Shivering dangerously, the command tower remained intact. More and more instrumentation winked out. The consoles themselves threatened to tear free of their wall mountings. Oblivious to the danger, humanoid robots continued to perform their designated tasks.
Reinhardt had come to a painful but irrevocable decision. "Maximillian, prepare the probe ship. She's not going to hold under this kind of stress, not on half power." The massive mechanical turned obediently, moved toward the elevator.
Reinhardt paused a moment before following. Slowly he turned to take a last look at the heart of what had become his private empire of discovery and exploration. Twenty years of his life he had spent lobbying for the construction of the Cygnus, another twenty to bring it to this point in space. He would go on, but without it. He would not be cheated of his triumph. His entry into the new Universe would only be a little less grand.
Turning, he moved to follow Maximillian. A violent ripping noise made him look up. The overhead screen had torn loose from its braces.
He had run two steps before something drove a knife into his legs. The screen struck with a resounding crash, pinning him to the deck close by the transparent wall of the tower. A brief, exhausting struggle proved he was hopelessly pinioned beneath the edge of the heavy viewer.
"Maximillian, help me!" Another piece of instrumentation fell from above, shattered on the deck nearby. "Maximillian!" Reinhardt twisted his upper body, looked for his servant.
The elevator door was closed. Maximillian had already departed.
He turned his eyes to the rows of busy humanoids. "You, there! Help me. I said, help me"
Programmed only to serve their assigned stations, they ignored him even as those very stations broke down around them. A panicky Reinhardt turned away, found himself staring out the port. Though leaning dangerously, the probe ship still rested in its dock.
Reinhardt began to lose his monumental self-control. "Fools! Listen to me. Somebody listen, or well all perish!" There was no response from the humanoids. He had reprogrammed them too well.
Turning his attention back to the screen, he tried again to push himself free. Occasionally his gaze would travel to the still functioning main screen, to the view of the expanding blackness that would soon swallow the Cygnus.
Somehow Holland put aside consideration of the agony in his injured leg and kept pace with the others as they raced down the corridor.
As the ship fell still deeper into the gravity well, it started to break up. The corridor trembled around the gasping group of refugees. The view through a wall port provided a boost no amount of rest could have equaled. They were nearing the probe dock.
"This way!" shouted Holland. They turned a last bend and found themselves standing outside the lock leading to the connecting umbilical. But when Holland jabbed the stud to open the door, it remained unmoving.
A red warning light came on instead as a nearby readout provided the explanation.
Holland looked around grimly. "Connector's been severed." They started searching.
McCrae found the hoped-for locker. A dozen suits were neatly arranged inside. They chose three with full tanks, helped each other dress as minutes ticked past. A brief check insured that each suit was tight, that its internal oxygen system was functioning and that the communicators were operative.
Holland waved the others clear. Pizer and McCrae moved down the corridor, the two robots the other way.
"Ready?"
Everyone acknowledged by grabbing tight to a secured section of wall or railing. Wrapping one arm around a protruding tube, Holland leaned over and touched the three emergency studs in proper sequence. The explosive bolts blew the lock cover out into space. A brief but intense rush of air pulled hard at everyone. It faded as distant emergency doors shut tight, sealing them off from the rest of the ship.
"Well, old-timer," Vincent was saying to Bob as they turned to head for the exit, "you're going home after all . . . and as a hero, too."
"Had to uphold the honor of the old outfit, Vincent."
McCrae, standing by the exit, noticed something moving at the far end of the passageway. "Vincent, Bob—look out!"
Maximillian had appeared immediately behind the two machines. Bob reacted first, thus catching the full force of the large mechanical's lasers. Circuitry flared as he was thrown backward, bounced off a wall and fell to the floor. Maximillian shifted to turn his weapons on Vincent and the others.
The delay had given Vincent enough time to turn and fire himself. Both precisely aligned shots melted the pistols in Maximillian's hands.
"Get to the ship!" he instructed his human companions. "I'll handle this."
Maximillian had not been rendered harmless, however. Two additional arms came up, tipped with whirling blades suitable for trimming metal. They were designed to repair. They could as easily dismember.
Vincent hovered in his path, fired again. But the material of the larger robot's shell was considerably tougher than the thin alloy of the two obliterated lasers. Vincent fired again. The bursts had no effect on the oncoming Maximillian.
"Hurry, Captain." Vincent backed away from the larger mechanical.
The three humans exited through the blown hatch. Maximillian hesitated, then turned his full attention to the darting, distracting Vincent. He rushed up at him. The smaller machine dodged, fired again, seeking a weak place in the armored monolith and not finding one. Vincent dipped down to fire from closer range, ducked as the high-speed blades cut over his head.
Maximillian shifted again, trying to corner his opponent against a wall. Vincent ducked and bobbed, firing. The edge of one blade snicked against his shell, sent him tumbling off-balance into the wall. The impact appeared to have damaged his internal gyro-balance system more than the blade had his exterior, and he fluttered in one place, experiencing the robotic equivalent of dizziness. Maximillian advanced on him.
Outside the ship now, the three suited figures struggled to make their way toward the probe, pulling themselves through the twisted ruin of the Cygnus's external superstructure.
Maximillian was on top of Vincent. The smaller robot spun, fired several rapid bursts and just escaped through the small hole he had made in the hull before those whizzing blades could cut through his back.
Devoid of lasers and Reinhardt's restraint, Maximillian used the incredibly tough blades to open the gap wider. He pursued Vincent out into space.
There was more room to maneuver outside, but the torn surroundings were less predictable. Maximillian rushed forward. Vincent dodged, but backed into a curled length of metal. There was no cry of triumph as his opponent became trapped, but Maximillian pulsed a slightly deeper crimson as he moved forward and embraced Vincent in a hug capable of distorting the strongest metal alloys.
A small door opened in Vincent's lower body. The larger machine did not immediately notice the tiny but efficient cutter that emerged. It pierced the huge mechanical's midsection, played havoc with delicate internal circuitry.
Tiny flares of fire spat from the hole as Maximillian loosened his grasp and spun away. His hover controls had been severed. Unable to guide himself, he tumbled away from the Cygnus, caught in the intensifying tug of the black hole.
Vincent spared the rapidly shrinking shape only a momentary glance before jetting back into the ship. Old Bob was still lying where he had struck the deck. Most of his lights were out.
"Maximillian's finished," Vincent reported to him.
"You did well." The reply from the metal form was faint.
"Thanks to you, my friend. I'll get you aboard now." He drifted over the quiescent machine, prepared to extend service arms to encompass the barrel-shaped body.
"No." The word was barely understandable. "I won't be going with you."
Vincent hesitated. Desire battled realization inside him. He could not avoid analyzing the damage Maximillian's lasers had done. One blast had melted the majority of Bob's logic and cognition modules. He had very little mind left. What had b
een destroyed could be replaced, but the B.O.B. unit would have a new personality, a new self. He would not be what he was now.
Humans talked a lot about an intangible they called the soul. In all the lengthy catalog of several thousand replacement parts for a B.O.B. or a V.I.N.CENT unit, there was not one that carried that label.
"There's no need for me to go home," the fatally damaged robot was saying, perhaps trying to cheer his friend, perhaps only stating the obvious. "I am home. Out here. The same for me as it is for you."
The final lights began fading as power failed along with the intricate solid-state brain. "You're still new, still fully functional. Carry on for all of us, Vincent. The humans will remember and praise their lost associates from the crew of the Cygnus. Only you can remember for the machines.
"Go, now . . . help your friends . . ."
The last set of lights became dark. The thing on the deck was no longer alive. It was merely another piece of scrap metal—such as the Cygnus was fast becoming.
The corridor was threatening to shake apart around Vincent. His shipmates might be having trouble outside. The suits they had donned were not equipped with free-space maneuvering units.
Vincent turned and jetted for the open hatch.
Holland was working his way across the battered surface of the ship. The sound of the Cygnus tearing itself apart reached him as an eerie groaning through the substance of his suit.
He ducked beneath a great arch of bent metal, pulled himself weightlessly across an artificial abyss. McCrae was right behind him, Pizer in back of her.
He reached back and grabbed her hand to help her across the dangerously open space. For an instant her body swung feet first out into space. Then he pulled her down to where she could obtain her own grip. The strength of the nearing black hole was beginning to overwhelm the failing artificial gravity of the Cygnus.
Pizer looked back toward the ship's bow. The distant command tower was bending, twisting like a drunken lighthouse. He moved forward. His hand reached out for Holland's as he started across the gap—and their gloved palms parted. Slowly, helplessly, he began drifting away from the Cygnus.
Another fragment of metal drifted near him. This one, however, was mobile. One metal arm extended to clutch a thrusting bit of superstructure. Then they were both once more alongside Holland and McCrae.
"Thanks," Pizer told him. He was breathing hard from the narrowness of his escape. "A friend in need is a friend indeed."
Vincent responded with a twinkle of lights. "You're learning, Mr. Charlie."
Reinhardt saw the tiny figures reach the side of the probe, cursed them under his breath. He cursed the cosmos itself, the unpredictability of it and of man. Was there nothing pure and perfect a true scientist could cling to in the madness of the Universe?
He cursed them again. Not because they had reached the probe. Because he had not reached it with them.
There was a violent splintering sound, and the vibration beneath him changed, the viewport exploded inward. Shards of transparent plastic shot past him. At the same time the tower was torn free from the rest of the ship. Reinhardt's eyes bulged from sudden, savage decompression as he and the tower were thrown off into space. From decompression of flesh, from decompression of dream.
Holland opened the lock. They entered the probe successfully and removed their suits. Soon they were crowding into the tiny cockpit. The probe had been designed to accommodate two humans. The four of them filled it tightly.
McCrae happened to glance out the right port at the right moment. She saw the control tower spiraling away toward the vortex.
"Command tower's torn loose." She experienced a brief moment of sorrow for Reinhardt. The sentiment was quickly quashed by the memory of the mind-wiped crew, of blank, featureless faceplates concealing equally blank minds.
Her engines were still functioning, but the Cygnus was now directionless. Completely out of control, the ship swung wildly in the downspiraling well. One thruster broke free of its stern mounting, was followed by a section of broken bow.
Similar forces clutched at the probe ship as Holland frantically fingered the instrumentation. The engines were activated, then the null-g field. The shaking stopped.
But they were still attached to the Cygnus. "We better get the hell off," he muttered. "The whole ship's breaking up."
He touched one control, then another. Thrust, and the probe lifted clear of the Cygnus.
Operating the console manually, Holland took them away from the ship. He was trying to put distance between them and the dangerous chunks of metal flying off the larger vessel.
They were clear, and he rested a moment. But the probe accelerated anyway, commenced a wide arc toward the collapsar. Nearby, the Cygnus continued to destruct. No longer protected by a null-g field, it was breaking into smaller and smaller sections.
Everyone aboard had reacted to the sudden, unprogrammed increase in velocity. Holland frantically began examining the instrumentation, trying to recall the phase-sequence of twenty-year-old circuitry. Nothing slowed the ship's acceleration nor altered its course.
"I don't understand." His muscles were tight with tension, and a little fear. Even with the null-g operating, they could sense an occasional tremor running through the ship as increasing gravity tugged at it.
"The field's working as it should. But none of the other controls are responding." His hands weaved futile patterns over the instruments.
"It's no good. I can't turn her."
"There's no question about it, Captain." Vincent had settled back from the console and his own efforts to influence their course. "The ship has been preprogrammed. I don't have the necessary information to override. Only two individuals might."
"Reinhardt and Maximillian." McCrae was surprised at how fast she had resigned herself to the inevitable. At least the end should be quick.
"We're locked in, then?" Pizer leaned back in his chair.
Holland nodded agreement. "Navigation is sealed. Probably in case the pilot is incapacitated, to hold the ship on course. Reinhardt was determined to make his journey, even if unconscious."
"So we're going into the black hole after all, in spite of everything."
Holland glanced over at his first officer, his friend. "Check."
Now that their destination was unavoidable, McCrae found herself speaking quite calmly. "Let's pray that he was the prophet he claimed to be."
Holland looked at her, his expression conveying a multitude of emotions it was too late to put into words. At that point, words would have been inadequate anyway.
"He who hesitates gathers no moss, and a rolling stone is lost." Vincent had moved to the back of the cockpit. The thought of being abruptly reduced to the size of a subatomic particle was one he could comprehend better than any of them. It frightened him.
Pizer patted his side comfortingly.
Holland watched the instruments. There were many he recognized and a fair number he did not. Several were evidently designed to monitor events beyond mere human perception. The probe continued to accelerate.
Ahead of them a blackness was eating the sky.
Vincent extended his arms, braced himself against the sides of the cockpit. Holland continued to gaze at McCrae and she gazed back, both sorrowing for what might have been. Pizer watched them both as the ship began to rotate, ignoring the advice of her outraged stabilizing systems.
Something was squeezing Holland's guts, pressing down on his head and up at his feet.
A readout on the console was marked in increments of several thousands. It had by now crawled patiently halfway up its length. Abruptly, simultaneous with the fading of light inside the probe, it flicked upward and vanished. Much else disappeared with it. Light, time, a sense of being alive, the efficacy of existence. A thought tickled Holland's brain, and a thousand years passed on Earth.
He was dimly aware that they must have crossed the event horizon. The line where things vanished forever—time and space together. He
considered the rhyme. Then he considered something else.
He should not have been able to consider his considering.
Something else impossible was happening. Light. Light should not happen within the confines of a collapsar. Matter should not happen either. Perhaps he was no longer matter. Was pure thought affected by gravity? Did he still possess a body? He thought he was looking down at himself, but there no longer seemed to be anything there. Only darkness and quiet and peace. He was alone, adrift in an irrational dimension.
Then he imagined there were other thoughts curling and entwining among his own, though he could not immediately identify them. Kate? Charlie? Vincent? They remained infinitely distant, tantalizingly near. Only the light ahead grew clearer. He imagined it had to be ahead. His speculations turned to the possible existence of white holes, knife wounds into other universes. He wondered if Reinhardt could sense him.
Then there was something familiar again, recognizable, warm. Come to me, it was saying. Come to me, Dan. It's the only way.
Kate! And she responded. You must join with me, Dan. And you, Charlie. And Vincent . . . if you can, Vincent. Only thoughts have a chance inside here. Physical materialities will be crushed down to nothing, but thought . . . the essences of ourselves . . . I think we have a chance . . . that way.
Holland could feel something warm and all-encompassing reaching out to envelop him. The fragmentation of himself that had begun halted. He remained He.
It's working . . . came the powerful thought. It's the esplink—my thought projection ability—it will keep us together . . . if we fight for it!
They blended, flowed together, thought itself strained beyond its normal borders under the unimaginable force of the collapsar. Then they were through . . . and amazingly, still whole. Kate was Kate; Charlie, Charlie, and Dan Holland still Dan Holland. Even Vincent was there. They were themselves . . . and yet something strange and new, a galactic sea change that produced all the above and a new unified mindthing that was KateCharlieDanVincent also.