Wormhole

WORMHOLE

"Commodore, we appear to have reached the wormhole," said Kwali, breaking the silence that had descended on the control room. "It is right where we were told it would be, within a hundredth of a parsec from an Earth perspective. And it's not going through a black hole. Too bad they can't know we've made it here."
"Do we have a visual, Commander?"
"Not a visual, but we're where Colombina indicates we should be to enter it. She is trying to work out a program to make the sixth dimension visible to us."
"Is there some other way to sense it?"
"Maybe April can answer that, Commodore."
"Lieutenant, have our sensors located the wormhole?"
"Yes, Commodore. They can't send us a visual, although using Colombina's hyperspace converter, we can get a faint picture of a kind of gap in space, roughly circular, that seems to be moving about slightly. I don't know what it will look like on the large screen, where it will lose some of its definition, but I will put it up for you."
"A gap in space. This is a first for me, and I've been at it for almost 300 years! Heavens! Look at that!"
Even Mujama gasped. "It looks menacing, Commodore. I think I'd rather spend the extra couple of years our journey would take through hyperspace than have to go through that. On the other hand, being on the first spacecraft to go through a wormhole is pretty exciting."
Colombina's soft voice broke in. "I believe I can now give you a sharper image, Christina. I've never been directly confronted with the sixth dimension before. It does not seem to conform totally to predictions."
"Ah, that image is much clearer. Still, I have the impression that the resolution is not very high."
"That is correct, Christina. The entrance is just about two kilometers in diameter, but the irregular swaying patterns of the gap would make entry difficult. As you see, the gateway moves in an arc that suddenly is broken by short bursts of horizontal or vertical lunges."
"See if you can find a pattern in its motion, Colombina. Maybe some of those old formulae you have for chaotic systems would work. April, Lieutenant, have you found any trace of rational life in or around the gateway to the wormhole?"
"Our sensors have not found anything at all, Commodore. There is plenty of noise, lots of energy, but it seems random and not directed."
"Keep trying. If there's an intelligence somehow connected to the wormhole–guarding it on this end or using it for its own purposes–it would behoove us to contact it and ask permission to enter."
Martin arched his eyebrows at this suggestion.
"Commander, suppose we're dealing with a civilization that's a thousand years more advanced than we are, or that has higher capacity brains, or is bellicose. We could be vaporized in a second. As our security officer, you must be ready to react to any such danger. On the other hand, an alien civilization might use it for the same purpose we're using it: rapid transgalactic transportation."
"A kind of subway in the sky, Commodore?"
"Oh, let's say something more like an express to Venus. There may be intelligent forces in this area that are used to travel intergalactically. They might want to bypass this smallish galaxy of ours to get to where the big kids play."
"Christina," Colombina said, "I have worked out an equation which will allow us to enter the wormhole safely. Unfortunately, I don't know what's inside, or what it might look like to humans. Our astrophysicists on Earth inferred that it is transversible, that it runs in a roughly direct line right through the galactic core, and that it extends a bit more than half a radius length to each side of the center of the galaxy. If their calculations are correct, this would bring us to about the middle of the other spiral arm."
All eyes turned towards Christina. "If?" she asked.
"As you know, Christina, their calculations are based on relatively sparse data and rely on several unproven suppositions. Nevertheless, if what they calculate is correct to within 10%, we will end up near where they believe we will go, and in real time of less than an hour."
Even Kwali, with all his faith in Home Command, gagged in disbelief. "They told us we wouldn't believe how fast we'd go through the wormhole, and they're right. I would have guessed at least a day," he added, recovering some of his sense of humor.
"Commander, " Christina said to Martin, "alert the entire ship. The crew are to be prepared for anything, but they must also be secured in their places and at their stations. Let them know as much as necessary about our present situation. And make sure all the crew will be ready for anything. Even the worst."
"At once, Commodore."
Turning to Mujama, she ordered her have the entire medical staff in position for possible heavy casualties, then added, "We don't know what dangers lie ahead. We don't even know if our ship will be able to maintain its gravitational rotations."
"I'll go at once to the infirmary, Commodore, and I'll make sure that the first aid stations fully staffed."
She then addressed Susanna. "Commander, set a course to station us directly in front of the gateway. As soon as everyone is ready, we'll go through."
"I'm setting the coordinates and I'm using both Colombina's calculations and the more traditional ones, Commodore."
"Good. Commander," she said to Kwali, "the entire staff of engineers and mechanics must be ready for any eventuality. We don't know what kinds of exotic matter will be waiting for us there, so we'll have to keep close tabs on the ship. Constellation was built for any known eventuality, but of course its builders knew nothing about this sixth dimension. If we lose our gravity, or if part of the ship is broken, whatever happens, we've got to minimize the loss of life. That has to be our top priority."
"It will be quite a learning experience, Commodore. I'll get my crew on red alert. Should we put up a shield? It would drain some or even most of our reserves, but it might give us protection against whatever is in there."
"Yes, take care of that right away, then come back up on deck."
"Lieutenant, she said, returning to April, "we might have to pilot through manually, so we'll be counting on you to keep the visual sensors functioning."
"The sensors are ready for use, Commodore."
"Good. We have about an hour to reach the gateway and to make all our preparations. Once we're in position and prepared for entry, we'll take a shortcut through this wormhole and past thousands of black holes."
Her human staff in place, Christina spoke to her non-human crew member.
"Colombina, since you don't know what the inside of the wormhole might look like, what kind of calculations can you do that would allow us to navigate through it? We need to have a plan, some idea of what we're up against."
"I can make an assumption that the difference between hyperspace, or the five dimensions we now know, and the sixth is similar to the difference between the four dimensions and the fifth. This could provide us with a working definition of the space as we're going through it. There is a major problem, though."
"What's that?"
"You brought up the matter of chaos. As you know, chaos theory posits that any error in calculation, or any small difference in the input we provide, increases enormously with each iteration of output becoming input."
"And?"
"And we don't have all the data we need for accurate measures. Therefore, we can anticipate that any unexpected effect will become perhaps exponentially greater as we progress through the hole, or more precisely, through the tunnel."
"What you're saying is that our trip might become totally unpredictable, and that we might be at the mercy of chance to come out alive and in one piece?"
"I was not literally saying that, Christina, but your inference matches mine. There is great risk in this venture."
"How does your probability program look at this? What are the chances that we will survive?"
"Let me check the data... The odds are 2 for to 3 against."
"That's not good enough. Try factoring in the unpredictable reactions of a human mind and of human actions. We might do better with something other than a pure logic machine guiding us. No offense intended."
"I am incapable of being offended, Christina. Let me add the human factor, based on my observations of this crew on this flight so far... I have two answers: 51 for to 49 against if humans use my services sparingly, and 55 for to 45 against if they make use of my services as they do in most emergency situations."
"So if you navigate without human intervention, our chances are worse than if we go on manual, but with significant input. It's counter-intuitive, but it proves that logic sometimes isn't enough."
"It calculates that way, although it sounds erroneous."
"In either of those three scenarios, the situation looks pretty grim. I'd much rather have our odds closer to 100%. When my people all return, I'll tell them that we'll go on manual control with full input from your calculations. Whatever happens, make sure you have a couple of copies of the data generated on this flight through the transversible wormhole. I'm sure our assumptions will be proven at least partly inaccurate, and I'm also sure that we'll make mistakes in our guesses and probably in our manipulation of the controls."
"I'll set up a second back-up system while waiting for further orders."

The loudspeakers could be heard in every workroom. All eyes were fixed on the visuscreens, all ears were attentive to the commanding officer's voice.
"This is Commodore Vasa speaking. We're about to undertake a mission that no person has ever experienced before, passing through the center of the galaxy via a transversible wormhole. As you can see on the visuals, the gateway is there, it's just where it was predicted to be. There's no reason to doubt that it will let us out exactly where our astrophysicists believe. But we really can't predict what the next hour or so will be like. We will be moving into another dimension of hyperspace, one that none of us here on the bridge can imagine, and one that Colombina is totally unfamiliar with. She gives us odds of 11 to 9 to reach the exit gateway safely. Your section leaders have briefed you on your duties. Consider our passage not only as hazardous duty but also as a red alert. Each of us must do what we're called on to do; anything less than that could lead to disaster. I'd like to add that we don't know if the gravitational field will be affected by this, so make sure you're all properly tethered. When the countdown reaches zero, we will move toward the portal."
Colombina's count began, this time at 50. 29, 28, 27...10, 9, 8... 3, 2, 1, 0.
The great ship sped forward, hitting the gateway right in the middle. They were in the wormhole!

"Commodore, the sensors have picked up what looks like several identical meteorites. They appear to be coming at us and at the same time to be following us and surrounding us."
"Lieutenant, get us split visuals, the big scene and our immediate area. And Commander, get ready to manoeuvre by hand."
"It looks weird, Commodore. Something seems to be reaching into the area just ahead of us," replied a puzzled Susanna.
"Good job of avoiding that! But they keep coming! It's like a family of cloned meteorites! Keep your eyes attached to the tunnel. We seem to be starting to spin."
"Christina," said Colombina, "the gravity level has fallen to 90% and seems to be going down slowly."
Christina signalled Kwali. "What's going on?"
"Can't say, Commodore, it looks like we're leaking gravity!"
"Leaking gravity?"
"I can't think of another way to express it. It's like a slow decompression."
"Commander, there's a roadblock ahead!" Susanna tried to manoeuvre around a huge meteor that seemed to come at them almost at the speed of light, when suddenly it disappeared! At the same time it reappeared from the wall of the tunnel, and it crashed into Constellation. A second crash followed: the same meteor? It knocked out some of the sensors.
April shouted, "We've lost the life detectors, Commodore! And it's dark at four o'clock!"
Another smash. An immense noise. Christina felt herself ripped out of her safety belt and thrown across her work area, then snapped back. Did she lose consciousness for a moment? She did not know, but she noticed that the bridge crew had all been knocked out of their safety belts, too, and that the bridge was in disorder. Martin was checking the rest of the crew.
"Security A-2, come in!"
No answer.
"Security A-2, are you there?"
"Security A-2 here, Commander. This is Ensign Mgamba. Please send help at once. We have two fires in the room, gaping holes in the interior walls, cracks in the ceiling. Several persons are injured. We have called for emergency medics."
"Mgamba, evacuate all the injured at once. Extinguish the fires, then have the team leave the area. Evacuate all ajacent rooms. Seal off that portion of Decks 7 and 8 where monitors show heavy damage. Do this at once!"
"We have heard the orders, and we are following them already, sir. Mgamba signing off."
The situation was grave in other sectors, but Kwali's alarm was evident when he scanned his support system measures.
"Commodore! Gravity has fallen so much that in some rooms the crew is beginning to float."
Spirals of formless blobs, maybe some exotic matter, swirled past Constellation. Some seemed to be clinging to the side of the craft. It was not clear if it was a life form or not, if it could eat away the alloy of Constellation's exterior. But then it disappeared, only to show up in the engine rooms, where Kwali had gone to help his staff make repairs on damaged conduits. Then it disappeared again!
Christina surveyed the damage as she knew it. She feared the worst for the crew. At moments of extreme tension, she tended to drop the formal address required by Space Fleet protocol. She barked out orders over the increasing din of the control room.
"Martin, have everyone get prepared to use auxiliary life-support systems. Kwali, try to get the back-up system ready for instant use. Watch out, Susanna! A meteor!"
Too late! the meteor hit Constellation head on, knocking it off course.
"Damage report, Kwali! As soon as possible!"
"We're working on that, Commodore. The main system just kicked out, maybe it was hit by whatever that was. We got the back-up online just in time."
"Susanna, make sure we can fly straight. You might have to compensate to starboard after that hit."
"That tactic seems to be working, Commodore. If only I can keep avoiding these things. They loom up at you, veer off unexpectedly, show up somewhere else, hit you from nowhere! What are they, some kind of quantum meteors?"
"Commodore, the sensors are picking up a light source that seems to be permanently surrounding us. It's going to overwhelm us! It's like trapped photons! They'll kill our sensors."
"Quick, drop the level of intensity of the light sensors. What's that in front of us? Watch out! It looks like a huge rock! We've gone right through it!"
It was amazing: a boulder growing in size as it came out of the tunnel wall! The great craft went through it as though it were a cloud of vapor! But no, the rock, huge indeed, came down directly on the upper roof of the craft and exploded with a huge noise. The exterior walls of Constellation were shattered at the point of impact, sector R, levels 15 and 16. The force shields had become ineffective.
"Kwali, any word on damage?"
"The earlier damage is severe. Martin is moving the crew to safer areas, away from the periphery of the craft. We are evacuating all the exterior rooms, just in case. There is significant damage to the exterior and to about 15% of the interior. Surely it's twice that, with the latest explosion! We are putting out fires, cutting cable links, evacuating whole sectors."
"And the medical report?"
It was mixed, at best. "Heavy casualties as far as numbers are concerned, but there are no deaths and no life-threatening injuries to report so far, Commodore."
"Thank you, Mujama. I suspect you'll be busy for a while."
"Colombina, try to make sense of what is happening."
A thundering crash prevented Christina from saying anything more. A boulder seemed to fly past them and go through the wall without tearing it, but at the same time from another direction it tore a hole in the wall before coming to rest at April's feet. A smoldering fire was about to break out. The fire prevention system was not functioning. Martin raced for the extinguisher and contained the fire.
"We've lost all but two visual sensors, Commodore."
"Susanna, do you think you can keep on avoiding whatever comes your way?"
"I can't avoid what I can't see, Commodore. But I do see another of those blobs."
"Get prepared to switch controls back to Colombina. Meanwhile, if you can't avoid them, try heading straight towards them!"
" Colombina, have you been able to figure out what's going wrong? This looks to me like some of the things we saw when we first encountered hyperspace a few centuries ago."
"I am constantly updating the program as new data is being fed in, but I have not been able to calculate a safer way to fly. The information you have given me does not help because I do not have data on those events."
"Try feeding irregular, chaotic and random moves, but always going forward. A strange attractor mode!"
"That seems irrational, Commodore. It would be better if we..."
Another direct hit. More damage. Engineering could not possibly get to this while they're working on other serious damage. I have to make a quick decision: to save lives, or to risk further damage to the ship. But if the ship blows apart, no lives will be saved. No time for hesitation, to be or not to be!
"Seal off all the external compartments, Kwali! And Colombina, don't reason with me: do as I say!"
"It will take me some time to set things up, Commodore. Three minutes, perhaps."
At about this time, Kwali realized that what they were seeing was a series of "windows" to the sixth dimension, which moved randomly about, sometimes presenting the "outside," other times showing the "inside," and other times views from other points of perspective. And always, they seemed to come back to where they started, except the crew of Constellation knew that they were advancing at incalculable speeds through the tunnel. Escher? Picasso? Artists always seem to be ahead of science. It was like a surrealist movie, or a horror dream, or like walking in hyperspace. This is what Christina had wanted to get across to Colombina. Kwali reported his thoughts and ideas to Christina, who had Colombina add that to her calculations, which added a couple of long minutes to the time before her program would be complete. At last the moment came.
"Calculations complete, Christina."
"Good. Execute the program!"
Colombina took control of the ship, or rather it flew itself following the new course she had laid down.
Suddenly, they saw what looked like ordinary space, just up ahead! Was it a mirage, like much of what they'd been experiencing? Or was it real, like those meteor holes and the fires and the injuries and the untold damage they'd encountered so far?
"Real space up ahead, Christina. We should reach it in a minute. At the most."
"I hope you're right, Colombina. I don't know how much more Constellation can take."
Again, time seemed to stop in its tracks. Thirty seconds went by as slowly as an hour. Another ten seconds. In all this time Constellation kept hurtling forward, lurching unpredictably, glancing off the wall of the tunnel, striking, or rather sliding by, an occasional meteor. Finally, delivery! Christina looked at the clock. "They said it would take less than an hour; it took us 57 minutes. I hope we'll never have to repeat that again."
Once out of the wormhole, the full gravitational field recovered to full strength. The process of regravitation had already begun, but under the circumstances, no one had noticed. And no one was admiring the heavens in this part of the galaxy, stars that no human eyes had ever seen before. April, though, shivered as she focused the two remaining sensors back at the site of their disastrous journey.
"Look, Commodore, the wormhole gateway looks friendly. Look at how gracefully it's swaying! If I didn't know better, I'd think it was inviting us to come back in."
Christina spoke to her computer. "Colombina, use a portion of your calculating power to analyze what we went through. If we know what went right, and why, we should be able to avoid that kind of danger on the way back."
"I do not understand why your irrational command worked. If I can solve that problem I might be able to give us a better picture of how to cope with the sixth dimension, and not just for the trip back."
"Sometimes we humans have intuitive responses that even the best of our computers can't have. Logic, no matter how powerful, sometimes can't deal with the unknown. Or maybe I was just lucky."
"Luck does not compute, Christina. But neither did your instructions."

Mujama reported that, by some extraordinary stroke of luck, there were no deaths. There was, however, almost no personnel not wounded. Most had suffered bruises; there were a few broken bones, some damage to organs. No life-threatening injuries were reported. Within two weeks everyone was able to function normally, or as normally as possible, given the circumstances.
The technical crews first set about to restore the main life-support system, then to assess damage to the various subordinate computers that, along with Colombina, made the giant spaceship work. It seemed that kilometers of cables had been damaged or destroyed, ventilators blocked, secondary computers broken, some destroyed. Fortunately, the engine room and the colliders were untouched. However, some of the spare parts, stored in a room with an blown-out exterior wall in Sector R, Level 15, were lost to space. Christina shuddered at the sudden reminder of her near-death experience on Aphrodite.
The security and maintenance crews went to work immediately to do the first priority repairs. Constellation had some self-repair capacity, but the damage was far too extensive for automatic repairs to do the complete job, or even a quarter of it. Once the internal structures were stabilized, beams replaced, temporary walls installed, Martin looked at his next task. By contrast with what remained to be done, this had been a cakewalk. "Just a few rivets to put in place," he joked.
The sensors were another problem altogether. Constellation could not dare venture farther until most of them were restored to at least basic functionality. But that could not be done until the very heavy damage inflicted on the ship's exterior could be repaired. Three gaping holes, and much smoothing out of dented alloy. This repair became the chief occupation of those who were sound of limb, the highest priority. It would require that most dreaded of long-term repair jobs, those that take place in the weightlessness of outer space. Space walks look exciting to those who don't have to do them; they are frightening to those who are asked to put their lives on the line to face the near absolute zero world of space virtually alone. Kwali and his team of engineers and mechanics joined forces with Martin and his double crew of security forces and maintenance. Kwali and Martin worked out plans to require the minimum amount of time outside, so as to reduce the risks of this type of work. And to encourage their workers to face the perils of heavy construction in outer space, they were themselves among the first to go out to assess the damage and to begin gradually rebuilding this huge ship.
Real heroics are sometimes found in the unglamorous acts of everyday life.