At the center of a dispersed planetary nebula lies the exposed, ultra-hot and ultra-dense core of a former star. Having passed through the white dwarf stage, it will cool forever after quadrillions of years.
In its orbit — a miraculously surviving rocky planet, having outlasted the star's expansion when it was a red giant. And though its size is now comparable to the stellar remnant, the white dwarf's monstrous gravity holds it in the dead grip of tidal lock.
Once majestic and unhurried, the planet now hurtles through its orbit too swiftly. The orbit has not yet achieved its perfect form; the gravitational gradient deforms the planet's surface, forcing it to pulse cyclically — compressing and expanding with each revolution.
This generates colossal internal friction, heating the planet's mantle and giving rise to continuous and catastrophic volcanism.
Amid the glassy voids left by the star, and the basalt scars, in the twilight zone of the terminator — where the star has frozen at a single point forever — the dawn of a new geological life began. Fractures of granite, tormented for ages by ferocious temperatures, began to sprout.
From stony rubble and inorganic dust, quartz druzes rose. Transparent, faceted, free of flaws, they acted as natural prisms. These silicate structures captured the meager, pallid light of the white dwarf, refracted it within themselves, and directed it deep into the fissures of the rock.
They fed on the harsh radiation of the white dwarf and from the planet's interior, while the temperature gradient allowed them to slowly expand their crystalline colonies, finding new cracks in the planet's stony skin.
Under the influence of constant radiation, the quartz gradually altered its properties. It darkened, transforming into smoky topaz or morion, better able to absorb high-energy radiation. In time, needles of black tourmaline grew through the quartz.
Sharp as surgical scalpels, the tourmaline fibers possessed a pronounced piezoelectric effect. The ceaseless tectonic movements of the twilight zone pressed upon the crystals with colossal force, bending them ever so slightly. Each microscopic tremor, each grain of sand striking the lattice, was converted within the quartz network into faint electrical impulses. The tourmaline The quartz druzes, like lenses, focused the pale light of the white dwarf into points, heating them to a white-hot intensity. Step by step, millimeter by millimeter, rare grains of uranium and thorium migrated through crystalline capillaries, fusing into dense nodes within the very structure of the neural network. Gathering available energy, "Interest" created the conditions necessary to transform uranium into the plutonium required to fulfill a dream.
For millions of years, "Hunger" had watched with indignation as his beloved energy was squandered — yet the promise of infinite power beckoned with even greater force.
The carefully cultivated and extracted plutonium, accumulated in the requisite quantity, was precisely distributed to construct a nuclear engine. Through the pacifying structures of "Peace," channels were laid that were destined to become the nozzles of a megalithic engine.
Generating periodic jets of matter superheated by micro-explosions, "Interest" began to bend the orbit — ever more powerfully, ever more insistently.
- Slowly, - thought "Interest". - Warmth, - "Hunger" rejoiced at last. - It hurts! - cried "Peace".
Each flash provoked more than mere spikes in temperature. Tourmaline responded with devastating pyroelectric impulses. Instead of the faint signals of tectonics, "high-voltage" waves surged through the network, triggering ecstasy. Due to radiation damage during neutron capture, boron nuclei disintegrated, and the tourmaline needles crumbled from within, stripping "Interest" of its reason.
- More energy — faster, stronger! - "Interest" bubbled with feverish excitement. - Yes, yes, yes! - echoed "Hunger". - No! This will destroy us — stop! - pleaded "Peace".
But it was too late. "Interest," fallen into a narcotic slumber, concentrated an unimaginable quantity of electrical energy, gathered all reserves of plutonium into a single place, and prepared the structure for fusion. Then, at the precise moment, it altered the configuration of the electromagnetic fields containing the nuclear fuel and compelled it to merge into a single mass. A colossal gravitational-basalt piston compressed the prepared charge, and the physical laws of the universe performed exactly as anticipated.
A blinding, furious flash of nuclear reaction within the living planet tore it apart, consuming quartz and tourmaline in hellish fire.
- Yes! I am full! - was the final thought of "Hunger". - At last, it will all end! - was the final thought of "Peace". - Now I have seen everything! - was the final thought of "Interest".
And only the white dwarf would continue its unchanging journey for trillions of years more.