Mark jumped in: “Sounds good.”
“Brilliant.” Betsy looked genuinely impressed. “Did they ever find any of the pods?”
said Thwanna.
“Where’s the cannon?” asked Aaron. “Is it close to the station?”
Perry had thought about applying for the tech job on Octavia. The money was good, but it would have meant settling in for a twenty-month assignment in unknown country. He was concerned at first that Marinda Barnicle, his boss, had been unhappy when he showed no interest. It left him wondering if she was trying to get rid of him. The truth was that he was enjoying his life on Chippewa too much to take on that kind of assignment. He’d have liked the extra money, but his mom had always told him that money wasn’t everything. Wasn’t even very much in a society when the essentials were guaranteed. He didn’t want wealth; what he wanted was time, hanging out with friends, partying, living the good life. And maybe, now and then, taking on a goofy assignment that didn’t create problems.
Pollux was brighter out here than it was from Chippewa. He also picked out Castor and Procyon. But it was Pollux that dominated the sky. It was nine times the size of Earth’s sun. (Perry was originally from Earth.) “Where is it?” asked Mark. “The black hole?”
Perry had done some catching up on what they could expect. “We’re still pretty far out,” he said. “We can’t really see anything yet. In fact, we won’t be able to see it at all, but we’ll get some of the effects it causes. It’ll take a couple more days to get there.”
They watched more movies, did some electronic jigsaw puzzles, played bridge while Perry watched. And eventually a dark portion of the sky emerged, surrounded by moving lights. The sky itself grew twisted and distorted. They’d all seen images of black holes before in documentaries and movies. It was even possible to create virtual images to occupy a living room and scare the kids. Still, knowing this one was for real did have a disquieting effect. Even though he’d been here before, Perry was affected by it. “Thwanna, let’s see if we’re close enough to talk to them. Go to broadcast.”
A blue lamp came on. Betsy and Mark both came out of the passenger cabin and stood behind him in the doorway. “Octavia,” he said, “this is the . Do you read?”
He got nothing but static.
“Octavia or shuttle, is anybody there?”
They waited, wrapped in silence. Finally Betsy laid a hand on Perry’s shoulder: “I guess not,” she said.
“They might be on the other side of the black hole,” said Perry.
Mark was staring out at the troubled sky. A substantial portion of it had no stars. It was just dark. And that of course was the black hole. There was a constellation at its edge that looked like someone with a gun. The same constellation was visible on the opposite edge of the disk. He pointed it out to his passengers. “It’s the same group of stars,” he said.
“In two different places?” asked Mark.
“Strange things happen when you get a gravity overload.”
“Captain,” said Betsy, “can we see the station anywhere?”
“Not yet.”
Perry flipped a switch. “Thwanna, open a channel to Ventnor.”
The AI’s green activity lamp lit up.
“ to Ventnor. Message for Adam Brentway: We’ve arrived in the KBX44 area. Have begun search. Nothing visible yet. Will get back to you when we have something. Perry.”
Betsy was obviously intrigued by the object. “Where is the event horizon?” she asked.
“Out at the edge of the darkness,” said Perry. “Keep in mind we won’t be able to see any part of the black hole directly.”
“Even if we get closer? Not that I’d want to.”
“Love,” said Mark, “if you got close enough to see it we might be in trouble.”
said Thwanna,
“Sounds spooky,” Betsy said.
“How big is it?” asked Mark. “The black hole?”
Perry passed the question to Thwanna.
“Is that all?” Mark’s brow turned wrinkly. “I thought these things were seriously .”
“They’re seriously ,” said Perry.
“What the mass? Is it heavier than Kolmar?”
Again, Perry let Thwanna take it: she said,
Mark frowned. “She’s not serious?”
“I suspect she is.”
“Incredible. I can’t imagine why anybody would want to get anywhere close to something like that. I understand about the wormhole. But who really cares? Why do we need another universe? What’s the point?”
Thwanna enjoyed talking with passengers.
Mark laughed. “Well, I don’t think I’d want to go through life without finding out about that.”
Perry responded with a polite smile. “Says the guy in the starship. If we didn’t do blue sky science, we’d never have gotten off Chippewa. In fact, I guess we’d still be sitting on a beach near the Atlantic Ocean.”
said Thwanna. Her tone suggested that the captain was showing an edge in his voice and maybe should stay calm.
They saw nothing. And finally it was time to sleep. He didn’t get much rest that night. Too excited. They all had breakfast together in the morning, and of course the black hole continued to dominate the conversation. It was still too far to see anything other than blurry stars. “Sorry about the long ride,” Perry told them “We didn’t want to take a chance surfacing too close to this thing.”
“I’m in favor of that,” said Aaron in his squeaky character voice.
Betsy returned to the passenger cabin and put the HV screen on again with their telescope’s view of the sky. Virgil sat down in the copilot’s chair. He said how happy he was that they’d had this opportunity, that Perry had a great job. “If I had my life to live over,” he said, “I think I’d train for running one of these things.”
Perry was surprised. He sounded sincere.
“Captain,” Virgil said, “why’d you become an interstellar pilot?”
Before Perry could answer, Thwanna was back: she said,
“You found the station?”
She put it on the display. It was not striking, just a thin rod floating in the night.
“Excellent. The station should be nearby.”