I spent three months in Jump, watching the clocks on both Home and Krath spin in comparison to me in Jump. It isn't as fast as I have seen it, and is steady now. With the improved systems, the progression of time doesn't ramp up anymore, or at least not as quickly as it used to. I still lost a century against Home and oddly, a century plus a few days against Krath. That is a new mystery to try to understand. How is it that I am losing different amounts of time with Home versus Krath? I'm not even sure how to test that, or what to test, and CTs writings are no help.
One theory I have played with is that it has to do with my direction of travel in relation to Trost vs. Krath, in Arc space. That being that because of the direction I am moving in, it increases the literal distance from Krath more than Home. It is just a guess really. Calling it a theory is a bit of a stretch, although I am working on a way I can try and test it.
After the time in Arc space, I decided to drop out and get a view of things. Out in the void, ten times ten to the seventh billion light years from the nearest universe, and there isn't a void system nearby either. Just the void.
I have even better satellites now, than I did before. They use the same improved sensors, computers, and other technology I have added to the Viteză Furie, I have printed a new constellation of 10,000 Satellites. They are smaller, but have much better resolution than the old ones. I then laid them out in a new constellation, calculated to compliment the original construct created by the other me.
Took about a month to lay out, and I used a pair of shuttles operated by the AI system, using a new drive system for galactic scale travel, to put the satellites in place quicker. Once operational and synchronized with the other constellation, and merged with the Speaker map data by the AI, the resolution is truly impressive. I am seeing hints of yet other structures and strange things out here in the void. I still need more resolution to be able to say that what I think I am seeing is in fact something, but I think it is something.
If I keep with the same spacing between this new constellation and the old one, I will be putting in three more before I reach the next speaker. I expect I likely will do that. I need that resolution to prove my own extrapolation of CTs calculations either correct or not.
I think there is a pattern to the wider cosmos, the wider universe. That all the universes exist along very subtle structures in space. If I'm right, the void systems and constructs will sit at points on those same structures, and that might be how the Speaker map is in fact generated. I won't be able to tell however without the higher resolution the additional constellations will provide.
Once I finished building the new constellation, I jumped farther out into the void and coasted. I just let the sensors reach out into the void. I passed a dark life creature. In fact, I passed through it and was able to drop a satellite inside it. The satellite and the interference between the satellite and the Viteză Furie has provided a treasure trove of data about the Dark Life.
I still don't know what they are made of, and it eventually slipped free of the satellite. Still, I was able to glean internal structures, and that it wasn't an amalgam organism, but a single, massive creature, in this case the size of Home. I have no way to tell if it even noticed me as I passed through it at .82c, or the satellite that managed to stick with it for several days as it moved. An earlier observation seems to have been born out. The Dark Life does in fact seem to move by grabbing and pushing against space itself. It doesn't use gravity to do this either, but really seems to be grabbing space itself, and in such a way that I was able to detect stretching and compression of the spacial fabric. The readings are weird and will take time to process.
This also revealed the answer to another I had about the Dark Life. They are capable of moving as faster than light speeds. It compressed itself into a sphere half it's original size, and then suddenly stretched out into a spear, a long shaft with a point at one end. The point accelerated well beyond light speed, and when it was fully extended and let go of the space that it was pushing off off, it flashed away. I was able to get a reading on it as it accelerated, seeming to undulate slightly, pushing against space as it went, driving itself forward at truly fantastic speeds. I wonder if it would be possible to duplicate it's method of travel?
After the encounter, we drifted for a week as I went through the data, and we got to watch another universe being born. The gravitational boundary of this new universe is well beyond were the Dark Life was. Which makes me wonder, given how they avoid the gravity well of universes, if it did not sense whatever it was that brings universes into being. I dropped a fleet of new proves and satellites before moving on.
My next step will be for refueling and resupply. There is a universe between me and the next speaker. It is the only one along a straight line to the next speaker, so I need to load up, or plan to make more detours than I expected. I was still going to stop at a few, three or four, but it will likely be more like eight. Either way. Now that I'm clear of the wild gravities of this newborn universe, I'm heading back to jump.