“Seven minutes,” said Maran. “I hope your Buchanan is a man of resource.” Liz realized that she was too tired, too shocked, too used, to answer. She had no response to offer, none at all.
“This ship is in an immeasurable gravitational and electromagnetic conjunction of forces,” said the robotic controller. “Increasing in complexity and magnitude. Source is the Jansky Singularity.”
“This system can maintain a vocal contact with Commander Buchanan at the Jansky experimental station,” announced another robot system.
Liz tensed.
“Let me speak to him,” said Maran.
And Buchanan’s craggy features began to filter through the appalling vortices. Liz Deffant saw the man who had gone to search out the ghosts of the Altair Star.
CHAPTER 15
Buchanan followed the twisting course of the ES 110 as the coils of starquake held it. The Singularity’s motions were those of a rapacious predator; it would not give up its prey now. The ES 110 was to be ingested.
“Commander Buchanan, I have direct contact with an officer called Maran, but I should warn you, sir, that my colleague aboard the ES 110 has information that this officer is also an expellee. In addition—”
“Direct—get me Maran!”
And Buchanan glimpsed the shadowy outline of a broad, heavy-featured face with straining eyes, a familiar face: Maran. But Buchanan was peering around the shadowy image of the man; he tried to make out the figures that moved like ponderous wraiths behind him. Machines! No sign of the slim shape of the woman who had almost exorcised the demons that rode his spirit. Where was Liz?
Maran was speaking. Across the broken dimensions, the words came haltingly: “…life-raft with all possible power-units… any way of using your screens…” And though much was lost, Buchanan knew that Maran was appealing for assistance. “…a woman passenger named Elizabeth Deffant, Buchanan!” Buchanan heard, almost clearly. What was Maran saying?
That Liz was safe? Or that she had already succumbed to the smashing fury of starquake?
For Buchanan there was an eternity of agonized waiting as the station’s scanners lost contact with the decaying prison-ship. Momentarily, the robots picked it up again. End over end the great infragalactic ship tumbled, strewing wreckage in a shower of nameless fragments. And then the sensor-pads informed Buchanan that he could again speak to Maran.
“The Singularity’s throwing out starquake. Maran, I’ll try to get near. Get into the life-raft and lay the bridge open—keep to the ship as long as it has some powerl If you and the woman get into the raft, I’ll try to lock it into my screens. I say again, hold to the ship for as long as you can! It will give the life-raft some protection! And get the woman into the life-raft! Use deep-space armor—all you can carry!”
The three huge engines of the station screamed as the massive drive built to a crescendo. Incomprehensible energies sprang outward as starquake raged. The cruisers ran from the menace of the serpentine coils, seeking calmer dimensions. Buchanan called again to the lost ship, but there was no answer. Liz! he called silently.
“Maran, Maran!” he called. “No contact! Get the woman Deffant into a life-raft!”
“Beam from the ES 110,” cut in the calm voice of the Grade One robot. “Commander, the expellee who seems also to be an Enforcement Service officer has impressed my colleague aboard the ES 110 with the urgency of the situation. He has a proposal which, I am bound to say—”
“Direct!” snarled Buchanan. “Direct to Maran!” So Maran was devising some scheme for his own self-preservation. Buchanan was past caring how much a danger the escaped man might be: he had one overwhelming concern. Against the safety of Liz Deffant, nothing mattered, nothing had ever mattered, not the futile quest for the Altair Star, not all those lost passengers and crew; and certainly not the grotesque personality of a Maran!
The broad, sweating face swam into view. A pulsing of sensor-pads told Buchanan that Maran could see him, in turn. Warnings irradiated his nerve-endings; Maran was trying to cut into the command-systems of the station.
“…the only way,” Maran was saying to him. “I know from your high-grade systems that your ship is under your control. It gives me a chance, Buchanan,” he said urgently. “This vessel has power for only a few minutes! Give me direct access to your ship’s memory-banks—allow me to take over its decision-making procedures! I could do it myself, given time, but there is no time! I have Miss Deffant’s welfare to consider, Buchanan! I know it’s important to you—do as I say, Buchanan, and I might…” And again, to leave Buchanan writhing with agonized impatience, the coils of the Singularity blotted out all beamer channels.
“Liz!” he yelled, knowing she could not hear. But she was safe—safe! he thought wildly, safe if Maran’s word could be trusted, safe for a few minutes, and then the lunging descent into nothingness!
Maran knew the connection between Liz and himself—she must have told him; And Maran would know that he would try any course of action, no matter how dangerous or traitorous, so long as there was the faintest of hopes that she could be pulled back from the black center of the Singularity and its promise of eternal silence, unending night.
The machines were uneasy. The Grade One robot voiced their doubts: “I view these proceedings and proposals with alarm,” it began. “My colleague aboard the ES 110 suggests that the criminal Enforcement officer Maran be given free access to the readings so far accumulated at the Singularity. More, it suggests that Maran is a suitable person to control other functions of this ship now delegated to yourself, sir!” Buchanan collected his scattered thoughts. His craggy face was aflame with rage as he yelled at the pedestal which housed the robot: “No comments, no suggestions, no interference! Never!” Even as he yelled, he realized how he had come to treat the machines as somehow personalized.
“…sir,” the machine responded, in its flat metallic voice.
“Agreed,” Buchanan said across the gulfs that separated him from the ES 110. “Anything, Maran.” He knew he was conniving at the release of a man condemned by the Galactic Council as the greatest threat to mankind since the madness of the early Confederation days. If Maran could reach the station, he could hold it for a year.
But what was the alternative?
Refuse to help him, and Liz Deffant would join the eerie unlife of the time-lost tunnel. She would be beyond recall. Maran might do more and worse damage than he had done already; but if Maran the cyberneticist believed that he could work some kind of miracle among the robots’ resources, then it must be so. There was no time for dispute.
Buchanan relinquished the sensor-pads as the first authoritative, insidious commands seeped into the station. Soothing, elegant instructions had the sensors-pads writhing in expectant ecstasy. Buchanan looked down at the console and knew that he was giving up all he had lived by during his years of Galactic Service, as well as his quest for the Altair Star. And nothing mattered, none of it. The robotic controller raised no more objections. It became Maran’s slave as soon as it picked up his wheedling, harsh, irresistible commands. Buchanan monitored the sequences with a growing wonder. Maran called on the powerful, sophisticated memory-banks to give every last detail of the observed data associated with the Singularity. He demanded—and received—readings of which Buchanan knew nothing. The robots recognized the touch of the master-cyberneticist as Maran’s personality infected the controlling devices of the station.