She saw figures moving about the black bulk of the ungainly vessel. A group of engineers were busy at one massive engine-pad.
Where was Al?
She saw a stooping, thin figure emerge tiredly. An old man. Who was he? She scanned closer still and saw a face she knew from many newscasts. Kochan. What was he doing there?
And still no sign of Al.
She almost ordered the scanners to cease probing, but she told herself she was entitled to one last look at Buchanan.
For over ten minutes she kept the scanners hunting for a sight of the lean, hard man she loved. And all the time she could feel the interest of the automatons which controlled the shuttle and obeyed her orders; already they would be reporting her interest in the almost-completed station. One more piece of information for the endless banks of comps far below the surface.
“Al!” she whispered as at last she saw the familiar honed features, the long sinewy frame, the bitter mouth which had begun to be able to ease into a smile.
There was a new expression on his face.
Before, he had looked tired, despairing, a man who thought of himself as a failure. Now, he seemed completely lost. Cold, alone, lost.
She watched until the image shivered and began to fill with shadows. The great engines of the ES 110 impinged on the little shuttle’s own force-bands.
With a gentle shudder, the unmanned shuttle dropped into the dock of the looming infragalactic ship.
CHAPTER 4
Eleven members of the Board for the Regulation of Space Hazards turned out for the launching of the Jansky Singularity Station. There was a minimum of coverage by the news media. Buchanan’s appointment had stirred the newscasters to a fresh appraisal of the dangers of the Jansky Singularity, and they emphasized especially the loss of the Altair Star; but interest soon waned. Kochan had used some of his vast, submerged powers to see that the affair was played down. Yet nothing of the turmoil that surged in Kochan’s mind was reflected on his face as he shook Buchanan’s hand and wished him a successful voyage and a safe return.
It was a cold day, with a chill wind howling among the docked ships. Buchanan saw that Mrs. Blankfort was ill, and worried too. There was an anxious look in her deep-sunken eyes. He knew that her concern was for him. The members of the Board withdrew to take warm drinks when the brief ceremony of commissioning was over.
Buchanan entered the ship and forgot them.
And then he waited as an enormous tug latched onto the squat ugly station.
“Jansky Station clear for lift-off,” a metallic voice told him. “Engaging first stage of flight schedule.”
“Yes,” said Buchanan, hardly able to believe that the days had passed and that now the ship trembled around him as the tug exerted its huge powers.
“Second stage commencing now,” the robot told him.
“Good.”
There was nothing to be said, nothing to be done, for the station and its throw-away monstrous tug were in robotic hands until they reached the edges of the colossal rotating enigma that had clawed in so many unwary ships. Then the tug would fall away. And the station would be his.
“You should take your position for lift-off,” the robot voice told him. Buchanan looked at the cone-shaped pedestal which was the station’s robot overseer. Anger shook him momentarily. Mrs. Blankfort was wrong. You could hate the robots. Even if they were capable of making far better decisions than any human mind in the uncertain reaches between the spiraling arms of the Galaxy.
The ship was poised now, almost a living thing.
Buchanan settled into the soft couch. Tendrils of resilient plastics settled in a web around him. Power raged into the main drive of the tug. The edges of the large deck began to blur as the ship began to enter into the disagreeable phenomenon of Phase. Sharp angles became rounded, straight lines took on uneasy curves, flat surfaces bent and rose up eerily.
“Lift-off, Commander Buchanan?”
It was a formality, a concession to the lost status of the nominal commander. An ironical request, part of an old ritual. The robot was programmed to ask his permission to begin the long voyage.
“Proceed,” said Buchanan formally.
“Welcome aboard, Miss Deffant,” the commander of the ES 110 said to Liz Deffant. She appreciated the frank sincerity of his admiration. “You’re not exactly what we expected, you know. We got the authorization for a New Settlements Bureau ecologist, female, and they usually turn out to be large and dedicated and not altogether—well, feminine.” He paused and took in the sharp thrust of the well-formed breasts and the promise of the firm long legs. “Not what we expected at all.” Liz smiled at him. It took no effort at all. He was a youngish man, not yet thirty, short and broad, with heavy features and hair like wire. When he grinned he showed large white teeth, and his eyes shone with pleasure. She wondered if it was a sign of recovery that she could respond to his animal good spirits.
“This isn’t what I expected of an Enforcement Service ship,” she said. It wasn’t. There was nothing to distinguish the control deck of the big infragalactic ship from, say, one of the New Settlements Bureau’s larger support ships, the kind that had acted as a back-up station when she was working the Ophiuchi Complex. There were operations screens, the usual robotic control pedestal, the banks of consoles with weaving sensor-pads alert to fasten onto a human palm, the big command chair for the human commander—the usual setup; and an unexpected spaciousness. She had expected more spartan conditions, perhaps a feeling of oppressive detention.
“Tell me what you expected, Miss Deffant.”
“Liz.”
“I’m Jack Rosario. You’ll meet the others when we eat.”
“The crew?”
“We carry six, including myself.” Rosario’s gesture took in the controls. “So tell me what you expected.” Liz looked about the bright bridge, all golden yellow and green plastics. “It doesn’t look like a traveling jail. I could be on a tourist deck—I thought you’d all be carrying side arms—”
“Side arms!” hooted Rosario. “Phasers!”
“Well—”
“No! There’s no need. Not since we went fully automatic. We haven’t gone in for that sort of thing since the coma-cells were introduced.”
“Coma-cells?”
“We’ve used them for years. Its easier for all of us—crew, guards, expellees. We’re entirely automatic.”
“You put the expellees into a coma?”
“Yes. Haven’t you seen an Enforcement Service ship before?”
“I’ve seen them. Twice. But I’ve never been aboard one so far. Not until now. It wasn’t my idea. It’s just that I wanted to get back to Messier 16 as soon as I could.”
Rosario’s broad face was interested, but he did not follow up with a question; he caught the hint of regret in her voice. She liked the way he did not pursue the subject.
“So we should be wearing side arms and have bunches of keys on our belts. And you should hear chains rattling and prisoners groaning.” He grinned. “And there’d be water and a bone you wouldn’t care to identify. That it?”
Liz smiled again. Rosario was like the people she remembered from her home planet Straightforward, kindly, competent. Not bitter and lost. Not at all like Al.
“I was wrong.”
Rosario looked at her speculatively.
“You’re with Galactic Service. You must be well thought of to get a shuttle out to us. Would it disturb you too much to see how we carry the prisoners?”