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© Sardaana Kokolova, 2025
ISBN 978-5-0068-5839-8
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
The thread
The sound of the beeper persistently tried to break through the dream. So he could only wake up earlier than usual, – «Again. Something’s not sleeping again.»
– System, check.
– Report of the on-board computer of the Gok spaceship.
Day: 1456.
Destination: galaxy NGC 1277 in the constellation Perseus and the Andromeda galaxy.
Purpose: study of a supermassive black hole.
Challenge: record the sound of a black hole and transfer data with a nearby caravan.
Ship condition: normal.
Status of food and water supplies: normal.
Events over the past 6 hours: the passage to the outskirts of the Orion sleeve is approaching the final stage in normal mode.
Warning: S255, a stellar wind break is possible.
Star distance: safe.
– Leave under observation.
He got up quickly. The life of an introvert on a spaceship on a solo trip is simple and not intricate. Every day one hour in the hall and on the treadmill. Then into the shower. Having finished washing, breakfast. As a rule, this is black strong coffee, scrambled eggs with ham, and a glass of ice cream on weekends. There were also gala dinners for dates determined before the flight. The soul of man is so arranged that it requires a holiday. On such days, the standard menu was replaced with a solemn one and even had imitation candles on the cake.
But on ordinary working days, he did not particularly indulge himself and lived clearly on schedule. In his free time, he studied music. He listened to his collection and tried to write songs. Only his team knew about this hobby, and then not everyone, but employees from those who were constantly on duty. But with them, he was not so frank. And explained his absence online by working on a new song.
One day before the flight, he performed his song at his sister’s wedding.
«It turned out gently,» she said, and hugged him. And then she whispered in his ear: «not bad, but it could have been better.» How he loved his sister, that she never gave him a descent and only encouraged to continue with his barbs.
Therefore, having learned about the upcoming flight, he asked the management only one thing: to allow do music in his free time. They didn’t mind. More important was a task that only he could complete.
The problem was getting as close to the black hole as possible. And no one had such experience in exploring black holes as he had. He felt like by skin to come as close as possible to this or that black hole. Before its appearance, a considerable number of experienced researchers died while trying to study black holes.
And perhaps all attempts to continue collecting data at close range would be stopped. But he became the only pilot capable of finding new data previously unknown to anyone.
After breakfast, he again rechecked the calculations and made sure that there were no mistakes and perhaps in a week he would be able to record the sounds of this «black beauty.» That’s what he called them. Although all his «beauties» were cruel killers and destroyed more than one star. He even had an album with photos of all the objects he had studied. And yes, each of them had its own name. When watching this album, he could tell a lot of interesting things.
No, he was never even head over heels in love. He liked one girl at the institute. As well as everyone from his squad. First beauty. She was surrounded with the attention of fans and of course did not notice him. Once at a university party, taking advantage of a moment when she was alone, plucked up the courage and approached her. But he was immediately displaced by the first athlete who went to the bar for drinks.
In order not to feel such feelings anymore, he decided that black holes are more interesting than trying to build relationships.
He filled his loneliness as much as possible. And he did not give himself a minute of inaction. The only moments he didn’t do anything were sleeping and meditating. Although recently he had no minutes left for this. He was waiting for the upcoming meeting with the new «black beauty» and could not sleep. He knew perfectly well what awaited him from his experience.
He even picked up a name for her based on characteristics from preliminary data. Apparently, this black hole had a wayward character and strong gravity. From the clusters around, a fairly decent track record of destroyed small and large stars could be assumed.
«It looks like you’ve been travelling alone for a long time, Lily Black Rose. Yes, your full name is exactly that. But I’ll call you Lilya. You can be a lackey and not destroy me. I’ll find an approach to you.»
He kept talking to the black hole and checking systems. It was necessary to enter the rapprochement program as ready as possible. Any error, the slightest failure in any process can lead to a fatal error. Over the entire period of studying black holes, hundreds of incidents and crew deaths have called into question the feasibility of continuing the study. But the strongest gravity, X-ray waves and their potential haunted many. And the latest discovery of the «reverse passage of time in a black hole» completely stirred up everyone and caused a new wave of interest. Therefore, his company was one of the first to decide on a program to study black holes through maximum convergence.
It’s not a joke – return time. It’s just needed to understand what was the reason and whether there is a possibility of reproduction in laboratory conditions. Modeling the behavior of almost any space object has become almost a task for students in their fifth year. But much remains unknown.
«There’s something wrong with that beauty.» The closer he got to the object, the more his excitement grew. He felt something was wrong. But he could not understand what exactly. As if anxiety was growing for no reason or he just hadn’t realized everything yet. He double-checked all systems, log entries. But anxiety did not let go.
Today he decided to go out and check the external nodes on his own. Yes, the sensors said everything was fine. But this mounting anxiety kept him awake. He understood there was a reason for this, but what – he could not understand.
Putting on his spacesuit, he left the ship and began checking along the side.
Making sure everything was in order on the way back to the hatch, he looked back towards the object. It was still quite far away, but even at that distance its power was felt. In fact, he saw emptiness and only gas clouds in a spiral indicated the presence of a black hole.
«What’s wrong with you? What bothers me?» – he looked towards the black hole and seemed to be waiting for an answer from it.
– Attention collision threat.
«What? Why so early?»
– An unidentified object is approaching.
– Time for manoeuvre?
– None.
– Impact location?
– Front end.
– Close the curtains! «What is it? Where from?» – he clung to the arm of the chair and prepared for a strong blow.
– before the collision. 5, 4, 3, 2,
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