by Warren Dean
He toggled the scanners, eventually picking out the piece of debris they had seen earlier. Although it had overtaken them and was moving away at a rapid rate, it was still visible. "--The scanners are still operational, so that is not the problem.--"
He lapsed into silence as he pondered the occurrence. Then he punched information onto a screen. "--I shall program the drone's diagnostics to analyse the anomaly. There may be some hitherto unknown phenomenon at play which could impact upon our mission assumptions. This is not necessarily the case, but we cannot afford to overlook anything.--"
He completed his entries and then turned his attention back to the scanners. He set them to quarter the hemisphere of space between them and the singularity. At the same time, he monitored their course, activating Hunter's drive system from time to time to maintain what he considered to be their optimal trajectory. It was a delicate balancing act. He had to allow the drone to draw closer and closer to the centre – otherwise they could miss seeing anything of significance – but not too quickly. The closer they got to the crushing gravity of the singularity itself, the less chance they had of breaking free.
For what seemed like a long time, the three of them watched as the scanners found and focussed on anything giving off light, heat, or radiation. On occasion they came across more bits of debris travelling inwards. Once, they spotted a large mass giving off both heat and light and their hopes soared. Their excitement was short lived, though; on closer inspection it turned out to be nothing more than a burning cloud of helium.
As the cloud disappeared behind them, Christina's optimism waned. A gigantic nothingness pocked with a few flying boulders wasn't really what she had been expecting to see. Who would have thought that the business end of a black hole was so unremarkable? As an hour, and then two, of their precious time went by, her disappointment morphed into anxiety. The allotted three hours was nearly up and they had discovered nothing of significance. Their hopes for Earth, the deadly risks they had embraced, the courage they had shown; it was all going to be for nothing. And if Seeker wasn't able to break them out of their ever-dwindling orbit, they were about to lose their lives into the bargain.
Her thoughts prompted another question; what about Seeker? Had the survey drone shown any sign of reacting to any of this?
She voiced the question and Xzaroth responded by switching on a new set of screens. "--I have yet to activate the survey drone,--" he said. I do not wish to do so too early. We don't want it to pull us out before we complete our observations but we cannot delay much longer. We do not know what process it may initiate, nor how long that process may take.--"
"--But,--" she said miserably, "--other than the strange thing about the starlight, we haven't found out anything yet.--"
"--That is true, and yet the decision must soon be made.--"
She and Connor exchanged a glance. His expression mirrored her uncertainty. "--But surely you're more qualified than we are to make a call like this?--"
The flyer's ice-blue eyes gleamed in the dim confines of the drone. "--The world at stake is yours Cxza'xza, not mine.--"
She hung her head, her doubts growing. The dilemma was a cruel one. If they activated Seeker now, they might miss something that could save Earth. If they waited too long, they might not make it out within the deadline. They might not make it out at all.
It was Connor's decision as much as hers and she opened her mouth to ask him what he thought. But he spoke first.
"--Wait, what's that? Am I seeing things or is there a wave coming towards us?--"
A what? Her head snapped up to see what he was talking about. Racing towards them from the direction of the black hole's centre was a roiling wall of what looked like yellowish foam.
Xzaroth magnified the phenomenon and overlaid filters until it came into sharp focus. Then he scrolled through data in an attempt to identify the substance. "--It is a gas jet,--" he reported after a moment, "--one so dense that portions of it have condensed into liquid form.--"
"--It looks pretty solid to me,--" said Connor, staring at the rapidly approaching wave in horrified fascination. "--Shouldn't we be taking evasive action?--"
"--It is too big and travelling too fast,--" replied the flyer. "--We have neither the time nor the propulsion required to evade it. Whatever is propelling it must be immensely powerful to be able to counter the black hole's gravity.--"
The leading edge of the jet crossed the intervening distance at a frightening rate and hit them with the force of a cosmic avalanche. Hunter-Seeker was hurled through space like a feather in a hurricane.
For the second time, Christina felt herself crushed into her seat, the straps of her harness tightening automatically in response to the G-forces which were trying to rip her head from her body.
Everything went black.
SOMETIME LATER – OR EARLIER
When Christina came to, she thought she could see the stars again. But her eyes were closed and she realised that the skittering lights were merely an effect of the concussion that had knocked her cold. She could feel something wet seeping from her nose into her mouth; something with the tangy, metallic taste of blood.
She tried to open her eyes, but lacked the strength to accomplish even that. Someone groaned nearby and she tried again, forcing her eyelids open with an effort of will. She lifted her head up and winced as pain exploded through her forehead. It took a minute for her vision to clear.
When it did, she was relieved to see that both Connor and Xzaroth were showing signs of movement. Connor was holding his head groggily and she guessed that he was the one who had groaned. The flyer had recovered a little faster and was running diagnostics to assess the damage. But she saw him hitch his left shoulder painfully; the movement triggering colour bursts of red neon through the wing on that side. Not even he was unscathed.
She tried to think of something to say but found it difficult to focus her thoughts. She lifted an arm and gingerly wiped the blood from her face onto her sleeve. Her nose didn't feel broken, for which she was thankful, but then she had to wonder where the blood was coming from. She leaned her head back again, hoping it would help stem the flow, but all the movement accomplished was another stab of pain.
She lifted her head and looked around blearily. Her vision swam and she had to concentrate on not blacking out again. She saw Connor eyeing her with concern, his own face grey with shock.
She made an effort to focus. The drone was still intact – that much was clear from the fact that they were all still breathing – but it had taken a massive hit. The regeneralloy of its shell was no longer uniformly transparent and their previously untrammelled view of space was now crisscrossed by a patchwork of visible dents and scars. She watched in fascination as liquid regeneralloy roiled around and through the damaged sections, slowly smoothing out the dents and erasing the scars. The repaired patches then faded out of view. Some of the damage stubbornly resisted regeneration, however, and she realised that the last few remaining scars would remain opaquely permanent.
"--All critical damage is contained,--" reported Xzaroth, "-- and most of our systems are functional.--"
Most of our systems? She didn't have the strength to worry about which ones were no longer working and didn't ask.
Xzaroth accessed more data. "--The impact of the gas jet has thrown us more than halfway back to the event horizon. I would not have believed such a thing possible.--"
"--Could be how Seeker got out last time,--" said Connor, his words thick with pain. "--There was no fancy footwork; the little guy just got bounced out by one of those jets.--"
Christina looked at him again and saw that he was holding his left arm against the side of his chest.
"--Think I've cracked some ribs,--" he said, seeing her look. He turned his attention back to their pilot. "--You didn't think to pack painkillers on this tub, did you?--"
Xzaroth ignored him, his attention still focussed on data scrolling down a screen. The flyer hitched his shoulder again, and this
time Christina saw what was causing his discomfort. A noticeable kink in the spine of his left wing, about halfway down, told her that the limb was broken. Red neon flooded the wing and pulsed into his neck and chest.
"--You're hurt,--" she said. "--We're all hurt. I think it's time to get out of here.--"
The pilot remained silent, his attention still on the data screen.
"-- Xzaroth, is everything well?--"
"--The analysis of the starlight anomaly is complete.--" He hesitated, reading through the data once more as if to make sure he wasn't seeing things. "--The data suggests that the phenomenon is the result of a temporal effect.--"
Temporal? Something to do with time? She tried to make sense of what he had just said, but her thoughts were still maddeningly disjointed. She couldn't concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds at a time. Connor's face was a picture of pain and he didn't say anything.
Xzaroth took his companions' silence as a cue to elaborate. "--Massive objects like stars, planets, and black holes warp space-time. In the case of a black hole, time slows down for anyone approaching the event horizon.--"
She nodded gingerly. "--That's why a hundred and seventy days will go by in normal space while only three hours pass by for us.--"
"--This effect is well known,--" replied the flyer, "--but it has long been debated whether or not it holds true beyond the event horizon. Accepted theory is that the flow of time stops there and remains constant beyond, and our mission parameters are based on this concept. But Hunter's observations suggest that, since crossing the event horizon, we have been travelling into the past. This explains why the starlight is not visible to us. It too is going backwards in time.--"
Backwards in time? She wrestled with her compromised faculties in an effort to understand the implications of the revelation.
"--But doesn't that mean that we aren't going to emerge when Baxzaeth and Axzael are expecting us? How will they find us again?--"
The flyer listened to her words and then busied himself with some calculations.
It was Connor who answered. "--They won't. If we come out earlier than they expect, they won't know when to open portals for us.--"
Xzaroth finished what he was doing and considered the result. "--We have been beyond the event horizon for longer than the time we spent approaching it. This means that, were we to re-emerge now, we would do so before the docking station even arrived.--"
A shocked silence met his words.
"--Are you saying that we're going to come out before we went in?--" asked Connor incredulously.
"--Wait, this doesn't make sense,--" said Christina. "--When Seeker came out of the black hole, it ended up five hundred years in the future. How come we're going the other way?--"
"--Like us, the drone would have gone backwards in time while beyond the event horizon,--" mused Xzaroth, "--but when it emerged, there was no portal waiting to take it back to normal space. It may have attempted to open a portal – after all, it is programmed to routinely open portals to shorten the duration of its missions – but the warping of space-time would have prevented it from making the necessary calculations. Its only option would have been to travel through the gravity between the event horizon and normal space. How it generated enough power to achieve that is a mystery but, assuming it did so, it would have spent much longer going forwards in time than backwards.--"
"--Couldn't we do the same thing?--" asked Connor. "--If one of those gas jets ejects us, can't we travel towards the docking station until we get back into Baxzaeth and Axzael's window?--"
"--Theoretically what you suggest is sound,--" replied the flyer, "--but at present I do not have sufficient data about the rate of our temporal regression to accurately calculate the relevant time frames. And even if I did, the escape velocity needed to defy the black hole's gravity would take magnitudes of power more than Hunter's systems have the capacity to generate.--"
Whatever hope Connor's idea had engendered in Christina's muddled brain died as quickly as it had arisen.
One of the screens facing the flyer glowed greenly as new data spooled across it. After glancing at it, he gave each of his companions a look in turn.
"--The rest of this discussion will have to wait. We have a more immediate problem. Another of those gas jets is approaching. If it hits us as hard as the last one did, we may not survive the impact. Brace yourselves as best you can.--"
Connor let out another groan and Christina's heart gave a lurch. She felt that she had not even begun to recover from the first cosmic blow and the thought of having to endure a second was too much to contemplate.
And yet she had to; through Hunter's already battered shell she could see another yellow wave rolling towards them. Tears of despair rolled down her cheeks as she put her hands behind her head and held her arms down the sides of her face. It was all she could think of to protect it from the coming onslaught.
Xzaroth tapped at various panels, and a change in the drone's course fluttered through her stomach.
"--Have we turned around?--" she asked. "--I thought we couldn't outrun these jets?--"
"--That is so,--" he replied, "--but we may be able to reduce the impact if we go through the leading edge at an angle. Stand by…--"
He braced himself. Christina tried to curl into a ball as much as her harness would allow.
This time there was less of a hammer blow as Hunter-Seeker punched diagonally through the edge of the jet. But the reduction was relative and the concussion was still enough to cause all three of the drone's occupants to black out again.
When Christina came to, the pain in her head was worse than before and her body felt bruised all over. Her thoughts were scattered and sporadic. Her arms were numb and wouldn't move. She forced her eyes open in a panic. Xzaroth was punching erratically at screens with his right hand, his left clenched in his lap.
Connor was still out, his head lolling sideways at a bad angle. Fearing that his neck might be broken, she tried to call out to him. But there was too much fluid in her chest and all that came out was a choking sound. She coughed and then stared in horror at the blood which seeped out of her mouth and splattered the front of her shirt.
Thankfully, Connor chose that moment to groan and begin to come round.
Some feeling returned to her arms and she felt some relief at being able to move them again. She raised a hand to check for facial injuries and then wished she hadn't moved. Agony exploded through her chest and lower abdomen, and she couldn't help the tears of pain that stung her cheeks.
Blinking them back, she tried to take stock of what was happening. The drone's shell had been rendered largely opaque once again and this time the action of its regeneralloy was less effective. A large proportion of the damage resisted repair.
In between the irregularly spaced dents and scars, the background view of space had changed from a veil of deepest black to a sea of orange fire. Intensifying the nightmarish quality of the scene was the red neon glow now pulsing throughout their pilot's body and limbs.
"Are we in hell?" she asked aloud, her dimly remembered Catholic upbringing supplying the metaphor.
"It certainly feels like it," grimaced Connor. He raised a hand to touch his right ear and winced. When he brought it away his fingers were slick with blood.
"--We are within the material of the gas jet,--" interjected Xzaroth. "--The gas is so dense that the friction of our passage is causing it to ignite around us. That is the fire you can see. It has raised the outside temperature to a critical level; well beyond the operational limits of the drone's regeneralloy. It is not able to repair much of the structural damage as it is using almost all of its capacity to keep the extreme temperature at bay. By my reckoning it will not be able to do so for much longer. I fear that the failure of the shell's integrity is imminent.--"
Imminent… that means any minute now, doesn't it? Christina's attempt to grapple with the flyer's words morphed into a fervent wish for whoever was crushing her brain in a vice to
please stop. Adding to her already overwhelming mental and physical discomfort was the increasing temperature within the drone. She could feel beads of perspiration standing out on her brow and moistening the back of her shirt. When she reached out a hand to the regeneralloy of the console, it was warm to the touch.
A shudder ran through the drone and she gripped the side of her chair involuntarily. More pain radiated from her chest and she coughed again. Less blood dripped from her mouth than before, but that was not necessarily a good sign. She could feel herself getting weaker by the minute.
If she was lucky, whatever was bleeding internally was going to kill her before Hunter's shell failed.
"--Is there nothing we can do?--" asked Connor, his own pain and despair robbing the question of any hope.
"--There is one final gambit,--" replied the flyer. "--Hunter's regeneralloy is failing, but Seeker's is proving to be more resilient. If we jettison Hunter, perhaps Seeker can keep you alive long enough for it to escape.--"
"--Us alive,--" said Connor. "--Don't you mean 'us alive'?--"
"--Indeed,--" replied the flyer.
He and Connor looked at each other for a moment and Christina saw something unspoken pass between them. But what it was, her increasingly groggy faculties couldn't fathom.
Xzaroth flicked and scrabbled at some screens with his right hand. "--Seeker's core systems are powering up and the hatch is open.--"
He looked over at Christina. "--Are you able to move, Cxza'xza? Can you get to the hatch?--"
He twisted awkwardly so that he could reach her seat with his good hand. He keyed something which released her harness.
The absence of its subtle pressure sent a little bit of energy tingling through her limbs. She sat up slowly and swung her legs over the side of the chair. Her consciousness wobbled and she gritted her teeth, working hard on not blacking out again. The hatch was only about two feet away, behind the pilot's console on her right. She put her hands on the seat and levered herself into a crouch. Then she went down on her hands and knees and crawled forwards. The gap between the hatch and the console was barely big enough for her to fit through, but she could manage it. Connor would find it a tight squeeze but he should be okay. The flyer was far too big, however.
