Chapter 2

There's a mountain, and no, I'm not speaking of one of those thin ones, fashionably slim, elegantly cutting the air. Not the ones you mountaineers so dearly love.

No, this is an altogether other type of mountain. First of all it's old, so much older than anything you ever have met in your life. Think of a universe, any universe. Then ask yourself which came first, our mountain or SpaceTime? Well, we can only guess there. And if you started to walk it, I suspect you first would name it a hill, a ugly slippery, hill, overgrown with trees, vines and all kinds of rotting vegetation.

But after some weeks walking you just might start to wonder when this hill would end? And as you went on, forever forward and upward, you slowly would notice its vegetation changing, trees becoming increasingly scarce, with bushes and moss taking their place. And, as you suspiciously look up that hill, you just might start to wonder how high it would go?

In fact, the mountain is so large it covers half a continent, maybe more? We can't really tell, it's just as big as your imagination will allow it to be, and then some more. Inside it, hidden from sight, you might find jewels of delight, valleys filled with wild life, lakes dressed in gleaming blue, pastures in shades emerald, and people, well, at least inhabitants. To me it is a place of dreaming, and if you ever would visit it, a place you would want to return to.

So, you might ask, is this a real place? Well, as real as faith, hope and imagination can make it. Reality is only a game, you live it with your eyes open, but sleeping all the same. And this mountain, it's just as real as that.

And Jeff was there.

In fact, he had never really left...

"What do you see?"

"I don't know"

"Look harder"

A sea of blackness falling into an abyss.

"There's something, stars?"

"Harder."

"Is this a game?"

"Look harder."

Looking into that swirling blackness, his footing lost, falling. Now looking out from inside watching his mountain recede, shrinking, twirling away into nothingness and with it his memories.

"Jeff."

"Yes" doing his best to wake up only to find his body refusing him. And there was something he had to do?

"Jeff, we need to talk."

What was wrong with them? Why couldn't they leave him alone? But, as he at last forced his eyes open he once more knew where he was, and with that the dream forgotten.

"Yes, suit."

"We have a problem."

Jeff looked out, first checking on her ladyship. Her suit was still there beside him, its telltales a relaxed glimmering green. So, comforted, he started to scan what space he could see around him.

"What problem, suit?"

"There is an anomaly approaching."

"Anomaly?"

What the hell did that matter anyway? He would be dead soon enough anyway, anomaly or no anomaly. But it might matter to Janelle. Yes, he had started to call her that, most secretly and confined to his thoughts only.

"Describe it, please?"

"We first noticed it 1300 h, heading away from us. Royal scanned it at 1300:12:110:13 without luck. At 1300:12:111 we found the gravity slope changing, we are now getting dragged towards it."

"Changing, how can gravity slopes change? A black hole, suit?"

"No, we have no data consistent with this behavior."

Jeff had read of those small and micro black holes. Made at the birth of a universe, they roamed its lanes, doing no more mischief than any other object made of matter. It wasn't until you passed it's event horizon you really had to worry, and that said, you more or less had to meet them 'head on' to do that.

But the suit and Royal was right, the gravity slope couldn't be manipulated this way. Out here where gravity was weak, the space could almost be described as flat, and to create a slope where none had been, and from a object leaving you?

"Does it accelerate?"

"No."

"Not a ship, then?" Jeff found himself desperately wishing that he knew more. Maybe they should wake Janelle?