The Black Hole (2 page)

"If you want my real opinion, I'd rather have Vincent in charge than either of them."

"Me, too," Durant agreed. "Of course, that's impossible. Even though they're supposed to select the best people for each position."

"True," said Booth. "The problem is whether Vincent qualifies as people.

He certainly doesn't fit the physical specifications for a command pilot."

At the moment the subject of their conversation was up forward in command with Charles Pizer. Vincent's multiple arms were folded neatly back against his hovering, barrel-shaped body. Monitor indicators winked on or off as internal functions directed.

His optical scanners were focused on the first officer. Pizer was slumped on one of the pilot lounges, staring at the main screen. He took no notice of Vincent. That the robot was not a man was obvious. But the suggestion that he might not qualify as a person was one Pizer would have taken immediate exception to.

Hands manipulated controls. Constellations and other star patterns slid viscously around on the screen. Suns shifted against a background of pale, lambent green, that color being easier on the eyes—and, according to the psychologists, less depressing—than a more realistic black would have been. It was all the same to the robot.

The first officer's thoughts were drifting like the representations of stars and nebulae, though not in harmony with them.

"What does that remind you of, Vincent?"

"Presuming you to be referring to the holographic stellar display, Mr. Pizer," the machine responded smoothly, "I would say that it reminds me strongly of a holographic stellar display."

"Not me. To me it looks like multipea soup." Pizer raised up in the lounge, the chair humming as it matched the movement of his body. "I'm starving . . ."

Lights flashed in sequence on the robot's flanks, visual indication that the machine was preparing to respond. "What else is new?"

"Mechanical sarcasm is a feature the cyberneticists could damn well have left in the hypothetical stage." Pizer gave the robot a sharp look. "Nothing sitting loose in the galley, I expect. What's on the menu for today?"

"Dehydrated turkey. A special treat, Lieutenant, since it's Christmas Eve. Also dehydrated cranberry sauce, dehydrated gravy and giblets, de—"

Pizer cut him off. "Save me from a full list of the special treats." The vision of dehydrated giblets had quashed whatever rising surge of hunger he had been experiencing.

"Vincent, I envy you."

"That's not surprising, but why, Lieutenant?"

"No taste buds." He leaned back into the lounge. Servos whined, adjusting to fit material properly against his back. He slipped his hands behind his head and stared longingly at the ceiling.

"Now, if I were home, I'd sit down to a feast. A real one, with the right amount of water already in the food, not waiting to be added. Roast turkey with oyster stuffing, sweet potatoes in orange sauce, vegetables, salad, mince pie . . ." Remembering made him appear even younger than he was.

He drifted happily along on the illusion of caloric ephemera until Vincent had to add, ". . . bicarbonate of soda . . ."

Pizer swung out of his chair and moved toward the doorway, shoving the robot with mock belligerence.
"You'll
never know one way or the other. Anyway, I'll be eating the real thing soon enough. Eighteen months. It's the twenty-fourth. Time to start back, as you well know. Back to real turkey and real dressing. Back to real life. Take her home, Heart o' Steel."

Actually, there was very little steel in Vincent's body, the robot having been constructed of far more durable and exotic alloys and metals. But he was still capable of recognizing and accepting an affectionate nickname such as the one Pizer had just bestowed on him. He did not offer metallurgical correction as he drifted toward the consoles, plugged the correct armature into the board and began to prepare for the incipient change of course.

"Home for you, Mr. Pizer. But out here's the only home I know." One free limb gestured at the swath of star-speckled blackness that filled the port above the consoles.

Pizer had already left the room.

Kate McCrae broke the magnetic contact between her shoes and the deck and drifted back toward the
Palomino
's power center, trying hard to block out the air of disappointment she had left back in the lab.

Booth's personal pessimism she could dismiss easily enough. His interest in the mission stemmed from cruder needs than hers or Alex's. The reporter would be mentally translating the most significant of their discoveries into credit points with his service, disparaging them by the process which transmuted the advancement of science into monetary terms.

It was in her nature, however, to see the best in everyone. Personal relationships were one area where she neglected to apply scientific methodology. So she made excuses for Harry Booth. If nothing else, by being less than fervently involved in the problems of science, he kept the journey in proper perspective.

If they were less downcast by their failure to find life than they might have been, it could be attributed to Booth's vision of science only in terms of monumental discoveries. He was a more accurate representative of mankind's hopes and expectations than anyone else on the ship, she reminded herself. As such, his disappointment would fade faster when they returned home. As would that of the general public.

And who was she to condemn Harry Booth's view of the cosmos? Columbus sailed west not to advance science or knowledge as much as to find gold, gems and spices. Da Gama went to India for pepper and nutmeg and cloves, not because he was intensely curious about the Indians.

The motivations of such men did not diminish the magnitude of their discoveries. Maybe the Harry Booths were as necessary to mankind's opening of the Universe as were the Alex Durants.

At least the reporter was good company. She had been around many journalists in her career. Others had tried to exploit her peculiar abilities. Not Booth. They could have done a lot worse than the crusty old veteran.

A feeling of power sifted through her as she worked her way around the vast chamber of the center. Engines snored steadily, shoving them past space—as opposed to through it—at a rapid pace. They were presently traveling at a comparative crawl, having gone sublight preparatory to changing their course for home.

At one time man had believed faster-than-light travel impossible. She smiled at the thought. If man had learned anything since stepping out past the atmospheric bubble that enclosed his world, it was that the only immutability of the Universe lay in its infinite bounty of contradictions. On the cosmic docket, the laws of nature seemed perpetually subject to challenge by the scientific court of appeals.

Holland was working in the monitoring complex, his gray uniform blending in with the colors of the tubes and metallic constructions surrounding him. The warmth that coursed through her at the sight was not wholly a result of the radiant heat from the engines.

She moved next to him. Though he still didn't look up from his work, she knew he had been aware of her presence from the instant she entered the center.

"Think it'll hold together long enough to get us home?"

He smiled affectionately over at her. "How can you have any doubts with Super-Pilot at the controls?"

"Humility is one of your most endearing qualities."

"After eighteen months, it's nice to see that you've learned some." He paused, then looked momentarily somber. "I've been concerned about suggestions of metal fatigue in the propulsion unit's inner chambers. I know they're designed to handle this kind of steady thrust, but eighteen months, with only an occasional brief rest, is a long time to ask even the densest alloys to function without showing some kind of wear." The smile returned.

"I think we'll be okay, though." He adjusted one slide control slightly, watching with satisfaction as two nearby readouts shifted in response.

"I'll be sorry to see this mission end. It's tough to go home after so long and say the principal reason for making the trip in the first place came up unresolved."

"You give up too easily. I don't. We'll still have a few systems to study while curving home. And the
Palomino
sweep is only one expedition. There'll be others. And I'll charm the powers-that-be into assigning you and Vincent to any team I can get organized."

"The powers-that-be will have other plans for Vincent."

"Like what?"

"Like taking him apart to study the effects of the voyage on him. He's likely to be outmoded by new models by the time we return. They'll likely take him and—"

"They won't do anything of the sort to Vincent. I won't let them. He's entitled to remain inta—to remain himself, after all he's done for this mission. He's a lot more than a mere machine, to be picked apart at some cyberneticist's whim."

Holland tried to hide his amusement. "That's not a very scientific outlook, Dr. McCrae. What would you do to prevent such a thing?"

She looked suddenly uncertain. "I . . . I don't know. But I'd do something. Whatever was necessary. Adopt him, maybe."

"Be an expensive adoption. Vincent doesn't run on bottle formulas and ground-up fruits and vegetables. Fuel-cell pablum's a lot more expensive than the organic variety."

"Maybe so. But I wouldn't let them take him apart, any more than I'd let them take apart any other close friend."

"There's just one hitch to your idea. Vincent and I've been together a long time. Several missions prior to the
Palomino
. We're a package deal. That goes for any kind of future mission."

She cocked her head to one side. "Aren't you a bit long in the tooth for adoption?"

"That wasn't quite the kind of relationship
I
had in mind. How Vincent views it is his business." Holland turned from the controls and embraced her, his arms tightening against her back as he pulled her close to him.

The kiss was interrupted by a voice issuing from the monitoring console's communications grid. "I regret the interruption, Captain, but there is something I think you should see. I've put it on the central viewer."

A little breathless, they separated. McCrae brushed at the hair that had fallen over one eye. "If you've been together so long and have become so inseparable," she murmured softly, "maybe you could do something about that blasted machine's lousy timing."

"I'll make it a point to mention it to him," Holland assured her. His smile turned serious. "Vincent wouldn't break in while I was . . . working, unless it was something genuinely important. We'd better go see what he wants."

Pizer, closest to the command center, reached it first. Vincent hovered there, blocking out most of the main screen. Wondering what might have prompted the robot to issue the general call, the first officer continued chewing reconstituted turkey as he strolled forward.

"What's up, Vincent? Hey, you know, this stuff ain't half bad. Either that or I've been living off it for too long." When the machine failed to respond with an appropriately sarcastic comment, Pizer dropped his cockiness and moved to look at the screen.

"Something serious?"

"Seriously interesting, seriously fascinating; not seriously dangerous, Mr. Pizer. Not at this distance." Vincent moved to one side, allowing the first officer a clear view of the two screens.

What Pizer saw caused him to swallow the last mouthful of turkey in a rush. One screen displayed stars and other stellar phenomena, not according to their output of visible light, but in gravity-wave schematics.

In the upper right center of the screen was a dark oval shape surrounded by increasingly tightly bunched lines, like the contour lines on a topographic map. However, instead of designating altitude, these lines represented increasingly powerful regions of gravitational force, the "depth" of a gravity well of immense proportions.

Vincent enlarged the upper right quadrant of the screen, the one containing the dark oval. Instead of moving farther apart as the scale was expanded, as did the lines surrounding nearby stars, those around the dark blotch remained as dense as before. Pizer knew the magnification could be increased a hundred times without any white space ever appearing between the lines immediately encircling the central oval. A secondary screen offered a visual representation of the phenomenon, but it was the
g
-wave scheme that absorbed Pizer's attention.

The intensity of the gravitational force at the center of the dark ellipse shape could be measured, if not designated, by the lines on the screen. A G2 star floated close by in space, its substance gradually being drawn off by the center of powerful attraction. By measuring the speed and amount of material being drawn from the star's outer layers, the
Palomino
's computers could estimate the strength of the invisible point in space.

They had already performed the requisite calculations. The resultant figures were displayed below the
g
-wave screen. Pizer noted them, let out a low whistle.

"Yes, sir. That is the most powerful black hole I have ever encountered," said Vincent with appropriate solemnity. "My banks hold no memory of anything stronger. Preliminary scanner results support that assumption."

"Give me a rough translation of those figures into something someone like Harry could grasp, Vincent. He'll be wanting them for his report anyway."

The robot considered his reply for a moment. "Assuming a plus or minus ten-percent factor in the wave measurements, Mr. Pizer, and a standard composition for the nearby star, I would estimate this black hole contains the remains of anywhere from forty to a hundred stellar masses."

"That's about what I guessed." Pizer was nodding slowly in agreement. "Big mother, ain't it?"

"Only relatively, sir. No pun intended. One stellar mass or a hundred, it's still only a point in space."

"A good point to stay away from. Let's have a look at it on the holographier."

The lights in the cockpit softened. A three-dimensional image formed over a projector. Pizer studied it quietly for a while, then thought to speak into a nearby com pickup. "Hey, Dr. Durant, Harry . . . you getting this?"