The magnetic catcher’s mitt slipped from view behind them. They plunged into the whirl. It felt rubbery, somehow, and then her stomach tried to work up through her throat. Bile rushed into her nose. The acceleration slammed her around like a rag doll. She felt her skin stretching away in several directions. Torques galore… Gravitational stresses seemed to be trying to open her wrapping, to find a Christmas present inside.

“How’re… we… doing… getting… through?”

I believe we are not.

“What?!”

We are stalled above the rotating core of the spacetime donut.

“I… can… fly… us… out…” But her fingers moved like sausages.

You are incapable. You have no plan. I believe I must take command.

“You’re… a program… not an… officer.” Just saying that took all her strength. The air oozed like greasy hair. “Commit our full antimatter flux. Hammer us out of this.”

Inward or outward?

“Which way… is… outward?”

Something like a peeved sigh came from Erma.

I was hoping you knew.

“And you wanted to take command?” Irritation helped, actually. Adrenaline spikes always did, for her pilot self. She could even complete a sentence. “Inward—that way.” She jabbed her chin toward the deck. “… I guess…”

Antimatter howled as it met its enemy in their reaction chamber.

Floors clattered. The room spun around her so fast it blurred into a fluid. Walls pulsed. Her teeth rattled. On the screens there was nothing but dark outside. How big was this thing? Were they squeaking through, or trapped in some infinity?

“Did you send out laser pulses? Microwaves?”

Of course. Nothing came back.

“Maybe this spacetime whirling thing is a perfect absorber? But… nothing’s… perfect.”

Something spurted actinic blue and arced big, coming at them. Coming fast. She got a flash image of an oddly shaped ship, far away. Then it was gone. The only thing they had seen. Were they in some murk?

I have an incoming message.

“What? How can—hell, patch it through.”

The message says, “Worms can eat their tails and so can you.”

“Is this one of your jokes?”

I do not joke. I do not have the proper software.

“Eat my tail? What’s… oh.”

Oh?

“Maybe that refers to the Gödel thing? But who said it?”

Who is here with us? I know not. I cannot see another presence in this spinning space. I am mere software.

Rachel sniffed. Erma’s false modesty was unconvincing.

She was sweating, but the ship was strangely cool. Some entropy suck? Her pulse quickened. This was intriguing, sure, but right now they were in a gravitational whirlwind. The couch adjusted to the tornado violence of their whirl, but this could not go on for long. And how long was a wormhole, anyway?

Fraq… he sat still, crouched as if to take flight. But there was nowhere to go in this cabin. He nodded to her, in support, silent but for a thin song of chirps that floated in the filmy air.

Some glowing stuff zoomed by them—or at least got larger, then smaller—all she could tell in this dense dark. It looked like neon clotted cream.