To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

by Christopher Paolini

  Still, it meant something to her that Falconi cared. And she felt a measure of peace. Whatever the future held, she was ready to face it.

  When they finished talking, she hailed the Unrelenting Force. At her request, Admiral Klein agreed to forward a message of hers (minus any information the UMC deemed classified) back to Weyland and her family. It would have been easy enough for Kira to broadcast a signal strong enough to reach Weyland, but she did not know how to structure the waves of energy so they could be received and interpreted by the listening antennas in her home system.

  Kira wished she could wait for a reply. However, even under the best of circumstances, it would take over three months to hear back. Assuming her family could be found … and that they were still alive. It pained Kira to realize that she might never know the truth.

  As she hurtled toward the Markov Limit, Kira listened to music sent to her from the Wallfish. Some Bach, but also long, slow orchestral pieces that seemed to match the turn of the planets and the shift of the stars. The music provided a structure to otherwise formless time—a narrative to the impersonal progression of nature’s grandest bodies.

  She dozed inside her living casement, slipping in and out of wakefulness. A true sleep was near at hand, but she put it off, not ready to surrender awareness. Not yet. Not until space distorted around her and cut her off from the rest of the universe.

  2.

  When she arrived at the Markov Limit, Kira felt a sense of readiness within the ship. The fabric of reality seemed to grow thinner, more malleable around her, and she knew the time to leave was upon her.

  She allowed herself a final look around the system. Regret, anxiety, and excitement all stirred within her. But her purpose was just, and it stiffened her resolve. Hers was to go forth into the unknown, to root out the evil seeds and to spread new life throughout the galaxy. It was a good purpose to have.

  Then she diverted power into the torque engine, preparing for the transition to FTL, and a deep hum pervaded the flesh of the ship.

  Just as the hum peaked, a crackly transmission reached her. It was from the Wallfish, from Falconi. He said, *Kira, the UMC says you’re about to jump to FTL. I know it feels like you’re going to be all alone from now on, but you aren’t. We’re all thinking about you. Don’t forget that, you hear me? That’s a direct order from your captain. Go kick some nightmare ass, and I expect to see you alive and healthy when—*

  The hum ceased, and the stars twisted, and a dark mirror enveloped her, isolating her in a sphere no larger than her ship. Then all was silent.

  Despite herself, Kira felt sad, and she allowed herself to feel that sadness, to acknowledge her loss and give the emotion the respect it deserved. Part of her resisted. Part of her still made excuses. If she could find the Maw’s emissaries and eradicate them within a reasonable amount of time, maybe she could still return home, have a life of peace.

  She took a breath. No. What was done was done. There was no going back, no point regretting the choices she had made nor, as Falconi had said, what was out of her control.

  It was time. She closed her eyes, and though the prospect still unsettled her, she at last allowed herself to sleep.

  And in that sleep, there were no dreams.

  3.

  …

  …

  …

  An emerald ship sailed through the darkness, a tiny gleaming dot, lost within the immensity of space. No other vessel accompanied it, no guards or companions or watchful machines. It was alone among the firmament, and all was quiet.

  The ship sailed, but it seemed not to move. A butterfly, bright and delicate, frozen in crystal, preserved like that for all eternity. Deathless and unchanging.

  Once it had flown faster than light. Once and many times besides. Now it did not. The scent it followed was too delicate to track otherwise.

  The galaxy turned upon its axis for time without measure.

  Then a flash.

  Another ship appeared ahead of the first. The newcomer was dented and dirty, with a patched hull and an awkward appearance. On its nose, faded letters spelled a single word.

  The two ships passed each other in a tiny fraction of a second, their relative velocities so immense, there was only time for a brief transmission to pass from one to the other.

  The transmission was of a man’s voice, and it said: *Your family is alive.*

  Then the newcomer was gone, vanished into the distance.

  Within the lonely ship, within the emerald cocoon and the swaddling flesh, there lay a woman. And though her eyes were closed and her skin was blue, and though her blood was ice and her heart was still—though all of that, a smile appeared upon her face.

  And so she sailed on, content to hold and wait and there to sleep, to sleep in a sea of stars.

  ADDENDUM

  APPENDIX I

  SPACETIME & FTL

  Excerpt from the Entropic Principia (Revised)

  … necessary to outline a brief overview of the fundamentals. Let this serve as a primer and quick reference guide for later, more serious studies.

  * * *

  FTL travel is the defining technology of our modern era. Without it, expansion beyond the Solar System would be impossible, barring centuries-long trips on generational ships or automated seed ships that would grow colonists in situ upon arrival. Even the most powerful fusion drives lack the delta-v to jet between the stars as we do now.

  Although long theorized, superluminal travel did not become a practical reality until Ilya Markov codified the unified field theory (UFT) in 2107. Empirical confirmation followed soon afterward, and the first working prototype of an FTL drive was constructed in 2114.

  Markov’s brilliance was in recognizing the fluidic nature of spacetime and demonstrating the existence of the different luminal realms, as outlined in the earlier, purely theoretical work of Froning, Meholic, and Gauthier around the turn of the twenty-first century. Prior to that, thinking was constrained by the limitations of general relativity.

  Per Einstein’s formulations for special relativity (coupled with Lorentz transformations), no particle with real mass can accelerate to the speed of light. Not only would that require an infinite amount of energy, doing so would break causality, and as later, practical demonstrations have shown, the universe does not break causality on a non-quantum scale.

  However, nothing in special relativity prevents a massless particle from always traveling the speed of light (i.e., a photon), nor from always traveling faster than light (i.e., a tachyon). And that is exactly what the math shows. By combining several of the equations of special relativity, the underlying relativistic symmetry between subluminal, luminal, and superluminal particles becomes clear. With regard to the superluminal, substituting relativistic mass for proper mass allows superluminal mass and energy to become definable, non-imaginary properties.

  This provides us with our current model of physical space (fig. 1):

  Figure 1: Positive energy vs. velocity

  Here the v=c asymptote vertical represents the fluidic spacetime membrane (which has a negligible but non-zero thickness).

  By examining this graph, a number of things will become immediately and intuitively clear. First, that just as a subluminal particle can never reach the speed of light c, neither can a superluminal particle. In normal, STL space, expending energy (e.g., shooting propellent out the back of your spaceship) can move you closer to the speed of light. So too in FTL space. However, in FTL space, the speed of light is the slowest possible speed, not the fastest, and you can never quite slow down to it, not as long as you possess mass.

  Since increasing speed moves you away from c in FTL, there is no upper limit to tachyonic speeds, although there are practical limits, given the minimal level of energy needed to maintain particle integrity (remember, less energy = more speed in superluminal space). And while rest mass in subluminal space is real, positive, and increases due to special relativity as v approaches c; in luminal space, rest mass is zero
and v always = c; and in superluminal space, rest mass is imaginary at v=c, but becomes real, positive, and decreases when moving faster than c.

  An implication of this is the reversal of time dilation effects with regard to acceleration. In both STL and FTL, as one approaches c, one ages slower with regard to the larger universe. That is, the universe will age far faster than a spaceship barreling along at 99% of c. However, in FTL, approaching c means slowing down. If, instead, one speeds up, traveling at ever higher multiples of c, you would age faster and faster compared to the rest of the universe. This, of course, would be a major disadvantage of FTL travel if ships weren’t encased in a Markov Bubble when superluminal (more on this later).

  As one can see in the graph, it is possible to have a velocity of 0 in subluminal space. What does this mean when motion is relative? That you are at rest with regard to whatever reference point you choose, whether that be an outside observer or the destination you wish to travel to. A velocity of 0 in subluminal space translates to around 1.7c in superluminal space. Fast, but still slower than the velocities of many FTL particles. Indeed, even low-end Markov Drives are capable of 51.1c. Nevertheless, if you need to reach a destination as quickly as possible, it can be worth the delta-v to bring your spaceship to a complete stop with regard to your destination before transitioning to FTL in order to get that extra 1.7c of velocity.

  Were it possible to directly convert subluminal mass into superluminal mass, without a Markov Bubble, 1.7c would be the highest possible speed achievable, as there is no practical way to further accelerate the mass (i.e. further reduce the energy state of said mass) aside from chilling it. One can’t suck propellent into your tanks, for example. This would be the second major disadvantage of FTL travel, again, if not for the use of a Markov Bubble.

  The third disadvantage would be the fact that matter in superluminal space behaves radically differently than in subluminal space, to the point where life as we know it would be impossible to sustain. This, again, is circumvented via a Markov Bubble.

  The three different continua—the subluminal, the luminal, and superluminal—coexist within the same time and space, overlapping at every point in the universe. The luminal exists in a fluidic membrane that separates the subluminal from the superluminal, acting as an interference medium between them. The membrane is semi-permeable, and has a definite surface on both sides, upon which all EM forces exist.

  The membrane itself, and thus the entirety of three-dimensional space, is made up of Transluminal Energy Quanta (TEQs), which are, quite simply, the most fundamental building block of reality. A quantized entity, TEQs possess Planck length of 1, Planck energy of 1, and a mass of 0. Their movements and interactions give rise to every other particle and field.

  Figure 2: Simplified diagram of spacetime

  Taken as a whole, TEQs—and spacetime itself—behave in a quasi-fluidic way. Like a fluid, the luminal membrane exhibits:

  Pressure

  Density and compressibility

  Viscoelasticity

  Surface and surface tension

  We will examine each of these in detail later, but for now, it’s worth noting that viscoelasticity is the property that gives rise to gravity and inertia and is what allows for all relative motion. As mass accumulates, it begins to displace the spacetime membrane, which thins beneath the object. This is gravity. Likewise, the membrane resists change, which means it takes time to displace when force is applied. (The viscousness of spacetime results in friction between boundary layers, which is the reason for the Lense–Thirring effect, aka: frame-dragging).

  Since subluminal and superluminal space are physically separated by the spacetime membrane, STL mass and FTL mass can occupy the same coordinate points simultaneously, although this arrangement would be short-lived as (a) all matter in superluminal space moves at some speed faster than c, and (b) the shared membrane means that the spacetime displacement from mass, which is to say gravity, has an equal and opposite effect on the opposing realm.

  An example to illustrate: in STL space, a planet will press down upon the fabric of spacetime to create the sort of gravity well we are all familiar with. At the same time, that depression will manifest in FTL space as a gravity “hill”—an equal and opposite prominence in the spacetime fabric. And the reverse is also true.

  This has a number of consequences. First of which is that mass in one realm of space has a repulsive effect in the other. Stars, planets, and other STL gravitational bodies no longer act as attractors when one transitions to FTL. Quite the opposite.

  The same is true of mass in superluminal space. However, since FTL contains a lower net energy density (a natural side effect of tachyons possessing a base speed of >c), and given the radically different laws and particles that exist in FTL, what happens is that the gravity hills produced by the denser, subluminal matter scatter the tachyonic mass, forcing it out and away. As confirmed by Oelert (2122), the majority of our local superluminal matter exists in a vast halo surrounding the Milky Way. This halo provides positive pressure on the Milky Way, which helps keep the galaxy from flying apart.

  The gravitational effects of superluminal mass on our own subluminal realm were long a mystery. Early attempts to explain them resulted in the now-obsolete theories of “dark matter” and “dark energy.” These days, we know that the concentrations of superluminal mass between the galaxies are responsible for the ongoing expansion of the universe, and that they also affect the shape and movement of the galaxies themselves.

  Whether or not tachyonic matter coalesces into the superluminal equivalent of stars and planets remains an open question. The math says yes, but so far, observational confirmation has proven elusive. The rim of the galaxy is too far away for even the fastest drones to reach, and our current generation of FTL sensors aren’t sensitive enough to pick out individual gravitational bodies at that distance. No doubt that will change in time and we will eventually be able to learn far more about the nature of superluminal matter.

  Another consequence of the well/hill caused by mass-induced spacetime displacement is the effect commonly known as the Markov Limit. Before that can be explained, it will be helpful to conduct a quick review of how FTL travel and communication actually work.

  In order to have unlabored transition from subluminal to superluminal space, it is necessary to directly manipulate the underlying spacetime membrane. This is done via a specially conditioned EM field that couples with the membrane (or rather, with the constituent TEQs).

  In gauge theory, ordinary EM fields can be described as abelian. That is, the nature of the field differs from whatever generates it. This is true not only of EM radiation but also electron/proton attraction, and also repulsion within atoms and molecules. Nonabelian fields would be those such as the strong and weak nuclear forces. They are structurally more complicated and, as a result, display higher levels of internal symmetry.

  The other, more relevant, nonabelian fields are those associated with the surface tension, viscoelasticity, and internal coherence of the spacetime membrane. These arise from the internal motions and interactions of the TEQs, the details of which far exceed the scope of this section.

  In any case, it has proven possible to convert ordinary EM radiation from abelian to nonabelian by modulating the polarization of the wave energy emitted from antennas or apertures, or by tuning the frequencies of alternating current to the toroidal geometries through which the currents are driven (this is the method used by a Markov Drive). Doing so results in EM radiation with an underlying field of SU(2) symmetry and nonabelian form, as described in Maxwell’s expanded equations. This couples in an orthogonal direction with the spacetime fields via a shared quantity: the “A vector potential.” (Orthogonal, as tardyons and tachyons exhibit opposite motion directions along their packet lengths, and the conditioned EM field is interacting with both the subluminal and superluminal surfaces of spacetime.) This has often been described as traveling in a straight line along a right angle.

>   Once the EM field is coupled with the spacetime fabric, it becomes possible to manipulate the density of the medium. By injecting an appropriate amount of energy, spacetime itself can be made increasingly thin and permeable. So much so that at a certain point the energy density of subluminal space causes the affected area to pop into superluminal space, like a high-pressure bubble expanding/rising into an area of lower pressure.

  As long as the conditioned EM field is maintained, the encompassed subluminal space can be kept suspended within superluminal space.

  From the point of view of an STL observer, everything within the bubble has vanished and can only be detected by its gravitational “hill” from the other side of the spacetime membrane.

  From inside the bubble, an observer will see themselves surrounded by a perfect, spherical mirror where the surface of the bubble interfaces with the outer FTL space.

  From the point of view of an FTL observer, a perfectly spherical, perfectly reflective bubble will have just popped into existence in superluminal space.

  Mass and momentum remain conserved throughout. Your original heading will be the same in FTL as in STL, and your original speed will be converted to the superluminal energy-equivalent.

  Once the EM field is discontinued, the bubble will vanish, and everything inside will drop back into subluminal space (a process no doubt familiar to many of you). Often this is accompanied by a bright flash and a burst of thermal energy as the light and heat that built up inside the bubble during the trip are released.

  A few points on the specific features of Markov Bubbles are worth mentioning: