Chapter No.125. New Knowledge.

We know very little about how the universe works.

I didn't wait for Helen Stromberg to come up to the command deck after being resurrected. I met her in the Quarters deck hallway.

"I want to talk with you before you meet with the others."

She looked at me with a confused expression, but she went with me to her new quarters. Valery, Beth and Van, her three assistants, were there to greet her.

"After your assistants clean you up, I want to ask you some questions before you are presented to the crew."

She stared at me with confused eyes.

Valery and Beth guided her into her bathroom to clean her up. After several minutes, she emerged wearing a robe. They sat her down to groom her red hair.

"We've chosen to resurrect you first," I told her. "You and over ten thousand of your compatriots were destroyed in an attack on our vessel. We've resurrected you from data stored on Helios Station, which is orbiting the Sun."

"I assume that you were attacked by Tyco."

"Yes. We wish to know all that you can tell us about him."

"That bastard strung me along and then murdered me after he had gotten all that he could from me."

"We are aware of that. He resurrected you and added you to his collective."

"I know nothing of that."

"Yes. All of your memories while in his collective were lost when you were destroyed,"

"I don't know all that much about him other than his name was Caviar Fox. I think he was an ex-Nazi."

"We know about that. He fooled Space Command into believing he was a proto-human. What I would like to know is why he was interested in what you know about Black Holes."

"Apparently, he thought that they could be used as weapons. What he doesn't understand is that black holes are not what we thought they were."

"What are they?"

"Black Holes are actually gravastars, at least the ones that are not supermassive. It's the reason that there is a multiverse."

"So, you don't subscribe to a Big Bang theory for why our universe is here."

"That is correct."

I rubbed my jaw. "How did Tyco believe that he could use them as a weapon?"

"If they're not singularities, they could be moved and would cause immense damage."

"Interesting," I reacted. "I would not think that possible."

"I don't think he managed to do it, but I'm not sure."

I sighed. "I hope you're right, but just in case, I want you to work on that problem."

"I will"

"You're invited to our communal supper at 1700 hours in my quarters. It will give you a chance to meet the rest of current crew."

She smiled.

I went up to the command deck and took my seat next to Alexa.

She turned to me. "What did she know about Tyco?"

"Not much. She's an expert on Black holes. She believes that they're gravastars and that Tyco thought he could use them as weapons."

"That's ridiculous. There is no way to move them."

"Theoretically, if they're not singularities, they could be moved. Propelling one of them at a planet would make the Star War's Death Star seem like a pop gun."

"How could we defend against that?"

'Hopefully, Hellen can come up with an idea. If not, we could try our powers on it."

"That's going to take one hell of a lot of power."

"I agree, but it might me our only hope."

"Maybe we should go to a black hole, or whatever you call it, and try that idea."

"I'll leave that up to you," I said.

Alexa turned away. "Molly, find us a nearby black hole."

Molly turned back to her. "Black holes can't be directly seen. I'll have to scan using infra red."

"Do it."

It took her a half hour to locate a nearby black hole, one that was simply drifting in interstellar space. She turned back to us. "I have a medium sized black hole two thousand light years away from our current position."

"Take us there," Alexa said to Judy. "Maintain stealth mode when we arrive there.

We arrived a million kilometers away from a black hole that had a mass of two million suns. It was barely visible because it wasn't surrounded by dust. The only thing it was dining on is thin amounts of interstellar gas.

I turned to Alexa. "Let's see if we could move it."

Molly turned to us. "What? You can't move a black hole!"

"That's true, but it might not be a black hole. It might be a gravastar."

"That's just a theory without any proof."

"We'll, let's see,"

I looked at Alexa and we both began to think about moving the object.

After several minutes, Molly had a response. "Holy shit! It just changed direction and is moving away relative to our position."

Alex and I exchanged smiles.

"I guess Helen was right," I said.

"What do you mean?" Molly asked.

"Helen believes that black holes are gravastars and that Tyco had resurrected her into his collective so that he could use her knowledge to come up with a way to use them as weapons. Alexa and I thought that we might be able to use our powers to defend against that idea. We decided that we should test out our plan before we actually have to use it."

"If you two can move objects that have millions of times the mass of the sun, you should be able to do anything."

"Well, I'm not so sure about that, but at least we have the means to stop Tyco from doing the unthinkable."

Nobody refuted my statement.

Everyone got to meet Helen at our communal supper. They seemed happy to see that she had been resurrected from the recent destruction of over ten thousand individuals.

She tasted some of the steak dinner I had prepared. "This meal tastes wonderful!"

"Yeah, Jason here is a good cook," Molly told her.

She looked at me with wide eyes. "You're the Prime Mover and you do the cooking?"

"He likes to cook," Molly said. "He's not much into dominating us. He lets his Second in command do that."

"Oh, come on!" Marie said. "You like to be dominated."

Molly squinted at her. "Why her?"

"She knows what she's doing. Let's face it. We are a lot like children. We just want to have fun. We need discipline to keep us in line."

"I'm not interested in disciplining you," Alexa said. "My job is to help Jason defeat Tyco. I need your cooperation to do that." She smiled. "Besides, I don't make up the rules or the assignments. The androids do that."

"You may adjust the rules as you please," Alice told her.

"Okay then, let's have more fun," Alexa said, grinning. "We'll all go to the pool and spend the evening fooling around."

"Now you're talking!" Marie said, clapping her hands.

They laughed. I saw it as a way to relax the tension that had been building up.

The evening was one of frolic and fun. Some people spent the evening riding down the slide tubes while others tried to outdo one another at diving from the high platform.

I hung out with Alexa and Helen in a quiet end of the large pool.

"Do you allow this communal swim often?" Helen asked.

"Actually, this is the first one. We usually don't abandon our sense of modesty like this."

"That's not exactly true," Alexa said. "Sex is consensual in our collective. The android design that we're based on was created for sex and the androids in our collective do it on a regular basis. We have just recently begun to permit pregnancies."

Helen's eyes ballooned momentarily. "Oh, really?"

"Yes. Molly, Marie and Margaret have delivered android babies."

"I had no idea that was even possible."

"We didn't think it was either, but it's not only possible, it was the main reason that the Phoenix Project was conceived. Tyco wanted to create an army of androids by sexual means so that he could dominate the universe."

Helen looked at me. "Do you permit your subjects to have sex?"

"I don't have anything to do with it. The androids don't have a rule against it."

She smiled. "Fascinating."

Both Alexa and I chuckled, but what Alexa said next was a scary idea.