Novak's Last Theory, Part 9: A Pattern of Threads

I wake to a revelation. The vision has triggered more memories: threads in the weaving I was still searching for. My mind pulls back, and I see the pattern in full.

The loophole will appear around the fold engine housing – that's where everything started. It can take me back to the beginning of its own context, but no further. That means the fold drive will still be cascading toward disruption when I arrive. I'll be earlier... early enough that I might be able to prevent its detonation, but only by entering the fold control chamber. Certainly a lethal prospect at that point.

That's what I've been unable to accept. It's got nothing to do with the old man and his dissembling claims to my future. It's a concession that I can only save the others – not my self.

I think about the crew. The colonists. My family... Jess, Aria, and Leah. I'm haunted by the possibility that given enough time – a sufficient number of trips through the loop – I might discover another way. This can't be the only way. Going through the loophole feels like quitting. Giving up. Settling for failure.

Now I understand why I've come to this point so many times. It's an awful choice.

***

I walk through the day with a strange melancholy. Things I had stopped noticing out of endless reiteration and over-familiarity seem to come into crisp focus. Sounds. Smells. Textures. My weariness. The faces of the crew. Their eyes. The way they go on, doggedly doing their jobs. I take solace in the routine, pushing the need to make a decision out of my thoughts.

I visit Gomes and Carter on the bridge to run through our nav status.

I visit Matiba in the infirmary to discuss radiation poisoning symptoms.

I visit Mori in engineering, just to talk.

"Chiasa..."

"Captain?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For... your calm."

"Yes sir."

I spend some time in the captain's study, tidying up my things. It's pointless of course, but soothingly trivial. I decide to head to the bridge for closing ceremony. When I open the door to leave, he's standing right there.

He squints, suspiciously. "Where have you been?"

"Uh... walking the ship. Thinking."

"About?"

"About... what could have started all of this. Trying to parse through what the ship was doing at the time of the original disturbance."

"And what was the ship doing?" He eyes me carefully.

I shrug. "Executing a standard fold."

"Standard?" He looks disgusted. "There is nothing standard about such things. Spacetime is not our laundry. We can't expect to keep folding it all the time without consequence."

I shake my head. "You’re asserting inevitability, but not a root cause."

He lifts a shaggy eyebrow. "Folding through the electromagnetic rift of our own nuclear detonation?"

"That's nonsensical. Self-referential."

"Is it." He looks at me intently, clearly thinking of something else. "Be careful Mr. Novak. Be very careful what you choose. You're flirting with disaster."

[Jump to part 10: Don't Let Your Left Hand Know.]