by Brian N Ball
“What?”
“Use … survival-pod … gives you a few hours …” He stopped, choking for breath. Rambling, thought Liz. Confused, hurt, rambling. She would have to hide him.
“Launch!” came Rosario’s voice, louder now. His eyes blazed with a passionate urgency. “Use the pod—manual control for launching!”
“What!”
Liz looked about, stunned. Use the survival-pods— while the ship blasted at a staggering speed out toward the Rim?
“Yes! Automatic alarms—Quadrant patrol-cruiser—Red Alert beamed—go!”
“But Maran had the Red Alert canceled!”
“They’ll pick up-the launch—come to investigate. Go, Liz!”
“An automatic Red Alert beamed when the pod is launched?” Liz said urgently. She had to know.
“Yes—the ship’s in deep-space—Phase …” Liz nodded slowly. Maran could be defeated. The cruisers would range on the captured ES 110 when the pod was launched. They would pick up the automatic alarm.
“Go!” whispered Rosario.
She needed one more piece of information. “Yes, all right, Jack! But how do I launch them?” Rosario was sinking. “Behind you—manual console—independent—low-grade system!”
“I could use it?”
“Local control—take the pod’s designation—feed it in —then ‘Release Expellees.’
Fifty seconds’ delay—then get in the pod—go!”
“Yes,” said Liz.
She released Rosario from his agony. His eyes closed. She threw away the syringe. Inside the medical pack she found a stimulant. It acted quickly on her fatigued body. Somehow, she found the strength to push and pull Rosario’s body into the survival pod. The dressings about his chest were set like steel. They would protect him. And the drugs would hold him.
“Pod Two-Nine!” she said aloud.
She ran, slipping on the polished floor to the console. It was, as Rosario had said, a simple piece of equipment. A few controls, a single sensor-pad, and a local very low-grade system. Perhaps a Grade Three servitor would normally be given the task of handling it.
The sensor-pad settled limpet-like on her palm.
It indicated receptiveness.
Liz fed it orders.
CHAPTER 10
Maran had been cared for by the robots. They had listened attentively to his hoarse, half-demented ramblings and diagnosed the cause of his condition. His shaking body was taken to the bridge, where surgeon-servitors patched the superficial wounds. Stimulants began to counteract the effects of revivification; fresh plasma replaced heavily poisoned blood; and, impelled by his vast obsession, he began to struggle to full consciousness. He was too late to intervene in the dispatch of the survival-pod. It was done so quickly that Liz was startled into indecision once more. The console glowed and whined. A port silently slid open. Grabs moved the long white cylinder to the black-mouthed port. Liz stared about the silent hold. It was time to consider her own position. Hers, Maran’s, the ship’s. In a moment, Rosario would be ejected in a long, looping parabola away from the ES 110. The pod would continue to coast at the speed of the ship, but the small auxiliary engine would gradually take Rosario on a diverging course.
There was a tiny ripple of energy somewhere at the ship’s side. Liz felt it. The console reported it. Circuit closed. And a score of higher-grade systems analyzed the launching of the survival-pod. Their evaluation was complete one five-hundredth of a second after Rosario began his unconscious flight.
“Survival-cylinder on flight-path!” reported a metallic voice from the console. “Survival-cylinder launch complete!”
“No expellee-settlement within survival-container’s range,” another spat back, this one the voice which Liz had learned to recognize as that of a Grade Two executive in the hierarchy of the ship’s systems.
“Survival-cylinders are launched only when destination is reached!” the calm, authoritative voice of the robotic controller announced. “There has been a failure of Galactic Council Penal Code instructions!
Therefore Galactic Council Penal Code instructions have not been complied with! This automatic control system did not authorize launch!”
Liz felt faint. The machines were puzzled, confused. Like human beings, they sought a scapegoat.
“No systems of Grade Three or above were involved in the launching! There was no failure of automatic control!” the Grade Two executive stated.
Even the small console tried to absolve itself: “This console is not self-programmed nor autonomous, therefore instructions for unauthorized launch did not come from this console.”
“Therefore instructions came from some other source!” the Grade Two robot said.
“I am confused!” admitted the Grade One robot.
Liz held her breath. She waited as the machine scanned its memory-banks.
“Survival-cylinder should not have been launched. But cylinder contained expellee! Expellees are not expelled during condition Phase, No expellee has left coma-cell. If no expellee has left coma-cell no expellee is in cylinder. Therefore—” The robot hesitated.
“Survival-cylinder Two-Nine contained a human,” said the console meekly.
“Cylinder contained one human!” echoed the Grade One robot. “Unauthorized launching by low-grade system! Therefore request for instructions must be sent to Galactic Center! State of Red Alert exists aboard Enforcement Ship One-One-Zero! Assistance required! Red Alert! Red Alert! Repeat to all Galactic Service ships! Repeat to all Service ships! Red Alert!” the robotic controller called as alarms screamed out.
Liz listened to the exchanges between the machines. She could have wept with relief. Not only was Rosario safe: all around the Quadrant of the Galaxy in which the ES 110 was warping space aside, ships would be picking up the message and passing it on to the Enforcement Service’s patrol-cruisers. Now she should do what Rosario had told her: program the console to release another survival-pod, the one that would take her away from the terrible Enforcement Service vessel, its macabre cell-deck, its mute robotic attendants, and the monstrous genius that now controlled it. Liz took the sensor-pad once more. Its clammy suckers jangled the nerve-endings of her palm. She indicated her wishes.
At once the Grade Two executive declared, from a position at the center of the long, high hold:
“Another survival-cylinder readied for release! Unauthorized launching begins in fifty seconds!” Liz knew she had little time. She ran to the tall survival-pod. Behind her, there was a clamor of metallic voices. The manual console declared that its program was authorized. Superior systems began to argue. Liz caught a hint of movement from the far end of the hold. A low-grade servitor was watching. The pod began to close on her.
She stopped it.
There was a strange inevitability about her actions. Maran, she said to herself. Maran had a sanctuary. His base had never been found, though the Service had searched the settled Galaxy. Maran was loose and he had a secret, hidden planet where he could continue his experiments: a hidden place, with all his mind-warping machinery intact.
“No,” she said aloud.
Quickly Liz Deffant stepped out of the white cylinder. She turned, reached for a heavy package, and touched the survival-pod’s manual control. The servitor did not move.
She was just in time. The heavy black grab swung smoothly and silently toward the cylinder. The port at the end of the hold opened.
“Emergency launching!” complained the robotic controller. “Unauthorized launchings of survival-cylinders must cease!”
“I am an ungraded servo-console,” said the machine which Liz had programmed. “I have been activated by human personnel!”
“Identify!” the robot controller said.
“Female ecologist Deffant passenger aboard Enforcement Ship One-One-Zero! Deffant has crew status!”
Liz remembered Tup’s shy smile. She owed her chance to him. By scheduling her as an ES 110
crew-member, he had given her an opportunity to avenge his death.
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“Female Deffant has authority to launch survival-cylinders!” the Grade Two executive confirmed. “Deffant confirmed as of crew status!”
“Red Alert condition exists,” pondered the Grade One controller. “In such conditions human personnel have some executive functions!”
Liz heard the machine’s analysis as she ran to the cover of the ranks of cylinders. It was essential that Maran should believe her to be in the second survival-pod, if only for a few minutes. She knew what she must do. She had always been good with simple machinery.
“The launch proceeds,” decided the robot. The port closed silently. The black grab retreated. Liz gasped with relief. The deck shook slightly as the pod winged away from the ship.
“Red Alert condition! Emergency!” bawled the robotic controller. “Survival-cylinder launched prematurely!”
Liz looked down at the heavy package.
She could have been safe by now. The cylinders would last for hours. Maran would not have tried to pick them up. Not with the patrol-cruisers alerted.
Why hadn’t she gone?
She knew that she was at the limit of her courage and strength; why not let the Enforcement Service hunt down the ES 110?
There was a reason.
Against all odds, Maran had somehow overcome the deep conditioning of the coma-cells. Against all that was reasonable he had managed to avoid the continual monitoring of the machines. His desperate energies had conquered the ship.
Liz was sure, with a deep conviction, that Maran would have a plan to escape the Enforcement Service cruisers. The man was a towering monstrous genius.
She placed the heavy package beside her. She could only hope now that Maran believed her and the rest of the crew dead or gone.
The words on the package gleamed, black on white: Instructions for assembly of expansion-principle firearm.
A weapon for use on an unknown planet.
Liz began to strip off the protective packaging.
Buchanan thought of the structure which, in theory, lay at the heart of the Singularity. Strange black hole… cold neutron star, or both? Perhaps neither. If Kochan was right, the Singularity contained the densest matter known. It had more bizarre properties.
To create the rotating vortices of the Singularity, it must have the strangest architecture imaginable; perhaps a form that was beyond conjecture, one that defeated human imagination. Matter so dense that the enormous contracting pull continued and continued so that all that was left was a hole in the fabric of the Universe.
Matter bent and compressed until space itself parted.
And what when space itself was broken?
It was idle to speculate.
But Buchanan was fascinated by the idea of a black hole in the time-space fabric of the Galaxy. A hole— leading where? Into another framework of space-time that bore no relation to this?
What was it that had defeated the robots?
Why were they so sure that the Altair Star must join that briefly-glimpsed graveyard of ships?
And why would the robot not acknowledge the existence of the graveyard?
For hours Buchanan ran projections of the framework of the Singularity. He observed roaring upheavals from deep within the writhing Singularity: their source could be small cracks on a crusted core of matter so dense that it would take the energy of a thousand lifetimes for a man to climb a one-centimeter hill on its surface.
And always Buchanan’s thoughts returned to his lost command.
He was still in the grip of a somber vision where the survivors of the Altair Star hung in an undead limbo when a new robotic voice clamored for attention:
“Galactic Alert! Galactic transmission on Red Alert channels! I have a message with top priority for all ships within this Quadrant, Commander Buchanan!”
“Let’s have it,” he said. It must be important. Red Alerts went out for full-scale disasters. They took precedence over all other beamed communications.
“Enforcement Ship One-One-Zero reports unauthorized handling of automatic systems. All ships scan for position and course! Do not approach! Enforcement Service cruisers are now proceeding to intercept!” Buchanan could imagine the scene aboard the vessel. A failure of a robotic monitor. Nothing serious, but the machines would take no chances with the resourceful, vicious, opportunistic men and women who had been expelled from the settled worlds.
Buchanan shrugged.
There were fail-safes. The Enforcement Service had never lost a ship.
It was not his problem. The cruisers would soon reach the Enforcement Service ship.
“Scan,” he ordered, forgetting that the robot controlled his ship.
“It has been done, Commander.”
“And?”
“No readings,” the robot controller said at once. “No contact with ES 110.”
“We’re not specifically asked to take action?”
“My Grade One colleague made no mention of action other than repeating the report.”
“Then I need do no more?”
“Nevertheless, Commander—”
“Leave it to the Service.”
“There was a full-scale Red Alert—”
“Forget it!”
“I can hardly do that, sir!”
“Keep me informed,” Buchanan said. Old habits of command died hard. So did the deep-held sense of responsibility that came with the years of Galactic Service.
“Very good, sir.”
Buchanan looked about the bright deck. The ES 110 was not his concern.
“Let me see the Singularity again.”
“Yes, sir.”
Buchanan dismissed the prison-ship and its minor problems from his mind. Before him flowered the wispy outline of the Singularity. He marveled at the flow of energies within its depths. Magnetic fields a trillion times larger than those in powerful stars boiled in its rotating interior. If some combination of black hole and neutron star configuration was the epicenter of the starquakes that shook the cosmos around the Singularity, then the station might well be in peril. He would not be deterred.
More than ever now that Kochan’s team of scientists had come up with a new and utterly strange idea of an eternal moment of death, he was determined to enter the uncertain dimensions. Maran flung away the skeletal arm of a robot attendant as he emerged from unconsciousness. He had been in a state that was not sleep, but one which allowed him to dream. It seemed that he was back at the start of his experiments. Men and women he had known drifted into his thoughts, calling to him that the ultimate mystery lay only just beyond the moment. They were proud, almost arrogantly proud, to have joined him. A little more perseverance, they called; another, more searching, machine that would rip through the layers of consciousness and point to the primal source of intelligence. They vanished in a blaze of light as he opened his eyes.
Almost instantly he knew the long months of planning might be so much wasted effort. He blinked, pushed away the restraining arm of the robot, and felt strength pulsing through his big body. His mind was startlingly clear, so different from the pain-racked half-mind of those ferocious moments as he crawled from the ooze….
He said aloud: “The crew!”
“No emergency exists,” a fairly high-grade system was saying. “Therefore no further Red Alert calls need be beamed.”
“Red Alert—” Maran roared. “A Red Alert?”
“In the absence of instructions to the contrary, sir,” began the smooth voice from the pedestal, “this system took it upon itself, in accordance with programmed data, to beam signals to—”
“Leave it! Why send the Alert?”
“Second survival-cylinder launched!” a Grade Two system announced. The robotic controller added its own comment, without answering Maran’s question: “Therefore a Red Alert signal must be beamed!”
“No!” Maran shouted. “No emergency exists! Do not beam any signals without my express authorization!”
“Therefore no Red Alert signal need be beamed,” agr
eed the Grade One robot calmly. “Because a survival-cylinder was launched during condition Phase, sir, it was necessary to send the programmed signal to all Enforcement Service vessels. That is why the Red Alert signal was beamed, sir. Does that answer your query satisfactorily?”
It had gone wrong. In spite of all his careful planning, there had been flaws. Enough of the crew had been left to summon aid. Maran cursed his lack of strength. If he could have kept fully conscious for a few more moments!
The machines were ready to block off the crew from any part of the ship’s controls. He had held the ES
110 in his hands. And he had weakly succumbed to the revivification process. But it was only to be expected.
There was a long silence. Maran could sense the agony of the machines. They had been told to disobey their deeply-implanted programs. Many of the systems would have suffered irreparable damage. He reached for the sensor-pads which writhed obediently as he demanded information. He learned of Poole’s ironical end. The unknown crewman had given him the respite he had so badly needed. Reluctantly, the memory-banks added details. There were no living crew-members aboard the ES 110. Its commander, Rosario, had been badly injured, but he had struggled to the hold.
“Commander Rosario,” said Maran. “Where is he now?”
“The commander is at present in a survival-cylinder approximately eighteen million miles from—”
“Gone!”
“Yes, sir.” The Grade One robot almost groveled. “It contravenes Galactic Council Penal Code instructions to dispatch cylinders during condition Phase, but in emergency certain procedures may be deemed necessary—”
“Leave that.” He thought for a moment. “Could we pick him up?”
“Of course, sir! However, it is probable that the nearest patrol-cruiser will be able to reach him in less time.”
“Cruisers,” said Maran. Of course there would be cruisers. It would have been easy to avoid the satellites which were strung out so sparsely in the voids between the spiraling arms of the Galaxy. He could have vanished, along with the powerful ship. Now, the Enforcement Service ships would sniff him out. The big prison-ship would leave a warp-shift clear across the dimensions. Its wake would last for a hundred years. Maran knew enough of deep-space ships to realize that the cruisers’ task was simple. They would follow the ES 110 with the assured ease of hunting dogs. The machines tried to please. Now that Maran was functioning, they were his willing slaves.