Roger Zelazny - The Three Descents Of Jeremy Baker I

Jeremy Baker was the only survivor when the Raven's Warton-Purg drive deliveredthe vessel to the vicinity of a black hole. Its tidal forces immediately didtheir stuff. The hull groaned and cracked as indicators screamed the ship'ssituation and listed its problems. Jeremy, who had been somewhat bored, had beenin the possibly enviable position of testing his powerful extravehicularsurvival suit at the time of the disaster. He had on everything but the helmet,which he promptly donned. Then he hurried to the control station with theintention of activating the Warton-Purg drive again in hopes of fleeing throughextracurricular space -- though under the circumstances it was more likely tocause the Raven to explode. But then the Raven was exploding anyway and it wasworth a shot.

He never made it.

The vessel came apart about him. He thought he glimpsed the jumpsuited figure ofone of his crewmates spinning amid the debris, but he could not be certain.

Suddenly, he was alone. Pieces of the Raven drifted away from him. He took a sipof the suit's water, wondering when he would feel a great heaviness in his feetas they were drawn down the gravity well faster than the rest of him -- orperhaps it would be his head. He was uncertain as to his orientation. Still halfin shock, he scanned the sky, peering into a star-occluding blackness. There. Itwould be his right arm where the stretching would begin. At least it would be aninteresting way to die, he reflected. Not too many people had gotten to try it,though there had been a lot of colorful speculation.

He seemed to drift for a long while, musing on final splendors, withoutdetecting any unusual sensations other than occasionally glimpsing what seemed asmall, local patch of flickering light. He could not be certain as to itssource. After a time, he felt an uncontrollable drowsiness and he slept.

"That's better," a voice seemed to be saying to him a bit later. "Seems to beworking fine."

"Who -- What are you?" Jeremy asked.

"I'm a Fleep," came the answer. "I'm that flickering patch of light you werewondering about a while back."

"You live around here?"

"I have for a long while, Jeremy. It's easy if you're an energy being with a lotof psi powers."

"That's how we're conversing?"

"Yes. I installed a telepathic function in your mind while I had youunconscious."

"Why aren't I being stretched into miles of spaghetti right now?"

"I created an antigravity field between you and the black hole. They cancel."

"Why'd you help me?"

"It's good to have someone new to talk to. Sometimes I get bored with my fellowFleep."

"Oh, there's a whole colony of you?"

"Sure. This is a great place to study physics, and we're all into suchpursuits."

"It doesn't seem an environment where life would develop."

"True. We were once a race of material beings but we were sufficiently evolvedthat when we saw our sun was going to go supernova we elected to transformourselves into this state and study it rather than flee. In fact, that blackhole used to be our sun. Makes a great lab. Come on, I'll show you. You can seemore than you used to because I fiddled with your senses, too. I increased theirrange. For one thing, you should be able to detect a halo of Hawking radiationabove the event horizon."

"Yes. Lavender, violet, purple... . It's rather lovely. If I kept going andpassed through the event horizon would my image really be captured thereforever? Could I come back and see myself frozen at that moment?"

"Yes, and no. Yes, you would clutter up the view with your arrested light. No,you couldn't come back and see yourself doing it. There's no way out once you goin."

"I phrased it poorly. Say, if there are other Fleep, there must be somethingspecial to call you to distinguish you."

"Call me Nik," the other said.

"Okay, Nik. What are those pinpoints of fire ahead? And the huge dark massesabout them?"

"Those are my people, performing an experiment. I've been moving us at a veryhigh velocity."

"I've noticed that the hole covers a lot more of the sky now. What sort ofexperiment?"

"Those great dark masses are the remnants of tens of thousands of suns andplanets we've transported here. You only see the ones in space proper. We pullthem out as we need them. We're shooting them into the hole."

"Why?"

"To increase its rate of rotation."

"Uh -- To what end?"

"The creation of closed timelike curves."

"You've got me on that one."

"Time loops, To permit us to run backward through the past."

"Any successes so far?"

"Yes. A few."

"Have you got anything that might permit me to get back to the Raven before theexplosion?"

"That's pushing it. But it's one of the things I wanted to check."

They matched velocities with the flickering congregation, and Nik took him intothe vicinity of the largest of these beings. The conversation that followedresembled heat lightning.

"Vik says there's one that might do it," Nik told him after a time.

"Let me use it. Please."

"You should also have strength of mind sufficient to alter your velocity bythought alone," Nik said. "Come this way."

Jeremy followed him by willing it until, abruptly, he faced a mass of lineswhich resembled a computer design suddenly generated in free space.

"I did that just to make you conscious of it," Nik said. "Enter the trapezoid toyour left."

"If this works I may not see you again. I'd better say thanks now."

"Noted with pleasure, though I'd like to have kept you longer, for fullconversations. I understand your state of mind, however. Go."

Jeremy entered the trapezoid.

In an instant, everything changed. He was back aboard the Raven, standingwearing his suit, helmet in hand. Immediately, he rushed toward the controlstation, donning his helmet as he went. He felt the familiar drop into spaceproper. The tidal forces took hold of the Raven, and it began to groan andcreak.

He could see the switches for the Warton-Purg drive and he extended his arm,reaching. Then the ship came apart and he was drawn away from the controls. Heglimpsed a jumpsuited human form, turning and turning.

Later, drifting he met a Nik who did not recall him but who quickly understoodhis explanation as to what had occurred.

"Am I still in the dosed timelike curve?" Jeremy asked.

'Oh, yes. I know of no way of departing a CTC till it's run its course," Nikreplied. "In fact, theoretically, if you could do it you'd wind up inside theblack hole."

"Guess things get to run their course then. But listen, this time around it wasa little different than the first time."

"Yes. Your classical physics is deterministic, but this isn't classicalphysics."

"I actually got close to the Raven's controls. I wonder... ."

"What?"

"You've installed a form of telepathy in my mind. Could you also teach mesomething -- telekinetic, perhaps -- that would give me the ability to hold abubble of air around my head for a minute or two. I'm convinced that slowing toput on the helmet was what kept me from reaching the controls."

"We'll see what we can do. Take a nap."

When Jeremy awoke he had the ability to move small objects with his mind. Hetested this by removing units from his tool kit, having them orbit his arms, hislegs, his head, and returning them without touching them physically.

"I think I've got it, Nik. Thanks."

"You're an interesting study, Jeremy."

This time when he entered the trapezoid he had his mind flexed, and he gatheredthe bubble of air to him as he rushed toward the control station.

He waited, his hand hovering above the appropriate bank of lights, for theWarton-Purg drive to drop the Raven into space proper. The lights went out.Immediately, he ran his hand across the row, illuminating them again.