The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (18 page)

Flushing
with embarrassment, Ciro ducked his head.

“He’s
right,” Morn whispered.

Davies
knew that as well as she did. Lectures, reports, even rumours that she’d heard
in the Academy tumbled through his mind. The system where Valdor Industrial
revolved around the binary star Massif-5 was a staggering conglomeration of
moons and planetoids, asteroids and planets; a morass of orbital masses so
complex that navigational errors were nearly as lethal as piracy. Valdor was
located there because of the rich availability of the resources it needed for
its enterprises, primarily smelting and heavy industry. An enormous traffic
carried the station’s output to Earth. And for exactly that reason the whole
system swarmed with illegals. By reputation none of the individual bootleg
shipyards or other illegal operations hidden in that maze of g and rock could
compare with Billingate for size and diversification. Taken together, however,
they served many more ships, processed more plunder, concealed more facilities.
Illegals who disliked proximity with the Amnion had always preferred Massif-5,
with its wealth and hiding places.

Incomprehension
tightened Angus’ face. His lost ship,
Bright Beauty
, hadn’t had a gap
drive: in all likelihood, he was entirely ignorant of the Massif-5 system. But
his confusion lasted no more than a second. As if he’d somehow instantaneously
accessed one of
Trumpet’s
computers, called up a database on Valdor
Industrial, and absorbed its contents, his expression cleared.

“Can
you locate a lab there?” he asked Mikka.

Morn
fought visibly to control herself as Mikka considered the question. When Mikka
finally muttered grudgingly, “I think so,” a relief as poignant as sorrow came
over Morn’s features, and she had to grind her palms into her eyes to hold back
tears.

“Shit,”
Nick growled to no one in particular. “Now we’re going to let a
kid
tell
us what to do.”

Angus
studied Morn intently. He had to swallow several times before he could find his
voice.

Darkly
he murmured, “It’s probably better than hanging around here. I hate forbidden
space anyway.” The malign yellow in his eyes made him look like a man who hated
everything. “Even the vacuum smells like Amnion.”

Unable
to stop himself, Davies touched Angus’ arm in thanks.

Instantly
furious, Angus jerked his arm away; snapped at Davies like a lash, “Fuck
you
,
too. If you think
I’ve
turned into some kind of bleeding heart, you’re
using your asshole for brains.”

“You
wish.” Because he was his father’s son, Davies met Angus’ anger with a hard
grin. “On the other hand,
you’re
using your gonads. Fortunately that’s
the only part of you I trust.”

Nick
chuckled appreciatively.

“Then
there’s just one more thing,” Vector interposed. Eagerness still glinted in his
gaze, but he’d recovered his air of calm. “I need the drug.”

Morn
didn’t speak. Maybe she couldn’t. Nevertheless she lowered her hands, lifted
her raw gaze. After digging in her pocket for a moment, she brought up three
small grey capsules in her palm and offered them to Vector.

He
accepted them almost reverently, as if he knew what they meant to her.

“But
you didn’t take them all,” he commented quietly. “If you did, Nick would have
noticed they were gone. He would have figure out you had them. Nick —”

“Nick
must have the rest,” Davies finished for him.

Abruptly
Sib remembered to aim his handgun at Nick.

Everyone
on the bridge looked at Nick. He scrutinised the deck in front of him, ignoring
their eyes.

“Hand
them over, Nick,” Angus ordered.

Nick
ignored that as well.

Davies
started forward, but Angus was already ahead of him. Two quick strides put
Angus directly in front of Nick.

“I’m
not going to warn you,” Angus rasped. “If you need warning by this time, you’re
too stupid to live.”

Nick
peered at the deck as if he were bemused by the way the plates were welded
together. He put up no resistance — didn’t react at all — as Angus shoved his
fingers into one pocket after another until he found Nick’s vial of capsules.

“Good
boy.” Angus tossed the vial to Vector. “Tomorrow I’ll teach you to roll over.”

Vector
opened the vial, checked the contents, then put Morn’s capsules with the
others. “I don’t know if that’s all of them,” he said, “but it should be
enough.” His smile had a rueful tinge, as if he could taste the years he’d
lost. “If I can’t crack the formula from a sample like this, I’d better go back
to engineering.”

Nick’s
scars had turned the colour of cold ash; a tic pulled at the edge of his cheek.
Nevertheless he didn’t raise his eyes from the deck.

Watching
him, Davies felt sure that Nick was contemplating murder.

ANGUS

A
ngus wanted to sit down on the deck and hold his head. Only his zone
implants kept him on his feet, preserved the appearance that he was in control
of himself. If they hadn’t automatically stepped up their emissions midway
through the ordeal of facing Morn, he would have fallen apart already.

He
couldn’t
believe
what was happening.

Had he
just agreed to take Vector Shaheed to a lab in the VI system? He’d never been
there before; knew nothing about it except what his databases told him. And was
it all for the sake of some shit-foolish humanitarian gesture? This wasn’t what
he did to bleeding hearts. This wasn’t how he manipulated them — or reacted to
them. He had a long and feral history of making such bastards
pay
for
their moral superiority.

In
fact, he’d achieved his greatest victory that way. He’d hijacked a ship called
Viable
Dreams
virtually intact and sold her crew to the Amnion in exchange for the
knowledge that enabled him to edit datacores; and he’d accomplished it with a
fake distress call and a few dead bodies to prove he was in trouble — in other
words, by appealing to her captain’s bleeding heart.

What
was
wrong
with him?

It must
be his programming: Dios or Lebwohl was pulling his strings again; embedded
commands in his datacore had taken over again. Never mind that it didn’t make
any sense. Either Dios or Lebwohl wanted him to act like a fucking
philanthropist.

And yet
he hadn’t felt the coercion —

Not
that sort of coercion, at any rate. Electronic impulses forced him to appear
self-contained, decided for him what he could and couldn’t reveal, finally
stifled any outward sign of his inner torment. But those emissions hadn’t
forced him to say the words which accepted Vector’s proposal; the command hadn’t
reached him through his datalink.

No, the
coercion was of another kind.

It came
from Morn.

With
her ravaged beauty and her raw gaze, her plain weakness and her strange
strength, she compelled him. She was as precious as
Bright Beauty
, and
as vulnerable: so vulnerable that she seemed to make him vulnerable in her
place, as if he wanted to protect her, sacrifice himself for her; as if
he
,
Angus Thermopyle, had it in him to want anything from her except to possess
her.

He’d
agreed to Vector’s suggestion because she desired it.

The
thought filled him with so much helpless rage that he stormed and howled like a
beast inside the mute cage of his skull.
It’s probably better than hanging
around here.
He had to assume that whatever he accepted or decided here
didn’t mean anything. His programming was simply biding its time, waiting for
someone to invoke the codes which would return him to UMCPHQ. At that point he
would effectively betray Vector and Ciro, Mikka and Sib.

And
Davies.

And
Morn.

When
Davies had put a hand on his arm, he’d said,
Fuck
you,
too
. But
he hadn’t been talking to his son.

As for
Morn, he’d made a deal with her. She’d given him his life: he’d promised not to
betray her. That promise still held him, even though he was powerless to do
anything about it.

Because
he couldn’t collapse on the deck and wail like his torn heart, he looked around
the bridge and nodded grimly as if everything was settled; as if every
important question had been answered. “All right,” he told the wonder and
anguish on Morn’s face, the hot passion in Davies’ eyes, “that’s enough. You
need rest. Shit, we all do.

“We’ve
got” — he consulted his computer — “roughly seven and a half hours until we’re
in position to head for human space.” He indicated Davies. “You and Sib take
Captain Sheepfucker and lock him in one of the cabins. After that you can put
yourselves to bed. As long as he can’t hurt anything except himself, the rest
of us are probably safe.”

Clutching
his gun, Sib stood up from the second’s station. Davies studied Angus for a
moment, flicked a glance like a question toward Morn, then shrugged and moved
to join Sib. An opportunity to treat Nick as Nick had formerly treated him was
one he couldn’t refuse.

Nick’s
cheek ticked urgently, but he didn’t protest. While Sib aimed the handgun at
the small of his back, he crossed the bridge and climbed the companionway ahead
of Sib and Davies.

Addressing
Vector and Ciro, Angus went on, “You two get off the bridge. If you think you
don’t need sleep, think again.”

Ciro
turned toward Mikka, asking silently whether he should stay with her; but
Vector took his arm and drew him after Davies and Sib.

As he
passed the command station, Vector paused to say, “Thank you.”

He was
speaking to Morn, not Angus.

Angus
knew exactly how the engineer felt.

With a
private snort of bitterness, he faced Mikka.

“You’re
my second now. I need somebody with the right kind of experience.” Somebody who
thought like an illegal, not a cop. “Also somebody who knows the Valdor system.
Captain Sheepfucker already had his chance. But I don’t need you until we’re
ready to leave here. If you don’t rest now, you’ll have to stay tired for a
long time. Come back in six and a half hours so you’ll have time to get used to
your board. Stay away until then.”

Mikka
nodded slowly. Her black scowl had been replaced by something more complex and
speculative; almost a look of bafflement. For a moment she glanced back and
forth between Angus and Morn like a woman trying to measure her options; then
she grimaced uncomfortably.

“None
of this makes sense,” she said to Angus. “You know that.” There was no
challenge in her tone. “I feel like somebody changed all the rules behind my
back. When did you turn into a man who cares whether humankind has an immunity
drug? You say you’re working for Hashi Lebwohl. When did
he
turn into a
man like that?

“You
rescued Davies and Morn. You rescued us. I want to trust you. I just don’t know
how.”

Angus
growled deep in his throat, but didn’t answer.

“Do you
mind being left with him?” Mikka asked Morn.

Morn’s
eyes flared with anger or panic; she looked like she wanted to say, Are you crazy?
Of course I
mind
. For some reason, however, she shook her head. “If he
wants me dead,” she murmured, “all he has to do is touch me. In the meantime, I
need to talk to him.”

Mikka
may have thought Morn was crazy. Nevertheless she shrugged. “I’m going to leave
my door open,” she remarked as she headed for the companionway. “If you shout,
I’ll hear you.”

Morn
watched Mikka go as if she were taking all the courage off the bridge with her.

Angus
ached at the sight of her visceral distress. At one time he’d loved seeing her
like this; loved her horror and revulsion because they confirmed his possession
of her. Or he’d believed he loved it; tricked himself into believing it. Now
that emotion was gone; lost. He’d suffered too much of her helplessness. His
own head had become a crib as cruel and inescapable as the one in which
his
mother filled him with pain
— The gap between his needs and anyone else’s
was as great now as it had been then. For that reason Morn’s fear and hatred
affected him like
Bright Beauty’s
wounds: they confirmed nothing except
the fact that he’d failed.

Choosing
to be alone with him here must have been one of the hardest things she’d ever
done.

Savage
to avoid the anguish he’d once craved from the bottom of his heart, he rasped
harshly, “Get out of my seat.”

She
didn’t move. When Mikka reached the head of the companionway and passed out of
view, Morn brought her gaze slowly to his, let him see the nakedness of her
abhorrence. Yet she didn’t do what he told her. She might not have heard him.

“Mikka’s
right,” she said stiffly, as if she were fighting for calm. Nevertheless she
kept her voice low. “None of this makes sense.
You
don’t make sense. But
I’m not going to ask you to explain it. I don’t care what your reasons are. I’m
not even going to
try
to trust you.