Novak's Last Theory, Part 2: Conjectures and Refutations

The sun is so bright, hanging low over the hill behind our house. I shade my eyes to see Jess standing under the tree at the top, silhouetted in a long dress. Our daughters are at her elbows. They spot me down in the garden.

"Daddy's home! Daddy's home!" They come running down the hill. Jess strolls after them, waving her hat over her head.

I kneel down and throw my arms out wide. They're almost here. Hurry girls! Hurry!

And I'm up, heart racing, climbing out of my stasis bed and fumbling into my uniform. Sometimes the dream is the best part of my day. Sometimes it's the worst.

Mental ritual: increment the count.

Carter hops three times, falls over. Gomes lights into him as usual. "Nice moves moza."

He fires back. "Why you lookin'? I thought you weren't into guys."

Mori and I run to the engine room, eject the core. It detonates, and the ship takes a beating. After Mori has the systems roughly stabilized, we head up to the infirmary to see Matiba.

***

"Well, you've taken a good hit – just over 127 rems apiece," he says, grimacing. "That's about a third higher than the rest of us, but it won't kill you." I catch his eye. He knows it doesn't matter. "The injection will supress your nausea. Let me know if you have any other symptoms."

"Thanks Charles. We're headed up to the bridge. Can you join me in the lab at 0900?"

"Will do."

***

I've burned through countless hypotheses and theories in my search for answers. I've tested the plausible. The unlikely. Even the impossible. It hasn't gotten me very far. I can't even explain what causes the fold engine rupture, much less why the disaster repeats daily.

My current theory assumes gravitational time dilation under vortex conditions in the local fabric of spacetime. A temporal whirlpool you might say. Today I'm hoping for a breakthrough. If I can turn up any traces of the EMPs we fired yesterday, I'll have strong confirmation of energy transfer cutting laterally across the arms of the spiral.

Matiba and I run tests all day. We set filters on datastreams, check reports, and squint at screens until our eyes ache. But we turn up nothing.

And then I notice something else. Something worse.

"Charles, run a filter on channel F, UV band only, full sample period."

He nods. "Processing..."

And there it is.

"Look at these numbers," I mutter. "Intensity and polarization are nearly constant all day. That would be impossible in curved space."

Scratch another theory. I sink back into my chair and rub my eyes.

"Sir... we'd better get up to the bridge."

"You go ahead."

He nods and leaves.

My hands are trembling. I grip the terminal to steady them. Then something inside me comes loose. I tear the screen off its pivot and throw it across the room, screaming. I stagger... slump to the floor... groan with weariness.

This has to end.


[Jump to part 3: Asleep in a Sea of Stars.]