The Black Hole Read online

  "I'll be sorry to see this mission end. It's tough to go home after so long and say the principal reason for making the trip in the first place came up unresolved."

  "You give up too easily. I don't. We'll still have a few systems to study while curving home. And the Palomino sweep is only one expedition. There'll be others. And I'll charm the powers-that-be into assigning you and Vincent to any team I can get organized."

  "The powers-that-be will have other plans for Vincent."

  "Like what?"

  "Like taking him apart to study the effects of the voyage on him. He's likely to be outmoded by new models by the time we return. They'll likely take him and—"

  "They won't do anything of the sort to Vincent. I won't let them. He's entitled to remain inta—to remain himself, after all he's done for this mission. He's a lot more than a mere machine, to be picked apart at some cyberneticist's whim."

  Holland tried to hide his amusement. "That's not a very scientific outlook, Dr. McCrae. What would you do to prevent such a thing?"

  She looked suddenly uncertain. "I . . . I don't know. But I'd do something. Whatever was necessary. Adopt him, maybe."

  "Be an expensive adoption. Vincent doesn't run on bottle formulas and ground-up fruits and vegetables. Fuel-cell pablum's a lot more expensive than the organic variety."

  "Maybe so. But I wouldn't let them take him apart, any more than I'd let them take apart any other close friend."

  "There's just one hitch to your idea. Vincent and I've been together a long time. Several missions prior to the Palomino. We're a package deal. That goes for any kind of future mission."

  She cocked her head to one side. "Aren't you a bit long in the tooth for adoption?"

  "That wasn't quite the kind of relationship I had in mind. How Vincent views it is his business." Holland turned from the controls and embraced her, his arms tightening against her back as he pulled her close to him.

  The kiss was interrupted by a voice issuing from the monitoring console's communications grid. "I regret the interruption, Captain, but there is something I think you should see. I've put it on the central viewer."

  A little breathless, they separated. McCrae brushed at the hair that had fallen over one eye. "If you've been together so long and have become so inseparable," she murmured softly, "maybe you could do something about that blasted machine's lousy timing."

  "I'll make it a point to mention it to him," Holland assured her. His smile turned serious. "Vincent wouldn't break in while I was . . . working, unless it was something genuinely important. We'd better go see what he wants."

  Pizer, closest to the command center, reached it first. Vincent hovered there, blocking out most of the main screen. Wondering what might have prompted the robot to issue the general call, the first officer continued chewing reconstituted turkey as he strolled forward.

  "What's up, Vincent? Hey, you know, this stuff ain't half bad. Either that or I've been living off it for too long." When the machine failed to respond with an appropriately sarcastic comment, Pizer dropped his cockiness and moved to look at the screen.

  "Something serious?"

  "Seriously interesting, seriously fascinating; not seriously dangerous, Mr. Pizer. Not at this distance." Vincent moved to one side, allowing the first officer a clear view of the two screens.

  What Pizer saw caused him to swallow the last mouthful of turkey in a rush. One screen displayed stars and other stellar phenomena, not according to their output of visible light, but in gravity-wave schematics.

  In the upper right center of the screen was a dark oval shape surrounded by increasingly tightly bunched lines, like the contour lines on a topographic map. However, instead of designating altitude, these lines represented increasingly powerful regions of gravitational force, the "depth" of a gravity well of immense proportions.

  Vincent enlarged the upper right quadrant of the screen, the one containing the dark oval. Instead of moving farther apart as the scale was expanded, as did the lines surrounding nearby stars, those around the dark blotch remained as dense as before. Pizer knew the magnification could be increased a hundred times without any white space ever appearing between the lines immediately encircling the central oval. A secondary screen offered a visual representation of the phenomenon, but it was the g-wave scheme that absorbed Pizer's attention.

  The intensity of the gravitational force at the center of the dark ellipse shape could be measured, if not designated, by the lines on the screen. A G2 star floated close by in space, its substance gradually being drawn off by the center of powerful attraction. By measuring the speed and amount of material being drawn from the star's outer layers, the Palomino's computers could estimate the strength of the invisible point in space.

  They had already performed the requisite calculations. The resultant figures were displayed below the g-wave screen. Pizer noted them, let out a low whistle.

  "Yes, sir. That is the most powerful black hole I have ever encountered," said Vincent with appropriate solemnity. "My banks hold no memory of anything stronger. Preliminary scanner results support that assumption."

  "Give me a rough translation of those figures into something someone like Harry could grasp, Vincent. He'll be wanting them for his report anyway."

  The robot considered his reply for a moment. "Assuming a plus or minus ten-percent factor in the wave measurements, Mr. Pizer, and a standard composition for the nearby star, I would estimate this black hole contains the remains of anywhere from forty to a hundred stellar masses."

  "That's about what I guessed." Pizer was nodding slowly in agreement. "Big mother, ain't it?"

  "Only relatively, sir. No pun intended. One stellar mass or a hundred, it's still only a point in space."

  "A good point to stay away from. Let's have a look at it on the holographier."

  The lights in the cockpit softened. A three-dimensional image formed over a projector. Pizer studied it quietly for a while, then thought to speak into a nearby com pickup. "Hey, Dr. Durant, Harry . . . you getting this?"

  Durant's voice replied immediately. "Yes . . . magnificent, isn't it?" He stood on one side of the lab projector, staring at the view suspended in front of him. "Don't you think so too, Harry?"

  Booth, wide-eyed, was leaning almost into the projection. "Right out of Dante's Inferno, if you ask me. Maybe you think Hell's beautiful. I don't."

  Durant made an exasperated sound, returned his attention to the projection. In addition to the material being drawn from the surface of the nearby, doomed sun, various extrasolar material in the form of asteroids, meteoric bodies and nebulaic gas was also being sucked into the pit. As it vanished, crushed out of normal existence by the enormous, incomprehensible gravity, the material signaled its passing by emitting tremendous bursts of X-rays and gamma rays.

  This radiation in turn excited the vast flow of gas pouring into the gravity well to fluorescence, generating a stunning display of visible light in many hues, predominantly reds. It was this magnificent display, and not the far more intense lower-spectrum emissions, the holographier projector was now revealing to their enthralled sight.

  "You have no soul, Harry."

  The journalist wasn't insulted. "Occupational hazard, Alex. Don't let me put a damper on your party. Enjoy the view." He heard a sound and turned, saw McCrae entering the lab and, in the corridor, another shape just disappearing.

  "Dan going forward?"

  She nodded. "You know Dan. He's comfortable in the cockpit and back in power central. Any place on the ship in between and he feels like a free electron hopelessly trying to regain a lost level."

  Her attention went immediately to the projection and she became quiet.

  "The most destructive force in the Universe, Harry," Durant was saying. "Your hellish analogy is apt, if unflattering to it."

  "I've had several colleagues insist that black holes will eventually devour the entire Universe." McCrae was moving her head, examining the projection from different angles. "They sa
y that stars, nebulae, people—everything—will eventually end up down a single massive black hole."

  "When you see giant suns sucked in, to disappear without a trace, it makes you wonder." Durant considered. "Though I've heard some support the theory that beyond a certain point a black hole begins to heat to the point of explosion. Maybe that's how the Universe runs, in cycles. From one massive black hole that's swallowed everything. It erupts, the primordial Big Bang, to form new stars and nebulae and worlds, which then are swallowed up again to form another massive black hole, which explodes in its turn, starting the whole creation-collapse cycle all over again."

  "You talking about reversing entropy, Alex?"

  "I'm just saying that if we've learned anything about the cosmos, Kate, it's that the only thing that's impossible is for something to be held unequivocally impossible." He spoke into the nearby com grid. "Give us some magnification, Vincent. Just visual, for now."

  On command, the robot obediently expanded the imaging of the black hole, its attendant vanishing star, and the glowing region of spatial debris tunneling into the abyss. Holland had reached the bridge, joined Pizer in staring at the images on the screens.

  "Booth's right," the first officer said, acknowledging the captain's presence. "Every time I see one of those things, I expect to spot a guy in red with horns and barbed tail, wielding a pitchfork."

  Holland was now reading the numerical interpretations of the visual magnificence displayed by the screens. "We've found stranger things. Who knows? This one's a monster, all right."

  "It possesses a certain morbid attraction, sir," Vincent struggled to admit. "Believe it or not, I have picked up something of still greater interest."

  The robot adjusted controls. The view of the collapsar leaped out at them, the imager focusing on a small mass far to the left of the most intense gravity. The object was on the opposite side of the spiral of decaying matter from the companion star, relatively close to the Palomino.

  "Asteroid?" Pizer wondered aloud. "Nothing remarkable about that, Vincent. There are hundreds of similar objects being sucked in by that thing."

  "I think not, sir. Or if it is an asteroid or other subplanetary body, it is a most remarkable one. I've been monitoring it since I first detected evidence of the main gravity well. The thing hasn't moved—not relative to the hole itself or to the nearby sun. I think it safe to say it is not part of this local system. Its stability therefore seems to indicate that it is some kind of independent artifact. In addition to its stability in a zone of intense gravitational disturbance, it possesses a remarkably regular silhouette."

  "A ship?"

  "That is what comes to mind, sir," he told Holland.

  The captain spoke hurriedly into the pickup. "Lab, did you get that last information back there? Do you copy, Alex?"

  "We copy, Dan." Durant's voice reflected Holland's own amazement. "I copy, but I don't believe it."

  "Neither do I . . . yet." He turned his attention back to the screens. "We're near enough to close-image something that size. A ship of those apparent dimensions hasn't been built in years."

  "Assuming it's of human origin, sir," Pizer pointed out.

  "Yes, assuming that." Holland glanced over at the robot. "Enlarge again, Vincent, and let's try to identify it." His heart was beating a little faster.

  "Yes, sir." One metal extension reached out from the mechanical's compact body to plug into a receptacle alongside the screen instrumentation.

  Back in the lab, Durant and McCrae waited for Vincent's actions to produce results. Both were dazed by the apparent discovery. Booth was, for once, beyond words. He stared blankly at the projection.

  "How could anybody be out here ahead of us?" Durant mumbled.

  "You heard Charlie."

  "What about aliens?"

  Durant replied more harshly than he had intended, his tone sharpened by months of disappointment. "Aliens are a myth for story-mongers to toy and tease us with. They're fiction. This trip has been proof enough of that."

  "But it's only been one trip, Alex," said McCrae. "It's too early in our history for us to make blanket statements about life in our galaxy. Too early." She stopped and they both stared at the projection.

  On another screen forward, a series of ship silhouettes had begun to appear, overlaid against the distant outline of the mystery object.

  "Liberty seven." Vincent made his announcements in his most businesslike tone. "No mass correlation. No shape correlation." A second silhouette appeared over the mysterious craft. "Experimental deep-space station, series five. Reported lost. No mass correlation, no shape correlation." Another. "Sahara Module fifty-three." Still another. "Pluto four. No mass correlation, no shape correlation."

  Even the most consummate professional can be stirred to excitement. When the next overlay appeared, McCrae was unable to restrain herself. She had more reason than any of them to wish for correlation this time.

  "Deep-Space Probe One," intoned Vincent methodically, still unwilling to commit himself. "Mass correlates, save for minor discrepancies likely due to considerable expenditure of propellants. Shape also matches. Insofar as distance permits, all other details conform."

  With a last, unspoken sigh for the once-again fading image of intelligent alien life, Durant said formally into the pickup, "That's good enough for now, Vincent. We'll accept the likelihood of this being an accurate identification until closer inspection proves otherwise. Program the ship's history and enter it into the tape."

  "Searching records, sir."

  "That won't be necessary." McCrae kept her voice level, though she was boiling inside at the possibility this identification had raised. "You know the background of the Cygnus as well as any of us, Alex."

  He looked uncomfortable, didn't meet her stare. "It's a formality, Kate For the ship's records. We have to enter everything. You know that."

  "I suppose."

  Vincent's voice brought her private agony into the open, where everyone had to consider it despite the so far mutual attempt not to. Vincent was sensitive for a machine, but he was not human.

  "Dr. Kate, was that not the ship your father was serving on?"

  "The Cygnus" she repeated, as mechanically as Vincent might in his less colloquial moments. "Mission: to survey for potentially habitable worlds and to search for non-terrestrial, extrasolar life. Essentially the same as ours, only on a far more wide-ranging, extensive scale."

  "You mean, expensive scale," said Booth undiplomatically.

  No one responded to that sally. Over the intercom they could hear Holland, Pizer and the robot working.

  "Signal the ship, Vincent," Holland was saving "Try standard communications frequencies first. If they don't respond to any of them, switch to emergency, then military, and then random codes."

  "What about visual display, sir? We may be near enough."

  "If they happen to have a scope pointing in our direction. No, stick with the audio for now. We'll try something more complicated if and when everything else fails."

  "As you say, sir."

  "Activate our long-range sensors, Charlie," the captain said to his first officer. "They may be generating all kinds of non-communicative emissions if their regular broadcast units are disabled."

  "Yes, sir. But it'll be hell trying to pick out anything coherent against that background."

  "Do the best you can. I've seen you make an electron-flow sensor squint."

  No one back in the lab smiled. Both Durant and Booth were watching McCrae, for different reasons. Booth's instincts were heightened by a possible story.

  Durant wondered if the journalist had deliberately tried to provoke her with his criticism of her father's ship. He decided Booth wasn't that subtle. He had only been expressing a widely held opinion about the Cygnus and its astronomical cost. Objectively, one had to admit that the Palomino was performing the same tasks for far less money. The question in Durant's mind was, were they performing them as efficiently? To any space scientist the Cygn
us was a dream fulfilled. It was difficult to talk about cost effectiveness in relation to something as awesome as the Cygnus. Perhaps now there was a chance to find out who had been right—the men who had built her, or the ones who had paid for her.

  "Space Probe and survey ship Cygnus," McCrae was murmuring. "Recalled to Earth twenty years ago, its mission considered an expensive failure." She glanced sharply at Booth. He studied the fingers of his right hand.

  "How that must have galled Hans Reinhardt," the reporter said. "If I remember rightly, he didn't take kindly to criticism. I can imagine how he must've reacted to the recall of his ship and the cancellation of her mission."

  The name from the past Booth had just mentioned was as magical to Durant as that of the Cygnus, and was more accessible. He instantly forgot all about the reporter's possible provoking of his colleague.

  "Did you actually meet Commander Reinhardt, Harry? I mean, in person. I've heard about him all my life, read his research, studied his theories."

  " 'Collided with him' would be a more accurate description, Alex. You can say one thing about him: he was a scientific genius. Better-qualified folks than I said just that—Reinhardt foremost among them." He grinned.

  "Reinhardt was a legend even before he took over supervision of the Cygnus project." Durant tried not to sound as defensive as he felt. He knew he was defending a disgraced man. "A legend."

  "So he believed. Personally, I think he was overwhelmed by the image he had created of himself. You see that sort of thing a lot in my profession. I can't pretend to judge his scientific accomplishments. Only to rate him as a human being. There are all kinds of arrogance, Alex. I don't think Reinhardt considered himself arrogant, but he came off that way to a lot of people who were around him.

  "I'll give him this," Booth conceded. "He could manipulate people as well as advanced physical theory. Reinhardt had the knack of making his personal ambitions seem a matter of enormous pride. 'Mankind must conquer the stars,' and all that. Talked the International Space Appropriations Committee into funding the costliest debacle of all time. He was certainly the Barnum of interstellar exploration.