Brian Ball: Singularity Station

“Liz!”

“I was just getting ready to leave, Tom.”

Tom Cappelli was one of the people she fervently wished to avoid. He was one of Buchanan’s oldest friends. And now he was here, a short, stocky balding man of fortyish who was as anxious to avoid embarrassing her as she was to feel grief again.

“So you’re thinking of going back to—” He paused. “Where again was it? Somewhere far out?”

“Messier 16.”

Tom knew the spaceways.

“Messier 16? Not till the thirtieth of the month. You pick it up a few light-years out of Center—”

“Yes. They told me at Bookings.”

“So what will you do with yourself for the next couple of weeks? Maggie and I are thinking of taking a few days out at—”

“No!” she said sharply. Maggie was Tom’s wife. Not Maggie! Not consolation for two weeks! “No thanks,” she said more calmly. “I’ll go for a short cruise. I’ve not seen half the sights here. Never had much time.”

Tom understood. “Call me if there’s anything.”

“I will,” she said, glad to be away.

He called her back when she had gone a few yards. “Liz!”

“I’d rather not—” she began.

“No, I’ve had another thought, Liz.”

She stopped, hugging the recorder and the tapes she had selected to remind her of her two expeditions for the Bureau; there was a picture, too, of the little survey-ship Al Buchanan had selected for them.

“What was it, Tom?”

“About Messier 16.”

“Yes?”

“You could leave in three days if you were prepared to pull a few strings and travel rough.” Liz felt a weight slide away from her. Three days! She could tolerate being on the same planet as Al Buchanan for three days, but after that she would be hanging around waiting for a sight of him, waiting for the moment when she would beg him to think again. “How?”

“There’s the ES 110.”

“The ES—”

Tom nodded.

“It isn’t a luxury cruise, but it’s quick. You’re still on Center leave, aren’t you?”

“Yes!”

“So you’re Galactic Center personnel. Liz, you’re entitled to travel on Center ships.”

“But the Enforcement Service!”

“So it’s a prison-ship! It’s going way, way out, to the Rim. They’ll drop you off at the Messier 16

constellation.”

Liz was silent for a while.

“You think they’ll let me go on it?”

Tom grinned. “Leave it to me. All right?”

“I think we’ve kept Buchanan waiting long enough, ladies and gentlemen,” Richtler said firmly.

“I still have reservations,” Mrs. Blankfort said. “But nothing I can put forward with any assurance.” There was a murmuring of polite deference from the other members of the Board.

“I’ve no wish to cut short a significant contribution,” Richtler told the frowning woman. “Mrs. Blankfort?” She shook her head. “He’s the man for the job. I don’t dispute it. I wondered simply whether he still hasn’t accepted the loss of the Altair Star.”

Kochan had listened to enough. “Shall we have Buchanan in now?”

“Mrs. Blankfort?” invited Richtler once again. She shook her head. “Have him in, please.” Richtler made the formal announcement: “Mr. Buchanan, you’ve convinced the Board of your suitability for the Jansky Station project. You’ll not be too surprised to hear that you were far and away the best candidate for the appointment. The Board has unanimously decided to offer you the post.”

“Thank you, sir,” Buchanan said, unsmiling in his grim relief.

“You accept, Mr. Buchanan?” Kochan asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Richtler offered his hand, a politician’s firm grip. Buchanan accepted the congratulations of the other members, achieving a half-smile to show that he appreciated their warmth. Inside, he could feel the sick excitement that always took him when he thought of the great well in space-time he had been hired to investigate. What lay at the core of the enigma that was called the Jansky Singularity?

Mrs. Blankfort offered a veined, tiny hand. He shook it gently. To his surprise, she said in a low voice that the others could not hear:

“Mr. Buchanan, you can’t hate a robot.”

He could find nothing to say in answer. Did she know after all? Or was it some psychologist’s trick, pretending to knowledge she only guessed at? He looked into her shrewd blue eyes and saw only a kind of contained pity. Then the others began to move away, taking her with them, and Buchanan was left alone.

Liz Deffant spent two unspeakably lonely days in the company of a dozen other tourists who, like her, had chosen to take the Foundation Age tour. One newly-married young couple recognized her misery and tried to include her in their happiness; she rejected them with a chill hostility of which she had not thought herself capable. An unattached, pleasant middle-aged man might have tried to develop a relationship with her, but he saw the fury in her brown eyes and philosophically concentrated on the ruins and relics of the early days of Galactic exploration.

Wandering among the wreckage of a military installation from the days of the Mad Wars of the Third Millennium, Liz overheard two women tourists talking about her.

“The rumor is that she picked up with some cashiered deep-space officer who’s going out on some crazy voyage. She’ll be better without him.” Her companion, like her a plump self-satisfied woman, agreed:

“She looks capable enough. She’ll survive. Much better without that sort of character.” Later, Liz inspected an egomaniac’s palace, a structure of delicate tracery and haunting shadows. The walls were translucent, made of some hard material that encased strange globules of light. Buchanan would have been able to tell her from what far star the stones had come. She felt sick at heart and left the party a day early. They were relieved to see her go. A robot guide warned her that she could not be credited with the unused portion of her tour.

When she returned to the Bookings hall, the automaton waved cheerily to her.

“Hi, Miss Deffant! You got back early from the trip! How’d you like the Dictator’s palace?”

“It was mar—”

It knew about her trip. Everything. The machines knew everything about everybody.

“Isn’t it something! His regime lasted near a hundred and eighty years—kept himself alive that long with parts-replacement!” the robot said, tapping a near-perfect fingernail on the plastic counter. Liz shrugged. What did it matter? Soon she would be back on Messier 16 where, thank God, the machines weren’t allowed to know everything. “You may have a transport order for me,” she said. The robot’s smile went. It sensed her hostility. “A rush order, Miss Deffant. It’s unusual, but the necessary permits have been given. You’re with New Settlements until—?” it asked.

“You know when.”

“Of course, of course, Miss Deffant,” the robot said defensively. “No problem there. There’s a disclaimer I have to ask you to read and sign.”

“All right.”

“Here, miss.”

She took the slip of paper. It was brief. While taking all usual precautions the Enforcement Service absolved itself from responsibility for the safety and well-being of personnel not of the Service taking advantage of transport facilities. Liz signed. “When?” she asked.

“When does the shuttle connecting with the ES 110 leave?” the robot said.

“Yes.”

“In forty hours, three minutes, twelve seconds, Miss Deffant.” Struck by a sudden thought, Liz turned.

“The ship—will it be carrying expellees?”

The robot smiled blandly.

“I’m afraid that’s confidential information, Miss Deffant. You should inquire at the Central Enforcement Office.”