Encounters (The Spiral Slayers Book 1)

by Rusty Williamson

  President Wicker was looking off screen. He nodded and looked back, announcing that he now had a direct feed from the orbiting scope.

  Leewood got things started, “Mr. President, with me are Captain Maximus, Dr. Harrington and Professor Woodworth.” The President nodded to each. Leewood continued, “Also joining us from orbit is Dr. Jake Banner, who is in charge of the new orbital Tachyon scope. Out of necessity, I have increased his security clearance for this meeting.” Leewood paused a beat, then continued, “As you know, about eighteen months ago, two of the three Loud ships departed for their home planet to ratify the agreement and load goods for the first exchange. They were not expected to return for about three hundred years, but as you know, six days ago both ships returned and they returned with a third ship. As you also know, whatever brought the Loud back was serious enough to cause every Loud manning an avatar to stop what they were doing so quickly that their avatars simply fell to the ground. Furthermore, after all four Loud ships had grouped together in orbit, for five days the aliens have refused or been unable to answer our attempts at communication. Then, suddenly today, at Bugs’ request, a face-to-face meeting in the listening chamber was held with Captain Maximus—for whatever reason, Bugs did not use his avatar.” Leewood looked around at the faces before him. “That meeting has just concluded. And we have answers.” Leewood nodded to Adamarus, then took his seat.

  For several seconds, Adamarus remained seated, looking down. Then he seemed to gather himself and rose from his chair. “Mr. President,” he nodded at President Wicker and then to the others present. At first Adamarus faltered not knowing where to start, but then he took a deep breath and spoke. “I will just try to repeat word for word what Bugs said. Bugs was very distressed…in fact, he seemed to be barely functioning. He said…Adamarus, I have terrible news. Our home system has been attacked by an alien race. It has been completely destroyed.” Gasps of disbelief came from everyone. Adamarus continued, “He told me that, except for the Loud aboard the four ships in this system, his race has been rendered extinct. None survived the attack.”

  Everyone was dumbfounded. Harrington uttered, “Oh, my God!” The President’s face went white and his mouth dropped open. Leewood, already aware of this, just stared down at the table. Woodworth, perhaps aided by a historical perspective, simply looked at Adamarus with dread—he was the only one to guess what the rest of the “bad” news might be.

  The President looked up and said, “This is unbelievable. Did the Loud…did Bugs say whether they knew who this alien race was?”

  Adamarus ran his fingers through his hair. “My impression was, yes, they knew who attacked them.”

  The President shook his head, “And he…it…Bugs was certain that there were no survivors?”

  “Yes, Bugs was quite sure of this.”

  “But how…” the President started but his words trailed off, “My God… my God.” The President rubbed his temples as he tried to come to grips with unbelievable news. Finally he said, “Well, of course the Loud are welcome to remain here with us and…we’ll try to…”

  Adamarus cut him off, “I’m afraid there’s more, sir.” Everyone looked at him except for Woodworth who had guessed. His frown deepened and he just closed his eyes, waiting for what he feared. Adamarus went on, “I’m afraid that remaining here may not do them much good.” Adamarus cleared his throat, “Bugs went on to say that we should train the Tachyon scope on the Loud’s star system and…,” Adamarus let his sentence trail off. He looked over at the screen with Dr. Banner’s image on it, “Could you…?”

  Banner, gripped by the tragedy, was caught off guard but recovered quickly, “Right away, sir,” and he went to work. After a few seconds he said, “While the Tachyon scope is being aligned, I’m switching over to show you what our optical scope sees.” At this Banner vanished and stars appeared on the screen. A red circle appeared around one of the dimmer stars and Banner’s voice continued, “This is the Loud’s star. We are now seeing it as a regular telescope would see it. We are seeing it as it was one hundred and twelve years ago as that is how long it takes for its light to reach us.” There was a pause, then, “Ok, I’m now switching over to the Tachyon scanner which will reveal things as they are right now.”

  The image on the screen changed. Everything was a little blurred and tinted green. Now the Loud’s star dominated the screen in size and brightness. There seemed to be a small ring around the grossly swollen star which appeared to radiate outwards. There were a few gasps from the assembly as they all stared at the image in disbelief. The President asked, “It looks quite different. Can you explain what I’m looking at?”

  Everyone else knew what they were seeing, but were too shocked to answer right away. Finally Adamarus spoke up. “Sir, what you are seeing is what remains of the Loud’s star…it is exploding.”

  Frowning deeply, the President asked, “How big is the explosion?”

  Adamarus tore his eyes from the viewer and looked at Wicker, “Every planet in their system has been vaporized.” The President’s mouth fell open and his eyes returned to the viewer.

  Leewood spoke in a hushed voice, “How can this be possible? Their star was nowhere near its ending stage.” As soon as he said this, realization passed across his hard features, quickly followed by incredulity, “Are we to believe that the aliens who attacked somehow did this?”

  No one had an answer.

  The President was leaning forward now. Slowly and nervously, his eyes turned back to Adamarus. “So, Captain Maximus, this is what the Loud wanted us to see.”

  Adamarus’ face was pale now, “Actually…no…I’m afraid it is not.” Everyone turned from the screen and looked at Adamarus. “You see, as Bugs reminded me, in this sector of space, our star system is by far the ‘nosiest’ thing around. It’s our video and radio broadcasts that we’ve been sending out for…hundreds of years. We stick out like a sore thumb. This was why the Loud knew about us and came here.” Adamarus cleared his throat again. Everyone’s mouth was falling open as it dawned on each of them where this was going. “Bugs wanted us looking towards their home star in order to watch for…a ship.” The silence in the room was complete. “You see…it fears that…the alien will come here next.”

  No one knew what to say and everyone was thinking the same thing—if this alien had destroyed the Loud who were a thousand years more advanced…then what chance did they have if this alien decided to attack them?

  It was the President who first recovered enough to speak and he went right to the next logical line of inquiry. “Do we know why this alien species attacked the Loud?” His voice sounded hoarse.

  Adamarus blinked. His brow furrowed. “No, the Loud had no idea why they were attacked.”

  The President looked at him for a moment, then nodded slightly. “Well,” he said softly, “we need to know a whole lot more, Captain Maximus.” The President leaned forward. Slowly his right hand started doing that twirling thing with his pen that had become his trademark. “Yes,” he said almost to himself, “a whole lot more. And also…if the Loud were aware of this alien race before the attack, what do they know about it? Where do they come from?” The pen was twirling around a little faster now. “Can we negotiate with them? Also…when they attacked the Loud, how many ships did they have, what kind of weapons…and how did the Loud attempt to resist?” The President turned to Banner, “We will need you to keep a close eye out for any ships approaching us.”

  “But that’s…crazy, sir,” Banner blurted out. “Excuse me, but no one could see ships at this distance no matter how many or how large they might be!”

  Adamarus turned to him, “Actually, Bugs was quite clear about it being only one ship. And, I said the same thing to Bugs. Bugs said that we’d have no problem seeing this ship and determining if it were headed this way.”

  Banner shook his head confused, “Did the Loud say why we’d have no trouble seeing it?”

  Adamarus shook his head, “I’m sorry, Bugs was not fu
nctioning too well and didn’t elaborate.”

  The President looked at Adamarus and asked, “Is there anything else?” Adamarus shook his head and Wicker stopped twirling the pen and set it on the desk—his way of signaling that the meeting was coming to an end. “Adamarus, you need to talk to Bugs again as soon as possible and get more answers. In fact, Bugs needs to meet with all of us.”

  ---

  The Loud were still not responding to hails. Not knowing what else to do, Adamarus went back to the listening chamber and waited, hoping his presence would be noticed and that Bugs would come out. However, after over an hour, he realized that this wasn’t working. As time went on, he started getting angry.

  Bugs comes out and tells them that an alien race has attacked its star system and killed every Loud, then says this hostile alien race may be coming here, and then…he won’t say any more?

  Adamarus looked around the room. He knew that the entire back wall opened somehow, but he could see no way to open it from inside the room. Even if he somehow got it open, the atmosphere in the dome was too thin and too cold—he’d have to have an environmental suit to survive.

  The noise of the soundproof door opening interrupted his thoughts. Leewood peeked in. “No luck?”

  Adamarus shook his head, “No.” Then Adamarus saw something in Leewood’s expression. “What?” he asked.

  “Dr. Banner has found something with the Tachyon scope,” Leewood said, “and it’s headed this way.”

  Chapter Eleven – Event Horizon

  “The Second Cosmic Law: If there is more than one state, then the number of states must be infinite.”

  The Loud Named Bugs

  Opening Speech, 23rd Amular Symposium on Quantum Physics

  Source: The Archive

  Every teleconferencing screen in the situation room was turned on and more screens had been brought in and set up. At least a half-dozen more people were teleconferencing in now. Adamarus recognized some of them as the President’s senior staff. Others were with the military. Everyone was looking at the green images displayed on the larger screen centered on the back wall—the live images from the orbital Tachyon scope.

  Banner’s image was now on a separate monitor so that he could be seen at the same time as the Tachyon images. Seeing Leewood returning with Adamarus, Banner said, “Captain Maximus, I’m glad you’re back. We’ve…ah…found something.”

  “So I heard. Show me,” Adamarus ordered.

  “While we were studying the Tachyon images of the explosion, we noticed this.” He reached forward and adjusted something out of view. On the large monitor, a red square appeared, surrounding a tiny darker area near the center of the explosion. Then the outlined section expanded until it filled the screen.

  Adamarus walked up to the screen and leaned forward for a better view. The dark area The dark area had resolved into an area with edges which were hard to define. It looked like something was distorting and sucking the background image of the explosion towards a central point.

  “I’m going to apply a filter to clear up the image,” Banner said. After a moment, the image changed colors. The green background turned a deep blue, and what had been the darker circular smear now looked like a small lens, which was distorting the Tachyon image, pulling it inward towards a tiny black pinpoint at the center.

  Harrington had arrived while Banner and Adamarus had been talking. She had managed to grab a shower and a change of clothes. She stepped up beside Adamarus, looking at the object on the screen, “So this…distortion is the object that you say is headed toward us at light speed?”

  “Yes…and no. Not exactly,” Banner said slowly. “First…nothing other than a few sub-atomic particles can travel ‘at’ the speed of light. But, this,” a black pointer had entered the screen and it pointed at the black pinpoint, “is traveling at roughly 99.99912% the speed of light and that’s about as close as you can get. Also, assuming this thing came from the Loud’s star system, how it managed to get up to that speed so quickly is a complete mystery.”

  “And second?” Adamarus prompted.

  “Second, what we’re seeing here is not really an object, but rather the effects of an object. The distortion is Tachyons being pulled towards the black pinpoint. This pinpoint is called an ‘event horizon’ and it’s the point surrounding the actual object where all things are pulled back by the gravity from the object. The gravity is so strong that nothing can escape it…not even light…not even Tachyons. Event horizons can only be generated by black holes.”

  Adamarus cleared his throat, “So we’re looking at a black hole?”

  “It has to be,” Banner answered.

  Adamarus looked at it thoughtfully. “As an object approaches the speed of light, its mass increases and approaches infinity. Could a ship get so close to light speed that the gravity from its increased mass would form an event horizon?”

  Banner shook his head, “We discussed that. We’re pretty sure that the object would need to already have the event horizon—remember, the Loud ships travel almost as fast and we know from discussions with them that no event horizon forms around their ships.”

  “So it’s not a ship,” Harrington said.

  Banner rubbed his forehead with one hand. “Oh, it’s a ship alright. It’s headed right towards us at almost the speed of light, and what’s more is that it’s slowing and doing so on a very precise deceleration curve. No natural object could do that. So, it has to be a ship…and a black hole, too. Most likely a ship powered by a black hole.”

  This statement sent ripples of conversation through the assembly. After a moment, Adamarus asked a question that quickly silenced the room. “Alright,” he said with great resignation, “how long until it gets here?”

  Banner now brought his other hand up and rubbed his temples with both hands. “Data is still coming in, but our best estimate right now—based on that deceleration curve I mentioned—two hundred years…give or take one or two months. Its current distance from us is 111.682 light years. All of these numbers could change, but probably not by very much.”

  “The Loud ships make better time than that,” President Wicker noted. “Only takes them about one hundred and fifty years to travel that distance, as I recall.”

  Banner nodded but said, “Yes, but right now this object is traveling faster than the Loud’s interstellar Umbrella ship’s top speed. Also, the object must have climbed to that speed much faster than the Loud’s ships can…based on our current understanding of Loud ship capabilities anyway.” Banner was suddenly looking unsettled. He ran a hand through his hair. “Anyway, we think that the object ‘could’ get here much faster…if it wanted to. This deceleration curve we’re seeing…it is simply the most efficient way to get here. In fact, it is unbelievably perfect in that regard.” Banner stared at the object on the screen for a moment then said, “It, whatever it is and despite appearances, just doesn’t seem to be in any particular hurry.”

  Adamarus stared at Banner. The way he was acting gave Adamarus a strange feeling. Clearly all of this was overwhelming and certainly severe enough to rattle anyone. Still Banner looked like he was spooked by something else. Hell, the man looked pale and he was sweating.

  Adamarus looked back at the image from the Tachyon scope…the almost invisible black pinpoint surrounded by a large area of distortion…behind it, extending off screen at this magnification, was the explosion tinted deep blue by the filter.

  It came to him. Banner had said that nothing could be detected at this distance. “Dr. Banner, how large is this event horizon?”

  Banner removed his glasses and turned and looked off screen. The assembly waited for an answer. The silence stretched on. Banner continued to look at something off to the side.

  “Dr. Banner,” President Wicker said, “are you all right?”

  Banner jumped a little and then turned to the President.

  Suddenly the meeting, the screens with the faces on them, the Tachyon display…it all seemed surreal to A
damarus. The way Banner was acting was deeply disturbing.

  At last Banner took a deep breath and spoke. “Sorry. Our best estimate places the event horizon’s diameter at about…,” his mouth opened and closed a couple of times but…nothing came out. He cleared his throat, tried again, “a…a diameter of…ninety million miles.”

  One person whistled while a couple of others laughed nervously—others looked blank. Adamarus was expecting something extraordinary, but this figure caught him completely off guard. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. “That’s…not possible,” he heard himself say. His mind raced…that was unbelievably large. He tried to compare it to something…his mind quickly rejecting one thing after another…their system’s gas giants, their sun, other stars—red giants were that large. The distance to the sun…that was it. The average distance between Amular and its sun was eighty-seven million miles…that was very close.

  The human mind could not comprehend something that large. There was nothing in man’s direct experience to compare it to. It was like saying that their entire world would fit into the sun over a million times—although true, it simply could not be imagined. This thing made the sun look like a marble!

  Adamarus noticed his hands were shaking and put them in his pockets. Yes, he thought, having something that big, traveling at almost the speed of light, coming directly at you…that was a bit overwhelming. He looked around the room and at the monitors—the expressions he saw were all the same…stunned…speechless.

  Finally, Adamarus spoke, “Dr. Banner, that’s larger than the distance between Amular and the sun! Are you certain? Can you…recheck your figures?”

  Banner made a helpless gesture, “Captain, we’ve been re-checking that figure continuously every five seconds. That makes the black hole almost as large as we believe the black hole at the center of our galaxy is.”

  A small man wearing a military uniform raised his hand for attention and then asked in a lazy southern accent, “Well, let’s talk about the object itself, the thing hiding inside that…you called it an event horizon, yes? I mean…just how big a boy is it?”