The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (12 page)

“Fine,”
Nick drawled. “Keep it to yourself.” He studied Angus curiously. “Are you going
to do that with your precious Morn, too? How do you think she and her
self-righteous brat will react when they find themselves three light-years deep
in Amnion space, and you refuse to explain why? My people I don’t know about —
I guess they’ve lost their minds. But Morn and Davies are going to go ape-shit.”

“Shut
up
.”
The intensity of Angus’ concentration congested his voice in his throat. He could
hardly force out words. “I’m trying to think.”

Frantic
for answers, he cried his access-code in the silence of his head, used it to
open a window on his databases. That worked: he hadn’t lost his computer — or
the information it contained. But did it still control him? Could he ignore its
unspoken requirements?

A test:
he needed a test. Some way to confirm quickly whether or not his datacore still
ruled him. Some way to determine how far his ability to make his own decisions
extended.

At once
his heart tightened like a fist. Nick was here: the perfect choice. He was
protected by his links to UMCPDA — and Angus hated him. If he spoke now,
ignored or taunted Angus in any way, Angus would hit him again; hit him hard
enough to splinter his skull, drive shards of bone into his brain,
kill
him
by tearing his cerebral synapses to shreds —

“It’s a
little late for that,” Nick remarked. Angus’ distraction appeared to intrigue
him. “We’re
here
. And you can’t pretend there won’t be any consequences.
My God, Angus, what is Hashi going to think of you? Or Min Donner?

“Sooner
or later you’ll have to start telling us the truth. You won’t have any choice.”

Now.
Test it.

Gathering
the strength of his shoulders, tensing his arms, Angus rose from his g-seat,
readied himself to strike —

— and
stopped. All the muscles he needed froze. At that instant he couldn’t have
swung his fist to save his sanity. Even the effort of closing the distance
between himself and the second’s station was beyond him.

He knew
the sensation too well. It was intimately familiar: as brutal as a rape; and so
compulsory that he would never be able to fight it. The emissions of his zone
implants were stronger than will and hope.

Confusion
swirled through him, as complex as a masque; his breathing felt caged in his
chest. Damn you! he raged uselessly. Damn you to hell! His programming refused
to let him pound his fists on the command board, so he ground them against his
thighs. You bastards, why don’t you tell
me
the truth once in a while?
What would it cost you to let me know what you want?

But he
couldn’t afford to fall into the abyss of his fury: not now, with
Trumpet
three light-years deep in Amnion space, and Morn aboard.

Savagely
he hauled himself back from despair.

All
right. Don’t give up.
Understand
it. His datacore still held him. He
couldn’t break past his programming. Nevertheless
some
thing had changed.
Neither Dios nor Lebwohl could have known that he would try to bring
Trumpet
here — and yet his programming had allowed him to do it.

“Tell
you what,” Nick offered casually. “You sit there and think. Think until you
burst a seal.” He undid his belts, shifted to his feet. “I’ll go tell your
people and mine they can take a break from their cabins. Treacherous little
shits, they’ll like that. I’m sure they want to talk to you. They’ll love
hearing you refuse to explain why we’re here — or, for that matter, how you and
Milos managed to snatch Davies right out from under the Bill’s nose, or what
makes Morn so fucking important.

“Along
the way I’ll bring you something to eat and drink. You look like you could use
it.”

He
paused, waiting for some acknowledgement.

Angus
waved a hand to dismiss Nick; ignored Nick’s departure from the bridge. He
wanted hope, wanted desperately to let himself hope. Nevertheless all his
instincts screamed against it.

It didn’t
make sense that the fucking cops would turn him loose. Someone — Dios or
Lebwohl — had simply decided to pull a different set of strings. Strings and
more strings, manipulating him like a puppet.

And yet
the impulse to hope refused to let go of his heart.

Understand
, God damn it!

Surely
even his programming had limits. The more he did, the farther he travelled from
UMCPDA’s surgical wing, the more likely it became that cracks would appear in
the blank wall of his mental prison. That motherfucking Lebwohl couldn’t
foresee
every
thing.

But of
course the cops knew that. They must have made some provision for it. Otherwise
the cumulative inadequacies of his instruction-set might let him be captured;
or let him escape.

What
could they do?

They
could kill him themselves. Hardwire some kind of self-destruct into his
datacore. But if they did that they would lose
Trumpet
and everyone
aboard. They would lose Morn. And they obviously did not want to lose Morn. If
they decided to kill him, they wouldn’t do it until they learned what had
happened to Thanatos Minor; until they got their hands on Morn.

Or they
could put someone in a position to control him. That had been Milos’ job. But
Milos had betrayed the cops — and clearly Lebwohl or Dios had seen that coming;
had planned for it. And there were no other candidates: not now; not while
Trumpet
remained out of contact with UMCPHQ. No one aboard knew the codes to command
him.

Angus
couldn’t think of any other alternatives. Only one option remained.

Simply
to keep him alive, the cops would have to let him make some of his own choices.
Until they were able to put another of their stooges in Milos’ place.

But if
they did that, they would have to let him make decisions more and more often as
time passed. And the gap between what he did and his original programming would
widen. Eventually it might widen enough to let him slip through.

His
brain seemed to burst with possibilities as a pain as bright as the detonation
of Billingate’s fusion generator exploded in the back of his head.

He’d
already undone his restraints. The force of the blow slammed him facedown on
his board, blind with agony: the impact split the skin of his left temple and
cheekbone. Then his own recoil toppled him off the command station.

Another
blow struck like impact fire below his right shoulder blade; drove him headlong
to the deck. He skidded across a small splash of blood.

In
microseconds a window opened like a screen in his head; damage assessments
scrolled past his awareness. The shielding for his computer and power supply
had absorbed most of the power of the second blow: his back was bruised but not
broken. But the first concussion had pulped his scalp, spread a fretwork of
stress fractures through his occipital lobe, compressed his brain. Another
strike like that might kill him.

The
sheer scale of the pain was going to kill him right now, every neuron in his
body misfired anguish across his senses, he couldn’t see or feel anything
except the hurt in his skull.

He’d
been hit from behind, his computer explained. His attacker was moving around
the g-seat to get at him; moving fast —

Instantly
his zone implants switched off the pain. They galvanised his muscles like an
electric charge. His senses cleared.

He
flipped over onto his back in time to see Nick plunging at him like
Captain’s
Fancy
out of the void toward
Tranquil Hegemony
, as full of ruin as a
mine-hammer.

Loss
and wild rage twisted Nick’s face into a mask of savagery. His scars seemed to
stream from his eyes like streaks of dark tears; a soundless howl stretched his
mouth. As he dropped toward Angus, his right fist swung a C-spanner in a fatal
arc for Angus’ head. He must have found it in one of
Trumpet’s
emergency
toolkits. Its head was stained with blood and hair from Angus’ skull.

“Fucking
sonofabitch!” Nick snarled as the spanner fell. “You did this to me!”

Savage
himself, Angus snatched up his hand and caught the spanner centimetres away
from his forehead.

One
hand was all he needed. Despite Nick’s force and weight, the blow stopped as if
it had struck a bulkhead. He was stronger than Nick in any case. And welded
struts reinforced his joints, improved his leverage; his reflexes ran at
microprocessor speeds. He caught and held the spanner so solidly that Nick lost
his grip and tumbled forward, throwing himself onto Angus.

With a
twitch of his shoulder and a flick of his wrist, Angus clapped the spanner
against Nick’s temple and ear. Nick fell to the side, slapped his length along
the deck.

At once
he tried to crawl away. But he was too weak with shock and damage to move
effectively. His hands seemed unable to find the surface under him: his elbows
couldn’t hold his weight. He collapsed onto his face; struggled up and
collapsed again.

Angus
rolled onto his feet and stood over Nick.

His
hands and face were full of murder: violence steamed like vitriol in his veins.
He
wanted
to kill Nick, would have given anything he could think of to
take Nick’s neck between his strong fingers and snap it like a stick.

His zone
implants didn’t permit that: they held him, trembling with fury and numb pain,
where he stood.

“You
dumb shit.” Words were the only outlet he was allowed. Most of them came out in
a clenched growl; some shouted like klaxons against the walls. “That was
stupid
.
Do you think you can survive without me? Do you think you or Mikka or Morn or
any
of you
” — his vehemence spattered blood from his temple and cheek — “can
survive without me? I’ve already locked the bridge with priority-codes you don’t
know and can’t break. You’re three
light-years
deep in Amnion space.
Without me you’re going to drift here until you
rot!
”

Nick
found the deck, pushed himself up onto his hands and feet. “I know,” he
murmured as if he were talking in his sleep. With a tortuous effort, he forced
one leg under him, then the other, and staggered upright. “I know it was
stupid. I just don’t know why.”

Wobbling
on unsteady knees, he turned to face Angus.

“Why
you’re able to do things like that.” Stupefied by his griefs and hurts, he
couldn’t keep what he was thinking to himself. “Why you can do things like
that, but what you do with it doesn’t make any sense.”

Angus’
programming prevented him from murder. On the other hand, it did grant him
certain kinds of latitude. As smooth and swift as a snake, he reached forward
and grabbed Nick by the front of his shipsuit, twisted the fabric into a knot.
Shifting his weight, he lifted Nick into the air.

Eyes
closed and neck limp, Nick dangled from Angus’ grasp. Slowly the pressure of
the knot at his throat began to strangle him; yet he didn’t resist. Blood
mounted in his face; his face swelled; spasms of anoxia ran reflexively along
his arms. Nevertheless he didn’t lift a hand to defend himself.

Good.
The disasters which had overwhelmed him ever since he’d taken Morn aboard his
ship may have driven him out of his mind, but he was still capable of learning
— if the lessons were loud and hard enough.

“Can
you think of
any
reason,” Angus rasped harshly, “why I should explain
myself to you? Why I should tell you
anything
except what I want you to
do when I want you to do it?”

Retching
for breath, Nick shook his head; mouthed, No.

“That’s
better.”

With a
silent curse of regret, Angus opened his hand and let Nick crumple to the deck.
After one hoarse whoop for air, Nick sprawled flat and lay still.

Abruptly
Angus’ heart began to pound, and his own breathing caught in his throat. The
window in his head had started to impinge directly on his optic nerves,
flashing alarms across his vision to get his attention. The damage to his skull
was serious. If his zone implants had let him feel it, the pain would have
overwhelmed him like a tidal wave. He needed to get to sickbay.

Swallowing
a rush of panic, he turned back to the command station.

Fortunately
his computer kept his hands steady, his manner even. He typed a quick series of
codes to re-enable
Trumpet’s
intercoms, then thumbed a toggle to open
channels to all the cabins. He didn’t know who had taken which cabin, and didn’t
care: it didn’t matter.

“All
right, listen,” he pronounced roughly. “For the next eight hours or so we
should be about as safe as we’re likely to get. Mikka, Davies, I want you on
the bridge to keep an eye on Nick. He just tried to kill me. If he hadn’t
fucked it up, you would all be as good as dead.”

Why
didn’t he bind and gag Nick, lock the bastard in a cabin? Because his
programming declined to permit that. Even now, Nick was protected by his
association with UMCPDA.