Challenge #01690-D229: Problems of Scale

"Lets poke it and see what it does?" famous last words or an eureka moment. -- Anon Guest

There is nothing so large and so terrifying that a human won't try to poke it. - Galactic Proverb.

Of all the terrors of the universe, black holes have to be the one that holds a universal horror. Nobody with any sense wants to be anywhere near a black hole. So, of course, humanity figured out how to get a station in a LaGrange orbit point around one in order to study it.

They called it Tyr Na Nog Station, because of its temporal warping phenomena, and only humans were crazed enough to go there, live there, and work there. A freight driver who went for a day to unload their cargoes returned to real time a year or more later. A loophole that has allowed many a freighter to collect a Year of back-pay because they were working the entire time.

Unfortunately, Tyr Na Nog Station doesn't send out for supplies that often. Or rather, it didn't do so for twenty Standard Years. The finger of blame pointed towards Freight Captain "Brakky" Brakal. She denied it, of course. And nothing could be definitively proven, since her onboard recording devices recorded none of it.

"Brakky! Nice to see you back. Wow, you got old."

"Time differential. One year for you is like ten or more for us. Probably more. I can't do the math. I really need more than this Year's worth of Time from you guys."

"Well... we have everything we need for another month... What can we do?"

Brakky shrugged, letting the station science crew unload for her. "I dunno. Order gimcrack stuff every month? Give freighter people a chance t' collect a little Time interest. I mean, flakk. They update tech every month or so, realtime-side. You could finegle your wages to compensate 'n' all."

Light dawned in Station Master Capelli's eyes. "That's right. We're only paid in Subjective and not Relative Time. That's... that's downright illegal. We need to fix things immediately."

Over the following Relative Months, Tyr Na Nog Station and all its inhabitants applied for their backpay in Relative Time, stating that the scientific breakthroughs that they were making in Subjective Time were well worth it. Then they started buying things (for them) on an hourly basis.

Nobody said who put them onto the idea. Tyr Na Nog Station keeps its secrets to itself.

[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Andreus]

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