The White-Hole Situation

Outside of Time

The moment the last note died down, Gerard disappeared.

"I thought he'd never shut up," Roddy grumbled. September stared at him.

"Don't tell me you don't understand what we just witnessed," she said.

"Same old junk he's been torturing me with for years now," Roddy replied.

"Seriously?" she shook her head. "All this minimalism's gone to your head and shrunk it," she said.

"Oh right, now you're going to tell me he's really just a manifestation of the I.B.U., trying to get some critically important message through to us, but only in its roundabout cryptic way because, because why? Because it's not, that's why. It's just rigged up the old geez and having him spout nonsense."

"I don't think so," September said, "or maybe yeah most of the time, but just now? That was different, wasn't it? I really think it's trying to tell us something."

"Then why not come right out and say it?" Roddy asked. September was quiet for a bit after that, thinking it over. Can we even take it literally, what it said, and if we do then what did it mean, and if we can't, then how can we take it? She decided not to say these things to Roddy because he'd already made up his mind, and she could tell he wasn't going to be budged. There was someone else she needed to talk to about it, and that was going to be awkward. She said good night and brought herself back to herself in her own home, in her own living room, and had the computer light a cozy fire in the pit. She felt like the flames and wanted to burn.

She put in a call to the Remicade and had Lieutenant whoever-it-was patch her through to the captain.

"Heya," she said, and sat back to wait for the transmission bounce. It was always a nuisance talking to a starship some sectors away far off in the galaxy. They could travel fast, but not infinitely so. The photons can only be driven so hard. Geronimo was sitting at his desk in his cabin, looking into the screen and making a professional face - he was probably seeing his face in the reflection before her own made an appearance to replace it. When it did, he brightened and said,

"Heya yourself," and so it began. The conversation took about ten minutes per round-trip sentence, and September tried to pack as much as she could into each one. She told him about Gerard, and his song, about the Reddick Minority, and believers, and the end is coming soon. And most importantly, is the Great Truce holding up? Was there any action on that score? Geronimo did not have much to tell her. Yes, the truce was fine. No, the Minority hadn't been causing any trouble and the border was secure. He assumed she'd heard about the white holes? There was one just the other day, in sector P, seven hundreds, or so he heard, and by "just the other day" of course he didn't mean "just the other day" but relatively recently, with the emphasis on relatively because, you know, space-time and all that.

"What did the white hole do?" she asked and she waited and watched for his face to fall and his expression turn to grave concern.

"It materialized inside of a star," he said, "a red dwarf, sure, but oh my, you'll be seeing the result yourself in a decade or so, or maybe not, because it won't be a visible result. It'll be the opposite of that. Gone. Poof. Just like that. And the worst thing is", he continued, "no one knows when or where it'll happen. It could be anywhere, anytime."

"How come no one knows?" she wondered out loud. "How come the I.B.U. doesn't know? Don't you get warnings? Doesn't it know what's out there? Didn't it map the whole galaxy?"

Geronimo's reply took longer than ten minutes. She watched him receive her message and chew on it thoughtfully for a time. When he looked up it was with sad eyes that he said,

"It seems to come from outside of time, outside of the time of this universe. At least that's what Jai says."

"Jai?" she laughed. "The farter's still with you? Good lord. I don't know how you do it."

At that Geronimo only smiled. She knew he had a thing about loyalty. He'd stick with any of his crew as long as they stuck to him, and he would never say anything bad about any one of them. They said good night and September returned to staring into the fire. Finally she spoke up and said,

"Computer. How many universes are there?"

"At least one," the usual voice replied, "at least one so far."