by Zach Smith
Fritz and Bertram sat in two different but essentially identical rockets, looking at the black hole in front of them. It looked just as the name described: a hole in reality, blacker than black, with occasional cracks of something like lightning across its surface. It warped the limited dim light of their dying universe around it while material in the accretion disk glowed as it rapidly circled the event horizon. From their point of view, it seemed to stand still, absorbing both light and time and even their attention. Sure, it was interesting to look at, and the two rocket jockeys couldn’t look away, but more than just interest was drawing their attention. Physically, spiritually, and emotionally. The back hole was all-consuming. The universe was old, and black holes were everywhere, but this was still the closest Fritz and Bert ever came to one.
“You sure you want to do this?” asked Fritz.
“No,” said Bertram. “But I have to. There’s no turning back now.”
“Actually, there is,” said Fritz. “We are just outside the gravity well, twenty minutes closer, yes. But if you want to go back, now’s the chance.”
By minutes, he meant light minutes, about ten million miles.
“I know that, Fritz,” said Bertram. “And that’s not specifically what I meant.”
“I know what you mean.”
“This is kind of it for us. They say there is a whole other universe inside there.”
“I can’t see how that’s possible?” said Fritz. “It’s a lot smaller than a universe.”
“Everything gets warped, and the space inside is much bigger than the space outside. You remember the demonstration with the paper.”
Before the men headed out on their mission, one of the astro-philosophers gave them a piece of paper and a pair of scissors and asked them to cut a hole in the paper big enough to pass their body through.
They looked at the paper and the scissors and, without taking too long to reply, handed them back, saying it was impossible.
The astro-philosopher took the scissors and made a variety of cuts in the paper, which allowed it to be bent, tugging on the corners between the cuts to create a vast “hole” inside that (sure enough) he looped over not just one but both of the rocket jockeys.
The point of the demonstration was to show how there could be a full universe inside the relatively small space of a black hole.
“Yes, I remember the paper,” said Fritz. “But that was paper, and on paper, there might be a universe inside the black hole, but how do you know that? How does anyone?”
“I’m the one diving into the black hole,” said Bertram. “Are you trying to convince me not to?”
“I’m just worried.”
“So am I, and I’m the one doing the thing. It’s not for you to worry about.”
“I’ll always worry about you.”
“I know, Fritz … thanks.”
“This new universe theory, it’s just a theory. What if they’re wrong? Do they even care if they are? Maybe they’re just sending you out here to be rid of you.”
“Who would want to get rid of me?”
“I don’t know, Bert,” said Fritz. “But it’s not impossible.”
“Yeah, maybe, but if someone wanted to get rid of me, there are easier ways to do it.”
They were rocket jockeys. They were not the best and the brightest the Zustrillians had to offer. They knew how to fly and were willing to take risks for the betterment of all, and maybe that did make them the “best,” but they certainly were not the best educated and were somewhat emotionally stunted. The conversation that Bert and Fritz had at the edge of the black hole was more profound than they had ever gone before, emotionally speaking. And if they returned, they would deny the conversation ever happening.
“Don’t forget, in ancient times, black holes were only a theory on paper, and now we’re looking at one.”
“It is amazing,” said Fritz. “Still, though, you don’t have to do this.”
“I have to,” said Bert. “If I back out now, another rocket jockey will take the plunge and be the hero. I can’t live as the guy who wimped out.”
“At least you’ll live,” said Fritz. “Is that all you’re doing this for, to be the hero?”
“No,” said Burt. “I mean, that’s part of it, but it’s bigger than us. I’m doing this so our society will have a future. That goes beyond being a hero.”
Fritz took a minute to formulate a response.
“There are still stars. There aren’t many left, but there are some. We can find a rock around a red dwarf and call it home just like the one we left a hundred years ago. Those stars burn for a long time.”
“A long time is not forever,” said Bert, pointing toward the black hole. “But in there … in there is.”
*
They said their goodbyes, hoping to see each other soon, and that the signal between them was private. Fritz didn’t want to hear the other rocket jockeys ragging on him when he returned to the mother ship, hopefully with his pal in tow.
Bertram was right about one thing: they didn’t know how long their society could hold on. The universe was getting very old, seventy-six trillion years old, the astro-philosophers estimated. Their society had not been around nearly as long, only some four thousand years, according to some (and the most orthodox celestial spiritualists said the universe itself was as old as the society, but evidence suggested that this was unlikely).
If there is a universe inside the black hole, as the astro-philosophers say, then they will have more time, infinite time. If the universe inside the black hole is like the universe outside, then yes, it too will eventually fade out and die, but there will be black holes in there too. Black holes inside black holes inside black holes, and every couple trillion years, someone can dive into the next and continue onward into forever.
Bertram was not doing this to save himself, nor to be the progenitor of the next society (he was alone, after all). This was a mission of exploration to save society.
If he saw that there was a universe inside the black hole, he would turn the ship around, fly back at super light speed, tell Fritz, and together they would relay the findings to the mother ship. Then they, the last several thousand people left of their society – Bertram, Fritz, the other rocket jockeys, the celestial spiritualists, the astro-philosophers, and the rest – would steer the mother ship itself into the black hole and the next chapter.
It was time, either the end or the beginning.
Bertram had already maneuvered the rocket twenty minutes toward the black hole, into the gravity well, beyond the point of no return. He approached the black hole halfway between the north pole and the equator. Hoping that this approach would avoid the dangerous accretion disk and the relativistic jet while Fritz watched.
“Just do it already,” he said to himself.
He could have said it to Bert, but the gravity would delay the signal, and if he got it at all, Bert would not be able to respond, so it would have been the same.
Bertram needed to hit his boosters. That much was at least known by the scientists from previous failed experiments. If Bertram augured his ship into the black hole without significant force, it would be ripped apart.
The scientists had sent two ships into the black hole already, in previous experiments, at significant costs. Finding material to build new spaceships was difficult.
The first ship was spaghettified, torn apart in thin strips by the intense gravitational pull, as the scientists looked on with their telescopes past the gravity well.
The second (with boosters) had made it into the black hole, possibly unharmed, but never returned. The onboard computers were programmed to turn around after twenty minutes, but it didn’t. They never actually saw it enter. They watched it circle a few times and then disappear on the far side of the hole.
There were several theories as to why it didn’t return. Obviously, it might have been destroyed, but another argument by some of the astro-philosophers and even the celestial spiritualists (they rarely agreed) suggested that perhaps a Zustril could do (on the other side of the black hole) what the computer could not … something about free will.
Spirituality and philosophy aside, the society had few options and few extra ships to experiment with, and Bertram volunteered to be the first to fly beyond the gates of spacetime.
He circled once more, and then, in eye shot of Fritz, he hit the boosters and augured the rocket into the black hole.
Fritz took a deep breath.
Then, for some reason, Bert stopped just at the edge of the event horizon. Fritz didn’t know how he could. But he did.
“Bert, what are you doing?” Fritz asked himself.
“Bert, what are you doing?” he said over the com-link, ignoring or perhaps forgetting the delay, “Go in or come back. You’re in a dangerous place.”
There was no reply.
“Bert! Respond!”
His spaceship grew redder and redder as Fritz looked on. Bert must have chickened out a second after it was too late and was being roasted at the edge of the horizon.
But somehow, Fritz didn’t think that was the case. He saw what he saw, and he knew that it was probably just wishful thinking, but another part of him felt that Bert did make it into the black hole somehow.
Fritz waited for two hours, watching his friend’s rocket get redder before returning to the mother ship, dejected, but still, somehow, he thought maybe, just maybe, Bert had made it.
*
… but he did not stop just outside the black hole as Fritz had seen. It only appeared that way because of the weird properties surrounding such a strange celestial body.
Bertram did cross the event horizon.
Hitting the super light speed boosters when he did caused the ship to enter the black hole unaffected by the destructive gravitational pull. He was fine, his ship was fine, and …
As the astro-philosophers theorized …
And the celestial spiritualists prophesied …
And the rest and last of Zustril society hoped …
And at least one rocket jockey proved …
There was, in fact, a universe on the other side of the black hole.
As he looked at this new universe, tears began to stream down his face, and his vision blurred, but he barely noticed. He was in such shock that he noticed nothing about himself and only saw what was other.
Bertram wiped the tears from his eyes and set his timer for 20 minutes. He knew he would be distracted, already had been, and for how long, he didn’t know. Without the timer, he might have spent a lifetime looking at what he had just found. With the timer set, he relaxed a little and marveled at this new universe.
“Fritz,” he said. “If only you came to see this with me.”
It was unlike the dim and darkening solitary galaxy that he knew, but a multitude of galaxies. Galaxies of myriad sizes and shapes, bars and spirals, collectively forming filaments, spider webbing off into infinity or nothing; from his perspective, they were the same.
This is what the historians had said: the universe was like trillions of years ago when new stars were forming every day and galaxies filled the sky.
He soaked in the view of this strange new world, a universe like the one that his ancestors first discovered when they looked up to the sky, until the timer ran out.
Bertram took another moment to absorb the universe. He could have stayed there forever and perhaps would have, with the rest of the mother ship, once he returned. This new world was theirs to take and theirs to enjoy forever and ever.
The universe looked generally the same in every direction. Bertram looked for what he thought was the edge, augured his rocket in that direction, and hit the boosters.
Faster and faster, he flew toward the edge of the universe, the inside of the event horizon, going faster than the speed of light. He closed his eyes as he was about to cross, again not knowing what would happen this time, and then …
*
Bertram burst through the edge of the event horizon of the black hole he had entered twenty minutes or maybe a half-hour earlier, and with him came the entirety of that universe in a great splattering of matter. Everything inside the black hole vomited into the old and dying universe.
He looked around.
Did Fritz leave? Sure, Bertram had been inside the black hole a little longer than he planned, but not that long. Did Fritz get tired after 21 minutes and bugger off?
No.
As the matter from the black hole explosion quickly disintegrated into nothing, Bertram looked around to see no stars. The old universe, or wherever he was, was utterly black and nearly completely empty.
The rocket was either traveling at several times the speed of light or standing still. In the emptiness, there was no way to tell and little difference.
After some time, impossible to measure, his ship was hit with a photon, the only thing left in this place. And on this photon was written a message that Bertram could decode with his onboard computer.
“Bertram, if you are getting this message, then I was right. I didn’t think you died outside the black hole. I don’t know what took you so long to return, but perhaps someday I will. We waited for three years for you, and after you didn’t return, we moved on, looking for another star that may give us some more time. We are heading toward the coordinates UGPS J072227.51−054031.2. If you get this message soon, perhaps you can catch up to us. Everyone tells me you are dead, but I don’t believe them, despite what I saw. Maybe we’ll see each other again. I hope we do, but if we don’t, I’ll never forget you. None of us will. Fritz.”
Bertram rubbed his eyes after reading the message. Just how far in the future had he traveled?
When he ran the photon through the computer’s dating program, it returned a number with far more digits than he could count without losing track.
There was no way to know what direction his society had traveled, even with the coordinates. They were sextillions of years old, and with nothing left of the universe, he had nothing to go by.
Did he destroy that universe inside the black hole when he came back, or had he been caught at the event horizon in a nearly eternal paradox that took no time at all and could only leave when the black hole exploded? He didn’t know. He chose to believe the latter, otherwise the guilt would have been overwhelming.
But he was still alive.
Fritz had predicted he would live on if he did not go into the black hole, but in twenty minutes, he had lived closer to forever than anyone else ever had. Perhaps his civilization had entered another black hole, and perhaps they were still alive in a different universe. But he would never know. He was causally disconnected from them.
Was there anything left? He didn’t know that either, but if he found another black hole, he would find another universe.
Bertram, the last person in the universe, moved on through the nothingness.
Zach Smith is a short fiction writer from the northeastern United States and has been editing for InterNova for about a year. He has published more than one hundred stories, some of which have recently appeared in Nova, InterNova, New Pop Lit, and the Short Humour site. He is currently in the process of shopping around his first story collection, Tales Along Turtleheart Road. His second and third collections will follow close behind. Aside from fiction, he is also a music composer, chess composer, video editor, and collector. Zach was recently married and has a stepdaughter in high school.