The Black Hole (9 page)

"Antique construction for storage," Pizer informed him. "Wasteful of energy and metal. Remind me to refer you to the correct history tape sometime."

"All right." Holland, smiling to himself, had to force himself to sound half serious. "End of the lessons all around. Keep your pistols in mind if not in hand, and don't shoot until you see the green of their eyes."

Holland and McCrae led the way down the umbilical corridor, Vincent in the middle, with Durant and Booth bringing up the rear.

Pizer watched them depart, feeling a little better for Holland's words but still deeply disappointed. His gaze moved up, then down to stare through the transparent material of the tube. Around him, the floating city that was the
Cygnus
lay gleaming but still devoid of any sign of life. Silence and light. Well, that was an improvement after eighteen months of silence and darkness. Pizer turned and hurried back inside the
Palomino
.

As they neared the end of the corridor, Vincent moved slightly in front of McCrae, taking a more prominent position near the forefront of the little expedition. The movement was not born of some mysterious form of mechanical bravery, though Vincent could have been counted on to supply that necessary intangible in whatever amount might be required. It was a bit of simple logic, one which noted that his metal body was less susceptible to laser fire than human flesh.

Holland edged close to the end of the umbilical and peered cautiously into the craft. The tube opened onto a large, well-lit chamber. Lavish compared to the energy-conserving, dimmer illumination of the
Palomino
, the bright light made him blink despite his determination not to.

Furniture two decades out of style filled the room. Lounges and chairs were scattered about, and free-form glass ports gave the occupants varying views of deep space. There were decorative plants—some real, some artificial—objets d'art, and tape viewers for casual reading placed throughout the area.

A large, curving desk faced the umbilical Holland now stepped clear of. Its top was bare save for several professional pieces of recording equipment. Holland recognized an already obsolete form of play-back bank, an ident scanner thirty percent larger than current models, and several other devices—all designed to serve in some fashion to record information or provide it. The fact that this chamber was located on a small artificial world made the function of the reception room no less familiar. No one sat behind the desk.

That was the only expected item missing from the room: a receptionist. The chamber was devoid of official greeters, human or mechanical, but compensated with a feeling they all felt, something sensed but not visible. In a moment Holland realized what it was. There was an aura of petrification about the entire chamber, from the farthest chair to the simple tape viewers.

"Looks like the place hasn't been used in years," he muttered. "I get the feeling we may be the first official visitors since the
Cygnus
left Earth orbit."

McCrae and the others had fanned out into the spacious room. "Eerie," she said. "I don't want to sound melodramatic, but . . ."

"Go ahead," Booth urged her. "The situation almost demands it."

"I feel like not a few but a thousand eyes are watching us." She was turning in a slow circle, eying the walls. "If so, where are they?
Something
on this ship turned on the lights, sent out an umbilical and filled at least this section with breathable air."

Something closed the door to the connector corridor with a plastic
snap
, sealing them off from the
Palomino
. Cracking noises came from places in the walls and ceiling. Holland's pistol was neatly vaporized. So were the others. Suddenly Vincent was knocked backward, his own weapons similarly disabled by the flash of precision laser fire.

"Vincent!" McCrae noted that the others were all right, then ran to check on the metal body that was lurching unsteadily erect.

"Down, but never for the full count, Dr. Kate." His external lights gradually returned to full strength, resumed pulsing in proper sequence. "Something of a shock. Oh, I don't mean the effects of the beams or their presence. It was the speed and efficiency with which they engaged us. And the accuracy of their aim. Only our weapons were damaged." His optics began sweeping the room.

"There is at least one major-class mechanical or competent-class human mind functioning on board the
Cygnus."

"Maybe," she said, looking around nervously now and wishing she possessed the robot's methods of perception, "it's the
Cygnus
's mind. Maybe that's what turned on the lights and sent out the connector for us."

"I would consider that hypothesis, Dr. Kate, save for one obvious discrepancy."

"I don't follow you."

"From our initial circling of the
Cygnus
to this moment," Vincent observed, "our presence here has been treated with uncertainty. Something or someone is improvising our greeting, acting one step at a time. Machines never act so erratically, only in preplanned sequence. First we are ignored, then welcomed, then fired upon and disarmed, all without our greeter revealing himself. Very unmachinelike. So I am inclined to believe there is a non-mechanical mind functioning in control of or in conjunction with any mechanical consciousnesses that might be inhabiting this vessel."

"The . . . non-mechanical mind. Have you learned enough to surmise whether it's human or not?"

"Insufficient data thus far to proffer a reasoned opinion, Dr. Kate."

Holland had his communicator out, was speaking into the tiny grid. "Charlie, this is Dan. Do you read?"

"Loud and clear," came Pizer's response. "Something on the
Cygnus
together with the ship's bulk is screening out the majority of the noise around us. You sound like you're standing behind me."

"I'm beginning to wish I were."

Pizer's concern was immediate. "Trouble?"

"Weapons destroyed by laser fire, but no injuries. The intent was clearly just to disarm us, not to injure."

"I'll be there in—"

"Hold your position."

"But what about the—"

"No!" Holland interrupted him more sharply this time. "I told you, we're okay. I don't want to tempt whoever's monitoring us into incapacitating the
Palomino
by a further display of arms. Maybe they're just nervous. Such a reception-area weapons system conforms with what we know about this ship. It may operate independently of other functions, to prevent possible belligerents from coming aboard armed."

"All right. But watch yourselves." Pizer clicked off.

Booth leaned over to whisper something to Durant. "So much for the friendship theory. I'd say describing the condition of whoever's got eyes on us as
nervous
is understating it some."

"Holland's right, though," the scientist argued. "They could already have killed us, if that was their intent. Or simply denied us entry to the ship. They may want us aboard defenseless, but it's indisputable that they want us aboard."

"Yeah, well, I can't say I care for their taste in hors d'oeuvres. Or for their manners." Booth was staring uncomfortably at the walls. The weapons which had just destroyed their own pistols were still hidden behind them. No doubt they were primed to fire at any time. He could imagine a half-dozen stubby, high-intensity generators aimed straight at his belly.

A door slid aside at the far end of the reception room. They headed for it, striving to appear confident, succeeding only in looking tense.

A high corridor stretched nearly a kilometer into the distance. It was impressively wide. Holland didn't try to conceal his reaction at the sight; he was awed once again. Intricate yet slim arches of metal supported the ceiling. The corridor was silent and bare, quite sterile-looking after the homey atmosphere of the reception chamber.

This time he was expecting it when the door closed behind them, locking them in the corridor. There was still no reason to panic, though it did place one more barrier between them and the safety of the
Palomino
.

A
second, smaller door moved aside on their right. An internal transport vehicle waited there, humming like a stoned dragonfly.

"Looks like we're not expected to walk." McCrae moved to the air car. "Maybe someone's suddenly remembered his manners."

She might not have voiced the thought if she could have seen the ranks of unbeautiful but formidable-looking mechanicals that now filed into the sealed-off reception room. They emerged from behind wall panels, assembling with a silence broken only by the scrape of metal on metal. It did not take an education in cybernetics to see at a glance that the function of these machines was not to comfort but to disassemble. Urgently, if need be. Without a word passing between them, verbal or electronic, they began to move in unison toward the now open umbilical leading to the
Palomino
.

The air car sped the group silently along the cylindrical passageway. The walls were largely transparent, giving them a spectacular view of surrounding space. It was easy to imagine they were traveling outside the
Cygnus
, tunneling through the void, instead of speeding down a fully pressurized tube of plastic and metal.

To one side was a vast, swirling whirlpool of energy, the visual dying gasps of matter being drawn down into the collapsar. Elsewhere the distant pricks of light that were other suns blended into the body of light that was the
Cygnus
. They reached the far end of the tube. Their vehicle slowed, came to a halt. A doorway ahead was closed, but opened for them when the air car reached a complete stop.

Holland stepped out of the car, looked around. Behind them stretched the long, empty transport tube they had just traversed. The tube itself showed no other egress. Even if there had been a hatch, it would have opened directly into empty space. They could only continue on ahead, as someone clearly intended they should.

"I'm getting tired of being bounced around like a ball in a box," Booth murmured irritably.

"Calm down, Harry." Holland grinned. "Just think of the story this is leading up to."

"I'm looking forward to it." Booth relaxed a little, smiled back at him. "Just impatient at the delays, that's all."

"I don't think any of us will have much longer to wait," McCrae said, walking toward the now open door before them. It led into another empty, though much smaller, corridor.

"Slow up, Kate." Holland hurried to join her and she waited for the others to catch up. She was staring upward, toward a wide, illuminated port set high in the side of the command tower, whose base they had reached.

"I know I shouldn't get my hopes up, but it's hard not to," she told Holland.

He put a hand on her shoulder, pressed gently. It was a pitifully inadequate gesture under the circumstances, considering what the
Cygnus
itself and now the nearby tower represented to her, but it was the best he could think of. He was better with a ship.

"I know, Kate. We're all hoping along with you."

She glanced at his face, then down at the floor, then back up at him. "It helps . . . some."

The personnel corridor was short. Eventually they reached a section which widened considerably. In the middle of the floor a thick cylinder rose into the ceiling. Several doors were set into its sides. One was open and waiting, the green light above it shining steadily.

"Not much doubt where that goes." Booth spoke as he checked his recorders, making sure each of the disposable units was fully charged. "I think we're finally going to meet our hosts."

"All of you remember one thing." Holland paused, blocking the elevator doorway. "The
Cygnus
seems stable, but it's too close to that black hole to take any chances. We've already learned that the field holding it motionless here against the gravity pull is subject to variation. We still don't know if the field is artificially generated or if it's a natural phenomenon. If natural, it could shift radically or even fail at any time.

"We don't know how long the
Cygnus
has been stabilized here. It may have been defying the pull for a decade or more, or it could have become trapped here a day ago. My point is that we know practically nothing for certain about the forces in operation in this section of space. Not about those active around the black hole or those keeping the
Cygnus
clear of it. Ignorance is the most dangerous form of instability, and I don't care if you're talking personality or physics.

"The sooner we repair the
Palomino
and leave here, the better for all of us." This last was spoken while he was staring directly at McCrae. She didn't argue with him and her expression remained unchanged.
Good
, he thought. Emotionally hyper as she was, she was still functioning realistically. He could still depend on her, if an emergency arose, to do that which was right rather than that which might be attractive.

And what if her father
is
aboard, and alive?
He pushed that possibility aside.
Take events as they come
.

"Indeed, the sooner we are away the better I will like it." Vincent nudged his way into the elevator. "Several of my robotic colleagues were victims of black holes. I personally was acquainted with two. They were transferred to drone probes and trained, like myself, in human-machine esplink techniques. The theory was that they could then send messages back from beyond the return limits of the gravity wells of such objects as black holes. A grand experiment, the scientists thought. Sadly, it did not work."

"Ancient history, Vincent," said the reporter.

"Not to me, Mr. Booth. For one thing, the project designers had not considered the effects that dissolution of their metallic partners under great stress would have on the human end of the esplinks. Several people collapsed mentally under the strain, much as their mechanical mind-partners did physically under pressure of a different kind.

"For another, nothing is ancient that is so close. The heat generated in such regions would melt me before the pressure rendered me dysfunctional. I have sufficient imagination to convince me it is a process I will do all in my power to avoid experiencing."