Brian Ball - Singularity Station

“There are also the inhibitors who cannot yet see that what we have done in this Galaxy is only a beginning. They cannot yet see that the Galaxy is only the microcosm. And it is these malignant creatures—the men of no vision—who have decreed that Maran must live like an ape on a rock! They would send this brain, this mind, this soul, to the Rim of the Galaxy in company with a cargo of poor lost psychopaths, and condemn it to extinction.” He paused, and Liz could feel with him the sense of time passing, of visions swimming into the void unrealized, the waste, the venomous opposition of the small-minded, the soaring fantasy of his mind. “In the long-term, it is the great, creative minds that win, Miss Deffant. Always, there is more vitality in creation than in the negation of the human spirit. But in the short-term, it is the inhibitors who win. They have the authority to suppress the individual genius of a particular man. They can delay the passage of the human spirit for a measurable time—for a life-span, perhaps more. And, certainly, they can deny a Maran. They can send Maran to a bleak planet where the predators and the harsh climate make bare existence a heavy and unending battle. But Maran would begin now, Miss Deffant! Maran would change the whole direction of the human race! Maran knows where the search begins to unleash the infinitely gigantic genius of the human race! Maran can unlock the deepest wells of the human spirit!” And once more Liz Deffant saw the uncanny effects on Maran of the repetition of his name. Maran. The word boomed out in his rolling bass voice with the effect of a drumbeat. When he spoke of himself, his eyes lost their cloudiness. They shone clear, like beacons. His face lost its flat planes and swelled like a great orb. His body cowered in the gloom of the shredding vessel, and among the robots which were his acolytes, he looked like a deity. “Maran can show you as well, Miss Deffant, that the power of the human spirit can surmount even the boundaries of time!”

She did not know what he meant, and cared less. He no longer frightened her. His presence inspired her with a feeling of religious awe, and she believed that he was what he said, a man of a unique mold, one who could wrench the veils from the ultimate mysteries and discover the secret of man’s enigmatic rise from the beast.

“The station, Miss Deffant?”

“It’s a new, experimental device,” she answered. “Crewed by one man. Designed for observation of the Singularity. It has the capability to withstand all recorded emissions. It can operate at will within the peripheries of the Singularity, or so its engineers claim.”

“Buchanan?”

“My fiancée. My former fiancée.”

Maran nodded, ponderous head bending in sympathy. “He has a regard for you.”

“I believe so.”

“And you for him?”

“Does it matter?”

“It might, Miss Deffant.”

“Yes.”

“A strange meeting.”

Liz felt hollow. Too many emotions had raged within her. She needed rest. Deep oblivion. She had seen two men whose every thought had centered on a single, obsessive vision. First Buchanan, now Maran. They had bled her of energy. She was as passive as the dead leaves she and Buchanan had once kicked away as they ran through an autumn wood when the sun flickered through branches full of yellow and gold.

“Miss Deffant, I have the feeling that we were preordained to meet. You and I. Buchanan and yourself. Buchanan and I. I shall try to make the meeting possible.”

He redoubled his efforts at the console. All about the ship, failing robots answered his summons. Low-grade servitors finished the task of building a make-shift raft. Higher-grade systems shored up failing screens with the remnants of their power-sources. The entire vessel willingly gave up its last resource to insure that the god of the machines received his due. And, at last, there was reciprocal contact with the Jansky Singularity Station.

Liz heard a flat metallic voice announce the presence of the station and the man she had loved: “Jansky Singularity Station closing. Two scanners have visual contact.”

“Near,” said Maran.

“Engines operating at four percent efficiency. No reserve. Estimated drive capability at minimum levels, seven minutes at this utilization rate.”

“Seven minutes,” said Maran. “I hope your Buchanan is a man of resource.” Liz realized that she was too tired, too shocked, too used, to answer. She had no response to offer, none at all.

“This ship is in an immeasurable gravitational and electromagnetic conjunction of forces,” said the robotic controller. “Increasing in complexity and magnitude. Source is the Jansky Singularity.”

“This system can maintain a vocal contact with Commander Buchanan at the Jansky experimental station,” announced another robot system.

Liz tensed.

“Let me speak to him,” said Maran.

And Buchanan’s craggy features began to filter through the appalling vortices. Liz Deffant saw the man who had gone to search out the ghosts of the Altair Star.

Buchanan followed the twisting course of the ES 110 as the coils of starquake held it. The Singularity’s motions were those of a rapacious predator; it would not give up its prey now. The ES 110 was to be ingested.

“Commander Buchanan, I have direct contact with an officer called Maran, but I should warn you, sir, that my colleague aboard the ES 110 has information that this officer is also an expellee. In addition—”

“Direct—get me Maran!”

And Buchanan glimpsed the shadowy outline of a broad, heavy-featured face with straining eyes, a familiar face: Maran. But Buchanan was peering around the shadowy image of the man; he tried to make out the figures that moved like ponderous wraiths behind him. Machines! No sign of the slim shape of the woman who had almost exorcised the demons that rode his spirit. Where was Liz?

Maran was speaking. Across the broken dimensions, the words came haltingly: “…life-raft with all possible power-units… any way of using your screens…” And though much was lost, Buchanan knew that Maran was appealing for assistance. “…a woman passenger named Elizabeth Deffant, Buchanan!” Buchanan heard, almost clearly. What was Maran saying?

That Liz was safe? Or that she had already succumbed to the smashing fury of starquake?

For Buchanan there was an eternity of agonized waiting as the station’s scanners lost contact with the decaying prison-ship. Momentarily, the robots picked it up again. End over end the great infragalactic ship tumbled, strewing wreckage in a shower of nameless fragments. And then the sensor-pads informed Buchanan that he could again speak to Maran.

“The Singularity’s throwing out starquake. Maran, I’ll try to get near. Get into the life-raft and lay the bridge open—keep to the ship as long as it has some powerl If you and the woman get into the raft, I’ll try to lock it into my screens. I say again, hold to the ship for as long as you can! It will give the life-raft some protection! And get the woman into the life-raft! Use deep-space armor—all you can carry!”

The three huge engines of the station screamed as the massive drive built to a crescendo. Incomprehensible energies sprang outward as starquake raged. The cruisers ran from the menace of the serpentine coils, seeking calmer dimensions. Buchanan called again to the lost ship, but there was no answer. Liz! he called silently.

“Maran, Maran!” he called. “No contact! Get the woman Deffant into a life-raft!”

“Beam from the ES 110,” cut in the calm voice of the Grade One robot. “Commander, the expellee who seems also to be an Enforcement Service officer has impressed my colleague aboard the ES 110 with the urgency of the situation. He has a proposal which, I am bound to say—”