Black Hole

News travelled fast on the Triumph. Even with more than 2,000 people on board the ship, word of the anomaly travelled from the senior crew down to the schoolchildren in a matter of hours, and it didn't take long until everyone was speculating.

The citizens of the Triumph had been travelling for more than 50 years. The Captain and First Officer were both born here on the ship, and for the entire journey, they'd gone along with their sister ship, the Victory. They were a refugee ship, filled with the children of people who'd fled their own dying planet. With the anomaly, they might be the end of their entire race.

The two ships were flying together through an unknown portion of space, searching (as always) for a new homeworld to colonize. In the blink of an eye, the Victory disappeared. It wasn't on sensors. It wasn't on the viewscreen. It was just gone.

K'tan, the Science Officer, explained the dire situation to the senior staff a few hours earlier. There was an anomaly, some sort of gravitational field. One of the ships was pulled into the gravity well, but there was no way of knowing which ship was gone. The ship that went past the event horizon would be destroyed, but was it the Victory or the Triumph?

If the Victory was in the gravity well, there might be a way for the Triumph to pull them out, but at what cost? Nobody knew exactly where the event horizon was, so nobody knew whether the Triumph would fall in, too, and the longer they searched for a way to rescue their sister ship, the longer their own ship was at risk.

On the other hand, if the Triumph was caught in the gravitational pull, there was no way out, at least not under their own power.
The two ships had been traveling together since the destruction of their planet. They were one of three refugee groupings, each with two ships departing in a different direction for greener pastures. Or any pastures. Any place they could call home.

But there was no way to know whether the other ships had survived. And among these two ships, there was always a strong bond. Children married and went to a different ship. Parents retired to a different ship. Moving from one ship to another was like moving from Seattle to Portland; it was just moving to a nearby city, but almost all of the families had ties on both ships.

The Captain's dilemma was what to do. Abandoning the other ship meant leaving behind his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter. Most of the other senior officers were in a similar position. The Victory was family.

Captain Wick sat in the conference room after most of the senior officers had left. He'd heard all the arguments. K'tan argued that they had a duty to preserve their race and that continuing to search for a rescue opportunity was foolish. Pali, the Chief Engineer, thought it was dishonorable that they'd even consider abandoning the Victory; of course, his wife and young son were on the Victory when it disappeared for a school field trip.

The rest of the senior staff couldn't agree any more than K'tan and Pali. Captain Wick was about to make a decision that would either save or doom his entire race, and even his most trusted friends couldn't come to an agreement about which option was best.

He was alone.

For the first time since he took command, Captain Wick was utterly and truly alone. The Victory was lost. Or was the Triumph lost? Was there any way to find out?

Perhaps Captain Wick didn't need to make the decision. Maybe this was a decision best left to the Elders. The Elders never got involved in matters of the ship, but they were a council of wise men and women who answered questions about the community. Since this decision could doom his entire race, the Elders had to be consulted.

By the time the schoolchildren passed around word of the anomaly, Captain Wick was approaching the Elders to ask for help. Once he presented the dilemma to them, they ignored him. He sat to listen to their discussion.

"There is no evidence that we are even outside the anomaly. And if we're inside of it, then any decision we make is futile because we're all doomed anyway," said Elder Varis, an ancient man who'd been a civic leader on Kiturah before their planet's atmosphere became uninhabitable. It was a miracle he was still alive, because most of the people from Kiturah's old days were long dead. The atmosphere was so poisonous before the evacuation that many of the original refugees died at an early age.

"We cannot make decisions if we assume that we're doomed, Varis," Elder Genesse pointed out. He was younger, one of the first babies to be born on the Triumph. He wheezed when he talked, but he was clearly a younger and more energetic man.

"If we're not doomed," interjected Elder Lewani, "and I must agree with Elder Genesse that it does us no good to assume the worst - then staying here will cost 2,127 lives of our community. It's no less than a genocide!" Elder Lewani was the only woman on the council, but she was a formidable woman. She lost her parents a few short months before she was evacuated, and she was only a young woman when Kiturah fell.

Elder Jamesy spoke up. "What does it benefit us if we save our lives but lose ourselves? By abandoning the Victory to certain destruction, we actively commit genocide." He was the youngest member of the council, his brown hair only beginning to show streaks of gray at the temples.

"If we do nothing, we may lose the ability to do anything," said Elder Genesse. "If we sit here and do nothing, we will be doomed eventually, if we're not already."

"What about maintaining order?" asked Elder Timon. "If we leave - if we abandon our friends and family members - how long can we expect to maintain order on board this ship? Sentencing those family members to death is bound to create some animosity."

The Elders all nodded at this. But was his point reason enough to risk the entire ship?

"How do we know that it would ever be possible to rescue the Victory? And how long must we wait to try to find a solution before we have no choice but to leave?" asked Elder Varis.

"How long would our family members search for a way to save us?" shot back Elder Jamesy. "Would they not wait as long as it takes to bring us back? How can we abandon them?"

An hour later, the Elders were no closer to making a decision. Captain Wick was exhausted.

"Let us put the decision to the people," proposed Elder Timon. "Let them decide."

"Are you proposing some sort of vote?" asked Elder Genesse, her voice rising with disbelief.

"I suppose I am," said Elder Timon, placidly.

"I'm in favor of that," chimed in Elder Varis. "Though I daresay that it doesn't matter what they decide if we're already doomed."

"We don't vote," said Elder Genesse. "We rule by the council of Elders. If we cannot decide, how can we abdicate our responsibility to the people?"

"How can we make this decision for them?" asked Elder Timon.

"If we cannot come to a decision, we have to leave it to the people," agreed Elder Jamesy.

Despite her protests, Elder Genesse was overruled. The people would vote, and all people over the age of 20 would let their opinions be heard. The decision might be too important to entrust to the people, but none of the decision-makers could come to an agreement.

A full 23-hour day would pass before the people would cast their votes. During that time, K'tan and the Elders would talk to the people to explain the situation to them.

22 hours later, there was no clear consensus aboard the ship, but D'nara, the ship's Security Officer, had already reported three fistfights erupting in the common areas over the decision. Whoever "won", about half the ship would be infuriated.

When the votes were in, the decision was close. 792 people voted to stay and rescue the Victory. 801 voted to flee to safety.

Decision made, Captain Wick ordered D'nara to increase security patrols throughout the ship and retired to his conference room to meet with the other senior officers. All that remained was to set a course and continue on their journey.

"You know, Captain," K'tan said, "we still don't know whether we're in the anomaly or outside of it. We may never know."

"So despite all this, we may still be doomed?" Captain Wick asked. "When will we know?"

"We'll never know," said K'tan. "If we're inside the anomaly, we could keep going for another hundred years or more before we ever reach spaghettification, and when we do, we wouldn't even notice it was happening to us until we ceased to exist. We won't even die. We'll just go away."

"We could have generations inside the anomaly and we wouldn't even know it," muttered Captain Wick.