The Murdered Sun - Christie Golden [9]
"Unfortunately, no." No hint of disappointment or compassion in the statement--just the cold, logical facts. "I have been continuing to gather information from the sensors, and I believe there is enough evidence here for me to state that this star is not what it appears to be."
"Explain." She was pleased that her voice did not betray the disappointment she felt.
"The star appears to be a red giant. In fact, by almost all accounts, it is a red giant. The size is correct, it is clearly beginning to burn the helium at its core. Nearly all the criteria that we would use to judge it a red giant are evident."
"Get to the point, please, Mr. Tuvok," came Chakotay's voice laced with tension. Janeway glanced over at her first officer.
Of course, he would be even more profoundly affected by the situation than she. Chakotay had a deep respect for life--all life--that approached reverence. His people, Janeway recalled, had been taught to honor the life-force in all things. The deaths of four planets, teeming with living beings, must hurt him terribly for him to have snapped at Tuvok that way.
"I am attempting to do so, Commander," the Vulcan rebuked mildly.
"But the true and final definition of a red giant must be that it is a star of a certain age. This star is clearly at the end of its life, but sensors have confirmed that it is only 4.2 billion years old--younger than Earth's own sun. By all accounts, this star should be less than halfway through its natural life."
Chakotay frowned. "I don't understand."
"The concavity is artificially aging this star," said Tuvok. "It should not be a red giant, according to its years. Yet it is a red giant. Therefore, there is an external force at work aging the star and causing it to age prematurely. It would be comparable to our own youthful Mr. Kim dying of old age."
Janeway tore her eyes from Tuvok's dark face to gaze at the screen.
Suddenly, the thought of the concavity as an evil monster didn't seem quite as ludicrous as it had just a few moments earlier.
"I know that sometimes black holes drain hydrogen from nearby stars," said Tom Paris, his normally lively voice gone soft and somber. "But I've always seen just a thin spiral of hydrogen going into the hole.
This isn't a trickle... It's a damn river."
And he was right. The flood of hydrogen into the maw of the concavity was fully as wide as the sun itself. The thing wasn't just feeding on this solar system's central star, it was gorging on it.
"You said the planets have less than a century left," said Chakotay.
"How long?"
"If the sun continues to age at this accelerated rate," replied the Vulcan, "and if there is no technological assistance involved, all life in this system will cease to exist within 24.3 years."
"A quarter of a century, and then that's all she wrote." The sentence was flippant, but Paris's voice remained somber.
Janeway closed her eyes briefly. Tuvok had, to all intents and purposes, just pronounced an irrevocable death sentence. The only hope these people had now was if they could evacuate the planet.
"Ensign Kim, just how many people are we talking about?" Janeway asked.
"Over two billion, Captain," the young man replied, his voice low.
Unbidden, the thought arose. We could do it. Physically, yes, but as soon as the thought came, Janeway dismissed it. No, we cannot. That's interference on a major scale. This system was naturally destroying itself. To intervene in a prewarp society's natural development so drastically would be not only violating the Prime Directive, but positively thumbing her nose at the Federation's highest ideal She'd have to hope that the inhabitants of this system had powerful friends with warp-speed ships to spirit them away from their unnaturally dying star.
Janeway took a deep breath. "Let's concentrate on that concavity. Are we still picking up verteron emanations?"
"Yes, Captain," Kim confirmed. "Everything still points to there being a wormhole in there. But if it's inside the