The Black Hole (10 page)

The elevator door slid quietly shut behind them. They rose in silence, casual conversation seeming suddenly indecent.

Before long the lift stopped. All eyes were trained on the door. Thoughts and circulation raced. The door slid back. Some of the tenseness drained out of them when it became clear there was no one waiting there either to greet them or destroy them.

Cautiously they moved out into the vast, domed upper chamber of the command tower. Bare floors made the place seem even larger than it was. The
Palomino
's compact control cockpit would have been lost here. Above the transparent dome and outside the floor-to-ceiling ports, the stars pressed close.

Indicators of steady electronic heartbeats, lights winked on the ranks of instruments lining the walls. Two stories of uninterrupted, unrelieved instrumentation. Scopes for staring through or offering other varieties of long-range perception pierced the dome to bring closer the immensity beyond.

Holland tried to imagine the great room as it must have been, filled with busy technicians and general crew, scientists conversing over the results of this or that research project, comparing notes and ideas and dreams while the
Cygnus
swam through the sea of darkness. Now the only sounds came from muffled relays and hidden servos.

Above, a pair of spectrographic displays filled dissimilar screens, reducing stars and nebulae to coded colors and numbers. A larger screen showed a complex pattern of roughly concentric lines and colors, shifting even as he watched it. It had to be monitoring the black hole and the halo of destruction surrounding it, he guessed. Another huge screen showed the collapsar region in magnificent color and size.

As did everything else about the
Cygnus
, the marvels of the tower impressed Holland. But he kept his perspective. Man's greatest machines could make mere numbers and equations of the Universe, but he had not yet discovered an equation to summarize its magnificence, nor a series of numbers denoting its beauty.
Reductio ad absurdum
.

Some of his companions were less restrained in their reactions. "Stupendous!" Durant was repeating, wide-eyed as a kid locked in a candy store over a holiday. "Those scopes . . . bigger than anything we've got on the
Palomino
, bigger than those on non-mobile orbiting stations. And the detail on those screens . . . it's incredible!"

"It ought to be," Booth commented dryly. "It cost the taxpayers enough."

Durant turned on him. "You can't put a price on something like this, Harry. You can't evaluate the possibility of great discoveries in terms of credits."

"I didn't say I could," replied the reporter, unmoved. "I said the taxpayers could. And they did. That's why there'll never be another ship like this one. We've already agreed that ships like the
Palomino
are nearly as efficient and much less costly."

"Agreed." Durant's gaze was roving the banks of instrumentation. "As efficient, maybe. As meaningful, no."

"That's a tough concept to try to sell the people who have to pay for such projects, Alex." But Durant's thoughts were now elsewhere. He had moved away and did not hear.

McCrae had walked out into the room. Lights from the instruments and consoles illuminated dim shapes that seemed a part of the machinery across the chamber, yet were not.

"Hello? Can you hear us?"

The maybe-figures did not respond. If they were human, they must have been afflicted with universal deafness. Or else they were ignoring her with a studiousness that bordered on the maniacal.

"This is Katherine McCrae, of the
S.S. Palomino
. The ship that's just docked with you. Is . . . Officer Frank McCrae aboard? If he is aboard, how may I contact him?"

Still no response. A metal shape moved to hover at her side.

"They appear to be some form of robot, Dr. Kate." Vincent sounded puzzled. "They are unique to my experience. One would imagine at least one or two would have broadcast capability, yet I cannot contact any of them."

"You've been trying?"

"I have been attempting for several minutes now," the robot answered. "They do not respond to any of the standard mechanical languages, on any frequency. It is remotely possible this variety has absolutely no electronic communications capability beyond individual programming. That is difficult to believe, but not without precedent. I have heard tales of other machines similarly restricted in their ability to converse. But I never actually expected to encounter such inhibited mechanicals. It is a terrifying concept to a fully conversant machine such as myself."

"You make them sound like mechanical cripples."

"If so, it is unintentional. I presume their designers had their reasons for making them mute." But she could sense his continued disgust.

Holland had passed them, heading toward the center of the tower. To the far side, large ports provided views not only of space outside but of the immense length of the
Cygnus
herself. He carefully skirted the charged generation projector set into the floor.

Near the far end of the room was a series of large consoles that had to have functioned as the command station. Lights sparkled more intensely there than elsewhere. Additional dark forms operated the instruments on two levels, some standing, others seated. They remained oddly indistinct despite the bright lighting.

Holland edged carefully around another projecting device, then called for his companion's attention.

"Look over here. This is my guess as to where everything's run from."

Durant hurried to join him, shaking his head in still unmoderated wonder. "I've never seen anything to equal this. Never."

The shadowy figures working at the consoles continued to fascinate McCrae. This close, the humanness of their structure was intensified, but their awkward, stiff movements and lack of response to her questions belied that. And, too, Vincent seemed to think they were mechanicals.

She started toward one with the intention of questioning him face to face, but found herself being held back by a hand on her arm.

"Hold it, Kate."

"What's wrong, Dan?"

"I think . . . there's something else here."

She turned, as did the others. Flashing rapidly, a new sequence of lights traveled across Vincent's front, the robotic equivalent of facial expression.

"What is it?" Durant was straining to see what had alarmed Holland.

The dim shapes working behind them did not pause, but rather continued at their work. They were not what had unnerved Holland.

Turning ponderously, a section of the far instrumentation detached itself and began to move toward them. It drifted in uncanny silence for something so massive. It was a mechanical of a size and suggestive power Holland had seen at work only in heavy industry. None of those machines was equipped with more than rudimentary programming. Yet the way this one came toward them hinted at considerably more advanced mental abilities. Freely mobile robots of such obvious strength were forbidden on Earth. Response-time problems and inertial mechanics made them too dangerous to be allowed.

Someone aboard the
Cygnus
had evidently chosen to ignore such laws. Despite his lack of knowledge about the makeup of the great ship, Holland knew that no machine of such power and mobility would have been included among its normal stores. There was no need. Robots of the V.I.N.CENT series were the largest free-floaters permitted on Earth. Someone on the
Cygnus
had gone far beyond those limits in the manufacture of the dark red thing trundling toward them.

It had a single crescent optic slashing the tapered head. The visualizer glowed a deep red. It gave no indication of slowing its progression or of addressing them. Vincent appeared to be but a toy in comparison.

Holland had his communicator out. "Charlie? We've got trouble here."

There was no answer. Taking no notice of Holland's words or actions, the huge mechanical continued its now decidedly threatening progress toward them.

They started to back away, moving for the elevator shaft near the center of the tower. If the lift refused to function for them, they would have to try to short the controls somehow.

Meanwhile, Holland was frantically hunting for anything that could serve as a weapon. He found nothing, saw no tool locker or supply cabinet. Everything in the tower chamber was flush, sealed or functional. Seamed metal ran into the transparencies of the ports. Even the controls on the console were mostly smooth-mounted touch-sensors.

"Do you read me?" he continued to call worriedly into the pickup. "Charlie, come in, Charlie . . ."

A familiar barrel shape inserted itself between the slowly retreating humans and their armored tracker: Vincent. Barely a meter away from its much smaller counterpart, the massive red machine slowed, hovered motionless. It did not speak, but anyone could see that the behemoth was considering the implied challenge of its tiny cousin.

Vincent did not move, his own armored upper casement sinking down into the cylindrical body to protect the optics. Since his own weapons had been incapacitated by the hidden lasers in the reception room, he was making a possibly fatal gesture. But he remained oblivious to any danger, daring the larger machine to attack or to continue its hitherto inexorable march onward.

"Here's a story to end all stories, Harry," Durant whispered to the reporter. Booth held his recorder stiffly in front of him, like a cobra at arm's length. In a way, it was the weapon he was most comfortable with, though it was unlikely the maroon monster towering over them would be dissuaded from any bellicose gesture by the implied power of the press.

"A ghost ship of robots and computers," Durant went on, "with this thing in charge."

Surprisingly, the colossus reacted to his statement The head swiveled on the shoulders to stare at the speaker and the nervous reporter next to him.

"Not quite, Dr. Durant. A logical supposition, given your present situation and lack of true knowledge about what has occurred here."

"It talks after all," Booth mumbled.

"No." Holland was peering around the hovering mechanical. "I'm sure that voice didn't come from this machine."

"Maximillian and my robots run this ship only the way
I
wish it run," the voice went on. Holland walked around the monster, which did not move to intercept him. The others followed. "They possess little in the way of programmed initiative beyond what I choose to bestow on them. Only I command the
Cygnus."

The source of the voice was a darkened section of the chamber. Something, a large circular console, rotated to face them. A figure sat inside it, cloaked in shadow.

Durant squinted at it. "How do you know my name?"

"You have been constantly monitored ever since the
Cygnus
's sensors first detected your approach from deep space. Though we were hardly expecting visitors, I make it a point always to be prepared for them."

"You could take that one of two ways," Booth whispered to Durant. The scientist hardly heard him now. His full attention was on the mysterious figure.

"Isolation leads inevitably to caution," the voice was saying. "No doubt you regarded the
Cygnus
with equal uncertainty. You must excuse my perhaps extremity of manners in greeting you. But remember that, though tiny, your ship is of a type unknown to me. I had no idea whether you were human or otherwise. When your origin became clear, I could not know what fanatical cults might have infected the politics of Earth since my departure. It behooved me to be careful. I have much entrusted to my keeping. I safeguard it to the best of my abilities.

"If I erred in welcoming you so brusquely, do remember that this vessel is ultimately my responsibility." The figure rose, moved out of the shadows into the light.

"Welcome aboard the
Cygnus
, gentlemen, lady and machine. Please excuse Maximillian." The tall, bearded figure gestured at the robot that still confronted them. It moved aside, well away but still close enough to make its intimidating presence felt. A fact which the speaker, Holland thought, surely realized.

"He is most solicitous of my health. Perhaps overly so. But diplomacy has not been needed out here, and so I have not programmed it into him."

It was Booth who verbally identified the figure they had by now all recognized. "Dr. Hans Reinhardt," he murmured. "He always did have a flair for theatrical entrances."

If he's alive
, McCrae was telling herself frantically,
then it was still possible . . .

"And for you a pen dipped in poison, Mr. Booth." Reinhardt regarded the reporter. "I remember reading your articles well before the
Cygnus
left Earth orbit. I trust your faculties have not dimmed since then? They say that the potency of certain acids increases with age."

"I can still turn a phrase here and there, Doctor."

"Your phrases were often sharp, Mr. Booth. For a surgeon who employed words, you many times cut with surprising clumsiness, sir. You caused many of the subjects of your vivisecting articles to bleed rather profusely."