Memories: To Wonderland
They ultimately decided to use a quarter of their remaining propellant, not knowing how long their journey through the wormhole might take or what could be waiting on the other side. If this were a gateway to another solar system—which seemed just as likely as anything else—they needed to be able to navigate it when they arrived.
And if they needed to turn around, Jack wanted enough fuel to do so in a hurry. Assuming they could turn around.
They left the MSEV behind in its orbit, one less piece of unnecessary mass. More important, it would also function as a relay satellite in the hope they would be able to communicate from the other side. If light could make its way through, that implied they might be able to establish a radio link.
He had spent their remaining time making sure the ship was ready to get underway, using his maintenance bots to secure any loose gear while he ran diagnostic tests of every system in the ship, twice. If something was going to give him trouble, now was the time to find out. The final step was warming up the fusion drive.
“Ready to commit,” he said. “Initiating countdown timer on my mark.”
“Mark. Terminal count initiated at T-minus two minutes. Have you thought about what we should tell control?”
“A little late for that, don’t you think?”
“I think you have been putting it off.”
“You’re awfully perceptive for a computer.” He pulled up a text file he’d been compiling, a summary of all they had discovered and their intentions. He’d struggled with the exact wording, eventually deciding to be blunt about it. “I’ve got a burst transmission ready to go once we’re committed.” There would be a point, not quite midway along their path, where the amount of energy needed to stop would be greater than what they could expend before crossing the threshold: the Point of No Return. “When we cross PNR, please send this.” He dropped the file into Daisy’s comm folder:
HAVE ENCOUNTERED GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALY AT PREDICTED LOCATION OF PLANET NINE. ESTIMATE MASS 1.03 X 10^26 KG.
UNABLE TO DIRECTLY OBSERVE. MANEUVERING CLOSER TO INVESTIGATE. WILL UPDATE AS ABLE.
TEMPLETON OUT.
“Interesting,” she said after digesting his message. “How do you think they’ll react? Your communications with them have been sparse.”
He’d learned whenever Daisy used contractions, it signaled she was taking a more personal tone. “More like nonexistent. And I’m not used to you dancing around the subject like this.”
“I was being polite. I don’t want to unnecessarily upset you, but I am curious.”
“I’m not ready to talk to other humans yet. Guess I’ve been separated from the tribe for too long. It’s easier to talk to you since I don’t have to wait half a day for a reply. Right now you’re the only one who gets me.”
“Thank you. I value your confidence. But you haven’t answered my question. How are they likely to react?”
“No idea,” he said after a moment’s thought. In the back of his mind, he’d hoped they would respond by sending another ship. It would be his only way home, and he was certainly giving them enough justification. “I imagine it’ll set Owen’s hair on fire. They’ll probably think I went crazy from isolation.”
“The observational data will be difficult to ignore.” Daisy paused. “I’m talking about the Anomaly, not your mental state.”
“Thanks for clarifying. If anything, I’ve learned uncomfortable truths are easy to ignore. Humans can invent all kinds of rationalizations.”
There was a subtle change in Daisy’s tone as she returned to the immediate business. “Thirty seconds to ignition,” she reminded him.
“Copy thirty,” Jack answered, shifting gears himself. There had been nothing left to do once they’d started the two-minute count other than wait for the clock to run out. He’d become so used to the machine running itself under Daisy’s watch that he was almost beginning to feel like a passenger. “Systems board is all green. Plasma generator’s spun up and nozzle containment fields are charged.”
Daisy’s soothing synthetic voice led him through the remainder of the count: “Three . . . two . . . one. Main engine ignition.”
The ship trembled under thrust as the first, short burst of hydrogen plasma nudged them into a new orbit, one that would intersect the center of the Anomaly. As velocity vectors began dancing across the nav display and settled on their target, the engines came up to full thrust and the staccato shudder changed pitch to a rhythmic rumble.
Daisy had calculated a low-energy trajectory that would bring them to where they believed the threshold to be. It would take several hours to cover the distance. Once there, they would let their momentum and the Anomaly’s gravity carry them through its opening. Not knowing what forces might be at play, it seemed wise to tread carefully. If theory held true, stable wormholes relied on a delicate balance of forces and diving in under power might upend that equilibrium. He had no desire to find out what being in the center of a collapsing tunnel through space-time might entail.
After a time, the hole in space ahead of them appeared to grow wider as Magellan continued relentlessly toward it.
“What do you think we’ll find?”
“Impossible to know. Most likely another star system somewhere in our galaxy. Possibly another galaxy altogether. If the multiverse theories are correct, perhaps even a parallel universe.”
“I’d rather not think about that one. If we come across a mirror image of us with some version of me in a goatee, we’re turning around.”
“I’m confused by your reference.”
“Never mind. We’ll fix that later.” Jack looked ahead, into the black. He hadn’t thought it possible for space to seem emptier than it already was. He was shocked more at the lack of fear he felt. He should’ve been frightened out of his wits; instead he was determined to keep going. The time to be afraid had been before lighting the engines; now was the time to stay focused. To not screw the pooch. “If you don’t know where you are going, any road can take you there.”
“The Cheshire cat.”
“So you got that reference. You’re remarkably well read for a computer.”
“Alice in Wonderland seems especially relevant lately.”
“That’s—”
The emptiness ahead filled their view, eclipsing all behind it but for a ring of distant stars along its periphery. Soon these appeared to converge, as if the observable universe had flattened itself into a uniform plane before coalescing around them.
It was his last memory.