Vonda McIntyre - The Entropy Effect

“I’ll start it, then,” she said. “My friends call me Mandala. Do you use another name?” She had never heard anyone call him anything but Sulu.

“I don’t, usually,” he said “But...”

Mandala waited a few moments. “’But’?”

He glanced away from her. “When I tell people my first name, if they know Japanese, they laugh.”

“And if they don’t know Japanese?”

“They ask me what it means, I tell them, and then they laugh.”

“I can match anyone in the weird name combination department,” Mandala said.

“My given name is Hikaru.”

She did not laugh. “That’s beautiful. And it fits.”

He started to blush. “You know what it means.”

“Sure. Hikaru, the shining one. Is it from the novel?”

“Yes,” he said, surprised. “You’re the only person outside my immediate family I ever met who’s even heard of the Tale of Genji .”

She looked at his eyes. He glanced away, glanced back, and then, suddenly, their gazes locked.

“May I call you Hikaru?” Mandala asked, trying to keep her voice steady. He had beautiful, deep, brown eyes that never lost their humor.

“I wish you would,” he said softly.

The intercom on the wall whistled, startling them both.

“Mr. Sulu to the bridge! On the double!”

Hikaru sank slowly down till he was completely immersed in the hot water. A moment later, he erupted like an outraged dolphin, swung himself out of the tub, and stood dripping on the tile.

“They can find you anywhere!” he shouted, grabbed his towel, and slapped the response button on the intercom panel. “I’m on my way!” He glanced back toward Mandala, who had already got out of the water. “I—”

“Go on,” she said. Her adrenaline level shot up; her heart pounded. “We can talk later. Gods only know what’s happened.”

“Good lord,” he said. “You’re right.” He hurried into the locker room, pulled his pants on fast, and left carrying his boots and shirt. Mandala dressed almost as quickly; she knew security could do very little if the singularity were about to snatch them and gobble them down, but she wanted to be ready for anything.

In the observatory of the Enterprise , Mr. Spock stared thoughtfully at his computer’s readout. It still did not show anything like what he had expected. He wanted to go through the preliminary analysis again, but it was nearly time to take another instrument reading. He was most anxious to obtain as many extremely accurate observational points as possible.

Since he was to report to Starfleet, and Starfleet was based on Earth, Spock thought about the naked

singularity in terms of Earth’s scientific traditions. The theories of Tipler and of Penrose were, in fact, the most useful in analyzing the phenomenon. So far, however, Spock had found no explanation for the abrupt appearance of a naked singularity. He expected it to behave in a peculiar fashion, but it was behaving even more peculiarly than theory predicted. The interstellar dust that it was sucking up should cause it to form an event horizon, but it was doing no such thing. If the singularity was growing at all, it was expanding into and through dimensions Spock could not even observe.

But Spock had discovered something. The wave functions that described the singularity contained entropic terms such as he had never seen before, terms so unusual they surprised even him.

Many scientific discoveries occur when the observer notices an unexpected, unlikely, even apparently impossible event, and follows it up rather than discarding it as nonsense. Spock was aware of this, never so much as now.

If the first analysis of the data held up in replication, the results would spread shock waves throughout the entire scientific community, and into the public consciousness as well. If the first analysis held up: it was possible that he had made a mistake, or even that the design of his apparatus was causing unsuspected error.

Spock sat down at his instruments, centered and focussed them, and checked the adjustments.

The Enterprise approached a gap in the accretion sphere around the singularity, a region where the X-ray storms ebbed abruptly and an observer could stare down into the eerily featureless mystery that twisted space and time and reason.

But as Spock’s battery of measuring devices scanned the singularity, the Enterprise suddenly and without warning accelerated to full power, ploughed back into the disintegrating matter and energy, burst through to deep space, and fled toward the stars.

Spock slowly rose to his feet, unable to believe what had happened. For weeks the Enterprise had withstood the chaotic twists and turns of spatial dimension: now, so close to the end of his observations, the whole second series of measurements was destroyed. He needed the replication, for all alternate possibilities had to be ruled out. The ramifications of what he had discovered were tremendous.

If his preliminary conclusions were correct, the expected life of the universe was not thousands of millions of years.

It was, for all practical purposes, less than a century.

The Enterprise sped through interstellar space at a warp factor that badly strained the already overworked engines.

At least Mr. Sulu got us out of there with his usual precision, Jim Kirk thought, sitting at his place on the bridge trying to appear calmer than he felt. He had never responded to an ultimate override before.

The door of the turbo lift slid open, and, for the first time in weeks, Mr. Spock came onto the bridge. He had hardly left the observatory since they first reached the singularity. The Vulcan science officer descended to the lower level, stopped beside Kirk, and simply gazed at him, impassively.

“Mr. Spock ...” Kirk said, “I received an ultimate override command. I know you haven’t finished

your work, but the Enterprise had to respond. I have no choice, with an ultimate. I’m very sorry, Mr. Spock.”

“An ultimate override command ...” Spock said. His expression did not change, but Kirk thought he looked rather haggard. All things considered, that was not too surprising.

“Can you salvage anything from your data? Could you reach any conclusion about the singularity at all?”

Spock gazed at the viewscreen. Far ahead, indistinguishable as yet against the brilliant starfield, an ordinary yellow type G star hung waiting for them. Behind them, the singularity lay within its fierce glow.

“The preliminary conclusions were interesting,” Spock said. He clasped his hands behind his back. “However, without the completed replication, the data are all essentially worthless.”

Kirk muttered a curse, and said again, lamely, “I’m sorry.”

“I can see no way in which you are responsible, Captain, nor any logical reason for you to apologize.” Kirk sighed. As always, Spock refused to react to adversity.

It would be a relief ifjust once he’d put his fist through a bulkhead, Jim Kirk thought. If this doesn’t turn out to be extremely serious, I may find something to punch, myself.

“Are you all right, Mr. Spock?” he asked. “You look exhausted.”

“I am all right, Captain.”

“You could go get some rest—it’ll be quite a while before we get close enough to Aleph for me to call general quarters. Why don’t you take a nap?”

“Impossible, Captain.”

“The bridge really can get along without you for a few more hours.”

“I realize that, sir. However, when I began my experiment I psychophysiologically altered my metabolism to permit me to remain alert during the course of my observations. I could return my circadian rhythm to normal now, but it does not seem sensible, to me, to prepare myself for rest when my presence may be required when we reach our destination.”