“I want a better look at the object at the center,” Picard said. “Maximum magnification, Mr. Hawk.”
The view changed again, and the artifact in question resolved itself into a complicated aggregation of asymmetrical spaceborne structures, clumped together in apparently slapdash fashion into an irregularly hexagonal torus. Geordi and Data exchanged surprised looks after seeing what lay at the object’s open center. It raged at them from within an annular metal structure, which could not have measured more than a kilometer or two in diameter. There, in an extremely compact volume, blazed a primordial inferno–a barely constrained fury so intense that it might have been the cosmic forge in which the universe itself had been made.
“Mon Dieu,”La Forge heard the captain say, apparently to no one in particular.
La Forge, Data, and stellar cartography specialist Ranul Keru stood on the raised central dais of the cavernous, three‑story Stellar Cartography room. Captain Picard and all of the senior officers stood beside the dais, along with Batanides, Zweller, Commander Roget, and Lieutenant Hawk.
Picard gazed briefly at each of the three officers on the dais. “What definitive information can you tell us about the phenomenon out there?” The captain’s voice echoed slightly in the oversize domed chamber.
“Based on our probe’s sensor telemetry,” the engineer said, “the object at the center of those cloaked structures is a subspace singularity.”
“The first one, in fact, ever discovered,” Keru said.
Batanides’s eyebrows rose inquisitively. “Would you explain that a bit for the benefit of those of us who aren’t physicists or engineers, Commander?”
“It’ll be easier if we show you, Admiral,” Keru said as he touched a control surface atop the dais’ wide, swooping handrail. Everyone looked upward as an enormous holographic representation of the turbulent singularity– the roiling fireball at the center of the hexagonal Romulan array–suddenly appeared in midair, filling half of the map room’s arch‑ceilinged display space. As La Forge studied the spectacular image, he felt his fatigue draining away. Pure, adrenaline‑fueled wonder took its place.
“What you are seeing,” Data said, “is the singularity’s event horizon, the boundary past which all infalling matter or energy–in this case, the solar wind from the Chiarosan star–becomes crushed to infinite density at the object’s center. That region is invisible, since even light cannot escape it. The turbulent band of exterior material which you cansee is located on the event horizon’s periphery, where the object’s powerful gravitational field is accelerating it into various forms of lethal hard radiation, such as delta particles and berthold rays.”
La Forge saw Hawk and Keru exchange a worried glance. “How can a network of cloaking devices contain radiation as powerful as that?” Hawk said.
Keru shrugged, prompting La Forge to respond to Hawk’s question. “It can’t. The innermost sections of the Romulan facility seem to be doing that. The cloaking network’s function is to keep the whole thing invisible and subspace‑silent, along with a large volume of the surrounding space.”
“In fact,” Data said, “the entire apparatus may have been here for decades. Sensor telemetry shows that it orbits the Chiarosan star at a mean distance of about 800 million kilometers, about 650 million kilometers farther out, on average, than the orbit of Chiaros IV. Given the turbulent atmosphere on that planet, it is unlikely that the Chiarosans ever would have discovered it on their own.”
“Strange,” Batanides said blandly. “It looks like the event horizon of a typical, garden‑variety black hole to me. Albeit a bit more spectacular.”
“It’s very similar, Admiral, but there’s one critical difference,” La Forge said. “The object’s singularity–that is, its point of infinite compression–lies in subspace instead of in normal space. For the moment, that’s where most of its effects are confined.”
“However,” Data added, “local space–time curvature measurements show that the object’s tremendous gravitational field has been steadily weakening the boundary between normal space and subspace, perhaps for billions of years.”
“And now it finally has the potential to have serious effects on normal space,” Keru added.
Zweller shook his head in apparent disbelief. “If this object has such a strong gravitational field, then why hasn’t it affected the orbits of the planets in this system?”
“Good point,” said the engineer. “My guess is that the object’s gravitational influence is also largely confined to subspace. Along with most of its radiation output.”
“That still doesn’t explain why no Federation ship ever detected it earlier,” said Crusher. “Say, from its subspace radio noise.”
“The singularity’s subspace emissions occur at much higher frequencies than those most starfaring cultures use for communications,” Data explained. “Other normalspace phenomena, such as Chiaros IV’s atmosphere and magnetosphere, generate far more noticeable interference in the communications bands.”
“The Romulans obviously stumbled upon the phenomenon first,” Picard said. “We’ve just come in a distant second.”
“Or maybe third,” Zweller said quietly. “The Slaytongot here before the Enterprisedid.” To La Forge’s broadband visual receptors, the man looked ashen, as though something had just gone radically awry with his cardiovascular system. But other than Counselor Troi–who was also gifted with unusual perceptions–no one else seemed to notice Zweller’s apparent change of mood. Nevertheless, all eyes were now on Zweller, who had lapsed into silence.
It was Commander Roget who finally spoke up. “A couple of months before the Slaytonentered the Geminus Gulf, the Argus Array picked up some unusual subspace distortion waves centered on this system. They were far too infrequent and intermittent to pin down to an exact epicenter.”
“I am familiar with the Argus information,” Data said with enthusiasm. “It is possible that the Romulans must periodically release some of their excess subspace energy into normal space, energy that manifests itself as subspace distortions.”
“That might explain those subspace ‘hiccups’ we’ve been picking up over the past few hours,” Riker said.
“And why the Romulan ambassador seemed so anxious for us to leave the area,” Picard said. “Perhaps she knew that her countrymen were likely to spill some of their excess subspace energy today, and didn’t want us nearby asking questions about it.”
Roget shrugged. “It’s also possible that the Romulans simply can’t control the singularity as well as they think they can. There didn’t seem to be any regular pattern to the distortions, after all. And the Slaytoncouldn’t detect them at all–at least, not before she was destroyed.”
“You think that the Slaytonencountered the phenomenon after your shuttlecraft left for Chiaros IV,” Troi said.
Roget nodded, his expression grim. “And I also think that those Romulan bastards destroyed her for getting too close to their secret energy project.”
La Forge glanced once more at Zweller, noting that he was growing steadily paler in the infrared frequency band.
“The Romulans would certainly be highly motivated to keep this phenomenon under wraps until they’ve formally taken control of the Geminus Gulf,” Picard said.
“And that motivation wouldseem to implicate them in the Slayton’s destruction,” Data said. “They have found what may be the most powerful object ever discovered; as long as they can keep the bulk of the phenomenon’s radiation and gravitational effects ‘bottled’ in subspace, so to speak, they will have access to virtually unlimited quantities of energy.”