter how inhospitable 2003 EH1 was, it had become their home. A premonition told him that at least one of them would not see their home again. He would do everything to make sure he was that particular person, rather than either of the members of his crew, neither of whom deserved such a fate.

  February 11, 2072, Harrisonburg to Green Bank

  It was Maribel’s fault that winter had kept them in Harrisonburg. She had discovered a possible route on the road map that would lead them through Woodstock, but this idea combined two errors. First of all, the famous Woodstock Festival, which happened over 100 years ago, was not even held in the town of Woodstock. Secondly, the festival’s name referred to Woodstock in New York State, while this here was Woodstock, Virginia.

  Snow had started to fall even as she and Chen left the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Chen usually liked to drive himself, but after twenty minutes he gave up in frustration and handed control to the rental car’s automatic system. They moved slowly but steadily on Interstate 81, always in the slipstream of giant robot trucks. They had to switch to US-33 after Harrisonburg, which traversed the mountains lying between them and their destination. Here the snowfall became so dense the snow plows could no longer catch up. The couple was stuck in an endless traffic jam as twilight fell, so they decided to stop for the night and continue their journey the next morning.

  Maribel watched Chen loading a stack of pancakes onto his plate at the breakfast buffet. He poured maple syrup over them, added a bit of whipped cream, and then topped them off with chocolate sprinkles.

  “How can you manage to eat so much in the morning?” she asked him.

  Chan laughed. “This is normal!”

  Her plate looked quite different, just a single croissant and some red jam. On the other hand, she had just gotten her third espresso from the coffee maker.

  “If you take another croissant, we can skip lunch,” Chen suggested.

  “That would be a pity,” Maribel said. “We only have 167 lunches left. I intend to enjoy each one of them.”

  She sat down again at their table near the window, and from the old-fashioned hotel Maribel could see a charming snowy landscape. In the summer this was a golf course, the lady who owned the hotel had told them when they checked in. The snow glittered in the light of the low sun.

  “Fantastic,” said Chen, who must have noticed her looking out.

  “Yes. Where I come from the snow looks different… wilder,” Maribel said. “It’s probably because of the environment. Here I feel like just rolling around in it.”

  When snow fell on the Pico del Teide in the winter, it only partially covered the lava fields. Death always remained visible.

  “You chose a great hotel,” her boyfriend said.

  “That was by accident,” she replied. Actually, the By the Side of the Road Inn was the first hotel they noticed after turning around in Harrisonburg. Even the name seemed pleasant and unpretentious to them.

  Chen looked at the clock on the wall and started eating faster. The hour hand of the old-fashioned wall clock stood shortly before nine.

  “We should get back on the road soon,” he said. “There’s two more hours to drive.”

  They had an appointment at the Green Bank Observatory for eleven o’clock. Millikan had not been able to tell them whether he would be there and said it depended on how he felt that day. Maribel yawned and got her fourth espresso. They really should have gone to sleep right away after going to bed. She smiled to herself.

  “Is everything okay?” Chen asked while wiping his mouth with a napkin.

  “Everything is fine,” she replied. Then she got up and said, “I am going to brush my teeth.”

  “See you soon,” he said with a grin.

  Ten minutes later the compacted snow crunched under the soles of Maribel’s sneakers. Even though the sun was shining, it was freezing cold, and the air was clearer than she had ever seen. When she exhaled, a light fog formed in front of her mouth. She and Chen worked together to remove ten centimeters of snow from the car. Her hands were getting cold, until Chen noticed it and loaned her his gloves. Inside the car she turned the heating to the maximum level, while Chen activated the autonomous driving mode.

  They left the suburbs behind them, and soon there was only forest to the right and left, while the road struggled upward through switchback after switchback. The branches of the trees were drooping under the heavy load of fresh snow. After half an hour the forest retreated and they reached the small town of Franklin.

  Maribel saw a yellow sign on a building. ‘Fireside Café,’ it read.

  “Come on, let’s stop here,” she insisted.

  Chen looked at her and asked, “Why?”

  “The name! It sounds so nice.”

  “We’ll be late.”

  “Just one coffee, please,” she begged.

  Chen stopped the car, and Maribel got out. Suddenly, the building looked rather ugly to her. She nevertheless went to the entrance. Chen hurried after her an
d took her arm. It was too hot inside, but she saw just what she had been looking for—two easy chairs and a small table, as if especially made for them. She sat down and Chen followed her lead.

  “You see?” she said, glad again. “Two coffees,” she called to the owner, who had just started toward them to take their orders.

  The stop cost them a quarter of an hour, but Maribel was not worried, because the car automatically reported the delay to Millikan’s software assistant. Still, their host looked a bit cold when they met him in front of the visitors center. Robert Millikan, 94, sat in a wheelchair, and a wool blanket was spread across his lap and legs.

  “Welcome to the Green Bank Observatory,” he said, extending his right hand. “I am glad you are here.” Today, his voice was not nearly as raspy as it had been during their call the day before yesterday.

  Maribel placed her hand in front of her mouth. “I hope you haven’t been waiting out here for a quarter of an hour?”

  “Not even ten minutes,” Millikan replied. “But that’s no problem. It is such a beautiful day.”

  “We sent your assistant...” she began.

  Millikan waved his hand and said, “Oh well, I usually forget that thing and leave it at home. As I said, ‘no problem.’ I am glad to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “Really?” Maribel asked. “From Crewmaster?”

  “From him, too. But let’s go to the control room, now.”

  Millikan pushed a button on the armrest of his wheelchair and said, “Control room.” The device started moving. It moved so quickly, the couple could hardly keep up with it.

  “If you would like to—if you have enough time—later I can give you a tour of the facilities,” Millikan said.

  “Are you doing well enough for that?” Maribel asked, slightly concerned.

  “The doctors gave me some shots so I would be more fit today. They said I’ll have to pay for it tomorrow, though.”

  “Your voice also sounds a lot better.”

  “They’ve got great medications. However, those shorten one’s life span a bit, so I use them sparingly.”

  “So just for us, you...”

  “No reason for concern, Maribel,” Millikan said. “It feels great to be needed. The last time was, let me see... almost exactly 25 years ago, when I was able to help someone in another matter of life or death.”

  “Life or death?” she asked.

  “If I understood the news correctly, that’s what this is really all about, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Yes, I am afraid so.”

  By now the trio had reached a large, two-story building. They approached the entrance and the door opened automatically. Beyond it loomed a labyrinth of corridors. Millikan rolled ahead of them.

  “I could never find the way back by myself,” Maribel said.

  Their elderly guide stopped in front of a heavy metal door.

  “If you would?” Millikan asked, then nodded at Chen. “These handles are still truly manual.”

  Chen pushed the heavy handles downward, and the door opened with a squeak. The room behind it measured approximately eight by eight meters. There were shelves and tables near the walls, and more tables in the center. Computer monitors were distributed, seemingly at random, throughout the room. Maribel saw two women in white lab coats who were sitting across from each other at a table, probably discussing something. Now they looked up and glanced at the newcomers. When they saw Millikan, they quickly moved everything out of the way to clear his path.

  “Thanks, but we can manage,” he said to the two women. “I don’t want to keep you from your work.”

  “You’re looking good today, Robert,” one of the women commented.

  The 94-year-old laughed.

  “Come along, you two.” Millikan waved at Maribel and Chen and led them to the row of windows. The windows were covered with metal blinds, one of which he now pulled up with a kind of string.

  “You see the dish back there?” he asked, pointing. “This serves as our ears and mouth.”

  Maribel knew how a radio telescope worked, but Chen had a business degree.

  “It is not only radio towers that emit radio waves,” she explained to her boyfriend. “They are also generated by many processes in space, often at even higher intensity than waves in the visible spectrum. In addition, radio waves penetrate some obstacles much better than other waves do. With the aid of the antenna dishes we can receive and amplify them.”

  “Thanks, Maribel,” Chen said. “Something like using a magnifying glass—I can imagine it clearly.”

  “What only a few people are aware of,” Millikan said as he closed the blinds and lowered his voice, “is that Martin—my son, as you surely know—installed a transmitter on Enceladus, which the creature can use to communicate with us. Well, it could, if it saw a reason for it.”

  Maribel’s optimism faded. “It never communicated with us, did it?”

  “Actually, it once sent a warning,” Millikan replied.

  “When?” she asked.

  “This was 25 years ago.”

  “And since then?”

  “We have had no contact with it whatsoever,” Millikan said. “I am actually glad about it. After all that drama back then, we feared the worst. It looked like the military was attempting to secure the knowledge of this creature, but then they seemed to lose interest in it.”

  “Because it never answered,” Maribel said.

  “That is exactly right.”

  Maribel pulled up a chair, sat down, and leaned her head on her hands. What did she really expect out of this? Whatever it was, it seemed to have been too much. She always made the same mistake. She got too excited about something and then was ultimately disappointed. This pattern had repeatedly shown up in her life. With Chen it probably was going to end the very same way. It would be best to let go of him right now.

  But then she remembered the little girl who finally convinced her mother to buy her the red coat, not the ugly blue one. They were already here at the observatory in Green Bank. They might as well give it a try. In the end, who knew what might happen? Maybe it would work.

  “I would still like to try to attempt a conversation with the being on Enceladus,” Maribel said while looking at Millikan with a slight pout.

  “A conversation? I hope we understand each other,” the older astronomer said. “Right now, the signal delay amounts to 87 minutes. This means if we ask a question now, the answer would arrive no earlier than,” he said, looking at the clock, “14:28. And that’s only if Enceladus is currently in front of its planet, from our perspective. Otherwise, there can be no radio contact.”

  “And?” Maribel asked.

  “You want to know whether Enceladus is currently...?”

  “Yes I do.”

  “Oh, okay. One moment, please,” Millikan said. He rolled toward one of the vintage-looking computers and typed something. “Yes, we are in luck.”

  That was a good start.

  “What kind of signal would be most likely to succeed?” she asked.

  “We don’t know. There never has been a successful two-way communication.”

  “But you said you communicated 25 years ago?”

  “No, the creature sent us a message,” Millikan replied. “It took us a while to decipher it.”

  Maribel paused for a moment and then asked, “Was it encrypted in an unusual way?”

  “No, but... well, sort of—it mostly consisted of images. The creature has been all alone in its ocean, for millions or perhaps billions of years. It never needed words to explain something to others. We must have been quite a shock for that creature.”

  “Is that why it has been so silent?”

  “There might be another reason,” he said.

  This situation was getting more and more convoluted. “And what would that be?” Maribel asked.

  Millikan whispered, and she had to lean forward to understand him. “We tried to kill it,” he said.

 
; Maribel leaned back, outraged, “And why is no one aware of this?”

  “There must have been some kind of a deal made,” Millikan replied.

  She puffed out her cheeks and huffed out a deep breath.

  “It was a long time ago. One could almost call it a happy ending,” Millikan said.

  “Okaaaay,” Maribel said. “Okay, let’s get back to our attempt to establish contact. ‘Images,’ you said. We have images. I could create an animation of what is approaching us. Give me ten minutes.” She paused and looked at Robert. “Will that be enough?” she asked him.

  “The ten minutes?”

  “The animation.”

  “I don’t know, Maribel.”

  “Do you have a modern computer for me?” she asked.

  Millikan pointed toward the back.

  It took Maribel just under ten minutes to animate the future. In her version, there was no happy ending, not even for the Enceladus creature.

  “Do you think it won’t mind the oversimplification?” she asked Millikan. “It might be lucky and survive if Enceladus is behind Saturn at that moment.”

  “I think that is okay. Send the file to my address,” the elderly astronomer said.

  Maribel sent him her animation.

  “Thanks,” Millikan said. Now he typed something again.

  “What are you doing?” Maribel asked.

  “I am coding, just a little,” he replied. “A bit of error correction and a check sum. That way the creature can determine whether it received the complete message.”

  “If it knows the binary system,” she said.

  “If you are swimming around the ocean by yourself for such a long time, and thinking is the only thing that offers any diversion, you should certainly know the binary system by heart,” Millikan explained,

  “But we don’t know it for sure, do we?”

  “No, Maribel. Okay, I am switching the telescope into transmission mode.”

  “And that dish can transmit all the way to Saturn?” Chen asked.

  “Much farther,” Millikan replied. “We can even reach probes in interstellar space with it.”