Part 30 (1/2)
”Forget the magnetic structure, which it quite rightly defends as its mind. At the center of its mind lies the hole. Attack that, I'd guess.”
Benjamin studied him as though he were quite lunatic. ”Attack a singularity in s.p.a.ce-time?”
”The extreme curvature arises from the matter that once pa.s.sed through the event horizon,” Kingsley said. ”The steep gradient in gravitation is a ghost of ma.s.s that died there, pa.s.sing who knows where. I propose that we consider giving the b.a.s.t.a.r.d not ma.s.s but its opposite.”
6.
Blessed are the flexible, for they can tie themselves into knots.
She had thought this state would be sublime, ghostly. Instead, she had hauled along her whole stinky, tangled neuroses-ridden self. Sure, she now flew in s.p.a.ce in a way no astronaut could. But her mind was still tied to her body. Worse, knowing the body was a digital figment did no good.
Tracking the beast demanded fresh navigation skills, fast movement, and her reward was sore ”muscles.” The programmers, in her opinion, had left entirely too much of her mind-body link. If she overused her gorgeous ion jets, they ached. Turn too fast and the ”knees” smarted, sharp and cutting.
Simulation she might be, but why the body's baggage? What next, callused feet?
The illusion was good. Her breath whooshed and wheezed in and out. No oxygen at all here, but they had thought she needed the sensation to quiet her pseudo-nervous system, make it think she was breathing. In fact, it it was breathing was breathing her her.
She took a deep nonbreath and fell into a shadowy s.p.a.ce dotted by orbiting debris. This was a messy Eater, gobbling up satellites and leaving twinkling motes. She shepherded her Searchers through this in pursuit of the glowing archwork ahead. Or below; directions were free of gravity's grip, here.
Far better than being an astronaut in the creaky old s.p.a.ce station. She had watched the dear old patchwork of bad plumbing and congressional nightmares-abandoned, finally-as the Eater dismembered it. Good riddance! It had crippled the pursuit of better goals for decades. They owed the monster for that, at least.
But nothing else. She felt her giddy sense of weightless purpose as her pretty blue ion jets thrummed and spewed, taking her up/down/sidewise. Getting better at this, but still it made her balance whirl. Thank G.o.d they had edited out the entire inner-ear responses.
Now the hard part. She glided into the first filmy tendrils of the beast. Ionized streamers marked the feathery magnetic fields. Their tug she felt as a brus.h.i.+ng pressure against her aluminum carapace. Careful, don't alert the misbegotten monster. Down, hard Careful, don't alert the misbegotten monster. Down, hard-then a calculated swerve.
If at first you don't succeed, kiddo, skydiving is not your sport.
She had lost a dozen Searchers finding out sc.r.a.ps of largely incoherent information. The labyrinths of fields confined dense thickets of Alfven waves, forming webbed patterns. It did not seem to mind intrusion, but the rule was, read and be eaten.
”I'm back,” Benjamin's wavering tones came. She grasped them like ripe, liquid fruit. The message's cypherdefenses peeled away as she filtered them-their only defense against the Eater eavesdropping. So far it seemed to have worked. Seemed.
”Missed you. It's not so much the dark here, but the cold.”
”I thought you couldn't feel temperature.”
”Category error, lover. It feels like a chill, so it is. Maybe it's actually the color green in disguise.”
”I had to go to a meeting, find out what's happening.”
”What's that cliche? About n.o.body on their deathbed regretting time missed at the office?”
”I suppose you'd know.” He was too somber, needed some jos.h.i.+ng.
”I always kinda missed the ol' office. Remember, though, this is the me of when they recorded. How long has it been?”
He blinked, startled. ”Weeks. My G.o.d, you don't know what's happened?”
”Oh sure, I got all the news. A bath of it. But no personal stuff.”
He wore his thoughtful distraction expression. It was looking ragged. ”Hundreds of thousands have died. And I don't give a d.a.m.n.”
”You don't have the room for it.”
”That's a good way to put it. I've felt like a monster.”
”Caring only about my dying doesn't make you an ogre, not in my book.”
”Getting the balance right...”
His voice trailed off and she knew exactly what he was thinking. Well, better face it Well, better face it. ”I'm alive this way, and all those people dead, really dead-all because of the Eater.”
”Yeah. Life's going too fast for me now, kid.”
He was back to putting on a brave face, but it wouldn't work with her. She could feel how close to shattering he was. ”Me, too. Just live in it, Benjamin, like a suit of clothes.”
He blinked. ”That's what it's like for you?”
”Has to be. I don't even sleep anymore.”
”My G.o.d, that must be...”
”Refres.h.i.+ng, actually. The thought just doesn't come up.”
”You're always wide awake?”
”Yep, and without my old love, caffeine, too.”
”What's it like to pilot a rocket?” He was still uncomfortable, but they had always used their love of the technical to get through b.u.mpy spots. Fair enough Fair enough.
”It's made me realize that when we open our eyes each morning, there's waiting a world we've spent a lifetime learning to see. We make it up.”
”And you're free of that now?”
”No, just so aware aware of it. When I was living down there, I'd see everything with a filter over it-experience, habit, memory.” of it. When I was living down there, I'd see everything with a filter over it-experience, habit, memory.”
”Now it's all new.”
”Not entirely. I swoop, I dive, but it feels like running, not really flying. My body is always, in a very profound way, telling me a story.”
”The body you don't have.”
”Right. Weird, huh? So I wonder what the Eater feels. It has no solid body.”
”Even the black hole really is a hole. Not a ma.s.s, a thing it can feel.”