The Black Hole (6 page)

All right, Charlie. You're right. Time for fixing the blame later
. A warning light began flashing for attention on the left of his console. Vincent noticed it an instant before Holland.

"Air break amidships." The robot spoke calmly. "Losing storage pressure." He studied fresh information, correlated it with what the computer was trying to tell him. "Regeneration-system failure. Seals are forming in the system. Pressure is holding, sir, but cannot do so indefinitely."

"Do what you can with it, Vincent. I haven't got time now. Charlie, give us a full burst at one-eighty degrees on my count on the roll quads. If we don't correct our tumble, we might as well turn off the engines."

"Standing by." Pizer's fingers rested tensely on two separate contact switches.

"Mark. Five, four, three, two, one . . ."

Pizer impressed the switches. The
Palomino
stopped tumbling . . . violently.

The unexpected jolt nearly threw Durant, McCrae and Booth from their positions. Overpressurized beyond design, the air lines running through the lab reacted to the abrupt cessation of spin and the corresponding shift in the ship's artificial gravity by releasing their pent-up force. Compressed air hissed into the room. The
Palomino
was tumbling again, less severely now and in the opposite direction.

McCrae shouted toward the pickup. "Dan, we've got a line break back here too!"

Durant was hastily examining the requisite gauges. "Readout shows primary and secondary carry lines ruptured. We'll be breathing soup pretty soon, and that for only a little while if we don't get them fixed."

"Then get on it," was Holland's reply. "We've stabilized enough for you to move around, but watch yourselves. I'm not promising anything."
Including living out the day
, he told himself grimly.

McCrae was first out of her chair. She hurried to help Booth unlock his restraints. Their problem now was not a lack of air but a surplus of it. If the pressure in the system dropped too low, the regenerators would fail. Emergency supplies would reprime the regenerators, but more than likely they were breathing some emergency atmosphere already.

When that supply was gone, they would have only the old air circulating loosely through the ship to breathe. That would turn stale, then unbreathable, all too quickly. Before too long they would suffocate.

All the regular crew had some training in ship maintenance, except Harry Booth. Such diversified expertise was necessary with so small a complement. Kate struggled to recall the schematics of the ship's atmosphere systemology, knowing their lives depended on it. On that, and on Dan and Charlie and Vincent halting their plunge.

No use worrying about that possibility
, she told herself firmly. If they failed to stop their fall, and soon, she would be flattened before she knew what was happening to her.
Concentrate on the regeneration system and let the others worry about keeping us alive long enough to enjoy my repairs
.

Pizer adjusted the thrusters yet again, muttered, "Never rains . . ." The rest was not audible.

"We're doing better, Charlie. But not enough better. Full power on attitude Quads
A
and
B
. We're going in at an angle now, but we're still going in."

The first officer switched his own instrumentation over to manual control. "Mark . . . five, four, three, two, one . . ."

Again the first officer activated selected external adjusters. Again the
Palomino
reacted. Not as violently this time, and with greater precision.

"If we can just bring her around," Holland murmured nervously, "we'll have a fighting chance." He knew it had to be finished soon. If they fell much further into the grip of that unrelenting gravity, they would forever lose all chance of breaking free.

Vincent's cautionary remark about the durability of the thrusters under such strain came back to him, but he pushed it from his mind. Either the units would continue to function or they would fail. He had to assume the former because it was fatal to consider the latter.

For a few seconds he toyed with the idea of slamming on the supralight drive, which should be sufficient to pull them clear.
Yeah
, he thought.
In pieces
.

He would leave that for a last resort and pray if he had to do it that the equations were all wrong. The supralight drive operated with wonderful efficiency in a massless environment. Around much mass it displayed a disconcerting tendency to push against the ship instead of against nothing. Under such circumstances it could push a ship apart—also the contents of said ship, which included any crew. Hence the need for powerful sublight engines to shove a starship out into the void, where it could function properly and harmlessly.

A new warning light came on. Again it was Vincent who noticed it first. "Hull-breach indication, Captain."

"Serious?"

"Not immediately. The number four hatch cover just blew outward. The section has been sealed."

"What's in number four bay?"

A pause while the robot checked inventory, then, "Miscellaneous supplies, sir. Non-regenerable, some organics."

"What kind? If it's survey equipment or samples, we can forget it."

"I'm afraid not, sir. Manifest shows pharmaceuticals among the contents."

"Damn. We can't risk losing that stuff, and we could do just that if we're jolted hard enough or if the artificial grav goes out. Be just about right for us to break free of this and then die on the way home for lack of the right medicine to treat some otherwise minor infection."

"I agree, sir." Vincent removed his armature from the console socket and swiveled to depart from the cockpit. "I'll go outside and secure the hatch."

"I don't like it, but . . . watch yourself. This is more pull than we've ever had to deal with. If you break loose you won't be sucked in much faster than the ship, but your thrusters might not be enough to boost you back to the hull, and there's no way we could maneuver to retrieve you."

"Yes, sir. I am cognizant of the dangers, sir. Rest assured I will exercise utmost caution." Vincent floated from the cockpit, moving carefully but at high speed back through the corridors.

Scanning the readouts, Holland's eyes fell again on the still winking lights which reminded him of the damage to their air system. "Alex, Harry," he called into the pickup, "you still okay back there?"

"Rocky, but no injuries, Dan." Durant sounded tired. "We're still working on the lines that broke here in the lab."

"Leave those for Kate. She's faster than either of you. Check out the damage farther back, where the initial interruption occurred."

"Check." Durant started for the doorway. "Let's go, Harry. Good luck here, Kate."

She was already running a diagnostic pen over the multiple tube fracture. "You fix the first headache, Alex, I'll handle this one." She waved the pen at him and he smiled back, each grin for the other's benefit and not an expression of humor. Not now.

Apply sealer to the edge of the break
, she told herself, trying to see the instruction tape, forcing it to unspool once more inside her head.
Place sealant alloy between sealer and far end of break . . .
She continued like that, working steadily if slowly, her body tense in expectancy of further jolts and shudders.

Normally Vincent would not have bothered with a tether. His internal thrusters provided enough power for him to fly with confidence around any ship. But this was not normal space they were spinning through, and Vincent was programmed to be prudent. So he double-checked to make sure the high-strength metalweave cable was attached securely to himself and to the ship. Then he slid back the exterior hatch of the air lock and made his way outside.

The black hole was a dark nothingness resting in the center of a glowing vortex of radiant gas and larger clumps of matter. It attracted his attention only briefly. He was also programmed to be curious, though less so than humans.

So he ignored the mesmerizing view of the stellar maelstrom and turned his optics instead on the various projections extruding from the
Palomino
's hull. He had to make his way around them so that his extendible magnetic limbs would remain firmly in contact with the ship's skin.

As he moved slowly across the hull back toward the free-floating hatch to be resecured, he was aware of a steady thunder reverberating around him. It was a thunder no human could have heard, a purely electronic thunder, the wail dying matter generated as it was crushed out of existence. It possessed also a certain poignancy no human could have appreciated, for in many ways Vincent was closer in structure to the meteoric material plunging past him to destruction than he was to the creature known as man.

Indeed
, he mused,
I am the same stuff, differently formed and imbued with intelligence. I am cousin both to meteor and to man
.

Then his thoughts turned to more prosaic matters: a loose hatch and the possibility of uncertain footing.
I do wonder why I was programmed to think in so many human metaphors
, he thought.
I have no feet; therefore, technically speaking, I am incapable of losing my "footing."

Fortunately, his creators and designers had foreseen the possibility of such confusion arising in his electronic mind and had counterprogrammed a restraining, pacifying feature into all such mechanicals: humor.

Holland and Pizer were unaware of Vincent's private musings as they struggled to stabilize the ship. But they were very much aware of Vincent.

"Give me a check on his progress, Charlie."

Pizer moved to comply, leaving part of his attention on the still vacillating readouts before him. "Vincent, do you read? This is Charlie, Vincent."

A loud sizzle like a thousand tons of bacon frying hissed back at him from the speaker. He tried again. "Vincent, do you read? What's it like out there?" Again the sound of the vast cosmic cookpot.

He looked across at Holland, shook his head. "No response. You heard what we're getting."

"I don't like it." Pizer started to comment, but Holland cut him off. "Yes, I know I've been saying that a lot lately. Take it easy on me, will you? He may be encountering more difficulty than I thought he would." He hesitated, then after a moment's consideration, said, "I hate to bother Kate. It's a strain for her and she's busy enough as it is." Pizer said nothing.

Holland finally addressed the com pickup. "Kate?"

She flashed a last burst with the sealer, set it aside and moved within easy reception range of the com unit. "I'm here, Dan."

"How are you coming on those lines?"

"Getting there. It's easy to work the sealer, but hard to be neat about it. I remember the diagrams pretty well, though, and records are helping me make sure I'm emplacing the new modules properly."

"You'd better, or we'll find ourselves breathing hydrogen instead of air," he teased. Then he continued more seriously. "I don't like to trouble you with this, Kate, but we either have a transmission problem or Vincent's receiver is out. In any case, we can't contact him. See if you can esplink with him. I need to know how he's doing."

"I understand, Dan." She sat down in her chair, forced herself to relax. "I'll give him a call."

"Appreciate it."

Kate closed her eyes. Not that it was necessary to the process, but doing so helped her concentrate by eliminating sources of possible distraction. She did not need her eyes to "see" Vincent, any more than he needed his electronic optics to see back at her.

That's what the experts had told her. They had explained everything in detail when they had inquired if she wished to undergo the operation. That had been ten years ago. Though, in fact, she had feared the operation, she had covered her instinctive reaction so professionally, with such naturalness and so convincingly, that no one had thought to test her for truthfulness. The decision had to be a voluntary one. Her intelligence and ability had qualified her without subsidiary tests. So had her psych profile.

She had known that a scientist able to engage esplink with a correspondingly equipped mechanical had a tremendous advantage over colleagues in wangling important and interesting assignments. Like thousands of others, she had wanted to be selected for deep-space research. In the highly competitive academic free-for-all that surrounded such applications, every advantage one had over one's colleagues was important. Esplink ability could be critical. It was such a powerful plus, because not every operation resulted in the ability to link. Also, not every volunteer came out from under the operation—or sometimes one would emerge into consciousness with parts of his mental self badly confused. Sometimes permanently confused.

Kate McCrae's operation had been one of those that proved completely successful. She well remembered her first and last sight of the esplink itself, a tiny metal cylinder half the size of the nail on her little finger. It was buried inside her skull now, always ready and able to translate her properly conceived thoughts to a receptive machine unit and to receive impulses in turn from units equipped to broadcast. Sometimes getting it right was more of a strain than anyone imagined, including Holland. But the particular rapport Kate had acquired with mechanicals such as Vincent made the risk and strain worthwhile.

Now she adjusted her thoughts as she had been trained to do, letting them flow outward. It pleased her to regard the process as something wonderfully magical rather than as the simple transference of wave structures from one point in space to another.

An alarmingly long time . . . several seconds . . . passed before the robot eventually responded.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Kate. I was occupied."

"You mean
preoccupied,"
she thought back at him.

"No . . . occupied. I am never preoccupied. No one can technically be
preoccupied
, as that implies pre—"

"Not now, Vincent. Save the philosophical homilies for later. You're okay?"

"I am still attached to the ship and functioning as intended, if that's what you mean."