Brian Ball - Singularity Station

Buchanan gloated in the latent power of those three great pods. Strange configurations existed within the Singularity. Ordinary ships would be swamped by one blind spasm. The station was built to withstand the unknown.

Would it?

When the ship was riding more easily, Buchanan pushed aside the clinging limpet-like tendrils that held him. He stood up and shook his head. Black light flashed before his eyes, but the worst was over.

“Give me an estimate of the duration of the voyage,” he ordered the robot controller.

“We’re holding onto a subgalactic surge,” said the robotic controller. “It’s a large wave, sir. Present estimates put the ship’s arrival at the Singularity in seventeen hours, sir. That is, of course, approximately. It could be a little less.”

“It could?” Buchanan said, without interest. At one time he would have checked the projections for the weird path among the starways of the continuums. It would have pleased him to see what interstellar gales they could have ridden among, what freak quakings of expiring supernovas they could have caught onto to add impetus to the great surge of the engines. Not now. Let the robots do the easy work. The routine duties.

“What’s happening at the Singularity?”

“No measurable changes since the last batch of reports, sir. It maintains a regular rotating shape, giving the readings of a gaseous fluid bound by its own gravitational attraction. No profound seismological disturbances of the kind associated with starquake, sir.”

It was reassuring. No sign yet of the monstrous Singularity ripping space apart. No starquake. The thing within the Singularity could set up a time-space event that shattered the continuums around it with a colossal flurry of unknown forces. And if a ship should chance to be nearby, then that ship was lost. But now the Singularity was quiescent.

At the moment it was a bland, eerie, alien beast: an event in the Galaxy like no other. An inexplicable thing, unguessable, atone, singular, as the old-time physicists had it, a Singularity! At present, inactive.

“A drink,” said Buchanan.

“Yes, sir.”

Ice tinkled in the glass. Buchanan followed the single drink with a request for a modest meal. “I’ll eat,” he said.

It was forthcoming within two minutes.

Buchanan looked at the well-done steak and the salad. Then at the glass of wine, deep-red, full-bodied, delicious. He smiled. An endless recycling. All of it back through his own system into the tanks, then out to the culture-frames, then to the preparation-units; and so onto a silver tray brought by a deferential servitor. There was an excellent catering service. The Board had gone to some trouble to provide for his particular tastes. He laughed.

This meal could be the last of its kind.

He savored it, just as he savored the memory of the girl with the golden-brown eyes who had reached in pity to wipe the deep lines from his forehead. It had been such a near thing too. He had almost returned to a normal life, almost cast off the load of guilt and grief that rode him like some great foul wen. Another man, much older, took over the bridge when Rosario said it was time to eat. He was introduced as Poole. Liz had the feeling he resented her presence aboard the ES 110. She understood, she thought. Few women would serve on such ships. It was one area of public service which was almost entirely a male preserve.

The crew she met at dinner were equally impressed by Liz Deffant. Two were Security men, another, like Jack Rosario, a crewman. They were introduced one by one.

Liz remembered their names carefully. The Security men were large and alike in physical appearance: tough, hard-looking men in their thirties. There was a Dieter and a Mack. Rosario explained that a third was on duty. He ate later. A young fair-haired man who followed Liz’s every movement with an unbelieving wide-eyed stare was called Tup.

The conversation was general, mostly questions about Liz’s experiences with the New Settlements Bureau. She told them about the last project she had worked on, the experiments with Terran-type plant-life on a fairly hostile planet in the Ophiuchi Complex. It had absorbed her, and the men recognized that she spoke with knowledge and enthusiasm. They had enough technical knowledge to grasp the central problem—the planet had an aberrant gravitational core, so plants didn’t grow with the same kind of cell-structure as on Terran-type worlds; rejigging the planet’s heavy metal core was possible, but that involved the possibility of disturbing several other ecological features. The Bureau regarded major reconstruction as a last resort.

She explained how they had been baffled until someone came up with the idea of making a slight molecular realignment of new root formation to give the newly-introduced plants a firmer base; and that had done the trick. When she finished she realized that she had not thought of Buchanan for an hour. It seemed like a betrayal She could not be glad about it She was silent for minutes. Rosario worried, Liz could see. He stared at her when he thought she was not watching him, and he frowned when the meal was over. The others left, except for Tup. Liz was aware that they sensed her misery.

“Does it worry you—the fact that we are a transport for expellees?” asked Rosario.

“No,” said Liz. It did, though. Subtly, there was a sense of tired and defeated evil aboard the Enforcement Service vessel.

“Would you like to see the cells?” said Tup eagerly.

“You could,” agreed Rosario. They were both making a strong effort to please her; but Liz had no special desire to see the condemned men and women.

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re not against the idea of transporting the expellees out to the Rim, are you, Liz?” asked Rosario.

“Is that what’s troubling you?”

“I don’t think so,” said Liz, hesitantly. “But don’t worry about me. I’m sorry if I seem to be out of sorts—please don’t worry about me.”

Rosario grinned.

“All right. Now I have to go to the bridge. It’s Poole’s turn to eat.” To Tup he said, “If you can get Miss Deffant to change her mind, show her around the ship.”

The youth could hardly believe his luck. “Me, Jack—sir?”

“She’s with Galactic,” said Rosario. “No restrictions.” As he was walking across to the grav-chute, Tup said, “Miss Deffant could have a look at Maran.”

“Maran!” Liz was shocked into the exclamation.

Rosario stopped. He saw Liz’s distress, yet his face was hard.

It could have been the wild and bitter days of the Mad Wars all over again. Maran was the greatest cyberneticist of all time. The human mind: that was his workshop. Maran’s obsession was the inner depths. Liz shivered. She knew something of obsessions. In a small way, Buchanan was an example of what utter obsessiveness could do. Maran was the far extreme.

“When I think what he did—” she began.

“And what he hoped to do,” Rosario said.

“Come and see him,” said Tup, who looked from Liz to the ES 110’s commander. “You’ll never get the chance again.”

“No,” said Rosario. “No one will. Except those at the Rim.” She knew what he meant. A humane Galaxy had reverted to the oldest law of all. Those who could not live by a community’s code of ethics must leave. When there was no possibility of redemption, when a man or woman put himself or herself beyond any hope of forgiveness, the verdict was inevitable. To do more was barbarous. To do less was to imperil the community.

The aberrant were cast out.

“There’s nothing to be alarmed about, Miss Deffant,” said Tup. He was, perhaps, enjoying her discomfiture. “Maran’s unconscious. They all are. Coming, Miss Deffant?” Maran aboard the ship. Liz did not answer for some seconds. She was still absorbing the idea that he was somewhere in the cavernous depths of the prison-ship.