“That would mean it’s nearly nine times more massive than a standard stellar black hole, and much too massive for a neutron star. But you said gamma rays. Your probe still sees them, and they’re fluctuating. They’re not constant. That would be consistent with a neutron star accreting matter at variable rates. A black hole can’t emit gamma rays.”
“Not in and of itself, Captain, no, especially if it’s static. But I don’t believe this is. I think the central mass is still spinning, very quickly. Anything falling in will release energy before reaching the event horizon. I believe that accounts for those gamma ray bursts we’re reading. Plus, there’s no localized magnetic field. Astronomical black holes have no magnetic fields.”
“But a black hole? Here?”
“It would seem to be the case, Captain. There are precedents, of course. The black hole at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy, and one at the center of ours.”
“But this a nebula cluster, not a galaxy.”
“Technically, this is a hypernova, the end result of a chain reaction of ordinary supernovae. There’s a tremendous lot of matter and gas out there.”
Garrett chewed on her lower lip. “All right. Let’s say that’s true. Would gamma rays account for the sensor ghosts?”
“Possibly. Gamma rays combining with ionized plasma might mimic ionized plasma vented from a ship. But, Captain, nebulae contain helium. They have hydrogen. Nitrogen. Noble gases. Nebulae do not contain arkenium duranide, or ferrocarbonite. Captain, these are materials used in construction.”
She’d known that, but she’d refused to believe it, hoping the readings were wrong. Trust yourself, Captain.“Used for plasma injectors.”
“Yes, Captain, just so,” said Glemoor.
“For a warp core.” There was a pause as Garrett digested what she’d just said. Then she turned to look out at the fierce, stormy beauty of the Draavids.
“Oh, dear God,” she said. “There’s a ship out there.”
Chapter 26
They’d been at yellow alert for fifteen minutes and Garrett was clenching her teeth so hard her jaw hurt. “Anything?”
Darco Bulast looked as tense as his captain. “Negative. If there’s a vessel, it’s not sending out a general distress, and there’s no response to hails.”
“Unless there’s just too much interference,” said Bat-Levi, looking up from her sensor display at her position alongside the science station. She blew an errant strand of her long black hair out of her eyes then hooked a lock behind her right ear. “There could be a signal, but we’d never hear it, not unless we get closer.”
“What’s our status?” asked Garrett. “Can we do that?”
“Right now, our shields are holding just fine, Captain. When we crossed into the nebulae cluster proper, radiation levels outside the ship jumped by a factor of five. Still within tolerance limits, presuming our shields hold. We’re holding position at 35,000 kilometers from the nebulae’s edge. But I’m not sure that another ship—likely disabled and running on battery power—would have the shields to last very long, not in that radioactive soup out there.”
“If there even isa ship,” said Castillo in an undertone.
Garrett’s head swiveled his way. “Care to share, Mr. Castillo?”
Castillo reddened. “No disrespect intended, Captain, but there’s every possibility that there was a ship but isn’t now.”
“Not necessarily, Ensign,” Glemoor interjected from his station next to Castillo. “If we can trust our scans, there’s insufficient debris, and nothing organic. If we presume a ship disintegrated, then there ought to be a debris field equivalent to the mass destroyed and some evidence of organic residua.”
“Then where arethey?” asked Bat-Levi. “For that matter, why duck into a nebula to begin with?”
“Maybe they were running away fromsomeone,” Castillo offered.
Garrett reflected that Castillo might need to learn to hold his tongue, but he clearly knew a good idea when he had one. “An interesting hypothesis, Ensign. But how do you account for the levels of ferrocarbonite and duranide we’ve found?”
“What if the core didn’t breach? What if they ejectedtheir warp core?”
“Why would they do that?” asked Bat-Levi. “Without a core, they don’t have power for very long, and without power, they’ll fry. If the gamma radiation doesn’t get them, those protostars will.”
“Maybe this was the only choice they had,” said Castillo. “You just said it. You don’t go into nebulae like this unless you’re forced to, and if you’re forced to, probably someone’s shooting at you. So, maybe their warp core got damaged. A coolant leak, I don’t know. So they have a choice. Either jettison the core, or blow up.”
“So they jettison the core to buy time.” Propping her right elbow on the arm of her command chair, Garrett ran the side of her right thumb along her lips in thought. “Well, a crummy choice is better than none. It’s a decent hypothesis, Ensign. Very good,” she said, flashing Castillo a quick smile and noting, with satisfaction, his flush of pleasure. Trust your crew.“Glemoor?”
“Those sensor ghosts might be distortions of the signature from a real ship. Except if Ensign Castillo is correct, then either this ship went very far into the nebula before ejecting its core…”
“Or they didn’t, but are being dragged toward that black hole. Any way to tell for certain?”
“If there’s a ship? Not without a signal of some kind. Or,” Glemoor paused then said, “or we go deeper into the field ourselves.”
“But we already know where to start. The first probe was, what? 600,000 kilometers in? So how about following the trail of the sensor ghosts, narrowing down our search pattern?”
Bat-Levi thought a moment. “I could extrapolate backward. Say, factor in the amount of material we’ve already found and then, on that basis, calculate how large the warp core would have to be in order to generate the debris field we’ve got. I’d have to take drift into account from the Herbig-Haro jets, though. They might have blown the debris out, not in. No matter which way you cut it, it’ll take awhile.”
Something about what Bat-Levi had just said niggled at the back of Garrett’s brain. She sensed an idea forming but couldn’t quite put it into words. Something a ship might do if it were in trouble, in a nebula with protostars, and no way to blast free…
“Pardon, Captain,” Ensign Castillo again, “but that’s kind of inefficient. Why not narrow things down by the rate at which those gas globules are collapsing along gravitational fields? We can assume that the components left over from a warp core breach or ejection ought to follow the same path. Save time.”
“Do it,” said Garrett, shoving the nascent thought to the back of her brain. Let it simmer awhile.“Find me a focus. And, Castillo, can you move the probe in further without its being trapped in that gravitational well?”
“To gather more data? Sure, but…”
Garrett waved the rest of his remark away. “No, no, not more data. I want to use the probe as a proximity detector. A kind of advanced scout. With all this interference, we let that probe get out too far ahead of us, and we might as well be trying to listen to something being transmitted between two tin cans on a string.”
Glemoor frowned. “Tin cans?”
“I’ll explain it later. But this way, we move closer without endangering the ship without good cause. Let the probe do the searching for us. Can you do it, Castillo?”