The Black Hole

by Alan Dean Foster

  He knew they couldn't afford the time to take the long way around. There might not even be a long way around. They had to break through ahead.

  Somehow.

  No one was more aware of the frantic passage of time than the two men who waited nervously in the cockpit of the little research ship.

  Booth again checked his chronometer, asked in frustration, "How much longer are we going to wait? If they can't make it, they can't make it. There's no reason for us to die, too."

  "There's still time, Harry. I'm sure . . ."

  Distorted by the nearby crackle of energy weapons, Holland's voice sounded over the console speaker. "Charlie, do you read me?"

  Pizer hurried to reply. "Loud and clear, Dan," he lied. The captain had enough to worry about. Pizer could understand him well enough.

  "Tune's up." Holland spoke calmly, resignedly. "Take her clear."

  Pizer thought a moment. "Where are you?"

  "Side corridor," came the labored reply. "Near reception. They've got the passage blocked, though. We can't get through. They've got us pinned down.

  "Lift off, Mr. Pizer! You know your orders. I haven't got time to argue with you." A hissing shriek drowned out his final words as a laser beam passed frighteningly close to the communicator grid.

  Pizer had known what he would do if such a situation arose. He had known before they had separated earlier, on the ship. Maybe Holland knew too, he thought. He told himself that was the case, rationalizing his incipient actions as fast as possible.

  His shipmates were close by. Too close for him to obey orders. He wouldn't mind a court-martial. Not if Holland and Vincent were around to give evidence against him. If that was his destiny, why, then, he was doomed no matter what he chose to do. So why worry?

  Such are the convoluted justifications of the truly brave.

  Booth stepped as if to block his way. "You heard the captain. Orders are to lift clear."

  "You're pretty big on talking heroics, Harry, and on reporting 'em. Let's see some." Leaving Booth to consider those words, Pizer pushed past the older man. With a muffled curse, the reporter raced after him.

  Pizer was out into the reception area before any of the sentries, concentrating on the battle for the passageway, reacted to his unexpected appearance. He leaped to one side and fired as the single guard there brought up his weapons. The machine blew apart as Booth dived for the cover of a desk.

  The first officer quickly regained his feet. He was trying to orient himself when the groans reached him.

  "Damn . . ."

  "Harry? You hit?" He hunted for the reporter, saw his boots sticking out from behind the desk.

  "My leg . . ." Booth was holding it gingerly. He sat up slowly, grimacing from the pain.

  "How bad?" asked Pizer, concerned.

  "I think it's broken."

  "From laser fire? I didn't think that sentry got off a shot." As he spoke he was anxiously scanning the large room. The single mechanical had been alone, however.

  "No, from idiocy. I took a dive for cover that I shouldn't have." He touched his lower leg and winced. "When I was thirty I would've bounced. I'm afraid I'm not as flexible as I used to be, Charlie."

  "Can you walk?" Pizer knew he couldn't help the reporter and the others at the same time.

  With Pizer's help Booth got to his feet, put a little weight on the leg. "The real pain won't hit for a few minutes yet. I can limp, I think."

  "All right. Get back to the ship and take up a good defensive position near the lock. We'll be counting on you to make sure none of 'em gets aboard, Harry."

  "Right. Don't worry about that. I'll make sure nothing boards."

  Pizer hurried off toward the nearby scene of action, directed by the noise of fighting. He rounded a bend, skidded to a halt. Ahead was the barricade and its platoon of shielded mechanicals.

  "I'm behind them, Dan," he whispered into his communicator. "What's your advice?"

  "My advice was to lift clear, Charlie," came the reply. "But since you've more guts than brains, use your own judgment. I'm the one who was fool enough to get himself pinned down here."

  Pizer hesitated, thinking, planning. On the other hand, he abruptly decided, long-range planning had never been one of his strong points. From what he had observed of Reinhardt's sentries, it certainly wasn't one of theirs, either.

  Confuse them. Don't give them time to react, he told himself.

  Jumping out into clear view, he charged the barricade. More concerned with creating a diversion than destruction, he fired as rapidly as he could. So closely packed were the sentries behind the wall, however, that his firing was more effective than he had hoped. It was up to Dan and Kate to realize what was happening and fire carefully in his direction.

  At the sound of Pizer's berserker yelp, the robots turned to confront their unexpected new assailant. Holland, McCrae and the two hovering robots charged the barricade simultaneously. Caught in a mental as well as a strategic dilemma, the sentries were soon reduced to scrap.

  Ignoring the occasional hot sparks that flew from isolated sections of mechanicals, Pizer stepped over the heaps of steaming metal. Now that the immediate danger was over, he was a little appalled at his audacity. A good thing that he hadn't taken the time to think his actions through.

  Holland and the others were already hurrying past him. McCrae grabbed his arm. "Come on, Charlie."

  Partway down the access passage they were halted by a call from behind. Old Bob fluttered near a wall. The whine from his repellers was higher now, intermittent.

  "You go ahead," the damaged machine told them. "I'll stay here and cover you against any fresh pursuit I can't travel fast enough, and you can't spare the seconds."

  Vincent looked at his human companions. "Captain . . . Mr. Pizer?"

  Both men holstered their weapons, retraced their steps. Holland examined the robot, shook his head in frustration. "We can't carry him . . . he's too heavy for the three of us."

  "That isn't necessary, sir," said Vincent. "If you and Mr. Pizer can give him some support, he can redirect power from his stabilizer repellers to those providing forward drive."

  "Please . . . it's not necess—"

  "Shut up," Holland ordered Bob. "If it weren't for you, we'd probably all be dead by now."

  Pizer moved to the other side of the hovering machine. Each man slipped his arms beneath Bob's own, carefully avoiding the repeller grids beneath. They appeared to be carrying him as they started back down the corridor. McCrae and Vincent were on the alert for sentries.

  Booth's injured leg had apparently undergone a healing nothing short of miraculous. Running without any hint of damage, he had rushed back up the umbilical and into the Palomino. A quick jab closed the lock door behind him.

  The command cockpit was a maze of instrumentation. But most of it was automatic, and after eighteen months of spare time he had managed to study the basic controls thoroughly. They would now provide more than amusement.

  As he studied the pilot's console, he fought to recall the answers to the many frivolously asked questions he had put to Holland. He hesitated only briefly before commencing to program the ship's systems. A thin smile of satisfaction creased his face when the engines came on. Several critical gauges on the overhead console lit up. He had power. Now all the ship needed was direction, velocity and its freedom.

  Holland and the others staggered into reception. As they reached the open space, the two men let go of Bob and moved in opposite directions, to present smaller targets to the anticipated welcoming party of sentries. But reception was deserted. The only sentry present was the one Pizer had obliterated on his emergence from the umbilical.

  "Stands to reason," McCrae was saying, breathing heavily. "Reinhardt can only have so many sentry machines. Some of them would have to be deployed elsewhere on the ship, to insure we couldn't make mischief with, say, the engines." Then something made her frown.

  Her companions also heard it: the sound of distant engines, louder t
han those of the Cygnus. They rushed toward the connector passageway.

  "What's that idiot trying to do?" Pizer's voice reflected his outrage and dismay.

  Holland grabbed him, slowed him down. "It's too late." He pointed out the nearby port. The umbilical had already disconnected from the Palomino, was shrinking in on itself like a worm wriggling back into its hole. They were cut off from their ship.

  A moment later the Palomino was drifting silently away from them, the sound of its familiar engines having ceased as soon as the umbilical had been dropped. They stood quietly by the port and watched, each lost in his or her private thoughts.

  "What a fool I was," McCrae muttered. "If I'd just done what Reinhardt wanted, you'd all be aboard and safely on your way."

  "We're not all Harry Booths, Kate." Holland smiled thinly at her. "I'd still have come after you."

  She smiled back, met his questioning stare.

  Their reverie was interrupted by a shout of surprise from Pizer. "Look!" They turned from each other, temporarily putting aside but not forgetting, no, never forgetting, the unspoken bond that had formed between them. Time enough for elaboration of that nonverbal exchange later. Time enough . . . if they lived.

  The Palomino had been climbing steadily away from the Cygnus. Now it was changing direction, no longer moving away. It had commenced to arc slowly back toward the Cygnus.

  In the pilot's chair, Booth fought frantically with the stubborn controls. Steering a sophisticated craft like the Palomino was not like driving a personal transport, no matter how many automatics it possessed. Hasty, panicky reactions were apt to be more counterproductive than helpful. Everything Booth did only seemed to exacerbate the problem.

  Reinhardt was equally aware of the smaller ship's troubles. It was coming dangerously near the Cygnus. "That ship's out of control. Blow it apart before it hits us. Fire! Quickly, now." He stared anxiously at the smaller vessel, not caring any longer who might be aboard it.

  Laser cannon tracked the tumbling research vessel uncaringly. Silent orders activated automatic rangers. The Palomino intersected a predicted point in space. Several energy beams simultaneously struck that intersection. The Palomino disintegrated in a brilliant shower of molten metal and torn fragments of self.

  One such large fragment was ejected at considerable speed toward the stern of the Cygnus. It happened to strike a particularly vulnerable section of the great ship, tearing through sensitive instrumentation. Internal doorlocks slammed shut, trying to isolate the region from which air was escaping. Former members of the Cygnus's crew who were caught in the sealed-off areas passed blissfully into death.

  The fragment slashed through the port engine control station. Vast energies were left temporarily unbound. Automatic safeties locked down as fast as possible, but they could operate no faster than the electrons flowing through their circuitry.

  There was a substantial explosion.

  It rocked the whole structure of the Cygnus. In reception, everyone except the floating robots grabbed for something stable. Nothing met that requirement, but the ship soon steadied itself. Artificial gravity once again took firm hold of the ship's contents, including the now shipless crew of the vanished Palomino.

  "Harry . . . oh, my God," McCrae murmured. She stared out the port at the rapidly dispersing particles of what had once been their ship—and Harry Booth.

  "I should've known he was all talk and no guts and locked him up." Pizer was feeling somewhat less than regretful at the reporter's sudden, unexpected demise.

  "Don't be too hard on him, Charlie." Holland was trying to concentrate on two matters at once. "He had reason to think we were the crazy ones, not him. He panicked. Harry reported science, but I don't think he ever really enjoyed or understood it.

  "Anyway, he may have done us a favor. Reinhardt might have intended to blow us up all along. I'm certain he would have tried if we'd managed to get aboard with Kate. Thanks to Harry, we're still alive."

  "And where there's life . . ." Vincent began.

  Pizer cut him off bitterly. He was in no mood for the robot's humorous homilies. "He was trying to save his own skin, Dan. Don't make him out to be some sort of martyr."

  "There's a saying, sir," the unflappable robot went on, "that you can't unscramble eggs."

  "A penny's worth of philosophy won't buy us out of this."

  "A good offense is the best defense."

  "Vincent," Pizer said in utter exasperation, "maybe if you took your witticisms and . . ." He stopped, forced himself to consider seriously what the robot was saying. "You mean, go after Reinhardt and turn the ship around?" He shook his head. "We wouldn't have a chance. It's one thing to fight our way through corridors to here, but he'd never let us in the control tower. He'd seal himself in first. By the time we could try something extreme, like donning suits and breaking through the dome, it'd be too late."

  "That was not what I had in mind, Mr. Pizer. There is an alternative."

  "I don't follow you."

  Holland, who had also been devoting considerable thought to their seemingly hopeless situation, did.

  "The probe ship! The one that's already returned from the event horizon! It's equipped with the same Cygnus Process drive and the same null-g field. Vincent, you're a genius!"

  "Yes, sir," the robot acknowledged modestly. "It's part of my programming."

  Holland turned to the other waiting mechanical. "Bob, what's the quickest way to the probe dock?"

  "Internal air car," he replied instantly. "I can program one to carry us directly to the dock." He was already starting back up the corridor.

  A gaping wound near her stern, the Cygnus plunged ahead, accelerating toward the lambent vortex of the black hole. Excited to fluorescence by the storm of radiation pouring out from the event horizon, glowing gases began to fill space around the ship. Angry auroras swarmed around the ports.

  Reinhardt was studying the ship's progress when a buzzer demanded his attention. Switching to a rear-facing scanner, he studied the view thus presented in silence. Magnification was increased. A swarm of irregular-shaped objects was cutting the course of the ship. Hasty calculations indicated they would overtake the Cygnus.

  "Meteorites overtaking us. I knew there'd be a lot of cosmic debris sucked in with us, but I'd hoped . . . Maximillian! Bring up the output on the starboard power center. We still have partial power from two of the four engines on the port side. Double the output on the others. We have to increase our speed."

  Lights flashed across the huge mechanical's chest in a sequence indicating uncertainty and advising caution.

  "Do as I say. We must seize the moment, Maximillian." His eyes were wide, wild. "Hold our course. We will outrun the debris or ride out any impact."

  Pursued by the soulless components of a planet that never was, the Cygnus thundered onward. But she did not gain enough velocity to outrace the tumbling matter that crossed her astern. One jagged chunk of nickel-iron plowed lazily into the crest of the ship, completely destroying what had been the reception area.

  The impact jarred the entire ship. Holland stumbled, struggled to regain his footing. The whoosh of escaping air that had sounded momentarily, terrifyingly, in his ears was cut off as a lock door slammed tight behind them.

  The air-car terminus was nearby. They followed Bob into the first of the little vehicles. Holland programmed it according to Bob's directions. All around the ship, meteorites disintegrated under the increasing gravitational forces, or succumbed to intense internal radiation, or collided with one another and silently exploded. Through the transparent walls of the air-car cylinder tube they could view the external destruction and the increasingly disturbed radiation that colored the vacuum.

  Something singed Holland's hair. He looked ahead, to see another air car rushing directly for them. Still programmed to seek out and destroy the intruders, four sentry robots were firing across the rapidly shrinking distance between the two cars.

  Under the increasing stress the cyli
nder itself began bucking and groaning. Holland recalled the flexibility of the null-g field, wondered if the damage to the ship's engines or the meteorite that had just impacted, or perhaps both, had done anything to reduce the field's stability. If so, the ship might come apart around them any second.

  Vincent and Bob returned the fire of the approaching sentries. Seeing that the onrushing vehicle was not about to slow, Holland assumed manual control of their car. He sent them sliding up in a high bank onto the side of the transport tube without reducing speed. The startled sentries raced on past below them.

  With a final, sorrowful groan the transport tube buckled, broke. An internal lock slammed down instantly, shutting the tube off from the vacuum outside. The car carrying the sentries continued forward, flying out into space with its occupants still turning to fire.

  There was damage ahead as they once more found themselves traveling through the ship. Holland brought the air car to a halt, looked for a break.

  "We can't go any farther over this," he decided. "We'll have to try walking the main corridor."

  Bob led them away from the car. The main corridor and its catwalks were still intact, but by now walking itself was difficult. It was clear that the null-g field was oscillating dangerously. One moment the ship sailed calmly onward; the next, the Cygnus barely shook free of the increasing gravitational pull. The muffled rumble of distant collisions echoed through the passageway.

  They had started down the corridor when a violent shock forced them to halt, struggling just to remain upright. Refugee from some distant corner of space, a flaming ball of matter broke through the ceiling. Its velocity reduced by passage through the Cygnus's null-g field and several intervening decks, it did not continue its progress through the ship. Instead, it struck and bounced, tumbling at high speed toward the little group of temporarily paralyzed onlookers.

  There being no place to hide, everyone dropped to the deck. Not that it mattered. The glowing metal flew by overhead, annihilated the section of catwalk they had already traversed, and vanished through a partition.