9 Returning to the Andromeda Galaxy (1/2)
”Are you serious!? But black holes are black, they don't give off light.”
”That's because you don't understand what they are.”
”A gravitational singularity, right?”
Mazur had a look of disdain toward Ivan for his archaic thoughts. ”You are a fourth dimensional being now, you need to broaden your view. Do you remember I used to research on a top secret project for the federation?”
”I recall, upon which you stole, ran away and sold to someone else, right?”
”It can be understood as such. What they had me doing was studying the extraction of energy from black holes, but it was impossible. Every star has an event horizon in their core, once they collapse into neutron stars, if their radius falls and the event horizon expands. If the even horizon is larger than the radius of the star during the collapse, they form black holes.”
”These stars are simply so heavy they are sinking through the third dimension and into the fourth. The event horizon is merely the edge of the third dimension and the beginning of the forth, a black hole is a star that has completely submerged into the fourth dimension and the gravitational pull will pull any matter near it down with it.”
”So, your research?”
”Like I said, it was impossible. Three-dimensional beings can't interact with the fourth dimension. We were lucky and managed to find a catalyst in the third dimension to force evolution to go beyond that rule, but the chances of finding such a specimen are infinitesimally close to impossible.”
”Then what are these black holes?”
”I've already answered that, but for our current purpose, they are guideposts. That largest star should be the Andromeda Galaxy, where we came from. I'll go fix the ship, after which we will go back.”
Ivan began to walk toward the bridge but hesitated and asked, ”I just thought about it, but what of food? I'm starting to feel awfully hungry and I don't think our current food will satisfy me.”
Mazur also came to a halt and nodded. ”I didn't think about it, but it is true that three dimensional matter can no longer sustain us. We need to grab as much of that fish as we can till we find a new source of food. There should be similar creatures inside the galaxy that we can pray on. Pull out several bones which we can fashion into weapons.”
Ivan simply descended out of the ship and to where the fish corpse was. He could now see it in its entirety, and a large portion of it had been eaten off, showing it to be completely dead.
Moving around the corpse to where the main damage was, Ivan reached out for a protruding bone and pulled back and forth until it snapped off. He used this bone to pry off scales throughout its body and tear at the meat underneath. He had no method of cooking it, so he could only taste it raw. It had a terrible taste, but it at least filled his stomach.
The ship simply couldn't hold the cut off portions. It was like trying to store a person within a sheet of paper and simply wouldn't fit. He jammed a small amount of scales and meat within the cargo hold, but Ivan and Mazur would have to carry as much as they can on their bodies.
The repairs to the outside of the hull went much quicker than originally anticipated, only taking a total of a month. This was mostly because Mazur could freely move about in space and didn't require a space suit.
It was also during this time that Ivan and Mazur learned was that ordinary three-dimensional matter couldn't be taken into the fourth dimension. Anything that they took with them would rapidly collapse into pure energy and disperse into subspace, no matter what it was.
*****
”We're ready to go,” Ivan said with relief as they would be leaving the barren region of space.
”There's no way for the computer to calculate our position outside of the mapped galaxy, so you will have to adjust the vector manually,” Mazur informed Ivan will grabbing as much of the fish meat and scales as possible.
Nodding his head, Ivan manually controlled the ship to alter directions until it was pointed towards where the blue star was in subspace, using it as a guiding post to return to the galaxy.
”Primary impulse thrusters at full power, speed is increasing steadily.”
Ivan started to become nervous. As the Poseidon increased speed, he felt the danger of accidentally falling out of the ship and into subspace. There was nothing tethering him to the ship, so it felt like he was holding onto it as the ship dragged him through the universe. Most of his body was essentially hanging in subspace after all, where the ship didn't extend to.
Mazur was also feeling the insecurity of riding a three-dimensional ship as a four-dimensional being. His furry paws could be seen holding onto his chair, which was being crushed under the pressure of his grip.
”Approaching FTL speeds. Activating secondary impulse thruster, prepare to jump into hyperspace!”
All eight impulse thruster activated at full power and propelled the ship into hyperspace, there was a bit of resistance and it vibrated dangerously in the process though as it carried both Ivan and Mazur with it.
In hyperspace, Ivan and Mazur couldn't move as they had to hold onto the Poseidon with everything they had to avoid falling out.