Chapter Three: Centrifuge — Part 2
“Ten what?” Bamboo asked, before he realized that she must have meant seconds.
Within the confines of the glyph, gravity went away. Inertia kept everything close for a few seconds more, and then the center of the black hole began to get complex. The resulting explosion of super dense matter converted to pure, nearly inexhaustible energy should have expanded to swallow the glyph and the banders controlling it, and then spread out into the universe, vaporizing and consuming even the nearby stars as it pulsed outward, but the glyph merely fed off the energy, trapping it and sending it out along thirteen lines of force ending at specific points set within bubbles of between material points in physical space. At those points, specially programmed banders redirected the energy in on itself, redefining a pocket of space within space, trapping the energy safely away so Orchid could access it in a controllable fashion at a future time.
The glyph began to fade as plasma leaked off its lines, points and edges. Then it exploded outward in a final wave of power that was sucked along the lines of force, out and away for almost ten seconds, before extinguishing. A residual blast of light swirled around Orchid and Bamboo, then funneled outward like a wave of ghostly clouds, disappearing like vapor in the heat of the sun. Orchid stared at her computer screen, which had been knocked off line temporarily, laughing in ecstasy as it came back with the numbers. When the haze of the explosion dissipated to nothing, and local space energy nullified back to normal, Orchid looked in awe through the center of her banders, all of whom had survived the ordeal.
“It’s beautiful.” She said, barely able to speak.
“What’s there?” Bamboo asked, curious.
Orchid let out a distinct giggle, the entire center of the galaxy lit up in her eyes. “It’s what’s not there.”
Bamboo scanned the space around him with his suit’s sensors. Gravity had not restored itself to normal. The black hole, and the singularity creating it, had been depleted of all the trapped matter and energy within it. Local space was beginning to fill with normal background radiation.
Bamboo sounded almost annoyed. “Somebody’s going to notice the black hole’s vanished, and blame you for it.”
“Of course they will. Then I will either be a hero, or a villain, depending on whom you talk to. But there’s no law against it, and I can’t be tried for a crime that doesn’t exist.” Orchid danced in space.
“Nor can I break you out of prison, if they find a way to put you there. I’d stay around and wait for Dawson to chew your ass, but I’ve got a doctor to visit on Zon. You be careful, please.” Bamboo hugged his sister tightly.
“You be more careful, brother. I hear there’s a man on Zon who has brought the people under the power of one world order. I don’t trust that kind of power in one person.”
Bamboo shook his head. “I love you, sister, but sometimes your perceptions of yourself are a little short.” He hugged her more gently for a second time.
“I love you too.” Orchid said, suddenly quiet.
Bamboo looked about to leave, then turned in his flight, almost facing Orchid. “We do have to find a way to placate the masses on this one, dear. Somebody’s going to take offense to the disappearance of an entire black hole. You’ll end up on a wanted list again, hunted as a criminal. And Coven, at least, will want to know what you are planning to use all that energy for — once they figure out that you did, indeed, store all that energy for future use.”
“I have my reasons for doing this, and Coven, despite the courtesy they have shown me in the past, will know nothing of my plans for those thirteen power points, no matter how many trials they call me into.” Orchid said. “I freed the power from that black hole, it’s mine, and they can’t have any of it.”
Orchid looked at Bamboo, stuck her tongue out at him and blew, making a loud raspberry and sending flecks of spittle into space that froze once they left the protective field around her body. His keen mind had been worrying over the social problems from the start. On both matters, Bamboo had a point. Some people might not like the idea of redistributing and using the energy in black holes for personal research and construction of an alternate planar universe with thirteen distinct points of separate space — no matter how small in size that universe might be. In fact, many nonhume and hume societies used black holes as reference points for navigation, and as orbital swing points for producing electrical and other forms of power. She had been kind enough to move a local generator to another black hole in another part of the galaxy, and to set up a series of transmitters to reroute the energy, but that wouldn’t stop the owners from complaining about the two millisecond hiccup in their power supply — which was why she made their generator a little more efficient, giving them more power to work with than had previously been available to them. Bamboo could tell she was thinking on the matter, waited for her decision.
“Forget about it.” She said finally. “Nobody deserves anything.”
In a mere couple of seconds, Orchid shifted mental gear and began planning her next big project, a project delayed because she would have to ask permission from Coven’s government to complete it. She figured it would be a few years before she would be granted permission to do it, so her mind drifted away from it. Her focus switched to another black hole, one more commonly known about than the particular one she had just sucked dry of energy and matter. She looked at the center of the galaxy, wondering if it feared her. It was, after all, the biggest black hole within her reach, and with her newfound knowledge Orchid could suck it dry of all its stored energy and matter, ending its reign of decay in a single, well planned, computer controlled swipe. Not even the biggest black hole in the galaxy would be safe from her, if she willed it.
She pouted, realizing how bold a statement that would be. “All that vast power, sitting in space. What I could build with it would astound everybody.”
Of course, the data gathered from her so-called ‘small’ black hole collapse was enough to dissuade her from doing anything to the center of the galaxy. The ablution of the black hole had actually allowed local space to expand slightly, creating a distinct change in the time to space ratio. Though minute, even undetectable to anybody without the most sensitive of equipment, she had her suspicions about what would happen if she tried to tap into the deepest, darkest heart at the center of the galaxy. She bowed gracefully to the glowing center of the Milky Way, and then saluted with an imaginary sword, as if abstaining from a duel.
“Don’t you worry, old friend. I am almost certain that you are responsible for keeping our galaxy from spreading like water on a tabletop, and for keeping the good majority of this galaxy’s time and space stable and constant.” Orchid turned away. “Of course, if I find out I’m wrong, maybe we’ll have a talk some day about how better to use your vast resources.” Orchid danced some more as she thought of the power she could call on, and then went home to start planning out phase two of her plans.
Bamboo had already Snapped, and had no idea she had considered such a massive adversary.
