by Ларри Нивен
A few were in the Quicksilver Group. Others were among the colony worlds, especially on Jinx, trying to get the Institute of Knowledge to finance various projects, such as more expeditions to the collapsar in Cygnus.
«Are you still with the Institute, Doctor?»
Forward shook his head. «They stopped backing me. Not enough results. But I can continue to use this station, which is Institute property. One day they'll sell it, and we'll have to move.»
«I was wondering why they sent you here in the first place,» said Carlos. «Sirius has an adequate cometary belt.»
«But Sol is the only system with any kind of civilization this far from its sun. And I can count on better men to work with. Sol system has always had its fair share of cosmologists.»
«I thought you might have come to solve an old mystery. The Tunguska meteorite. You've heard of it, of course.»
Forward laughed. «Of course. Who hasn't? I don't think we'll ever know just what it was that hit Siberia that night. It may have been a chunk of antimatter. I'm told that there is antimatter in known space.»
«If it was, we'll never prove it,» Carlos admitted.
«Shall we discuss your problem?» Forward seemed to remember my existence. «Shaeffer, what does a professional pilot think when his hyperdrive motor disappears?»
«He gets very upset.»
«Any theories?»
I decided not to mention pirates. I wanted to see if Forward would mention them first. «Nobody seems to like my theory,» I said, and I sketched out the argument for monsters in hyperspace.
Forward heard me out politely. Then, «I'll give you this; it'd be hard to disprove. Do you buy it?»
«I'm afraid to. I almost got myself killed once, looking for space monsters when I should have been looking for natural causes.»
«Why would the hyperspace monsters eat only your motor?»
«Um … futz. I pass.»
«What do you think, Carlos? Natural phenomena or space monsters?»
«Pirates,» said Carlos.
«How are they going about it?»
«Well, this business of a hyperdrive motor disappearing and leaving the ship behind — that's brand new. I'd think it would take a sharp gravity gradient with a tidal effect as strong as that of a neutron star or a black hole.»
«You won't find anything like that anywhere in human space.»
«I know.» Carlos looked frustrated. That had to be faked. Earlier he'd behaved as if he already had an answer.
Forward said, «I don't think a black hole would have that anyway. If it did, you'd never know it, because the ship would disappear down the black hole.»
«What about a powerful gravity generator?»
«Hmmm.» Forward thought about it, then shook his massive head. «You're talking about a surface gravity in the millions. Any gravity generator I've ever heard of would collapse itself at that level. Let's see, with a frame supported by stasis fields … no. The frame would hold, and the rest of the machinery would flow like water.»
«You don't leave much of my theory.»
«Sorry.»
Carlos ended a short pause by asking, «How do you think the universe started?»
Forward looked puzzled at the change of subject.
And I began to get uneasy.
Given all that I don't know about cosmology, I do know attitudes and tones of voice. Carlos was giving out broad hints, trying to lead Forward to his own conclusion. Black holes, pirates, the Tunguska meteorite, the origin of the universe — he was offering them as clues. And Forward was not responding correctly.
He was saying, «Ask a priest. Me, I lean toward the big bang. The steady state always seemed so futile.»
«I like the big bang, too,» said Carlos.
There was something else to worry about. Those mining tugs: they almost had to belong to Forward Station. How would Ausfaller react when three familiar spacecraft came cruising into his space?
How did I want him to react? Forward Station would make a dandy pirate base. Permeated by laser-drilled corridors distributed almost at random … could there be two networks of corridors, connected only at the surface? How would we know?
Suddenly I didn't want to know. I wanted to go home. If only Carlos would stay off the touchy subjects –
But he was speculating about the ship eater again. «That ten billion metric tons of neutronium, now, that you were using for a test mass. That wouldn't be big enough or dense enough to give us enough of a gravity gradient.»
«It might, right near the surface.» Forward grinned and held his hands close together. «It was about that big.»
«And that's as dense as matter gets in this universe. Too bad.»
«True, but … have you ever heard of quantum black holes?»
«Yeah.»
Forward stood up briskly. «Wrong answer.»
I rolled out of my web chair, trying to brace myself for a jump, while my fingers fumbled for the third button on my jumper. It was no good. I hadn't practiced in this gravity.
Forward was in midleap. He slapped Carlos alongside the head as he went past. He caught me at the peak of his jump and took me with him via an iron grip on my wrist.
I had no leverage, but I kicked at him. He didn't even try to stop me. It was like fighting a mountain. He gathered my wrists in one hand and towed me away.
* * *
Forward was busy. He sat within the horseshoe of his control console, talking. The backs of three disembodied heads showed above the console's edge.
Evidently there was a laser phone in the console. I could hear parts of what Forward was saying. He was ordering the pilots of the dime mining tugs to destroy Hobo Kelly. He didn't seem to know about Ausfaller yet.
Forward was busy, but Angel was studying us thoughtfully, or unhappily, or both. Well he might. We could disappear, but what messages might we have sent earlier?
I couldn't do anything constructive with Angel watching me. And I couldn't count on Carlos.
I couldn't see Carlos. Forward and Angel had tied us to opposite sides of the central pillar, beneath the Grabber. Carlos hadn't made a sound since then. He might be dying from that tremendous slap across the head.
I tested the line around my wrists. Metal mesh of some kind, cool to the touch … and it was tight.
Forward turned a switch. The heads vanished. It was a moment before he spoke.
«You've put me in a very bad position.»
And Carlos answered. «I think you put yourself there.»
«That may be. You should not have let me guess what you knew.»
Carlos said, «Sorry, Bey.»
He sounded healthy. Good. «That's all right,» I said. «But what's all the excitement about? What has Forward got?»
«I think he's got the Tunguska meteorite.»
«No. That I do not.» Forward stood and faced us. «I will admit that I came here to search for the Tunguska meteorite. I spent several years trying to trace its trajectory after it left Earth. Perhaps it was a quantum black hole. Perhaps not. The Institute cut off my funds without warning just as I had found a real quantum black hole, the first in history.»
I said, «That doesn't tell me a lot.»
«Patience, Mr. Shaeffer. You know that a black hole may form from the collapse of a massive star? Good. And you know that it takes a body of at least five solar masses. It may mass as much as a galaxy — or as much as the universe. There is some evidence that the universe is an infalling black hole. But at less than five solar masses the collapse would stop at the neutron star stage.»
«I follow you.»
«In all the history of the universe there has been one moment at which smaller black holes might have formed. That moment was the explosion of the monoblock, the cosmic egg that once contained all the matter in the universe. In the ferocity of that explosion there must have been loci of unimaginable pressure. Black holes could have formed of mass down to two point two times ten to the minus fifth grams, one point six times ten to the
minus twenty-fifth angstroms in radius.»
«Of course you'd never detect anything that small,» said Carlos. He seemed almost cheerful. I wondered why … and then I knew. He'd been right about the way the ships were disappearing. It must compensate him for being tied to a pillar.
«But,» said Forward, «black holes of all sizes could have formed in that explosion, and should have. In more than seven hundred years of searching no quantum black hole has ever been found. Most cosmologists have given up on them, and on the big bang, too.»
Carlos said, «Of course there was the Tunguska meteorite. It could have been a black hole of, oh, asteroidal mass —»
«— and roughly molecular size. But the tide would have pulled down trees as it went past —»
«— and the black hole would have gone right through the Earth and headed back into space a few tons heavier. Eight hundred years ago there was actually a search for the exit point. With that they could have charted a course —»
«Exactly. But I had to give up that approach,» said Forward. «I was using a new method when the Institute, ah, severed our relationship.»
They must both be mad, I thought. Carlos was tied to a pillar and Forward was about to kill him, yet they were both behaving like members of a very exclusive club … to which I did not belong.
Carlos was interested. «How'd you work it?»
«You know that it is possible for an asteroid to capture a quantum black hole? In its interior? For instance, at a mass of ten to the twelfth kilograms — a billion metric tons,» he added for my benefit, «a black hole would be only one point five times ten to the minus fifth angstroms across. Smaller than an atom. In a slow pass through an asteroid it might absorb a few billions of atoms, enough to slow it into an orbit. Thereafter it might orbit within the asteroid for eons, absorbing very little mass on each pass.»
«So?»
«If I chance on an asteroid more massive than it ought to be, and if I contrive to move it, and some of the mass stays behind …»
«You'd have to search a lot of asteroids. Why do it out here? Why not the asteroid belt? Oh, of course. You can use hyperdrive out here.»
«Exactly. We could search a score of masses in a day, using very little fuel.»
«Hey. If it was big enough to eat a spacecraft, why didn't it eat the asteroid you found it in?»
«It wasn't that big,» said Forward. «The black hole I found was exactly as I have described it. I enlarged it. I towed it home and ran it into my neutronium sphere. Then it was large enough to absorb an asteroid. Now it is quite a massive object. Ten to the twentieth power kilograms, the mass of one of the larger asteroids, and a radius of just under ten to the minus fifth centimeters.»
There was satisfaction in Forward's voice. In Carlos's there was suddenly nothing but contempt. «You accomplished all that, and then you used it to rob ships and bury the evidence. Is that what's going to happen to us? Down the rabbit hole?»
«To another universe, perhaps. Where does a black hole lead?»
I wondered about that myself.
Angel had taken Forward's place at the control console. He had fastened the seat belt, something I had not seen Forward do, and was dividing his attention between the instruments and the conversation.
«I'm still wondering how you move it,» said Carlos. Then, «Uh! The tugs!»
Forward stared, then guffawed. «You didn't guess that? But of course the black hole can hold a charge. I played the exhaust from an old ion drive reaction motor into it for nearly a month. Now it holds an enormous charge. The tugs can pull it well enough. I wish I had more of them. Soon I will.»
«Just a minute,» I said. I'd grasped one crucial fact as it had gone past my head. «The tugs aren't armed? All they do is pull the black hole?»
«That's right.» Forward looked at me curiously.
«And the black hole is invisible.»
«Yes. We tug it into the path of a spacecraft. If the craft comes near enough, it will precipitate into normal space. We guide the black hole through its drive to cripple it, board and rob it at our leisure. Then a slower pass with the quantum black hole, and the ship simply disappears.»
«Just one last question,» said Carlos. «Why?»
I had a better question.
Just what was Ausfaller going to do when three familiar spacecraft came near? They carried no armaments at all. Their only weapon was invisible.
And it would eat a General Products hull without noticing.
Would Ausfaller fire on unarmed ships?
We'd know too soon. Up there, near the edge of the dome, I had spotted three tiny lights in a tight cluster.
Angel had seen it, too. He activated the phone. Phantom heads appeared, one, two, three.
I turned back to Forward and was startled at the brooding hate in his expression.
«Fortune's child,» he said to Carlos. «Natural aristocrat. Certified superman. Why would you ever consider stealing anything? Women beg you to give them children, in person if possible, by mail if not! Earth's resources exist to keep you healthy, not that you need them!»
«This may startle you,» said Carlos, «but there are people who see you as a superman.»
«We bred for strength, we Jinxians. At what cost to other factors? Our lives are short, even with the aid of boosterspice. Longer if we live outside Jinx's gravity. But the people of other worlds think we're funny. The women … never mind.» He brooded, then said it anyway. «A woman of Earth once told me she would rather go to bed with a tunneling machine. She didn't trust my strength. What woman would?»
The three bright dots had nearly reached the center of the dome. I saw nothing between them. I hadn't expected to. Angel was still talking to the pilots.
Up from the edge of the dome came something I didn't want anyone to notice. I said, «Is that your excuse for mass murder, Forward? Lack of women?»
«I need give you no excuses at all, Shaeffer. My world will thank me for what I've done. Earth has swallowed the lion's share of the interstellar trade for too long.»
«They'll thank you, huh? You're going to tell them?»
«Julian!» That was Angel calling. He'd seen it … no, he hadn't. One of the tug captains had.
Forward left us abruptly. He consulted with Angel in low tones, then turned back. «Carlos! Did you leave your ship on automatic? Or is there someone else aboard?»
«I'm not required to say,» said Carlos.
«I could — no. In a minute it will not matter.»
Angel said, «Julian, look what he's doing.»
«Yes. Very clever. Only a human pilot would think of that.»
Ausfaller had maneuvered the Hobo Kelly between us and the tugs. If the tugs fired a conventional weapon, they'd blast the dome and kill us all.
The tugs came on.
«He still does not know what he is fighting,» Forward said with some satisfaction.
True, and it would cost him. Three unarmed tugs were coming down Ausfaller's throat, carrying a weapon so slow that the tugs could throw it at him, let it absorb Hobo Kelly, and pick it up again long before it was a danger to us.
From my viewpoint Hobo Kelly was a bright point with three dimmer, more distant points around it. Forward and Angel were getting a better view through the phone. And they weren't watching us at all.
I began trying to kick off my shoes. They were soft ship slippers, ankle-high, and they resisted.
I kicked the left foot fire just as one of the tugs flared with ruby light.
«He did it!» Carlos didn't know whether to be jubilant or horrified. «He fired on unarmed ships!»
Forward gestured peremptorily. Angel slid out of his seat. Forward slid in and fastened the thick seat belt. Neither had spoken a word.
A second ship burned fiercely red, then expanded in a pink cloud.
The third ship was fleeing.
Forward worked the controls. «I have it in the mass indicator,» he rasped. «We have but one chance.»
So did I. I peeled
the other slipper off with my toes. Over our heads the jointed arm of the Grabber began to swing … and I suddenly realized what they were talking about.
Now there was little to see beyond the dome. The swinging Grabber, and the light of Hobo Kelly's drive, and the two tumbling wrecks, all against a background of fixed stars. Suddenly one of the tugs winked blue-white and was gone. Not even a dust cloud was left behind.
Ausfaller must have seen it. He was turning, fleeing. Then it was as if an invisible hand had picked up Hobo Kelly and thrown her away. The fusion light streaked off to one side and set beyond the dome's edge.
With two tugs destroyed and the third fleeing, the black hole was falling free, aimed straight down our throats.
Now there was nothing to see but the delicate motions of the Grabber. Angel stood behind Forward's chair, his knuckles white with his grip on the chair's back.
My few pounds of weight went away and left me in freefall. Tides again. The invisible thing was more massive than this asteroid beneath me. The Grabber swung a meter more to one side … and something struck it a mighty blow.
The floor surged away from beneath me, left me head down above the Grabber. The huge soft-iron puppy dish came at me; the jointed metal arm collapsed like a spring. It slowed, stopped.
«You got it!» Angel crowed like a rooster, and slapped at the back of the chair, holding himself down with his other hand. He turned a gloating look on us, turned back just as suddenly. «The ship! It's getting away!»
«No.» Forward was bent over the console. «I see him. Good, he is coming back, straight toward us. This time there will be no tugs to warn the pilot.»
The Grabber swung ponderously toward the point where I'd seen Hobo Kelly disappear. It moved centimeters at a time, pulling a massive invisible weight.
And Ausfaller was coming back to rescue us. He'd be a sitting duck unless –
I reached up with my toes, groping for the first and fourth buttons on my falling jumper.