The Black Hole Read Online Free PDF Page B

shifting display on the main navigation screen. Lines changed patiently, twisting a cat's cradle around the central, growing image of the motionless Cygnus . "Range two-nine-five-one-six and closing. Thrusters operating smoothly. No problems."
    "What's your reading on the Cygnus 's attitude, Vincent?" Holland tried to glance around so he could see the robot, but his chair restraints restricted his movement.
    "Still holding steady, sir ."
    "Position relative to the star?"
    "Constant. Most remarkable."
    Holland's stomach seemed to drop half a meter as external gravity played havoc with the Palomino 's internal system. "Yeah," he finally replied, regaining his visceral equilibrium, "most remarkable. I'll find time to admire the situation properly when, remarkably, we're in the clear again. Gravitational reading?"
    "Two-point-four-seven on the stress scale and rising. Rate of rise also increasing, sir."
    The restraints still gave Holland enough freedom of movement to shake his head; he was worried. "That's not good. With that much additional pull we'll go by too fast to do any good." He demanded information from the ship's computer, accepted it along with the machine's several suggestions.
    "Change course. Put us in an altered escape angle of a hundred seventy-five perpendicular to the axis of maximum attraction. Compensate by cutting thrust two-thirds. We'll still maintain original projected escape velocity at perihelion. But I want constant monitoring of our revised course. If we deviate too much, don't hit it just right, we're going to have a devil of a time breaking clear."
    The Palomino continued to arc in toward the amazingly stable Cygnus . Turbulence grew worse. The strain was reflected in the faces of the pilots; the buffeting of their ship was matched by emotional turbulence within.
    One particularly bad jolt shook them. Pizer felt the impression of his restraints all over his body. "She's bucking like a bronco," he mumbled, wishing he were back in Texas NAT dealing with more manageable varieties of turbulence. You could reason with a horse.
    "Gravity. Gravity report, Mr. Pizer!" Holland repeated sharply when his first officer failed to respond at once. "No time for daydreaming now."
    "Sorry, sir." Pizer devoted full attention to the proper readouts, all thoughts of radical forms of equine displacement forgotten. "Twenty-point-nine-six and still climbing."
    He wondered how long it would be before the gauge broke. Like the Palomino , it was designed to withstand considerable forces. The ship had performed surveys of several Jovian-type worlds, handling multiple gravities and methane storms with equal equanimity. The perversion of nature they were teasing now, however, was to the gravity of Jupiter as a pebble was to a mountain.
    Holland continued to watch his instruments apprehensively. If they could count on a steady pull from the black hole, the ship's navigation computer would pull them through without difficulty. But, as the turbulence they continued to experience was proving, the region of space they were now passing through was subject to gravitational and electromagnetic variations outside the experiences programmed into the Palomino 's brain. They might be forced to maneuver suddenly and radically, might have to take risks no machine—operating solely on logic and a predisposition based on prior navigational experience—would take.
    It was, therefore, time to engage the ship's ultimate navigational programmer, the only one on board that could cope with the unexpected dangers the bizarre distortion of space outside might thrust on them.
    "Switching to manual," Holland said matter-of-factly, touching buttons in sequence on the console in front of him. A metal arm decorated with switches and buttons popped out of the console. He felt unreasonably better now that he was personally in control of the ship's movements, a reaction common to all pilots of all vessels since the dawn of transportation.
    "Captain?"
    "Yes,