"And that"s as dense as matter gets in this universe. Too bad."
"True, but... have you ever heard of quantum black holes?"
"Yah."
Forward stood up briskly.
"Wrong answer."
I rolled out of my web chair, trying to brace myself for a jump, while my fingers fumbled for the third b.u.t.ton on my jumper. It was no good. I hadn"t practiced in this gravity.
Forward was in midleap. He slapped Carlos alongside the head as he went past. He caught me at the peak Of his jump, and took me with him via an iron grip on my wrist.
I had no leverage, but I kicked at him. He didn"t even try to stop me. It was like fighting a mountain. He gathered my wrists in one hand and towed me away.
Forward was busy. He sat within the horseshoe of his control console, talking. The backs of three disembodied heads showed above the console"s edge.
Evidently there was a laser phone in the console. I could hear parts of what Forward was saying. He was ordering the pilots of the three mining tugs to destroy Hobo Kelly. He didn"t seem to know about Ausfaller yet.
Forward was busy, but Angel was studing us thoughtfully, or unhappily, or both. Well he might. We could disappear, but what messages might we have sent earlier?
I couldn"t do anything constructive with Angel watching me. And I couldn"t count on Carlos.
I couldn"t see Carlos. Forward and Angel had tied us to opposite sides of the central pillar, beneath the Grabber. Carlos hadn"t made a sound since then. He might be dying form that tremendous slap across the head.
I tested the line around my wrists. Metal mesh of some kind, cool to the touch... and it was tight.
Forward turned a switch. The heads vanished. It was a moment before he spoke.
"You"ve put me in a very bad position."
And Carlos answered.
"I think you put yourself there.""
"That may be. You should not have let me guess what you knew."
Carlos said, "Sorry, Bey."
He sounded healthy. Good.
"That"s all right," I said. "But what"s all the excitement about? What has Forward got?"
"I think he"s got the Tunguska meteorite."
"No. That I do not." Forward stood and faced us.
"I will admit that I came here to search for the Tunguska meteorite. I spent several years trying to trace its trajectory, after it left Earth. Perhaps it was a quantum black hole.
Perhaps not. The Inst.i.tute cut off my funds, without warning, just as I had found a real quantum black hole, the first in history."
I said, "That doesn"t tell me a lot.", "Patience Mr. Shaeffer. You know that a black hole may form from the collapse of a ma.s.sive star? Good. And you know that it takes a body of at least five solar ma.s.ses. It may ma.s.s as much as a galaxy--or as much as the universe. There is some evidence that the universe is an infalling black hole. But at less than five solar ma.s.ses the collapse would stop at the neutron star stage."
"I follow you."
"In all the history of the universe, there has been one moment at which smaller black holes might have formed. That moment was the explosion of the mon.o.block, the cosmic egg that once contained all the matter in the universe. In the ferocity of that explosion there must have been loci of unimaginable pressure. Black holes could have formed of ma.s.s down to two point two times ten to the minus fifth grams, one point six times ten to the minus twenty-fifth Angstrom in radius."
"Of course you"d never detect anything that small," said Carlos. He seemed almost cheerful. I wondered why... and then I knew. He"d been right about the way the ships were disappearing. It must compensate him for being tied to a pillar.
"But," said Forward, "black holes of all sizes could have formed in that explosion, and should have. In more than seven hundred years of searching, no quantum black hole has ever been found. Most cosmologist have given up on them, and on the Big Bang too."
Carlos said, "Of course there was the Tunguska meteorite. It could have been a black hole of, oh, asteroidal ma.s.s--"
"--and roughly molecular size. But the tide would have pulled down trees as it went past--"
"--and the black hole would have gone right through the Earth and headed back into s.p.a.ce a few tons heavler. Eight hundred years ago there was actually a search for the exit point. With that they could have charted a course--"
"Exactly. But I had to give up that approach," said Forward.
"I was using a new method when the Inst.i.tute, ah, severed our relationship."
They must both be mad, I thought. Carlos was tied to a pillar and Forward was about to kill him, yet they were both behaving like members of a very exclusive club... to which I did not belong.
Carlos was interested.
"How"d you work it?"
"You know that it is possible for an asteroid to capture a quantum black hole? In its interior? For instance, at a ma.s.s of ten to the twelfth kilograms--a billion metric tons," he added for my benefit, "a black hole would be only one point five times ten to the minus fifth angstroms across. Smaller than an atom. In a slow pa.s.s through an asteroid it might absorb a few billions of atoms, enough to slow it into an orbit. Thereafter it might orbit within the asteroid for aeons, absorbing very little ma.s.s on each pa.s.s."
"So?"
"If I chance on an asteroid more ma.s.sive than it ought to be... and if I contrive to move it, and some of the ma.s.s stays behind..."
"You"d have to search a lot of asteroids. Why do it out here? Why not the asteroid belt?
Oh, of course, you can use hyperdrive out here."
"Exactly. We could search a score of ma.s.ses in a day, using very little fuel."
"Hey. If it was big enough to eat a s.p.a.cecraft, why didn"t it eat the asteroid you found it in?"
"It wasn"t that big," said Forward.
"The black hole I found was exactly as I have described it. I enlarged it. I towed it home and ran it into my neutronium sphere. Then it was large enough to absorb an asteroid.
Now it is quite a ma.s.sive object. Ten to the twentieth power kilograms, the ma.s.s of one of the, larger asteroids, and a radius of just under ten to the minus fifth centimeters."
There was satisfaction in Forward"s voice. In Carlos" there was suddenly nothing but contempt.
"You accomplished all that, and then you used it to rob ships and bury the evidence. Is that what"s going to happen to us? Down the rabbit hole?"
"To another universe, perhaps. Where does a black hole lead?"
I wondered about that myself.
Angel had taken Forward"s place at the control console. He had fastened the seat belt, something I had not seen Forward do, and was dividing his attention between the instruments and the conversation.
"I"m still wondering how you move it," said Carlos. Then, "Uh! The tugs!"
Forward stared, then guffawed.
"You didn"t guess that? But of course the black hole can hold a charge. I played the exhaust from an old ion drive reaction motor into it for nearly a month. Now it holds an enormous charge. The tugs can pull it well enough. I wish I had more of them. Soon I will."
"Just a minute," I said. I"d grasped one crucial fact as it went past my head.
"The tugs aren"t armed? All they do is pull the black hole?"
That"s right." Forward looked at me curiously.
"And the black hole is invisible."
"Yes. We tug it into the path of a s.p.a.cecraft. If the craft comes near enough it will precipitate into normal s.p.a.ce. We guide the black hole through its drive to cripple it, board and rob it at our leisure. Then a slower pa.s.s with the quantum black hole, and the ship simply disappears."
"Just one last question," said Carlos.
"Why?"
I had a better question.
Just what was Ausfaller going to do, when three familiar s.p.a.cecraft came near? They carried no armaments at all. Their only weapon was invisible.
And it would eat a General Products hull without noticing.
Would Ausfaller fire on unarmed ships?
We"d know, too soon. Up there near the edge of the dome, I had spotted three tiny lights in a tight cl.u.s.ter.
Angel had seen it too. He activated the phone. Phantom heads appeared, one, two, three.
I turned back to Forward, and was startled at the brooding hate in his expression.
"Fortune"s child," he said to Carlos.
"Natural aristocrat. Certified superman. Why would you ever consider stealing anything? Women beg you to give them children, in person if possible, by mail if not!
Earth"s resources exist to keep you healthy, not that you need them!"
"I may startle you," said Carlos, "but there are people who see you as a superman."
"We bred for strength, we Jinxians. At what cost to other factors? Our lives are short, even with the aid of boosterspice. Longer if we can live outside Jinx"s gravity. But the people of other worlds think we"re funny. The women... never mind." He brooded, then said it anyway.
"A women of Earth once told me she would rather go to bed with a tunneling machine.
She didn"t trust my strength. What woman would?"
The three bright dots had nearly reached the center of the dome. I saw nothing between them. I hadn"t expected to. Angel was still talking to the pilots.
Up from the edge of the dome came something I didn"t want anyone to notice. I said, "Is that your excuse for ma.s.s murder, Forward? Lack of women?"
"I need give you no excuses at all, Shaeffer. My world will thank me for what I"ve done.
Earth has swallowed the lion"s share of the interstellar trade for too, long."
"They"ll thank you, huh? You"re going to tell them?"
"I--".
"Julian!" That was Angel calling. He"d seen it... no, he hadn"t. One of the tug captains had.
Forward left us abruptly. He consulted with Angel in low tones, then turned back.
"Carlos! Did you leave your ship on automatic? Or is there someone else aboard?"
"I"m not required to say," said Carlos.
"I could--no. In a minute it will not matter."
Angel said, "Julian, look what he"s doing."
"Yes. Very clever. Only a human pilot would think of that."
Ausfaller had maneuvered the Hobo Kelly between us and the tugs. If the tugs fired a conventional weapon, they"d blast the dome and kill us all.
The tugs came on.
"He still does not know what he is fighting," Forward said with some satisfaction.
True, and it would cost him. Three unarmed tugs were coming down Ausfaller"s throat, carrying a weapon so slow that the tugs could throw it at him, let it absorb Hobo Kelly, and pick it up again long before it was a danger to us.
From my viewpoint Hobo Kelly was a bright point with three dimmer, more distant points around it. Forward and Angel were getting a better view, through the phone. And they weren"t watching us at all.
I began trying to kick off my shoes. They were soft ship-slippers, ankle-high, and they resisted.
I locked the left foot free just as one of the tugs flared with ruby light.
"He did it!" Carlos didn"t know whether to be jubilant or horrified.
"He fired on unarmed ships!"