The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (35 page)

Koina
replied with a perplexed frown. She may have thought he’d lost his mind: she
looked like she was about to stand up and leave; dissociate herself from him
before he started raving. But after a moment she reached a different decision.

Carefully
she replied, “Director Lebwohl.”

Grimly
Sixten fought down the sight of bodies and blood. Get a grip on yourself, you
old fool. He was the first human being who’d ever seen an Amnioni. He’d gone to
the Amnion vessel alone, against Holt Fasner’s direct orders, so that he could
meet the unknown, the future, and believe that he was able to face it. Surely
he could do the same now.

Still
shaking, he addressed Koina. “Tell Director Lebwohl I’m afraid there’s going to
be another attack. During the next session. Tell him if he’s ever been a real
cop — if he cares at all about the integrity of the UMCP, or the rule of law in
human space — or even if he just wants to clear his reputation — he’s got to
keep kazes away from the hall.”

Her
eyes widened: he’d taken her by surprise. However, her reaction wasn’t what he’d
expected.

“I’ll
tell him,” she promised. “I’ll tell him your exact words. And I think he’ll
listen. He’ll take you seriously.

“But in
the meantime —”

She
paused as if she had to choose her words.

“You
haven’t heard — it hasn’t been announced yet. Some rather difficult
negotiations have been going on between GCES Security and UMCPHQ. You could say
that they’ve been fighting over ‘turf’ — jurisdiction. I think I’ve finally
worked out an agreement. In fact, President Len has already signed it. And Director
Dios has given his authorisation.

“Within
the next four hours, we’re going to double the number of security personnel on
Suka Bator. Every precaution you can think of will be in effect. The UMCPHQ
Chief of Security will be in command. He’s one of Director Donner’s people,”
she added as if she hoped that would allay some of Sixten’s fears.

He didn’t
know what to say to this, so he concentrated on keeping his mouth shut;
controlling his panic.

“I don’t
ask you to be content with that,” Koina continued. “You’ve already been
attacked once — you can’t be expected to trust ordinary security. And there’s
no reason why we shouldn’t both ask Director Lebwohl to take additional steps.
He might very well think of something UMCPHQ Security has missed.”

Come
on, he adjured himself. Pull yourself together. Don’t leave her hanging.

“Thank
you.” He thought that was the best he could manage; but his voice sounded so
pitiful in his own ears that he forced himself to try again. “Maybe some things
are worth dying for.”

Clearly
she didn’t understand him. How could she? Resuming her professional manner, she
said, “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

The
Bill of Severance was Min Donner’s idea. She’d given it to Sixten.

And
Warden Dios had paid Milos Taverner to frame Angus Thermopyle.

Koina
started to rise, then lowered herself back to the edge of her seat. “I need to
go,” she said with a hint of anxiety, “but before I do, I think I should tell
you that I’m going to let Director Dios know about your conversation with
Special Counsel Igensard. If I really believe in him, I’d better act like it.”

Sixten’s
shrug felt less unconcerned and more helpless than he liked.

She
leaned forward. “I don’t mean to hover over you, but I have to ask. Are you all
right? Are you really all right?”

To his
relief he found that his fright was receding. He may have actually reached a
decision. Or perhaps he was merely sleepy. Whatever the explanation, he was
able to respond in a more normal tone.

“My
dear young lady, at my age it’s almost impossible to make a useful distinction
between being and not being ‘all right’. Please don’t worry about it. At a
guess, I would say that I’m not quite ready to collapse.”

If he’d
been a decade or two less ancient, her smile might have warmed his heart. “In
that case,” she said as she stood, “I’ll go catch my shuttle.”

He didn’t
get to his feet — he didn’t think he had the strength — but from his chair he
gave her a formal bow when she reached the door and turned to say good-bye.

As she
left, he realised that he’d already gone too far to change his mind. Whether he
lived or died, he was going to stand by his beliefs.

ANCILLARY

DOCUMENTATION

MATTER
CANNON

Like the relationship
between order and chaos, the relationship between matter and energy is easily
stated. However, the application of that relationship on which the peculiar
effectiveness of matter cannon depends is less easily explained.

Simply
put, matter is nothing more than energy in a more condensed or concentrated
form. Matter is “frozen” energy, just as order is frozen or rigid chaos.
Conversely energy may be understood as “liquid” matter in the same way that
chaos appears to be liquid order, order in flux.

Nonetheless
to discuss matter/energy in terms of order/chaos may appear disingenuous.
Energy, of course, is not random or unpredictable in any useful sense. However,
the analogy between matter and order is plain. And the common understanding of
chaos as “randomness” or “unpredictability” is imprecise.

It is
axiomatic in chaos theory that the concepts of randomness and unpredictability
have meaning only within themselves — inside their own arenas of operation.
Just as energy is defined or structured by fields (electromagnetism, gravity,
large and small nuclear forces), chaos is defined or structured — in other
words, limited — by the means and principles by which it is set in motion, as
well as by the scale on which it is deployed. Although the effects of entropy
on complex systems cause them to mutate or degrade in unpredictable ways, the
process by which that unpredictability operates is itself predictable.

The
crucial point is this: pure randomness or unpredictability cannot exist in the
presence of limits; by virtue of its very existence, everything which exists is
limited; therefore pure randomness and unpredictability cannot exist. Anything
which resembles chaos must exist within some set of limits.

Matter
cannon were developed by the application of chaos theory to the relationship
between matter and energy.

Once
the postulates of chaos theory are grasped, no conceptual obstacle prevents the
hypothetical existence of forms of chaos which are transformed by their own
limits into forms of order under certain conditions. And if such forms of chaos
can exist, they can also be made to exist: they can be designed and generated
in such a way that they will resolve themselves into forms of order when given
parameters are satisfied.

In
metaphorical terms, then, a matter cannon emits a beam of light-constant energy
which “freezes” upon contact with matter. This energy takes on mass from any
object in its path — mass which for mere picoseconds exists at the speed of
light, and which is therefore at least theoretically infinite.

No
object in the material universe can withstand light-constant collision with an
infinite mass. For that reason the effectiveness of matter cannon is limited
only by practical considerations: by the amount of power available to the
cannon, for example; by the cannon’s ability to emit a beam which resists
dispersion over distance; by the presence of other energy fields which conduce
to dispersion; or, where the technological capacity exists, by particle sinks
which attempt to bleed off the infinite mass as it forms.

If
chaos is a more subtle and perhaps more essential form of order, then the destructiveness
of matter cannon is a more insidious and perhaps more compelling form of
material stability.

MIN

A
s soon as
Punisher
finished her initial burn and began
tracking
Trumpet
across the gap, Min Donner slept again. Better now than
later.
Trumpet
had a significant lead. And she wasn’t easy to follow.
After each crossing her homing signal had to be reacquired before
Punisher
could continue. And
Punisher’s
internal spin displacement was affecting
navigation, throwing her thousands or tens of thousands of kilometres off
course each time she went into tach. She might well need as much as a day or
two to get close enough to
Trumpet
to keep pace with her.

If the
displacement didn’t get worse. And nothing else went wrong.

In the
meantime
Punisher’s
drone required a certain number of hours to reach
UMCPHQ. And Warden Dios wouldn’t respond immediately. He couldn’t: he would
have to wait to reply until UMCPHQ attained a window on a listening post within
effective reach of
Punisher’s
presumed course. After that, more hours
would pass while the answering drone raced to its destination.

Better
to rest now.

Once
Punisher
gained velocity comparable to
Trumpet’s
, the cruiser needed thrust only
for course correction.
Trumpet’s
signal enabled
Punisher’s
helm
to set gap parameters which would slowly draw the cruiser closer to the scout
without overrunning her. As long as
Trumpet
didn’t accelerate,
Punisher
could coast in pursuit using only her gap drive.

Because
she was who she was, Min woke up for every course shift, every slight change in
Punisher’s
ambient vibrations. Nevertheless she was able to sleep for
the better part of eight hours without being disturbed by hard g.

Once
again her intercom awakened her.

“Director
Donner, this is the bridge. Director?”

This
time she roused easily. Everyone else aboard needed days or weeks of rest, not
hours; but until recently she hadn’t been under anywhere near as much strain as
they had.

As she
slid out of her bunk to answer the intercom, she discovered that most of her
aches were gone, and her ears no longer registered everything against a
background of pain. Nevertheless her anger remained.

At the
last Warden had told her that Morn Hyland might survive. Before that — for
months
before that — he’d let, no, encouraged her to believe that Morn would be
left to die.

What
could she trust now?

How
could she be sure that Morn’s rescue was anything more than a prelude to
another betrayal?

Well,
she was glad that Morn was alive,
glad
from the back of her throat to
the pit of her stomach. Still she was in no mood to be forgiving.

While
her ears, the soles of her feet, and the nerves of her skin sensed
Punisher’s
condition, she toggled her intercom. “Bridge.” By small increments the internal
spin displacement was getting worse. “Captain Ubikwe?”

“Director
Donner,” the voice which had awakened her replied, “I’m Command Fourth Stoval,
Hargin Stoval.” Unlike most of the other officers, he sounded phlegmatic;
immune to fatigue. “Captain Ubikwe wants to talk to you. He’s in the galley.”

“Fine,”
Min answered. “I’m on my way.” But she didn’t want to wait that long for news. “Where
are we? What’s going on?”

“With
respect, sir,” Stoval replied stolidly, “I think you should talk to Captain
Ubikwe.”

Min
didn’t bother to respond. She punched off the intercom, then stood glaring at
it for a moment. Dolph, you goddamn prima donna, what’re you doing? What’re you
afraid of?

Why don’t
you want your people to talk to me?

But she
knew why. His ship and his people were damaged, raw with weariness, alone. He
was chasing a UMCP gap scout, of all things, with at least one hostile vessel
presumably in pursuit. And Min hadn’t told him what was at stake.

Dolph
Ubikwe was not a man to take such treatment calmly.

For his
sake, as well as for her own, she made a particular effort to regain her own
poise before she left her cabin to find the galley.

 _

 _

One of the innovations she’d
imposed on the UMCP fleet when she became ED Director was the elimination of
separate facilities for officers and crew. She desired hierarchies, chains of
command, which were founded on respect and commitment, not on privilege — or
isolation. Everyone aboard
Punisher
, including her captain, was served
by the same foodvends and dispensers, ate in the same mess.

As a
result, the galley was not a place Min would have chosen for a private
conversation.

She
suspected, however, that Captain Ubikwe wanted to talk to her there precisely
so that their conversation would not be private. He intended to make her take
responsibility for what she revealed, as well as for what she concealed. And he
wanted his people to know that he withheld nothing from them which affected
their chances of survival.