The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (50 page)

For
that matter, so was
Punisher
.
Free Lunch
had been following the
UMCP cruiser across the dark at a considerable distance; far enough back to be
beyond the plausible reach of
Punisher’s
scan; close enough to keep
track of her. With the information from
Trumpet’s
signal waiting in the
vacuum like a series of signposts — and with
Punisher’s
particle trace
leading the way —
Free Lunch
could have followed her target
indefinitely.

Unfortunately
she wasn’t being paid to simply follow the gap scout. And
Punisher
stood
between her and the fulfilment of her contract.

No
doubt
Punisher
and
Free Lunch
had diametrically opposed reasons
for pursuing
Trumpet
. If
Free Lunch
attacked the gap scout,
Punisher
would fight to protect her.

Such
things had happened before in Darrin Scroyle’s experience. More than once he’d
seen righteous Min Donner and conniving Hashi Lebwohl work at cross-purposes.
At UMCPHQ the right hand had no idea what the left hand was doing.

He didn’t
find this amusing.

On the
other hand, he wasn’t disconcerted. He didn’t care what Donner’s loyalties were
in this situation, or Lebwohl’s. The only question which interested him was:
Did
Punisher
know what he was doing now? Had she received warning of
Hashi Lebwohl’s intentions? Did she know that
Free Lunch
had been given
the codes to interpret
Trumpet’s
homing signal?

If
Punisher
had been warned,
Free Lunch
might have an unusually difficult time
fulfilling her contract.

The
cruiser was likely to be a formidable obstacle. According to his reputation,
Captain Dolph Ubikwe had a casual attitude toward UMCP protocol; but there was
nothing casual about the way he carried out his orders.

If
Darrin Scroyle couldn’t outmanoeuvre
Punisher
somehow, he wouldn’t be
able to avoid a fight with the warship.

He wasn’t
afraid of that. Still he intended to avoid it if he could. His contract with
Hashi Lebwohl didn’t require him to be stupid.

Among
mercenaries he was an old man. He had grey hair on his chest and head. He’d
learned to forgive his paunch for being flabby. He let himself limp when his
sciatica flared up; instinctively he distrusted the nerve implants which might
have cured the ailment for him. By now he was old enough to know that nothing
was ever simple.

That no
longer bothered him. He and his ship had survived their uncompromising life for
so long because he was relatively simple himself: he could concentrate on the
complexities which affected him, and let the ones which didn’t go.

“How
does it look?”

Alesha
asked her question from the master’s bunk, where she lay waiting for him to
finish what he was doing. Like him, she was naked. And like him, she was no
longer young. Time made her once-proud breasts sag at the pull of
Free Lunch’s
internal spin. Her habitual seriousness had been twisted awry, so that her
frown of concentration now resembled a crooked grin. She had less stamina than
he remembered, and perhaps a bit less appetite.

Nevertheless
she was precious to him. He loved the comfort of her soft skin, even though it
was no longer as taut as she wished; loved the taste of her nipples, even
though they no longer hardened so readily against his tongue. And he treasured
her refusal to dismiss complexities which meant nothing to him.

She was
Alesha Hardaway, his targ first; but she was also his first cousin. Mercenary
ships were like that: often interbred. They took on outsiders rarely. Outsiders
who shared the same code, the same commitment — outsiders who could be trusted
— were hard to find. Most of Darrin’s crew had come from other mercenary
vessels after time or violence, bad luck or bad judgement, had cost them the
ability to fulfil their contracts. Alesha had been with him aboard
Free
Lunch
from the beginning.

“About
as we expected,” he answered. Like her question, his reply was easy,
companionable. “According to
Trumpet’s
last signal, she’s crossed into
Valdor’s system.
Punisher
has already gone after her. We’ll do the same
as soon as I tell the bridge how I want it done.

“As for
that other ship — the one coming in from Thanatos Minor — we haven’t seen her
for twenty-four hours. I don’t know where she is. So I’m going to assume she’s
there, too” — he tapped his schematic, although Alesha couldn’t see it from
where she lay — “trying to get to
Trumpet
ahead of all of us.”

Alesha
considered for a moment, then asked, “How
do
you want it done?”

He
turned his back on the board so that he could look at her. She faced him on her
belly, with her chin propped on her folded arms. Dimpled by time, her flanks
curved toward the cleft between her legs.

“I
guess I’ve known you too long,” he responded. “For some reason I’m sure that’s
not the question you want to ask first.”

She
gave him her twisted frown. “Am I that obvious?”

He
pursed his mouth. “I wouldn’t have called it ‘obvious’. I’ve just known you for
a long time. As a general rule I do try to learn from experience.”

“All
right, then.” Her gaze held his thoughtfully. “I wish you would tell me again
why we’re doing this. It’s going to be dangerous.”

She may
well have been the only person aboard who would have asked such a question. He hoped
so. Nevertheless he had no trouble thinking of an answer.

“Because
we’re being paid what the danger is worth.”

That
was his code:
the
code. Get paid what the job was worth. Then do it. Or
turn it down and forget about it. No second-guessing; no after-the-fact
scruples; no self-pity; no cold feet. Get paid for the job and then do it.
Otherwise life didn’t make much sense.

The
alternative was vampirism: living off other people’s blood and sweat. If life
didn’t make sense, he might as well have been an illegal. Or a cop.

Alesha
didn’t think that way, however. She shared his commitments, but she was
bedevilled by grey areas and complications.

“How
can you be sure?” Her sober gaze held him. “The whole thing stinks of plots and
counterplots. How can you know how much the danger is worth?”

He
shrugged. “I can’t. But I’ll stand by my own decisions. I didn’t take the job
blindly. And I like what we’re getting paid for it.”

She
shook her head. “There are different kinds of blindness. Did Lebwohl tell you
why he wants
Trumpet
killed?”

“You
know he didn’t. He’s a client. I don’t expect him to tell me what his reasons
are.”

“Then
how—?”

“All
right.” Darrin didn’t need to feign patience. If she hadn’t asked him such
questions, he would have valued her less. And he wasn’t afraid to admit that
the circumstances were complex. Only his commitment to his own actions needed
to be kept simple. “Here’s how I see it.

“
Trumpet
is a UMCP ship.” While he explained, he resumed scratching through the hair on
his chest. “She went to Thanatos Minor with a famous illegal in command and
Com-Mine’s former deputy chief of Security for crew — presumably some kind of
covert operation. Maybe she was sent to blow up Billingate? I don’t know. But I
do know this. While she was there, the Bill managed to lose the contents of an
ejection pod which was originally supposed to be delivered to the Amnion by
Nick Succorso.

“Succorso
met Thermopyle in a bar. During the fight before the planetoid blew, Succorso
and the Amnion each lost a ship. But by that time
Trumpet
had
considerably more than a crew of two. We know because we saw them go EVA — and
come back. It sure looked like
Captain’s Fancy
got herself killed to
keep them alive.

“After
that
Trumpet
left just in time to escape being caught in the shock wave.
But she didn’t head for human space, which was what any sane ship would have
done. Instead eight or ten hours went by before she came back over — and when
she did, it wasn’t from the direction of Thanatos Minor.

“In the
meantime Min Donner had already sent out a reception committee to welcome her
back. But she didn’t stop for it. In fact, none of us would have seen her at
all if she hadn’t paused to flare that listening post. And then she turned
straight for Massif-5, acting like a ship who wanted to have nothing to do with
the UMCP — except for the fact that she left a nice, convenient homing signal
behind her, and came here by careful stages, so she would be easy to follow.”

With
mild vexation, Darrin noticed that he was making the skin of his chest raw.
Scratching too hard. Alesha would have reminded him to stop if she hadn’t been
concentrating on what he said. Frowning at his hand, he set it down on his
thigh.

“At the
same time another ship appeared out of forbidden space, burning as hard as she
could straight from Thanatos Minor after
Trumpet
.”

He
spread his palms. “How smart do I have to be before I can guess what all that
means?”

Alesha
listened as if she were memorising every word. “Tell me.”

He
couldn’t suppress a smile. Sometimes he liked her so much that he wanted to
laugh out loud. However, he didn’t hesitate to answer her seriously.

“Succorso
had a cargo the Amnion want back. He promised it to them so they would let him
live, but then he diverted it to Billingate. He and Thermopyle stole it from
the Bill — they’ve got it with them now.

“Naturally
they don’t want to hand it over to the cops. They want it for themselves. They’re
illegals — they won’t do what the cops tell them unless someone holds a gun to
their heads. At the same time they have no intention of facing an Amnion
incursion on their own. For all they know, the ship after them is
Calm
Horizons
. They wouldn’t stand a chance against her, despite
Trumpet’s
fancy equipment. So they leave a trail for
Punisher
to follow. They’re
trying to keep the cruiser between them and that other ship.

“
Punisher
wants their cargo. And of course she doesn’t want the Amnion to get it. But
Hashi Lebwohl doesn’t trust a mere UMCP cruiser for a job like that. He doesn’t
want the Amnion to get that cargo. He doesn’t want Succorso and Thermopyle to
keep it. And maybe — just maybe — he wants to keep it away from Min Donner.
Maybe he doesn’t like to think about what someone that pure will do with it.
Whatever it is.

“So he
hires us.”

“For
insurance,” Alesha put in softly.

“Insurance.”
Darrin nodded. “Exactly. He’s paying us to cover his ass.”

He
paused for a moment to let her examine the implications, then went on, “In
other words, I don’t think anyone is plotting against
us.
If Hashi
Lebwohl is afraid of us because we ‘know too much’ about what happened on
Thanatos Minor, he could have given
Punisher
orders to take us out.
Captain Ubikwe would have done it — he was itching for the chance. As far as ED
is concerned, anybody who uses Cleatus Fane for cover must be illegal.

“But
Lebwohl didn’t do that. Instead he offered us a contract. He told us about that
homing signal. And he gave us what looks like a pretty complete rundown on
Trumpet’s
capabilities. He isn’t worried about what we know or don’t know. He can trust us
to keep it to ourselves. And there’s no other reason why he might want to get
rid of us.

“What
do you think?” he finished with a small smile. “Are we getting paid what the
danger is worth?”

Alesha
didn’t answer immediately. Instead she countered, “That brings me back to my
original question. What are you going to tell the bridge? As long as we’re this
far behind
Trumpet
and
Punisher
, we’ll never fulfil our contract.
We need to get ahead of them somehow — or between them, if we can’t get ahead.
But how can we do that? We don’t know where they’re going.”

However,
Darrin had a counter of his own ready. “As long as we’re guessing, what do you
suppose that cargo is?”

She
lifted her shoulders. “I have no idea. I can’t think of anything the Amnion
would value low enough to let Succorso steal it, and yet high enough to risk an
act of war to get it back.”

He
tightened his mouth so that he wouldn’t grin. “You’re worrying about reasons
again. They’re just smoke — they confuse the issue.

“What
do we know about the cargo itself?” Because he liked explaining himself to
Alesha, he didn’t sound pedantic. “Succorso sent it toward
Tranquil Hegemony
in an ejection pod. What kind of cargo — what kind of treasure — fits in an
ejection pod?

“Something
physical, that’s obvious. It isn’t just data or secrets. And nothing raw or
unprocessed. That wouldn’t be worth an incursion into human space.” As if it
had a mind of its own, his hand rose to his chest. He pulled it down firmly. “Some
kind of equipment? A device? I don’t think so. The Amnion can reproduce their
own devices whenever they want — and they know we can’t. Human methods can’t
replicate their technologies.”