Brian Ball - Singularity Station

“No reply, sir,” reported the young lieutenant “Excuse me, Commander,” the medical officer said.

“There’s something you should know.”

Commander Lientand’s thoughts were on the man who had seized an Enforcement Service vessel—arrogant, of lightning decision, adroit, a man of infinite resource. To destroy that mind was a cruel waste. Lientand’s tired face remained grim.

“Well?”

“Rosario was conscious for a few moments, sir. He was asking about a girl.”

“Girl? I see. One of the female expellees.”

“No, sir. A passenger.”

“Passenger? On the ES 110?”

“A female ecologist, sir. With New Settlements. She would have clearance, especially if she had friends at Center. Rosario was insistent, sir. Very distressed when we couldn’t give him any assurances.”

“She wasn’t in a cylinder?”

“No, sir.” The medical officer went on: “I’m guessing at this, but I think she’s the one who gave him first aid. And then launched the two pods we picked up. Rosario in one, the other empty.”

“So she stayed behind.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lientand watched the growth of the Jansky Singularity on the vast blue-pulsing screen. “She stayed with Maran.”

“She is a Miss Elizabeth Deffant, single, sir. Rosario was rambling, but he remembered her name from the log.”

“Did he say why she remained?”

“No, sir.”

A girl, thought Lientand. It had not been easy to think of the holocaust swallowing up the ES 110 and its bizarre commander; but he could have done it and lived with his conscience afterward. Lientand could only speculate helplessly on the impulse that had made the unknown Bureau girl send Rosario away to safely while she watched the empty survival-cylinder leave without her. Perhaps she had been afraid at the last moment. Perhaps the thought of the colossal storms of hyperspace spuming the tiny pod about was too much for her. He shook his head. Another thought struck him, but he dismissed it. The New Settlements people were highly-motivated and resourceful people: could it be, however remote the possibility, that she had stayed to confront Maran?

Maran! thought Lientand savagely, Maran had not answered his orders, not so much as replied with a single word. Maran knew the value of his position. There was everything to be gained by keeping his pursuers in doubt: by blanking off all communication with the cruisers, he could keep them guessing as to his intentions. The girl’s presence was a bonus, a source of doubt and confusion.

“Sighting?” he asked.

“Nothing, sir,” said his field man. “There’s a lot of discontinuous action about the Singularity—we’ve lost his wake.”

“Can you trace him?”

“With three sets of scanners, almost certainly, sir. We can do an integrated plot—”

“Do it. Sungun ranged on first sighting,” he said to his young lieutenant. “Shoot on my order.”

“Sir! The girl—”

Lientand silenced the opposition. Bleakly he said: “I won’t take my ships into that.” He pointed to the raging fury of the Singularity. “And I won’t risk losing Maran.”

“But there is the girl, sir,” the medical officer insisted. Tight-lipped, he faced Lientand’s drawn face. “She saved Rosario.”

Lientand turned away. “She would forgive me.”

Buchanan had been asleep for more than five hours when the ES 110 registered its presence in the locality of the Jansky Singularity. There was a subdued metallic discussion and then, eventually, a decision. The couch began to heave gently. Impulses were directed through nerve-centers. Tiny alerts jangled, speaking of an emergency.

“Report,” said Buchanan, yawning in spite of the sharp tingling of nerve-ends. The deep uninterrupted sleep had restored him, but it still invested his tissues.

“This system has readings of approach of a Galactic Service vessel, sir. Designation: Enforcement Service vessel One-Hundred class.”

“A transport.”

“Yes, sir. On routine voyage to the Rim. Crew of six, accommodation for—”

“About a hundred expellees.”

“Modified for control-monitoring of not more than eighty expellees,” the robot corrected. Buchanan was not even mildly irritated. He remembered the earlier message. “Show.”

“Yes, sir.”

Scanners ranged and Buchanan saw the transport. Its warp-shift scattered wide showers of broken molecules.

“It’s the ES 110!”

“Yes, sir.”

Buchanan realized that the deep sleep had drugged his senses. He punched commands and allowed sensor-pads to slide into his palms. Information roared into his mind. He lost his sleepy, relaxed look. The craggy features became sharper, the eyes narrowed; his wiry body became taut with suppressed muscular energy.

“You let me sleep!” he exploded after a minute. “While Red Alerts go out from three cruisers—when there’s a hijacked prison-ship heading for us!”

“Your instructions, Commander, were that you be left to sleep. There are no standing orders overriding your instructions. This system did take it upon itself to awaken you when your sleep-requirement quotient was effectively satisfied.”

Buchanan snorted and then contained his useless anger. He scanned the bulky transport as ft soared around the edges of a decaying white dwarf star. Its engines pushed space and clouds of interstellar dust aside. A blast of solar wind obscured its drive: on the screen, the wake showed as an uneven tidal wave.

“What in the name of God is it doing?” Buchanan expostulated. “Don’t they know what the Singularity can do? Beam direct—warn the ship!”

“Automatic signals have been beamed for the past nineteen minutes and eight seconds, sir. There has been no acknowledgment. Damage is reported by our scanners. The ES 110 is engaged in a series of dangerous maneuvers. It is approaching the critical area of the discontinuities zone. Power readings from the ES 110 indicate an insufficient level for survival should condition of starquake begin.”

“Put me on to its commander!”

“Yes, sir.”

Buchanan felt the rush of urgency as a message came strongly through his palms. A high-powered signal on the Enforcement Service Red Alert beamers was on its way. As Buchanan waited, a laconic system reported that the Singularity was again heaving its coils in a slow, massive pattern. Then the operations screen filled with an image of the cruiser squadron’s commander. Buchanan recognized the features of Commander Lientand. He waited for the message to come winging through the unreal dimensions. A vague but profound premonition began to trouble him; he had been alone with his haunted memories, and now the busy turbulent life of the Galaxy was seeking him out. His concern had been with the dead—with the ghosts who thronged his mind; and here was Lientand and an errant transport. Buchanan bit his lip. He wanted no part of the transport’s problems. Nor Lientand’s. Yet the ES 110 was even now blasting furiously toward the Singularity.

“Commander Buchanan,” said the laconic system. “Renewed activity suggestive of starquake—”

“Wait!”

Lientand was speaking, not entirely clearly, but clearly enough to be understood: “I am Commander Lientand. My ship is an Enforcement Service cruiser. I have under my command two more cruisers. My assignment is to capture the Enforcement Service transport ES 110. It is in the hands of the criminal Maran—”

“Maran!” Buchanan could not help calling. “ Maran!” Lientand could not hear him, but he must have known the impression his words would create. “I repeat, the ES 110 is in the hands of the criminal Maran. We have located the ship and attempted to inhibit its drives, so far without success. Maran has taken the ES 110 into the vicinity of the Jansky Singularity, where his warp-shift wake may be concealed. It may be impossible for my cruisers to arrest the ship, in which case I shall destroy it. The Quadrant is now an interdicted zone. All ships receiving this message must leave the Quadrant immediately.”