“Yes.”
“Well, I’ll try.” Ted frowned, but Norman knew he was pleased; Ted loved to lecture. He paused for a moment, then said, “Okay. Let’s see where we need to begin. You’re familiar with the idea that gravity is just geometry?”
“No.”
“Curvature of space and time?”
“Not really, no.”
“Uh. Einstein’s general relativity?”
“Sorry,” Norman said.
“Never mind,” Ted said. There was a bowl of fruit on the table. Ted emptied the bowl, setting the fruit on the table.
“Okay. This table is space. Nice, flat space.”
“Okay,” Norman said.
Ted began to position the pieces of fruit. “This orange is the sun. And these are the planets, which move in circles around the sun. So we have the solar system on this table.”
“Okay.”
[[85]] “Fine,” Ted said. “Now, the sun”—he pointed to the orange in the center of the table—“is very large, so it has a lot of gravity.”
“Right.”
Ted gave Norman a ball bearing. “This is a spaceship. I want you to send it through the solar system, so it passes very close to the sun. Okay?”
Norman took the ball bearing and rolled it so it passed close to the orange. “Okay.”
“You notice that your ball rolled straight across the flat table.”
“Right.”
“But in real life, what would happen to your spacecraft when it passed near the sun?”
“It would get sucked into the sun.”
“Yes. We say it would ‘fall into’ the sun. The spacecraft would curve inward from a straight line and hit the sun. But your spacecraft didn’t.”
“No.
“So we know that the flat table is wrong,” Ted said. “Real space can’t be flat like the table.”
“It can’t?”
“No,” Ted said.
He took the empty bowl and set the orange in the bottom. “Now roll your ball straight across past the sun.”
Norman flicked the ball bearing into the bowl. The ball curved, and spiraled down the inside of the bowl until it hit the orange.
“Okay,” Ted said. “The spacecraft hit the sun, just like it would in real life.”
“But if I gave it enough speed,” Norman said, “it’d go right past it. It’d roll down and up the far side of the bowl and out again.”
“Correct,” Ted said. “Also like real life. If the spacecraft has enough velocity, it will escape the gravitational field of the sun.”
“Right.”
“So,” Ted said, “what we are showing is that a spacecraft passing the sun in real life behaves as if it were entering a [[86]] curved region of space around the sun. Space around the sun is curved like this bowl.”
“Okay …”
“And if your ball had the right speed, it wouldn’t escape from the bowl, but instead would just spiral around endlessly inside the rim of the bowl. And that’s what the planets are doing. They are endlessly spiraling inside the bowl created by the sun.”
He put the orange back on the table. “In reality, you should imagine the table is made out of rubber and the planets are all making dents in the rubber as they sit there. That’s what space is really like. Real space is curved-and the curvature changes with the amount of gravity.”
“Yes…”
“So,” Ted said, “space is curved by gravity.”
“Okay.”
“And that means that you can think of gravity as nothing more than the curvature of space. The Earth has gravity because the Earth curves the space around it.”
“Okay.”
“Except it’s not that simple,” Ted said.
Norman sighed. “I didn’t think it would be.”
Harry came back into the room, looked at the fruit on the table, but said nothing.
“Now,” Ted said, “when you roll your ball bearing across the bowl, you notice that it not only spirals down, but it also goes faster, right?”
“Yes.”
“Now, when an object goes faster, time on that object passes slower. Einstein proved that early in the century. What it means is that you can think of the curvature of space as also representing a curvature of time. The deeper the curve in the bowl, the slower time passes.”
Harry said, “Well …”
“Layman’s terms,” Ted said. “Give the guy a break.”
“Yeah,” Norman said, “give the guy a break.”
Ted held up the bowl. “Now, if you’re doing all this mathematically, what you find is that the curved bowl is neither space nor time, but the combination of both, which is called[[87]] space-time. This bowl is space-time, and objects moving on it are moving in space-time. We don’t think about movement that way, but that’s really what’s happening.”
“It is?”
“Sure. Take baseball.”
“Idiot game,” Harry said. “I hate games.”
“You know baseball?” Ted said to Norman.
“Yes,” Norman said.
“Okay. Imagine the batter hits a line drive to the center fielder. The ball goes almost straight out and takes, say, half a second.”
“Right.”
“Now imagine the batter hits a high pop fly to the same center fielder. This time the ball goes way up in the air, and it takes six seconds before the center fielder catches it.”
“Okay.”
“Now, the paths of the two balls—the line drive and the pop fly—look very different to us. But both these balls moved exactly the same in space-time.”
“No,” Norman said.
“Yes,” Ted said. “And in a way, you already know it. Suppose I ask you to hit a high pop fly to the center fielder, but to make it reach the fielder in half a second instead of six seconds.”
“That’s impossible,” Norman said.
“Why? Just hit the pop fly harder.”
“If I hit it harder, it will go higher and end up taking longer.”
“Okay, then hit a low line drive that takes six seconds to reach center field.”
“I can’t do that, either.”
“Right,” Ted said. “So what you are telling me is that you can’t make the ball do anything you want. There is a fixed relationship governing the path of the ball through space and time.”
“Sure. Because the Earth has gravity.”
“Yes,” Ted said, “and we’ve already agreed that gravity is a curvature of space-time, like the curve of this bowl. Any baseball on Earth must move along the same curve of [[88]] space-time, as this ball bearing moves along this bowl. Look.” He put the orange back in the bowl. “Here’s the Earth.” He put two fingers on opposite sides of the orange. “Here’s batter and fielder. Now, roll the ball bearing from one finger to the other, and you’ll find you have to accommodate the curve of the bowl. Either you flick the ball lightly and it will roll close to the orange, or you can give it a big flick and it will go way up the side of the bowl, before falling down again to the other side. But you can’t make this ball bearing do anything you want, because the ball bearing is moving along the curved bowl. And that’s what your baseball is really doing—it’s moving on curved space-time.”
Norman said, “I sort of get it. But what does this have to do with time travel?”
“Well, we think the gravitational field of the Earth is strong—it hurts us when we fall down—but in reality it’s very weak. It’s almost nonexistent. So space-time around the Earth isn’t very curved. Space-time is much more curved around the sun. And in other parts of the universe, it’s very curved, producing a sort of roller-coaster ride, and all sorts of distortions of time may occur. In fact, if you consider a black hole—”
He broke off.
“Yes, Ted? A black hole?”
“Oh my God,” Ted said softly.
Harry pushed his glasses up on his nose and said, “Ted, for once in your life, you just might be right.”
They both grabbed for paper, began scribbling.
“It couldn’t be a Schwartzschild hole—”
“—No, no. Have to be rotating—”
“—Angular momentum would assure that—”
“—And you couldn’t approach the singularity—”
“—No, the tidal forces—”
“—rip you apart—”
“But if you just dipped below the event horizon …”
“Is it possible? Did they have the nerve?”
The two fell silent, making calculations, muttering to themselves.
[[89]] “What is it about a black hole?” Norman said. But they weren’t listening to him any more.
The intercom clicked. Barnes said, “Attention. This is the Captain speaking. I want all hands in the conference room on the double.”
“We’re in the conference room,” Norman said.
“On the double. Now.”
“We’re already there, Hal.”
“That is all,” Barnes said, and the intercom clicked off.
THE CONFERENCE
“I’ve just been on the scrambler with Admiral Spaulding of CincComPac Honolulu,” Barnes said. “Apparently Spaulding just learned that I had taken civilians to saturated depths for a project about which he knew nothing. He wasn’t happy about it.”
There was a silence. They all looked at him.
“He demanded that all the civilians be sent up topside.” Good, Norman thought. He had been disappointed by what they had found so far. The prospect of spending another seventy-two hours in this humid, claustrophobic environment while they investigated an empty space vehicle did not appeal to him.
“I thought,” Ted said, “we had direct authorization from the President.”
“We do,” Barnes said, “but there is the question of the storm.”
“What storm?” Harry said.
“They’re reporting fifteen-knot winds and southeast swells on the surface. It looks like a Pacific cyclone is headed our way and will reach us within twenty-four hours.”
[[90]] “There’s going to be a storm here?” Beth said.
“Not here,” Barnes said. “Down here we won’t feel anything, but it’ll be rough on the surface. All our surface support ships may have to pull out and steam for protected harbors in Tonga.”
“So we’d be left alone down here?”
“For twenty-four to forty-eight hours, yes. That wouldn’t be a problem—we’re entirely self-sufficient—but Spaulding is nervous about pulling surface support when there are civilians below. I want to know your feelings. Do you want to stay down and continue exploring the ship, or leave?”
“Stay. Definitely,” Ted said. Barnes said, “Beth?”
“I came here to investigate unknown life,” Beth said, “but there isn’t any life on that ship. It just isn’t what I thought it would be—hoped it would be. I say we go.”
Barnes said, “Norman?”
“Let’s admit the truth,” Norman said. “We’re not really trained for a saturated environment and we’re not really comfortable down here. At least I’m not. And we’re not the best people to evaluate this spacecraft. At this point, the Navy’d be much better off with a team of NASA engineers. I say, go.”
“Harry?”
“Let’s get the hell out,” Harry said.
“Any particular reason?” Barnes said.
“Call it intuition.”
Ted said, “I can’t believe you would say that, Harry, just when we have this fabulous new idea about the ship—
“That’s beside the point now,” Barnes said crisply. “I’ll make the arrangements with the surface to pull us out in another twelve hours.”
Ted said, “God damn it!”
But Norman was looking at Barnes. Barnes wasn’t upset. He wants to leave, he thought. He’s looking for an excuse to leave, and we’re providing his excuse.
“Meantime,” Barnes said, “we can make one and perhaps even two more trips to the ship. We’ll rest for the next two hours, and then go back. That’s all for now.”
[[91]] “I have more I’d like to say—”
“That’s all, Ted. The vote’s been taken. Get some rest.” As they headed toward their bunks, Barnes said, “Beth, I’d like a word with you, please.”
“What about?”
“Beth, when we go back to the ship, I don’t want you pushing every button you come across.”
“All I did was turn on the lights, Hal.”
“Yes, but you didn’t know that when you—”
“—Sure I did. The button said ‘ROOM LIGHTS.’ It was pretty clear.”
As they moved off, they heard Beth say, “I’m not one of your little Navy people you can order around, Hal—” and then Barnes said something else, and the voices faded.
“Damn it,” Ted said. He kicked one of the iron walls; it rang hollowly. They passed into C Cylinder, on their way to the bunks. “I can’t believe you people want to leave,” Ted said. “This is such an exciting discovery. How can you walk away from it? Especially you, Harry. The mathematical possibilities alone! The theory of the black hole—”
“—I’ll tell you why,” Harry said. “I want to go because Barnes wants to go.”
“Barnes doesn’t want to go,” Ted said. “Why, he put it to a vote—”
“—I know what he did. But Barnes doesn’t want to look as if he’s made the wrong decision in the eyes of his superiors, or as if he’s backing down. So he let us decide. But I’m telling you, Barnes wants to go.”
Norman was surprised: the cliché image of mathematicians was that they had their heads in the clouds, were absent-minded, inattentive. But Harry was astute; he didn’t miss a thing.
“Why would Barnes want to go?” Ted said.
“I think it’s clear,” Harry said. “Because of the storm on the surface.”
“The storm isn’t here yet,” Ted said.
“No,” Harry said. “And when it comes, we don’t know how long it will last.”
“Barnes said twenty-four to forty-eight hours—”
[[92]] “Neither Barnes nor anyone else can predict how long the storm will last,” Harry said. “What if it lasts five days?”
“We can hold out that long. We have air and supplies for five days. What’re you so worried about?”
“I’m not worried,” Harry said. “But I think Barnes is worried.”
“Nothing will go wrong, for Christ’s sake,” Ted said. “I think we should stay.” And then there was a squishing sound. They looked down at the all-weather carpeting at their feet. The carpet was dark, soaked.
“What’s that?”
“I’d say it was water,” Harry said.
“Salt water?” Ted said, bending over, touching the damp spot. He licked his finger. “Doesn’t taste salty.”
From above them, a voice said, “That’s because it’s urine.” Looking up, they saw Teeny Fletcher standing on a platform among a network of pipes near the curved top of the cylinder. “Everything’s under control, gentlemen. Just a small leak in the liquid waste disposal pipe that goes to the H2O recycler.”
“Liquid waste?” Ted was shaking his head.
“Just a small leak,” Fletcher said. “No problem, sir.” She sprayed one of the pipes with white foam from a spray canister. The foam sputtered and hardened on the pipe. “We just urethane the suckers when we get them. Makes a perfect seal.
“How often do you get these leaks?” Harry said.
“Liquid waste?” Ted said again.
“Hard to say, Dr. Adams. But don’t worry. Really.”
“I feel sick,” Ted said.
Harry slapped him on the back. “Come on, it won’t kill you. Let’s get some sleep.”
“I think I’m going to throw up.”
They went into the sleeping chamber. Ted immediately ran off to the showers; they heard him coughing and gagging.
“Poor Ted,” Harry said, shaking his head.
[[93]] Norman said, “What’s all this business about a black hole, anyway?”
“A black hole,” Harry said, “is a dead, compressed star. Basically, a star is like a big beach ball inflated by the atomic explosions occurring inside it. When a star gets old, and runs out of nuclear fuel, the ball collapses to a much smaller size. If it collapses enough, it becomes so dense and it has so much gravity that it keeps on collapsing, squeezing down on itself until it is very dense and very small—only a few miles in diameter. Then it’s a black hole. Nothing else in the universe is as dense as a black hole.”
“So they’re black because they’re dead?”
“No. They’re black because they trap all the light. Black holes have so much gravity, they pull everything into them, like vacuum cleaners—all the surrounding interstellar gas and dust, and even light itself. They just suck it right up.”
“They suck up light?” Norman said. He found it hard to think of that.
“Yes.”
“So what were you two so excited about, with your calculations?”
“Oh, it’s a long story, and it’s just speculation.” Harry yawned. “It probably won’t amount to anything, anyway. Talk about it later?”
“Sure,” Norman said.
Harry rolled over, went to sleep. Ted was still in the showers, hacking and sputtering. Norman went back to D Cyl, to Tina’s console.
“Did Harry find you all right?” he said. “I know he wanted to see you.”
“Yes, sir. And I have the information he requested now. Why? Did you want to make out your will, too?”
Norman frowned.
“Dr. Adams said he didn’t have a will and he wanted to make one. He seemed to feel it was quite urgent. Anyway, I checked with the surface and you can’t do it. It’s some legal problem about it being in your own handwriting; you can’t transmit your will over electronic lines.”
“I see.”
[[94]] “I’m sorry, Dr. Johnson. Should I tell the others as well?”
“No,” Norman said. “Don’t bother the others. We’ll be going to the surface soon. Right after we have one last look at the ship.”
THE LARGE GLASS
This time they split up inside the spaceship. Barnes, Ted, and Edmunds continued forward in the vast cargo bays, to search the parts of the ship that were still unexplored. Norman, Beth, and Harry stayed in what they now called the flight deck, looking for the flight recorder.
Ted’s parting words were “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.” Then he set off with Barnes. Edmunds left them a small video monitor so they could see the progress of the other team in the forward section of the ship. And they could hear: Ted chattered continuously to Barnes, giving his views about structural features of the ship. The design of the big cargo bays reminded Ted of the stonework of the ancient Mycenaeans in Greece, particularly the Lion Gate ramp at Mycenae. …
“Ted has more irrelevant facts at his fingertips than any man I know,” Harry said. “Can we turn the volume down?” Yawning, Norman turned the monitor down. He was tired. The bunks in DH-8 were damp, the electric blankets heavy and clinging. Sleep had been almost impossible. And then Beth had come storming in after her talk with Barnes.
She was still angry now. “God damn Barnes,” she said. “Where does he get off?”
“He’s doing the best he can, like everyone else,” Norman said.
She spun. “You know, Norman, sometimes you’re too [[95]] psychological and understanding. The man is an idiot. A complete idiot.”
“Let’s just find the flight recorder, shall we?” Harry said. “That’s the important thing now.” Harry was following the umbilicus cable that ran out the back of the mannequin, into the floor. He was lifting up floor panels, tracing the wires aft.
“I’m sorry,” Beth said, “but he wouldn’t speak like that to a man. Certainly not to Ted. Ted’s hogging the whole show, and I don’t see why he should be allowed to.”
“What does Ted have to do with—” Norman began.
“—The man is a parasite, that’s what he is. He takes the ideas of others and promotes them as his own. Even the way he quotes famous sayings—it’s outrageous.”
“You feel he takes other people’s ideas?” Norman said.
“Listen, back on the surface, I mentioned to Ted that we ought to have some words ready when we opened this thing. And the next thing I know, Ted’s making up quotes and positioning himself in front of the camera.”
“Well …”
“Well what, Norman? Don’t well me, for Christ’s sake. It was my idea and he took it without so much as a thank you.”
“Did you say anything to him about it?” Norman said.
“No, I did not say anything to him about it. I’m sure he wouldn’t remember if I did; he’d go, ‘Did you say that, Beth? I suppose you might have mentioned something like that, yes. …’ ”
“I still think you should talk to him.”
“Norman, you’re not listening to me.”
“If you talked to him, at least you wouldn’t be so angry about it now.”
“Shrink talk,” she said, shaking her head. “Look, Ted does whatever he wants on this expedition, he makes his stupid speeches, whatever he wants. But I go through the door first and Barnes gives me hell. Why shouldn’t I go first? What’s wrong with a woman being the first, for once in the history of science?”
“Beth—”
“—And then I had the gall to turn on the lights. You know what Barnes said about that? He said I might have started [[96]] a short-circuit and put us all in jeopardy. He said I didn’t know what I was doing. He said I was impulsive. Jesus. Impulsive. Stone-age military cretin.”