The Black Hole

by Alan Dean Foster

Holland was on his feet instantly. Reinhardt's intentions were as clear to him and the others as they had been to McCrae herself.

  "Get old Bob to show us the fastest way there. Harry, you stay here and watch the ship. Don't let anything aboard until we get back." Booth nodded, seemed about to say something, but decided not to.

  Pizer made a move to leave. "Sorry, Charlie," said Holland. "You're staying too."

  "What?" Pizer looked back at him in confusion. "You'll need all the firepower you can get"

  "We may have enough time to reach her. And we may not. It's important to let the people back home know what's happened out here. Harry can't pilot the ship. Don't wait too long, Charlie. Get her off before the gravity outside the Cygnus's field becomes too strong."

  "But, Dan . . ."

  "That's an order."

  "I wish you a safe voyage home, Mr. Pizer." Vincent swiveled to leave the cockpit.

  "Just make sure you get back aboard and in one piece, Heart o' Steel. Then we can wish each other a safe voyage home."

  Holland followed the two robots back through the Palomino toward the tube connecting them with the Cygnus.

  In the power center, humanoid figures waited patiently at their stations. They had no need of a superior officer to direct them, as one had in the early days of the ship. All responded now only to one man's orders, and they responded in unison, extensions of his own hands and mind. The glow from the engines in the huge chamber below them intensified. It gleamed from their polished, featureless faces.

  "Engage thrusters," came Reinhardt's command. "Slow at first. Constant monitor on delivery systems."

  The crew of almost-men responded smoothly, efficiently. Outside, the section of space astern of the Cygnus assumed the aspect of a small sun. The expanding rush of intense light only hinted at the application of power to come.

  Slowly the Cygnus began to move, distorting space around her in ways Einstein had only hinted at, for a purpose he could not have imagined.

  The reception area was deserted when Holland and the robots reached it. By keeping their weapons out of sight they avoided activating the hidden defense system that had disarmed them on their first venture into the great vessel. Old Bob, his repellers whining in protest, started off at high speed for the nearest elevator.

  Meanwhile, McCrae was fighting not to think of what awaited her as the compact air car transported her and her silent mechanical escort down the corridor. She tried instead to console herself with the knowledge that Dan and the others would probably escape. She tried very hard, but she still wanted very much to scream.

  The air car hissed to a halt and the sentries motioned her out. They walked down several corridors, turned a number of corners. As they entered a small anteroom that might once have been a reception area, she noticed several other sentries dragging bits and pieces of two no longer intact robots out from behind a desk. One of the guards moved to a wall communicator, punched the button located there.

  The alarm irritated Reinhardt. All his life he had been bothered by the intrusion of trivia. So he would not allow himself to become concerned even after he saw the two destroyed sentries. The thought of a rescue directed toward McCrae had seemed out of the question. That was changed, now that it appeared the others knew the location of the only operative surgery.

  Until now he had known only that the others were aware of his manipulation of the crew. The fact that they knew where the manipulations were carried out might induce them to try something foolish. Interference at this stage was intolerable, could not be permitted. He required the use of a compliant Dr. McCrae immediately. It would be best to take precautions.

  "The time has come to liquidate our guests, except for their robot and Dr. McCrae. If they succeed in boarding the Cygnus, the others are to be eliminated. Do not damage their ship."

  Maximillian turned obediently and started for the near console, composing the orders he would issue to the sentries.

  Buzzers sounded and echoed down every passageway. The little knot of machines and man slowed.

  "Could Reinhardt know we're on board already?" Holland mused aloud.

  "I do not think so." Vincent was searching attentively both ahead and behind them. "But he has evidently decided we may try to rescue Dr. Kate."

  Nearby, old Bob fluttered unsteadily on his repellers. They sounded dangerously close to grid failure. "I knew we should have dragged those sentries you shot and hidden them somewhere else."

  "If you recall," Vincent reminded him, "we did not have the time. The two of us dragging a pair of exploded mechanicals around with us would also likely have drawn more attention than we did."

  He looked back at Holland. "It seems indisputable that Reinhardt now knows we are aware of the location of his abattoir."

  "And suspects well head there. He's right, but we've no time for subtlety." Holland led them up the corridor.

  Six sentries rushed down a passage. None save one thought to glance into the narrow service accessway leading off to one side, and he sensed only shadows within.

  When they had vanished around the far turn, Vincent leaned out, checked both directions.

  "Clear," he informed his companions. Holland followed him as they dashed across the corridor, making for another which old Bob insisted interconnected with the one leading to the surgery.

  After a while Holland slowed, waited for old Bob to catch up. He had fallen behind twice already, his internal engines inadequate to the demands of continued speed. "I wish he could move a little faster," Holland murmured sympathetically. "I know he's doing his best, but . . ."

  "We have to wait for him." Vincent turned small circles impatiently. "I could retrace my original path to the surgery, but that would take us through heavily traveled sections of the ship. The fact that we have encountered and had to avoid only a single party of sentries so far is indication enough that Bob can lead us there not only more quickly but with less danger of confrontation with Reinhardt's stooges."

  "I know, I know." Holland suddenly frowned, eyed his mechanical associate curiously. "You're not addressing him as Dr. Reinhardt any more?"

  "He doesn't deserve the title any more," replied Vincent matter-of-factly.

  Bob finally rejoined them. They hurried on, matching their pace to his with as much patience as they could muster.

  It seemed as if the Cygnus's instruments themselves had acquired an eerie form of electronic sentience. Everything on the bridge was aglow, as if aware of what it was about to encounter. Its humanoid operators showed no hint of excitement.

  Reinhardt's attention was fixed on the image of the rotating black hole. Maximillian had finished issuing orders to the sentries and now stood at his regular place before the command console.

  "Bring us about, Maximillian. Line us up with navigation. Engine room, I want reaction-stability reports on each engine every sixty seconds."

  Slowly the great ship began to pivot, aligning itself with the distant maelstrom. Gravity twisted around it, and its engines commenced to toy with the fabric of space.

  As the Cygnus turned, the Palomino shifted. Booth instinctively put out both hands to steady himself. "We're moving. That madman's taking her into the hole for sure." He looked at Pizer. "What do we do?"

  "We wait." The first officer's gaze was focused on the external optical monitor currently peering down the umbilical connecting them to the Cygnus. Only the dim circle of light from the distant reception room showed on the screen.

  The sentries handled McCrae forcefully but with care as they pushed her toward the circular operating platform. Apparently Reinhardt's instructions had been explicit: control her, but don't hurt her. Don't damage the goods, she thought furiously. Her anger helped moderate the terror that threatened to overcome her.

  She tried to analyze the operating theater as the machines efficiently strapped her into one of the molded recesses. The multihued lighting felt harsh on her eyes. Probably it did not trouble the surgeons that were not-men. Two of them stood s
ilently nearby, waiting for their next subject to be properly secured.

  Surely they would apply some form of anesthesia before they began work. Surely.

  Overhead she recognized the fairly standard assortment of narrow-beam, high-intensity lasers. They were capable of cutting flesh or bone to within microscopic tolerances. Nearby were lengths of thin tubing for supplying or draining organic fluids, as might be required, and other instruments for inserting various artificial devices.

  She was so familiar with the arrangement because she had lain on a similar table once before. Idly she wondered if the size of the module to be inserted into her brain was larger or smaller than the esplink already there. She also wondered how much of herself would have to be removed. Or disconnected.

  At least she no longer worried about screaming. She was too frightened.

  "We're coming, Dr. Kate," a familiar voice said comfortingly inside her head.

  "Vincent . . . hurry . . . please . . ." She could not allow herself the luxury of lapsing into hysteria. That would foil esplink communication.

  Lights came on in the instrument-laden dome overhead. Anesthesia, she thought frantically. Please . . . I'm still conscious! She was being rotated toward the deceptively dull cluster of lights.

  Please. ..

  The lights vanished, subsumed in a series of far more intense flares. She turned her head away as cooling but still hot bits of metal and plastic rained down around her. Looking back the other way, she saw Holland. He was standing in the doorway, flanked by two hovering machines. A crazy quilt of energy beams flashed from their weapons. An occasional opposing beam scored walls or floor around them.

  "Bob, stop that thing and get her out of here! We'll cover you."

  Holland ran right, Vincent the other way, firing at anything that moved and trying to dodge the counter-shots of the surprised sentries in the room. Pieces of wall and machinery were flying in all directions. The noise from exploding components and torn alloy was deafening.

  Still waiting for their instrumentation to respond to their instructions, the two humanoid surgeons stood dully nearby. Then one turned and reached to activate the nearby wall communicator. Holland and Vincent noticed the movement at the same time. Two beams struck the surgeon in tandem. What was left of him tumbled into another sentry, throwing it off-balance and knocking it backward; it fell beneath several of the now malfunctioning surgical lasers toward which McCrae was still drifting.

  "Stand aside, Bob." Holland took careful aim at the dangerously erratic mechanism and fired several times, making sure it was rendered completely inoperative. Bob then hurried to free McCrae, but sensed nearby motion of a belligerent nature and called out.

  "Behind you, Mr. Holland!"

  The captain whirled as three sentry robots crashed through the doorway recently vacated by the invaders. Before Holland could fire, Vincent popped up unexpectedly from behind a bulky storage cylinder blocking the path inward. Three arms extended pistonlike. Partially decapitated, the three sentries collapsed on the deck.

  Holland turned his attention to McCrae. Bob was helping her off the platform. "You all right?"

  She nodded, managed a sickly smile. "I'll be better when we're back aboard the Palomino."

  Wordlessly, he handed her a weapon and considered what to do next. It was unthinkable that Reinhardt would permit them to return to their ship with McCrae. He wanted her too much.

  Aboard the Palomino, Pizer was wishing he had a certain neck under his thumbs when the console buzzed for attention. "Dan . . . that you?"

  "You're receiving us?"

  "Loud and clear. What's happened?"

  "Kate's okay. We're on our way back."

  "What about pursuit?"

  "Scrap behind us, so far nothing in front of us. Hope it stays that way. Out."

  "Palomino out." He leaned back in his seat, relieved.

  Booth was not. He was worriedly studying his wrist chronometer. "They're cutting it close. We're running out of time. Reinhardt's going to have to engage his primary drive pretty soon. Then it'll be too late for us to break clear."

  "He wants us, and Vincent, free to monitor his dive, remember?"

  "We've caused him a lot of trouble, Charlie. I know his type. Before long he's going to decide Kate's not worth the trouble. Then we'll all be dragged in."

  Several sentry robots arrived and cautiously entered the smoking operating theater. A door opened and a pair of humanoids appeared, started out past the sentries. The guards ignored them, moved to open another closed door.

  Whirling, the larger humanoid blasted the guards with a concealed laser. As soon as the sentries were downed, Bob and Vincent emerged from the room about to be searched. They hurried after their disguised companions.

  Unfortunately, the section of corridor they were retreating down was one of those covered by remote optical monitors. Having watched the previous action dispassionately, Reinhardt now addressed the huge machine hovering alongside him with equal unconcern.

  "Maximillian, tell the sentries to fire on any humanoids between Medical Station and the Palomino. Instruct them to aim for the lower limbs. I still want the woman alive, if possible."

  Maximillian hummed a response, communicated with the patrolling sentries far more rapidly and efficiently than Reinhardt could.

  Holland and the others entered a main corridor. Waiting sentries immediately opened fire from a far catwalk. The beams just missed the startled Holland. He ducked back into a side passage and joined his companions in returning the fire.

  "They're onto us."

  Headgear was removed. McCrae shook hair from her face. "Well, the costume got us this far." She threw the reflective faceplate out into the corridor. It drew several shots before it was incinerated. The distraction enabled her to knock one guard off his elevated perch.

  Her attention was instantly drawn from the remaining metal figures on the catwalk to movement far behind them. More sentries could be seen entering the distant end of the side passageway.

  "Dan, they're behind us."

  Holland took a fast look, made a quick decision as he fired back at the new threat. "The catwalk. Hop to it. We can't stay here."

  While he and the robots covered, she ran forward, twisting and dodging in an attempt to stay just clear of the sentries' fire. They could react rapidly, but they could not predict. She was careful to keep her movements random.

  With the hovering Vincent and Bob forcing the sentries to fight a multilevel battle, Holland and McCrae fought their way up the main corridor along the catwalk.

  Only their constant movement kept the sentries off-balance, Holland knew. They were functional but not terribly sophisticated machines. As long as Kate and he could keep from being pinned down where the mechanicals' superior firepower could be brought to bear, they had a chance.

  Vincent and Bob dodged through the air, thoroughly confusing the sentries. Whenever one tried to concentrate on the unpredictable humans, one of the two flying robots would swoop down to destroy it. If they devoted the better part of their fire toward the robots, Holland and McCrae pressed forward to obliterate them.

  The sentries' slowness to make up their minds was further demonstrated when two tried to sight on the wildly diving B.O.B. unit. He dodged between them, and they promptly shot each other before their circuitry could cancel the directive to fire.

  But one managed to singe Bob.

  McCrae was first to notice the damage. "Vincent! Bob's hit!" She couldn't devote time herself to make sure the robot was still functional. The sentries kept her too busy.

  Then there were no more sentries.

  Bob's flight had become noticeably erratic. Vincent drifted over, helped the injured machine slip smoothly toward the floor. There the load on his weakened repellers would be lessened.

  Holland made a quick, thorough inspection of the damage. He wished he knew more cybernetics than the minimum that was necessary to command and perform a few basic repairs. Machines as sophisticated
as Vincent and Bob were supposed to diagnose and direct their own repairs, if not able to perform them themselves.

  "How badly are you hurt?" Vincent inquired.

  "First fighting I've done in thirty years, since I was run through post-manufacture testing. I only wish it had been Reinhardt and Maximillian out there."

  "That's the spirit." McCrae led the way up the catwalk. Holland right behind. The two robots flanked them. Bob continued to fight to retain his stability.

  Within the command tower, a voiceless but clearly angry Maximillian reacted to the failure of the sentries. As if aware they were being monitored, Vincent raised an arm and executed a snappy victory signal.

  Despite his wishes, Reinhardt found his attention drawn by the confrontation. He was furious both at the failure to recapture Kate McCrae and at the time he was being forced to devote to so petty a matter.

  "Your crack unit outwitted and outfought by some mass-produced Earth model and that antique from storage."

  Maximillian pulsed crimson, the strongest form of personal expression permitted him. Reinhardt had taken care not to gift his powerful servant with too much sentience.

  He looked back to the image of the black hole, up to scan several readouts. "It's a pity about McCrae. But I will not leave them free to spread lies about me. I can't endanger the Cygnus by exploding their ship too soon. If they succeed in returning to their vessel with Dr. McCrae, we'll give them some distance before destroying them."

  They were rushing ahead when Holland suddenly grabbed McCrae and pulled her down. "Hit the deck! Vincent, Bob—watch yourselves. More of 'em up ahead."

  Bright arcs of destruction lanced over their heads, flashed around the evasive robots. There was a crude barricade before them. Sentry robots lined its crest, firing inaccurately but threateningly from behind the makeshift bulwark.

  Their poor shooting was a comfort, but the one thing Holland had feared most had come to pass—they were prevented from reaching the reception area. It was just beyond the barrier, tantalizingly near.

  The sentries' fire might not scorch them, he thought desperately as they rolled for cover, but if they couldn't break through, they would soon be trapped by others coming up from behind. Eventually Reinhardt would concentrate enough firepower to kill them, no matter how unsteady the aim of his mechanicals.