“You think no one is going to believe you?”
“No one will want to,” Elysen said quietly. “The amount of energy required, even under the conditions ten billion years ago, is staggering. It’s beyond comprehension or rational quantification.”
“There’s so much we can’t determine. How they created or harnessed it, how they managed to focus it…”
“It sounds impossible,” I said. “You don’t think so. Why?”
Elysen chuckled. “First, there’s a missing galaxy. All our observations support that. At one time, there was a galaxy where there is now an empty expanse in space. Second, even the underlying dark matter and the associated atrousans are missing. That has created some gravitational effects in the region that have puzzled astronomers for a good millennium, if not longer. Third, there are observations that suggest certain variations in the value of the speed of light, but those observations only occur in light traversing that region. Fourth—”
“… the building materials on Danann do not function as they were designed, even when we replicate what appear to have been the ambient conditions,” Lazar continued.
“But after billions of year… ?”
“No. They’re exceedingly stable, down to the subquark level. What we know says that you cannot have a stable anomalous metal or composite. The material can be deformed, but not destroyed, at least not by any method we can devise.”
“But… you cut open the doors…”
Lazar shook his head. “We were allowed to cut open the doors. The metal that comprised the latches is significantly different. Or I should say that a strip of it is. All our samples of the actual composites are from sections such as that. There were certain areas of buildings where it occurred. They were obviously designed in order to give themselves access in case whatever controlling system there was failed—just as we would. All our samples are sections we were allowed to remove.”
“What about the visiting aliens? They battered—”
“They deformed the composite enough that several of the treated access latches broke. We heated two of those doors, and they re-formed as if they had been untouched.”
“You’ve reported this.”
“Oh, no one will question about the composite. We have samples.” Lazar’s smile was crooked. “The trouble will come when people discover that they cannot really analyze or duplicate the materials.”
“You said…”
“We can describe it.” He shrugged again. “It doesn’t analyze. That’s a problem. Scientists believe that there is always a solution, that there must be a way to solve the problem, that we have the intelligence and insight to resolve all problems and aspects of the universe.” He paused. “What if we don’t? Or what if the universe has changed in some subtle, but fundamental fashion, so that we can understand what they did, but we can never duplicate it?”
“How could that be?”
Elysen smiled. “The universal density of dark energy and matter. The universe has been continually expanding since the primal brane flex. We’ve always assumed that expansion meant greater and greater space between discrete clumps of matter and energy. That is, each atom, each lepton, each quark, each fermion, retained the same energy and size. From what we can tell, this has in fact occurred, at least after the first massive inflation. From that example, we have generalized that the same has been true of dark matter and energy, since we have never been able to capture or analyze either, only to observe, and replicate some of the effects.”
“Think of dark energy as a fabric being stretched,” Lazar added. “When the universe was young it was like fine silk, a fabric underneath everything. As the universe expanded, the space between the threads also expanded, until now it is more like a net with huge open spaces between the strands or threads. But it is energy. I can only theorize, but the Danannians, I believe, used that far-more-concentrated energy, perhaps even powered their entire culture by it.”
I just stood there. I understood the words and what they meant. I could also sense that there was far more beyond that. “There’s more.”
“That concentration of energy doesn’t exist any longer. You might call it an early manifestation of entropy.”
“So they created a whole new universe to be able to use the dark energy there?”
“I don’t think they had any choice,” Lazar replied. “I certainly can’t prove it, but I think they had to create a new universe, make their own brane flex, or whatever, because they needed the dark energy to survive.”
“By the way, Chendor,” Elysen added. “It’s only dark energy to us because we don’t perceive it.”
“So much for the anthropic principles,” Lazar said dryly.
“Is that what the artifact is all about? It’s a model or a representation of what they did?”
“It seems to be. It also holds some secrets of its own.”
“The light amplification?”
“It amplifies all energy trained on it, and we can’t detect any energy sources within it, or any energy flows.”
“Perpetual energy?”
“I’m guessing that it draws on the remaining and dispersed dark energy or matter in the universe. It has to draw on something.” He frowned. “That’s why I’ve recommended to the captain and Commander Morgan that we leave the area as soon as possible.”
Lazar finally lost me on that. “Why?”
The physicist shrugged helplessly. “We have discovered all manner of energy emanations, coming from all across the megaplex. Others are coming from beneath the oceans. From what we can determine, except for two, near our base and landing sites, they began at approximately the time that the Magellan and the Alwyn first detected the approach of other ships.”
“Someone followed us, then.”
“No,” replied Elysen. “Following a ship is highly improbable. Not with our technology. Calculating where we might be would be far easier.”
“Why should we leave?”
“Danann has some sort of response capabilities… something. What would happen if a torp or a particle beam struck the artifact?”
“You don’t think it would be destroyed?”
“I not only don’t think that, but I believe all that energy would be amplified.”
It took me a moment, but I understood. “You think there’s something like that in other places?”
“I don’t know, but after all I’ve seen, and all I don’t understand, I’m not exactly willing to bet on there not being anything there.”
“So we just leave.”
“We have enough material to study, and we have the artifact.”
“When you get to my age, Chendor,” Elysen said, “you understand that there are times when you can be too greedy.”
“Why haven’t we left yet, then?”
“I would assume that is because the shuttles are still bringing up the last of the science and tech crews.”
“Kaitlin is trying to squeeze in every last moment,” Lazar said. “Not that it will matter in the slightest.”
“We have enough material and observations that, if we can’t figure things out from that, we never will?” I asked.
“I don’t believe I said that,” Lazar replied.
“You might as well have, Cleon.” Elysen smiled.
“So… now what?” I finally asked.
“You paint. We try to understand. The captain tries to get everyone safely away.”
I didn’t think it would be anywhere near that simple, even if I didn’t have a better answer.