Space Stations

“A risk I was never paid to take.” Stubbornly, he shook his head at the telescreen, where a bright red star beyond NBH stared at us like a baleful eye. “If they're gone, we'll find

'em gone. If they're dead, we'd likely join 'em.”

I persisted till he nudged us with the thrusters to overtake the tower and ease us to the dock. The station was tunneled deep into the asteroid, for whatever shelter it might offer.

The dock was on the spin axis, where we were weightless.

When we were coupled to it, he turned to scowl at me.

“Are you sure you want to take the risk?”

Nervously, I said I did.

He slid a sleek little handgun out of a shoulder holster and wanted me to take it. I refused it; I had never fired a gun. He found a flashlight for me and opened the air lock.

“Watch every step.” He looked at his watch and waved an ironic farewell. “Whatever you find, make it quick. I'll give you three hours.”

The door thudded shut. Air hissed. My ears popped to a pressure change. The inner door opened into darkness. Listening, I heard no sound at all. The air was cold and still. The flashlight found a switch, and light came on in a narrow passage ahead.

I caught a guideline to pull myself into the station. A bleak and cheerless pit, it had been crudely carved with laser blades into the rock's iron heart. I dived along the guideline and stopped again to listen. Somewhere a ventilator fan whispered faintly. I shouted and got no answer. I saw no motion, saw nothing green. Sniffing for the odor of death, all I caught was dusty staleness.

The lines led me on to a radial shaft and out to a level were rotation simulated gravity.

On my feet again, I explored an empty workshop, a silent kitchen, a vacant rec room, a long chamber filled with laboratory equipment, most of it mysterious to me, all idle and abandoned now.

On a big wall monitor, I found that magnified star, dimming now as it crept away from the focal point where the black hole hung, invisible, intangible, an eternal devourer of all creation. I stared and shuddered and went on down the tunnel. Doorways off it opened into what had been living space.

One by one, I looked into empty rooms. Abandoned perhaps in haste, they were cluttered with discarded boots and clothing, books and papers, bits of electronic gear, worn playing cards, a violin with broken strings, empty ration packs and dirty dishes, empty brandy bottles. I saw a bag lettered with Matsu's name, a cap LeBlanc had worn, and cringed from a dread of whatever had driven them away.

Near the end of the tunnel, with only two or three more rooms to search, I heard faint sounds ahead. Squeals? Squeaks? Screams? I listened and crept nearer. Animal sounds, I thought, but not from any animal I knew.

They ceased. I heard a human voice, somehow familiar, yet aping those alien sounds. I tiptoed to the doorway and peered into the room. A gray-headed stranger with a wild white beard sat behind a long desk, looking up at a wall monitor and intoning that unearthly gibberish into a microphone.

Chessmen before him on the desk were set up in an unfinished game. Chessmen I remembered! They were carved of pale green jade and some jet-black stone. My mother had found them somewhere in Asia as a gift for my father. He had used them to teach me the game the year I was five. Swept by a tide of confused emotion, I had to catch my breath before I turned and spoke to the wild-bearded stranger.

“Sir?”

Jolted, he sprang to his feet, backed away, and stood for a long moment staring at me with deep-sunk eyes.

“Who the hell—” He blinked and shook his head and limped around the desk to meet me. “Sandy! It's you!”

He looked far older than I recalled him, bent and shriveled but alert. He seized my hand, moved as if to hug me, but checked himself to stand back and stare again. “Your mother? How did you leave her?”

“Well,” I said. “She's tried to keep the foundation alive, but she's had to shut it down. We came to evacuate the station.”

“A little late.” He grinned through the beard. “The crew bugged out on Nine, two years ago.”

“And left you alone? How could they?”

A wry shrug.

“They tried to take me. Called me crazy. I had to hide in an old space suit till they were gone.”

I looked at him again. Haggard, unkempt, something bright in his hollowed eyes. I wondered what NBH had done to him.

“Your last chance to leave,” I told him. “The pilot's waiting, not very patiently. He gave me three hours to find you.” I looked at my watch. “Half of it already gone. Let's get moving.”

“Thank you, Sandy.” He reached to take my hand again. “It's noble of you to come.

Noble of your mother to give you up.” He shook his head, with a wistful smile. “But my work's not done.”

“Father! Please!” I gripped his hand. “We can't leave you here.”

“I can't go now.” His seamed face set hard, he raised a shaking hand to stop my questions. “Sit down and let me tell you.”

He lifted a carton of ration packs off a folding chair, motioned me to it, and sat deliberately back at his desk.

“If you can make it quick.”