Tin Woodman (14 page)

A pause. Rosher chewed his lower lip softly. Looked up at her. “How do you know Norlan’s not just making all this up?”

With all her mental force, she attempted to open herself up to him. His eyes blinked. He was getting something. “Because of my Talent,” she said quietly. “I’m a regular human lie detector. And Norlan didn’t lie. I got this information through Leana Coffer, the executive officer.”

Briefly, she detailed the situation on the bridge as Coffer had relayed it to her, centering on Darsen’s madness and Tamner’s virtual control of the
Pegasus.
She buttressed her case by pointing out the common-knowledge facts of Security’s dealings with unrest on the ship. As she spoke, the emotions waving at her from him became more positive. She finished up quickly, letting him bring up the reason for their talk.

“Coffer is organizing opposition, isn’t she?” said Rosher in a low voice. Co-operative vibrations: he would help.

“What can I do?” Was that a quaver of enthusiasm she felt from him?

“A lot.” And she told him exactly what.

Leana Coffer’s Joumal

(Vocoder transcription authorized

by Leana Coffer. Original recording

voice-locked per program 774-D.)

I’ve received a report from Mora. Ston Maurtan passed it on to Gary Norlan, who reported to me. She says she has enlisted forty-three crew people—twenty of them officers. Five are assigned to monitoring the ship’s computer and doing routine programming—they may be most useful. If they can turn the ship itself against Darsen, we may save lives which would otherwise have been wasted in fighting. Mora also claims eleven command personnel. I’ll have to see how many of these I can arrange to have on duty on the bridge and in the chartroom when the rebellion begins. Unfortunately, Mora has recruited only one security officer, a fellow named O’Hari. He should be able to obtain a few hand weapons from the armory, but this will hardly be decisive. Worse, it indicates that most security people are loyal to Darsen—perhaps they’re enjoying the new authority that Darsen’s paranoia has given them.

It’s obvious from Mora’s report that we’ll need some diversion, to throw Security off balance when we make our move. I have a plan, but it will entail high risks for Mora and Ston. They’ve been so loyal that I almost can’t ask it of them—but if not them, then who?

We must use terrorism.

There’s an area of the habitation module particularly vulnerable to sabotage, one which is easily accessible. It’s at the bottom of the main lift shaft, just below sleeper deck. If a big enough hole were blown in the hull there, depressurization could occur on every deck accessible to the main lift. This area is also as far from the bridge and engineering sections as any point in the ship.

I want Ston and Mora to position themselves there and threaten the ship. They will claim to have a bomb.

Such a threat will draw off enough Security from the operational sections of the vessel to facilitate our take-over. Ston and Mora are perfect for the role—they’re outcasts, with a history of erratic behavior. Further, Security won’t dare take direct action against them, for fear of detonating the bomb. If all goes as planned, Ston and Mora won’t have to hold out very long. If it doesn’t, they’re both dead.

But then if my plan fails, we all are.

I’ve sent them these instructions, using Gary Norlan as a go-between.

Now the fate of the
Pegasus
is in their hands.

THIRTEEN

As soon as Mora heard of Coffer’s plan from Ston, she took the chance and re-contacted one of their six officers in Engineering Maintenance. With very little trouble, she was able to secure a compact metal box, various electronic paraphernalia that Ston had requested, chemicals, a battery, and a laser soldering gun.

While Mora coordinated dispersal of the few weapons that Bisc O’Hari had been able to obtain for her, Ston busied himself in her cabin, making his “bomb.”

O’Hari was a big, somber, silent man. When Mora had approached him, feeling he was a prime target for enlistment in the mutiny, he had cut short her preliminary conversation and fixed her with his slightly bulging eyes. “You’re organizing a mutiny, aren’t you?” For a terrifying moment, she thought that perhaps her Talent had played her false, and was certain that the security officer would grab her, toss her before Tamner, and that would be it. “If so,” the man continued, “I want in.” No explanation. “I think I can get some weapons,” he said, after she explained the details. “I’ll be sitting in the third row of the Tri-Vid theater this evening. If I am successful, there will be a plastic package underneath the seat when I leave.”

Evidently, he had been successful.

In the package she picked up that evening were two laser pistols, and four beam stunners. The lasers were of especial value—generally, not even the security officers were allowed to use the pistols, except for the most extreme emergencies—they carried the beam stunners to render opposition helpless. But the fact that the armory’s laser supply had been opened meant that Tamner was getting ready for that extreme emergency, should it arrive.

She kept the lasers for herself and Ston. After all, they would be most vulnerable for the longest period of time. The stunners she stealthily distributed among contactees in Engineering and Computer Control. She assumed that O’Hari could take care of the bridge.

When she returned from her tense rounds, all four stunners now in the hands of mutineers, Ston was happily seated at her desk, playing with his new toy.

“It’s mostly for effect, actually,” he said, pointing out the series of dummy controls and lights he’d placed on the box. “For the record, this is a plastimax bomb. Those are easy enough to make, if you’ve got the right materials. They’ll believe us.” He smiled down playfully at it, chuckling. “The best part of it is that it really
is
a bomb.”

“What?”
cried Mora in disbelief.

“Yeah. Your Engineering Maintenance contact got exactly the chemicals I wanted for a
smoke
bomb, operative when I press my remote control button.” He held up a little plastic box. “It might help a lot if we get a bunch of security people breathing down our necks. Who knows?”

Mora nodded. “Yes. Who knows?” A pang of fear swelled in her.

Fear for herself and Ston. A momentary glimmer on the fringes of her consciousness:
Smoke. Fighting. Ston.
And then it was gone.

She leaned over and kissed his head. “I love you, Ston.”

“Love you too,” he said, preoccupied with a bit of wiring.

She sighed. “How will we know when we phase into normal space? They might not announce it.”

“Easy. One of us can sit up on the observation deck. When the phase begins, so do our operations.”

A sudden realization hit her. “Ston! I just realized—we’re talking about everything in the cabin. The surveilance monitor—”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Don’t worry. I found it a couple of days ago. It’s in your intra-ship speaker. Not very original. The first thing I did when I got these tools was to fix it. Anyone listening now will just think we’re not even in. After we get all this together, I’ll switch it back and . . . and we can act like we just came in, or something. You think I’d talk about this thing here if I thought Security was listening in?”

“No. I suppose not.”

“I don’t blame you for being all wound up. You’ve been doing a great deal of work, Mora. Now, according to what Norlan told me, tomorrow’s the big day. So why don’t you get some sleep, okay? I’ll be finished with this in a little while, and grab some as well. We’ll both be fresh tomorrow.”

“Fresh for the slaughter,” murmured Mora,

“What was that?” asked Ston absently.

“Nothing.” She slipped into bed, was quietly thoughtful for a while. Then, “Ston?”

“Hmmm?”

“If we get back—”

“When
we get back,” he corrected.

“When we get back, to whereever we’ll end up, what will happen—with us, I mean?”

He stopped working, turned to look at her. “I told you, we’ll stick together, help each other out.”

“No, Ston. I mean
us
.”

“Oh.” He turned back to the box, but did not resume work, “She
is
fading, Mora,” he said in a soft voice. “And you’re getting stronger inside me, in ways Adria never was. Will that do for now?”

“I guess it will have to,” she said.

They had long since reached the center of the Null-R energy vortex, the intertwined Div Harlthor and the ship-being; long since passed tnrough the manufactured hole in space that had been their destination. Now they waited for those who would greet them, those of
Tin Woodman’s
kind.

Div had learned much. Of the plan, and of its consequences. And, more personally, he had learned more of himself . . . and why he had caused, subconsciously, the
Pegasus
to follow them.

It was all so strange, and yet it explained so much.

They conversed, as they waited.

“Our lives must seem very long to you,”
said
Tin Woodman.

“Yes,” responded Div. “During the time you orbited Aldebaran, all of human history occurred. So many billions of lives passed, without any understanding . . . of what I’ve discovered. I never suspected what I was beginning when I grabbed at the chance to escape my prison. Perhaps I did what I did intuitively. I hope more strongly than you can know that I can communicate these things to the humans aboard the
Pegasus,
if they come, if they live . . . the things I’ve known since I have melded into you.”

“You were fulfilling a dream which stretches beyond the beginnings of your race. So am I. Do you know that you have altered my inner world profoundly? I have never had a sense of myself as separate from my symbiote—certainly never with Vul. You are almost insubstantial in so many ways, but you hold to a sense of yourself with great tenacity. By now our merging should be complete. You will not let the existence of us consume the knowledge of you and I. It seems—perverse.”

“Does it trouble you?”

“Yes. Very much. And yet I find it stimulating in many ways.”

“There is still so much that I do not understand yet. I wonder if I ever will.”

“Not at as long as you remain ‘I.’”

“No doubt your brethren will find me and my kind much different.”

“Do not worry, my love. They will accept. They must.”

Div considered. “Is there anything that I—we can do to assure the safe arrival of the
Pegasus?”

“We can only sense it at this distance. There is nothing we can do. The internal strife aboard may be fatal . . . the force of the passage may destroy the primitive vessel. No, there is nothing we can do . . . but wait.”

Deep inside, Div felt a pang of regret. “We should not have beckoned them . . .”

“You did it out of love. Do not be concerned. We have only to wait.”

Time passed. Eventually, the others arrived. There was great joy among them at the return of their long-lost brother. When the link was made, they said,
“Come, brother. The journey to our present home is long. We should leave now.”

But the creature that was
Tin Woodman
said,
“No. We must wait.”

The
Pegasus
phased out of its Null-It jump, close to the heart of the galaxy.

Communications Officer Gary Norlan was on the bridge when the starship broke out into normal space.

Normal?
he thought.
No. Hardly that, with the stars congested like this . . .

Soon, if things went right, Coffer’s pIanned diversionary tactic would commence. And on its heels, the mutiny. Coffer was on the bridge herself now, manning the sensor equipment . . . she had wangled that assignment so that she could be on the bridge at this time.

Perched in his padded swivel chair, simultaneously watching the vu-plates and the crew, Norlan could almost smell the tension. It was not the odor of perspiration—the air filters would hardly allow that to last long. It was actually, he realized, not even a smell as such. Perhaps it was synesthesia working in him—a transmuting of signals he received on some mental level into a scent.

The captain was standing. Tamner was beside him, arms folded, calmer in appearance than anyone else.

”All right, Coffer,” Darsen said. “You’ve had enough time. What do the sensors say?”

“There’s a great deal of interference due to the close proximity with so many suns, Captain,” said the woman, not looking up from her console.

“I didn’t ask about interference, Coffer. I want to know if there’s any sign of the alien.”

“No, Captain. But there is something rather odd ahead of us.” She looked up. “Readings indicate something like a large black hole. But there’s enough difference to make me doubtful.”

Darsen seemed to clutch at this information desperately. Stepping forward, he leaned over to look at the sensor readings on Genson’s board. “How far away is it?”

“About four hundred thousand kilometers.”

Darsen ordered six probe ships to be dispersed to examine the phenomenon closely, telling Engineering to keep the
Pegasus
at the present comparatively slow speed which it had maintained since the end of its Null-R jump.

Norlan relayed the orders through his communications panel.

They waited.

After a time, Norlan began to worry that everything was not going well with Ston and Mora. They should have made contact . . .

The section of his communication banks assigned to connect with the probes began to flash its lights. Red, blue. Red. Blue.

“We have visual transmission from probes one, four, and six,” he called out. He swiveled his chair to face Darsen, glancing past him toward Leana Coffer, who appeared quite disturbed.

Now they would find out what Darsen had gotten them into.

“Relay probe one’s transmission through to vu-tank controls,” Darsen ordered, making fine adjustments on the focus and interference-masking controls. Finally, a clear picture coalesced in the suspended holographic globe. The view of space it held was so filled with distant stars that a pearl-dust glow studded with the brilliance of nearer clusters fairly gleamed in the tank. It was stunningly different from the image of blackness relieved only by random pin points of light which Norlan had always associated with space.

In the very center of the picture was a black spot, fully visible in outline against the general luminescence. Without waiting for an order, the visual control officer increased the magnification on this spot by a factor of ten. The image shimmered and the spot came to dominate it, clearly circular in outline, allowing no light from the stars behind it to shine through.

“It’s only about four kilometers in diameter,” reported Lieutenant Markos, studying his computer screen, reading the probe telemetry. “And it’s absolutely stationary, measured against our galactic navigation grid.”

Darsen didn’t take his eyes away from the vu-tank. “A neutron star? Or perhaps a black hole . . .” Even at this moment, Norlan could not help judging Darsen, measuring his control over the crew and his resolve. Norlan was pleased at the confusion; speculating aloud as Darsen was doing gave the bridge crew members reason to doubt; something a captain should never allow.

“That’s not possible,” said Coffer from her sensor console. “Astronomers have mapped most of the gravitational-collapse phenomena in this sector long since, as I’m sure the captain is aware. We’ve no record of this one. Further, this . . .
thing
doesn’t exert nearly enough attractive force to be either a neutron star or a black hole. It does, however, possess enough attraction to continue dragging this ship toward it—which it has just begun doing. Should we take measures?”

Darsen glared at Coffer. “No. Not now. Switch to probe six,” he ordered Norlan. “Coffer, you will offer your observations and suggestions when I request them, and only then.”

Probe six had been intended to move past the black object but had been pulled into a downward-spiraling orbit around it. When the vu-tank was switched to six’s signal it showed essentially the same thing as the first probe: a featureless black disc, motionless in space. As the probe moved around the disc, however, it showed clearly that the thing was actually a sphere.

“Commander Coffer, continue with your report now, please,” Darsen said harshly.

“The black sphere absorbs radiation, but does not produce any. Its gravitational influence—assuming that this force is gravity as we understand it—is many times Earth normal. Beyond that, I have no information. Radar and other sensor beams don’t return from its surface.”

“So it is a hole of some sort after all.”

“Yes, Captain, but not belonging to the class of phenomena we call black—” Coffer began.

“Of course not, idiot!” Darsen seemed seized by a wild enthusiasm. “Tamner, what’s your evaluation of this thing?”

The lieutenant commander walked around the perimeter of the bridge toward Darsen’s desk, looking pleased with himself. “It’s probably artificial—but I imagine you’ve already concluded that yourself. If it is such, though, it’s most likely generated by a mechanism of some sort. Since there’s no evidence of any such machine in the vicinity, it must be on the other side.”

Darsen looked momentarily puzzled. “The other side—the other end of the rift, you mean.”

“Precisely.”

“We’ve followed
Tin Woodman’s
trail as closely as possible,” Darsen continued excitedly, “and if we hadn’t popped out of Null-R just at the edge of the rift’s attraction, we’d never have noticed it—it’s so small.”