Atwood apparently didn’t regard the situation as all that serious. It wouldn’t be surprising, thought Shocho, if the data he was obtaining on the dwarf galaxy was far more fascinating and important to him
than an outbreak of garden-variety cultural chauvinism.
Atwood always seemed to be smiling; he was smiling now. Shocho couldn’t personally testify to his reputed genius, but she had no doubt that he was exceptional in ways that counted at least
as much.
“So I wanted to ask you: do you think we could arrange an assembly
of both crews?”
“
Both
crews?”
“I’m becoming convinced that Eingana is far stranger than we could have imagined—and not only because it’s populated by black holes. The question is, where did they come from? How did they form? Why is this one galaxy comprised of black holes and not other types of stars? I think the observational data we’ve been getting has put me onto the trail of the boggart behind it all.”
“Boggart? What do you mean?”
For a moment Atwood didn’t seem to understand the question. Then his face reddened and he quickly looked away. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just a label I use for something only I know. A boggart is a malevolent fairy, a creature that creates strange phenomena. Somewhere there’s one that holds the key to the mysterious composition of this dwarf galaxy. I think I’ve got this particular boggart
by the tail.”
Shocho felt as if a drought had ended with torrents of rain. A meeting of the whole crew might well be the only way to break the impasse between the two camps. Of course, the immediate cause of the tensions was the comm blackout, which had plunged both crews into a state of anxiety and remained unexplained. The only solution was for everyone to begin exchanging information to erase the perception that one side knew more about the situation than the other. Some sort of pretext was needed to bring everyone together, but so far Shocho had been unable to come up with something suitable. If things weren’t handled the right way—if the meeting turned hostile—the Terrans would naturally end up feeling even more isolated. This would force them to harden their position.
Shocho needed something out of left field. A presentation of data wasn’t likely to spark conflict between the two camps. It was the perfect pretext for a general meeting.
Ultimately, Shocho was convinced that human reason was the only answer. If problems like this were not solved with reason, they would be resolved by violence. Perhaps that was what it meant to be human. But she wasn’t willing to let instinct overwhelm reason just because communication with the rest of the solar system had suddenly been interrupted.
“Dr. Atwood, how long would it take you to prepare a presentation on your theory?”
“A day? I’m pretty busy, there’s a lot going on. Say two days.”
“Then I’ll make the arrangements.”
“That’ll help a great deal. We need to redirect the negative energy aboard this ship toward the mission’s real purpose.”
4
THE EAST MODULE MESS AREA
was cleared for the meeting. In zero G, volume rather than floor space determines how many people a compartment can accommodate and the mess area was already outfitted with holographic projection equipment. This equipment was mostly for the benefit of the webless Terrans.
Atwood appeared after everyone had taken up spots along the walls of the room. His team acknowledged his entrance with the customary signal of respect, but the Terrans applauded. The applause of fewer than ten people in the group of nearly sixty sounded slightly forlorn. Shocho was not surprised to see Dr. Whitley applaud Atwood enthusiastically, but she was startled that Maria Teranishi also applauded without apparent irony. Shocho felt it
was a good omen.
Oddly, Chaa and the rest of Shocho’s team were nowhere to be seen. Had they decided to skip the meeting? Their agent programs hadn’t even acknowledged the invitation, which was very odd. Shocho was unsettled by this, as she couldn’t imagine what Chaa and the others might be up to. In any case, if the meeting ended in success the danger of a clash would be greatly reduced for the
time being.
Yet success might be temporary, because the explosive truth about
Hastur
’s disappearance was still under wraps. Even though it wasn’t clear what exactly had happened to the ship, the fact that the Guardians were concealing the incident was likely to light
another fire sooner or later.
Shocho could feel the weight of responsibility pressing down on her. She began to wonder if keeping
Hastur
a secret had been the right decision. But it was too late to change that now. The meeting
was about to begin.
“Now then. I’d like to present the results of our observations
so far.”
Atwood raised his hand. A holographic representation of the Milky Way and the dwarf galaxy Eingana floated in the middle of the room. The hologram reminded Shocho of an arrow that had struck a target off center. Eingana was colliding with the Milky Way at about the same distance from the galactic center as the solar system, but on the opposite side. Eingana comprised perhaps a hundred thousand objects sharing the same velocity components—compared to the Milky Way’s billions—and was as
slender as an arrow.
“Here you see the spatial relationship between Eingana and our galaxy, derived from gravity wave data. Eingana began its collision with the Milky Way relatively recently, probably a few tens of thousands of years ago. Given the short time span, our galaxy hasn’t had time to exert much gravitational influence on Eingana. In view of the distance, this is how it looked a few tens of thousands of years ago. Still, the current situation is probably more or less as
you see it here.”
Suddenly Eingana disappeared from the hologram. Atwood’s agent did not indicate why. Apparently he intended to deliver the whole presentation verbally for the benefit of the Terrans. They
wouldn’t notice this act of kindness, of course.
“Eingana has enough interstellar material to create stars. And, in fact, we know that Eingana had been giving birth to stars over a long period. So why has this dwarf galaxy never before been optically detected? The simplest explanation is that all of Eingana’s
stars became black holes.
“Well, none of this is news. The next question is, what could have created such an assemblage of celestial objects? Our data is primarily based on gravity waves, but we’ve also been running detailed radio emissions studies. We’ve detected some very strange emissions from Eingana, specifically from the most distant cluster of objects within that galaxy. Since we know the time it’s taken the emissions to reach us, we can calculate the actual time of occurrence
of the event that caused those emissions.”
The hologram changed to show Eingana alone, an ordinary stellar system. Radiation pressure from the stars formed the interstellar
material into spheres.
The hologram changed again. The stars shrank rapidly, becoming black holes. As the stars winked out and their gravitational relationships became chaotic, runaway accretion pulled the remaining interstellar material into the black holes. Now the black holes were surrounded by thin, faintly shining accretion disks. Eingana’s radio emissions were coming from excited atoms in the spiraling disks. Some of the radio sources were rapid bursters—black holes with disks of interstellar matter undergoing sudden, violent phase
transitions as they cascaded toward infinity.
“I think this hologram says it more eloquently than I could. But to summarize, until very recently—no more than a hundred thousand years ago at the most—Eingana was an unremarkable dwarf galaxy. Then, over a period of about ten millennia—the blink of an eye in
astronomical terms—Eingana’s stars became black holes.
“Why would normal stars suddenly behave this way? Based on the data, we can rule out supernovae. The most logical explanation would be that each of these stars encountered a small black hole
with roughly the mass of a planet.”
One of the Terran scientists raised his hand. “How can you be sure it was a small black hole?” This was the moment Shocho had
been waiting for.
“It’s the only conclusion that doesn’t contradict the data,” replied Atwood. “Our gravity wave observations suggest that there was a negligible change in Eingana’s total mass after this transition occurred. If the stars had collided with black holes of similar mass, Eingana’s velocity components would have been drastically altered.”
Shocho found this theory hard to accept. At the same time, she realized her earlier discussion with Atwood had influenced his
approach to this presentation.
“The idea of a star being swallowed by a black hole is naturally an oversimplification. Before that can happen, the star undergoes a dramatic structural transformation. There may be small novae caused by disruptions to the star’s internal pressure and gravity
after a large amount of mass had been siphoned off.
“But for most of these stars, collapsing into a black hole wouldn’t have caused a change in mass—which would have allowed them to retain their planets, even though the collapse may have exerted
a major effect on those planets.”
Dr. Whitley raised his hand. “Dr. Atwood, assuming your theory is correct, what’s your explanation for the origin of these planetary-mass black holes that supposedly initiated this process—your so-called
boggarts?”
Whitley’s question was obvious, but it seemed to take Atwood by surprise. “That’s a question I can’t answer at this time. I don’t
see any
natural
mechanism by which this could happen.”
The room erupted with excitement. Atwood motioned for silence, but the clamor took some time to die down. The tension between the two camps had vanished in the astonishment over Atwood’s conclusion. It occurred to Shocho that Atwood had suggested this presentation in order to achieve just this effect. Although he gave the impression of not paying much attention to shipboard politics, he had actually been well aware of them. Shocho began to reassess her opinion of this young man. This was certainly the first Shocho had heard of the possibility that planets had been somehow transformed
into micro black holes.
So this presentation was Atwood’s strategy for restoring harmony. Before the commotion had died down, he dropped yet another
unexpected bomb.
“We’ve noticed something extremely interesting in our gravity wave data. We’d like to gather more data just to be sure, but apparently a highly directional beam of gravity waves is emanating from one region of Eingana. Not only is the beam tightly focused, it’s
also highly coherent—almost a kind of gravity wave laser.
“Laserlike phenomena sometimes occur in nature, though of course these are very rare. I’d like to regard this as a new, very interesting natural phenomenon, but there’s a stumbling block to that explanation: the beam is obviously modulated. We don’t have any idea what this might mean. There’s no evidence that the modulation follows a meaningful pattern, at least not with the existing data. But what we are seeing follows a consistent modulation protocol.
In other words, this looks like formatted data.”
Now there was pandemonium. Shocho was sorry that the other Guardians were missing this moment, clearly a turning point in
the history of the human species.
“So how should we interpret these data?” asked Atwood.
Shocho deeply admired Atwood’s competence. He had merely implied that the signal was from an intelligent nonhuman source. Still, if that was the case, then a confrontation between AADD and the Terrans would seem truly absurd. And yet, Atwood had said none of this directly. He wanted his listeners to come to that
conclusion on their own.
Shocho was basking in relief that things were going so well when Maria Teranishi spoke up. “The meaning of this discovery is clear. A gravity wave laser proves the existence of a nonhuman civilization. It’s the only natural conclusion. But why is Eingana composed only of black holes? I’m probably the only astronomer here with a military background, and when I apply Occam’s razor, what it tells me—the simplest, cleanest explanation—is that this dwarf galaxy is evidence of a victory by one civilization over another.
It’s a relic of war.”
“War? Dr. Teranishi, do you actually believe that this is evidence
of a conflict between two alien civilizations?” asked Atwood.
“It’s the most logical explanation. There was a war. One side wielded small black holes as weapons and fired them into the stars of their enemies. The other side responded with similar weapons. If there is one constant in human history, it’s that monopolies on
military technology don’t last forever.”
Again the room was filled with the din of voices. The sense of species solidarity from a moment before had evaporated at Teranishi’s suggestion of interstellar warfare. At least for the Terrans, the
concept of a clash of civilizations was fresh and immediate.
“Listen, everyone,” said Teranishi. “Eingana’s civilization did not perish. It triumphed. If that gravity wave laser is sending meaningful signals from an intelligent life-form, then its civilization lives on. At least one of those civilizations survived an ancient conflict.
The laser proves it.”