The Ouroboros Wave (34 page)

Each machine swarm exiting Kali’s ergosphere would be detected by sensors on Guildenstern, which orbited Kali opposite Rosencrantz. Consistent with the Penrose process, there was no guarantee that a swarm would exit in the same sequence by which it entered. But noting the proportions of machine types in a single swarm allowed the swarm to be identified.

Kali’s tidal forces were immense. Small deviations in the accelerator beam’s accuracy could send some machines to their destruction, so Agnes planned to fire a trillion swarms into the ergosphere. Five hundred trillion machines comprised a swarm, yet the total mass of these five hundred trillion trillion objects was less than a gram.

“BEGINGING EXPERIMENT
,” whispered Agnes’s agent. The center display began streaming data. Firing nanosized objects at nanosecond intervals wasn’t a process humans could control, except in halting the experiment in an emergency.

Data streaming in from Rosencrantz confirmed that the experiment was proceeding normally, but so far Guildenstern had little information to offer. Although the nanomachines would pass through the ergosphere and reach its sensors almost instantaneously, before any insights could be provided an enormous amount of data had to be analyzed.

Guildenstern’s sensors were equipped with data buffers and processing capabilities to deal with enormous amounts of information. Analysis would start only after all data was in; even then, data wouldn’t be displayed until Guildenstern’s analysis was complete.

Because of the danger to a human crew from nanomachines traveling at near light speed, Guildenstern was unmanned. Agnes had to be satisfied with the AI’s confirmation that all systems were nominal.

From the frame of reference of Agnes’s space-time, the experiment took less than an hour. If Agnes had been able to experience events from the nanomachines’ point of view, she would have witnessed an unbelievable drama. But Guildenstern remained silent as to the nature of that drama; before it could offer any results it had to take an enormous trove of data and convert it into something human beings could grasp.

Agnes could only wait, alone with Shi’en and a coin in constant motion.

THE OUTCOME OF THE EXPERIMENT
was startling. Based on its results, Agnes insisted on a need to rerun the experiment, but her request was denied. The AAD was too important to place at the disposal of a single individual.

When Agnes realized that a second experiment would never be approved, she acted unilaterally.

She didn’t understand the significance of her actions until later. Only then was she able to reflect calmly on them. When Shi’en appeared at her quarters in Port Shiva, she knew the game was up.

“I used to think you were the angel of death,” said Agnes. “Now I know you’re just a jinx.”

“May I come in?”

“Why not? I can’t refuse.”

Shi’en entered Agnes’s quarters without answering. Titania’s slight gravity gave the room a floor and a ceiling, with finely controlled air circulation eliminating the need for most furniture. The room’s AI noted Shi’en’s heat signature and adjusted the airflow to lift her into a sitting position above the floor. On Titania circulating air supported everything from eating utensils to people.

Agnes floated in front of Shi’en. It didn’t look like refreshments were going to be on offer.

“So? What are you going to do with me?”

“Actually I don’t know,” said Shi’en. “That’s up to Commander Kanda. In the course of my work I discovered that you’d hacked the Distribution Management System and the Sol System Universal Network. That’s the extent of my involvement on this one.”

“That’s all? You didn’t come here to arrest me?”

“I have a new assignment. They’re transferring me to Mars. I don’t know how they plan to deal with you. You’ll probably find
out tomorrow. Maybe the next day.”

“Then why go to the trouble of coming here? Not just to say
goodbye, I’m sure.”

“Partially that. But there’s another reason. That experiment, shooting nanomachines past Kali. What did the data tell you?”

“I thought it didn’t interest you.”

“Not at the time. I’m interested now. I know you haven’t released your formal report, but you sent the abstract to a few people. I did some digging. Anyway, after reading your abstract, the commander had me monitor your activities. You did exactly what she was afraid
you’d do.”

“Is that why you want to know what the experiment showed?”

“Maybe I’m just not used to AADD’s way of doing things, but I don’t like the idea of being shipped off to Mars without knowing
the reason. What are they so afraid of?”

“I guess I was a fool to think you might’ve developed an interest in science. All right, I’ll tell you. Just don’t blame me if you find it
impossible to believe. Agreed?”

“Agreed. If I can’t follow you, that’ll be my problem.”

Dr. Agnes commanded her agent with a gesture. A hologram in the shape of a squashed donut materialized in the space between Agnes and Shi’en. It was a representation of the ergosphere; countless
tiny points of light wriggled inside it.

“Those moving points are nanomachines. Just staring at them won’t tell you anything. The key to understanding their movement lies in the space that surrounds them.”

“What did you discover?”

“Kali emits X-rays that are anomalous for this class of black hole. I suspected that some sort of substance might be trapped in the ergosphere. My experiment confirmed it. The ergosphere contains a substance in plasma form. My analysis shows that the plasma exhibits a coherent structure. Firing the machines through the ergosphere created local disruptions in that plasma—disruptions it promptly repaired on its own.”

“Meaning there’s some sort of entity inside Kali?”

“Common sense suggests that what we’re seeing is a self-organizing reaction triggered by the nanomachines, something like the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction in a test tube. But you’re right. We can’t rule out the possibility that there’s some sort of life-form concealed in the ergosphere. Perhaps it’s something we can’t detect directly, and what we saw during the experiment was a kind of shadow cast within the ergosphere, a shadow from some other dimension. All we can do is infer the presence of an entity
from what we see.

“If you’ll excuse the poetic license, there’s a mystery unique to the space-time within that black hole. If this is a life-form, we may be forced to rethink our definitions of life from the ground up. But it’s just a hypothesis. All we know from that one experiment is that a structure exists. Further investigation is clearly needed. We should
run another experiment.”

“You proposed it, they rejected it. So you broke into the distribution system looking for assets to run your experiment. I don’t get
it. Is this important enough to run those kinds of risks?”

Agnes gestured again. The hologram disappeared. “If there’s a life-form beyond our imagination inside Kali, I suspect it’s there for a reason. Of course, that hypothesis stands on pretty thin evidence, which is why I haven’t told anyone about it until now.
You’re the first.”

“Honored, I’m sure.”

Dr. Agnes proceeded to lay out an astounding hypothesis. Some might say it was ludicrous. But her experiment—and her criminal
actions—grew from that hypothesis.

Soon thereafter, Shi’en took her leave. She had learned what she had come to find out.

YOU’LL EITHER BE
a weapon or a threat. We’ll have to find out which.

Shiran’s words echoed in Shi’en’s memory. When she’d first heard them, she’d thought they were justified. She had been Shiran’s enemy.

Joining AADD had taught Shi’en how harsh space could be. The environment sometimes turned people into fiends. This was a risk humanity faced as it tried to make a home in space. Yet the pressure exerted by this harsh environment also worked to steadily expand human potential. A species capable of conquering such an environment need fear nothing.

On Shiran’s orders, Shi’en had maintained her surveillance of Dr. Agnes after the experiment—and discovered her attempt to hack into AADD’s distribution system. When she reported this to Shiran, the result was a new assignment with no explanation.

Why had Shiran thought it necessary to put Agnes under surveillance? Shi’en suspected she knew the answer. Shiran had boundless confidence in humanity’s potential, but she also feared its potential for stupidity.

Shi’en paused to ponder how she felt about this herself. AADD had offered her a place in its society. Compared to her life on Earth, it was a far more desirable situation. Still, the feeling of being an outsider had never really left her. Perhaps she’d feel differently one day, but for now she was on the outside.

Shi’en felt neither optimism nor pessimism about humanity’s future. She wouldn’t deny the possibility that the species might propagate throughout the solar system until the sun burned out. Or perhaps humankind would reach some sort of dead end, an impasse that would force the birth of a completely new phase of human potential.

But what did all this mean for her? She had never felt fear. She had never been overconfident. It might be satisfying to continue observing AADD as an outsider. Maybe there was space within AADD for a path of her own, a path with a third-person point of view. The prospect pleased her. Outsiders had their own way of doing things.

Someday, someone may go into space to make contact with that entity—an intelligent entity living inside a black hole,
she thought.
If it happens, I’d like to be there with Agnes to see it.

Shi’en felt a sudden conviction that the day would come.

2151
In Orbit Around Titania

AADD’s orbital platforms could be linked to create larger structures. Compound Orbital Platform Cecily Neville was just such a structure. Cecily Neville linked Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in a squared-off U, forming a giant space dock in orbit above Titania. Within the dock’s embrace, work to complete humanity’s first unmanned interstellar probe was entering its final stages.

Agnes was nonplussed. “What was important enough to get you and Shiran to come all the way from Mars?”

The lattice framework of Cecily Neville was pierced by a huge cylinder that included crew quarters; the progress of work in the dock could be monitored from anywhere inside this cylinder. Agnes, Shi’en, and Aguri presently floated in a glassed-in lounge at one end of it.