The Pathfinder Project (48 page)

Adam leaned thoughtfully
against Julie’s desk and took another drink from his coffee cup, carefully
studying the enlarged picture of the dark sphere. “So don’t keep me in suspense
– what did the Canary find?” he asked excitedly.

“This,” Julie said
enthusiastically, handing him a third picture. The new photo had a computer
date and time stamp in the lower right corner, information that was
automatically supplied by the Probe’s camera. Other than that the image was
completely black except for the object in its center.

“It looks like a ring of gold,”
observed Adam. “It’s just a simple oval.”

“The photo was taken at an
angle,” pointed out Julie. “But we were able to use our computer system to
estimate that when viewed from above, this golden ring appears to be a
near-perfect circle.”

“But what
is
it?”

“That
is a small,
artificially
constructed galaxy containing approximately four and a half billion yellow
stars similar to our own back in the Milky Way,” Dr. Markham continued. “The
circular ring of stars is 80,000 light years in diameter and – like the
spherical void surrounding it – the star cluster’s shape is simple geometrical
perfection.”

“So it has no spiral arms like
a standard galaxy?”

“Nope,” Julie grinned. “And no
red giants, no blue giants and no black holes other than the super-massive one
at its center. This is a
man-made
galaxy specifically built to contain
stars capable of holding habitable planets in a stable orbit.” Her expression
was one of pure delight. “Someone has technology that is so far
beyond
ours, it’s… well, more than I would’ve ever hoped to run across. Finding
Poseidon was an astronomer’s dream, but this… the engineering involved in
creating this is absolutely awe-inspiring.”

“The inhabitants have to be the
people who sent us the mystery transmission,” Adam decided, his enthusiasm
growing as he continued to carefully examine the detailed photographs that he
held in his hands. “They
have
to be!”

“That’s very likely,” Dr.
Markham agreed. “It’s just one of the reasons that Glen and I decided to wake
you. We’re still wondering whether we should wake the Captain too.”

“I’m not so sure about that,”
Adam objected. “He had a pretty rough morning yesterday helping Colonel Neeland
deal with crowd control during that deck four situation. I say we let him get
his rest, if for no other reason than to give your team the time they need to
gather more facts.” He turned his attention to Glen. “How far away are we from
this galaxy?”

“If we continue to drift, we’re
still weeks away,” responded Glen. “But if we power up our engines we could be
there within a couple of days. The Captain will have to decide that one.”

“We’ll likely get a decision
from him soon,” Julie commented, continuing to behave more excitedly than they
had ever seen her. “Captain Kaufield is due in the Command Dome at 0600 this
morning, so I guess you could say we have a little surprise for him.”

THE PATHFINDER PROJECT

Dr. Julie
Markham sat quietly in the Observatory, absolutely elated. One short week after
encountering an extremely advanced alien civilization the
Pathfinder
was
moving quickly toward the home galaxy of their newfound friends. That is – she
mentally noted – the small but profoundly elegant galaxy that was
completely
man-made and organized into its current structure long ago by human people just
like themselves. She could still remember the stunned expression on Adam’s face
when the Captain had first introduced them to Noah.

As if
things couldn’t get any crazier, that was about the same time Colonel Neeland
showed up to notify Kaufield that an undetected, unknown shuttle had docked on
the starboard side of deck one and successfully gained access to their airlock.
One of the passengers had discovered the small ship by accident, happening to
glance out a window from just the right vantage point. Noah had chuckled at the
discovery of his ship and then waved his hands while saying “Surprise!”

She held
another gift from Noah… a printed image that he had given to her created using
the same software as the original mystery universe transmission. The difference
this time was that the picture was a simple but effective diagram of the
Proteus galaxy – as she had officially dubbed it. At its center was a standard
super-massive black hole, but unlike a regular galaxy’s gravity vortex this one
was very carefully monitored and artificially controlled.

The alien
society had somehow managed to gather together much of the matter from the
older stars and other nearby objects that they had deemed unusable and packaged
it into a series of incredibly massive spheres. The largest of the spheres was
precisely situated directly above the central black hole so that the gravity
well could slowly drain matter into its swirling whirlpool – but at an
extremely slow and carefully controlled rate.

Beneath the
nuclear bulge at the bottom of the black hole was a smaller sphere of condensed
matter – still unbelievably huge by their measurement standards. By her
estimation Julie predicted it was at
least
several thousand light years
in diameter. This one was apparently unaffected by the immense pocket of
gravity above it and seemed to occupy its position solely to counterbalance the
black hole’s gravity and help to keep it stabilized.

Then there
was that beautiful ring of yellow stars orbiting the center of the Proteus
galaxy with near geometric perfection. With well over four and a half billion
of them floating out there, she couldn’t even begin to guess as to how many
habitable planets might be among them… particularly after Noah had informed her
that his civilization was quite capable of constructing and then terra-forming
planetary bodies as well. He had described the galaxy as a vital ‘observation
point’ that his people had built for the express purpose of observing the
Poseidon phenomenon.

Unlike the
other galactic objects in their universe that were constantly in motion and had
the natural tendency to alter course based on gravimetric conditions, the
Proteus black hole was ‘tethered’ to one spot and virtually stationary. The
only real movement came from the stars that continually rotated in a circular
orbit around it. Then there was that huge, empty black void that surrounded the
entire galaxy, designed to function just like Julie’s ‘rock in the stream’
analogy. The void was basically a no-gravity barrier that protected the
inhabitants of Proteus while allowing them to carefully monitor and study the
effects of Poseidon’s intense gravity on the universe.

Orbiting
outside of the ring of stars were more of the gigantic spheres of matter, each
carefully kept in storage for use in replenishing the larger, central sphere
that fueled the black hole. Noah had also commented that some of this matter
was also occasionally tapped to ‘refuel’ stars that were older and entering the
latter stage of their lifespan. It was an extremely educational point that had
prompted Julie to ask just how old the newly discovered civilization was.

Their alien
friend could not say for certain but did point out that his people had been
around for years that numbered in the
millions
. Would they ever run out
of matter to keep their black hole and ring of stars stabilized? Not likely,
was Dr. Markham’s final determination upon further study. Noah’s people were
experts at gathering together the cooling blue giants, dying stars and massive
dust clouds of nebulae that continually floated past them in the river of
gravity. They currently had all of the matter and energy that they needed, so
the rest was simply allowed to continue moving past them on its steady course
directly out of the known universe.

Amidst the
enthusiasm over the original discovery of Poseidon had come this additional
delight – even shock – over finding such an advanced civilization so safely
tucked away in one of the nastiest pockets of gravity ever charted. The entire
past few weeks had been more than Dr. Markham could ever possibly have
imagined, and she had resolved to personally take advantage of every
opportunity available to her. The rest of the Observatory staff continued to
work diligently in support of her efforts, carefully executing both the short-
and long-term objectives that she found herself continually developing for
them.

To make
matters stranger, it turned out that the energy field used by the aliens to
generate the three million light year spherical void around the Proteus galaxy
was yet another contributing factor to their CAS singularity problems. It had
the tendency to aggravate surrounding matter, thereby generating at least some
of the interference that had forced Glen and Thomas to begin making constant
adjustments as the
Pathfinder
approached the area. Upon their arrival
within Poseidon’s river, the massive dampening field had also been the major
reason that the CAS systems had overloaded… not the intense gravity of Poseidon
and its captured galactic objects as originally speculated. This was the reason
Noah had used his shuttle to approach and dock with them, since the small
ship’s sophisticated computer system was currently nullifying the protective
field’s effects on the
Pathfinder
and allowing it to CAS transit
directly into the Proteus galaxy.

On the 152
^nd
day since their ship had left the Milky Way, Julie was unable to contain her
enthusiasm and made the decision to get up extra early again. She spent the
first half hour in the Observatory shaking her head in wonder as she continued
to review the diagram that Noah had given her. This time she was comparing the picture
with actual images taken using the
Pathfinder
’s telescopes during her
off-hours. The golden ring of stars was the only part of the galaxy visible to
them without the aid of gravity measuring equipment. The exact size and
placement of the giant matter ‘spheres’ was practically undetectable to them
even when utilizing the non-traditional methods of detecting and locating dark
matter. Whatever type of energy that Noah’s people were using to trap and
contain the matter in those massive balloons was also immune to its gravity.

“Good
morning Dr. Markham,” Kari said to her as she entered the Observatory and took
a seat at her desk. Julie looked at her in disbelief, wondering what in the
world her young assistant was doing up at 5:30 a.m. on a Friday morning. Then
she thought back a few days and nodded knowingly to herself as she remembered
the small signs she had observed in the past couple of weeks that Kari and
Thomas had escalated their relationship.

“Good
morning,” she replied back. “Was it your turn to use the shower first?”

“I beg your
pardon Doctor?” Kari said innocently, ignoring the bait and beginning to sort
through the growing backlog of files on her desk. It was almost a complete
turnaround for her… on any normal day the young lady’s desk was usually
spotless before she ended a prior day’s shift. To actually have piles of
documentation beginning to accumulate was unheard of.

“It just
seems as though you have a lot on your mind lately,” Julie said as they
continued to work in the mostly deserted Observatory. There were still some
night personnel on duty and she noted a few others had also decided to start
their day early. Between Poseidon and Proteus her staff had gotten just what
they needed – a thrilling diversion to occupy their time and help them forget
about the devastating Brotherhood attack that had taken away their homes.

“Thomas is
a great guy… I’m glad we met and paired up before everybody else started to,”
Kari said, smiling. “From what I’ve heard, a lot of people have already chosen
significant others – we’re going to have a lot of children on this ship
very
soon.”

“I know,”
Julie said with a cheerful smile. “It will be a great sight to see.”

They both
looked at each other in puzzlement as the
Pathfinder
’s hull suddenly
trembled a little and then steadied. Usually the ship’s course was extremely
stable – several additional, larger tremors shook the large starship again
before everything returned to normal.

“Are they
testing the CAS Drive settings again?” Kari asked.

“I don’t
know,” Dr. Markham replied. “I wouldn’t think that they would want to try while
we’re inside the void around Proteus. My understanding was that they had it
working well enough to transit us into the galaxy. After that, we were going to
rendezvous with Noah’s people and open formal negotiations or something.”

Around them
the rumbling continued and Kari quickly picked her coffee cup up before it
could spill liquid all over her paperwork. The all-call suddenly beeped,
followed almost instantly by the Captain’s voice.