***
The level of activity aboard Alfheim was extreme and Sif had to edge herself around warriors and scientists racing back and forth in the corridors.
”Hi ..?” Sif looked gently inside the lab. Thor was not always easy to deal with when he was working with his experiments and she wanted to be sure that he was ready for a visit. He stood gazing on his studying numbers and equations as she entered.
”Hi,” he said absently and beckoned her to him with his hand his eyes fixed on the screen.
”Please,” he continued and moved away from the screen to give her some room. “Please come and have a look ”
Sif looked at the screen. First with interest, but then with eyebrows wrinkled and her face in a puzzled expression. Certainly he didn´t mean this seriously? She had had to have misunderstood!
Some of the equations on that screen were very similar to the ones used for the transport system and some looked like parts of the programmes controlling the Fyrkat device.
”Weren´t you supposed to be working on some cutting edge weapons technology?” She asked. He responded with an unpleasant look. Like a blend of amazement, but also a little bit of resentment. Then he pulled himself together and shook his head slightly as if he was trying to let it go.
”Now, just look at it, please,” he asked, ”would these equations get Fyrkat to open a time warp bubble where time either goes faster or slower than everything that lies outside the bubble?”
Sif studied the numbers further and nodded.
”Well ...I suppose...” she answered hesitantly, ”theoretically, but ...” She cocked her head as she used to do when she really had to think things through. Then she pointed out a few issues on the screen.
”This won´t work,” she said and deleted an equation, ”and this should probably be called something like ...” She made some corrections to another equation.
”I assume this is supposed to control time differences?” She asked and got a nod for answers.
She was just about to ask how Thor was planning to use all of this as a weapon when Baldur popped in and looked at them with a seriousness quite unlike his personality.
”Thor, Sif,” he said in a concerned voice, ”We´ve established contact with Asgard. Odin asks us to gather in the control room immediately. ”
They left their work and went with Baldur. On the way down the corridor they passed Freya and Baldur passed on the message to her. Before long, the four gods were gathered in the control room with Odin’s huge face looking at them from a big screen. He asked them to sit down and report.
”As you know, Mr. First Minister,” Thor started, but was interrupted by Odin, who sat with a wry smile and shook his head.
”Please, Thor, back up on the formalities a bit, if you please,” he laughed, ”we've all known each other for way too long. It really us quite unnerving to hear you people use my official title. To you I´m Odin, plain and simple Odin - at least when there are no other people present.” Thor looked around and found the eyes of the others. Off course, Odin was right. It was rather strange for him to be that formal. After all, Odin was his and Baldur´s father and Sif was his daughter-in-law. And Freya? Well, the relationship between her and Odin was a public secret.
”Well, yes, of course,” Thor continued focusing on Odin again, ”But then ... as .. You know, Odin ... The two human children, Tjalfe and Roeskva, disappeared during transport from Earth to Alfheim. We suspect that Tjalfe by accident - and without even knowing it - has somehow managed to reprogram the console connected to the Fyrkat device. This could in some way have granted the Yetten an opportunity to lock on to Tjalfe and Roeskva using their own transporter technology.” Odin frowned.
”But how did they manage to break through the shield?” He asked. They looked around at each other and Thor shrugged.
”We cannot be sure,” he said, ”but there are indications of sabotage aboard the Alfheim. The shield logs shows a succinct reduction of shell efficiency to 13% and we suspect that it has opened a window of 2-3 milliseconds, where the Yetten might have been able to go around the shield and lock on to the children.” Odin looked worried. A saboteur aboard Alfheim?
”OK,” he nodded, ”continue ...” Thor cleared his throat.
”We still have no clear idea of where Loki is, but we are collecting a vast flow of information coming in from our agents around the galaxy.” He turned to Freya and encouraged her to take over. Without moving from her place in the chair, she showed a model of the galaxy on a screen at the side of the room.
”We have received quite a few reports and it is more complicated than usual to figure out which reports are important and which are less important,” she explained, pointing to an area on the map, ”but as you can see, there is a particular concentration of reports in this area. ” She zoomed in on the map.
”The center of these reports seem to be Skrymers Glove, a paradoxical black hole.”
Baldur looked confused.
”A what?” He asked.
”A paradoxical black hole,” Freya repeated, ”usually black holes occur around a star that implodes and draws its mass around a single point. Such an implosion is what we call a supernova and when it occurs, the force of gravity is so massive that even light cannot escape. This sucks planets, other stars and whatever other material there is nearby, toward and into the black hole in a whirlwind shaped formation. ”
She looked around to make sure they were still with her. Then she continued.
“But this is the most usual chain of events,” she said and moved to the next illustration on the screen, “and, if two stars or more in close vicinity become super nova´s at the same time, which in universal time could be anything from 10,000 years to at least 200,000 years, the most usual outcome would be that the smaller stars are drawn into the larger ones, where they collide and become one huge black hole. But...” she paused for a second for drama, which was quite unusual for her character, and then she continued: “Our scientists have, pure theoretical, predicted that under certain circumstances, two or more supernova´s can be in such close vicinity in both space and time that the range of their respectful field´s of gravity exceeds the capacity of what we call the fabric of reality.”
Baldur´s eyes grew in size as he listened, but Freya had no intention of stopping her explanation to ask if anyone had questions.
“The fabric of reality” she moved on, “can best be understood as the interplay between the natural forces in space and time in almost the same way as when we are talking about triangles. If we know the length of at least two of the sides, we can calculate the third. If one of the sides are stretched, at least one of the other sides has to be shorter for the triangle to still be a triangle.
The same goes for the fabric of reality. It cannot be exceeded. Still, in some cases, such as the before mentioned situation with at least two supernovas close enough in both space and time, that fabric of time exceeds its capacity and the result is peculiar: the supernovas cannot collide and so they don´t - but still, they do.”
Baldur shook his head in disbelief. “Could you run that by me again?” he asked rhetorically, “they do not collide and they do collide?”
“Exactly!” Freya answered and now she was so thrilled with the Scientifics that the eagerly jumped up from her chair. “That´s precisely the point! It sounds crazy - and it is... Something happens in a paradoxical black hole that scientifically speaking is quite impossible, but somehow it happens anyway. So, yes! They collide - and they don´t collide - all at the same time and in the same space. It is in itself a paradox, that is: something that cannot happen, but still does happen. That´s why we call it a paradoxical black hole!”
Baldur leaned back in his chair with his hands folded behind his neck shaking his head as if to say: “you scientists are completely insane.”
Freya pointed her finger at the screen.
“As you can see, Skrymers Glove is a special case of the paradoxical black hole. A paradoxic
al black hole with just two or three points is rare enough, but Skrymers Glove has no fewer than 5 black holes, connected in a paradoxical collapse with each other.”
Freya further explained how the 5 black holes relative to each other could theoretically create a small pocket of space between them. In this pocket there would be no gravity and therefore no danger of being swallowed up by the black holes surrounding it.
“This pocket can be as small as a fingernail or as large as an entire solar system,” she explained, “but we cannot predict its size and we have no way to either prove or disprove our theory. There is only one way to find out the truth...”
“We have to go in there?” Baldur said. Despite his aversion to all this science gibberish, he would never decline the chance of a dangerous adventure - not the least now, as it seemed he would not get the chance to shine with his skills in a Skarfi.
“Well, I don´t know about you guys, but I´m ready for some action!” Baldur made clear with an excited look at the others. He had to realize, however, that he was the only one not finding it important to give it a bit of thought before moving on. A noisy silence fell upon them as they thought it through.
Finally Thor cleared his throat and raised his hand.
“The truth is,” he began, “that I feel responsible for those kids and would go every bit of the way if I had the slightest hope of recovering them. But if they really are inside that thing, how are we supposed to find them? I mean, that gravity free pocket could have any size, as I understand it? If it´s the size of a fingernail, we will all die in an instant and if it´s the size of... I don´t know... a galaxy? How could we ever hope to find them in our own life time, let alone in their life time?”
Freya said nothing as her eyes fell on Sif, who looked at the floor biting her lips.
“Well...” Sif said quietly, “I´ve been nerding a bit with radiation in organic material, and...”
“Whoa!” Baldur interrupted her with a horrible grimace, “Enough with the science talk, already!”
He shook his head exaggeratedly while holding out his hands, palms fronted as if he was defending against a dog trying to lick his face.
“My head is about to explode! Could you please skip all the fancy details and just tell us what your newest gimmick can do?”
Sif smiled. She just couldn´t help herself. Somehow she´d always had a soft spot for Baldur and especially for his way of pretending to be more stupid than he really was. The fact was that he understood perfectly well what she was talking about. The real challenge for him was his impatience. He wanted to get the mission started as quickly as possible and she knew it. Besides, giving him a more practical explanation wouldn´t hurt.
“I can do that,” she said, “I made a sort of decoding device that isolates the presence of human DNA within a range of approximately 100,000 kilometers - that is: if it works the way I hope it does.”
Thor turned his head and looked at Freya. “Would that be enough?” he asked.
“Yeah, I think that would probably do it,” she answered, “but the Yetten forces went through quite a lot of trouble to even capture the kids, let alone bring them inside the paradoxical black hole. We should expect them to be heavily armed and alert to any kind of activity outside the non-gravity pocket.” She paused for a bit, looking questioningly at Thor, before continuing. “Bottom line is: we need a weapon that can match anything we´ve seen in the past.”
“And we shouldn´t forget the saboteur,” it sounded from the big screen where Odin´s face watched over them from far away.
“I sincerely believe we have it under control,” Thor responded, clearly still quite embarrassed that such a thing happened on his watch, “I reprogrammed the controls to the shield and only the people present in this room know about the new set up. Furthermore I´ve changed all passwords to the basic controls to every part of Alfheim´s systems. I should be able to track any and all unauthorized changes in the programming, no matter where it comes from or who is making changes.”
Odin nodded in content. “Okay,” he said, “I´ll approve this mission, but under two conditions. First, it´s vital to keep all information about the mission among ourselves. No information whatsoever leaves this circle, understand?”
They nodded in agreement and Odin continued: “Now, to make sure, I will order anyone but the people present in this room to leave the Alfheim and move to various other functions spread out in the galaxy. I´ll send transport ships immediately to get them off the ship as fast as possible. And yes, Freya, I do agree that Frey is trustworthy, but this is my decision... There is a group of transport ship in close vicinity to where you are and they will arrive in a few hours, so prepare to embark as soon as this meeting is over, okay?”
Odin did not wait for them to agree, but simply went on explaining the second condition:
“I will not force anyone to accept this mission. You will all have a choice and whatever you choose, it will have absolutely no effect on your future career in our armed forces in any way.”
They all looked at each other, their eyes stating what they already knew: there wasn´t a single one of them who even considered declining the mission. This was something they just had to do.
“As soon as Alfheim returns to Asgard - hopefully with the children aboard - it will be phased out and dismantled,” Odin went on, “Every weapon and other technology you have tested will be integrated in a brand new project we´ve been working on for the past months. But I´ll tell you more about it when you get back to Asgard.”
He paused for a second, weighing his words and then opened his mouth to say one last thing:
“One more thing you need to know: If you are captured during the mission, we will not be coming to rescue you. We simply do not have the resources for it. We are under pressure on several fronts and cannot afford to lose a single ship. It is important that you understand this: either you complete the mission without getting caught or you will be lost in the hands of the Yetten!” He caught their eyes one by one to be sure they understood this, before closing the meeting.
“Right! I think that just about sums it up. I´d like a brief message before you leave, but other than that it´s complete radio silence. Understood?” He did not wait for them to answer, but simply nodded for a farewell and turned off the screen. The meeting was over.
They went down the corridor as a group. Thor noticed how Freya slightly slowed down lagging behind and sensed that she wanted to talk to him without the others hearing their conversation, so he decided to accompany her. And sure enough. When Baldur and Sif were out of earshot, Freya stopped and looked at Thor her eyebrows wrinkled. He took a deep breath and prepared for the worst.
“Have you ever considered that Loki might be our saboteur?” she asked. How typical of her to hand it to him so bluntly. Thor fought to control his anger at this accusation. Freya was one of the cleverest people he knew and definitely the most able intelligence officer in the entire Asgard society. If she had a suspicion it would be most wise to listen.
“Does anything point in that direction?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Not as such,” she said, “we just have to consider that possibility. There have been no intelligence reports on his whereabouts since that day back on Earth. Not even a dead end rumor. It´s highly unusual having no reports at all and this is my main concern. All the reports we have received are about the children, although much of it is of no importance and seems to lead nowhere. But nothing about one of the most feared soldiers in the Aseir forces? That just doesn´t sound right.”
“Hmmm... no, it doesn´t...” Thor went through it all in his mind, but neither he could find any reasonable explanation for it. “How about our contacts with the Vanes?”
“Nothing there either,” Freya shook her head, “In fact we haven´t even heard his name mentioned anywhere. Not a peep!”
Thor nodded. Even though he hated the idea, he knew she was right. Loki and he were blood brothers and they ha
d fought so many battles together, but he could not allow his feelings for Loki to cloud his judgment - or for anyone else, for that matter. He had to keep an open mind to the evidence. If anyone was ever to even suspect that he was holding his hand over those most dear to him, it would be a danger to his authority and make it almost impossible to fight back the Yetten forces.
“Okay,” he finally gave in and breathed in deep, “investigate the matter. And do not hold back on it.”
Freya turned on her heels to leave him.
“But Freya?”
She turned again to look him in the eyes.
“As long as we don´t have anything solid...?”
“We can´t act on suspicions alone,” she said and touched his shoulder with a tenderness, he had never seen in her before.
“For now, there are no direct indications of Loki being involved,” she emphasized, “but the point is that we can´t ignore the signs that he may be involved. Simply put: it seems too much of a coincidence that Loki completely disappears from under our radar at exactly the same time as your rescue operation at Fyrkat and that the children vanished almost immediately after. And it is remarkable that we hear absolutely nothing afterwards. We must take it seriously and consider every possibility.”
“I know,” Thor said quietly nodding his head in a sad posture. Silence...
Then Freya turned around and began walking down the corridor aiming for her office.
“Keep me informed, alright?” Thor said loudly. She held up her hand for an answer. “As always,” she responded.
***