“And the other generators?”
“Number three has had all its electrical connections severed. I’ve got a crew working on hooking it back up again, but I don’t know if we’ve got enough wide-gauge fiber-optic cable in stock to do the job; we may have to manufacture some. Anyway, until we get it back on-line, we won’t be able to use the main engines. One of the other Waldahud ships had started carving out the number-one generator, as well. That’s the one that quit, causing the power failure. We should be able to repair that damage, though.”
“And what about the docking bays?”
“Bay sixteen is filled with frozen water,” said Lianne. “Also, three of the five probeships that were involved in the battle are in need of repairs.”
“But we’re still spaceworthy?” asked Keith.
“I want to schedule about three weeks in dock for repairs, but, yes, we’re in no immediate danger.”
Keith nodded. “In that case, Thor, as soon as Lianne says we’re ready for powered flight, I’ll want you to plot a course through the shortcut that will pop us out where we started, back near the green star.”
Thor’s orange eyebrows lifted. “I know you want to rescue the Rumrunner, Keith, but if they survived, Longbottle will have already taken them out of there through the shortcut.”
“Probably so, but that’s not why I want to go back.” He looked over at Rhombus. “You were right a few minutes ago, my rolling friend. I’ve got to keep my priorities straight. Contact with other life is why Starplex was built in the first place. I’m not going to let the Commonwealth become like the Slammers, cutting off all communication because of a misunderstanding. I want to talk to the darmats again.”
“They tried to kill us,” said Thor.
Keith raised a hand. “I’m not feel enough to give them a second chance to toss us into the green star. Can you plot a course that will bring us out of the shortcut, whip us around that star, then bring us back to the shortcut, diving through on a vector that will take us out at the Flatland 368A exit?”
Thor considered for a moment. “I can do that, yes. But F368A? Not New Beijing?”
“For all we know, the attack on Starplex was not an isolated event. New Beijing may be under siege. I want to go to a neutral location.” A pause. “Now, with the course I’ve described, will the darmats be able to grab us again?”
Thor shook his head. “Not at the speed we’ll be going, unless they’re all lying in wait for us just outside the exit.”
“Rhombus,” said Keith, “as soon as Lianne’s got the appropriate systems back on-line, send a probe through to the green-star exit. Include a hyperspace scanner on it so you can locate the darmats by the dents they make in spacetime. Also, have it do a wide-spectrum radio scan, in case Waldahud reinforcements have arrived. And”—Keith tried to keep his voice calm—“have it check for the Rumrunner’s transponder code.”
“It’ll be at least thirty minutes before we can do that,” said Lianne.
Keith pursed his lips, and thought about Rissa. If she were gone, it would take all the billions of years he had left to get over the loss. He looked at the smudges of galactic light against the abyss. He didn’t even know which direction to look in, which way to concentrate his thoughts. He felt incredibly small, insignificant, and lonely beyond belief. There was nothing to focus on in the holo bubble—nothing sharp, nothing well defined. Just an abyss—an ego-crashing emptiness.
Suddenly there was a strange sound like a dog’s cough from his left; PHANTOM translated it as an expression of “absolute astonishment.” Keith turned to face Jag, and his mouth hung open as he stared at the Waldahud. He’d never seen Jag’s fur do that before. “What’s wrong?”
“I—I know where we are,” said Jag.
Keith looked at him. “Yes?”
“You’re aware that the Milky Way and Andromeda have about forty smaller galaxies bound to them gravitationally, right?” said Jag.
“The Local Group,” said Keith, irritated.
“Exactly,” said Jag. “Well, I started off by trying to find some of the Local Group’s distinctive features, such as superbright S Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud. But that didn’t work. So I sorted the catalog of known extragalactic pulsars by distance—which corresponds to age, of course—and used their signature radio pulses to orient myself.”
“Yes, yes,” said Keith. “And?”
“And the closest galaxy to us right now is that one there.” Jag pointed beneath his feet to a fuzzy spot in the hologram. “It’s about five hundred thousand light-years from here. I have identified it as CGC 1008; it has several unique attributes.”
“All right,” said Keith, sharply. “We’re half a million light-years from CGC 1008. Now, for us nonastrophysics types, how far is CGC 1008 from the Milky Way?”
Jag’s barking was subdued, almost soft. “We are,” said the translated voice, “six billion light-years from home.”
“Six… billion?” asked Thor, turning to face Jag.
Jag lifted his upper shoulders. “That is correct,” he said, his voice still soft.
“That’s… staggering,” said Keith.
Jag lifted his upper shoulders. “Six billion light-years. Sixty thousand times the Milky Way’s own diameter. Twenty-seven hundred times the distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda.” He looked at Keith. “In terms you nonastrophysics types might use, one hell of a long way.”
“Can we see the Milky Way from here?” asked Keith.
Jag made a gesture with his arms. “Oh, yes,” he said, his barking still subdued. “Yes, indeed. Central Computer, magnify sector 112.”
A border appeared around a portion of the holographic bubble. Jag left his workstation and walked toward it. He squinted for a moment, getting his bearings. “There,” he said, pointing. “That one there. And that’s Andromeda next to it. And this is M33, the third-largest member of the Local Group.”
Rhombus’s lights twinkled in confusion. “Boundless apologies, but that can’t be right, good Jag. Those aren’t spiral galaxies. They look more like disks.”
“I’m not mistaken,” said Jag. “That is the Milky Way. Since we are now six billion light-years from it, we are seeing it as it looked six billion years ago.”
“Are you sure?” said Keith.
“I am positive. Once the pulsars had told me approximately where to look, it was easy enough to identify which galaxy was the Milky Way, which was Andromeda, and so on. The Magellanic Clouds are too young for any light from them to have reached this far out, but globular clusters contain almost exclusively ancient first-generation stars, and I’ve identified several specific globulars associated with both the Milky Way and Andromeda. I am sure of it—that simple disk of star is our home galaxy.”
“But the Milky Way has spiral arms,” said Lianne.
Jag turned to her. “Yes, without question, the Milky Way today has spiral arms. And, just as surely, I can now say that when it was six billion years younger, it did not have spiral.
“How can that be?” asked Thor.
“That,” said Jag, “is a vexing question. I confess that I would have expected a Milky Way even half its present age to still have arms.”
“Okay,” said Keith. “So the Milky Way gains spiral arms sometime in the interim.”
“No, it is not okay,” said Jag, his bark returning to its usual sharpness. “In fact, it has never made any sense. We’ve never had a good model for galactic spiral-arm formation. Most models are based on differential rotation—the fact that stars near the galactic center make several orbits around the core in the time it takes for those farther out to complete just one. But any arms that resulted because of that should be temporary phenomena, enduring at most for a billion years. Oh, we should see some spiral galaxies, but there is no way that three out of every four large galaxies should be spirals—which is the ratio we actually observe. Ellipticals should far outnumber spirals, but they do not.”