by Brian N Ball
CHAPTER 3
Liz Deffant spent two unspeakably lonely days in the company of a dozen other tourists who, like her, had chosen to take the Foundation Age tour. One newly-married young couple recognized her misery and tried to include her in their happiness; she rejected them with a chill hostility of which she had not thought herself capable. An unattached, pleasant middle-aged man might have tried to develop a relationship with her, but he saw the fury in her brown eyes and philosophically concentrated on the ruins and relics of the early days of Galactic exploration.
Wandering among the wreckage of a military installation from the days of the Mad Wars of the Third Millennium, Liz overheard two women tourists talking about her.
“The rumor is that she picked up with some cashiered deep-space officer who’s going out on some crazy voyage. She’ll be better without him.” Her companion, like her a plump self-satisfied woman, agreed:
“She looks capable enough. She’ll survive. Much better without that sort of character.” Later, Liz inspected an egomaniac’s palace, a structure of delicate tracery and haunting shadows. The walls were translucent, made of some hard material that encased strange globules of light. Buchanan would have been able to tell her from what far star the stones had come. She felt sick at heart and left the party a day early. They were relieved to see her go. A robot guide warned her that she could not be credited with the unused portion of her tour.
When she returned to the Bookings hall, the automaton waved cheerily to her.
“Hi, Miss Deffant! You got back early from the trip! How’d you like the Dictator’s palace?”
“It was mar—”
It knew about her trip. Everything. The machines knew everything about everybody.
“Isn’t it something! His regime lasted near a hundred and eighty years—kept himself alive that long with parts-replacement!” the robot said, tapping a near-perfect fingernail on the plastic counter. Liz shrugged. What did it matter? Soon she would be back on Messier 16 where, thank God, the machines weren’t allowed to know everything. “You may have a transport order for me,” she said. The robot’s smile went. It sensed her hostility. “A rush order, Miss Deffant. It’s unusual, but the necessary permits have been given. You’re with New Settlements until—?” it asked.
“You know when.”
“Of course, of course, Miss Deffant,” the robot said defensively. “No problem there. There’s a disclaimer I have to ask you to read and sign.”
“All right.”
“Here, miss.”
She took the slip of paper. It was brief. While taking all usual precautions the Enforcement Service absolved itself from responsibility for the safety and well-being of personnel not of the Service taking advantage of transport facilities. Liz signed. “When?” she asked.
“When does the shuttle connecting with the ES 110 leave?” the robot said.
“Yes.”
“In forty hours, three minutes, twelve seconds, Miss Deffant.” Struck by a sudden thought, Liz turned.
“The ship—will it be carrying expellees?”
The robot smiled blandly.
“I’m afraid that’s confidential information, Miss Deffant. You should inquire at the Central Enforcement Office.”
It was a passing notion only. So what if there were prisoners aboard the ES 110?
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Confirm the booking.” Liz thought of filling the remaining forty hours. There were friends, of course. Two days away from Center had brought her a resigned calmness; she could face them now, especially someone like Tom Cappelli. Back at her room she hesitated, wondering whether to call if only to say good-bye. But that would lead to questions of how she felt, what she was planning, then she’d have to ask in return if Tom had seen anything of Al.
And inevitably there would be tears and the urge to run to hurl herself at him and beg him not to go to trouble long-dead ghosts!
She shivered, gave instructions to the sleep-regulator and immersed herself in the blankness of hypno-sleep. When she woke she instructed the domestic automatons to allow no one near. Buchanan introduced himself to the team of engineers checking out the scores of systems packed into the ungainly bulk of the station. He saw they already knew of him.
They explained how the station would operate: he already knew about the tug. The station wasn’t built for infragalactic flight.
They showed him the three big engines which would hold the station in position.
“It’s a new approach,” Buchanan said admiringly. “The engines used almost entirely for projecting screens. For resisting pressure rather than moving forward.”
“The walnut and the snake,” agreed a tired man. “Grease the walnut and you can’t be hurt.”
“If you stay in the walnut,” Buchanan said, his eyes not on the ship but on the sinking sun.
“Stay in it?”
Buchanan gave some sort of answer.
When the engineers said they had worked long enough for one day, Buchanan decided to stay on. There was little point in returning to an empty room. The quarters aboard the ship were comfortable enough. He spent half the night familiarizing himself with the manuals. It was easy enough work, but sheer fatigue drove him to bed in the early hours. Sleep was hard won, and when it came there was the usual sensation of falling— falling as if he were once more a part of that last macabre sequence of events when the bridge below him began to slide away from the wreck of the Altair Star. He tried to wake himself, but the vertiginous terror was on him, encompassing his soul.
There would be no peace for him, he thought grimly, when he awoke: no cessation of the torment that ripped him, not until he went into the terrible vortex of the Singularity and found the ship. And perhaps not then!
Kochan came out to see the station the next day. At the time Buchanan was familiarizing himself with the ship’s big simulator-screen. He had set up a program which gave an approximation of the conditions he would encounter at the rim of the Singularity. Engrossed in the complex math of the program he did not hear Kochan come up behind him.
“Does it trouble you, Mr. Buchanan?” he asked. Buchanan’s eyes were fixed on the pulsing blue screen where two bandings of magnetic fields wove into one another in a serpentine configuration. Most of his attention was on the projected fields, but he could hear Kochan. He registered the fact of his presence, wondered at it, dismissed his own question since Kochan had every right to inspect the ship his Committee had commissioned. Kochan was top brass. The busy engineers carrying out last-minute checks on the colossal engines that would hold the ship at the edge of the unreal dimensions would have passed Kochan on without question.
“Does what trouble me, sir?” Buchanan asked. He watched closely as the jagged cylindrical lines representing the ship’s energy screens began to force a way into the writhing coils of the Singularity’s fields.
“Your assignment.” Kochan looked too.
“The ship’s as safe as it can be made, sir,” Buchanan said. “I know it relies on a robot tug for the deep-space journey to get it to the Singularity, but once it’s there, I’ve no doubts about its capacities.” He kept his voice low and confident. No excitement, no betrayal of his sick tension. He wanted Kochan to think of him as a sincere, dependable employee; one who would serve the Committee’s purposes with as much caution and dedication, and as much mechanical efficiency, as the robots. “See.” He pointed to the snakelike coils which showed green and black against the pale blue of the screen.
“That’s how we read the configurations at the edge of the Singularity. Whatever’s building these fields adds up to this kind of reading—we don’t know exactly how they’re caused but the ship’s been given enough force-shields to cope with the most intense readings recorded.” He grinned to show that he was confident. “I’ll be like a snake trying to crush a greased walnut.” Kochan said nothing, so Buchanan went on: “Look at the cylindrical lines—the serrated red lines.”
“Like teeth,” said Ko
chan. His wrinkled brown face was impassive. They were like teeth. Red teeth biting into the serpent coils.
“It’s just the comps’ way of showing the relative strengths of our screens as against the energy fields radiating from the Singularity. A better way of expressing it would be to say they’re like oil around the station.”
Kochan smiled bleakly. “I didn’t come to ask about the ship, Mr. Buchanan.” Buchanan sensed the man’s own inner tensions. Behind the black eyes he could see a turmoil of spirit that matched his own. Buchanan’s wiry muscles bunched under the drab overalls; was Kochan, even now, a threat to his self-imposed tortured quest?
“No, Mr. Buchanan,” Kochan went on. “I know something of the formation of the Singularity. I know the ship can exist at its rim indefinitely, whatever happened to the satellites. I don’t think you’ll lose the ship, even though the core of the Singularity has the most bizarre architecture of any object in the Galaxy.” A metallic voice asked Buchanan if he wanted the approximation to continue. He waved a hand and it was silent. Buchanan waited.
“I talked to Mrs. Blankfort,” said Kochan abruptly.
“And?” Buchanan said, throat dry.
“I share her views.”
Buchanan held down the expostulations, the denials that sprang to his lips. He was prepared to lie with a steady determination.
Nothing would stand in his way, not now.
“Mrs. Blankfort’s views?” he said mildly, a smile in place. “What are those, sir?” Kochan fixed him with eyes like flat black stones.
“Any competent deep-space man who knew field theory could handle the assignment. Most would succeed in getting the required readings. You’re too anxious for the job, Buchanan. You need to go to the Jansky Singularity.”
“I told the Committee I thought I had a duty—”
“And so have I!” Kochan interrupted. Buchanan was startled by the iron in his voice. The man was used to command. He remembered vague stories of Kochan’s enterprises: he had been ruthless in the pursuit of power. And then he had abandoned his career.
“I don’t follow, Mr. Kochan.”
“Buchanan, you owe me something.”
“I owe you—”
“Your appointment.”
“I’m grateful—”
“And more!”
“More?”
“Yes! You owe me what you’ve wanted for three years! The chance of revisiting the Altair Star.” Buchanan was stunned into silence.
Denial was useless. Kochan knew! The old woman had known. Yet she had been prepared to let events take their course. And now Kochan knew—he had conferred with the old psychologist who said she specialized in decision-making procedures. Buchanan sensed a mystery. He said, calmly enough, though he could feel his heart hammering wildly: “The Altair Star can’t be reached, sir.”
Kochan’s gaze dropped. The black eyes lost their hardness.
“The station is the only civilian ship which can be taken over by a human commander,” said Kochan.
“Getting the Committee to accept an overrider was difficult. Getting you as its commander was more of a problem. You’d not have got the assignment if I hadn’t suppressed some reports,” he said. Buchanan gaped. Kochan could not be lying. He had an aura of complete sincerity, overwhelming certitude. But a member of the Committee deliberately falsifying information by suppressing reports!
“Mrs. Blankfort—” Buchanan began.
Kochan nodded.
“She guessed, but I prevailed on her. I think she understood my motives.” Buchanan’s mind ranged frantically over what little he knew of Kochan’s vast enterpreneurial activities. The man had exploited whole stellar colonies. His personal wealth was immense. He could have headed the Galactic Council. Was there some source of personal power in the Singularity? A mystery that he could turn to advantage? Some inconceivable way of using the energies of that bizarre space-time event?
Kochan produced a wallet. “Look,” he said, raw iron defeat on his face. Buchanan saw the picture of a young woman in the first flush of adult beauty. Blonde hair cascaded to her shoulders. There was a confident smile, wide blue eyes, a slim neck and a firm bosom: she was intelligent, courageous, beautiful. Life lay before her and she wanted its fullness. He grabbed the wallet and stared.
“My only grandchild,” said Kochan.
Buchanan understood, or half understood.
“She was—” He had seen her before.
“Yes.”
Those wide blue eyes had looked out at him in slow-dawning comprehension; an infinite sadness had begun to swim into their depths. Buchanan knew her well, too well. It was the girl who had flirted with young Preston.
Buchanan wiped cold sweat from his forehead.
“If there had been anything I could have done,” he said helplessly. “Anything!” Kochan’s black eyes were impassive again. He put the wallet away.
“I know, Buchanan.”
Both men were lost for long seconds in despairing memories. Buchanan recovered first.
“I have to tell you, sir,” he said, sick at heart. “There can be no chance—none! Not in a starquake like that!”
“I know she can’t be brought back to life,” said Kochan in his iron tones. “I know and accept it!”
“And you still want me to go to the Altair Star!”
There was no need for deception now.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Kochan’s face was pinched, wizened, gnarled. Buchanan knew that worse monsters trod through his brain than those that afflicted his own tormented dreams.
“You simulated the interior of the Singularity just then,” he grated. “But it’s only a simulation—a projection! We don’t know really what goes on at the middle of the accursed Singularity!”
“No, sir.”
“Don’t you see, Buchanan, that what terrifies me is not that my granddaughter is dead—” Buchanan knew he was poised on the edge of a frightful knowledge.
“Sir?” he said, anxious for Kochan to continue, desperately afraid of the answer.
“I’ve checked on every known theory—all the variations of every conceivable hypothesis, every interpretation of all known readings! My God, Buchanan, I’ve devoted three years and enough wealth on research to build a fleet of Altair Star s! And no one can prove that my granddaughter is at rest!”
“But life can’t continue without life-support systems, Mr. Kochan! The ship was half-wrecked! There wouldn’t be air—energy—heat to sustain life for three years! Accept it,” said Buchanan, afraid now. “She must be dead!”
Kochan fixed him with his black stonelike eyes.
“Buchanan, I was behind the building of the Singularity Station. I gave up all thoughts of personal ambition so that I could control the policies of the Committee. Only the Committee has the power to promote investigations of the Jansky Singularity, you see.”
“Yes, sir.”
The man’s grim dedication and resolve matched his own. But what impelled him?
Buchanan heard, almost unbelieving, as Kochan went on:
“At the center of the Singularity is a core. And that core has properties that are not understood. Buchanan, believe me when I say this, that I have the best available evidence. There is a possibility that within the Singularity there is a kind of life that we cannot yet understand!”
“Life?”
“Human life—or inhuman life!”
“You think the people aboard the ship may be alive?”
“I want to know about my granddaughter!” Kochan was pleading with him. The old man went on: “All the theories I’ve been able to gather have been fed into the comps in your ship. When the time comes, listen to them. And then do what you have to do.”
“You believe she may not be— dead?” Buchanan did not want to ask his next question. It trespassed on an old man’s innermost and most deeply-felt emotions. But he had to ask. “You want me to find out?”
“Buchanan, there may be more tha
n one way of dying. Make sure she is at rest!” Stunned, Buchanan watched Kochan leave. He stood for several minutes staring at a blank, blue-pulsing screen without realizing it. He was brought back to a realization of the present by the slight oscillation of the ship as more of its systems were given their final tests.
There was much to think about.
But, meanwhile, there was work to do.
The small shuttle lifted off between the great infragalactic ship’s robot tugs, a minnow among salmon. The whine of engines thrusting out through the thin rain and then higher, past fifty-mile-high noctilucent clouds, came to Liz Deffant as an echo of her own silent howl of pain and loss. Within minutes, the shuttle would slide into the maw of the Enforcement Service vessel, and she would be cut off forever from the bitter, haunted man she wanted— needed!—and had lost to the ghosts of the past.
“Scan for the new Jansky Singularity Station,” she ordered, surprising herself.
“Yes, Miss Deffant,” an unseen automaton answered.
Before her a screen pulsed into life and the docking area swam into view. She reached forward and allowed a pair of clinging sensor-pads to latch onto the palms of her hand; their touch was unpleasant. Closer, she ordered, manipulating the pads with easy skill.
She saw figures moving about the black bulk of the ungainly vessel. A group of engineers were busy at one massive engine-pad.
Where was Al?
She saw a stooping, thin figure emerge tiredly. An old man. Who was he? She scanned closer still and saw a face she knew from many newscasts. Kochan. What was he doing there?
And still no sign of Al.
She almost ordered the scanners to cease probing, but she told herself she was entitled to one last look at Buchanan.
For over ten minutes she kept the scanners hunting for a sight of the lean, hard man she loved. And all the time she could feel the interest of the automatons which controlled the shuttle and obeyed her orders; already they would be reporting her interest in the almost-completed station. One more piece of information for the endless banks of comps far below the surface.
