starship-design: Black holes: a mystery

[kyle <stk@sunherald.infi.net>]

Greetings:
Ken Wharton sent me this puzzle awhile back, and I haven't figured it
out yet. Perhaps some of you have ideas?

It's a well-established idea in physics that there's no such thing as
action-
at-a-distance.  All forces are intermediated by particles. 
Electromagnetism
is passed around by photons, gravity is transmitted with gravity waves
(or
gravitons) etc.

So what happens when you're just outside of a black hole's event
horizon?
Something is pulling you toward the black hole, very powerfully, but
what?
If gravitons are emerging from the black hole to pull you in, then they
must be travelling faster than light; not even light can escape a black
hole.  So how can gravitons escape??

The traditional answer might say that these gravitons are "virtual", so
they can travel faster than light, but that merely passes on the
question of what
a virtual graviton (or photon) really is.  Does it exist?  If so, how
can it
travel FTL?  Does it transmit information FTL?  If not, why not?

Good luck.

Kyle Mcallister