They finally reached a spot near the center of the crater and started hunting around. It took them nearly an hour but, sure enough, there was the little black box, sitting in the dirt as if it had fallen there, entirely unharmed.
“This is just bizarre,” Bill said, shaking his head and picking up the box. “It’s not even warm.”
“I am,” Miller said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“We’re going to need to find another world to blow up,” Bill replied, starting his four-wheeler.
“Damn,” Miller said as they cleared the gate. They’d waited a few hours for the area to cool off but there was still a tornadic wind blowing dust around. “What did you do this time, Doc?”
“Look at the sky,” Bill said, wonderingly. Clouds were running in every direction as if the entire atmosphere of the planet had been disturbed. As it should have been given the incredible mass of dirt in view. The explosion had apparently dug an even bigger crater and the side of it looked like a small mountain range. “I hope like hell we didn’t dig to the mantle!”
“We’re going to need more people to help hunt for it this time,” Miller said. “Next time, we’re not going to use as much juice.”
“It was a car battery!” Bill snapped. “How was I supposed to believe twelve friggin’ volts would cause this sort of explosion? There is no rational explanation for this!”
“Holy Toledo,” Miller said, wonderingly. He hit the gas jets on his EVA pack and turned around. Sure enough, the gate was floating in space. “Didn’t we just put this thing down on a planet yesterday?”
“That’s not the scary part,” Bill said, spinning around. “Didn’t there used to be a sun?”
“Uh…” Miller said, spinning himself. Sure enough, the nearest star was far, far away. “Did it move?”
“No, I think it went away,” Bill said, turning and looking out towards what he thought was the plain of elliptic. There might have been a faint line of light out in every direction. “The term we’re looking for here is nova. Maybe supernova.”
“That explains the explosion through the gate,” Miller said. “Good thing we fed it through two planets, first. If it had blown back in Arkansas things would have been bad. By the way, how are we going to find a black box in the middle of interstellar space?”
“We know the direction of the box,” Bill said, sighing. “If it runs to form, it’s going to be floating right where we left it, relative to the gate.”
They jetted outward and found the device in less than fifteen minutes. It appeared to have remained stationary when everything else… went away.
“Right,” Bill said, grasping the enigmatic device and pocketing it. “Three phase current is definitely out.”
“Okay, I think I know what it’s doing and why,” Bill said, addressing the Troika with the addition of the national science advisor. “It’s forming a micro black hole.”
“Now, those I know something about,” the President said. “Wouldn’t stuff be sucked into them?”
“With a stable black hole, yes, Mr. President,” Bill replied. “But a micro black hole is unstable. Theoretically, they were only formed during the big bang. And they don’t hold their matter inside, but let it out. What happens, I think, is that the device grabs all the matter in a certain area, based upon input, and uses it to form a black hole. But part of that matter is its power input system. When that goes away, the hole destabilizes and releases all the trapped matter as energy.”
“Causing a very big bang,” the national security advisor said.
“A very big bang,” Bill said, nodding.
“So it’s a bomb,” the secretary of defense said. “A reuseable nuclear hand grenade?”
“Maybe,” Bill said. “Maybe not. I’ve got another idea.”
“Well, don’t leave us guessing, Dr. Weaver,” the national science advisor said, acerbically.
“Well, I got to thinking, sir,” Bill said, musingly. “There was this Star Trek episode where the Romulans were trying to use micro black holes for an improved warp drive…”
“You think it’s a drive system?” the national security advisor said. “Really?”
“Really,” Bill said, grinning. “And I think I can figure out how to apply power to form the black hole off to the side. Using that we can generate a warp field. Theoretically. It makes more sense than a reuseable bomb.”
“Now that’s a very big thought,” the President said, sitting back. “We can go looking for the Dreen. But…”
“There’s a billion ‘buts,’ Mr. President,” Bill said, nodding. “But the major truth is that, yes, we can try to find the Dreen before they find us. And we’ve got a technology we might be able to bootstrap for more ships. I don’t think we can replicate that device but we can start working on something similar.”
“I’m thinking of the international implications,” the President said, frowning. “Everyone is going to want in on this. And, frankly, I don’t know what I want everyone in on it.”
“And a real space ship is not going to be easy,” the secretary of defense said. “I took a look at some of the space stuff for space defense. And I remember there are lot of problems with space ships.”
“Nothing we can’t overcome,” Bill said. “I’ve got the basics in my head. We can get into space, find the Dreen before they find us, fight back. And… heck, explore. We can get into space Mr. President! Not go to the Moon and never go back. Go to other stars!”
“To go where no man has gone before?” the national security advisor asked, smiling.
“If you want to put it that way, ma’am,” Bill replied. “But for science, for safety, we need to try.”
“How much?” the President asked.
“A lot,” Bill admitted. “And if you want to keep it secret, more. But… the basic ship can be built around a submarine design. I think we could even let Groton or BAE build it. They don’t talk. It will have to be big, though, and a big new sub class…”
“Twenty, thirty billion,” the secretary of defense said, wincing. “Getting that through Congress will be hell.”
Bill turned to the President with a look of pleading on his face. “Mr. President?”
The President looked at him for a moment, then looked away in thought. Everyone was silent as he considered the question. Finally he looked at the physicist again.
“Nobody is going to say I sat on my ass when there was a chance to find the Dreen,” the President said, nodding. “Approved. We’ll find the money somehow. It looks like the U.S. is going to get a new class of nuclear submarine. And Dr. Weaver gets to go see his stars.”