The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (45 page)

“DA can’t
risk pulling him in until they’re sure he’s safe.”

Nick
paused, looked around the bridge. “In other words” — he made an unsuccessful
attempt to sound triumphant — “they need a replacement for Milos.”

Of
course they did.

“Don’t
say it,” Vector put in unexpectedly. His pain-dulled eyes met Nick’s glare.
Although his voice was as pale as his face, it hinted at firmness; a refusal to
be cowed. “We can see it coming.

“DA
chose you.”

Morn
remained locked in herself, as small and hard and lost as she could be.

An
involuntary snarl twisted Nick’s mouth. “As it happens, there’s a ship after
us. UMCP cruiser
Punisher
. She’s pretty far back — but about an hour
ago, right before we went into tach, she managed to catch us with a
transmission.” He showed his teeth. “The cops have given me Angus’ new
priority-codes.

“If you
saw that coming, you know what comes next. Now
I
run him. He’s
mine.
And he can’t disobey or ignore or even threaten me because his programming won’t
let
him.

“Are
you
listening?
” Nick flared around the bridge. “Do you get the message?
I’ve already ordered him to protect me. You bastards may think you can team up
against me, but you’re dreaming. You can’t touch me unless you get past a
cyborg with machine reflexes and lasers first.

“And I’m
not quite helpless myself.” He waved Milos’ small stun-prod, then used it to
slap at the command console. “I have his codes for the ship.
She’s
mine,
too.”

He
couldn’t sit still any longer; couldn’t sustain his relaxed pose. He’d been too
badly beaten: no amount of power could turn him back into the man who never
lost. Driven by his bereavements, he made short, punching gestures with his
fists as he spoke, as if he were fighting an invisible enemy. His voice sounded
shrill and bloody, like the cut of a drill through bone.

“I’m
sure Hashi Lebwohl in his infinite wisdom thinks he can reason with me. Or
outmanoeuvre me. Or at least bargain with me. So that I’ll do what he wants.
And maybe he’s right. I won’t know until I hear what he has to offer.

“But if
he thinks he can persuade or trick or pay me to give up what I’ve got now, he’s
out of his goddamn contorted mind. I’ve got a ship with enough firepower to
take on a battlewagon. I’ve got a second who can do tricks nobody’s ever heard
of before — and who can’t argue with me. Once Vector does his job at the Lab, I’ll
have something I can sell for enough credit to buy my own station.” His whole
face seemed to concentrate around his scars. “Then I’m going to start teaching
you and a few other people what real revenge is all about.”

Darkly
Davies muttered, “If you don’t go crazy and get yourself killed first.”

Nick
swung his station hard, brought his anger directly to bear on Davies. “
You
I’ll
probably keep alive. You’ll make good bait.” Then he raised his head so that he
could rage more easily. “But the rest of you better start trying to think of
ways to convince me I need you. You better figure out some way to make me
forgive you.

“And
that goes for
her,
too.” He stabbed the stun-prod in Morn’s direction. “I
want her
compliant,
you got that? No more of her fucking
self-righteousness, no more lies, no more resistance. Otherwise I’ll blow the
whole shit-faced lot of you out the airlock and never look back.”

Sib
released his handgrip, let himself float in the air beside the screens. Nick’s
demand for Morn seemed to be more than he could bear. He was as pale as Vector,
but his twitching had stopped. The nausea in his eyes wasn’t physical.

He’d
assigned himself the job of guarding Nick. And he’d failed.

“Do it
now,” he said softly. “What are you waiting for?”

Nick
turned again until he faced Sib, Ciro, and Mikka. Instead of shouting, however,
he spoke almost casually; almost as if he’d recovered his self-possession.

“Right
now I don’t have time. We’re too near our insertion window for Massif-5. And
after that I’ll be even busier. Until we get to the Lab.

“Besides,”
he added in a fatal drawl, “I want to watch you suffer. I want to see you sweat
yourself dry trying to come up with some way to persuade me I shouldn’t make
you go EVA without a suit.”

Davies
couldn’t keep quiet. He had to
do
something — had to get off the bridge,
away from Nick, so that he could try to reach Morn. She needed him, and he’d
given her nothing.

Everyone
needed him. Sib’s shame had pushed him as far as he could go. Mikka knew Nick
too well to ignore his threats. Ciro was plainly out of his depth, appalled by
what was left of a man he’d once idolised — and maybe also by how easily he’d
been bested. And Vector looked too weak to move, much less make decisions.

“In
that case,” Davies put in stiffly, “how much time is there? Vector can’t do lab
work with that hand. Mikka can’t survive heavy g without treatment. I might not
be able to stand it myself. And if you want Morn ‘compliant’” — that word hurt
like a violation, but he used it in an effort to sway Nick — “you’d better let
me take her to sickbay. Cat might bring her back, but I can’t measure the right
dose myself.”

Nick
started to say something that may have been, I don’t care. But then he thought
better of it. “All right.” His eyes were full of schemes — schemes which
apparently left
Trumpet
and his immediate victims far behind. He glanced
at his readouts. “You have twenty minutes. If you aren’t strapped down by then,
you can kiss yourselves good-bye.

“But” —
he cocked a fist in warning — “don’t think you can use anything in sickbay
against me. I can monitor you from here. I’ll know it if you try to arrange any
surprises. And you aren’t going to like what happens if Angus has to defend me
again.”

Davies
didn’t waste time on a retort. Twenty minutes. He was in a hurry. Releasing his
anchor on the auxiliary engineering console, he pushed off from the deck;
floated up over the bridge stations toward Morn.

Mikka
nudged Ciro to follow. Sib and Vector were already moving.

As he
passed overhead, Davies caught one more glimpse of the stark excruciation in
Angus’ eyes.

His
father needed him, too.

DAVIES

N
eeded him — and would kill him if he did anything to help.

No.
Davies couldn’t afford to think about that. First things first. Twenty minutes
until
Trumpet
went into tach. Twenty minutes to treat Mikka’s injuries,
and Vector’s, and his own. Twenty minutes to try to reach Morn somewhere inside
the protective ball of her body.

As
carefully as he could, he wrapped his good arm around her and moved her in the
direction of the companionway.

He
couldn’t control his movements, however — not with one arm broken and Morn
hugged in the other. Awkwardly he tried to stop at the head of the companionway
by hooking his leg on the nearest handrail, but his inertia pulled him over the
rail toward an impact with the treads. He was useless like this,
useless,
couldn’t even navigate zero g, when he hit it was going to hurt —

Sib
Mackern crowded up the companionway behind him. At the last moment Sib managed
to tuck a shoulder between Davies and the hard steps. Bright flares of pain
burst across Davies’ vision as his and Morn’s combined mass landed on his
broken bones. Nevertheless Sib’s body absorbed most of the collision.

Apparently
Sib wasn’t hurt. As Morn and Davies rebounded, he lifted with them. Gripping
the rail with one hand, he caught hold of Davies’ shipsuit with the other.

“Thanks,”
Davies murmured through a clamour of flashes.

Sib
didn’t bother to respond. His face was etched with misery.

Steered
by Sib’s hold, Davies carried Morn toward sickbay.

Pressure
swelled in his chest: he might have been bleeding internally. With his sight
confused by neural eruptions, the passage resembled a tunnel, long and dim,
ending in darkness. The small sickbay was toward
Trumpet’s
stern, out of
the way of traffic between the galley and the bridge, the cabins and the lift.
Surely it was possible to get there somehow. Pain was only pain: he ought to be
able to ignore it for a minute or two.

Angus’
zone implants and computer explained his quickness, but they didn’t account for
the superhuman force of his blows.
Strength of a fucking ape.
He must
have other resources as well.

Abruptly
Morn raised her head. Before Davies understood that she was moving, she extended
her arm and snagged a handgrip.

In
surprise Sib instinctively clung to Davies’ shipsuit. Pivoting around her, they
bumped to a stop against the bulkhead.

Davies
croaked out a whisper. “Morn?” Then in panic he jerked his head around, scanned
the passage. He didn’t want to risk being overheard; exposing her. Where was
the nearest intercom? Outside each of the cabins, of course: here; there;
there. Others farther away. But they weren’t active. All their indicators were
blank.

“Morn?”
he breathed again. For an instant his relief was so childlike that he feared he
might break into tears.

She
flicked a glance at him — a swift, urgent appeal for support. Then she turned
away.

Vector
and Ciro reached the passage, herded along by Mikka. As soon as they saw Morn,
however, they all grappled for handgrips or each other, anything they could use
to stop themselves. In a moment they were clustered around her, shoulder to
shoulder with Davies and Sib.

“Morn —”
Mikka bit her voice between her teeth to keep it low. Fresh blood seeped from
her temple. “Are you OK? Did you hear all that? What’re we going to do? We’ve
got to fight.”

“I can
at least refuse to do their work for them,” Vector offered thinly. “They can’t
force me to use my mind.”

“
Don’t,
”
Morn whispered back. “Don’t fight. Don’t refuse. Stay alive — don’t give him an
excuse to kill you.”

“Why?”
Sib protested in a choked moan. “We’re better off dead. You more than any of
us. You’re the one they really want to hurt.”

She
shook her head vehemently, as if she were stifling curses. “We haven’t got time
for this. There’s a lie here. Somebody’s lying. We need to stay alive until we
find out what it is.”

Angus
had said almost the same thing.

Mikka’s
eyes glared out of her stained face. “What lie? Angus is a cyborg. Nick
controls him. What else is there?”

“Sickbay,”
Morn countered. “Go. We all need it. I’ll try to explain.”

She was
right. Apparently she’d been able to postpone the things Nick meant to do to
her by feigning collapse, but she still needed treatment to stave off her
gap-sickness.

“Quickest
first,” Davies put in, riding a new rush of adrenaline. Pain made him
light-headed: his fear began to seem like excitement. Morn needed him as well.
She couldn’t care for herself without him. “Sib and Ciro, that’s you.
Go
— get what you need and get out of the way. Then Vector. Then you, Mikka. You
can’t survive hard g like that. I’m last. Morn can take as much cat as she
needs while the rest of us are being treated.”

As if
they were accustomed to accepting his orders, Sib and Ciro pushed themselves
into motion along the bulkhead. Vector started after them. But Mikka balked.

“No,
I’m
last. Morn needs you with her. If we run out of time, I’ll be safe enough
on the surgery table. It can probably take care of me even if we’re under
attack.”

Davies
didn’t argue with her. “All right. Just go.”

He
would feel better talking in the confines of a closed room. Out here he couldn’t
predict what sounds might carry as far as Nick’s ears, or Angus’.

Morn
didn’t need to be carried now. He could use his right hand and arm to control
his movements. As soon as she pushed off along the passage, he followed.

As his
vision cleared, the distance shrank to a more normal perspective. Coasting
carefully, he reached the sickbay in a matter of seconds.

It was
built into a chamber half the size of one of the cabins, with a heavy door to
protect its equipment and occupants from the actions of the rest of the ship.
Morn crowded through the doorway after Mikka. There was barely space for Davies
to squeeze in behind her and shut the door.

Like
the intercom indicators in the passage, the ones here were blank.

Fortunately
Trumpet’s
sickbay was as good as any he’d seen: compact and efficient;
ready for emergencies. Sib had already finished entering a few quick commands
on the console near the head of the surgery table. As Davies closed the door,
the dispenser produced capsules to help Sib and Ciro recover from stun and
vomiting: some mixture of stim and cat, metabolins and analgesics. Sib
swallowed one convulsively, handed the other to Ciro, then gestured Vector to
the table.