The Veiled Universe

by Rob Garnet

  “This is the last volley, people. We will ride this out and then call our own strike. Once this is over, drinks at the bar are on me,” called out the commander, relaxing in her chair.

  Mia felt a twinge of doubt as she considered what she was about to do. It would be suicide and murder. Murder of her own people, including some of her closest friends. She wondered if anyone would ever find out what she had done. Well, hopefully my last message will reach Earth someday and better sense will prevail.

  Mia pressed the button to bring down the shields on all the ships just at the missiles exploded.

  An absurd thought came to her mind at the very last moment. A final wish for the people she had just saved on the planet below.

  Live long and...

  ◆◆◆

  Black Holes have Hair

  The console chimed indicating an incoming message. Uge turned from his experiment and looked at the screen.

  Hello, Uge. The letters glowed green on the screen against the red and gold light flowing in through the portholes.

  Hello, Uge? He scratched his chin in confusion. The next transmission from the home base was not due for another 56 hours. So, who was this?

  He walked back to the main console. Source of transmission unknown, reported his computer.

  ‘Hello, Uge’ continued to glow on the screen. He sat down, looking at the message with furrowed brows.

  A soft beam of blue light shone briefly outside drawing his attention. It seemed to have come from the black hole he had been observing. Two hundred and twenty days alone in space have scrambled my brain, Uge decided.

  The letters on the screen changed: Uge, I am out here, and I need your help.

  Okay, I am officially going crazy, Uge thought, staring at the message. There was nothing outside except the black hole, with the swirling matter and energy, which formed its accretion disc. He turned off the screen.

  Uge, please respond. The screen switched on again.

  Uge waited a moment thinking if he should respond. Oh, what the hell! He started typing. Hello, there. Who is this?

  I am the entity you refer to as M92*.

  That is the designation of this black hole, more properly known as Gravitationally Completely Collapsed Object or GCCO for short, responded Uge. And black holes can’t communicate. So, I ask you again. Please identify yourself.

  I am M92*. I am the black hole.

  This is nuts, thought Uge. Someone seems to have played a time-delayed prank on my computer system. He pushed a few buttons and rebooted the computer.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw another short burst of blue outside. The computer booted up and instead of the welcome screen, there were the words again: Hello, Uge.

  You are still here? Who are you and what do you want?

  I have told you already. I am M92* and I need some knowledge. Will you help me?

  Guess there is no harm seeing how this plays out, thought Uge. Sure. What do you need?

  I need to understand your thesis on the merger of black holes. There are some references in your computer’s database but the details are missing.

  Why would you want to know about that?

  That does not concern you.

  If you want my help, then yes, it does concern me. Typed Uge.

  The screen remained blank. Good riddance, thought Uge, getting up to fix himself a beverage.

  I have considered it. Your request is reasonable. M92* or whoever it was had finally responded.

  You think? So tell me why and tell me how you can communicate with me. You are an inanimate object.

  Inanimate? M92* seemed to struggle to come up with a response. That is not correct. I have knowledge. I have vast amounts of it. I gather everything that reaches me and store all that I need at my event horizon. It has been so for millions of years. Signals from distant planets, data from stellar phenomenon. I know everything.

  Then it is surprising that you do not know how black holes merge.

  M92* was silent. That is correct. Information comes to me in bits and pieces. The earliest bits coalesced together many years ago and gave me a rudimentary intelligence. Since then it has grown to a vast amount. Yet, some information simply does not reach me or is lost in the maelstrom you see outside.

  I see, replied Uge. Looks like I am invested. So, the theory was correct. Black holes do have other characteristics unique to them other than just mass, charge and angular momentum. Black holes can store additional information which may not be visible to anyone else, and this can be released and manifests as strands of ghostly particles much like the blue beams M92* used to exchange data with him. Black holes do have hair just as the scientists had predicted! Furthermore, if he was not dreaming, then this was his moment in the sun, proof that information does not get destroyed as it enters a black hole’s event horizon. In fact, this new knowledge meant his people could actually work on creating an entirely new range of artificial intelligence. AIs may not even need programming. You could keep throwing information at an AI and it would make its own sense out of the information, growing as it absorbs more and more, just like M92* and ultimately the AI would also gain sentience.

  Let me test if you are telling me the truth, he typed.

  Yes. Ask me anything you want. And then you must give me the answer I seek.

  Alright, here goes nothing. I’ll ask M92* something no one else can know. What is at your core, your centre? Is it a singularity?

  That is not entirely true. At my core, I have frozen time.

  Frozen time? What the hell is that?

  It is time that is frozen. What do you not understand?

  Uge took a deep breath. I mean, what exactly is frozen time?

  Words flashed rapidly across the screen and Uge struggled to read them.

  Slow down a bit, will you? The flow reduced and he concentrated; his beverage growing cold by his side.

  In the beginning, the universe was completely devoid of all matter, anti-matter and time did not flow. When the universe came into being at the moment you call the Big Bang, it released particles, which formed matter. It also released linear time. Not in a single burst but in pockets. Some of these pockets merged to form black holes. I contain pockets from the primal universe, protected by gravity. I have collected more and more of such pockets as they travelled through space. If you do find a way to enter me—and I can tell you how—you can re-live every single moment from the Big Bang to now. You can travel to every part of the universe without ever leaving me. I can tell you how, if you share your knowledge with me.

  Uge tried to digest this. We always thought black holes contained gravity. But this guy says they contain time. Frozen time.

  Hello, Uge.

  He ignored the message.

  Hello, Uge. What do you say?

  I say yes. Here, let me send you the data. He typed the core equations. It was all based on quantum entanglement. You, M92*, just need to find your quantum cousin formed at the exact same moment as you were, who shares your quantum properties. I have quite a few details about other black holes with me. Maybe we can find you the match.

  I understand now. It is so elegant and yet so simple.

  Is it? Now, you keep your part of the deal.

  Yes. You may enter. Look outside and you will see the path.

  Uge looked out of the porthole. The donut around the black hole was splitting. The swirling rings seemed to collapse into themselves. All movement ceased. The sea had split and the path inside was clear. At the end of the path, at the very centre of the black hole, strange lights swirled in a mesmerizing display of pyrotechnics. Almost in a trance, Uge turned his ship and followed the path. He was absorbed into the black hole and so was his essence.

  Yes. I understand everything now. Your bodies are minute, but your intellect is vast. But there is something else. What is this thing you call emotion? It is not clear. It is abstract and it changes. Intriguing. You ask me why I want to merge. I was wondering the same. Now I understand. It is e
motion. I am lonely. I need a mate. We need to multiply. To spread our species. What is this you say? That I am not alive? That I cannot procreate? You are wrong. A few minutes ago, it was true. I could not procreate. I did not even know what it meant. Yet, with your emotion, I feel the need. The urge to multiply. I also feel something else. Power! I am the most powerful entity in the universe, and everyone must bow before me!

  Dozens of relativistic jets shot out from M92*. Jets of immense power. Jets ready to destroy anything that came in their path.

  ◆◆◆

  The Veiled Universe

  “Bloody hell!” Adrian yelled, bringing an angry fist down on the panel. “That’s five days of work down the drain, you stupid machine!”

  Still cursing under his breath, he turned to reset the Notion Drive. The drive was the most powerful ever developed anywhere in the Universe, capable of propelling a ship at the speed of thought. Theoretically, he could travel billions of light years in an instant just by imagining his destination and synchronising it with the Drive. In practice, it was incredibly frustrating as the Drive and his thoughts constantly differed on their definition of the destination.

  “Why do you keep bringing me back to where I started? I want to reach the edge of the universe, you bugger.” Adrian banged his adjuster against the shiny cover of the drive. “Fifteen years of development down the drain, you…”

  He gave up trying to fix the Drive and plonked himself down on the command chair, wiping the sweat from his brow. Adrian had no interest in the wonders that space had to offer in the distant reaches never seen by man. He just wanted to cross the boundary to behold what lay beyond the known Universe.

  “Okay. Okay.” He tried to calm down. All this swearing would give him a brain aneurysm soon. “Let’s try this another way, alright,” he said soothingly to the machine. More than brain waves linked them now. They were symbiotic. Inseparable. The Notion Drive was like a petulant child. He needed to be patient. “This is a simple matter of astrometry. If we keep coming back to the starting point every time we travel, then maybe the universe is closed, not open or flat. Maybe we need to start from the centre. Yes, that’s it.” He sat up straight and focussed, aligning his thoughts with the Notion Drive.

  Centre of the Universe. Centre of the Universe.

  There was a brief sensation of motion that stopped as abruptly as it had begun. He opened his eyes.

  A blue-green planet gleamed in the darkness in front of him. His planet. So, the ancient astronomers had been right, after all. Earth is the centre of the Universe. This really takes the cake.

  “Right then. Now we head outwards in a straight line. A perfect straight line, accounting for gravity and celestial bodies. And of course, black holes, dark matter, dark energy and what not. Let’s leg it!”

  This time the ride was just a little bit longer, with a few more bumps than usual. Adrian did not open his eyes for some time. He just sat there breathing deeply. If this had not worked—

  The ship stopped and Adrian saw a barrier outside but it was translucent and shimmering like a soap bubble. The shimmering film stretched as far as he could see. It was like a sheer wall and his ship nudged it slightly, sending a shiver down his spine. The film moved away and his ship followed. The universe was expanding! Right in front of his eyes.

  “Brilliant. Now, we will cross this barrier into another universe. That’s all I had been asking you to do this whole time!” He closed his eyes. The ship moved forward slowly. He could almost feel it trying to break through something similar to a stretching membrane—soft but unyielding. A little more pressure and the ship broke through.

  He checked his control panel. It was resetting itself. He had done it! He had crossed the barrier into an entirely new place.

  “And now, milady, take me to the centre of this universe,” he commanded.

  The blue-green planet shone in front of him. “This cannot be right. I said the centre of this universe, idiot. Not my own.” The ship did not move. The planet slowly rotated in front of him on the screen.

  I give up. Let’s just go on home and have a nice sandwich for lunch.

  The ship rocked violently. Adrian grasped the armrests. Another ship had appeared right next to his. It looked suspiciously familiar. His console chimed with an incoming message and an image appeared on the screen.

  That’s me!

  “Hello, there, Adrian.”

  “Hello, yourself… Adrian.” He was too numb to react.

  “Looks like you’ve broken the thought barrier and the barrier of your universe! Congratulations. You are the fourth human to have done so. But, since all of them were you,” he paused, “or me, I really don’t know the difference.”

  Adrian found his voice. “You… you mean, there are more like me and you?”

  “Yes, it would appear so. Like I said, I’ve met three others. As far as I can determine, this region where we are seems to be some sort of a focal point. All roads lead to Rome, as they say, and all our versions in all the universes seem to be congregating here.”

  “That’s a load of bull. I’m off. Goodbye.” Adrian closed his eyes and the ship jumped again. He opened them once they crossed a similar barrier. He was back near Earth only this time there were dozens of ships around him, all the same as his.

  “Hello, Adrian.” The call came in again, from dozens of voices in perfect synchronisation.

  “Am I going mad?” he asked.

  “Not really,” the other Adrians answered in unison. “It seems multiverses do exist. Only that…” There was a long pause. He grew anxious to hear the answer. Only what?

  “—every part of the multiverse is exactly the same. We broke the barrier between universes and this is what we have found. There are no alternate realities. There is no splitting of the universe every time you make a choice. All is one. We exist together, in parallel time frames, living out our lives in the exact same manner. There is only one path. That, Adrian, is the reality.”

  “No. I refuse to believe it. I have spent decades decoding the secrets of the Universe!” He was shouting without meaning to. “There has to be more. So much more. A multitude of dimensions. Boundaries we cannot reach. Even more exotic universes to discover beyond our own! How can there be only one reality? No. It is not possible. No. You are lying. Stop it.”

  He closed his eyes. The ship moved. He opened his eyes. He was near Earth. Another Earth. The same Earth. This time there were hundreds of ships crowing space. He closed his eyes.

  Every repetition of the journey was the same. I cannot accept this. I will not accept it. He closed his eyes. He cried. He thought of home. His Earth. The ship moved.

  ◆◆◆

  “What’s wrong with this one?” asked a voice on the other side of the glass window. He could hear them. The words sounded familiar but the meaning was lost.

  The head physician consulted her notes. “Dr Adrian Cole, Department of Astrophysics, at the University. He has delusional disorder. He believes he invented a machine which could travel at the speed of thought and that he managed to travel across multiple universes. That is all we have been able to get out of him before he degenerates into nonsense.”

  “Is that so? What’s the prognosis?”

  “The damage seems to be deep. It is unlikely he will recover enough to tell us the whole story. However, there is one remarkable aspect—he was recovered from deep space from an escape capsule. They also found debris consistent with a small spaceship of some kind. So,” she shrugged, “who knows, maybe he did find a way to travel far.” She turned to face the visitor. “It is perhaps a warning to all of us. The universe is veiled and we may never really know all its secrets. Perhaps humans were never meant to understand it fully and even if they do find the truth, it turns them insane like Adrian here. Perhaps it is better this way.”

  ◆◆◆

  Dear Reader

  What a ride! Right?

  If you enjoyed this book, do not forget to leave a review on Amazon and Goo
dreads.

  Thank you and watch out for more!

  Rob Garnet