The Deep Dark Well (42 page)

That done he was out of
the ball and running toward the nearest lift to the ship bay.  He still had a
job to do.  She had gotten away.  He was sure of it.  But he needed to find
her, to pluck her out of space, before she fell into the gravity well behind
the computer.

Chapter 22

May you live in
interesting times.

Ancient Chinese curse.

Pandi came to as the
oxygen flooded back into her brain.  The suit was still under high boost, the
readouts on her HUD showing a steady sixty gees.  Well below emergency power,
but above that of normal operations.  Energy readouts well below an eighth. 
Time to get cracking and find out what was happening.

First she killed all of
her acceleration until she could figure out where she was.  The system powered
down smoothly, and energy use indicators swung down to minimal.  But a check of
her inertial navigation system showed that she was still accelerating.  Some
power was still working to increase her velocity toward some point in space.

She still felt
confused, as if she had been hit in the head.  After all she had been through
she would have wondered if she wasn’t confused.  She maneuvered the suit around
one hundred and eighty degrees, until she was facing where she was going. 
Immediately she wished she wasn’t, as the distortion of space to her front let
her know where she was going.  Straight to hell and out of the Universe, into
the maw of the black hole.

*    *    *

Watcher powered up the
ship as he ran swiftly down the preflight. 
Rescuer
he had named it, and
hoped it lived up to its name.  So far he had not been able to activate the
station sensors, to get a bearing on her.  So he would have to find her on the
fly.

His fingers flew over
the control pad.  He had been created to be the ultimate pilot as well, and no
other being could match his reflexes, or his touch. 
Rescuer
turned on
maximum power as he fed energy to the inertialess drive, sliding perfectly
through the still opening bay doors.  The ship boosted at full power as he
activated its own sensor array and began to search the space around the
station.

“Pandi,” he called over
the com link.  “Pandi, come in.”

If she would just
answer he might be able to get a fix on her.  Even near the distortion of the
hole he could pinpoint her close enough to get within range of instantaneous
transmission.

“Pandi,” he called
again.  “Pandi.  I’m coming to get you.  Hang in there.”

He set the quantum
computer to search space using the most efficient pattern, while he moved the
ship on instinct to where he hoped he would find her.

*    *    *

Her on-board computer
had calculated her course, and the answer was not what she had wanted to hear. 
She was going straight into the hole.  She wouldn’t hit the event horizon dead
center.  No, but the slight angle at which she would strike it would make no
difference as far as her eventual fate was concerned.  Compressed to a
mathematical point among an unimaginable mass and density.

“Is there any way to
escape the pull of the hole?” she asked her on-board computer.

Again a series of
diagrams were projected onto her HUD, showing her present course.  Figures fed
in, acceleration and vector diagrams were placed over the schematic of her
orbit.  Her new orbit curved out, missing the event horizon by tens of
kilometers, swinging her around the black hole and back into space.  A near
thing, but a possibility of survival, if someone came for her and found her. 
If she boosted now.

Pandi ordered emergency
power, a full twenty seconds of the twenty-five she had left.  The computer
said twenty would do it, and nothing would allow her to escape the near brush
with the event horizon.  And she felt better knowing that she had some kind of
reserve, so she could fight against death at the end, and not go passively
toward it.

“Pandi. Come in Pandi,”
came the voice over her com link.

“Watcher,” she called
out.  “Computer, increase signal to full power.”

“Boost commencing in
three, two, one,” the computer said.  The suit started to boost away from the
pull of the hole.  She couldn’t tell if it was doing any good from where she
sat.  But the schematic of her orbit started to shift.

“Pandi,” came Watcher’s
voice.  “Pandi, I have your signal.  I’m coming for you.  There is a
transmission delay, so be patient.”

“Computer,” she
ordered.  “Transmit my orbital and positional data to Watcher immediately. 
Maybe he can get me before I have to make the pass.”

She waited for what
seemed like minutes, though she knew it could only have been seconds within the
confines of the station.  The temporal distortion of the gravity well.  The
schematic of her orbit shifted, while the figures swam across the HUD.  Until
the lines stopped shifting.  A few kilometers closer to the event horizon than
the computer had calculated.  The thought ran through her mind as to whether
she should use some more boost now, or hold the reserve.  She still felt better
with the reserve.

“Pandi,” came the voice
over the link.  “I won’t be able to reach you before your pass of the hole. 
But I should be able to catch you as you pull away.  I’ll match velocities with
you as soon as I can.  Are you all right?”

“Except for an arm that
alternates between agony and numbness, and the fact that I’m falling into the
deep dark well, I’m fine.”

She waited a few
seconds for the reply, though she wanted to keep talking.  Anything to make the
time go by faster.  Though she didn’t want it to go by faster, as the faster
time passed the sooner she would be skimming the horizon.

“You’ll make it,” he
said.  “I have faith in you.  Just make sure that your suit is locked before
you get too close.  With your legs straight and your arms by your side.”

“Why?” she asked,
trying to think of the possible reasons she would want to trap herself in a
rigid suit, unable to move until she made the pass.

“Tidal forces,” came
back the answer.  “You’ll be in free fall, so the overall gravity of the hole
won’t be a danger.  But you’ll be close enough for the difference in gravity
over a small distance to become deadly.”

“How deadly?”  Again
the time delay made her curse the wait.

“Not deadly over the
width of your body, though you’ll probably feel some blood rush and pain.  But
if your arms or legs were pulled down to their furthest extent the tidal forces
would tear them off.”

Pandi looked ahead at
the distortion in space.  The edge of the hole was rimmed in bright light, the
bent luminescence of the stars twisted around the massive gravity of the well. 
Hugely distorted globes of the nearer stars seemed to be flying toward her,
threatening to engulf her in an illusionary inferno.  Other stars, higher above
the horizon, swept together and up and away.

Fright vied with wonder
in her mind.  She was the first of her time to see such a phenomenon, one that
had been predicted by physicists well before her era.  She would have felt
better though if she had been seeing this phenomenon through the cameras of an
approaching probe than through her own eyes.

The hole grew larger, a
deep black nothingness that defied space and time, as the speeding light of the
stars flew around the edge.

“Pandi,” came a
distorted voice over the com link.  Highly energized, she thought, the signal
strengthened by the gravitational pull, almost beyond the frequency of the com
unit to receive.  And her signal would crawl up to Watcher, still traveling at
the speed of light, but lowered in energy to the point where it was
unintelligible.  Then the voice was gone, as she was too close to the dead star
for the signal to stay in the receivable range.

Pain swept through
her.  She felt her body press into the front of the suit.  The material of the
suit creaked as the gravity tried to pull her arms and legs lower.  To rip them
off if not for the strength of the superstrong materials.  Materials that would
rip like paper if she were to drop any closer on her pass.

She checked the orbital
schematic through blurring vision.  It was going to be even closer than she had
thought.  The computer, for all its sophisticated power, could only approximate
the orbit with so many variables to deal with.  She ordered the last of her
power to pull her back, and the suit shook as it tried to back away from the
immense pull of the hole.  She doubted if she had gained more than a few feet
when the power ceased.  But any distance between her and hell was appreciated.

By then her vision had
started to red out, a victim of the pull of blood to the front of her face. 
She knew black out would soon follow. 
It will be merciful
, she
thought.  But she wanted to be awake, to meet her fate if it were the worst, to
greet it if the best.

Then her vision began
to clear, as the pain started to recede from her limbs and body.  The distortion
of the stars around the hole began to lessen, and she knew she was beginning to
move away from the grip of the point source.

“Pandi.  Can you hear
me?”

The signal was still
somewhat distorted, but she could understand it.

“I made it, Watcher,”
she cried over the link.  “I’m alive.”

“You’re heading
directly for the hull of the station,” he said. 
He's close
, she
thought.  The signal delay was much less than before.

And he was right, she
saw.  At her angle of flight she would hit a few kilometers inside the edge of
the station.  At her present velocity that would kill her instantly.  She
unlocked her suit, then noted with dismay that her power graphs were at the
bottom.

“I don’t have any power
left,” she said.  “I guess it was a good try.  Unless you can get to me before
then.”

“Not a chance,” he said
sadly.  “At your velocity I won’t be able to get to you for hours.  What about
your weapons?”

My god
, she thought. 
That
just might work
.  She hadn’t had a chance to use any of the auxiliary
weapons she had packed, and she had wondered during her trip why she had even
bothered.  She quickly unlimbered her accelerator rifle, switching it to
maximum rate of fire at maximum velocity. 

Pandi looked ahead of
her at the thin silver ribbon of the station.  As long as it remained thin she
was safe.  As soon as it started to balloon out with proximity she would be
only moments away from disaster.  She couldn’t tell how fast she was traveling
out here, and her HUD wasn’t working, but the low distortion of the stars ahead
indicated a velocity less than half light.  Less than half light, she laughed.

Her mind snapped back
to the here and now, as she fought the giddiness of the situation.  That she
was still sane amazed her.  She aimed the rifle and pulled the trigger, feeling
the slight bucking of the gun as it ran through its thousands of rounds of
ammo.  The chamber finally clicked on empty, and she released the rifle to
space, knowing she would not be able to change the drum with one working hand. 
Looking up she could see that the ribbon was slightly larger, and her time was
running out.

She pulled the particle
beam weapon from its sheath and set it to fire the antimatter at maximum
velocity and output, hoping that the deadly substance wouldn’t hit something
under sentient control further on down the line.  She fired until the weapon
was empty, then switched to negative matter and repeated the firing sequence.

“I’ve given it all I’ve
got,” she said.  “How do I look?”

“It’s going to be
close,” said Watcher.  “If we hadn’t shot this space so full of debris, and
moved the station around, I would be able to get a more accurate reading.”

“Pray for me, lover,”
she said, as the ribbon of the station ballooned to her front.  Watcher was
silent except for his breathing, his way of showing he was with her through her
ordeal.  The three thousand kilometer width loomed enormous in space.  She
looked up and down the curve of the immense structure. 
How could I have
even gotten involved in something this big
? she thought.  How could any being
feel anything but microscopic in its unimportance against such a backdrop?

Closer and closer she
came to the station, and she could tell that she would either hit the edge of
the width or barely miss it.  Before she could make the final determination she
was swiftly passing by the fifty-kilometer thickness of the station.  The
perspective changed so swiftly that she couldn’t even really tell how close she
was.  But that she was still alive showed that she had missed.

“Now I will thank the
gods,” said Watcher.  “I’m coming after you.  As soon as I can match velocities
I’ll bring you aboard.  Just hang in there.”

“Don’t worry.  If I
could make it through what I’ve just been through I’ll make it through
anything.  Just stay on the com and talk to me.”

And talk they did,
until
Rescuer
was able to pick her up from the depths of space.  Then,
after Watcher had made sure that she was not severely damaged, they did things
other than talk, as the ship made its way back to the station.