Brian Ball - Singularity Station

“Excuse me, sir,” said the robotic controller of the station. “Commander Buchanan.” Buchanan held his breath. He had seen it. The great leprous blotch made by the uncanny wave emissions from the vast rotating core of the Singularity was now forming into the patterns he had observed three years before.

“A direct sighting, Commander,” the robot insisted. “The Singularity.” The profound gap in the cosmos waiting for the unwary. He watched for almost an hour. At last, the ship trembled.

“Commander Buchanan, the tug has released the station. We are now beginning independent flight.”

“Yes.”

Buchanan watched the tug begin its endless voyage; another drifting hulk that would finish in the interior of some remote star. Then he stared again at the Singularity.

The station would soon be his.

Inside the shocked, pain-filled head of Maran, ideas flared and were instantaneously put into action. He was aware that he was working at a low level of efficiency. The drugs that had revived his body, and the electrical discharges that had smashed through his nervous system, had blotted out whole areas of memory and intellect. Maran knew he was using the dying remnants of his powers instinctively. The first blinding shock of returning consciousness had nearly killed him. There had been nothing he could do to prepare for it. No barrier could save him from it. The robots would have known if he had kept back the least shred of consciousness. Automatons they might be, but they were superbly designed. Not until the Enforcement Service ship was way out from Center could the delay-circuit be activated. And when it began its work, when low-grade systems whispered to more sophisticated circuitry, the result was inevitable. Pain, terrible pain. Confusion. Mind-blinding agonies. Perhaps the total dislocation of his faculties. At best, a limited hold on perhaps a quarter of the intellect that had so nearly solved the ultimate mystery. Instinct would have to serve.

It did.

Maran’s actions would one day be analyzed in wonder by relays of cyberneticists. There would be fierce controversy over precisely what he accomplished during the first few minutes. Symposia would annually dissect what was known of his subversion of the machines; how remote and unimportant systems were crossed with vital cycles so that the higher control robots would withhold decisions. Maran himself could not have explained.

Dazed, senses screaming in torment, he had emerged from the gray ooze, just as he had foreseen and planned, and moved toward the control console. A memory came back to Maran as he caught sight of the woman. He looked down at his huge hands and felt again the corded sinew of the Security guard’s throat. For a moment, he reeled. There should have been no attendants. No guards. His information was that the Enforcement Service ships were entirely automaton-controlled. The guard had not seen him, not even turned….

Maran pushed the memory back into the confusion of his agonized thoughts. The robots must be kept from their appointed tasks—kept in a state of indecision, kept unbalanced.… It had been so easy at first. The low-grade servitors advancing, tentacles ready to hold him. And the woman—what was she doing on the cell-deck?—stiff with shock! No threat. An alert face, but quite rigid with fear.

The servitors had told him how to handle the situation. “You are subject to restraint order under Galactic Council Penal Code Regulations!” one had said. “You are an expellee and must be returned to coma-cell,” another had directed.

Maran’s hands had swept over the controls even as other robotic systems reported his actions. No, he had assured the low-grade robots, he was not an expellee. All expellees were in the coma-cells. Expellees could not escape from the cells. It was impossible. So no expellee had escaped. Therefore he was not an expellee.

A query from a Grade Two system which was responsible for monitoring the life-support apparatus of the tanks was answered at once. Maran assured it that all coma-cells were full. There was a prisoner in each of the tanks. Therefore no prisoner had escaped.

Doubly reassured, the low-grade servitors allowed black tentacles to retract. The girl was recovering, Maran saw. He flinched at the touch of a tentacle. The girl was saying something. She was afraid, but there was the beginning of outraged determination in her eyes. Like all the others, she thought him a monster. Another who could never understand the supreme importance of his destiny. Maran could see the resolve building up in her mind. Others would know that he was loose. They would react more quickly. Crewmen—perhaps more Security guards—certainly a programmed automatic reaction. Then there would be the appeals for assistance, and the big Enforcement Service cruisers would wheel around and follow the wake of the ES 110. Maran’s wildly straining eyes took in the rows of gently-bobbing expellees. Their minds were weaker than his. They had frail bodies, some of them. Old men would not stand up to the shocks of sudden revivification. Yet the robots must be halted!

His hands swept down in a dazzling arc. Sensors leaped into his palms. Maran left the high-grade systems bewildered. Bawling metallic voices filled the green-lit cell-deck with a huge uproar. In the midst of it, Maran ordered the release of all the prisoners.

On the deck above, Rosario began to understand the extent of Maran’s audacious and brilliant plan. As he struggled to assert some form of control over the machines, Maran poured a steady stream of orders into the Grade Two circuit which controlled the cell-deck. A part of Maran’s mind functioned clearly. He could hear Rosario, the commander of the ship. Unlike the robots, Rosario had not panicked. All his energies were going into the one vital response: beaming a Red Alert.

Maran sweated coldly. Black shock waves made him reel. His limbs shuddered. Bunches of nerve-endings throbbed and jerked. He looked up from the console and saw that the girl was almost recovered from the blast of robotic noise. Above, the iron-nerved commander of the ship was talking calmly to the machines:

“This is a full-scale emergency,” he was saying. “Emergency systems must at once beam a request for help. Beam the request for help now. A Red Alert condition exists.” Maran waited for the reply to the one message which must not be sent. He heard the Grade One robot’s refusal.

The calm voice of the commander did not falter. Maran heard Rosario tell the machine that it was receiving false information: that he had escaped; that he was a danger warranting a Red Alert.

“Check the identity of all expellees,” ordered Rosario. “I repeat, check the identity of all expellees held in coma-cells.”

The Grade One robot hesitated. Maran acted. Sensor-pads relayed his orders. At the heart of the massive complex of electronic machinery, there was a huge roar of protest. Men and women in the coma-cells twitched, leaped, screamed, thrashed frenetically, slipped back, and died.

“Identity check not possible at this stage,” admitted the robotic voice from its pedestal. Rosario began to realize that he had failed.

“Maran’s feeding you false information!” he roared, as the machine whined softly and soothingly. “He’s loose—he’s confusing you—get him!”

“Try the low-grades,” said Dieter. “Appeal to the servitors. They might respond.” Rosario tried. Below, Maran watched as the armored robots listened to the voice of the ES 110 ’s commander. Tentacles flicked out cautiously, then drew back.

“There does appear to be a serious malfunctioning of systems on cell-deck,” the robotic controller admitted to Rosario. “One human unit is defunct. I have confused reports and conflicting data.” Maran knew this was the moment of maximum danger.