The Long Horizon
by Jean-Paul Garnier
I don't know how it came
to be that I ever volunteered for this crazy mission. There was
never any doubt in anyone's mind that there would be no return
trip. By nature it had to be a one-way mission. What I was
to study would not be known by the rest of humanity for years to come,
if at all. I was to go where no one has ever gone before, where no one
would want to go, a place that had only been available to theoretical
physicists through numbers.
#
Where I was headed was known to be so dangerous that most would
never have even dared to dream that it was possible, yet in order to
gain an understanding of the most powerful forces of nature the only
way was to visit. Robotic spacecraft had been sent before, all to no
avail. It was then understood that only a man could make the
split-second decisions necessary to transfer data regarding black-holes
back to earth. I agreed to go, for my fascination with black-holes had
become so intense that it had moved into the territory of obsession. I
knew that there would be no coming back for me, and all that would
remain of my life would be whatever data I was able to transfer back to
earth before I reached the event horizon, if it were possible to live
that long.
#
My training for the journey should have taken years but had to
be completed before the window of opportunity closed. We were going to
utilize one of the magnetic vortexes created whenever earth's magnetic
lines overlapped and reconnected with the solar wind. The one that we
needed to use, the one that was powerful enough to send me to the heart
of the galaxy, would be open for only a short time. If we were able to
reach the vortex then I would be put into cryo, for even with the warp
it would take decades to reach the center. When the craft was
close enough I was to be awakened and begin scientific experimentation
immediately. The hope was that the information could be transferred
back through the vortex and reach earth within several decades time
from the transmission. It would be the last that anyone would
ever hear from me before I would supposedly be stretched into spaghetti
by gravitational forces.
#
I was traveling at relativistic speeds. Already centuries had
passed on earth, and perhaps my mission would all be but forgotten by
now. As I approached the black hole the swirling light and color around
me was like nothing I had seen before. The twinkling of the stars seems
to be slowing down, or had they stopped altogether? I could not feel
that my mass had changed, but I knew that something had. Now, taking
measurements with the chronometer I witnessed time slow down, and as I
approached the event horizon I am not pulled and twisted into a strand
of spaghetti, instead I stay frozen, gazing at the millisecond hand
which has stopped, forever.
THE END
© 2014 Jean-Paul Garnier
Bio: Jean-Paul L.
Garnier lives in Los Angeles, CA, where he is an audio
technician. He has no professional publications to date but has a
story recently published in the UK's Schlock! Webzine.
E-mail: Jean-Paul Garnier
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