Angels and Wormholes

Singularity Injection

"Yeah. If I remember correctly, two fields have got to work in tandem on both sides of the wormhole." Titus held his fingers up pointing to each other. "One pushes the singularity in, the other pushes it back, then you hold it there halfway 'til the wormhole drifts."

"Would there be a way to detect if someone was trying that?"

"Sure. It would look like pretty much like a jamming signal."

"Could you identify it if you saw it?"

"You mean identify it as an injection field?"

Erin nodded.

"Yeah. Assuming you'd mapped the hole and you knew what the trajectory field looked like on either side. In theory there'd be a unique signature you could calculate."

"Would you be able to check for that?"

"You mean personally?"

Erin nodded. "Yeah."

"I guess so." Titus' raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

Erin took a deep breath. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Sure."

"I'm serious," Erin added. "This has to be between you and me."

"Yeah, no problem. What is it?"

"There's some possibility that a singularity injection device has already been built."

"Bullshit!" Titus exclaimed. "Really?"

"Could be. The Avalon mission might be cover for a test run."

"Why all the way out here?"

"I don't know. Prob'ly to keep it secret -or maybe there's some holes around here they don't mind screwing with. Anyway, I can't give you all the details."

"You're really serious about this?"

"Yep." Erin nodded.

"That explains the sudden interest in wormholes."

"Look, I'm sorry I can't tell you everything I know. It's part of my job. I hope you understand."

"Sure."

"But if you really want to know more, we can help each other out."

"What'd you have in mind?"

"I'm gonna run some sensor scans and try to catch 'em in the act. If I send you that data, can you tell me if it looks an injection signature?"

"Yeah." Titus nodded. "I'll have to brush up on my wormhole dynamics, but yeah."

"Great. Thanks so much for your help."

"No problem." Titus smiled.

Erin closed the connection, and Titus face disappeared from the console. She stood. One more stop to go. Erin walked from her quarters, down the hall of the Excalibur, up the stairs, and made her way eventually to the command deck. Crew members were seated at their stations, relaxed, eyes staring into consoles as though in a trance. The ship had been on standing alert for two days now. That meant sentry shift work: hour after hour of watching insignificant sensor data stream by just in case something interesting appeared on the scanners.

"Ambassador Locke!" Captain Barron turned to the door as Erin walked in. "Good to see you."

"Can we speak privately, Captain?"

"Of course." Rolland walked to meet Erin at the open door, and the two of them headed into the hall. "What is it?"

"It's about Irfan."