Jack was sitting back in his couch smiling widely.
“Suri, that was wonderful, and I don’t believe you were ever awkward. I think I learned some of that in school, or at least in the Academy, but so long ago I’d forgotten. Maybe I tuned out, or it wasn’t explained to me that well. What a great way to teach the children; you had my attention the whole time.”
“Thank you, Jack, that’s a nice thing to hear. Not everyone has the aptitude for math or chemistry, but everyone likes a good story. Science can be such a dry subject; I try to add a little history, even human conflict and competition to the theories to make them more palatable. Strict theory is pretty boring, but much easier to understand and remember in context.
”Sometimes I set up demonstrations to help the students visualize physics and chemistry. I turn copper into ‘gold’ - not real gold, it’s a chemical reaction that changes the color of the copper. The kids love it. Sometimes we go out in the open and I shoot baseballs out of a launcher my son made for my classes, and then we discuss parabolas.”
“Well that’s ingenious. I think you’re a fun lecturer.”
“Thanks again. Listen, I’ve been thinking about the Big Bang.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Suri chuckled with him. “No really. This theory goes along perfectly with the explanation of the Infinite recycling itself that Ghee told you on the Mark Burgess, which is kinda why I told you my little story. It might help explain the mysterious Odok drive. Or not, I’m not sure. Would you care to explore this with me? It’s a nap-worthy subject. Do you have the time?”
“I’m all ears,” Jack replied, ready to hear some more. He found himself relaxing as he listened to her.
“Okay. Here we go again. Many scientists still think our region of space started out as an infinitesimally small and dense point which expanded immensely, rapidly, causing tremendous heat and creating the original elements. As everything spread out, cooling occurred, electromagnetic attraction made more elements and molecules. Collisions and the eventual coalescence of planets followed.
“But what about the initial dense point? How did that occur? Where did that come from?” Here I stop and let the students speculate. Then I say, “This is one theory. What if our region of space started out in some other region of the Infinite, at another age in space? Perhaps a virulent black hole there sucked in an entire universe-sized region and the enormous energy this created broke into another space-age. The material pooped out in its entirety into this regiontime. The singularity would have reduced all the masses and gasses to their basic particles going in. Coming out, everything expanded, cooled, and slowed, eventually becoming our area of space. The black hole slows and dies, possibly disappearing, or simply becoming inert.
“All galaxies contain a black hole at their center. Perhaps this is the remnant of this recycling effort. It’s possible that this occurs in all galaxies, and even enormous regions of space like ours.
“Secondly, maybe black holes can wink in and out of existence, and vary in size and strength. They would occur, only suck in and spew it out as much material as they have energy for, and become nothing. The unanswerable question with this theory is what is the guiding principal which causes them to blink into and out of existence? Also, if they come and go, how do we detect them, unless we happen to be in the right place at the right time when they show up or disappear?
“The third theory is this - perhaps the effect goes back and forth: explosion, expansion, collapse, expulsion into this space time, constriction and collapse and explosion into the other, lather, rinse, repeat.
“We think only the galaxies would do one, two, or all of these, since our Universe doesn’t seem to contain a dense point which previously might have been a gigantic black hole capable of recycling the whole thing. At least we haven’t found that point yet.
“Our lack of knowledge doesn’t mean one or more of these theories aren’t actually happening, or that one or more of these theories isn’t correct. It means we haven’t experienced the event, or figured out the math, yet. It means we are infants still in our understanding of the greatness of space. And since these events take longer than the human lifetime, more than generations of lifetimes, we can only theorize.
“These could be three alternative explanations for why everything is traveling away from us. Dark matter theory states; all matter in our local area of the Infinite is traveling away from all other matter, so wherever you stand in this Universe, whether you’re on Earth, or a moon in Andromeda Galaxy, you will perceive red shifted matter traveling away from you.
“Does this make sense to you? It never made sense to me. However, what if all galaxies are recycling back and forth from and into into their respective space-ages, pulverizing everything in the near vicinity of their Bang, and incorporating some of the matter into the new galaxy formation… and pushing, if you will, the unincorporated material outside of the - I’ll call them Bang Zones, away? We have discovered warped astral bodies in space, which are continuously moving away from us.
“At this point I hold up a big inflated round ball, and explain that our galaxy is in the center inside the ball, and the Bang Zone is the ball material itself. As I pump more air into the ball, it expands. I say, ‘The Bang Zone, or the skin of the ball, is where the recycled material has come through the black hole and collided with whatever was in that space. As more material spurts into this regiontime from the other, through the singularity’s spigot, it pushes everything else away.’
“I stop pumping air into the ball now. ‘At some point,’ I say, ‘the material in the other space time runs out, or the waning energy of the singularity disables it from pulling more through from the other zone. There is now as much material in our zone as there ever will be.’ Now, I flip a switch, creating suction, and I slowly let the air out of the ball. I say, ‘Eventually, this space and all the material in it begins to contract, because the singularity is still active and there is pull, possibly from the other side, which is ready to expand again, from the same hole. The galaxy begins to slowly collapse, growing speedier as it gets smaller, and finally, all matter reenters the hole and the process reverses, reoccurring on the other side, in the other region in another time.’”
Jack shook himself and laughed, as if the energy of her explanation had entered him and he was letting some of it out.
“Oh, Suri, I totally understood that! There’s a moving picture in my mind of everything you just said.”
“I know! I have to admit when I came up with this description I was really pleased with myself. Shall I continue?”
“Yes, please!”
“Okay, so in the case of the Milky Way, if it’s the newest or strongest galaxy in this region, it would be pushing everything around us away and we’d be seeing a red shift. If we weren’t, and say, Andromeda was newer, then some of Andromeda’s galactic matter would be coming toward us, exhibiting a blue shift, or, at least, going sideways to us. The way the matter is traveling would depend on the timing and velocities of the masses of the two galaxies, moving against each other. Now imagine this is happening to every galaxy!”
“I can! I can imagine this,” Jack laughed.
“First, small black holes are said to spew out more than they take in, and large black holes are said to spew out less than they take in. So what if small black holes are just beginning to bring matter and energy from another regiontime? They are more energetic at the beginning of the process. They start small and get bigger as they age and because they bring through more and more material. Then when they get older, they slow down because they have brought through all the matter they are able to gravitationally attract in the ingress space time. As they age, and as the matter and energy transfer decreases, because they are unable to bring any more through, and they slowly collapse. Eventually there’s no more energy to feed on, no more matter to bring through. They die.
“Second, is there is a mechanism for primordial black holes to come into existence a
nywhere in any regiontime, start this phenomenon, and transfer material to another time-in-space? After, perhaps, its existence ends. A singularity could occur anywhere at any time.
“The third line of thought goes like this; singularities start small, they end small, but they are infinitely dense because of their collapse in size after they’re through with the transfer. The very act of collapsing causes an increase in density, energy, and strength. So, as the singularity collapses, the galaxy stops growing, and it begins to contract back toward its origin, the black hole. The collapse speeds, collisions and energy pull everything apart and back to basic components, and then elements, and this all enters the hole and spews out into the other space-age, and this phenomenon goes back and forth, back and forth.
“Perhaps all three of these scenarios are occurring, or only one or two of these theories is correct. We can’t know at this time.”
Jack interrupted. “So, are we talking about black holes creating wormholes to other space times and pulling stuff through, or about that quantum effect you mentioned?”
“Yes. Well, we don’t know. Either, I guess. Some think a black hole and its event horizon creates a wormhole from one point in one region and time to another. The energies of a black hole may become sufficient enough to create a wormhole to elsewherewhen, and send everything it can gravitationally capture through. In this case the question is, what is the mechanism that initiates the black hole formation and its gravity?
“On the other hand, we could be looking at a galaxy point and an anti-galaxy point, in which case the points would be ‘attached’ to each other through space time, even though they could be billions of light years apart. In this case, the recycling could just be blinking back and forth, a quantum effect. Then the question is, at what age and under what conditions do the processes begin to occur? We’d want to know how close our own galaxy is to collapse. Or not, we couldn’t do anything about it.”
“How about folding space?” Jack interrupted. “Ghee’s found a copy of a twentieth century movie based on a book that uses this one. Did you see it?”
“No. I’ll have to come over for movie night again. I’ve always had a problem with the idea of ‘folding’ space. What happens to the gravity of all the planets, solar systems, galaxies, and all the rest of the stuff in the part of the space that’s being “folded”? The forces would be disrupted and massive destruction would result. Or, if the word is meant as a metaphor, then we’re really talking about some kind of tunneling, or a quantum effect on a macro scale. We’re back to those two theories.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Jack murmured around his coffee cup.
“Quantum physics deals with infinitesimal particles. The phenomenon called “quantum movement” is instantaneous. The movement isn’t observable, only the particle’s change in position can be observed.
“On a macro level, if an artificially created event horizon effectively grinds down energy and matter into infinitesimally small particles, why can’t the particles change position from the ingress to the egress point by means of quantum movement? The matter would be there, and then it would be here, just as we’re experiencing when we travel in the Odok ships.
“This would have to be accomplished instantaneously, and the material would have to be put back together perfectly, which is way beyond our capability or even imagination. But we know something is happening.
“Of course, other scientists subscribe to the wormhole theory, where you’d just be sucked through, so to speak. That’s just easier to wrap your mind around, but nothing remains whole in an event horizon, even an artificially created one. So, how does it get put back together?”
“You’ve been thinking about this because you’re trying to explain the Odok drive. So you’re thinking galactic recycling and Odok space travel are based on the same mechanisms, whatever they are. Have I expressed this correctly?”
“Exactly, Jack. What if the Odok drive operates on the same principle of the Infinite recycling bits of itself? We don’t know the mechanism that initiates a black hole coming in to existence. After it does its thing, does it reverse itself, die, or cease to exist? If the Odoks discovered what occurs, they could have harnessed a way to create the effect and therefore travel that way in those ships. Perhaps the whole ship instantaneously ‘tunnels’ through the event horizon into a wormhole, or acts like a single particle and changes position through quantum movement.”
“Damn, Suri, I’d buy either one.”
“Well, they’re only theories, and you’ve heard what the religionists say, all our theories are as much nonsense as their mystical being that created everything in six days and rested on the seventh. Unfortunately for them, we do end up proving something once in a while, while they rely on simple belief.
“We won’t prove this stuff in my lifetime, but the Odoks, they understood the science. They manipulate the phenomena and use it like we use the sink faucet. Like I said before, we aren’t aware of the age of their species, or of their civilization, or, for that matter, whether they existed trillions of our millennia ago or in our distant future. If they’re traveling through both space and time, they could be from anywherewhen.”
“I hate to be a wet blanket, Suri,” Jack used one of Ghee’s dredged-up old sayings, “because these are fascinating theories, but time travel is a myth to us, a vehicle used by science fiction writers to tell impossible stories.”
“Yep. So was instantaneous space travel not too long ago. Okay, so let’s forget time travel. Think about this though, Jack, if we figured out the Odok transportation system, would we need the ships anymore? We’d “beam” cargo and life forms around, just like that ancient television show. Our Odok ships travel only where the Odoks allowed us to travel, and in this time only. If we figured these ships’ mechanisms out, we could beam anything from our known ingress points to our known egress points, without the ships.”
“Then why didn’t they travel like that? Why use the ships?”
“Maybe they did, or do, at home, like a subway system, where they were in control. But traveling through and about other species’ home regions are other situations for which they would need the ships to carry their atmosphere with them.”
“That makes sense, but time travel is still fiction, Suri.”
Suri took a breath and opened her mouth, then stopped and sighed. “To us. Anyway, it won’t be fiction forever, Jack. What’s that saying? ‘Science is magic that hasn’t been explained.’”
“I think you got that backward.” He paused and looked a little puzzled. “Or maybe not, I dunno. Again, if they’re so advanced, how did they manage to screw up their food production so badly? Aren’t you bothered about these highly advanced people almost killing themselves over something so simple? If they really needed the fungus to digest their food, why weren’t they able to protect their stock and production process from a failure which would have killed them off? The documentation says they said they ate the stuff fresh, to facilitate some kind of symbiosis. It provided a product for a deficiency needing to be replenished regularly. They didn’t expound, but that’s a damn big deal. Wouldn’t they put some of the product in safekeeping, in a different secure system, in case of failure, to revitalize the stock? Or just pop back home and pick up some more? It doesn’t track.”
“Right. I have no idea. We just don’t know.” She looked thoughtful for a few seconds. “What if they lied about why they needed us and something else was going on?”
“Like what?”
“Well, if they were time travelers, maybe they needed to give us the ships to affect something they or someone needed doing in the future. We may have already accomplished this and be none the wiser for it.”
She wasn’t going to let this go.
“Okay, like what?”
“Again, clueless! Like, help the Mek create their free society on this planet. I don’t know… maybe we were supposed to lose the Rapha?”
Jack paused. Was the poor thing trying to make the deaths of th
ose deputies alright in her mind?
“How could they predict those things?”
“If they can travel in time, they would have been in the future and seen what will happen, decided to make changes, came back and caused… whatever they caused to happen, using us to change that future. They needed to give us the ships to accomplish this.”
“To change the way the future turns out?”
“Yes.”
“But they couldn’t predict some specific thing happening after they interfered with us. Humans are flaky. We wouldn’t necessarily accomplish what they needed us to. They would need to have had access to all timelines that might occur after they messed with us, as well as the one existing when they were here with us. How could they see all the possible results of their interference, as well as their own real future? How would they ensure the Mek would be freed or the Rapha would disappear just by giving us those ships so long ago, or determine what the effect of those events would cause?”
“Those are good points. You got me there, unless they’re still interfering somehow, watching, nudging. We don’t know them or what they’re capable of. We don’t understand how those drives work. The ‘drive engines’ are empty boxes. I’m hoping the Odoks made the Rapha disappear to wherewhenever they are and the crew is safe.”
“It’s too complicated, Suri,” Jack said gently, “but what a good piece of fiction. You should write a story, and use it to teach science, like you do with your lectures.”
Suri pursed her lips and blushed slightly. “Yeah, you’re right, Jack. I’m fantasizing. I’m grasping at strays.”
“You’re tired. Straws, I think.”
“Hm?”
“Grasping at straws.”
“Oh!” Suri chuckled and Jack joined her. “What does it mean? Did I use it correctly?”
“That, I’m afraid, is beyond my comprehension,” Jack said. “You’ll have to ask Ghee.”
“Grief is a funny thing,” Suri said sadly, finally openly admitting her real problem.
“Not really, no,” Jack said, still smiling kindly.
“Right again.”
Suri took a few moments to make a new sammich and Jack picked up a few more biscuits. He poured some fresh water into glasses for them both.
They chewed for a while and rested their brains.
Suri swallowed and said, “It’s nice here, Jack.”
“Yes, it is.”
“This office, the view, and the planet are nice, and this water’s delicious.”
“Yes, it is.”
“We’re really lucky.”
“Yes, we came too close to our end.”
“Perhaps they gave us the ship to help us get out here, to save us. The rest is all random.”
“Yeah. I’m going to stick with that explanation.” Jack realized she wasn’t going to let go of her fantastic idea that the Odoks, with their mysterious ships, had interfered for some reason. Perhaps the idea of something being set right by the gift of the ships would help her come to terms with the Rapha’s disappearance. It seemed strange to Jack that a scientist would need a mythological explanation to live with a horrible loss, but people were funny. Ghee always said humans were still quite provincial.
Suri finished her second sammich and started on the vanilla biscuits, pouring the last of the coffee.
“So, you’ve got your life’s work all cut out for you,” Jack said, wiping his mouth with a napkin and checking his lap for crumbs.
“Yes, I do. The whole team does - analyzing all the data, trying to figure out what happened. I guess that’s what you call job security.”
“Job security often is predicated on some problem or another, unfortunately. Where would the Sheriff’s Department be without criminals and accidents and pure unadulterated stupidity?”
“So true. That’s right, you were a deputy once upon a time.”
“Yes. They’ll find their way back, Suri. They’ll figure out where they are, program the ingress point as the egress point and show up here shortly.”
“Some day, some time. I sure hope so, Jack, unless they crashed, or the equipment malfunctioned. I think they’d be back by now if that kind of reverse programming would have worked, though, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do. They don’t know where they are, or how to get back. The ship could be damaged.”
“Or they could be dead.” Suri finished the last biscuit.
“Jack, you are terrific company and an excellent host. I’m sorry if I depressed you.”
“I had to know. You didn’t depress me, the circumstances did, but not you.”
Suri stood up and so did Jack. He followed her to the door. Before he opened it for her he said, “Don’t be shy. Ghee and I are both curious about your findings, and if you ever need any emotional support, you know where to find us.”
That almost started the waterworks again.
“You two are terrific, you know. Even if Ghee does look like a Zillian.”
“She does, doesn’t she? I tell her that, too.”
Suri laughed, “We’re so mean.”
“Nah. She’s been through worse.”
Jack walked her to the elevator. Gam was mekking the lift today.
“Your chariot awaits, m’lady,” Jack smiled.
Suri stepped into the elevator and spoke another Ghee-ism, “Catch you later, Jack.”
“Later, Suri,” he replied.
The elevator doors closed and Jack walked back to his office. He settled into his comfy office throne and demanded, “Ghee.”
In a few seconds, she answered. Her pleasant voice fell toward him from the ceiling com.
“Hello, lovely, where are you?” he asked.
“Home.”
“Alone?”
“No, I’m with four of my hot lovers. Wish you were here?”
“You bet! Suri just left.”
“A long meeting.”
“Learned a lot.” He briefly filled her in, leaving out almost everything. There would be time later to go over it all. He said, “She’s taking the disappearance hard, trying to find reasons.”
“Find reasons?”
“Magical reasons. The New Mythology according to Suri.”
“Suri’s a scientist. I find that hard to believe.”
“Yeah. Like, did the Odoks give us those ships to somehow rewrite the future.”