The Smoking Gun
A short science fiction story about about a trapped pilot and his existential thoughts.
Published in NovoPulp.
The Smoking Gun
By Erik Menches
I feel like a bullet, accelerating in slow motion, through a gun barrel. A purple barrel made of gas and dust, spinning counterclockwise. It has left me paralyzed with fear, I am stuck staring into one of Medusa’s eyes... I might not be the first person to ever willfully stare death in the eye, but has anyone flown through the accretion disk of a black hole?
After a career searching for life, I now face probable death... I’ve been warned over and over that it’s impossible to survive such a journey. My body will be torn apart by gravitational forces, eventually pulled into individual atoms. This is why nobody has felt the urge to try it…
Why tempt fate inside a black hole? I refuse to believe it’s an inescapable area of space-time. I don’t plan to escape, I want to fly straight through and reach the other side... Does it lead to another galaxy or a parallel universe? I am convinced, the theories of 21st century physicists Damour and Solodukin explain it best. They believed a wormhole would mimic a black hole so well that it would be impossible to tell the difference. They knew the only way to test their theory was with someone taking the plunge…
A wormhole would even solve the black hole information paradox. Which states that a black hole will evaporate over time leaving nothing behind. This violates not only the law of energy conservation, but also unitarity and casuality. This is why I made my decision, I can’t be wrong…
Black holes are the Pandora’s box of astronomy. With so many questions yet to be answered, everybody has their own theories. Until someone takes a peek, we will never know what’s inside.
I had made it my purpose to answer one of life’s biggest questions... Where does life come from? I searched far and wide, building a 3D model of every rock in the galaxy. Using both history and science to note each planet and moon that sheltered life. I recorded everything from microscopic organisms to intelligent life. It took me the better part of fifty years to build onto my predecessors work. After narrowing it all down, I found a small-unexplored solar system.
My life’s work led to bitter disappointment, a system void of planets. I was left staring at a massive black hole occupying a once healthy solar system. I had found my answer, destroyed years before I could arrive... Like my contemporaries, I speculated on an imploded star, leading to a black hole. It must have destroyed the planet I dedicated my life to, the original source of life…
With my work at a stand still, I decided to look into my roadblock. What exactly is a black hole? What I discovered was more questions and theories then I could hope to sort through. While researching, I couldn’t shake the feeling that perhaps there never was an original planet... What if life came in from somewhere else? Could the black hole be more then it seemed?
I needed to know, humanity needed my answers. I was the only one willing to find them... Upon sharing my conclusions with a few of my colleagues, they thought I was joking. When they realized how serious I was, I became an outcast amongst my friends and peers. They all questioned my sanity... Too many years on a hopeless quest they said. They asked when I had ventured into the black hole of my mind? How did I lose myself in the darkness? I tried to tell them I wasn’t crazy. It didn’t help, the more I talked the less they listened. Left to brood over my own theories, I knew that I had to prove them all wrong. I needed to validate my life’s work... That’s when I made the decision, I would pilot my research ship straight into the heart of darkness…
I now find myself looking ahead into the absence of light. I panic for a second, feeling boxed in... It would send even the strongest willed into a bout of claustrophobia. The purple accretion disk is far to my rear now, appearing as a small dot, growing smaller. I calm myself by turning around to watch the dot. It rapidly changes colors, from red to white, finishing blue. These cosmic microwaves and radio backgrounds are the last colors I see before complete darkness.I have crossed into the black hole’s event horizon... There is no turning back... My hands shake wildly as I pop open a bottle of champagne. I can’t tell if I’m afraid or excited, must be a little of both. I take a sip knowing my life’s work will soon be concluded. I will get my answers or die trying... Never to be seen again, not even a blip on the radar…
Why are we here? Who made us? Is there a god? These are few of the questions I will ask.
If this truly is a wormhole...
END