The hypercube drawing sent to the Vega 5 research project.
This was the explanation of why the larger ships couldn’t go as fast as the couriers. They didn’t fit into the smaller part of the hypercube.
One thing they didn’t notice is… that isn’t a drawing of a hypercube. It is a Flatland drawing.
The scientists of Vega 5 puzzled for many long years about the meaning of the originating stellar address. Finally, someone in the Arcturus system figured it out. The address had a rapidlly changing component due to the originating solar system that was being destroyed by a black hole. The space around it was so distorted, the people living there were becoming flatter and flatter.
A rescue team of a number of ships went there, but all that was found was a black hole. Only the local cloud of ice and rocks outside the furthest planet in that system was still there.
( Obviously a work of fiction.)
