Author : David Bastin
“Why,” asked the Captain, “have the engines all stopped?”
The Chief Engineer grinned. “You never were a man to ask an easy question?” he said.
The Captain raised his hand and repeated himself.
“Why, he asked, “have the engines all stopped?”
The Chief Engineer chewed thoughtfully on his thumb. “Forces,” he observed, “vary as the square of the distance between them and light is a constant ….”
The Captain raised his hand again.
“Why, exactly” he asked, “have the engines stopped?”
***
“Similars,” said the engineer, “pull apart.” He cupped one hand and swirled the index finger of the other one around it.
“Tensions,” he said, “translate into angular momentum and things shrink.”
“And we know,” he said, “ that implosions go exponential at the Omega Barrier.” He spread his arms wide.
“Poles,” he explained, “go to unity, and at the geomorphic horizon, space-time inverts ….”
He punched one hand with the bunched fist of the other.
“And that,” he declared, “is where and when it happened!!”
The two men studied each other.
***
“Why,” asked the Captain, “have the engines all stopped?”
The Chief Engineer spoke with sure and certain confidence.
“Because,” he said, “something broke!”
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