"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," Nik replied. "In fact, theoretically, if you could do it you'd wind up inside the black hole."
"Guess things get to run their course then. But listen, this time around it was a little different than the first time."
"Yes. Your classical physics is deterministic, but this isn't classical physics."
"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 me something -- telekinetic, perhaps -- that would give me the ability to hold a bubble of air around my head for a minute or two. I'm convinced that slowing to put 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. He tested this by removing units from his tool kit, having them orbit his arms, his legs, 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 gathered the bubble of air to him as he rushed toward the control station.
He waited, his hand hovering above the appropriate bank of lights, for the Warton-Purg drive to drop the Raven into space proper. The lights went out. Immediately, he ran his hand across the row, illuminating them again.
Simultaneous with the clutch of the tidal forces, he felt the explosion from the rear of the vessel. The manual had been right. Reactivating the drive immediately following shut down was hazardous to the health. He pulled on his helmet as a sheet of flame flashed toward him. The suit's insulation protected him from the heat as the Raven came apart. This time he did not see the jumpsuited figure.
Again, he drifted.
When Nik rescued him, he told him the story.
"... So, either way I lose," he concluded.
"So it would seem," Nik said.
When the CTC ran its course and Nik went off to report the results of the latest trip to Vik, Jeremy looked toward the event horizon with his enhanced senses.
He was aware of his antigrav field now, could even manipulate it with his mind. He was certain that he could control it sufficiently to keep himself unstretched or unsquashed at least between here and the layer beneath the violet band.
"What the hell," he said.
He wondered what sort of final image he would leave for eternity. II.
He descended quickly toward the devouring sphere, and soon it was a if he fled among the curtains of an Aurora Borealis. At one point it seemed that Nik might have called after him, but he could not be certain. Not that it mattered. What had he left of life even with the kindly Fleep? His suit's oxygen, water, and nutrients would dwindle toward an unpleasant end and there was no chance of anyone coming to his rescue. Best to pass in this blaze of glory seeing what no man had seen before, leaving his small signature upon the universe.
As the waves rose to embrace him, the colors darkened, darkened, were gone. He was alone in a black place and without sensation. Had he actually penetrated the black hole and survived, or was this but his final, drawn-out thought in a time-distorting field?
"The former," Nik said from a place that seemed nearby.
"Nik! You're here with me!"
"Indeed. I decided to follow you and give what assistance I could.
"As you entered did you see the image I left behind on the event horizon?"
"Sorry, I didn't look."
"Are we into the singularity?"
"Perhaps. I don't know. I've never been this way before. The process may be one of infinite infall."
"But I thought that all information was destroyed once it entered a black hole."
"Well, there is more than one school of thought on that. Information is necessarily bound up with energy, and one notion is that it might remain coherent in here but simply become totally inaccessible to the outside world. The information cannot exist independently from the energy, and this way of considering it has the advantage of preserving energy conservation."
"Then it must be so."
"On the other hand, when your body was destroyed as we entered here I was able to mn you quickly through the process by which I became an immortal energy being. Thought you might appreciate it."
"Immortal? You mean I might be an infinitely infalling consciousness here for the effective life of the universe? I don't think I could bear it."
"Oh, you'd go mad before too long and it wouldn't make any difference."
"Shit!" Jeremy said.
There was a long silence, then a chuckle from Nik.
"I remember what that is," he finally said.
"And we're in it without paddles," Jeremy noted. III.
"There is another factor in our case," Nik said after an eternity or a few minutes, whichever came first.
"What is that?" Jeremy asked.
"When I talked to Vik he mentioned that we've messed so much with this black hole and its rotation that we might have provoked an unusual situation."
"What's that?"
"It's theoretically possible for a black hole to explode. He thought that this one was about to. Seeing it happen is son of a once-in-a-lifetime affair."
"What goes on when it blows?"
"I'm not sure and neither was Vik. The cornucopion hypothesis would seem most in keeping with our present situation, though."
"Better tell me about it so it won't come as a complete surprise."