Read Online Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 3, July 2013 by Mike Resnick [Editor] - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mike Resnick [Editor]
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another and bring disaster.
Disaster not only to themselves but possibly to the entire galaxy which they inhabit, for the gravitational force created by the implosion would be so vast as to literally seal in light. Not only light but sound and properties of all the stars in that great tube of force…so that the galaxy itself would be sucked into the funnel of gravitation created by the collapse and be absorbed into the flickering and desperate heart of the extinguished star.
It is possible to make several extrapolations from the fact of the neutron stars—and of the neutron stars themselves we have no doubt; many nova and supernova are now known to have been created by exactly this effect, not ex- but im- plosion—and some of them are these:
(a) The gravitational forces created, like great spokes wheeling out from the star, would drag in all parts of the galaxy within their compass; and because of the force of that gravitation, the galaxy would be invisible…these forces would, as has been said, literally contain light.
(b) The neutron star, functioning like a cosmic vacuum cleaner, might literally destroy the universe. Indeed, the universe may be in the slow process at this moment of being destroyed as hundreds of millions of its suns and planets are being inexorably drawn toward these great vortexes. The process would be slow, of course, but it is seemingly inexorable. One neutron star, theoretically, could absorb the universe. There are many more than one.
(c) The universe may have, obversely, been created by such an implosion, throwing out enormous cosmic filaments that, in a flickering instant of time which is as eons to us but an instant to the cosmologists, are now being drawn back in. The universe may be an accident.
(d) Cosmology aside, a ship trapped in such a vortex, such a “black,” or invisible, galaxy, drawn toward the deadly source of the neutron star, would be unable to leave it through normal faster-than-light drive…because the gravitation would absorb light, it would be impossible to build up any level of acceleration (which would at some point not exceed the speed of light) to permit escape. If it was possible to emerge from the field, it could only be done by an immediate switch to tachyonic drive without accelerative buildup…a process which could drive the occupant insane and which would, in any case, have no clear destination. The black hole of the dead star is a literal vacuum in space…one could fall through the hole, but where, then, would one go?
(e) The actual process of being in the field of the dead star might well drive one insane.
For all of these reasons Lena does not know that she has fallen into the Galaxy Called Rome until the ship simply does so. And she would instantly and irreparably become insane.
X
The technological data having been stated, the crisis of the story—the collapse into the Galaxy—having occurred early on, it would now be the obligation of the writer to describe the actual sensations involved in falling into the Black Galaxy. Since little or nothing is known of what these sensations would be other than that it is clear that the gravitation would suspend almost all physical laws and might well suspend time itself, time only being a function of physics it would be easy to lurch into a surrealistic mode here; Lena could see monsters slithering on the walls, two-dimensional monsters that is, little cut-outs of her past; she could re-enact her life in full consciousness from birth until death; she could literally be turned inside-out anatomically and perform in her imagination or in the flesh gross physical acts upon herself; she could live and die a thousand times in the lightless, timeless expanse of the pit…all of this could be done within the confines of the story, and it would doubtless lead to some very powerful material. One could do it picaresque fashion, one perversity or lunacy to a chapter—that is to say, the chapters spliced together
Disaster not only to themselves but possibly to the entire galaxy which they inhabit, for the gravitational force created by the implosion would be so vast as to literally seal in light. Not only light but sound and properties of all the stars in that great tube of force…so that the galaxy itself would be sucked into the funnel of gravitation created by the collapse and be absorbed into the flickering and desperate heart of the extinguished star.
It is possible to make several extrapolations from the fact of the neutron stars—and of the neutron stars themselves we have no doubt; many nova and supernova are now known to have been created by exactly this effect, not ex- but im- plosion—and some of them are these:
(a) The gravitational forces created, like great spokes wheeling out from the star, would drag in all parts of the galaxy within their compass; and because of the force of that gravitation, the galaxy would be invisible…these forces would, as has been said, literally contain light.
(b) The neutron star, functioning like a cosmic vacuum cleaner, might literally destroy the universe. Indeed, the universe may be in the slow process at this moment of being destroyed as hundreds of millions of its suns and planets are being inexorably drawn toward these great vortexes. The process would be slow, of course, but it is seemingly inexorable. One neutron star, theoretically, could absorb the universe. There are many more than one.
(c) The universe may have, obversely, been created by such an implosion, throwing out enormous cosmic filaments that, in a flickering instant of time which is as eons to us but an instant to the cosmologists, are now being drawn back in. The universe may be an accident.
(d) Cosmology aside, a ship trapped in such a vortex, such a “black,” or invisible, galaxy, drawn toward the deadly source of the neutron star, would be unable to leave it through normal faster-than-light drive…because the gravitation would absorb light, it would be impossible to build up any level of acceleration (which would at some point not exceed the speed of light) to permit escape. If it was possible to emerge from the field, it could only be done by an immediate switch to tachyonic drive without accelerative buildup…a process which could drive the occupant insane and which would, in any case, have no clear destination. The black hole of the dead star is a literal vacuum in space…one could fall through the hole, but where, then, would one go?
(e) The actual process of being in the field of the dead star might well drive one insane.
For all of these reasons Lena does not know that she has fallen into the Galaxy Called Rome until the ship simply does so. And she would instantly and irreparably become insane.
X
The technological data having been stated, the crisis of the story—the collapse into the Galaxy—having occurred early on, it would now be the obligation of the writer to describe the actual sensations involved in falling into the Black Galaxy. Since little or nothing is known of what these sensations would be other than that it is clear that the gravitation would suspend almost all physical laws and might well suspend time itself, time only being a function of physics it would be easy to lurch into a surrealistic mode here; Lena could see monsters slithering on the walls, two-dimensional monsters that is, little cut-outs of her past; she could re-enact her life in full consciousness from birth until death; she could literally be turned inside-out anatomically and perform in her imagination or in the flesh gross physical acts upon herself; she could live and die a thousand times in the lightless, timeless expanse of the pit…all of this could be done within the confines of the story, and it would doubtless lead to some very powerful material. One could do it picaresque fashion, one perversity or lunacy to a chapter—that is to say, the chapters spliced together
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