Flowers bloomed, and bees pollinated them, constructed their hives, created honey and communicated by dancing. A queen bee swooped upward and met with another male and mated. She would mate with all the males in the hive.
Honey suckers, in turn, found some of the beehives and they too survived in their way. The symbiotic relationship the bees and honeysuckers would form was still 16 thousand years in the future.
The aggressive nectar wasps were hundreds of miles away from any bees, but with such limited real estate, it was just a matter of time.
And so, the years passed and not much changed but some things, little things did change, and the little things added up, multiplied and divided.
Chapter Six – The Blackship
“Approaching a singularity and approaching the speed of light are essentially the same thing.”
The Loud Named Bugs
Opening Speech, 23rd Amular Symposium on Quantum Physics
Source: The Archive
The Blackship had reached the central galactic budge and was almost at its target, the central black hole. The heavens were thick with stars.
Given the time compression of the singularity and the Blackship’s speed, stars could be seen rotating around each other and some stars had rings, the blur of large gas giants moving in their orbits. Due to the ship’s relativistic speed, and all this activity, as well as the rest of the universe, was compressed in a large disk in front of the Blackship. The rest of the heavens—to the sides and looking aft—were black.
The Blackship itself could not be seen for it was inside the singularity’s event horizon—a sphere that nothing could escape (as long as it existed), not even light. On top of this, the event horizon could not be seen without computer-aided graphics as it bent background light (ergo, the universe) around itself.
---
When Adamarus woke from hiber sleep and looked at the relative clock 33,142 years had passed on Amular but only 171 ship years and 38 experienced years had passed.
When he looked out the window, his mouth dropped open. Spread out below was a sight no Amularian had ever seen before; their own spiral galaxy.
Starry arms spiraled out from a central budge that had so many stars it seemed to glow. Complex clouds broke up the swirling arms and the stars seemed alive as each dual star system rotated--some slowly, some so fast it was hard to believe. Every few seconds flashes followed by nebula blasting away marked dyeing stars.
Their speed was .999 light speed. He knew that if he looked aft there’d be a small black circle. As they approached .99999 light speed that small black circle would expand compressing their view of the universe to a small disk in front of the ship. And the outside universe around them would move much faster as their time moved slower.
Adamarus contemplated the fact that he would be at the helm when Nemesis officially left their galaxy, when the ship, for the first time, would reach full speed, .99999 of light and, also, when the Blackship was estimated to reach the central black hole and begin the destruction of their beautiful galaxy.
---
Amular’s galaxy’s central black hole was what was known as a gentle giant. It had cleared out all of the mass around it and didn’t do much but sit there. Every once in a while, a gas cloud or star wondered too close but not for a long time.
The black hole’s event horizon now lay before the Blackship. The Blackship was also wrapped in its own event horizon as it approached. The two event horizons merged and the blackship passed from sight of the universe.
Inside the event horizon, the ship’s own event horizon seemed to pop like a bubble.
Looking back, that is, outward at the inside of the central black hole’s event horizon was like looking at liquid mercury… so bright yet see-through. Beyond it, time was passing by so fast in the universe…the galaxy turned, supernovas strobed their dying nebula literally flying away in minutes. Not even the Slayers wanted to spend much time in this place as they had work to do and time was literally flying by.
In the center, a large torus, the singularity frozen in place and time. A barely visible and ever slowing accretion disk fed the frozen monster.
The Blackship changed configurations. In a single graceful move, it created one single singularity out of the two it had been using and moved that one opposite the galactic singularity to balance the gravitational pull. Then, holding it with four arms, it moved in towards the center. It positioned itself above the giant singularity and used its other four tentacles to attack it. Only their quantum extensions touched the singularity.
Two things happened at almost the same time, the tentacles stole a massive amount of singleton from the giant singularity and then the huge spinning torus, off balanced by the theft, exploded. A whitehole was created.
The giant event horizon vanished. A massive plasma jet erupted from the poles of what had been the giant singularity. This carried the Blackship upward. The Blackship was again enclosed within its own event horizon shielding it from the explosion. At the same time all the matter the singularity had contained blasted outward along the elliptic of the galaxy at almost the speed of light.
---
The black hole made its way through the stars towards the galaxy’s center. In the dream, Adamarus watched it enter the event horizon of the central black hole. He watched as the center exploded and the Slayer's Blackship jetted from the side of the plasma jet towards the next galactic cluster. In exactly the same manner as they had 12 billion years ago, the black holes moved through the universe, repeating their ghastly serenade of galactic-wide slaughter.
As before, the enormous gas giant with the swirling red spot appeared. And as before, he joined someone at the center of the red spot and watched as the uncountable black spheres were drawn towards them. However, this time Adamarus simply awoke as the first Blackship struck. He did not see who was there with him, but he knew… Evelyn.
“Admiral to the bridge,” sounded waking Adamarus up.
He jumped up and started throwing on clothes, “Status.”
“We have definite activity at the galactic center.”
“On my way.”
Once on the bridge, Adamarus looked at the image of the galactic center but, could see no difference. He glanced at the Tachyon scope and saw a big difference. The center was exploding, and a plasma jet was erupting from the center. And within the plasma jet was a bright dot, the Blackship.
Got you! Adamarus thought.
They knew generally which way it would head because they knew where it came from and knew it would continue in pretty much a straight line. However, exactly where it was headed had to be determined.
Nemesis was now at .99995 light speed and gaining.
It took 327 ship years for the Blackship to erupt from the side of the plasma jet and for the crew of Nemesis to determine its course.
The Blackship was headed for the next local group of galaxies roughly 3,592,000 light years away. At .99999 light speed, the trip would take almost four million years normal time. Factoring in time compression the trip would take sixteen thousand years ship time, but, subtracting out time in the hibernation pods, only three and a half years of experienced time. The only time that counted. Still, the thought of all those millions of years passing was at least disquieting, at worst terrifying.
---
Adamarus was glad that they’d been able to track and tail the Blackship, but now back in his cabin, he felt empty and restless. The lonely walls seemed to close in on him. He made himself a drink and tried to review reports but couldn’t focus. The wake was washing over him. The faces of the dead known and unknown haunted him.
He set his drink aside and jumped up. He put on his civilian clothes, his hood, and sunglasses and set off for the city.
It was a weeknight, and the city streets were mostly empty.
When he got to the red-light district, there were half a dozen girls, but he could not find Dash anywhere.
“Hi there,” one of them said.
&nbs
p; This one was very tall and attractive. Her smile electrified him. He cocked his head.
Her smile got bigger and she offered her hand.
He took it and they walked off together.
---
The cavernous chamber that held the half million hibernation pods was quiet, empty and still the vast amount of time. Only occasionally was it filled with hundreds of people going into or coming out of pods.
General Whitehall waited until all his men were under then he reluctantly submitted. He just didn’t like this. It was a loss of control and he always wanted to be in control. As he was lowered into his hibernation pod, an antiseptic smell washed over him and he could feel something very cold.
Whitehall could clearly see the ones left awake while he went under. They were supposed to go under as well, after he was under. There was Adamarus, Radin, Bugs and three of the bridge crew he didn’t know the names of but something about this group made him think of President Wicker…why would he think of… Wicker… a feeling of vague alarm… instinctive distrust… then… sleep and the hiber-dreams.
---
The chamber was vast and Adamarus looked over the half-million hibernation pods. They stretched off almost as far as you could see. And it was dead quiet… not a sound. Finally, he looked at Radin standing at the pod monitoring station.
Radin dipped his head checking the console, “All green.”
Adamarus sighed. Everyone was asleep except the six of them. “Okay, let’s get it over with. Report to the bridge.”
They all walked to the shuttle together.
Adamarus looked at Radin, “Alarm set?”
“If anyone wakes up we’ll be notified.”
Adamarus nodded, “And security?”
Radin rolled his eyes, “All taken care of skipper. Camera, logs…”
“Okay. Thanks.”
They boarded the shuttle and it lifted off.
Adamarus said, “I hate this.”
“I know,” Radin replied.
Adamarus sighed then said, “It’s bad enough what we have to do… having to do this to everyone… deceive them all… I tell you it really sucks.” He spit the last word out.
The shuttle sped through huge caverns picking up speed.
“Have you been happy a single day since,” Radin waved towards the four-foot avatar, “Bugs informed us of this bullshit?”
Adamarus just gave Radin a look. How could anyone be?
“Knowing we must do this doesn’t ruin your day… it fucks up your entire life, every waking moment.” Radin paused, then said, “There’s no way we can let anyone else know at this stage. You know…”
“I know,” Adamarus said somewhat harshly.
The shuttle slowed and came to a stop and they disembarked and walked onto the bridge.
Adamarus swung into the captain’s seat, “Stations.”
Radin dropped into his seat. Lt. Mark Silva went to the navigation station. Lt. Victor Lamar took his place at sensor control. Finally, Lt. Cmdr. Dora Feather slid in behind helm control. Everyone was in their place—the minimum bridge crew needed for the task.
“Distance to the Hydron Group?” Adamarus asked. Hydron was where the Blackship was headed.
Silva at navigation answered, “Thirty-five point six million light years.”
“Distance to target?”
“One point two million.”
Adamarus drummed his fingers, “How far out of our way?”
Silva was ready, “1,224 light years.”
“Okay, Radin, kindly plot and change course.” Adamarus got up and paced. His neck hurt, his eyes burned, he was being eaten up within from guilt. Shake it off, he shouted in his head, you can do that later.
It was a decision that went against your emotions, intuitions, and humanity. However, the math made so much sense it couldn’t be ignored. So, they had made a decision based on the math and therefore they suffered with the dark secret and allowed others to have some piece of mind.
“Okay,” Radin said, “we’re set.”
Besides, there’s no choice, Adamarus thought. He nodded, “Execute.”
---
In the Atrium only one hundred and seventy-one years had passed yet something unusual happened that would change the course of everything.
Two carefree honey bees, both females, flew across the field of tall grass. The air was sweet, the orange sun was high and puffy white clouds dotted the skies. Under the two bees, the grass moved in waves. A strong wind blew at their backs pushing them on their way.
Two bees rarely flew together like this but more importantly, for almost the first time, these two bees liked each other. Rarer still, they were on the second part of a two-part adventure which involved a certain dimension of thinking.
The two bees finally came to the barrier they’d found days ago. A rock cliff climbed before them. This time they had more time and so flew up it until they reached the sky.
However, it wasn’t the sky…it was blue rock and it too stretched upward. So, they flew up…and up…and up but they could see no end.
They returned to the ground near the foot of the rock cliff and rested.
This was when one of the bees saw the small lights in the cliff. It flew up to the lights and hovered looking at them. The bee had never seen squares before. Squares are rare in nature. However, these strange shapes it had never seen before formed patterns. The bee knew patterns…those of its own hive, those of flower petals, those of bark…but none lit up in colors like these. And the shapes…
Its sister had flown up as well. She saw something larger next to the small lights, lines, crazy lines. The crazy lines were wrong and made her dizzy. They were not the friendly lines like those within the hive or on flowers or bark. These lines went too far without bending, zigging or zagging and then bent too perfectly. It made the bee queasy.
The two bees looked at each other.
It was the God Door!
Every hive had heard of it, but it was something from a dream dance and one from long ago. The God Door didn’t really exist! Not really! It was just a dream dance.
It told of long ago when the bees were cast from heaven. Many died but then there was a time of domes with lights. Then the time when even the pull of the world went away. But the pull of the world returned. Then the domes went away and God doors let the Gods and their huge helpers in and they created the world. They created the mountains, the sun, the valleys and hills, the sky, the rivers and lakes. The dream dance says that the Gods were giants and like reeds. They stood straight up without using six legs to hold them up and didn’t fall over.
The sun was approaching the western horizon so the bees raced back to the hive with no pollen in the bags behind their hind legs.
It was dark when they got back to their hive.
They both danced for many hours communicating their find. Their enthusiasm was top order and got the attention of all. They described how to get there and they tried and mostly failed to describe what they had found. Finally, one dredged up the dream dance name for it: God Door.
The hive went crazy, with believers, with disbelievers, and with curiosity.
Scouts were sent out the next morning and confirmed the find. They came back danced the news to the hive.
There was no question where the queen would relocate and build the new hive.
Chapter Seven – Symbiotic Relationships
“Bacteria and archaea form in meteorites. Eukaryotic cells form in comets. These are the little missiles of life.”
The Loud Named Bugs
Opening Speech, 23rd Amular Symposium on Quantum Physics
Source: The Archive
Iceis Star System, Amular
The last Whiteship had left the Iceis system 427,240 years ago. Everyone was supposed to have left with that ship. However, you can’t force people to do something they don’t want to do, and 2,021 people had made a home on Amular and decided to stay. Now, four thousand years later, there were over six billion p
eople living on Amular.
They had always known what would happen to them. In fact, they had watched it coming for thousands of years. It had started as a small red spot and grown slowly over the millennium until it covered the night sky.
Still, no one wanted to die.
A hundred years ago they had moved a mile underground in hopes that would save them. Now the time had come and they prayed as the blight fell upon them.
As the explosion proper entered Iceis’ outer ice cloud pushing millions of comets inward, micro wave surges ahead of the blast wave hit Amular. Over six billion people plus billions of other life forms got headaches that grew worse and worse until their brains cooked—a painful death.
A full year later the blast wave struck the dead planet. It sandblasted the planet removing first the atmosphere, then the water, then the dirt, and finally the bedrock along with the underground cities.
As with most mature bio-worlds, the bio-system penetrated about three hundred miles into the planet. The thousand years of sandblasting Amular went through almost ate down three hundred miles but not quite.
---
Adamarus finished up the stack of work in his virtual in-basket and took the last sip of cold coffee. He closed his eyes and tried not to think but that wake was coming from behind, and the tsunami was again on the horizon in front of him.
He put on the outfit that hid him from most but identified him to others, mainly the ladies of the night. Adamarus had become a regular at Nemesis City’s red-light district and spent time with many of the girls.
He knew there were rumors, but he ignored them as best he could.
He made his way into town and walked through the central part to the outskirts. He saw Dash, his first one, and approached her.”
She smiled. “Hi Joe,” she used the name they all knew to call him. She winked.
“Hi, Dash,” Adamarus said.
Odyssey (The Spiral Slayers Book 3) Page 9