by Brian N Ball
“I tried—to—kill—Maran.”
Buchanan thought of what he knew of Maran. A powerful and hypnotic personality, a man with a unique charisma, a man who could exert such a power over the minds of men and women that they volunteered willingly for the brutal surgery his machines inflicted on the deepest centers of the cortex. They died believing they were Maran’s disciples.
Liz?
She was staring at him with a shocked despair.
She had tried to kill Maran. And, because of that attempt, she was suffering from an unholy feeling of guilt that would not give her the slightest remission.
Buchanan sensed the right thing to say. Hating himself, but able to say the words to the woman he loved, he whispered: “He forgave you. Liz, Maran forgave you.”
Liz’s anguish diminished. Gradually the panic left her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered back. “He did.” She slept.
Buchanan kicked out savagely at the watchful servitor. Even as his legs braced to take the impact of its metallic bulk, a tentacle swept out to hold him. Another prevented him from falling. He sat down to watch Liz sleep. He had found her again, only to lose her to the mesmeric genius who had taken his ship.
The three of them were trapped, he and Liz doubly trapped. And where was the way out for any of them?
CHAPTER 17
Watching Liz Deffant slowly emerge from a deep sleep, Buchanan had the curious impression that none of the events leading up to Maran’s presence aboard the station had happened. Time telescoped. They were together, and they seemed not to have separated. Liz looked tired, of course; they were in the cramped hold of the station; a servitor followed their every slightest movement; but they were the same people, he and Liz. They had a planned future.
Buchanan frowned. Except that Liz seemed to be under Maran’s spell. It was a matter he would have to approach with care. Maran himself was a different thing entirely; if only there was some weapon he could use against him! But it was out of the question. The responses of the automatons were measured in ten-thousandths of a second; Maran was right to rely on their lightning reactions. Then Liz opened her eyes and Buchanan could relax for a moment.
The panic and despair were gone.
Buchanan had always appreciated her levelheaded, gentle, persistent way of thinking. He respected her intellect. He had known her achieve better results than cleverer colleagues because she did not try too hard. She allowed her mind to range over a problem, letting an answer emerge by a slow process of growth. Buchanan could see that she had recovered her balance. However, he would not broach the question of her feelings about Maran.
“Liz, I’d like to know more about what happened—I know some of it,” he said. “I’d like to know so that I can think of some way of getting us out of this mess.”
“Al, we can’t do anything.”
He hadn’t expected this calmness. “No?”
“No, Al. We have to leave decisions to Maran now.”
Complete resignation, thought Buchanan. It was bad. “I tried to establish control while you slept.”
“It’s no use, Al. I’ve thought a lot about it.” A memory swam through her mind. An almost perfect humanoid, hair receding, smiling, concerned, knowing all about her. The clerk at Bookings had known exactly what she wanted, who she was, where she had been. “It was all too easy,” she went on, and Buchanan again felt hollow at the degree of resignation in her voice. “He knew that the robots would obey him.”
“Maran?”
She went on: “He must have had only a minute or two in which to gain control of the cell-deck. It couldn’t have been longer. There would have been automatic alarms, and the cruisers would have easily caught up with the ship.”
“It shouldn’t have happened at all,” agreed Buchanan. “The prison-ships are triple-protected by fail-safes. He couldn’t have got to them.” He attempted lightness: “When we get out of this, we’ll live primitive. No machines. You do the cooking, I’ll cut the wood. If a machine comes near, I’ll get it to abort itself.” Liz smiled, and Buchanan almost groaned with relief.
“Maran must have prepared, Al. Don’t you see, it was all too easy for him! He must have had contingency plans. I don’t believe he could have taken over the machines in so short a space of time—he must have foreseen that he would be taken out to the Rim on an automatic ship. Al, the machines know everything! They’re all mutually compatible.” Buchanan saw now. Maran would have got to the Enforcement Service central memory-banks. There would have been some kind of delay-circuit.
“Yes. That’s how he did it.”
“And the hypno-sleep conditioning—with a mind like his he could evolve a mental and physical simulation of conditioning. Drugs—an alteration of his neural patterns —and an instruction to the high-grade robots to cut in when the ES 110 was deep into the gulfs.”
“And I let him take over my ship.”
Liz was still wondering at Maran’s genius. “I’ve worked with the Grade One machines. They’re sophisticated. I sometimes think they have their own emergent personalities. They frighten me. But Maran could get to them. He must have contingency plans for when he gets away from the Singularity.”
“He can’t!” Buchanan could not allow it to pass.
“You don’t know him,” she answered quietly. “He’s more than human.”
“There’s no way out for him. Not with cruisers patrolling the entire Quadrant. There’ll be a network of ships and beacons out there until the station can’t support itself within the Singularity. It can’t get free—there just isn’t the Phase capability. We’re trapped; he’s trapped, Liz.” He hesitated. “You wouldn’t want him free?”
Liz was troubled. The air of fanaticism she had worn when he first saw her had gone; but she was deeply disturbed by the strange encounter with Maran.
“Free again, Liz—Maran?” he prompted.
“I didn’t want you to waste your life looking for a ghost-ship.”
“That,” said Buchanan, realizing how little it meant to him now.
“I couldn’t stop you. We can’t stop Maran. We shouldn’t.”
“No, Liz?”
“I don’t know!” she burst out. “He’s done terrible things—I saw Yam squeeze the life out of a young crewman! But he shouldn’t be put away like an animal—not a mind like his! Al, he has qualities that we can’t begin to understand!”
“He did things to men and women that shouldn’t be done.”
“I know!”
Buchanan did not press her. The wildness was in her eyes again. They glowed golden, helpless, full of doubts and confusion.
“He is different,” admitted Buchanan. “It was impossible that this ship could project any kind of warp in the conditions that existed a few hours ago. But he told the machines to make a hypothetical warp, a Quasi-warp as he called it, and they did it. Yet there’s still no way out for him.”
“I thought he wanted me as a hostage,” said Liz.
“Lientand wouldn’t consider bargaining with—”
“No! Maran wouldn’t bargain either,” She said, puzzled. “He wanted me to stay on the ES 110— he could have had me released when he sent the survival-cylinders out, but he didn’t. I think he wanted someone with him. Maybe as a witness, Al. Someone he could explain his conduct to—someone who would be able to report that he acted as he did because he was, simply, Maran.” Buchanan thought of the man’s deep eyes, his imposing bulk, the way he had shaken his massive head to free it of the jangling residues of the sense-blinding fields he had passed through. What did he intend now?
“If I hadn’t been so blind!” he groaned. “To think I started this!” Impulsively, Liz Deffant reached across to him: “I told you I understand now, Al. You had to go—truly, Al, I know it.”
It was the thought of the Quasi-warp that made Buchanan tell Liz about the Altair Star. There was a link that he could not yet comprehend, one that he was not aware of having thought of as possible; nevertheless, the memory of that beacon-bright eerie field growin
g out toward the failing transport had something to do with the time-lost liner.
“I saw it,” he said. “I saw the ship.”
Liz felt a surge of resentment. It passed. The lost ship was no barrier between them anymore.
“The remains of the Altair Star!” she asked.
“The ship itself,” he insisted. “It didn’t break up, like the ES 110.”
“It’s intact?”
“It’s with a fleet of other ships—ships lost for a thousand years, Liz.” Liz knew the dreadful turmoil of spirit that Buchanan, had endured three years before. Was he suffering from some sort of hallucination brought on by grief and loneliness? She looked and saw the active intelligence in his eyes, not the visionary excitement of a Maran.
“Did you reach the ship, Al?”
“No. I caught a glimpse of a kind of ships’ graveyard —dozens of ancient ships. They were held in some kind of time-tunnel, some weird effect of the Singularity. I saw it, but the robots wouldn’t have it that it could exist. They said it was impossible. There couldn’t be such a temporal discontinuity.” Liz grappled with the idea. Cosmic events surrounded her. A bizarre genius had taken over a prison-ship and hurtled with it into the Singularity; at the Singularity, Al could talk, more or less calmly, about a strange tunnel of time. And Al, trained field man, talented beyond so many in his area of research, had not been able to persuade the robots that what he had seen could exist.
“It was like a hole in the fabric of the Universe,” went on Buchanan. “It was so utterly alien that I could not begin to explain what it was.”
“It still troubles you?”
Buchanan felt his own unsureness. He had been ready to forget the Altair Star and its ghosts. If it had been possible for them to leave the Singularity, he could have left the mystery unsolved. There was no prospect of that, though.
Liz watched him. Buchanan’s ghosts were not laid, whatever he said. The finding of the Altair Star was only the beginning of Al’s new tribulations.
“You would go to the ship—if you could?”
“It’s impossible.” But he had said that before. There was something that he should remember….
“But you’d go?”
“I keep seeing the faces!” he burst out.
“Did you see anything in the ship?”
“Not the passengers or crew. But it was exactly as I remember it. There was no further deterioriation of its fabric. It’s exactly as it was when I saw it go into the Singularity—into that weird field.”
“Al, I’ve told you I truly understand. I couldn’t before. Now I know how these ideas can hold one.” Buchanan was back in time. “If I’d been able to get down to the engines—if I’d thought of wrecking the memory-banks sooner—maybe I could have worked something out!” Liz was near to weeping with pity for him. “Does it matter so much, Al? It’s all long gone!” Buchanan looked at her. There was more, she thought. Deep lines she had not seen for years were etched into his face.
“They may not have gone.”
“They?”
“Nearly seven hundred men, women, and children.”
“Al, they must have been dead for three years! You can’t help them!” Liz felt a sense of cold inevitability. A shadowy horror hung over Al Buchanan, and it was creeping out to envelop her too.
“I wasn’t going to tell you.”
“Tell me.”
“Kochan made the station possible.”
“Why?”
“His granddaughter was a passenger.”
“Tell me, Al.”
“His scientists came up with a theory about the Singularity.”
“This—tunnel?”
Buchanan told her. “Time might hold still.”
“And if it does, then she—”
“—and all the others. Still there.”
There was a horror, thought Liz. Death was the constant companion of them all. It was the thought of not dying that was peculiarly horrible.
“A theory, Al—only a theory, you say!” She was shuddering.
“I have to make sure.”
“Maran—he won’t be interested in the tunnel! You won’t be able to go to the Altair Star, Al!” Buchanan’s craggy face was ugly with bitterness. While his mind had been ranging over the amazing glimpse of the Altair Star, he had experienced one of those moments which come, with rare and fortunate intuition, to trained field men when they are faced with irreconcilable sets of data and conflicting theories. A double mystery might, just might, be explicable. Maran’s abrupt orders; the frenzied activity of the machines; the building of the eerie Quasi-warp; the time-lost tunnel which the robots would not record. Memories, ideas, projections had surged and coalesced and strayed together. Buchanan was sure of what he said.
“Maran will want to see the Altair Star.”
“What!”
“Yes, Liz.”
Staring at the man she still loved, Liz thought she would never be able to follow his thoughts. She sagged back on the couch. She might have lain until she slept had not a robotic voice called deferentially to them. A weird, over-polite invitation brought her to her feet.
“Commander Buchanan and Miss Deffant. Commander Maran presents his compliments. He would be honored if they would dine with him immediately. This system requires confirmation,” it added. Buchanan put an arm around Liz Deffant’s shoulders. “This, Liz,” he said, “will be something to tell them about when we’re back at Center.”
He could not understand why Liz began to sob uncontrollably until she said: “Tup said the same thing!” Jerkily, she went on: “It was the first time I saw Maran! He said it would be something to tell them about when I got home! And he’s dead!”
“We’re coming,” Buchanan said grimly to the servitor. There was no way to comfort Liz. She would have to learn to live with her own ghosts.
CHAPTER 18
The meal was a parody of a dinner party. The servitors passed around the food and wine with the deferential air of family retainers. Maran headed a table like some patriarch. He ate and drank with gusto, politely attentive at all times to Liz, and complimentary to Buchanan on the excellence of his judgment in selecting appetizing meal-programs. He would not allow a discussion of their future until the robots deftly flicked away the last of the dishes.
“Coffee, Miss Deffant?” he inquired. “And try some of Mr. Buchanan’s brandy. Excellent!” he added, sipping the fine liqueur. “You’ll appreciate that I have not been able to enjoy the pleasures of the table in recent months. The Enforcement Service have a puritanical approach to refreshment. Their attitude is a hangover from less enlightened times than our own.”
Buchanan cautioned himself against an outburst. Maran’s treatment of them had been utterly correct. There had been no threats, no demands. And though he had taken over the station, he had treated Liz and himself as honored guests. What could one do in the face of such unpatronizing confidence?
“No doubt you will be thinking of the time when the Service again has me in its charge?” Maran inquired, uncannily picking up Buchanan’s unspoken retort.
“I can’t see how you can evade the cruisers,” Buchanan answered. “The station has a limited capacity for life-support. The cruisers can keep on patrol in relays. As soon as the station tries to leave the peripheries of the Singularity, it can be picked up by force-screens. Your escape is temporary, Maran.” Liz Deffant looked from one man to the other. Both were impressive, both resolute and determined. She had no doubt which would triumph in any contest. Maran’s single-mindedness would be supreme. She could only be a spectator now.
Maran exerted his personality when he spoke again to Buchanan. “I have told Miss Deffant that I have the feeling that you, she, and I were predetermined to meet, Buchanan.”
“So we’ve met,” said Buchanan tightly.
Maran smiled. “Buchanan, I know the conditioning you Galactic Service personnel receive. But try to break out of it for a few moments—forget what you have heard of Maran the
monster. Think of what you see before you—look!”
And Maran was a smiling, easy host, glass in hand and relaxed smile creasing his big, broad face. Liz Deffant saw the deep, hypnotic eyes and wondered at the strange influence he had over her. Since he had first explained his tormented vision, she had been unable to summon up a jot of resolution or courage. Looking at Maran was like being faced with some stupendous force of nature.
“I heard what you did,” said Buchanan. “You can’t be allowed to rip the minds from any more men and women. Even though they are willing.”
Maran nodded slowly. “My machines are crude. They are not yet ready for the delicate work of examining the cells which carry an imprint of man’s evolutionary processes. They harm, they maim, and, regrettably, they destroy. I won’t pretend that Maran has not brought misery and death to the noble spirits who followed him. But, Buchanan, there has to be a start! We must examine the deep centers that alone carry the impression of that moment of transition that made us what we are! One day, Buchanan, cell-surgery will be a commonplace—but only if a start is made! And Maran has made the start!
And Maran will find a way through the mists of time and isolate that moment of change. Miss Deffant,” he said, turning to Liz. “You believe that Maran can do it?”
Buchanan saw the answering gleam in Liz’s eyes.
She said nothing, but he knew that she was Maran’s.
“It isn’t my decision,” Buchanan said. “But if it were, I’d stop you. And send you out to the Rim.” He paused. “If I had to, Maran, I’d destroy you.”
As he said it, he knew that, if he felt a bitter antagonism toward Maran, it was not for his treatment of those who had volunteered to take part in his strange experiments. It was more simple, more basic, than that. Maran had woven a spell on the woman Buchanan wanted more than anything in the Universe. Jealousy, he recognized. He was jealous of Maran!
“Would you?” asked Liz quietly. “Would you, Al?”
He turned away from the hurt in the golden eyes.
“Al—you couldn’t. I know,” she said. “You just haven’t got the hate in you, Al.”
