Starplex

“Rhombus,” said Keith, “as soon as Lianne’s got the appropriate systems back on-line, send a probe through to the green-star exit. Include a hyperspace scanner on it so you can locate the darmats by the dents they make in spacetime. Also, have it do a wide-spectrum radio scan, in case Waldahud reinforcements have arrived. And”—Keith tried to keep his voice calm—“have it check for the Rumrunner’s transponder code.”

“It’ll be at least thirty minutes before we can do that,” said Lianne.

Keith pursed his lips, and thought about Rissa. If she were gone, it would take all the billions of years he had left to get over the loss. He looked at the smudges of galactic light against the abyss. He didn’t even know which direction to look in, which way to concentrate his thoughts. He felt incredibly small, insignificant, and lonely beyond belief. There was nothing to focus on in the holo bubble—nothing sharp, nothing well defined. Just an abyss—an ego-crashing emptiness.

Suddenly there was a strange sound like a dog’s cough from his left; PHANTOM translated it as an expression of “absolute astonishment.” Keith turned to face Jag, and his mouth hung open as he stared at the Waldahud. He’d never seen Jag’s fur do that before. “What’s wrong?”

“I—I know where we are,” said Jag.

Keith looked at him. “Yes?”

“You’re aware that the Milky Way and Andromeda have about forty smaller galaxies bound to them gravitationally, right?” said Jag.

“The Local Group,” said Keith, irritated.

“Exactly,” said Jag. “Well, I started off by trying to find some of the Local Group’s distinctive features, such as superbright S Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud. But that didn’t work. So I sorted the catalog of known extragalactic pulsars by distance—which corresponds to age, of course—and used their signature radio pulses to orient myself.”

“Yes, yes,” said Keith. “And?”

“And the closest galaxy to us right now is that one there.” Jag pointed beneath his feet to a fuzzy spot in the hologram. “It’s about five hundred thousand light-years from here. I have identified it as CGC 1008; it has several unique attributes.”

“All right,” said Keith, sharply. “We’re half a million light-years from CGC 1008. Now, for us nonastrophysics types, how far is CGC 1008 from the Milky Way?”

Jag’s barking was subdued, almost soft. “We are,” said the translated voice, “six billion light-years from home.”

“Six… billion?” asked Thor, turning to face Jag.

Jag lifted his upper shoulders. “That is correct,” he said, his voice still soft.

“That’s… staggering,” said Keith.

Jag lifted his upper shoulders. “Six billion light-years. Sixty thousand times the Milky Way’s own diameter. Twenty-seven hundred times the distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda.” He looked at Keith. “In terms you nonastrophysics types might use, one hell of a long way.”

“Can we see the Milky Way from here?” asked Keith.

Jag made a gesture with his arms. “Oh, yes,” he said, his barking still subdued. “Yes, indeed. Central Computer, magnify sector 112.”

A border appeared around a portion of the holographic bubble. Jag left his workstation and walked toward it. He squinted for a moment, getting his bearings. “There,” he said, pointing. “That one there. And that’s Andromeda next to it. And this is M33, the third-largest member of the Local Group.”

Rhombus’s lights twinkled in confusion. “Boundless apologies, but that can’t be right, good Jag. Those aren’t spiral galaxies. They look more like disks.”

“I’m not mistaken,” said Jag. “That is the Milky Way. Since we are now six billion light-years from it, we are seeing it as it looked six billion years ago.”

“Are you sure?” said Keith.

“I am positive. Once the pulsars had told me approximately where to look, it was easy enough to identify which galaxy was the Milky Way, which was Andromeda, and so on. The Magellanic Clouds are too young for any light from them to have reached this far out, but globular clusters contain almost exclusively ancient first-generation stars, and I’ve identified several specific globulars associated with both the Milky Way and Andromeda. I am sure of it—that simple disk of star is our home galaxy.”

“But the Milky Way has spiral arms,” said Lianne.

Jag turned to her. “Yes, without question, the Milky Way today has spiral arms. And, just as surely, I can now say that when it was six billion years younger, it did not have spiral.

“How can that be?” asked Thor.

“That,” said Jag, “is a vexing question. I confess that I would have expected a Milky Way even half its present age to still have arms.”

“Okay,” said Keith. “So the Milky Way gains spiral arms sometime in the interim.”