The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (10 page)

She
wasn’t done with Vestabule and Taverner yet, however.

She
would obey as she always did; but she meant to know the truth when she did it.

Simply
because he’d been human more recently and might remember more, she directed her
glower at Milos.

“Listen
to me,” she breathed, clenching her teeth. “It’s easy for you to say ‘the
perils of inaction now outweigh those of action,’ but I’m the one who has to do
something about it. I need to understand what’s at stake here. I’m human, my
ship is human, we’ll be in human space — that’s why you’re sending us instead
of going after
Trumpet
yourself. But in human space the rules are
different. There might be more than one kind of action I can take. I won’t be
able to make the right choices unless I understand what’s at stake.”

In
response, Taverner attempted a smile; but beneath his alien eyes the stretching
of his mouth resembled a rictus. “You do not need to understand. I will
accompany you. I will be invested with decisiveness for this pursuit.”

Sorus
swallowed an impulse to shout at him. Still softly, she countered, “That’s not
good enough. You aren’t human. You don’t even talk human — your grasp on how
humans think and act is already starting to fray. You
need
me to
understand.”

For
reasons which weren’t clear to her, Taverner glanced at Vestabule. Nothing she
could discern passed between them — nothing more than the erratic blink of
Vestabule’s eye — but when Taverner faced her again, a decision had been
reached.

“Very
well. I will explain.

“The
Amnion have much to gain by
Trumpet’s
capture, and much to lose by her
escape.”

“That
much I guessed,” she muttered darkly.

He was
unperturbed. “The matter of gain,” he said, “centres on Morn Hyland and Davies
Hyland. Her importance is simple. She is a United Mining Companies Police
ensign. With her capture all of her knowledge comes into our possession. This
is significant, but not critical.

“In
addition, she is a human female protected by zone implants. Her capture would
enable us to acquire other knowledge. For example, if she were bred with an
Amnion male, such as I am, what would result? Again this is significant, but
not critical.”

Bred?
Sorus thought in cold horror. Oh, shit. But she didn’t interrupt.

“Her
offspring,” Taverner continued as if the subject were purely abstract, devoid
of personal necessity, “represents opportunities which are indeed critical.

“The
techniques which you call ‘force-growing’ and ‘transfer of mind’ are old and
common among us. Our ability to bring human genetic material — your language
supplies no adequate means to convey these concepts, the word ‘mutate’ is quite
insufficient — into mind/union with the Amnion is also old and common. More
recent research has enabled us” — he may have shrugged — “to mutate human
genetic material with diminishing discrepancies of appearance. Still we have
failed to produce Amnion which may pass as human.

“Doubtless
this is because genetic manipulation cannot replicate patterns of thought,
expression, or behaviour, the learned content of being human. Hence the
importance of transfer of mind and Davies Hyland.”

Sorus
listened hard; but at the same time she tried not to hear what he was saying.
She’d left her links with humanity behind so long ago that she couldn’t pretend
to be concerned for her kind now — and yet the implications of Taverner’s
explanation chilled her from the surface of her skin to the centre of her
embittered heart.

“To
enable one of us to pass as human,” he was saying, “we must provide a human
mind. Among ourselves, Amnioni to Amnioni, such transference presents no
difficulties. Yet when we work from human source to human target, we are able
to produce a successful target only at the cost of a ruined source. We
speculate that human fear causes the source to be effectively erased during transference.
And when we work from human to Amnioni, both source and target are ruined. The
fear of the source is replicated upon a genetically incompatible target.

“We
improve, but we do not progress.

“However,
the successful transfer of mind between Davies Hyland and his source
demonstrates that our techniques may indeed operate effectively on human
genetic material. If a human female with a zone implant can endure a transfer
of mind to a force-grown offspring without loss of reason or function — and if the
condition of that offspring is also truly functional — then the same procedure
may prove viable between human and Amnioni.

“In
that case, we will become able to produce Amnion with access to learned human
thoughts and behaviours. If those Amnion are grown in human shapes, they will
be undetectable to humans. Then human space could be seeded with hosts of
Amnion, and the overthrow of Earth-bred life could be accomplished at one
stroke.

“Thus
the capture of Davies Hyland is critical. A study of his physical and mental
integrity can supply the information we require. His value is only increased by
the fact that he also possesses the mind of a United Mining Companies Police
ensign.”

Sorus’
brain reeled involuntarily at the idea. He was talking about genetic kazes:
undetectable terrorists who could plant mutagens wherever and whenever they
wished—

Taverner
wasn’t done, however. “The matter of loss,” he continued inexorably, “centres
on the cyborg Angus Thermopyle and Captain Nick Succorso.

“The
cyborg has done us severe harm in destroying Billingate, and must not be
permitted to return to the United Mining Companies Police victorious. We must
demonstrate our capacity to counter his actions. This is significant, but not
critical. In addition we have cause to suspect that the harm for which he was
designed is not yet complete. Therefore also he must be stopped. Finally we
wish to study him so that we may learn the techniques of his construction.
These considerations as well are significant, but not critical.

“Captain
Nick Succorso is critical. He possesses a drug which renders him immune to us.
This would be a grave threat even if we did not have cause to suspect that the
United Mining Companies Police are involved in the uses he has made of that
drug. It is imperative that he is not permitted to disseminate his immunity in
human space. If humans can be preserved from mutation, they will be able to
wage warfare of a kind which must defeat us. In a raw test of technological
resources, we will fail. Our means of production are too precise,
time-consuming, and costly to compete with yours.

“Yet
that is not the sum of the threat which Captain Succorso represents. By some
means which we do not understand — perhaps by what you term ‘intuition’ — he
has acquired knowledge of our researches into the use of uniquely designed gap
drives to produce space-normal velocities which very nearly approximate the
speed of light. If our defensives could attain those velocities, our prospects
in warfare would be greatly improved.”

With an
effort, Sorus kept her expression blank; but inwardly she gave a groan of
surprise. “Greatly improved” was a stunning understatement. If a battlewagon
like
Calm Horizons
could be accelerated to
·
9C or more, no human
station could stand against her. Even Earth might have no adequate defence.

Without
pausing, Taverner concluded, “Captain Succorso must not be permitted to convey
his knowledge to the United Mining Companies Police. We fear that human space
would have no choice but to engage us in warfare immediately, if only to
prevent us from completing our researches.

“Do you
understand now, Captain Chatelaine?”

She
nodded slowly, dumbly. Oh, she understood, all right. She hated her role, but
she understood it. If she’d been the “decisive” of
Calm Horizons
— or
even the Mind/Union itself — she would have made the same choice. The stakes
were high enough to justify risks on almost any scale.

Yet she
couldn’t let the question rest there. Some streak of stubbornness in her, some
mute, unsubjugated piece of her genetic inheritance, pushed her to raise one
more objection.

“I
understand fine, but I’m not sure you do. You can talk all you want, but you’ve
already missed your chance to take the only action that would have made a
difference. You let
Trumpet
get away. And since then too much time has
passed. What good will it do to send me after her now?

“The
cops’ll be waiting for her to come back — with a whole fleet, if they think
they need it. Even if I could catch her before she reaches them — which I can’t
— I couldn’t stop her from transmitting any messages she wants. And if you’re
right that Succorso is working for the cops, they already know about his
immunity drug. They probably gave it to him. Nothing I do can possibly prevent
them from spreading that information.

“Sending
me into human space to get shot by a fleet of damn cops is going to accomplish
zip.”

The
human side of Vestabule’s face frowned as if he were unsure of her slang. Again
he and Taverner glanced expressionlessly at each other before Taverner replied.

“The
question of Captain Succorso’s immunity is not a simple one. I” — for a minute
he hung fire, as if his memory had slipped — “I have been the deputy chief of
Com-Mine Station Security. If an immunity drug were known anywhere in human
space, that knowledge would surely have come to me. Assume that this immunity
is a devising of the United Mining Companies Police, and that Captain Succorso
received it from them. Still it has not been disseminated. In my” — again he
faltered briefly — “my experience, no knowledge or record of such an immunity
exists. Therefore we must also assume that the United Mining Companies Police
have chosen to suppress this immunity.

“I —”
Taverner stopped. To her surprise, Sorus saw that he was in distress. The
effort of thinking like a human drew sweat from his pores, turned his pale skin
the colour of bone.

“I
speculate,” he resumed in a thin, slightly hurried tone, “that some
intraspecies betrayal which I find difficult to comprehend is taking place. One
faction has developed this immunity, and now holds it secret from the other in
order to gain advantage. I find the concept abhorrent, but I remember that such
explanations are plausible among humans.”

“We do
not understand human behaviour in this matter,” Vestabule put in roughly. “We
wish to understand it. But for the present understanding is not critical.
Rather it is critical that knowledge of this immunity has not yet been
disseminated in human space, and presumably will not be disseminated unless
Captain Succorso takes that action upon himself.

“As for
your concern that
Trumpet
has fled to the haven of ‘a fleet of damn
cops,’ consider this.

“Our
analysis of
Trumpet’s
departure emissions is complete. We have
determined her gap vector, calculated her velocity and acceleration, and
estimated her gap drive parameters. Here are the results.”

Without
waiting for permission, he reached forward and began tapping keys on the
communications board. Almost immediately one of the main screens in front of
Sorus flashed to life.

Vestabule
had called up a 3-D co-ordinates schematic for this quadrant of space.
Phosphors marked the spot where Thanatos Minor had once occupied the vacuum.
Soar’s
position blinked green;
Calm Horizons’
showed amber.

Swiftly
a red line traced
Trumpet’s
course in normal space: numbers along the
line indicated exact changes in thrust and vector. Then a small crimson cross
indicated her leap into the gap.

Based
on
Calm Horizons’
calculations, straight blue pointed the direction of
Trumpet’s
crossing. The Amnion warship could only speculate as to how far
Trumpet
had gone, but she was able to define the gap scout’s course precisely.

That
blue line didn’t run anywhere near human space.

Sorus
had used up her objections. Now she had nothing left except obedience — and
darkness.

Deliberately
she thumbed the ship-wide intercom.

“Stand
by,” she told her crew. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. First we’ll
rendezvous with
Calm Horizons
. Then we’re going hunting.”

Wherever
Angus Thermopyle and his people were headed, it wasn’t back to the UMCP.

ANGUS

T
rumpet
came out of the gap with Nick
Succorso at the helm and Angus Thermopyle handling everything else scarcely
500,000 kilometres from Thanatos Minor — still within easy scan range.

Proximity
alarms echoed the warnings of Angus’ datacore and the raw squalling of his own
instincts.
Trumpet’s
thrust drive still burned, piling on acceleration.
Nevertheless the instantaneous disappearance of brisance from the planetoid’s
destruction affected the ship like braking; slammed him and Nick forward
helplessly against their restraints. From a hand’s width away, he gaped at his
command readouts, but his eyes couldn’t absorb their information rapidly
enough.