Event Horizon

Chapter One: Outer Galaxy Assignment

No one can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. But as a Portologist, I have evidence to the contrary. Oftentimes, the sound of fear and agony will meet me before the traveler’s form. What goes in must come out. Unless it’s a blackhole, but even then we have some questions. Chicken-and-egg, you know? We Portologists aren’t like the gods that protect portals or the varied species that make them. My department mainly focuses on the data collection of who or what comes in or out of which portals. It’s a practically arbitrary science, there being so many categories of portal types and transient types with the infinity of the universe. The data itself is an endless compilation needing a separate science to comprehend.

Regularly, you see the commoditization of the data. Such as collaborations with intergalactic hit men, cross galaxy bondsmen, those looking after new and old world domination, those seeking to control the spread of invasive species– also known as Colonization Response Teams. In fact, a colleague of mine worked with A’Zari of World Neplong, assisting them in the colonization of Territory 573062. Made 500,000 kips for their effort, the rest went to the Embassy. But they worked a side gig with Asset Rimwald to derail the efforts of the Neplong army. Most Portologists have no interest in inter-species dramas, nor have the need for money. Some have evolved out of the dimension of capital. Creatures that collect on portals are often like the peoples that love trains. Transport junkies with a propensity to hyperfocus on detail. Others are in the science as a form of torture, endless categorizing and counting as reparations for intergalactic law breaking. The prisoners must be “Non Violents”, and are not permitted to exchange the data for any reason after their term is served, if it is not indefinite, and all the earnings go to the Embassy.

Though technically, we are statisticians, we are required lengthy training to obtain the knowledge of how each portal works. General Relativity, Special Relativity, The Planck Scale, particle physics, exotic matter identification and processing, 5-dimensional warped geometry theory, celestial mechanics, gravity, negative energy basics, Topology, and Thermodynamics.

As my consciousness has evolved over the past 62 trillion megga yarns, I have noticed some interesting patterns in the data, suggesting that all portals exist and are created in dream space, and that dream space is accessible by each and every species.

There’s all kinds of portals. Wormholes, gateways, arches, fairy circles, voids, vortexes, caves, chalk drawn portals, rainbows, bridges, stargates, subways, you can even read a sacred text and find yourself in a different dimension, granted your species utilizes literature. There are portals that only work with the mirror effect. For example, a meadow of bindweed that exactly mirrors the stars above will transport you to another patch of bindweed in the same meadow. We usually use bindweed/star portals for training new employees. Classical mirrors, or reflections of any kind, are some of the most common portals. Portals can be unique, while others are easily replicated. Cell phones are portals within portals. Day after those were let loose, the Martin Cooper Branch was developed. Not easy to fill all those positions. Not as many creatures are interested in being a Portologist as you might think. And even less finish the training.

Portologists specialize in certain types and locations of portals. Say you’re a wormhole expert on planet Earth, you’ll either be a Lorentzian wormhole expert or an Euclidean wormhole expert. Say the portal you’re stationed at is in the Emajõe-Suursoo wetlands of Estonia. You’ll need to have some ecological understanding of the input/output location. While you and the Portologist on the other side (known as your pathway companion) are collecting a separate science and ecology, based on their input (your output) location/world. A good friend of mine specializes in Space Voids. Which are most often used by species evacuating waste from their planet or ship into their galaxy, effectively creating space junk. While this may not seem as glamorous as the migrations of angels, or even cataloging souls that have died and entered into new dimensions, it is often in the waste systems that you learn the most about a species. Excrement Excavation, they call it.

So far, only 939,076,518,137 species have discovered and successfully used portals. Even fewer have learned to transport physical matter through them. One can then understand how it might be rather, shall we say, dull, to watch a portal. Most especially those whose inventor species have died off or been eradicated. If you are not a private contractor, and work for one of the two PDCE (Portal Data Collection Embassy), your assignments are given based on “Suspicious Activity in the Void” alerts. Meaning, computer sensors will alert the Embassy, and they will place the Portologist they see best fit on the case according to their specialization and completion of other assignments. Why have “living” Portologosts when there are already computer assets monitoring the portals? Well, unknown matter comes through the passageways that the computers do not have in their database programs yet. It is up to the Portologist to investigate and conduct either experiments, or interrogations. Then their findings can be entered into the Embassy database. There is also a special forces unit trained to find and identify new or unknown portals.

With such a high profile and often dangerous job, there are rules. The most important of which is to never use portals yourself. This would skew the data. It is always required that we have our radios on when we go out to do visual field tests. Your pathway companion must remain in their shuttle while you are in the field, incase of an emergency they can alert the Embassy. The other rules are flexible and deal with break times and eating habits, along with scientific tactics, which are largely at the moral discrepancy of the Portologist. Because you never know what kind of creature will come out, the embassy likes to hire the type that can “look out for themself”, or “get the answers needed”. Interrogation has never been my special skill. I was hired based on my information retention capabilities. More of a counter rather than a fighter, myself.

I’ve just finished up on an interstellar portal between Pollux and Antares, always nice to work with a grandmother star. Stars are my sweet spot. I was stationed on a small craft hovering at the output/input point of Antres, collecting on the undead Tillird clan that were undertaking a reinhabitation project on both stars. We were interested in their colonization tactic of sending sacs of eggs through the portals to be collected and planted by their work dogs. That project finished up when the Ringling Brothers, a pair of rouge Ylipard warriors, came in and stole all the eggs and boiled them.

My new station is outside of the Milky Way, off on the constellation Fornax, to the stellar object UDFj-3954628. Which, as you know, is very old and very far from the Milky Way. I’ve nicknamed it, Left Inside One’s Nostalgic Endless Loneliness, aka Lionel. There were reports of movement in the portal between Lionel (UDFj-3954628) and EGSY8p7 (EGSY-2008532660), a far-off galaxy in the constellation of Boötes. Renaldo is stationed at EGSY8p7, which he has code named, Sally. Renaldo and I have been portal partners for almost 778 yarns now. Our 777 anniversary was a hologram party spent popping bottles of Garg Juice, a gift from the Barbaroo peoples after our data led to the discovery of what was eating their sacred birds.

Renaldo and I have been through much together, though we have never met in the flesh. After so many years of radio calls, the happenings of each of our lives shared with the other, occasional attempts on our lives, great scientific discoveries, and deep sadness, you could say we have a great love for one another. Loneliness can make it feel like romance, but my species doesn't fall in love.

After dinner is when I check the perimeter. The portal on Lionel has a magnetic field rating as one of the top five portals I’ve worked with. The funny thing about star portals is the light refractions have a tendency to hide the opening. You’ve got to be careful when out in the field because if you get too close without knowing it, the magnetism could suck you in. But you pick up tricks. Like the light bend technique, or taking a sand gun to leave trails for yourself. There hasn't been action since Renaldo and I were stationed on this wormhole, but sometimes you have to be patient. The Embassy request we observe without action for at least 7 minor yarns. Respectable and understandable. It’s only been 2 minor yarns for us at these stations, still much to observe about the cortex.

Tonight's dinner was freeze dried ravioli and greens grown in my subgravity ecosystem, a delicacy I picked up from my time observing in Utah on the continent of North America on planet Earth. Only two of my stomachs digest food, the other three produce bile to coat and protect from the flesh dwelling insects that grew on my home planet, Rector. They named me Gilford, meaning the one who leaps, after my great amphibian ancestor. Gilford. It is true that in most species a light walk aids in digestion. Renaldo and I trade off petrol times. He has first breakfast and second snack, and I take only lunch and first dinner. Per protocol, you leave your field equipment in the sanitation sector of the entrance. Your belt has a sand gun and mirrors, extra wires, your radio, the IBP for data collection, the radiation detector, and your weapon of choice. I prefer banana spray. You always put on your belt first and then your breathing helmet. Some species have oxygen tanks, while others breathe water, or carbon dioxide. Rectorrorians, like me, breathe hydreliox.

I’ve come to rather enjoy the evenings on Lionel, watching the six tiny moons and one large moon, dancing around one another. It’s amazing how you find something new with every part of the universe you visit. I truly have never seen moon choreography like this before, and each time my teeth drop out of my gums. I was walking the perimeter after first diner, my sand gun trailing a thin line of purple sand by my side while I watched the dancing moons in awe, when I heard the sound of hissing sand being sucked into the portal. Not paying attention, I had veered too close to the event horizon. Before I could correct, my feet were swept from under me. The magnetic field gripping my ankles and dragging me inwards.

I could hear Renaldo calling after me on the radio, then the alarm from his chambers alerting the embassy, and then static, then Renaldo calling, then static, then nothing. I could see nothing. The only sensation at first was the gentle and warm breeze all around as I hovered in a spacetime void. Then came the immense crushing power that quickly turned to excruciating pulling. Like my body was being turned into taffy by a mill squishing me and pulling me into elastic matter over and over. Lights of all colors, colors I had never known before swirled and zipped and flashed by. The silence turned to a heavy drone that escalated with the speed of the crushing and pulling and crushing and pulling.

Until, a trap door opened and dropped me hard onto something solid. I immediately threw up, before I could even open my eyes or regain my sense of smell. I lay there in my vomit. I lay there for I don’t know how long, but until I could hear, and shadows appeared through my eyelids. Something was hovering over me. If it wanted to eat me, it had me. I couldn’t move to escape. A helpless lump of undigested ravioli. But nothing happened to me. Only that my vision began to blur into shape, and the sound became a wordless voice. Blinking with all my might, a form came together. A stunning orange red being, with a hard spike frill on their head, like a sunset crown. Their eyes were large and fully black. They opened their mouths to speak, and I threw up again, all down my chin. Then crouched and placed their hands on my lower back and shoulder, pushing me to my side so the vomit could spill out. And I saw I had landed on the new earth’s crust.

I tried to speak, croaks escaping instead. “Shh, shh, shh”. The creature hushed me and I submitted to their commands. I didn't have the strength to communicate yet. But if the Embassy had been correct about the input/output zones, then Renaldo was sure to have seen me drop out. My next move was to my radio, but my arms might as well have been jelly with no connection to my brain. I began to fear, what if I never recover? There have been reports of species that come out transformed and never regain function. Just as my panic was setting in, the new being's face appeared directly in front of mine. Close, as they crouched down on their hands, their webbed fingers splayed in the dark blue sand. Their glassy black eyes blinked at me, and I saw my vomit covered face in their reflection. How kind and curious they seemed. I began to feel soothed and blinked back. Their tongue shot out of their mouth, thin and split at the tip, smelling me like a snake would. The panic sparked, “Renaldo!” I tried to scream, but only gargling came from me. Having spooked the creature , they leapt back, spry and agile on all fours. Watching me from a slight distance, all I could do was wait for my faculties to return.