since my university days. Can you explain the difference between wavelength and frequency?”
Bertie explains. “Wavelength is how long the wave is—think of it as a piece of string curved up and down like a snake. The wave is measured from the middle of one crest to the next crest. For the HoLFs, the wavelength is zero point nine two meters. Radio and infrared waves are longer than X-rays and Gamma rays. Frequency is how fast the wave is moving—like a wave in an ocean racing to shore.”
“If we create a signal that has the same frequency and wavelength, but the crests of our waves are at the same time as the troughs of the HoLFs’ waves, they will both disappear,” Yenay adds.
“Okay, that makes sense. How long will it take to build the emitter?” my mom asks Yenay.
“Building it should only take a few days. That’s not the problem. The difficulty will be designing it with the supplies we have on hand. It’s been a long time since humans used radio waves. We’re also going to need an engineer to help.”
“Do we have an engineer on base?” Mom asks Dad.
“I’ll have to look at the personnel list.” Dad accesses his portable. “Maybe Jim McGinnis has an engineering background. He’s in charge of the base’s maintenance crew.”
While my dad checks, I’m struck by Yenay’s comment about humans using radio waves. “Could we also build a radio receiver? If the HoLFs are using radio waves to communicate, we could hear what they say.”
“The likelihood of the aliens speaking English is infinitesimal,” Yenay snaps.
Is it me or is she just all gloom and doom? “Do we have any linguists on base? They could try to translate it. Even if we don’t, we should record it so when we reestablish contact with DES, we can send it to their language experts.”
“That’s actually a good idea,” Bertie says, sounding surprised.
Sheesh. Tough room.
My dad glances up from the portable. “Jim has a mechanical engineering degree. Will that work?”
“Yes, that’s perfect,” Yenay says without a snap. It must be me.
Finally something going right for a change. Don’t worry I won’t relax, there’s still plenty of things that can go horribly amiss. Curious about the HoLFs’ radio wave, I ask Yenay what the frequency is.
The scientist scrunches up her nose as if in pain. Bertie swallows. Her face pales—quite the feat considering she’s already rather pale. What did I do now? I didn’t think it was a hard question.
“It’s three hundred and thirty megahertz,” Yenay finally says.
Three thirty. Why does that sound familiar?
“Is that significant?” Radcliff asks.
Trust the man’s internal something’s-wrong-detector to pick up on their discomfort.
“It’s the same frequency of Sagittarius A-star. That’s the name of the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s galactic center.”
Fourteen
2522:228
Wait, what? We all stare at Dr. Zhang. Did she just say that the shadow-blobs are emitting the same radio waves as the black hole at the center of our Galaxy? That would be cool except…
“I thought nothing escapes a black hole,” I say.
“Once past the black hole’s event horizon, nothing does. Not even light,” Yenay says. “But the signal is from the region around the black hole.”
“Are you implying that the HoLFs might be from the galactic center?” Mom asks.
“No, that would be impossible.”
“Why not?” I ask before my internal filter can stop me from questioning an astrophysicist with a doctorate. “The HoLFs had to get here from somewhere? And if there’s a portal in the pits, then why can’t they use them, too?” And then the logic catches up. “Oh, right. Those pits were destroyed. The shadow-blobs aren’t using the Warrior portals, but something else.” Now everyone is looking at me. “What?”
“We haven’t confirmed the existence of your portals, Ara.” Yenay’s words are clipped.
“Is having the same radio frequency significant?” Radcliff asks again.
“It’s just a strange coincidence.”
Radcliff and I exchange a glance. One of the things I learned by reading the security handbook is that true coincidences are rare.
“What’s inside a black hole?” Mom asks. Apparently it’s been too long since her last astronomy class.
“Gravity,” Yenay says. “Matter is crushed down to a mass of zero, and gravity is all there is.”
Definitely not going to be vacationing there. And no chance shadow-blobs could live there either.
“There is a theory that a black hole exits into another spacetime, acting like a wormhole,” she adds.
I perk up at the mention of wormholes—perhaps Niall’s theory has merit and the shadow-blobs are traveling through black holes.
“Of course nothing but gravity can survive the journey,”