4
Caribbean Sea
April 13, 2018
Steve swore softly at the sight of the submarine’s control room. It reminded him of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise—clean, bright, and polished. The glistening walls were covered with flat-screens and shining plasma displays. A huge three-dimensional holographic map of the West Atlantic was dotted with small blinking icons, probably representing vessels in this sector. Arrows speared out of these targets, and tiny Cyrillic text flashed below each of them.
Steve followed Satarov as the captain took position behind the periscope. Not that he needed a physical scope with all the displays. Crew members manned their stations. Most wore tiny headphones, focusing on what seemed to be state-of-the-art touch screens. There were a few mechanical valves and pipes, yet they were aesthetically integrated into the futuristic environment.
“Wow, dudes, this is totally awesome,” he told Eric, Martin, and Vera. His gaze lingered on Vera’s figure for a little while. She was an amazing woman on her own account. The colorful lights which reflected from her face, hair, and tailored suit …
The Typhoon was modernized beyond Steve’s wildest dreams. “Look at this 3D multifunctional display. Geri will freak out when she sees this.” He stepped toward the center of the room. “I expected rusty pipes, crude valves, and junkyard instruments, you know, something like the Millennium Falcon. Look at all this! It’s shinier than NASA’s Mission Control Center.”
“Welcome to my nuclear wessel.” Captain Satarov smiled at Steve’s enthusiasm.
Steve raised an eyebrow. “Nuclear wessel?” he mimicked the captain’s accent. “Are you by any chance related to Pavel Chekov?”
“Who?”
“Never mind.” Steve shrugged.
“This is Russian Federation nuclear submarine.” Satarov raised his voice. “After we cross event horizon, this will become Soviet Union vessel. I demand you follow command structure. Da? Now, be quiet. We have limited time.”
Without waiting for a response, Satarov nodded toward one of his crewmen. The sailor saluted and switched the lights to a dim red. Satarov flicked on the periscope controls; his head appeared on the flat-screen at the front of the control room. “Podgotovka k pogruzheniyu,” the speakers announced.
“They have detected a bomber on an interception course,” Vera translated, anxiety reflected in her face. “The captain gave the order to dive. We have less than four minutes.”
The control room crewmen talked to each other. One stood up and challenged the captain, pointing at Eric and then at Steve. Steve thought he recognized the words “Amerikantsy” and “tsiklon.” That fellow didn’t look like a happy camper.
Satarov yelled at the crewman, who nodded and returned to his seat, muttering to himself.
Video streaming from the periscope’s camera appeared on the main display. The footage was magnificent. It resembled the wormhole from the movie Interstellar, only smaller and somewhat bluish.
Steve crossed his fingers, praying that the equipment within the external container was safely secured. He didn’t want anything to happen to the drone. He had spent six months in Israel training as a drone operator. It would be a shame if it all went to waste.
“Whenever you are ready,” Satarov said in accented English, nodding toward Eric.
Eric placed his cane against the wall, pulled out his iPhone and clicked on the screen. “Let’s light this candle!” His eyes gleamed with excitement. The buzz of static electricity filled the control room. Eric’s face radiated happiness. For him, it must have been the moment of truth.
“Come, see this, Steve,” said Satarov, without taking his eyes off his periscope.
Steve turned his gaze back to the screen. Dark clouds and electrical sparks surrounded the black and blue sphere. This was something no human had ever seen before. A live image of a wormhole should have been the headline in Scientific American, New Scientist, Cosmos, Popular Science, and Technology Review. He could have sold an article to any science magazine he could think of.
A sudden rush of excitement engulfed Steve’s body. He tapped on Martin’s shoulder. “This is so wicked! Have you ever seen anything so cool?” Crossing the threshold could make all of them more famous than Neil Armstrong. “Being the first dudes in history who travel back in time through a wormhole—that’s what I call a thrill.” This must be heaven.
“Hey, look how the water goes right in.” Steve stepped closer to the monitor to examine the ocean. The sphere was sluggishly swallowing the water. It looked like a slow-flowing river. “It’s a good sign,” he pointed out. “Maybe the submarine’s propulsion will work on the other side.” He then turned to Satarov. “Let’s rock ’n’ roll.”
Satarov stared at him with angry eyes, as if Steve had just stepped on his toes.
Steve decided to keep a safe distance from the irritable captain. He exchanged a few more words with Martin while the submarine crossed to the other side. When Martin turned his attention to the main monitor, the picture blanked.
Satarov stiffened. He spoke in rapid Russian. Then he switched to English. “We lost the power cable from Eric’s yacht.”
“NO!” Eric screamed, dropping his cane.
Steve focused on the display. For a brief second, he thought he saw something just beyond the waves on the Earth’s side of the wormhole.
Eric rushed to the monitor. “Without power, the Casimir plates will fail.”
“Who cares about the damn Casimir effect?” Steve wondered what all the excitement was about. “We’re already inside the wormhole.”
“You don’t understand.” Eric’s voice dropped to a whisper. If the Casimir effect fails—the wormhole will collapse.”
“So?”
“A collapsed wormhole turns into a black hole. We will be trapped inside it.”
Some doubts crept into Steve’s mind when hearing Eric’s speculation. Then he shrugged. No one really knew how wormholes work anyway.
A strange, yet familiar feeling came to Steve’s mind. His legs had left the floor, and his arms floated beside him. Ha! Weightlessness. During his astronaut training at SpaceX, he had experienced microgravity, but never for more than twenty seconds.
Other people and objects floated in mid-air.
Satarov gave more orders in Russian. The monitor came back to life when illumination flooded the submarine’s external deck. The submarine’s rear deck, the propellers, and the upper rudder could clearly be seen. The darkness wasn’t a camera malfunction. Steve carefully examined the live video footage. The wormhole’s entrance was gone.
Behind, Martin coughed. Steve turned his head. Martin, who was hovering above the floor, vomited; yellow and white food particles spewed from his mouth. It looked disgusting. Steve tried to cheer Martin’s mood by joking about it. It didn’t work.
The red lights flickered, and the sound of alarms filled the control room. A yellow and black icon, the universal symbol of nuclear hazard, blinked on the main screen. “Oh crap!” He turned to Satarov. “The reactor.”
Satarov shouted orders left and right. One of the sailors saluted and jumped out of his chair, in a straight trajectory toward the control room’s entrance.
“The reactors went into an emergency scrum,” said Satarov in English. “We lost the secondary loop. We don’t have seawater to cool the primary coolant. The sub is now running on batteries.”
Steve swore. If ocean water couldn’t cool the reactors, the Russians had to turn it off. No reactor meant no power. He wondered how long they could survive on batteries. He kicked the wall, steered his body, and grabbed one of the panels. All the labels were Cyrillic letters. “Big bummer, huge.”
“Don’t touch anything,” Satarov snapped. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Sorry.” Steve let go of the panel. “I was trying to help.” He allowed himself to drift backward.
“We are in state of emergency.” Satarov was enraged. “You are not certified to operate Soviet submarines, and I have no time to babysit you. Next time you touch something, I’ll throw you to detention room.”
“Swell.” Steve, who didn’t want to antagonize Satarov more than he already was, floated toward his comrades.
“Watch for flying objects, especially sharp tools.” At least they would appreciate his astronaut training. Steve gently led a drifting chair away from his head. The weightlessness feeling was off the Richter, outrageous, better than what he remembered from the last time he had went through microgravity training.
Up until that moment, Steve’s biggest regret with regard to accepting Eric’s proposal was giving up his dream of becoming an astronaut. But now he was in space, fulfilling his dream. “It definitely ain’t Kansas.” He winked at Vera.
“Holy smokes.” Martin drew Steve’s attention to the monitor.
Outside, smoke came out of weird-looking shape-shifting balls. The steam-like smoke expanded in all directions.
Then something even weirder happened. The steam clouds began to move downward. Slowly at first, then they accelerated.
Come to think of it, it wasn’t the steam clouds that accelerated. It was the submarine! He felt the acceleration in his stomach. Steve landed softly on the floor. He estimated the acceleration at far less than one meter per second, about two to three percent of Earth’s gravity.
He wondered how it was possible for the submarine to accelerate upward. Did the Russians install rocket engines? He noticed a high-pitched shrieking sound. That noise couldn’t come from rocket engines. It took his brain a few seconds to realize that the noise was the propeller turning idle in empty space.
“Shut down the engines!” Steve screamed at the captain. If they burnt the shaft, they’d lose their water propulsion capability. The submarine wouldn’t be able to sail. Not to mention that spinning the props drained whatever little energy they still had in the batteries.
Satarov’s face turned red. “You’re not giving orders on my vessel,” he hissed. “A ship can only have one captain first rank.”
“Turn them off!” Steve panicked. He didn’t care about power games. They had to save the Typhoon. “Without cooling water, the shafts will overheat.”
“Don’t you think I know how to run my ship?” The anger in Satarov’s voice became more apparent.
“What’s wrong with you, dude? Chill out.” Steve leapt backward, and landed near Martin.
Satarov eyes pierced Steve’s with pure rage. For a moment, Steve could have sworn that Satarov was about to draw his gun and shoot him right there on the spot. But then, Satarov turned to one of his crewmen and shouted orders. The seaman pulled a lever on his station. A few seconds later, the high-pitched sound came to an end.
“Water.” Steve nodded toward the monitor, which was showing more boiling water balls “falling” beside the submarine.
“Are you thirsty?” Martin asked.
“Those balls we just saw”—Steve pointed at the monitor—“are water. Ocean water that entered the wormhole with us. This is how boiling water behaves in space.”
“Bullshit.” Satarov’s voice sounded tense. “There are ice-water asteroids and comets in space. They don’t boil, unless they get close to the sun.”
“Ice comets are cold.” Steve tried to remain super-calm. “Very cold. Close to zero Kelvin. Water at ocean temperature and zero pressure will boil.”
“Are you saying it is ocean temperature outside?” Steve could identify the passive-aggressiveness in Satarov’s voice. After demonstrating who was in command, it seemed that Satarov was now on a quest to destroy Steve’s credibility as an aerospace engineer.
“Not at all.” Steve tried to keep his cool. “The warm water came with us from Earth. In space, there is no air or water or any other heat-conducting media that a body can lose energy to. The only way an object can cool down in vacuum is by emitting infrared radiation. That’s a very slow process. Eventually the steam will freeze, but it could take hours.” He gritted his teeth and paused for a few seconds.
Speaking of boiling water, Steve figured out an explanation for why the submarine was accelerating upward. The water inside the ballast tanks boiled. The steam escaping through the openings at the bottom of the ballast tanks created thrust. He wondered how long the water would last.
“If we are in space, why can’t we see stars?” Satarov was still testing him.
“I tried to explain that,” Eric joined the conversation, “when …”
Martin jumped into the air, screaming, grabbing Vera with both hands. They spun out of control across the bridge, before landing softly on the floor.
What is he doing? Steve scratched the back of his head.
Satarov looked through his periscope.
The camera zoomed in on something. The Typhoon’s external projectors illuminated a large dead fish, which slammed the deck, and then rolled and fell overboard.
A stupid fish, thought Steve. Why is Martin so edgy?
Cyrillic text mixed with numbers flashed across the monitor. “The external pressure is less than point zero one atmosphere.” Satarov tapped his finger on the digital display.
“Can the Typhoon handle it?” Steve asked hesitantly. He tried to be careful when addressing the antagonized captain.
“Submarines of Project 941 Akula?” the captain said with glee, as if Steve was somehow reduced by the question. “The pressure hull can handle it. I issued a flood-control warning. We may have a slight air leak from the scope’s fitting, but nothing to worry about. Before each mission, we do a blast test against the pressure hulls from the inside. My main concern is that we have lost our ability to maneuver. This is not a spaceship.”
“What about the missiles?” Steve asked.
“Um.” Satarov rubbed his chin. “The missiles might be damaged if they crash into their sitting rings.” A winning smile spread across his face. “But since we have low gravity, we shouldn’t worry about it.”
“Dude,” Steve shook his head, “I meant how about we use their rocket engines to maneuver.”
There was a brief moment of silence. “We can launch the missiles. But we have no practical way to install and control them.” Some of the arrogance in Satarov’s voice disappeared. “Our scuba diving equipment wasn’t designed for spacewalking.”
Eric interrupted the conversation. “The wormhole has collapsed.”
Steve shrugged. “Yes, yes, we know that.”
“Steve,” Eric sounded hoarse, “we’re the reason why the wormhole crumpled. We are the reason the time loop ended when it did.”
“What do you mean?” asked Vera.
“In plain English?” Eric gripped his head with both hands. “It means we can’t return to our home timeline, ever. We’re trapped.”
“I beg your pardon?” Vera seemed confused.
Eric stared at Captain Satarov. Then he looked around at each of them in turn—Vera, Martin, Steve, the sonar officer, and the rest of the bridge’s crew. “We’re trapped inside a black hole.”
“A black hole?” Steve swallowed. “This is a joke, right?”
The color had drained from Eric’s face, leaving a waxy sheen and two points of high color on his cheeks.
“You mean the wormhole destroyed Earth?”
“Probably not.” Eric shook his head. “When a wormhole collapses, the newly created black hole can appear anywhere and anytime. The chances of it forming on Earth are infinitely small.”
“Are you telling us we’re stuck someplace at the end of the universe?” Steve pointed at the dark monitor.
“Only one thing is certain,” replied Eric grimly. “Nothing can escape a black hole. Not even light.”
“Then why are we still alive?” Steve asked, thinking about black-body radiation which, theoretically, is the only thing that could escape a black hole. “If we were anywhere near a black hole, the gravitational tidal forces should have shredded us to pieces.”
“Tidal forces?” Martin’s voice disintegrated to a shrill.
“Black holes have a super strong gravitational force,” explained Steve. “The gravity at your legs should be far greater than the gravity at the head. The difference is so huge you’d be pulled apart.”
“Shit,” said Martin.
“Well?” Steve pointed at himself, and then at Martin.
Martin seemed confused.
“Tidal differences near the event horizon are infinitely strong,” said Steve. “Not even atoms can hold together. The fact that we barely feel any gravity is proof that Eric is wrong.”
“Steve is correct,” Satarov said. “Black holes have massive gravitational forces.”
Steve was surprised that Satarov sided with him.
“I wish I was wrong,” Eric sighed. “Don’t confuse event horizon with singularity. We’re not near a black hole. We’re inside one. No one can tell what’s inside an event horizon,” said Eric. “Not even Einstein.”
“That’s not really important now.” Satarov lowered his head. “Without the reactors and the cooling system, and with leaking air, I’m not sure how much time we have. Perhaps fifteen minutes.”
“Look!” Vera cried.
A bolt of lightning, then another one, flashed on the main screen.
A strong gravitational force pulled Steve toward the stern, along with other people and objects.
A terrifying thought popped into Steve’s mind. “The singularity! We’re being pulled by the singularity.”
A sudden bright light blinded him.