The Black Hole (7 page)

"You know it is, you disreputable hunk of scrap."

"Now, Doctor . . . no flattery when I'm working. You will distract me."

"Unlikely. Where are you?"

A brief pause, then, "Nearly over bay four. I should be able to see the hatch cover soon."

"Good." She fought to adjust her brain to create audible words, spoke dreamily toward the com pickup. "Dan, I've made contact with Vincent."

"Fine. He's all right out there?"

"Yes, and nearly in sight of the hatch, he says."

"Keep us posted."

She turned her thoughts back inward. "Any trouble?"

"Electromagnetic effects like I've never experienced. And hope never to experience again. Makes my skin crawl."

McCrae smiled, eyes still peacefully shut. Vincent could sound so human when he wanted to that she had to remind herself he was a machine, an artificial construct of printed circuits and cold alloy, much like the
Palomino
.

"I am in sight of the hatch now," he told her, the voice echoing inside her head. "Over the hatch opening now." She waited, knowing he was inspecting the damage. His analysis was typically succinct

"The concussion apparently caused the emergency explosive bolts securing the hatch to misfire. Fortunately, only the bolts on the normally latched side fired, or I'd have no hatch here to fix. I will make temporary repairs by welding it shut."

"Good enough."

She relaxed further, found herself thinking about Dan as Vincent worked, about his reaction to her whenever the esplink was brought up.
He knows it's there permanently, inside me. Does he secretly regard me as some kind of mutated freak, part human, part machine?
She knew some people reacted that way to those equipped with the links, and wondered if that was why Dan was always so kind and gentle with her. Or was it something more, as she had often hoped? Of course, he had never given any definite indication that he regarded the presence of the link as anything abnormal. But that didn't mean that . . .

Vincent was thinking at her again. "I've inserted vacuum seal around the edges of the hatch and repositioned the cover. Am now activating my sealer."

She could almost see the robot, visualized the barrel-shaped form secured by line and magnetic lower limbs to the
Palomino
's hull. One arm would be traveling with great precision over the edge of the hatch, a beam of intense red light emerging from its tip. The vacuum seal would turn molten under the heat of that beam, as would the metal of the hull beneath it. The result, when it cooled, would be a crystalline structure not quite metal, not quite ceramic. It could not be cut away except with the facilities of a zero-
g
shipyard.

Hatch four would be useless for the remainder of their journey, but the precious pharmaceuticals stored inside would be in no danger of drifting or being thrown out. Later, the bay could be repressurized and entered safely. The seal Vincent was executing would be as airtight as the rest of the hull.

A voice, shatteringly loud and crude, interrupted her musing. "Kate? How's he coming? You still with him?"

"I'll check, Dan. Right now he's quoting a flight instructor he once knew. 'There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are very few old, bold pilots.' "

"She's tuned in on Vincent, all right," Pizer murmured.

"Let's hope we disprove that maxim. Just a few degrees more, Charlie."

"Vincent, how are you coming," McCrae asked silently.

A gratified mechanical responded. "Finishing the last of it, Dr. Kate."

"Dan . . . he's secured the hatch."

"Good. Let me know when he's back inside." Holland turned his attention to his first officer. "Charlie, we're holding our own here, but that's not good enough. She's threatening to destabilize and send us tumbling again. We've got to get her around. Maximum power on"—he checked a brace of gauges—"Quad Thrusters
E
and
H
, half thrust on
A
and
G."

"Working," replied Pizer, carefully making the requisite adjustments. The ship responded.

Holland switched a second speaker on as the communicator buzzed for attention. He remained in communication with the lab and Kate, added the new call from Power.

"That you, Alex?"

"Check, Dan." Durant's voice was strained. "We can only effect temporary repairs back here, and that only to the secondaries. It's a mess. Maybe you and Charlie will get a chance to come back here and refine what Harry and I have done."

"I doubt we could do much more, Alex. I just pilot 'em, I don't build 'em."

"That's what we need back here, Dan. A construction engineer. With a full internal-plumbing shop. I'm afraid that we'll eventually lose our air supply unless we can replace the critically damaged modules in the main regenerator complex."

"Damn. You're sure of that?"

"You ought to see what's left of the regenerator's internals and monitors. Looks like a particle beam played through them. You know you can't 'fix' any of those microchip links. All you can do is replace them.

"We can seal over and set the larger components back in place, but you know better than I that it'll all be for nothing unless the rest are replaced. And we don't carry any of the necessary replacements."

Holland thought a moment. "How about cannibalizing the necessary chips from the secondaries?"

"Maybe," was Durant's reply, "but I doubt it."

"Why?"

"Because some of the chips in the secondaries are so weakened from overload they could shatter if we try fooling with their ambient temperatures or voltages. Then we'd lose the secondaries in addition to the main system. But I agree it may come to trying that."

"Let's hope not, Alex. Let me know when you and Harry have finished. Maybe I can come back and have a look."

"Will do."

Holland switched off, knowing the futility of making a personal inspection of the damage. He had added his final comment to placate Durant. If the scientist couldn't fix the system, it was because the parts were not available, as he had said. If they didn't have replacements, the finest respiratory-system technician on Earth couldn't do any better.

Vincent shut off the flow of sealant. A moment later he shut off power to his arm and examined his handiwork. The seal was clean, flush to the hull, and appeared tight. No one could tell for certain about the last until bay four could be repressurized and tested for air leaks, but he was confident his work would stand that test. He turned his optics away from the hatch preparatory to starting back toward the lock he had used to leave the ship, and his confidence was lessened by the sight that greeted him. Neatly severed by age and the wear and tear it had received against the rim of the lock, his cable tether drifted lazily past him.

Calmly he reported the break to McCrae. Her first reaction was concern. "Are you still secured to the ship, Vincent?" She knew as well as Holland that if the robot had somehow slipped free of the hull, he was lost.

"Still secure . . . and awaiting instructions, Dr. Kate."

She spoke hurriedly into the pickup. "Dan, it's Vincent. He's finished sealing the hatch, but his cable tether's parted. He's okay for now, but without the tether he has no backup if he loses physical contact with the hull. His thrusters may not be enough to get him back. He wants to know how you want him to proceed."

Pizer was already half out of his chair. "Someone has to take him another secured line so he can get back safely. I'll go after him."

Holland threw him a sharp look. "Stay put, Charlie. You've plenty to do right here."

The first officer looked askance at Holland. "You don't mean that, Dan. What if it were one of us out there?"

"Vincent
is
one of us. As to the other, I wouldn't let you go no matter who it was. Stay at your post."

"What if it were Kate?"

Holland didn't change his expression. "The same. She knows that. You ought to." He spoke into the com. "We can't risk anyone else out there now, Kate. Not till we regain full control. Tell Vincent to hang on, to stay at his present location until further notice. I don't want him moving around untethered until we've stabilized our attitude. Too much chance he'll be jarred loose."

McCrae relayed the information to the waiting robot.

"I concur," came the prompt reply, "I don't like sitting out here, but the captain is right. I believe—"

Transmission stopped. McCrae strained frantically, sweat beading her forehead from the effort of projecting. She knew Vincent's human-analog programming did not include breaking off a conversation in the middle of a sentence without some kind of explanation.

"Vincent. Vincent! Report!"

A slight but unexpected jolt had produced exactly the result Holland had feared, despite Vincent's dutifully remaining in one place. Flailing metal arms groped for protrusions, missed as the robot began to drift away from the ship, back toward the stern and the distant bottom of the gravity well.

Vincent decided not to chance his thrusters unless forced to. There were other methods of remaining in contact with the
Palomino
. The cable he fired from his body had been designed to enable him to pull objects through free space toward him. Now he utilized it to pull himself back to the ship. As he was reeling himself in, he was able to respond positively to McCrae's urgent call. "I am all right, Dr. Kate. I momentarily lost my grip. But I am secured again. I will be more conscious now of the forces operating on my body here. I now have physical as well as magnetic adhesion. Please do not worry."

"Kate?"

She heard the dim voice, took a breath and replied. "It's okay now, Dan. Vincent slipped away for a moment, but he's reattached himself. He says he's more secure now than he was before, and that he'll be more careful."

She gave a brief description of what had happened, relaying the robot's own words.

Pizer listened, then moved as if to leave his chair again.

"Stay at your post, Charlie."

"What the hell are you made of? He's still stuck out there. Next time he might not be able to get back."

Holland chose to ignore the question and the challenge behind it. Pizer was operating, like the rest of them, like the ship, under abnormal pressure. As captain, Holland was not permitted the psychological release of insubordination. He would not reprimand Charlie for making use of it, but wished only that he, too, had some higher authority to yell at.

Instead of snapping back at his first officer, Holland kept himself under control and spoke quietly toward the pickup. "Kate, tell Vincent we're starting to make some progress. We're backtracking to that zero-
g
bubble surrounding the
Cygnus
. Once we're inside the field again, he can hop and skip back to the lock."

She nodded, though there was no one to see her. The information was relayed to the robot. As she was finishing, Durant and Booth returned to the lab. Both men were mentally flayed, the close mechanical repair work having proved itself as debilitating as any heavy physical labor. They were concentrated out. Neither disturbed McCrae by listing his accomplishments. Durant waited until the wrinkles above her eyes had smoothed out and some of the tenseness had visibly left her body before asking what the esplink conversation had involved.

"Looks like Dan's instincts were right," she told them. "We've had trouble."

"What's wrong, Kate?" Booth asked-quickly. "Problems with the hatch repair?"

"Not exactly," she murmured. Her eyes were still closed. "It's Vincent. His tether broke. We almost lost him." Now she did blink, stared wide-eyed at them, stretching the muscles around each orb. "He's okay now. What about the regenerator?"

Durant shrugged. "Did the best we could with what we had. But there were still a few items we couldn't find replacements for." He smiled wanly. "Just enough of them to cause the entire system to fail before we can get home . . . unless Dan and Charlie can do better, or can find a way to bypass what we haven't got."

Suddenly he turned quiet, looked around in confusion. So did Booth. So did McCrae. Something had happened. There was something missing.

They all realized what had happened at the same time. The turbulence, the jostling of the ship, had vanished.

The ship was as still as the inside of a coffin . . .

Pizer leaned back in his chair. His muscles ached as if he had just finished a half day's workout in the
Palomino
's compact gymnasium, though he hadn't moved from his position in all the time they had been playing dice with death.

"Close," he murmured. "Too close. I want to be buried . . . but not yet."

As if trying to cover his embarrassment at his outburst over Vincent, he spoke reassuringly to Holland. "Don't blame yourself, Dan. First we stumble into an impossible area of no-gravity around the
Cygnus
. Then we find out it's irregular in outline and uncertain in effect. You can't blame yourself for not foreseeing the instability of an impossibility."

"Put that way, it makes me feel a little better," the captain admitted.

"And, Dan?"

"Yeah?"