But energy enough to explode a galaxy is left behind—the released energy is equal to half the product when the mass ejected is multiplied by the square of the velocity of light.”
“Do you mean those rocks were thrown from another universe?”
“That might follow.”
Star nodded carefully, as if motion hurt his head.
“My theory is a new view of the universe.
It suggests that all of our own visible world of space and time has grown from the expansion of a Schwarzschild space that was ejected from the older space-tune some six billion years ago.
It suggests that we are witnessing the birth of a new space-time universe, each time we observe a galaxy exploding.”
“Dear mortal me!” panted old Habibula.
“The world I thought 1 lived in was big and giddy enough.
I’m not sure I care for your improvement.
If nature is that complex, I know I prefer machines— machines, that is, of human make!”
“This new cosmogony staggered me at first, but I’m afraid it has to be accepted.”
A strange awe glowed in Star’s hollowed eyes.
“If every exploding galaxy represents a new space-time universe budding out of our own, then the total universe must be truly infinite, not only in space and time but also in multiplicity!”
He glanced sharply at me, as if to answer a skeptical question I had not asked.
“Captain, I’ve spent years on the math,” he said.
“My analysis shows that each ejected space-time system will become unstable and expand again.
The degenerate matter in its nuclear core will explode into dispersing fragments.
Expansion will generate hydrogen atoms, which will ultimately gather into galactic clouds around the separating fragments.
As these new galaxies mature, they will in turn contract and explode and so create new space-time universes.
The cycles of creation never cease.”
“A novel idea of the universe!”
I sat staring at him.
“I wasn’t meaning to object—it’s just too big to grasp at once.”
“It makes me giddy.”
Lilith gave me a quick little smile.
She turned back to Ken Star, her bronze eyes darkly solemn.
“But I still don’t understand the anomaly.”
“At first I thought it was simply the scar—the navel, if you like, of our universe.
I suspected that our own space-time system had not been completely detached from the old mother world from which ours was born.
I believed that those ancient rocks had somehow wandered through a wound in space that was not entirely healed.”
“Would your math account for that, sir?” I asked.
“Could such a rupture stay open for billions of years?
Or would it be closed instantly?”
“Frankly, I don’t know.”
Star paused to press his bandaged temples.
“You must consider the fact that each subuniverse would have its own coordinate systems of space and time.
Time here may be space there—so that our own six billion years might be only an instant in the older mother world those rocks came from.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“There are other factors, too,” he added.
“Besides the mass-effects predicted by the Einstein-Schwarzschild equations, there are magnetic and radiation effects that are harder to analyze—the same effects that you have been observing, here at Nowhere Near.”
Lilith’s darkened eyes were staring at the wall beyond Star, as if she saw something far off and dreadful.
“Ken, does your theory mean that the anomaly is natural?”
“At first I thought so—I desperately hoped so,” he said.
“Now I doubt that it is entirely natural.
The theory implies that the anomaly should shrink, if it changes at all.
I’m very much afraid that the expansion we are observing is an artificial effect.”
Old Habibula had been about to pour himself another glass of wine.
He set the bottle back with a clatter, blinking fearfully at Star.
“For sweet life’s sake,” he moaned, “what does that mean?”