“Would you?” asked Liz quietly. “Would you, Al?”
He turned away from the hurt in the golden eyes.
“Al—you couldn’t. I know,” she said. “You just haven’t got the hate in you, Al.”
“A fruitless conversation,” sighed Maran. “I had hoped for better things.” Buchanan felt choked by his conflicting emotions. There was a need for violent action very near the surface of his mind; yet the robots hovered close, ready to react with instant speed. Patience, he warned himself. Maran had not yet spoken of what he intended to do. The station had a considerable capacity for life-support, but that capacity had to be divided by three now that Maran and Liz were aboard. Maran could do simple equations too.
Liz asked the question that dominated Buchanan’s thoughts: “Well, what do you intend to do, Maran?
Al’s right—the cruisers can’t let you escape. Commander Lientand can sit outside the Singularity until you’re ready to give up. There’s no way out.”
“I think Buchanan knows,” said Maran.
Buchanan said nothing, did not, allow a movement of his face to betray his thoughts.
“Al?” asked Liz.
“I checked the reports, Buchanan,” said Maran. “All the readings.”
“I expected that,” agreed Buchanan.
Yet what could Maran do, even if he persuaded the machines that what was clearly impossible might be reached?
“Al?” asked Liz again.
“Buchanan feels it his duty not to discuss the object of his search,” said Maran.
“You said you wouldn’t—”
“Don’t!” Buchanan said harshly.
“Buchanan, I know!” Maran said decisively. “Yes, Miss Deffant. I told you I felt a sense of predestination about your involvement with my escape from the ES 110. Our paths coincide.”
“The ship?” she said, trembling.
“Yes, Miss Deffant. I shall invite Commander Buchanan to return with me to his former command. I have instructed the machines to take us to the Altair Star.”
Liz gasped. Buchanan’s fist clenched around the stem of the glass. The slender stem snapped in his hand, and brandy made a spreading stain. A servitor had the cloth cleared and the brandy mopped away within seconds.
“When?” asked Buchanan.
“Why, when you have finished your drink,” said Maran, as the robot placed another glass before Buchanan.
Liz Deffant saw the massive, serpentine coils enveloping the station and gripped Buchanan’s arm until the nails bit into the flesh; an unreasoning panic blotted out all other thoughts. Buchanan swayed too, knowing that no matter how many times he ventured within the deeper reaches of the bizarre space-time enigma he could never become accustomed to the appalling blank otherness at the center. He saw that Maran was stunned by the violence of the descent into the Singularity.
And there was nothing he could do, for the slender tentacles of the couch held him firm. The station shuddered, engines howling, as the drive built force-screens to ease the station through a vicious conjunction of energies. The big screen showed the coils giving way to a whirling blackness shot through with emerald whorls. From the black pit, reinforcing bands of power emerged to investigate the nugget of human technology which had invaded the Singularity.
The station exuded screens, leaking power and easing between colossal forces. And it slid away, away and nearer the center.
Through eerie vortices, countering brute power with subtle field emissions, the station glided smoothly into the bizarre regions. Buchanan breathed a prayer of relief and gratitude to the engineers who had built the ship. They had been able only to guess at the grim fury of the Singularity’s inner depths, but they had planned and built well. No engine failed, no screen slipped.
The ship became calmer, its pace less subject to wild upheavals. Maran could concentrate on the operations screen, while Buchanan watched him.
There was no sign that he was afraid. If he trembled, it was not from fear, but awe at the incredible violence of the Singularity, and the miracle of the little ship’s survival. The maelstrom surged, and Maran’s face showed both awe and excitement. Buchanan stared now at the screen. He saw the strange black depths and felt his mind reeling.
“Look!” roared Maran, and Liz and Buchanan were held in a trance by the stark emptiness of the blackness at the center of the Singularity. They glimpsed it and shut their eyes.
“An entire new Universe!” Maran shouted.
But his two companions could not look. Reluctantly, Buchanan conceded Maran a measure of greatness. The bizarre architecture of the Singularity was a fit context for him. Maran was unquestionably awed by what he had seen, but he had lost none of his assurance. Massively excited, he radiated confidence and power.
“Al!” whispered Liz as Maran lowered his great head to the command console. “Al, why does he want to go to the Altair Star?”
Buchanan saw that Maran was indifferent to them. Eyes half closed, he was staring raptly at the screen.
“The ship’s almost intact,” he said. “If he could reach it, he could use the engines to power a life-raft.”
“But you can’t let him—Al, it’s like a mausoleum, you said! No one should disturb them!” Buchanan felt the sick excitement of his quest welling up inside him once more. Cursing his inconstancy, he whispered: “I don’t want to go, Liz—I don’t want Maran to have a chance of freedom! But I have to go!”
It seemed to take hours, but only minutes passed. Buchanan watched the seconds fly away and wondered if time were structured differently in the inner depths. Speculation was futile. No satisfactory theory had explained the unreal dimensions. Kochan’s words came back to him, and there was an uncanny stirring of the skin and short hairs behind his ears. He shuddered, as Liz had done, recalling the idea of the long undead. It was a betrayal of the natural order of things. And yet there was still the gripping compulsion to return to the Altair Star. It could not be denied. Whatever he might find, and however much he dreaded it, he had to go on now that he was so near. Even though Maran meant to use the ship!
Green-glowing serpentine coils gave way to infinite emptiness.
They were near the mystery now, very close to the strange stars, or the black hole, or the combination of unguessable events that formed the center of the enigma.
Buchanan saw the Altair Star as the eerie tunnel swam onto the big screen. A flickering glimpse, and then it was gone. Liz saw it.
“Al!” breathed Liz Deffant, cutting into his thoughts and bringing a rush of feelings that he could not concern himself with now.
“This is the place of wrecks?” asked Maran.
“This is the place.”
Scanners roamed as Maran manipulated the sensor-pads.
“Readings,” he demanded.
“No starquake emission,” reported the Grade One robot. “All three engines operating at satisfactory levels of efficiency. Screens engaged at nine-point-three-one-eight-two level.”
“Report the condition of the Altair Star.”
“Sir?”
“They don’t admit the scan,” said Buchanan.
“Report on the tunnel,” said Maran, ignoring Buchanan’s objection.
“The tunnel, sir?” asked the Grade One robot.
“They won’t admit the temporal discontinuity,” Buchanan said. “Nothing. No tunnel, no temporal discontinuity, so no ship.”