Brian Ball - Singularity Station

The ship’s scanners sensed the changes in the emissions from the core of the Singularity, but Buchanan sweated coldly each time until the engines responded. The screens held. Perhaps they would continue to hold. But for how long?

The realization came to him that what the station was experiencing was nothing compared to the rushing, monumental cataclysm of starquake.

It was a condition that trapped ships a billion miles from the epicenter of the cosmic storm. And if starquake could draw in powerful ships from such distances, then what forces raged within the Singularity itself? No wonder the robot satellites sent to record the seismic upheavals of the Singularity were lost!

What scanners and sensors could begin to measure the raging fury of the interior?

Buchanan began to glimpse the dilemma of the robots.

Nothing in the Galaxy was like the Singularity. He would proceed with caution.

“We stay at the rim for observation,” Buchanan said, awed by a fresh pulsation from the depths.

“That is our assignment,” agreed the robot.

Rosario opened his eyes and saw blood. In the bright-lit cheerful surroundings there was a particular horror in the sight of so much blood. Pain came in a dense flood. He closed his eyes, welcoming the darkness. Somewhere near him there was the soft, heavy movement of machinery. Rosario remembered. Maran.

He opened his eyes and knew it was his own blood that was congealing on the console. How badly was he hurt? There was a splintered mass of pain down his left side. Ribs gone. He breathed more deeply and the pain engulfed him once again. But he would not permit himself to lose consciousness. He coughed and the pain surrounded him with armies of dart-wielding enemies. He forced himself to think. He moved his head to see the bridge. An explosion, he remembered. A colossal blast. Before that, Poole with his staring, foolish face set in an unaccustomedly determined mask. It was the one truly determined act of his career. And then the molecular spin had taken him apart, grain by grain. Rosario shuddered. He would have to pass down the chute. Poor, sad-faced Poole’s ghost would linger in its force-waves. And then what? What could he do?

Rosario tried to call out. Dieter and Mack… had they reached the chute? A Grade Three robot passed before the field of Rosario’s vision. He saw that it carried a burden. There was a strong, big-chinned face. The body drooped, inert. Mack. Dead.

He forced himself to move away from the console, an inch. It was a desperate struggle. His slowly-growing rage helped keep him conscious. He saw the robot returning for the second smashed body. There was no sign of Poole.

There wouldn’t be.

Minutes passed, with Rosario hanging by a thread to his sanity. Agony grew in his side like a vast, barbed flower. A Grade Three robot stopped. Rosario felt the gentle touch of a tentacle. He held his breath. The robot inspected him, its carapace shimmering as its sensors absorbed information. Rosario stared back at it. Was Maran completely in charge of the ship? Had Maran ordered this grisly clearing-up? Or were the machines acting in accordance with their interpretation of standing orders? He waited.

The robot moved away.

Rosario made himself think. He would have to seek out Maran. Down the grav-chute. Past the remains of Poole. But there wouldn’t be any, he thought wildly. Poole was now a part of the fabric of the ES 110 . Dieter and Mack would be stored away. Then there was Tup. And the guard, Pete. And the girl. And the expellees. Rosario remembered sickly that they had been grotesquely summoned from their remote dreams to help realize Maran’s bizarre ambitions. Yes, Maran had gained control of the machines. Rosario blacked out.

As he lay, half supported by the console, the ES 110 machines decided that their function was to normalize conditions. Tiny maintenance units cared for their own. The spider-like machines picked up the glittering broken machine which had been knocked away by Maran. Bigger, lower-grade units replaced the smashed panels of the console on the bridge. And a silent corps of servitors began the macabre task of lifting the expellees from the ooze where they had died. The command system waited. Rosario again emerged from the darkness and sensed the watchfulness around him. The machines were waiting for instructions. Not from the commander of the Enforcement Service vessel: from Maran. It had to be now, Rosario told himself. Whatever he had done, Maran was not yet totally the master of the ship. Perhaps he had succumbed to the shock of revivification. Rosario knew what Maran must do now: escape. The ship would leave a wake. Eventually, he must deviate from the huge looping course that would take the ship out to the Rim. When he turned the ES 110 off-course, robot satellites would register its passing. But Maran would have time.

Blood gushed from a wide, deep cut at the back of Rosario’s head. He felt as if the pain were attacking some other body. Woolly memories baffled him.

“Stand,” he said to himself. “Get down to the cell-deck.”

“Sir?” asked a passing servitor.

“Carry on,” ordered Rosario.

It considered and then moved away. Rosario sweated coldly. He could not ask the machines for help. Not with Maran’s insidious instructions subverting the memory-banks of the high-grade systems. I’ve got to stop Maran, he thought. He tottered toward the grav-chute. It glowed, promising a gentle descent. The way to the cell-deck was clear.

Rosario looked down at his hands. He was a trained close-combat fighter; not so good as Dieter and Mack, but competent. He almost grinned.

In his state, he might do damage to a frightened butterfly. He could hardly raise his right hand. His left had to hold his wrecked ribs together. He fought down the sick disgust that made him want to shout at his own incompetence. How many had died because he could not assert himself? Why had he not been able to find some counterargument that would divert the machines from their bizarre decisions?

He looked down at his right hand. It had come down to this. A crippled commander, perhaps the last living member of the ES 110’s complement: with one hand. After the utter sophistication of robotic control, a cripple with a head full of pain and one good hand.

The flowing fields of the chute had an insidious attraction. Perhaps even now Maran was coming to meet him.

“No,” said Rosario.

He stopped himself. “No,” he said, wrenching himself brutally away from the chute. “Not that way.” He braced himself and slowly retraced his steps. Dieter and Mack dead. Poor Poole dying foolishly. Tup—Pete—possibly the girl too.

Yet there could be no question of personal vengeance. Rosario recognized that he had been thinking at a primitive level of consciousness. Not as the commander of the ES 110. He had thought of Maran as enemy.

His training had reasserted itself at the last possible moment. It was neither his function nor his duty to attempt Maran’s capture.

A tiny flashing maintenance robot crabbed past him. He stared at the opening through which it had come. Somehow he would have to reach the lower levels. A slight disturbance of cold air helped concentrate his senses. He visualized the soaking narrow corridors, dark and chill, which were the arteries of the ES

110. Rosario groaned aloud. He was half tempted to make for the grav-chute and the direct confrontation with Maran. But he did not turn back.

Moments passed while he bound his left arm to his body to serve as a form of splint. The light webbing harness was difficult to manage, but at last he had it in place. There was no comment from any of the robots as he slid into the dark hatchway. They were still waiting for Maran to speak. Rosario wondered if he would live long enough to accomplish his mission. He groped forward. Then he began to slide past conduits, rungs, protruberances, dusty cables and the skittering intent little servo-robots about their blind tasks.