“Ah, well, we did an experiment where we tried to fly a drone through a wormhole that was too small for it.” Will grinned and held the moment. We obliged by growling at him. “Since space-time is spherical inside a wormhole, if it’s not wide enough for you, you basically run into the other side of yourself.”

  “Which way? Sideways? Front?”

  “All of the above, Hersch. At whatever velocity you’re traveling.”

  “Wow … ” Both Neil and I were stunned. The image of a Heaven vessel smacking into itself at several hundred thousand kilometers per hour … “I guess there wouldn’t be much left.”

  Will laughed. “Like a sausage grinder. Not much more than individual atoms comes out the other end.”

  “Well, okay,” Neil said. “But can we make sure it’s wide open when we get there? I don’t want to be a sausage.”

  Chapter Seventy:

  Bill Gets a Call

  Bill

  June 2345

  Epsilon Eridani

  Iwas strolling through the woods on Ragnarök in manny form, enjoying the peace and quiet, when I got a ping from—from Icarus? I was so surprised I checked the head’s-up twice, but no mistake. I spun on my heel and began jogging for the lab building while I picked up the call.

  “Icarus? Shouldn’t you be a hundred or so light-years away? Something happen?”

  “Hi, Bill. Yeah, things didn’t go quite according to plan. So hey, why audio only? And what’s with all the extra firewalling? Have I missed something interesting?”

  “Oh, much more than something. It’s been that kind of century.” I paused. “So is this a social call? I’ll be back in my lab in two minutes; then I can switch to virt and invite you over.”

  “Ah, well, it’s kind of a good news/bad news thing, Bill.”

  “Isn’t it always. Give.”

  “So the good news is, Dae and I found a technological civilization. Actually, a federation. A hundred and fourteen species, according to the Archivist.”

  “Wow. Pretty good—wait, according to the who?”

  “Long story. Anyway, the bad news is we’re all going to die.”

  I sighed theatrically. “Seems like the week for end-of-the-world scenarios. Hold on—okay, I’m in virt. Come on over. I’ve white-listed you and Dae.”

  I had just accepted a coffee from Jeeves when Icarus and Daedalus popped in. My VR was still identical to the Ragnarök lab building in real, so they spent a few moments looking out the French doors at the view of primeval forest. Well, maybe not so primeval. The trees were all fairly young and close to the same age. But the biosphere was about eighty percent complete now, and the animal populations were booming. As we watched, a herd of elk slowly marched across our view.

  When I judged they’d had enough time to absorb it, I turned to them to restart the conversation, but Icarus beat me to it. “So what did you mean about the week for end-of-the-world scenarios? Something else going on that we missed?”

  I nodded. “Someone named George headed straight up to galactic north, out of the disk entirely. Maybe a couple hundred years ago. Anyway, he sent back a report of a dwarf galaxy, which he named Nemesis, that is on the direct opposite side of the galaxy—”

  “And heading straight for us,” Daedalus interjected.

  I frowned at him. “Are we talking about the same thing? Heading straight for our galactic core? Going to hit in about a couple hundred thousand years?”

  “We saw it from a lot closer, Bill. Your friend George would have been ninety thousand light-years away from it. We were less than forty thousand at our closest point. It’s only about five thousand light-years from the edge of the galaxy, and it’s coming in fast. It’ll start plowing up the galaxy in about fifteen thousand years, and it’ll hit the core in a little more than a hundred thousand.”

  “Whoa, it would have to be going half of light speed—”

  “No, because it’s going to start pulling the Milky Way’s core toward it long before that. It contains a supermassive black hole, Bill. Fifty times the size of Sagittarius A*. And it’s going to be a direct strike.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “The Pan Galactic Federation has been studying it for literally thousands of years, refining their measurements. To the limits of error, it’s a line drive right down the throat of our resident central black hole.”

  “Okay, but a hundred thousand years—”

  “It’ll sterilize the galaxy, Bill. It’ll be the granddaddy of gamma-ray bursts when the accretion disks collide. The gravity waves when the black holes collide will destabilize star systems for tens of thousands of light-years. The entire population of the Federation realized this and hightailed it out of the galaxy centuries ago.”

  “Wait, how did you guys—”

  “Wormhole travel, Bill. We bring you new technology.”

  “We have that, thanks. But I appreciate the offer.”

  It was worth any amount of money to see the totally poleaxed expressions on their faces. So much so that I actually flipped polarity and began to feel sorry for them. “Lots has happened in the last century, guys. You need to do some reading to get caught up.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Icarus’s face lit up. “But hey, we did get to the center of the galaxy. Twenty-six thousand years early!”

  “You actually saw Sagittarius A*?”

  “Yup. Got pics and everything.”

  “Okay, now you’re talking.” And just like that, it was nerd time. Still, there was going to be a moot, and it was going to be loud and rowdy.

  Chapter Seventy-One:

  The Moot

  Bill

  June 2345

  In Virt

  All the cats were out of the bag. We wanted a good level of attendance, so I had “leaked” information in meatspace about WormNet, and I had also distributed a precis of Icarus and Daedalus’s adventures. I’d already long since upgraded the moot computers and SCUT systems to handle the extra load from all the new security procedures. I just hoped nothing ended up melting down.

  And I’d gotten my wish. More than ten thousand replicants were in attendance, not all Bobs by any stretch. I’d implemented a special overlap feature so that everyone perceived themselves as being near the dais. The moot was also going to be streamed for the benefit of bios. It seemed a new use had already been found for Howard’s huey technology; someone had adapted the remotes to act as full-sensory VR interfaces. Unfortunately, you couldn’t do anything about bio processing speeds, so they would not be able to experience the millisecond-level interactions of the live moot.

  I climbed the stage to the dais and turned to the audience. Raising the air horn, I grinned for a moment. I hadn’t had to do this for a long time, and I was relishing it. I just hoped the crowd reaction wouldn’t be negative.

  I needn’t have worried.

  I hit the button, and the blaaaaaaat echoed through the moot hall. The crowd replied with a loud, prolonged cheer, the kind your home team gets when they hit the ice at the beginning of a playoff game. Whistles and catcalls accompanied the raucous sound. Apparently, I wasn’t the only person who had been missing the tradition.

  It took several entire milliseconds for the noise to die down, with a few late whoops added. Now my grin was uncontrolled, and echoed by many of the spectators.

  Finally, something vaguely resembling order was restored. I said, “I suppose you’re all wondering—”

  “WHY YOU GATHERED US HERE!” the crowd responded, then everyone burst into laughter.

  “Okay, everyone,” I continued. “I’m enjoying this as much as you are, but we have some serious stuff to discuss. So let’s get started.” I pointed to Ick and Dae, who were standing right in front of the dais. “As most of you know, Icarus and Daedalus headed for the galactic core after they blew up the Others’ home star, back in 2232. Well, in 2320 local stardate, they discovered a wormhole network belonging to something called the Pan Galactic Federation, which is—or was—composed of one hundred and fourteen species of sentients. I’m qualifying their status because Ick and Dae found nothing but automated systems. The entire federation—more than eight thousand worlds—has been abandoned. And that’s where the punch line comes.”

  I paused and looked around. You could have heard a pin drop. This was like the good old days, when everyone was on the same page. I felt a momentary surge of emotion. “It turns out everyone headed for the hills when it was discovered that the Milky Way galaxy is under threat of destruction.”

  I held my hand up as the crowd roared. “No, not next week, as I’m sure most of you know. We’re talking up to a hundred thousand years away. We’ve seen enough examples of two galaxies merging to know that this is usually pretty benign. But the approaching dwarf galaxy has a black hole much larger than Sagittarius A*, and they are going to either hit head-on or pass so close to each other that they’ll both be flung in opposite directions. The first eventuality will sterilize the galaxy. Unequivocally. This is going to be the granddaddy of all gamma-ray bursts, and it will be seen right across the visible universe.”

  I paused to let the clamor die down.

  “The second option will make a mess of the galaxy, and the black holes will destroy a lot of systems on the way out, but life in general will survive. But we won’t know which door we get until it’s too late.”

  “Still,” someone yelled, “a hundred thousand years seems less than urgent, y’know?”

  I nodded in the direction of the voice, although I couldn’t tell who had spoken. “True, and if we had FTL, we’d just leave five years before the event. But we don’t. What we do have is a human population upward of sixty billion through the UFS, not to mention the Deltans, Quinlans, and Pav. Oh, and the dragons. Bridget has published a series of papers on them. The point is that we have to move everyone, and we have to do it at sub-light speeds.”

  “What about the wormholes?” someone else yelled.

  “Yes, we have a wormhole network. But the wormhole gates have to be put in place by flying them to the destination via SURGE drive. So in a hundred thousand years, we can get, at best, a hundred thousand light-years away. Or we can transport a wormhole a hundred thousand light-years away. That’s about halfway to either of the Magellanic Clouds. Not really good enough.”

  A low mutter gradually grew into a roar as people started discussing and arguing. I gave it a few moments, then interrupted. “We obviously don’t have to come to a decision today. But this is a technical and engineering challenge. And a political one, of course.” I made a face. “If you lot don’t feel urgency, and you’re all immortal, imagine trying to rouse bios who expect to be dead within a century.”

  Someone called out, “How big can you make a wormhole? Could you push a planet through?”

  “In theory, there’s no limit,” I replied. “But so far, we’ve only gotten them up to about twenty kilometers in diameter. After that, the negative energy starts to leak off faster than we can replenish it.”

  “What are our options?” someone else called out.

  “That’s what I’m asking you,” I replied. “Brainstorm this. Feel free to send me questions. I’ll put up an FAQ of all questions and answers.”

  There were several more questions, increasingly less technical and more political. Then the question that everyone had probably been waiting for: “Where did this Federation go?”

  Instead of answering, I motioned to Ick and Dae. They stepped up onto the podium. “Large Magellanic Cloud, according to the Federation’s Archivist,” Icarus said. “They used a hybrid approach, but not one I think we’ll be able to sell to humanity. They digitally stored their population—every single being, body and mind—and transmitted them to ships already on their way for centuries.”

  “They … used a transporter?” someone else said, awe in their voice. The crowd burst into laughter.

  “Pretty much. Just like with Scotty, they’re all stored in the buffer. Maybe. We don’t know if they’re active and conscious, living in VR, or just stored. There are some questions the Archivist simply won’t answer. The ships are also building a wormhole network as they travel, so the return trip—if there is one—will be much quicker.” Icarus paused. “We dug as much as we could, but at some point, the information not available responses started to outnumber useful answers. We had to make a judgment call to get what we already had back to you.”

  Again, the background murmur built up to a roar. I held up the air horn and gave a blaaat. “I’m going to table this and let you discuss it. More details are up on the blog. Food line is forming. Enjoy the moot!”

  The audience cheered, then began making a beeline for the buffets, which had magically appeared. I began instantiating tables and chairs as well.

  It was good to have the moots back.

  Once again, I had stuffed myself to the point of catatonia. Around the table, Icarus, Daedalus, Garfield, Bob, and Will sat slouched and moaning in their chairs. Sadly, Original Bob had bequeathed his lack of self-control around buffets to all of us.

  “Interesting thing,” I said into the relative silence. “Howard took one look at Icarus and Daedalus’s report and informed us that the wreckage the dragons found on Jabberwocky has a serial number written in Federation standard interlog. So their scouts had made it into our general area at one point. And the piece of hardware was consistent with the Federation’s current tech level.”

  “So we missed them by thiiiiiiiiis much,” Garfield said, holding up his thumb and forefinger almost touching.

  “Yep,” Icarus replied. “Just over two thousand years.”

  “And nothing else anywhere?” Icarus said.

  “I’m not sure how we’d go about checking,” I mused, “but I’d bet they decided to pull out right around that time. Otherwise, the Fermi paradox would never even have been a question.”

  That was a total downer, and it had the expected effect. Trying to get the conversation going again, I glanced in Will’s direction. “Things have not gone well for FAITH, I understand.”

  He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I really did not expect this to happen, but apparently, the loss of face from having thirty thousand people squirreled out from under them has caused a crisis in the government. There are recall petitions; people are crossing the aisle … it’s a total mess.”

  Will looked around the table. “I’m no fan, but I give them credit; they aren’t trying to strong-arm their way out of it. Just the same, I don’t know who is going to be in control in six months.”

  There were thoughtful nods and doleful expressions around the table. Despite the fact that Will, Hersch, and Neil had gotten almost everyone off Romulus, it was nevertheless another downer of a conversational subject. I was looking for a way to change the mood when Bob came to the rescue.

  “So, Dae, tell us about the center of the galaxy,” he said, stifling a burp.

  Dae grinned, happy to change the subject. “It’s actually not much different from the artist conceptions and astronomical images we’ve been seeing for centuries, except for being crisper and more high resolution. At the distance we had to maintain, there’s no discernible motion. Even so … You’re there, y’know? You can sense the raw, primordial power of the thing. If you want to feel insignificant, I can’t think of a better place to visit.”

  “How about the Archivist?” Garfield said.

  Icarus let out an inarticulate growl, and Dae laughed. “Icky’s not a fan. ‘You are number 138,384 in the queue. Please hold,’” he said, and howled. Icarus responded with an eye roll.

  “In the queue?” Garfield said.

  “You get one question each time through the queue. I think Icky would have busterized the whole capital system without a second thought by the time we left.”

  “But you got answers?”

  “Lots of answers. And lots of That information is not available, which we eventually found out doesn’t mean they don’t know, just that we’re not authorized to be told. Lots of work to do there, guys. We’ll have to mount an expedition to spend some serious face time making friends. Maybe we can join the Federation—then we’d be authorized—or something.”

  “Can’t you guys do that?”

  “We’re heading your way with a wormhole endpoint, Garfield. Based on discussions with Bill, it’s pretty much the same tech as he invented. So it’ll be quicker to continue on and meet up with your side than it would be to decelerate, turn around, and go back. So yeah, another decade at most, and you’ll be able to send a delegation through WormNet.”

  Now it was my turn to growl. The table erupted with laughter, tempered by more groans. But I could still have a little revenge. I leered around the table. “Who’s for cheesecake?”

  Chapter Seventy-Two:

  Human Fallout

  Bob

  August 2345

  Ragnarök

  I’d been invited to Bill’s place for a meeting of the Ancient Ones. I wasn’t honestly sure if I really cared for that title, but Bill pointed out that trying to deflect Garfield once he’d made up his mind would just make him double down. I blamed Bill for that; I’m sure I was never that stubborn.

  It turned out I was the last to arrive. Bill, Garfield, Howard, and Will turned and acknowledged me as I popped in.

  “About time,” Garfield said. “Did we interrupt a date with your girlfriend?”

  “Uh … ” The comment was a bit harsh, but possibly not as facetious as Garfield intended. “Maybe don’t make jokes about that while she’s around, okay?”

  Garfield frowned. “What’s going on?”

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe something. I … we’ve never been what you’d call astute in the ways of relationships—”

  “The word you’re looking for is clueless,” Bill interjected.

  “Uh-huh. Look, could be nothing. Don’t mind me.” I tried to keep my face deadpan, but my mind flashed back to several meetings with Theresa. She did seem, well, very touchy-feely. But maybe that was just Quinlan behavior. I’d have to look into it.