The Core of a Midnight Star

The Core of a Midnight Star: Won Prose Award; Published In Warp & Weave Journal
Xela (Shayla) P. Wright
 
To be a midnight star. That dark hole that pulls all things in space-time into its dense belly. Sometimes I envy those collapsed stars for they do not age the same as creatures do, even the incorporeal Phasers like myself. My little midnight star…

From my station, I can watch its delicate hairs of soft electricity waving like fronds in the breeze off the nearest star system. The few particles that make it into those fronds’ soft embrace are recorded forever as data at the edge of the event horizon from which the physical can never escape. Us phasers have watched civilizations fall to dust in the hearts of midnight stars since the first travelers tried to touch infinity.

The star’s dark center pulses. Its gravity pulls in every particle. The matter disk that circles around it spells an eternity toward destruction for the slow-moving matter. Even light does not pull away if it touches the center. The mass of the core danger even to its Caretaker.

I stay between the fronds, phasing myself away from the delicate hairs. They swing toward me. I shift between the atoms to dodge. No need to use the space between the outer electrons. Between atom components there is near infinite space to move. I do not interrupt the flow of data. I simply exist in between, where space is plentiful.

I haven’t been assigned to this particular midnight star long. It is collecting data from only four total star systems. When my term is up, I will compile all the data to send it to a bigger midnight star near the center. Then I’ll wipe the soft hairs by sending a soft sub-electric phase bounce through them so my replacement can track what is new.

I miss home all the way out here.

The galaxy’s center is full of midnight stars. The communities around them actively contribute by adding culture and life to their eternities. A record in the eternity star of course cannot be wiped as easily as mine. That giant in the galaxy’s core is not an easy assignment. Hundreds of Caretakers are required to maintain and watch over the eternity star. They watch the fronds, more like vines on that behemoth, writhing and pulling the stars toward it. It pulls the galaxy in its contemplative dance around its massive core.

One wrong flung hair and entire civilizations could die, their record erased as the Eternity Star scoops off pure matter, recording it at the cost of what already was within the electric strand.

Losing data like that is how cultures collapse and technology is lost. But that was in the days before the Caretakers. And my assignment is magnitudes smaller.

My little dark star is a lonelier assignment. This star, my star, is the only one for blinks and blinks. It has only the four star systems within sight without using the crude telescopter orbiting outside of the event horizon. Spaces dust and the occasional frozen asteroid are all that it records most turns. I can only gaze out at the lane of stars far away as the midnight fronds sway. Something moves, barely visible, but steady in trajectory.

Curious I move to the edge where the midnight star’s pull is weakest. Looking through the telescopter, I find I am not as alone out here as I thought.

Sometime ago a small, well I cannot call it a craft for it is a tiny thing, smaller than most asteroids, came into sight. I was curious.
I watched for several turns of the Midnight Star. It seemed to be aiming for the dark star itself. It has come close enough to reach if I hurry. So I check all the fronds and calculated the lash off the nearby star systems. I should have a blink or two of peace I think.

I head toward the tiny vessel.

It is white and ultraviolet reflective with dark shapes on the side. They remind me of a culture I had input once on a closer Midnight Star. I’d had two companions then, fellow caretakers who watched the fronds while I input data ever so carefully as not to disturb the information already there.

 I remember a Gaseous planet. Their people had inhabited most of the air planets in their system except of course the useless little rocky planets. They had something similar to in their culture input; a system of symbols that conveyed thoughts when looked at. Writing. I am sure that is what the dark symbols are.

 I shrink the space between my atoms and phasing through the side of the vessel I find the inside brightly lit. Little creatures are inside, small and dense they seem part water and part stone inside but their form is so different from those I have seen, they are so solid yet so unaware. Even shrunk down to their size they do not seem to see me.
I accidentally pass through one and it shivers. A limb reaches up and grabs the strange fluff on its top. It makes noises but its emotions are incomprehensible.

But again I remember. I remember the star dwellers I met collecting data to input on a previous assignment from the very edge of the galaxy. Within their bright star they breathed and communicated much of their culture through the waves they made in their wake, communicating through song. Perhaps these small creatures communicate by matter waves. Though if they did it would be through a poor medium. The only matter in this vessel is light gas. Barely enough particles to bump into each other.

As the little creature shambles toward me I pass through it with an electric stutter of my body to use the creature as a data imprint like the strands of my dark star do. The creature shivers harder.

Its limb reaches up and grabs the strange fluff on its top again. It vibrates the gas with its… I search the imprint for data on names. Ah yes, its mouth. It is speaking with its mouth. These creatures must not communicate with their minds.

Stranger still they seem to be in symbiosis with millions of other tiny beings on and inside them. Some of these tiny creatures are able to greet me properly, minds meeting and gladness exchanged. The larger organism though puzzles me.

 I use the imprint, though I try not to keep it exactly the same. It seems all these creatures recognize each other by physical differences. I change the color of the fluff… the hair, to ultraviolet and try to corporealize.

I am out of practice. I cannot remember how much light is supposed to pass through me. I think most of it is supposed to bounce off, right?

I touch the floor with the ten little digits and giggle. My limb, hand, reaches up and covers my mouth. How strange this body is. I feel the data memories of the gas movement, the speaking, the, the words the creatures use want to come out in tiny bursts of emotion.

What odd biology to restrict the mind but enhance the emotions. I look down with my, my eyes, my human eyes. How strange. The colors are odd and out of place as if they only see the reflection and not the true color. For a moment I wonder if they could see the black hole at all, for it reflects nothing. But then I look down. My body seems to be almost see through to these human eyes. Ah well, I am out of practice after all.

I look up to see the creature I just passed through seems to have frozen. Its…eyes are exposed, the white wet skin visible under its eyelids. Fear leaks off of it and yet I am thrilled.

‘Ah, It can see me now,’ The strange… words, flow out my lips as if I have spoken them all my life.

“Who, who are you?” the… man asks.
I try to bounce the light off my skin better, but I still appear translucent. My skin phases in and out of this human vision.

“I am the Caretaker,” I say. It must know that much. I search the memories. It has no idea. The fear radiates stronger.

“I am not here to harm you.” I say. That seems important to these…humans. They don’t want to be harmed.

The fear does not lessen though.

“I am, sorry… I have disturbed you,” I speak. These strange yet beautiful sounds resonating in the structure within my… ear. It captures these tiny gas vibrations and transforms them into meaning.
“I only wondered why you steer toward my library,” Library?… Ah, data collection. My precious midnight star.

It stammers a moment then speaks.
“We did not know there were libraries all the way out here.”

“Of course there are,” I say, ”Though most of them are much closer to the center.”

“The-the center?” The fear is finally dissipating, being replaced with curiosity but trepidation remains.

“Of the Galaxy of course,”  I say,” what other center is there?”

The little …muscles on the man’s face twitch the mouth makes a crescent and mirth bubbles over as the man… it is stronger than a giggle, it laughs.

“Do I amuse?” I ask.

“What other center is…” the man seems nearly out of breath… These creatures can die without air!

“Are you dying? Breathe! Do you need help? Oh dear, your race has never seen a Caretaker. You’ll think I am a- a murderer. Please don’t stop breathing!”

The man laughs harder and his face begins to turn red… That happens when the blood tries to bring more air to the tiny cells these creatures are made of. He is dying!
“Air, Air!” I yell. The man only laughs on, merriment burbling out in what I am sure are his last moments.  I am sure he will drop dead in front of me.

“Stop your laughing. Do not die. I-I can fix it.” I begin to grow incorporeal again. If I can phase into him I can put more oxygen in.

“No stop.”

I turn. All merriment has stopped and the man seems calmer, but the fear is beginning again.

“Alright,” I say. My form shifts back to the strange human shape though I try to change my hair to blue. Apparently, they cannot see the beauty of ultraviolet. Such strange biology these humans have.

“Let me get my captain. She is in charge, not me.”

“In charge?… Oh, she is your Caretaker!”

“Well, no. I take care of myself.”

“You do?” I search the imprint again. The brows on my now human face furrow together like the waves of passing stars.
“Oh, I see. You are the-the crew member-and the captain is- the ship Caretaker. You are all on this ship to make it work, yes?”

“Well yes, but…”

“You are all minor ship caretakers then!” I say. I am quite pleased at this revelation. Perhaps they do not know of my Midnight Star, but they know what it is to care for something even if it is only this tiny vessel.

“Well yes. We are, but the Captain is in charge. She was appointed back on Earth.”

“Earth?…this is a planet?” The imprint has memories of tree things and of wind through the hair. So different. So alien.

“Yes, but you should really be talking to my captain about this. She is trained in diplomacy.”

“This is pleasantry, yes, this diplomacy is about- about how you want to be seen not how you are. Why would I want to talk to one who would not tell me the data pure and unrefined? No, no, no. I like this talk with you.”

“Can you at least tell me where you are from?” he asked.

From… the word has so many connotations. Does he mean now or where I became a caretaker or perhaps where all Phasers come from. There is too much to calculate to understand that little word. From.

“I do not understand,” I say.

His words slow down. He exudes a patronizing wash of emotions. It is very distracting.

“Where. Are. You. From?”

“I heard you say that, ”I say, “but it is not a very specific question, is it?”

“Uh…” The man seems frozen again. Then he swings his hand up and hits himself in the head making his body very straight.

“Are you alright? Did you get paralyzed?” I ask. I step forward, worried. These humans are fragile creatures. He might have hurt his…his brain, whacking his head like that. He is breathing but not moving. At least he is breathing.

“What is going on here?” I hear. I turn around. So strange these eyes only see in one direction.

I see a… woman. She has a hat atop her head. The microorganisms in her greet me with a proper burst of happiness, though it is hard to detect in this restricted body.

“Captain!” The man yells.

I jump automatically shifting through the nearest molecules. Sound is such a startling thing to a human. These bodies seem to have hardwired self-preservation instincts.  They are a delicate race after all.

I shift back to solid with a deep breath. The molecules swirl inside me. How fickle to rely on a gas to live. Though it is not as if that is their fault. They have not even heard of Caretakers after all.

The woman seems startled as are the two men now behind her.

“What is going on, Lieutenant? “ She asks.
The man I had been speaking to puts his hand down…oh, he saluted his captain. That was why he touched his head. It was a strange custom but at least he was not dying.

“Sir, this is a Caretaker. He, uh it, asked why we were headed to its library.”
The woman contemplates me. I tuck my legs up between the air, still solid, but not on the floor.

“Hello,” I say,” are you the Captain steering this little vessel to my midnight star? It is dangerous for physical beings to come too close you see.”

“Your… wait what?” The man turns to me. Surprise wells off of him as much as puzzlement wafts off the other three humans, “are you saying your library means the black hole?”

I grimace. Such a crude way to describe the beauty of my small bender of space-time.

“I suppose that is how you call it. Yes. My data is stored within the field of the, ugh, black hole.”

The Captain’s mouth turns down, the opposite of the laughing crescent the man had earlier. Indecision begins pouring off of her.

I tilt my head. Funny, it moves my vision sideways. Not unexpected for a physical body state. Still. I shake my head and the room spins. A giggle makes it out of my throat. Bodies bound to even the most rudimentary of gravity, how funny.

“What are you doing here?” She asks me. These humans have no sense of politeness.

“I am here to redirect you. Coming too close to the Midnight Star would lead to a slow demise for all of you… and you may tear the hairs. I would lose precious data and you would lose your lives.”

“We have a way through,” The captain said. Uncertainty pours off her in waves.

“One does not go through a midnight star, “I laugh, “It is ridiculous to try! Is it not ridiculous to try?” I direct the last at the Lieutenant man. He is not laughing. I tilt my head at him.

“Is it not?” I say. The humans seem to have waves of trepidation as a basic part of their life. It flows out of them steadily.

“We are going through the black hole.” The captain says, “we have orders to test the Quantum Drive by going through. And so we must.”

“You were… told to go into it and die? You have to follow these- orders?” My jaw goes slack leaving the human mouth wide.

“Yes. If the Quantum drive works then we will come out the other side without harm.”

“That is a big if, Captain,” I say, “don’t the crew members have a choice?”

The woman’s chin circles and I can hear her teeth click though her lips stayed closed.

“Did they have a choice on this-this suicide mission?” I asked. They would all die if I couldn’t turn this ship but they had to redirect it themselves. If I interfered with the actual direction of the ship then my days as a Caretaker would be brought to a swift end. I cannot force any creature into an action they had decided against. That is the rule.

The old ways had destroyed many cultures in the name of data: deciding what was best for them, sucking them into the Midnight Stars, pulling the information out one molecule at a time, all knowledge being imprinted in the electric hairs as worlds, even stars, were pulled apart until they were only spaghetti left to feed the core.

 But the rule originally meant to save lives and cultures will force me to watch these little physical creatures destroy themselves.

The Captain clears her throat.

“They all accepted this mission,” she says. She put her arms behind her back as if that was all it took to destroy their lives. “Our estimated arrival time is in four hours. The Quantum drive is already charging.”

“Hours?…You are that close already? Wait, your arrival to the core or the horizon?”

“We cross the event horizon in four hours,” she says. She stands straighter. Sorrow pours off of her. She knows they will die.

“And you will not turn your ship?” I ask with futile hope that the answer will change.

“No.”

I looked at these little creatures, felt the strangeness of my own false body, like theirs yet still my own. So dedicated to their own demise they would not stray from their course in their gas filled ship.

“If that is what you must do, I must go.” I can minimize the damage if I move the fronds away from the oncoming vessel. Being touched by the electric fronds would mean paralysing electrocution and swift spaghettification as their current pulls them to center faster than the matter disk itself. If I could keep the hairs away from this…ship, such a little thing to be called a ship, then at least they would be intact until reaching the core.

“Wait,” I hear. I stop. The Lieutenant man has stepped toward me.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Just, thank you. You are the first, uh, intelligent lifeform we have met.”

“What?” I ask. What can he mean by intelligent? Even the tiny life forms these humans held in symbiosis were more polite. Or perhaps that is not what he meant.

“Ah, I am the first not from your planet your kind has spoken to?” I say. Of course, no wonder they have never heard of a Caretaker.

“Yes,” the Captain says, “I hope this is not our last meeting. It is a lonely galaxy.” She bows her head like it hurt her to say that.

“Oh, you do have a lot to learn,” I say, ”I wish it were possible to escape the midnight star. I must go now or you will destroy what data it has already collected.”

The captain nods.

I release the imprint and though the memory of the form does not leave I no longer am bound by it. I expand to my normal frame and again the ship seems so small. This time when I look at the dark lettering on the side I can read it. The ship is called the S.S. Hawking. It is named after a scientist from their earth. The one known for his theories on black holes.

A shudder runs through my form. Such an inelegant name for the beautiful dark stars. I look to my star as the ship approaches behind me.

I shift the space between the fronds creating small vacuums that pull the soft hairs apart and to the side. I repeat this until the fronds are split into their individual hairs. Then I send the hairs outward until a tunnel is made in a direct line to the ship, where they shouldn’t brush against it. It is the least I can do for them. As the tip of the ship passes the matter disk, it hovers at the edge of the event horizon and I am sadddened.

The ship begins to glow, it glows until it is shining so brightly it looks like it is encompassed in a shield bubble. I phase behind a hair.

A shield cannot save you now little ones. The shield brightens as they approach the core, then in a moment it is gone, swallowed up into the mass of the midnight star.

The emotions of the crew cease.

Nothing escapes the core. I pull the fronds back into hairs then back into place. I am still the Caretaker. I must tend to my library properly. I would not want the data to be destroyed.

The fronds sway gently in the breeze off the nearest star system. I wander, phasing around the fronds as I walk out to the horizon.

I chase down the orbiting telescopter and refocus to see farther away, in the direction the ship had come from. I search for a planet where such little physical creatures thrive. There is one solar system in that direction that is close. I search all the gas giants, but inside I see nothing of the two legged creatures.

I hesitate as I see through a ring of asteroids. There are three rocky planets, well and one near the star, but that one has been stripped to its core, hardly more than a round asteroid. Surely the humans were not from a rocky planet. Who has ever heard of a rocky planet holding life?

I search the closest first, an iron planet that once held rivers of liquid water. I see small ships like the one that disappeared into the core. They are on the surface and on the two uneven moons but they are surrounded by artificial environments and sparse plant life. Surely no life with such rich symbiosis could originate on this near dead rocky world.

The next planet I can see orbiting the yellow star is a cloudy planet. It does have a gaseous atmosphere, but the ammonia and raining acid on its surface would melt the fragile creatures I had met.

The last is visible as a blue and brown marble with patches of green just beyond the central star. It is a rocky planet, but covered in liquid water. This could be it. The humans’ bodies had been full of water.

I adjust the Telescopter settings and stare at the surface. Though I no longer hold the form I find the memories from the imprint. The green branches are trees. The other greenery is plants. The air is the same as that in the ship though it seems this Earth’s atmosphere has more carbon than the ship’s held.

Then I see the explosion of life on that little planet.

Millions of organisms in the water, in the air, on the land. They are everywhere, and among them walk those funny two legged humans. They have cities and tiny ships and pathways across the continents. So much on a little rocky planet.

I feel a surge of victory. At first I think it is my excitement at finding the little blue planet. Then waves of victory start crashing into me. That’s when I realize, there is only one place such a rush emotion could be coming from.

As fast as I can phase I fly between the fronds desperate to get to the opposite side of my midnight star. I pass debris in the ring, and gasses light as I pass too fast between the atoms, setting some aflame.

There it is. The little white and ultraviolet ship with lettering on the side. The shield is dim and the ship is slow but it came out intact.

I am so happy for these little creatures but the ship is slowing, is stopping. I frown, nearly in the human way as I bend over to look closer.

Oh no.

A thrill of fear runs through me. They aren’t going to make it.
I shrink as fast as I can into the ship and waft through until I find the room where the Captain sits. As I corporealize I can hear the engines straining, thundering, fighting the pull of gravity on the ship’s frame.

“Captain, you have done the impossible,” I yell.

She looks at me. Fear washes out of her. It is replaced by determination. She smiles, a toothy upward crescent.

“Please. Please let me save you. Let me save your crew,” I beg, “they cannot die after such an achievement.” A frond whips precariously close to the ship.

Her eyelids expose the whites of her eyes. 

“I must go through the black hole.” She says.

I shudder. “But don’t you see. You have. You did what no one ever has. You escaped the core!”

She shakes her head. “We must escape the event horizon, and the disk or what use is it going through the core?” 

My body ripples in and out of atoms as frustration pulses out of my human form.

“What use is there risking your crewmember’s lives when you have achieved the extraordinary already?” I demand. Her hands grip the…arms of her chair.

“And you were not here to help us through? If another ship were to go through a black hole and no one was there to help them, would the engine I did not test fully serve them?”

I lowered my hands, “It is a test. You are gathering data for future use…” She is more like a proper caretaker than I am.

“If we cannot escape the event horizon then the test would have been for naught.” She says. She leans forward not looking at me, “There are only so many limits. We can break through this one. We must.”

I let out a long loud breath, the molecules squeezed out of these human lungs with force.

“Then I will do what I can,” I say.

Her eyes widen but I am already expanding. I expand around the ship and begin pulling the fronds apart. If the fronds rope together one touch will electrocute the tiny vessel, perhaps paralyse it, but with individual hairs it might stand a chance.
I grimace as the ship hits a tendril have not gotten to. Time, I only have so much time.

The hair sparks visibly. The data stored on it is instantly replaced by knowledge of the ship as the electricity arcs across the little vessel. The S.S. Hawking slows a fraction as the electricity pulls at it. It still is moving forward.

Come on Captain. Show me you have a plan. Show me the midnight star didn’t swallow you whole.

I try to hold the hairs out of the way, but it is a precarious balance this close to the core. Another hair whips into the ship. It records imprints of the crew members over the stardust.

The ship slows again and I don’t know if they have enough momentum. Then the gold shield flickers and glows bright again. The ship turns to run through another hair. The hair records the functionality of the vessel.

At the hair’s touch the glow brightens. Finally, the ship moves forward. 
It accelerates impossibly quickly. In shock, I hold the hairs out of the way. The vessel zips out of the small disk swirling around the dark star. The S.S. Hawking makes a turn and flies homeward faster than even I can move. They leave a trail of screaming, crying, relieved victory in their wake.
They did it. They made it through the core and out the horizon. Those little physical beings from a rocky planet. 

As I survey the damage I pick through the data. I pull the fronds apart. I marvel over the thread that tells what powered the Quantum drive. What brought them through, impossibly whole. I radiate disbelief nearly as strong as a human as I stare at the calculations.  A reverse sub-electric phase bounce. Instead of wiping the hairs, that would funnel the electricity to the engine. I scramble to find the hair that shows how they made it through. I vacuum a piece toward me and lean close.

Well, I’ll be. The equations and calculations on how to phase. I look at my Midnight Star, its soft hairs winding back into fronds as it waves quietly in the breeze off the nearest star system.

 It took a physical creature to figure out what Phasers were too afraid to try. They made it through the midnight star core, and used the midnight star’s own energy to escape the edge.

Now that is data worth collecting.

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