Part 3, Chapter 1 Deep Reality Summary

Argo plunges toward the ergosphere boundary, accelerating quickly. Quath calls this space the time pit, where space and time are scrambled. Suddenly Jocelyn reports an incoming ship. The Bridge crew watches it tensely. Someone remarks that it looks like a mech ship. Quath says the ship shows similarities to Argo, but Killeen protests that they will find no humans here, virtually inside the black hole. The crew is ready to fire on the ship when Toby interrupts them. It takes all of Quath and Toby's combined arguments to convince Killeen not to fire immediately. Soon, the computer confirms that the ship is an ancient human design. It mysteriously vanishes.

Quath says that the aperture moment has arrived. The star being consumed by the black hole creates an opening, like a door left open. It is only during...