"But you said-"
"I promised you that you would be off the Thermopylae for good if you gave me what I wanted to know, and you are. This is Agrippa, and it's a much smaller ship, comparatively speaking. And while you are under ship's security, you are no longer a prisoner and are free to mix with the others, walk the decks, you name it. Just be aware that if you or anyone else without the proper security codes tries to, oh, disengage a lifeboat or raid a weapons locker or something of that sort they will get a nasty and very painful experience and will, from that point, be locked away in a padded cell in the brig wearing nothing but a smile."
"But I could have gone at any time! I don't wish to go!"
"Nevertheless, you are going. We are lining up on your coordinates even as we speak. And if we don't come out the other end at the Three Kings, you will have more than a little explaining to do. It is one of the major reasons you're here. If you have anything to tell me that we don't know about what's on the other end and what might be expected or not, you'd better tell us soon, because whatever happens to us from this point on also happens to you."
"This is beyond even your powers! I demand to be returned at once!"
"Remember our weighty conversation? Power is everything, isn't it? Your money means nothing here, nothing to me anyway, or the others. You might be able to buy Murphy, but he can't drive this ship."
They had kept it from him until just now, when they lay off the region of wild holes waiting for the correct mathematical match to pop in. That could be any time, and at that point Chung would have to instantly commit or abort. Wild holes were unstable; they popped in and out like soap bubbles and lasted in most cases only fractions of a second before "bursting," closing up and ceasing to exist once more. Only by putting a ship and its energy field into that hole at precisely the moment it was open could they stabilize it. Once inside, they could ride through it to the other end even as it closed itself back down. Not only space, but time itself, would be bent and twisted. It was why the route to the Three Kings had been so difficult to find even if you knew in what region to look for the entrance on the human end, and why it was as hard or harder to find your way back if you made it.
"I-I don't know if the numbers work! They're the right numbers!" Macouri insisted. "They're the ones everybody else used. Who knows where they actually go? I-I-Oh, god! Don't make me go in one of those!"
Maslovic grinned, feeling no sympathy for the murdering little fart. "Did I hear you just call on God? That might not be the best way to go there, I wouldn't think. Not if you meet your old master on the other side."
It was too much for the little man. He stood up and tried to look his captor straight in the eyes while getting his blood pressure down enough so he wasn't totally beet red. It didn't happen.
"I am Georgi Macouri!" he thundered, as authoritative as anyone could sound. "You can't do this to me!"
"You're the same mix of a few cheap chemicals and water, born little different than anyone else and destined to die like all of us and go back to those components," Maslovic shot back. "You have the same value to me as those girls you slaughtered had to you. How's it feel now, Georgi? What the hell ever gave you the idea that you were somehow immune?"
There was dead silence for a moment as the reality of that seeped into Macouri's brain. While it was still percolating, Chung's voice came over the public address.
"Attention! Please be seated at a secure station. Strap yourselves in if possible or hold on. The mathematical progression of hole formations is following the correct formula we were given. I will sound the alarm. At any point after that, we may have to go in fast and hard."
Macouri's mind suddenly shifted to the imminent. "How many times has she jumped through a wild hole in a ship this size?" he asked nervously.
"Never, as far as I know, except in simulation the past few days. Relax. Size doesn't matter as much on this one, I'm told, and the ship's own systems know what to do. I'm belting in. You should do the same."
Almost at the end of his sentence the warning klaxon sounded throughout the ship. Almost everyone else was already lying down and secured or belted in a proper jump chair.
"NEVER???" Georgi Macouri's voice sounded even as the ship suddenly accelerated from a near coast to fantastic speeds and headed for what the Macouri formula said would be the wild hole to the Three Kings.
"Definitely not what I expected," Darch commented. Although his primary job was security on this mission, he was also the de facto head of the entire science department aboard the ship. In fact, except for the computerized labs and research programs, he was the entire science department. "In fact, what I am seeing not only I but all our science computers say is damned near impossible."
They were lying several million kilometers back from the mini system, far enough outsystem that they could see both the strange dense star and the close-in massive gas giant as well. The visible-light screen view was impressive; it was almost as if they were looking at two suns, one on fire, the other not.
"Science is not my strong point," Maslovic told him. "In fact, I believe it because the folks who know it tell me about it."
"This kind of system is unprecedented, and for good reason," Darch explained, not just to his boss but to all of them. "The kind of gravitational forces I'm reading show that there is simply no way this system can be in this kind of stable formation. This is a system that should be at war, pulling things apart, pulling others in for incineration. That kind of star shouldn't even have planets. The turbulence on the big gas giant is an indicator of just how nasty things should be. These kinds of forces are why that wild hole field is where it is." He exhaled and shook his head. "No, I don't even envy the captain keeping us in any kind of stable orbit anywhere around here. No wonder almost nobody came back. Anybody who came along here who wasn't the best would have been sucked in or flung down and crashed. This kind of system makes no sense. It can't exist like this if physics is to be believed. There has to be a third force here, something not showing up on our instruments, that acts as the stabilizing constant between the warring sides. Otherwise it's voodoo, Chief. It's magic."
"I knew it! I knew it!" Macouri muttered. "This is Hell! The seat of the Powers of Darkness! Oh, my! Oh, my!"
Maslovic totally ignored him. "Any idea of the force?"
"Well, in one sense our quaking friend here is right. In a good simulator I might well be able to build this thing. Sure, this is the universe. Anything's possible out here, or so it seems, but it would be a lot easier to build it than to wait to find it, maybe, naturally, including some mysterious third force we haven't seen anywhere else."
Maslovic turned and looked at him. "And you could create a third force?"
"Maybe. It wouldn't probably work here, or be much like here, but I could kludge it. This, now-this is no kludge. This was designed. This was engineered. I'd bet anything I had that this whole damned place was built."
"Well, we sure couldn't build it," Broz noted.
"Irrelevant," Maslovic told her.
"Huh?"
"If it was built, and I defer to the experts on that, then the question isn't how, not unless you want to build another and I have no desire to do that. The question is why."