Pair of Queens

Pair of Queens

Note to the Reader: This is my entry for Geek Pride; I couldn't decide on only one of my favorite concepts to geek out about, so this story has a dual focus on the theoretical physics of supermassive black holes and on a historically contemporary pair of ancient British queens: Elizabeth I of England, and Grainne Ni Mhaille, Pirate Queen of Ireland. I'm about to take some truly outrageous liberties with all of the above.

I stand with both feet firmly planted shoulder-width apart on the creaking deck of my ship, one hand ever on the helm, eyes never straying from the Event Horizon dead ahead. I'm proud of this ship, of its state-of-the-art technology so well-masked by a whimsical design borrowed from an ancient era.

"Hooooly shit," you breathe, your voice barely a whisper, though it has the power to make me shiver with delight. You have just arrived on deck beside me, and immediately you're as transfixed as I am at the spiraling lines of light refracted by the enormous gravitational pull of our destination; one most humans

not

aboard this ship still believe to be our doom.

Your face pales as we stand together confronting what is, for terrestrial creatures like us, the ultimate Void: the mouth of the supermassive black hole that is the true center of our Milky Way Galaxy, Sagittarius A (SagA for short), whose Event Horizon is even now in view. Beyond this dark gateway are secrets that have been almost entirely closed to humans until now.

After a long pause full of terrified wonder, you return to a much earlier conversation we left unfinished:

"Just reporting in before I clock out for the night, Captain. And not even that terrifying portal on our horizon will make me forget you still haven't kept your promise to tell me the story behind the... unique... design of this ship," you remind me, gently poking my ribs with your elbow.

I'm not surprised you're curious - anyone would be, to see this seeming anachronism from the Age of Pirates sailing incongruously through the velvet-black expanse of space. It's as if

Queen Anne's Revenge

herself had been plucked by the gods out of her rightful place on the terrestrial seas of centuries past to explore galaxies instead of oceans. We dodge asteroids rather than coral reefs, but the pioneering spirit of adventure remains the same.

"Oh, all right," I reply with a smile. "You want to know why I use the coveted

Phantasm

technology to disguise our revolutionary, top-of-the-line spacecraft as an ancient pirate galleon, of all ridiculous things. I don't blame you for wondering, but the answer may disappoint you, though it has deep meaning for me."

"Captain," you reply, and as always it thrills me when you call me that, "it wounds me that you think I would dare trample your fragile feelings. I won't tell you if it

does

disappoint me - I'll just mutter into my tankard of ale about it at Bones later." As always, your excoriating sarcasm tickles me; I let out an undignified snort.

"Hey, nobody makes you order it in a

tankard

. You do that because you secretly always wanted to be a pirate, and you

love

this design," I retort triumphantly.

"Quit stalling, or I'll call for a Mutiny," you threaten, the adorable dimple in your left cheek quivering with the effort to keep your face straight.

"Don't make me put you in your own Brig again, Quartermaster," I murmur beside your ear, acutely aware of mutual desire unfurling its exquisite petals inside us both. "But fine, here you go: Grainne Ni Mhaille, the Pirate Queen of Ireland in the second half of the 16

th

century, is my revered ancestress."

You do a double-take at that. "Grace O'

Malley

? The actual

Pirate Queen?"

you reply, letting out a low, awed whistle that appeals to my vanity. I'm a little surprised you've heard of her, actually; your heritage is quite different from mine, and our ancestors were unlikely to have stumbled across each other back in her day.

"Aye,

that

Grace O'Malley," I announce with a swashbuckling sneer.

"It explains the hair, as well as the ship." You take a tress of my blazing red mane in one hand and lift it to your face, breathing in what I hope is still a pleasant scent though I've been sweating more than a little in the past few hours, most of it as we muscled our way more or less unscathed through an asteroid belt.

"Funny how she's always mythologized as a redhead despite her nickname being the Old Irish version of 'Baldy,'" I retort. "It was Queen Elizabeth I of England who was the famous redhead queen of her time."

You wave this away with palpable contempt. "Nah, Grace cut her hair or shaved her head when she first went to sea with her dad, so it wouldn't get in her way or betray her as a woman. Imagine the inconvenience, back when most of society perceived gender as strictly a binary you were assigned at birth and expected to conform with for your entire lifetime! I get why it was important to procreate for survival of the species, but once we started overpopulating? Ugh, who could stand being trapped in a body that can't adapt and a society that won't mind its own business? What a nightmare! Anyway - it's just a synchronicity that Grace and Elizabeth were contemporaries."

I had finally turned my head away from the terrifying wonder ahead of us, somewhere about the midpoint of this soliloquy, to goggle at you.

"Now I

know

you always dreamed of being a pirate," I retort, laughing in disbelief. "No way you picked up those obscure tidbits of trivia by accident!" I'm also a little concerned you might be fighting a panic attack; who wouldn't be, in the face of SagA on the horizon? You normally don't indulge in speeches during work hours, though I am quite accustomed to them at other times.

"OK, guilty - some kids loved dinosaurs, some loved dolls, I loved pirates. What can I say?" You laugh with a shrug, making my heart swell with the joy you bring me just by existing. "Anyway, knowing you, I bet you feel more than a passing sympathy with your notorious ancestor; particularly with how she had to take her courage in both hands to visit her Nemesis in the faint hope of protecting everything she cherished," you add softly.

I feel the weight of your gaze come to rest on my face, and for just a moment I regret the very reason I feel so close to you; no one in this lifetime has

seen

me as fully as you do and still accepted me. I cherish that as the gift it is, but its intrinsic vulnerability makes me even more anxious in moments like these, so fraught with hope and dread in equal measure. I stiffen my spine, pressing my lips together so they won't tremble.

As usual, you're on target. There is a wide superstitious streak in me, as is traditionally the case with sailors, and I am not above invoking my ancestors if I think it might help my own ends - after all, why not? It may not be of real help, but it certainly does no harm.

I think again of Grainne, having to humble herself before her natural rival; England's 'Good Queen Bess' was an exceptional ruler by any standard, and although both she and Grace were women who led their nations, Elizabeth ruled an Empire; the Pirate Queen was ruler of her own domain, but could not hope to measure up to the Virgin Queen of England in a power struggle. That undeniable sense of inadequacy is yet another way in which I feel a profound kinship with my ancestress.

Yet circumstance forced Grace's hand, as in many ways it has mine; she had no choice but to visit her rival queen and plead her case, not only for her child's release from an English prison, but also for her own right to exist as a ruler in Ireland independent of English rule.

Daunting as that was for her, I reserve the right to self-pity - Elizabeth was human, no matter how powerful; my Nemesis is a supermassive black hole that sits like a dark seed in the center of our galaxy.

"I dream of Grainne, you know," I murmur, surprised to hear myself speaking aloud.

"I know you dream, and I know you sometimes snore, and I know your dreams can be violent - I still have the bruises to prove it," you retort, kindling a fire in my blood that heats my face like an oven. "But you've never told me

what

you dream."

"Oh, then I must - you'll definitely enjoy it," I tease, determined to embarrass you in equal measure. "One dream in particular I wrote down in my journal, it was so lifelike. But I can't tell you here - you'd be utterly useless. Even more so than usual."

"You have to wait for privacy? So it's a sexy dream about the Pirate Queen! Must be my birthday," you reply - and despite the usual sarcasm in your voice, I know by the sparkle in your deep eyes that your interest is genuine.

"It's not just for you this time - now that I see you know at least the basics of her story, I'd love your help tonight telling it to the crew. I'm thinking of acting out the confrontation between the two queens before the festivities heat up; it inspires me, so I'm hoping it will do the same for the rest of you too. What do you think?" No one else is currently at the helm with us, so I reach for your hand and pull you close.

"You want me to play a historical queen of Britain about whom I know barely anything beyond her name?" you laugh, snaking your arms around my waist and stepping closer so our pelvises press gently against each other, concentrating the unspooling heat at our centers and multiplying it exponentially. "Riiiiighht. Well, what the hell - you know I'm always up for a new challenge. Just fill me in on the important parts, and we can ad-lib the rest like we always do. Everyone loves our standup comedy routines," you reply with an exaggerated wink.

I roll my eyes, but can't help smiling broadly. Your flexibility is one of many things I adore about you. "You still have a little time to bone up on your history," I assure you, caressing your full bottom lip with my thumb while my other hand fondles your buttocks. "I'll stay here for probably another hour, rechecking the charts against our current coordinates and heading."

"You do realize you have a whole Navigator whose job it is to do exactly that," you chide, taking my face between your hands, always worried that I'll drive myself to exhaustion again. I arch one stern eyebrow, and you smile into my eyes while you back up with both hands raised. The inerrant ability you have to go right up to the line without ever publicly crossing it is almost uncanny.

"Any way I can persuade you to let me help you finish up here?" you ask, still backing away.

"There's nothing to help

with,

" I protest. "It's just a recheck for my own peace of mind. Go on ahead, read up on the visit Grace paid Elizabeth, make sure we're set up for the orgy, and I'll meet you at Bones when I'm done." I wink and blow you a kiss.

'Bones'

is the affectionate nickname we've given our Mess Hall, which naturally transformed early in our voyage into an anachronism all its own: unless the whole space is in use for some formal occasion, which is quite rare, there's always at least one game of dice (made of actual knuckle bones, in at least a few cases) going at a rough-hewn table in a corner.

"Aye aye, Cap. Have you decided yet if we'll be taking part in the orgiastic frenzy this time?"

I can feel myself blush, which annoys me - I haven't been an ingenue for at least a decade. "Not yet; I need to get a feel for the vibes in the room first. It's a crucial moment, and everyone's on edge. They might need to preserve a little distance from you and me to feel comfortable taking the Plunge; on the other hand, they might need the comfort of getting to know us on a whole new level. I can't be sure which it is until we're in the room all together."

"And that's why you're the best Captain in the fleet," you say, nodding in agreement. "Don't take too long here - it's the biggest night of all our lives, no matter which way it goes!"

I wave you off with a grunt, already bringing up charts and schematics on holographic screens at the helm. Keeping my mind busy with the everyday details of shipboard life helps keep the sense of unreality at bay when I glance up and see the universe spread out in every direction, the true hull of our ship completely invisible from inside or out. Every somatic sensation is kept as true to the illusion as the most innovative technology of our time can make it.

I've had time to grow accustomed to the seeming miracle of this voyage, to nebulae swirling around us like indigo mists and stars scattered in every direction like precious gems suspended in zero-gravity against vast swathes of black, violet, and midnight-blue velvet.

Yet none of that was enough to really prepare me for the visceral terror that seized my brain stem when I was at last confronted with the yawning abyss I fully intend to sail us straight into. The reptilian brain still lurking in the basement of every human skull woke screaming in mine the second I was confronted with SagA's infinite void, watching light itself bend and break and swallowed whole by its swirling maw.

I think of Grainne again, of the Pirate Queen forced by circumstance to seek out her natural rival rather than running from an enemy vastly more powerful than herself. She was used to facing the terrors of her day from her earliest childhood, when maps were incomplete and often warned

'Here Be Monsters'

in the spaces beyond all known landmarks. My father kept an antique Spanish map under glass in his library; it dated from the late 1500s, the time of Grace and Elizabeth, beautifully illustrated beyond the known borders of the time with legendary monsters like the dreaded Sea Serpent and the ferocious Kraken. I had spent countless hours as a small child dreaming up and reenacting imaginary confrontations between the legends and nightmares of those ancient times, which still inspire me now.

We in our far less innocent time have been driven to our likely Doom by the same sort of desperate, brazen courage life demanded of my distant ancestress. Yet the Nemesis we've feared so long (needlessly, we all hope) is not the monstrous Kraken, threatening to crush our ship to splinters in its deadly embrace and drag us all to Davy Jones' Locker, but rather the phenomenon of Black Holes - equally invisible, equally impossible to elude once caught, and believed by most to be equally lethal.

Once not so very long ago, most humans believed that a Black Hole actually behaved somewhat like the mythical Kraken; that it could exert its insanely powerful gravitational pull like a tractor beam, pulling clouds of gases, dust, stars, planets - anything it saw that it wanted - into its insatiable maw. Now, however, we know that in fact the mouth of a Black Hole is very small relative to its overall size, and only objects that fall directly into it are doomed to be swallowed. And yes, "fall" is the correct verb, rather than "pull" or - even less accurate, although a hundred percent sexier - "suck".

My mind wanders back as I'm soothed by the familiar routine of double- and triple-checking the flow of numbers and formulae. I'm remembering the example Dr Nieves gave us during a training lecture before we embarked on this fateful voyage: if Earth herself collapsed into a black hole, her Event Horizon would be roughly two centimeters across. That gives an idea of the relative size, although it hardly needs to be pointed out that a supermassive black hole is, in fact,

supermassive

.

Yet our SagA is very dainty compared with other supermassives; Messier 87 is an outstanding example of one on the opposite end of the scale, with an Event Horizon the equivalent of millions of miles across. It takes weeks or even months for observed objects to fall into that Gargantua once its gravity begins to exert its inescapable pull; contrast that with the few minutes it will take our ship to fall into SagA, and you have an idea of the relative sizes.

The Law of Conservation of Matter & Energy

had not yet been formulated during the reigns of Elizabeth and Grace; it states, put in simplistic terms, that nothing - neither matter nor energy - is ever truly created or destroyed, but merely transformed. A liter of H2O remains a liter of H2O, whether in the form of ice, water, or steam.

I still get chills to recall the lecture that changed my perspective on the world forever, how matter-of-fact my high school physics teacher was in pointing out the most stunning aspects of our reality: "Sensory input does not give us truly accurate information," they had said, "which is why it's always dangerous to put too much trust in our own eyes, ears, etc - experiential data is

what

by nature, class?"

"Subjective,"

most of us chanted back in cadence. I could never understand how anyone could sound bored in this class; I was on the edge of my seat, waiting for more, and the teacher, whose name I've forgotten, did not disappoint:

"Exactly, subjective. The closest thing to objectivity early science could achieve was intersubjective verifiability: hence the importance of frequently repeating experiments before giving any definitive results. It's a rough form of triangulating data to arrive at the closest we could get back then to a precise answer."

I walked out of that class with my mind whirling, seeing my normal surroundings with the eyes of a tourist. Science proves that not only are things not

always

as they seem, but in fact they are

never

as they seem to our limited senses.

Some students couldn't accept such abstract concepts; my own first adolescent crush was among them, and I recall how passionately I argued with them, knowing I would never be able to respect someone who chose deliberate blindness over an uncomfortable truth. But I had been young and clumsy.

"Basic

grade

school science proves it's true!" I had shouted, then made myself calm down to express my thought before I lost track of it: "Remember how we used to draw atomic structure in crayon on our science tests? Green protons and yellow neutrons clustered together as little red electrons spin in orbit around them, like a microscopic galaxy?"

My ex rolled their eyes at me, already obstinate. "Of course, and I know those diagrams - and others - are not literal. I'm not stupid," they snapped.

"I know you're not, or I wouldn't bother talking to you," I retorted. "Listen, please - it's not just fucking amazing, it's important to any field of study! Part of the point of those non-literal diagrams is to show how even the densest Element -"

"Osmium, according to the Periodic Table, or under certain conditions, Iridium," my ex had interrupted, presumably to prove that in fact they were not remotely stupid.

"Exactly! Oh, shit, I forgot what the conditions are - but that doesn't matter now," I agreed enthusiastically. "Anyway, even Osmium is actually composed of mostly empty space; can you imagine? Even the most immovable mountain is in continuous shivering motion on a subatomic level!" I was delirious with the thrill of this complete change in my understanding of reality; my ex, not so much.

"You really love hearing your own mouth," they sneered. "TL/DR: our own science teaches us our 'reality' is ultimately an illusion. How the fuck is that helpful, though? You're not solving anything."

This decades-old memory still has power to sting, I notice ruefully; it had not been long after that we broke up, and though I had been miserable over it, I had already known we were never really going to be good for each other.

Personal feelings aside, I could never regret choosing this path, since it is this essential truth all our hopes now rely on: Nothing is ever what it seems, and nothing is ever truly lost.

Zooming out from micro to macro again, the pattern repeats throughout nature: Evaporation

looks

like disappearance, or at least diminution, but in fact is not. Winter in moderate climates once

looked

like death, but was instead the time for roots to grow strong and deep under the earth as trees slept.