Annihilation (Star Force Series) by B. V. Larson Page A

sentient beings were going to be boiled alive over the next two weeks if I didn’t get cracking.
    “What can we do to stop this?”
    “Unknown.”
    “That’s not good enough, Marvin. What have you tried? Have you sent in a probe?”
    “I’ve sent in many submersibles of various makeshift designs. Few of them were able to survive the turbulence on the way down to the aperture. Most stopped transmitting telemetry and readings even before they reached the event-horizon and vanished. The few that did make it all the way down never came back.”
    “Not surprising, really,” I said. “They were programmed to attempt to come back to this side after scanning whatever was on the far side, I assume?”
    “Naturally. But there was little hope they would succeed. The gushing pressure on the far side is almost insurmountable. Even if one of the probes did get up enough velocity to punch into the water and reach our side of the ring, they would not survive the impact with high-pressure water.”
    “Right,” I said, thinking of the time I’d come back into the atmosphere of Venus from the blue giant system. “Even hitting gas is like hitting a solid object when you’re moving at thousands of miles an hour. Hitting liquid—it would be like smashing into a brick wall. The probes would be obliterated.”
    Marvin was watching me carefully from multiple angles. This made me nervous. He wasn’t asking for anything, and I was the only thing in the room for him to study, but I was still wary.
    “You’ve got something else in your brainbox,” I said. “Talk to me.”
    “I have another possible approach to the situation, Colonel.”
    “Yeah. Of course you do. Just tell me.”
    “Would I be held responsible for the possible side-effects of experimentation?”
    I laughed. “You want me to sign a prenuptial agreement? I’m sorry Marvin, I’m not going to absolve you of responsibilities for some idea I haven’t even heard about yet.”
    He scrutinized me for another full second before continuing. “The rings have capacities other than the transmission of physical matter between two locations.”
    “You’re talking about relaying transmissions, right? The vibration thing?”
    “Not just that. They can be switched on and off. The flow of material can also be reversed. In a sense, they can be opened and closed like doors.”
    I nodded, seeing what he was getting at. “That’s self-evident in this case. The ring was always there, the Crustaceans have told us. But it was inactive. Now, someone has figured out how to turn it on and use it to drain their oceans away. My money is on the Macros of course. They’re always looking for a quiet way to kill off their biotic allies that doesn’t violate their existing agreements.”
    Marvin’s cameras drew closer to me. “I believe I can gain at least partial control of the ring.”
    “What? That’s great!”
    The cameras rose up a little higher, showing he appreciated the praise. I had to wonder why he hadn’t brought this up in the first place.
    “Yes,” he said. “It’s something I’ve been pondering for a long time. It’s closely related to the process of using the rings to relay vibrations from on system to another. You see, the rings are really in two places at the same time. That is their secret. There aren’t really two rings, there’s only one.”
    I nodded impatiently. “Yeah, that makes sense. This is a wonderful development, Marvin. I want you to grab control of that ring and turn it off.”
    “Naturally, that would be the happiest outcome.”
    I paused and my eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘would be’? I thought you said you could control it.”
    “I said I could take control of it. I can put it into program-mode, so to speak. But I have no real idea of what commands to send it. I don’t know its protocols or packet control structures. I would have to experiment once I opened a session.”
    I nodded slowly and my face fell. I was beginning to