Eternity's Mind by Kevin J. Anderson Page B

unfeasible.
    The Roamers might have indulged Kotto once, but they would not do so again … especially if the results of the Big Ring experiment turned disastrous.
    His technical compy KR said, “We have been monitoring from a distance. The opening has not grown noticeably in the past two days.”
    â€œSo it’s stable,” Kotto mused. “That’s a good thing.”
    GU, his other compy, added, “The boundaries are indistinct and difficult to measure, however.”
    â€œWe can all agree it’s a good thing the gap has not torn wider…” Howard said in his usual quiet voice. He sounded reticent.
    â€œDefinitely better than the collapse of the universe,” Shareen agreed. The void where the Big Ring had been was like a hole in the nebula, where streamers of wispy gas poured down into nowhere like the diaphanous veil of a colorful waterfall. It made her stomach queasy.
    And she had thought solving the problem of the green priests and the trapped worldtrees seemed difficult.…
    For two days, the tense Roamer workers at Fireheart Station had waited for answers. Completing the Big Ring had required so much effort that they felt adrift now that it was over. The complex had not yet gotten back to normal manufacturing levels, despite Chief Alu’s urging. Many workers had fled immediately after the Big Ring collapsed, afraid that the tear in the universe would swallow the nebula whole. Fortunately, that disaster hadn’t happened. Yet.
    Garrison Reeves, one of the Roamer crew leaders, had established a conservative safety perimeter by placing warning buoys far from the edge of the void. A web of sensor packages provided instant telemetry closer in, but the sensors revealed no useful information. Long-distance sensors just weren’t able to do the job.
    Very soon, Shareen knew, Kotto would be pressured to provide answers about what the void was and what dangers it posed, but so far he had not yet offered even preliminary hypotheses.
    When Shareen and Howard first came to Fireheart Station to be his lab assistants, she had been excited to learn from such a famous figure, a genius in every sense of the word. Despite working at Fireheart for years, Kotto had produced nothing remarkable, until he invested his entire reputation in the Big Ring project.
    Shareen was ambitious and intelligent, and Howard was eager to learn. When Kotto asked his new assistants to comb through old notes and half-finished projects, the two dove into the work with great enthusiasm. They solved problems that had stumped him for years, and Kotto had seemed pleased with their work, even a little astonished at what they figured out. Afterward, the great scientist had been even more determined to prove that his Big Ring would work.
    That hadn’t turned out as planned. Shareen and Howard refrained from saying “I told you so”—they had not wanted to be right. Now, in the aftermath, Kotto didn’t tear his eyes from the view of the void. “I wonder where it goes.”
    â€œWe should send probes,” KR said. “That would be the best way to map the anomaly from within.”
    â€œNaturally we’ll send probes,” Kotto said. “I was planning on it. That’s our next step.”
    Chief Alu entered the observation deck to join them at the windowports. Alu was a small, wiry man with a long ponytail that extended down to the middle of his back. Long hair was not practical for anyone working in space, which was why Shareen kept hers short, but Alu was more of a manager than an actual space worker; he rarely donned an exosuit.
    â€œI have to start reassigning work teams, Kotto,” he said with a long-suffering sigh. “By the Guiding Star, we need to get back to manufacturing power blocks and harvesting isotopes again. Fireheart will still provide the support you need to assess the results … but we’ve got to get to work. Fireheart Station