by Nick Webb
“Singularity.”
Shin-Wentworth nodded. “That’s what I think it means. And the gray? I’m sorry, I haven’t the foggiest.”
Wiggum shrugged. “Well, it’s only theoretical. My late colleagues were developing something similar at Yarbrough Tech. I believe some Russian Confederation scientists have practical knowledge, if you follow me. But that space inside the black circle? The gray? This graphing program is what it is. It graphs the gravitational field strength in yellow. Infinite gravity? You get black. But gray? I checked the manual because I’d never seen this before. Keep in mind that the gravity vector is, technically, a complex vector. It has real and imaginary parts. Usually the imaginary part is meaningless, and it’s dropped. But in this case? The real part is zero, and all we’re left with is the imaginary part. The computer represented it as gray.”
“Okay.” Shin-Wentworth sat down in the chair next to Wiggum. “What does it mean? You know, besides the fact that there are,” he glanced up at the globe, zoomed out, and counted, “at least twenty spots that bear striking resemblances to the Russian artificial singularities from the Second Swarm War.”
“I studied those for my undergraduate thesis. These are similar, but different in a lot of ways that I’m only beginning to see. The main difference is that gray area. The Russian singularities weren’t circles. Or spheres, or whatever. They were, well, singularities. Zero-dimensional points. These are technically two-dimensional singularities, where the two coordinates are radius and angle, forming a spherical shell. It’s a shell of infinite gravity. And inside?”
“Inside is what?”
Wiggum shrugged. “That, my friend, is the mystery. What is imaginary gravity?”
Shin-Wentworth drummed his fingers on the desk. We regret to inform you that Robert Shin has deceased in the line of duty. His mind had trouble focusing.
Out of nowhere, he thought of his conversations with Captain Whitehorse. About the ship’s namesake. Captain Tyler Volz. Ballsy. And about his son, the eminent prick, Ethan Zivic. Ethan “Batshit” Zivic.
If they bent the rules to save civilization, why the hell couldn’t he?
“Well, Director, how would you like to find out?”
Wiggum looked surprised. “Go down there? Do you think the Trits will let us?”
“Not down there. Here. We’ve got all this fancy equipment. We know how the Russians made theirs—we’ve got classified production files here you probably haven’t seen. Why not just reproduce what they’ve got?”
Director Wiggum at first looked concerned, and then—like kid in a candy factory. “You mean . . . oh my god, really? Make an artificial singularity here? They’re banned.”
“They’re banned, yes. But Director, there’s a war on. And when humanity’s survival is at stake, rules go out the window.”
Wiggum slowly nodded. “Okay. Yeah, okay.”
Shin-Wentworth stood up. “Then what the hell are we waiting for?”
As an applied physics lab, it came equipped with various reaction tubes and vacuum chambers and every imaginable field emitter you could think of. Shin-Wentworth motioned to a corner. “I think that one should do. I’ll get you the files, and while you read them I’ll go start setting up.”
An hour later, they’d made a fair amount of progress—the chamber was set up for gravitational field effect manipulation, and an array of instruments were mounted, aligned, and focused on the center. But according to the schematics, they also had a fair amount of work to do before they could even make a rudimentary test case.
That’s when Shin-Wentworth got the second message of the day.
This one wasn’t from Fleet Memorial Affairs. In a way, it was worse.
It was from Admiral Shelby Proctor.
TO ALL IDF OFFICERS STATIONED ON EARTH: TIME IS SHORT, AND YOUR NATION NEEDS YOU. YOUR CIVILIZATION NEEDS YOU. THE WORLD OF PARADISO IS UNDER IMMINENT THREAT OF ATTACK. THERE IS A MISSION….
He didn’t need to read beyond the word mission.
He’d heard about Zion’s Haven. One survivor. The Findiri were here.
“Megan,” he said.
“Excuse me?” said Wiggum.
“Molly. Edward. Megan.”
Wiggum squinted. “Your family. Right?”
He abruptly stood up. “Director Wiggum. You’ll have to finish this without me. You have my authorization to use whatever staff or resources you require to carry out the research.”
He started to leave.
“Where are you going?”
The doors were already closing behind him when he called out his reply. “To be a goddamn hero.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Britannia Sector
Orbit of Britannia Debris Cloud
ISS Dirac
Bridge
It felt like she’d only closed her eyes for a minute. The door chimed, and she forced herself awake. “Come in.”
“Captain Scott? Excuse me, I’m sorry to wake you, but you said to let you know the moment we had the data.” Lieutenant . . . Charles? All she remembered was Charles. Charles the science officer.
“Thank you, Charles. Lieutenant. Lieutenant Charles.” She pushed herself up from the couch and straightened her uniform.
“Lieutenant N’bongo, ma’am. But Charles will do as well.”
“What have we got, Lieutenant?” She went to her desk and sat down, and pulled up the data that he was waving over onto her screen from his device.
He bent over to point out some numbers. “You were right. There was an unusual variance in the phase of the meta-space signature coming off the debris cloud. When we match up the meta-space scans of the Swarm ship right before the collision, and take into account the regular background meta-space signature from both Titan and Britannia, well, we should get this,” he pointed to an array of data highlighted in green.
“Looks about right,” she said.
“Right. But what we actually read, is this,” he pointed to the array in orange.
“Okay.” Lots of numbers there. “I guess now it’s my job to figure out what this all means.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He straightened up. “I, uh, took the liberty of running through a few scenarios. To model what could have happened to produce these results.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He leaned back over and pointed out the arrays in blue that were highlighted below. “The phase variances look random at first. But . . .” He pulled up another set of numbers. “When we compare them to various sources of strong meta-space signals we’ve seen in the past . . .”
She peered at his comparison table.
“Oh my god.”
“You see it too, ma’am? I’m not crazy?”
She ran through the numbers quickly in her head, checking his calculations.
They checked out.
“You’re not crazy, Charles.” She looked up at him. Watched his face for data on his reaction.
He stood back up and smiled. Triumphantly? It looked like he smiled triumphantly. It was a pleasant look for him. “So, Captain, we can confidently say that just before Titan collided with Britannia, an artificial singularity—one whose meta-space phase profile matches the Russian singularities from the Second Swarm War—opened somewhere on the surface, and out of it came —something.”
She nodded. And added, “Something big.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Veracruz Sector
Chantana III
ISS Tyler S. Volz
Bridge
“And two and three and shimmy . . .” Captain Jerusha Whitehorse was no dancer, a fact that she’d known her whole adult life, and now a fact that every last officer on the bridge knew, dammit.
“Leader Mare! You delight us with your lack of talent ghingza gryk klollog and minimal amount of shame.” Klollogesh, the one she presumed was their leader, looked pleased. She thought. It had taken a few hours of painstaking muddled communication to nearly a dozen other Itharans before she got passed along to Kl
ollogesh. Apparently their leadership structure was just as frustratingly chaotic as their personal interactions.
“I thank you, Leader Klollogesh. Shall I . . . finish the dance of greeting? Or shall we proceed with my request?”
“Request? That is wonderful! That means you may ghunza tlosh perform the dance of requests!”
“The dance of requests?” She sincerely hoped it was the person receiving the request who danced.
“Yes! It is identical to the dance of greeting, ghingza, but do it in reverse, at half the speed, three times.”
Oh. My. God. Whitehorse was about to toss everything the UE diplomatic officer had taught her about establishing relations between two societies and wing it. They were out of time, and didn’t have the luxury of performing intricate dances of requests.
“Ha! Ha! Ha ha! That is your noise of merriment! I learned it, and I perform it at you now because of the ridiculous contortions of your face as you gryk tallog sta express your extreme discomfort at this absurd request! This delights me! You provide me much material for the story, Leader Mare.”
“So, no dance?”
“Of course not fligli ghosh! There is no such thing as Itharan dance of greeting! I just enjoy watching you take great pains to not offend us dhash shoglin!”
“Oh my god,” she muttered. Trits. “Leader Klollogesh. I hate to jump straight to business after so much merriment, at my expense, but I have an urgent request.”
“Proceed, Leader Mare fliglish ghash.”
“A great scourge is about to attack my people. Nearly as powerful as the Swarm, which attacked your people long ago. We need help. One of our leaders has promised that if you help us, we will help you, because we think this great scourge will not only attack us, but attack you as well.”
“But you have Cantankerous-Old-Man-Et-cetera! With absolute surety plohlosh shlogun he will defend you.”
“Yes. He is among us and he is helping to plan a defense. But, Leader Klollogesh, I fear this enemy may be even beyond his knowledge and abilities.”
“That is nonsense of a moderately high order, Leader Mare. And I hesitantly decline your request, dharmasha ghosh.”
Hesitantly? Was that wiggle room?
“I must insist, Leader Klollogesh. All we ask for now is that you send some ships to help our fleet in the defense of our world. Then you can judge whether I speak truth or not.”
“Truth? Leader Mare, truth is told by the teller of the story. The story is true or not true ghilimsha ghoshaga, but hardly matters. It is only our relationship to the story that concerns us.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“The universe rholishlik ghoshantik ghash, Leader Mare. It’s the tlohthla shoghosh great story. And we tell it. We ghoshaga tloth discover it. We fit the many tlohthla ghoshag sa shaltha shattered pieces together into an irregular, beautiful whole dhloshlag gloshlag.”
Okay. She’d play along. “Then help me tell this story, Klollogesh. The story of the defeat of the Findiri, and the survival of my people and yours.”
“Ha! Ha ha!”
“Is that humorous?”
“You think to make the story sa sha Leader Mare. That is not our purpose. We do not make the story. We tell it.”
“Enlighten me, then. How did your people survive the Swarm? How do you plan to survive future aggressors?”
“If the story is that we survive, then we will survive ginzaga glosh, Leader Mare.”
“By doing nothing?”
“To experience the story the universe tells us is not nothing, Leader Mare.”
“Then do something, goddammit!” As soon as she said it she lowered her face to her palm. Certainly swearing at your diplomatic counterpart was not among the first steps of diplomacy. “A few ships, is all we ask.”
“I decline.”
“Then you will watch our story, Klollogesh, and I trust you will tell it well to future generations. The story of our demise, when our friends stood by and watched.”
“Watch? gloshag tlitlith you invite us to come watch?”
Well, that was what Proctor asked her to do. If they couldn’t send military help, that they at least send observers. “Yes. Please send a ship, and watch our probable defeat. By all means.”
“Yes! Excellent. This we will do.”
Relief. “Thank you. My executive officer will talk with you to discuss details. Whitehorse out.” She motioned to comms to cut the transmission. She was done. Any more of that and she’d do more than swear at the infuriating alien.
“Mr. Shin-Wentworth. Please get in touch with him and give him the coordinates of Paradiso, and please stress that the sooner they get there, the better.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
“Helm, as soon as he’s done, get us the hell out of here. Now we get to repeat this whole song and dance with the Eru, and with them we know how to count and that’s it.”
And she doubted that would be successful. The Eru seemed to be a far more serious people than the Trits, but with no knowledge of their language, the effort was doomed to failure.
“Ma’am, a word?” said Shin-Wentworth.
She nodded and motioned him over to the side of the bridge. “What is it?” His face. My god, something is wrong with him. “Commander, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Captain, request permission to leave. Temporary reassignment.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I’ve received no word from IDF—”
“Ma’am, there is no official reassignment. Surely you’ve seen the message. It’s . . . volunteer only.”
“Oh.” She finally pieced it together. “My god. Your family is there, aren’t they?”
“Yes, ma’am.” His words were curt.
She sighed. “Commander. From my conversation with Proctor, that is a one-way mission. I’m sorry. I can’t afford to lose the XO of this ship.”
He drew in a deep breath—she wasn’t sure if he was trying to keep his cool, or whether he was searching for the right words. “Ma’am, you’ve already lost your XO. I am in no condition to be second in command of this vessel.”
“And you’re in condition to captain a ship in a battle?”
“A ship with ten or so crew that have likewise volunteered to die? Yes.”
That was enough for her.
“Very well.” She sighed again, knowing this might very well be the last time she saw the man. They’d started off on the wrong foot, and he was annoying as hell, but he kept her on her toes. “We’ll drop you off at the Independence on our way to Nova Nairobi.”
“But the muster point is Earth.”
“Well we’re not going anywhere near Earth, one. And two, you’re most likely going to be the highest-ranked officer volunteering for this thing. I’m sure the admiral will want to brief you more thoroughly than the rest.”
“Thank you, Captain.” He smiled.
It was the smile of a dead man.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Irigoyen Sector
Bolivar
Shovik-Orion City
“So where to, Senator? Back to Potosí city?”
They’d been cleared for launch for half an hour, but Senator Cooper had been standing outside the ship on the landing pad for over twenty minutes talking privately with Curiel, and had only just come back into the ship.
“No. Not a chance, Mr. Proctor.”
Fiona raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Isn’t your Secret Service detail still there? Your staff?”
“The ones that are alive, yes. I understand that I lost quite a few staff members, and three of my security detail.”
“I think we can rule out a double tap at this point, Senator. The wounded have been taken to the hospitals and the blast site is cleared,” said Fiona.
“I’m not worried about a double tap.” She pointed at Danny’s dashboard console and gave him a thumbs up. “Let’s just get into orbit and I’ll tell you on the way.”
“You’re the boss, boss,” said Danny, an
d he pressed the launch initiator button on his screen. The conventional engine roared to life and he felt the comforting tug of acceleration before the inertial cancelers kicked in.
“I just had an interesting conversation with Secretary Curiel.”
“I’ll bet. If it’s half as interesting as the one I heard, then I’ll be disappointed if he didn’t tell you he was really John the Apostle returned to Earth at last. Except it’s Bolivar. And his name is Steve.”
“You’re partly right.”
Danny guffawed. “Get out of town. John? Mr. Beloved himself?”
“He goes by Steven, and he’s no apostle. But I have the distinct impression that—shit, this is kind of crazy now that I say it out loud.”
“What?”
She sighed. “I don’t think that’s Curiel.”
Danny and Fiona both did a double take. “What?”
“You see, I’ve met Secretary Curiel before. And he didn’t remember that.”
“Senator, no disrespect,” began Fiona, “but there are what, like over five hundred senators?”
“Five hundred twenty six, yes. And I get what you’re implying, but I was, how shall I say . . . memorable. I’d just won election against a seven-term incumbent, and my platform was for United Earth to join the GPC. I was the first major mainstream United Earth politician to do so. After me, a handful of others jumped on board once they saw how popular the idea was—it got me elected, after all. And right after the election I made a heavily publicized trip out to San Martin to talk to the Secretary General. It was especially memorable for me because when I returned I received my cancer diagnosis.”
“And he didn’t remember that trip?” said Danny.
“That’s the thing. He said he did. He nodded right along when I mentioned things we had talked about, but when I inserted a few things we didn’t talk about, he kept right on nodding, saying things like, ‘How could I forget?’ He was pretending he was remembering, but it was all an act.”
