“Its lucky for them that you’re not intelligent,” she muttered to herself as she continued to probe the black hole. A group of rather weird Technical Faction researchers had once speculated that intelligent life might develop within a black hole, or that one of the races trying to hide from the Killers might hide inside a black hole. Their theories had provided Paula with some minor amusement, but she hadn’t believed them, even before she’d confirmed her theory that the Killers used black holes for power. An intelligent black hole would probably have fought back against such abuse. “If I do this…”
Another hour passed before she finally felt that she had gained complete control over the gravity field. It seemed to spin in and out from the event horizon — she had expected a simple field, but her gravity beams seemed to be reshaping it somehow — yet she had it jumping at her command. It hadn’t been easy, but when she sat back, she knew that she had duplicated one of the Killer tricks. She, too, had enslaved a black hole.
“You need to rest now,” Chris said, rubbing the back of her neck. Under other circumstances, she would have relaxed into his touch and seen where events led, but now she could barely keep her eyes open. Her implants were flickering up all kinds of different alarms. She needed food, drink, a shower and bed, perhaps not in that order. “Come on.”
She was barely aware of his strong arms picking her up and she had blacked out completely by the time he lowered her into her bed. Her implants had been configured to put her deep under for at least eight hours, yet somehow she still dreamed, tormented by visions of a demonic black hole screaming under her touch. The thought snapped her out of her rest far too early and she felt her head spinning before she pushed herself back down into the bed and fell asleep again. Chris didn’t wake her at the end of the eight hours and it was nearly twelve before she pulled herself awake again. The MassMind, at least, never slept.
“The black hole is still under your control,” it said, when she asked. “We have not attempted to do anything beyond studying the exact nature of our control and how we can amplify and simplify the process.”
Paula nodded, midway through stripping off her tunic and stepping into the shower. “And have you deduced anything new?”
“We have altered the control routines slightly,” the MassMind confirmed, as the hot water began to wash away the dirt and grime she had somehow acuminated on her figure. “Your original models actually used too much power in the later stages and we have compensated for that. There are — as yet — no requirements for further modification.”
“Well, thank heaven for that,” Paula said, tartly. The water felt so good. The sonic massage felt even better. It slowly worked all of the kinks out of her body. “I was starting to wonder if I was still needed.”
The MassMind, perhaps wisely, didn’t bother to answer. Paula smiled to herself and leaned back in the shower, allowing the water to run over every inch of her body, before she stepped out. The force curtain between the shower and the remainder of the room tingled over her breasts as it wiped away all the water, forcing an involuntary gasp from her lips, leaving her perfectly dry. She pulled out a new tunic, provided by the tiny civilian-grade fabricator in the room, and dressed quickly. Her night had been rough, but at least she felt human again.
”Thank you for putting me to bed,” she said, as she entered the control room and saw Chris on the other side, reading a datapad with a darkening face. It could have been anything from a military manual to a pornographic video, but she guessed from his expression that it was news from the war fronts. Mankind and the Killers were trying their best to exterminate each other. “I hope you didn’t touch anything.”
“I’m not that dumb,” Chris said, with a wink. Paula had to smile at his mock-offended expression. He really was remarkably attractive. “I just sat here and waited for you.”
“And didn’t take any sleep yourself,” Paula concluded. She shook her head. “You ought to go sleep now.”
She grinned at his protests and sat down again in front of the display. Shiva looked as it had always looked on the visual display, but on the gravimetric display it looked very different, a massive source of power at her disposal. She checked through the MassMind-produced alterations quickly and smiled inwardly; the MassMind had improved the whole system, even though it had barely touched the original algorithms she had created. It had anticipated her plan and provided her with routines that would allow her to reach out to the entire system with powerful gravity beams… or much further, given enough power.
“Simulate something for me,” she said, knowing that the MassMind would hear. “What would happen if I were to use the gravity beams to pull the other planets into the black hole?”
The MassMind had clearly been thinking about it itself, for there was no delay in throwing up the image in front of her. The black hole would not have any problems in consuming the two planets, even though it would take ours to pull them back into the sinkhole and get them set on course towards the event horizon, but it would throw out more radiation, disrupting her control. It would have to be tried, later, but for the moment she intended to leave it. She had a more important task.
“All right,” she said, slowly. “Show me the data on the Killer black holes.”
It expanded out in front of her and she smiled. “Let’s start vibrating, shall we?” She asked. “I want to start a low-level vibration… now.”
She had worked it out carefully and she knew that this was the tensest moment of all. The Killers could hardly fail to notice if she attempted to form a wormhole between Shiva and one of their black holes, but if she was careful… she might be able to slip a tap into the Killer communications network. The combination of her planning and the MassMind-powered computing systems would allow her to read their communications traffic, although she doubted she’d understand it at first. Chris had once told her that most humans didn’t bother with encrypting messages sent through the quantum entanglement network — after all, they knew that it was impossible to intercept the messages — but the Killers were alien. The MassMind, for all of its power, might not be able to untangle their messages for years to come.
“The vibration is underway,” the MassMind confirmed. The display updated rapidly, showing the gravity field twisting and bending out of shape. It wasn’t crossing thousands of light years so much as it was bringing the light years to Shiva. “We are attempting to synchronise with the Killer black hole network.”
Paula nodded. One thing was fairly clear from both theory and practice; the Killers probably used one network of black holes, all operating on the same vibration frequency. They could — probably — have several other networks operating at the same time, assuming that they had different political factions as well, but their main network should all use the same frequency. It was the only thing that would keep the network together. Logically, the most common observed vibration pattern should be their common network…
“Let me know the moment you get a response,” Paula ordered, tersely. She had no idea what form that response would take. In theory, the Killers might simply create a wormhole and dispatch a starship through the bridge to slap the imprudent humans down. Part of her hoped they would try just that. Her control over the black hole was far from perfect, but she was sure that she could crush any unwanted visitor if it came out of Shiva. “Keep the emergency program on standby.”