Jack Falcon and His Quantum Singularity, Chapter 6

AS THEY STARED AT THE control screen in dismay, something forcefully collided with the ship. The Behemoth shook violently, knocking them onto the floor. A horrible grinding noise filled the room. The lights flickered and emergency sirens sounded.

Jack struggled to his feet and ran over to the computer system that controlled the fusion reactor. He paled. “We’ve got a hull breach!” he cried out. “The ship is losing its structural integrity.”

“Where?” Irene gasped. She got up and walked over to her husband. In the distance they could hear a shrieking noise, as metal was being torn apart by titanic forces.

“Near the front,” Jack said. He brought a schematic of the ship up on the screen and showed her. Six large areas were lit up in red. “I’m sealing those sections off now.”

“But that’s where the bridge is!” Irene exclaimed. “How are we going to control the ship if we can’t get to the bridge?”

“There are spacesuits in the lockers down the hall,” Jack pointed out. “All we have to do is–”

At that point another tremendous blow struck the ship. This time Jack was thrown across the room and slammed into the wall. The ship rolled and tossed. As he struggled to find something to grab he heard a deep crunch. More sirens wailed. The next thing he knew he was floating in the air.

“The gravity grid is down!” he exclaimed.

“You’ve got to turn your generator off!” Irene shouted. She tried to make her way through the air to the control console.

“Don’t touch it!” Jack shouted back. “It’s too late to turn it off. If we shut it down now we’d lose containment and there’s no telling what might happen. We’ve got to let it finish the process.”

Jack managed to grab onto a pipe extruding from the wall, and he used it to climb back over to the control panel. Not having gravity was unnerving.

“Did you seal the door to this room?” Irene asked, as she floated over to her husband.

“The computer sealed it automatically. That actually saved our lives.”

“More hull breaches?”

“Worse,” he said. He brought up a diagram of the ship. “The last impact tore the ship in half. Most of the ship is – well, gone now. This area is one of the only places that is still intact.”

“What about life support?”

“It’s been trashed,” Jack replied. “There’s no chance we can repair it – not when most of the components are drifting out in space. Gravity is down, life support is down, communications is down, propulsion is down – everything is down, actually. We still have power but that’s about it.”

“So all we have left is the air in this room?” Irene asked.

Jack nodded.

“How long is that going to last?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “Four hours? Maybe six? And that’s assuming we don’t have any hull breaches in this area.”

Irene was quiet. “So what do we do?” she asked quietly.

“We finish the job. It’s not over yet, dear. We still have a fighting chance! If we can get the quantum singularity stabilized then space will calm down and things will go back to normal. Then Daniel can come and rescue us.”

“Unless we’re destroyed first.”

“One thing at a time!” Jack replied. “We’re still alive and that’s something. It’s not time to panic just yet.”

Jack changed the screen to focus on his quantum singularity generator. He stared at it, frowning. “Well, it still has power but it’s not making much progress toward becoming a ring. I’m having trouble getting the black hole to spin.”

“Is there something you can do about it?” Irene asked.

Jack sighed. “Getting a black hole to rotate isn’t an easy thing. After all, you can’t just go in and push it! I thought I had that problem solved but my solution isn’t working. Let me try a few things. I have to get it spinning so I can hide the event horizons. There’s got to be some way to do this.”

Jack stared at the control panel for a long time. Occasionally he would change some settings, attempting to get more control over his singularity.

“Would it help if you could go back into the storage bay?” Irene asked.

“Not really. I’m realizing now that I should have designed this equipment a little differently, but in order to fix it I’d have to shut everything down. That’s something I just can’t do. No, if I’m going to fix this problem I’ll have to do it right here.”

“Let’s say that you don’t solve it,” Irene replied. “Suppose that the singularity never stabilizes and so the Liberty can’t come and rescue us. We then run out of air and suffocate. What happens next?”

“I guess Dad will have to think of something,” Jack replied. “He has the plans for my quantum singularity device. Maybe he could build one somewhere else and use that to solve the problem. It wouldn’t be as optimal as having one located right here, but it might work well enough to allow him to evacuate the colony.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Irene said. “What I want to know is what will happen to us if we die?”

“You want what?” Jack asked, puzzled. He tapped some numbers into a keypad and pressed Enter. “I don’t understand your question.”

“There’s a good chance we’re not going to survive this, Jack. What’s going to happen to us if we die? Are we just going to be dead? Do we just not exist anymore – is that it? Or is there something else after this life?”

“Oh,” Jack replied. “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it, actually. That’s not a scientific question.”

“What do you mean, it’s not scientific?”

“Science deals with things that are testable and repeatable,” Jack explained. “You can’t apply the scientific process to the afterlife. Sure, we can form a hypothesis, but there’s no way to run a test and observe the results. As far as we can tell when people die their life ends.”

“But what if there’s more? What if something else happens that we just can’t see?”

“As I said, that’s not really something science can help you with.” Jack changed some more settings on his control panel and submitted them.

“You’re awfully calm about all this!” Irene said.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve stared death in the face,” Jack replied. “Besides, I still have several hours to solve the problem. It’s not time to panic yet.”

“But don’t you care? Haven’t you ever wondered what happens after you die? Do you think you’re going to live forever?”

“Honestly, I try not to think about it. I mean, whatever’s going to happen will happen and there’s not much I can do about it. Dwelling on it just seems morbid.”

“But you’re just assuming there’s nothing you can do about it,” Irene replied. “How long do you think you’ll live?”

“Hopefully for at least a few more hours,” Jack said.

“And after you die, how long are you going to be dead?”

Jack paused. “Forever, I guess.”

“So if you’re only alive for a short while and then you’re dead forever, doesn’t it make sense to spend some time finding out what’s going to happen, instead of just hoping that everything will work out? I mean, as far as we know death is pretty permanent. You can’t go back and fix things if you don’t like the way it turned out.”

“I never heard you talk like this before,” Jack commented.

“I’ve never faced death before,” Irene replied.

“Sure you have! What about that time in the hyperplane?”

“That was different. There I was actually doing things – I had to fly those replacement parts all the way around the world. I had a lot on my mind. Here I’m just waiting for our air to run out.”

“I still don’t think I can help you,” Jack replied. “I mean, what you’re asking is essentially a religious question and there are all kinds of religions out there. How could you possibly tell if there’s any truth in them or not?”

“They can’t all be true,” Irene replied.

“Why not?” Jack asked.

“Because they contradict each other! The law of non-contradiction says that two mutually exclusive viewpoints cannot be true at the same time. They might all be wrong but they can’t all be right.”

“But how could you ever tell the difference between them?” Jack asked. “Are you going to examine the claims of each one and then apply some sort of scientific test? Besides, how could you possibly test something of a religious nature? You can’t take claims of an afterlife and perform experiments around it! On top of that, you’ve only got a few hours and as far as I know we don’t have access to a library of religious materials.”

“I don’t know,” Irene said. “Death is just so permanent, Jack. Maybe there’s no way to know. Maybe you just die and that’s it. But maybe – maybe there’s something more. What I do know is that I want to find out. If we get out of this I’m going to find some answers. Somehow.”

“You could try appealing to whatever deities you think may exist,” Jack said. “Maybe if you asked they could send some spirits to guide you into enlightenment.”

Irene frowned. “You’re mocking me.”

“Only partially,” Jack replied. He tapped some more numbers into the console and then turned to his wife. “Look. I don’t have any answers. Maybe there are no divine beings out there and when life ends it’s over. Or maybe you’re right and there is some sort of ultimate life form – or forms, I guess. But if they do exist, asking them to reveal themselves to you doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Sure, they might ignore you, but they might not. It’s worth a try, and right now that’s all you’ve got.”

“It’s something to think about,” Irene said at last. “I guess you’re right. If there is truth out there that’s beyond anything science can discover, the only way you could ever find it is if someone revealed it to you. I guess, for now, praying is all I can do. The next step is up to them.”

* * * * * 

Several hours went by. The air grew noticeably stale but Irene said nothing. She was deep in thought. Occasionally she would look over at her husband, who was engrossed in the problem at hand. If he noticed that they were running out of oxygen he didn’t comment on it.

At last Jack finally spoke up. “I think we’re getting somewhere.”

“Oh?” Irene asked. She floated over to him and started at the screen. “What am I seeing?”

Jack pointed to some numbers. “Do you see that? That means the singularity has formed a ring! The event horizons have started to recede. Now all I need to do is keep adding more speed to the singularity. I think we’re getting close!”

Just them a tremor shook the room. “What’s going to happen as you get close to success?” Irene asked.

“Wormhole activity will increase dramatically,” Jack replied.

“Are we going to survive that?”

“It depends on how long this takes. Once it reaches a point of stability everything will be fine – or at least, it should be fine. The problem is getting it there. If this finishes quickly then we should be ok. If not…”

As the numbers climbed up on the screen Irene heard the noise of metal groaning. She looked at Jack nervously. “Do you think–”

All at once the room was violently slammed to one side! Jack and Irene were both caught off-guard. They crashed into the ceiling and lost consciousness.

Warning sirens came on, and the lights flickered and went out. An urgent message appeared on the control panel but it went unheeded. The room became utterly silent.