The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (58 page)

How
much more suffering did he think she could survive?

Davies pushed
toward her from the rail of the companionway. The small impact as he gripped
her shoulders moved her backward, away from Angus. Shivers rose against his
hands; she trembled as if she were about to shake apart in his grasp.

He
brought his face close to hers, forcing his resemblance to his father on her.

“Morn,
I keep saying the same thing.” His voice was soft and fatal — a whisper like
the sound of atmosphere venting to the void. “
None
of this matters. Not
here.
Not to
us.
We can’t guess whose side we’re supposed to be on. We don’t
know whose game this is, or what they want from us.
That
isn’t our
problem.

“Our
problem is
Nick.
We need to get ready for him.

“We don’t
know when he’s coming back. Once he puts Vector to work, he might decide to
wait here for the results. Playing with us to pass the time.

“We can’t
let him catch us before we’re ready.”

His
fingers dug into her shoulders as if he thought the pressure might stifle her
chills.

“Start
giving Angus orders,” he insisted softly. “Or I’ll do it, if you hurt too much.
We need to
move.
”

Angus
didn’t argue. Apparently he’d come to the end of his appeal. Sweat beaded on
his skin, squeezed out by the pressure of his need, but he stood still, saying
nothing, asking nothing.

He
wanted Morn to set him free.

All her
life she’d been a woman who knew how to hold a grudge. She’d never forgiven her
parents for leaving her in the name of their service to the UMCP. Because she
was a child then, she’d never forgiven herself. When her mother had died saving
Intransigent
from
Gutbuster
, she’d made the decision to be a cop
herself, hoping to turn her old, unanswered grievance outward; appease her
guilt. That commitment had failed, however, when her gap-sickness had destroyed
Starmaster
. On some primal level — beyond reason or logic — her guilt
had been confirmed.
Starmaster
died because she hadn’t forgiven her
parents. That was the source of her gap-sickness; the flaw in her brain. Welded
to her grudge, she’d brought about her parents’ deaths.

And
then Angus had taken her: the incarnation and apotheosis of the punishment she
deserved. She’d turned her grudge against herself with a vengeance. After all
the harm she’d done — and all she’d received — she hadn’t been able to conceive
any way out of her plight except by accepting her zone implant control from
Angus and casting in with Nick; by dedicating herself to the profound falsehood
of confirming Nick’s illusions. She’d disdained rescue so that she would
continue to be punished.

But
Davies had changed her. Having a child had forced her to step outside her
grudges and self-brutalisation in order to consider other questions; larger
issues. Vector had told her that the cops were corrupt. At the time that
information had horrified her. But how was their suppression of Intertech’s
antimutagen research different from her use of her black box against Nick? Or
against herself? If she wanted her life and her son’s to be any better than
Nick’s — or Angus’ — she had to begin making decisions of another kind.

As
far as I’m concerned,
she’d once told Davies,
you’re
the second most important thing in the galaxy. You’re my
son.
But the
first,
the
most
important thing is to not betray my humanity
. And later,
when he’d wanted to lock Nick out of
Trumpet,
she’d said like a promise,
You’re a cop. From now on, I’m going to be a cop myself. We don’t do things
like that.

Fine
sentiments. But they meant nothing if she didn’t act on them.

Yet if
acting on them meant setting Angus free —

Shivering
in revulsion, she turned the question back on him. Past her son’s shoulder, she
asked, “Why should we help you? Davies is right — we can find some way to deal
with Nick that doesn’t get you paralysed. You’ll work for us, you’ll have to,
you’ll take our orders instead of Nick’s, and we won’t need to be afraid of you
all the time.” Use him as a tool, the same way Warden Dios and Nick did. Less
brutally, perhaps. Or with more subtlety. But still as a tool. A thing. “Why
should I think for a second that either of us will be safe with you?”

“Morn!”
Davies protested, grinding his fingers into her shoulders and shaking her.

She
ignored her son. The necessary focus of her attention was as constricted as
Angus’. For the moment nothing mattered except his answer.

“Because
I could have stopped you,” he said on the heels of Davies’ outcry. All trace of
belligerence had left his face: only his need remained, naked and pure.

“Bullshit!”
Davies flung away from Morn, wheeled to face Angus. “You couldn’t stop
anything. You were
beaten,
Nick
beat
you, you didn’t have any
choices
left.
You would have sold him your soul to keep yourself alive,
but he didn’t give you the chance. You handed her the control and let her go” —
his fists lashed the air — “because there was
nothing else you could do!
”

Angus
shook his head as if his neck were breaking. Still he spoke only to Morn.

“I
could have proved I was framed. I knew about Nick’s link with Com-Mine
Security. I could have traced the link to Milos. All I had to do was say
something, and Security would have stopped you. You and Nick. Even if they didn’t
believe me, they would have stopped you. Until they learned the truth. Then you
were finished.

“That
link was real. It would nail Milos. And he would sell anything to save himself.
Maybe they would have executed me — if I couldn’t bargain with them — but I
would have taken you and Nick down with me.

“But I
didn’t. And I didn’t do it later, after you were gone. I didn’t defend myself
at all. Not even to save
Bright Beauty.
” Dumb pain ached in his eyes. “I
let them do whatever they wanted to me. So they wouldn’t go after Nick. So you
could get away.”

He
surprised her; almost shocked her. For a heartbeat or two the cold let go of
her, allowing her to concentrate.

“Why?”

Why did
you care?

His
voice dropped until she could barely hear him. “Because I made a deal with you.”
He sounded incongruously vulnerable, like a wounded child. “I gave you the zone
implant control. You let me live. And I kept my end. Whether you kept yours or
not.”

In a
small, sore whisper, he admitted as if he were laying bare his heart, “When I
hurt you, I hurt myself.”

“Angus,”
Davies began harshly, “God damn it —” But then his protest trailed away. He
seemed to have no words for what he felt. With his back to Morn, he stood as if
he were huddling into himself, crouching against a pain he couldn’t understand.

She put
her hand on his shoulder. When she felt his muscles knotting under the strange
fabric of his shipsuit, she knew what she had to do.

She had
to make this decision; make it now and act on it. Warden Dios had sent it to
her son, but it didn’t belong to him.

He’d
been force-grown with her mind, but he wasn’t
her.
His father was part
of him as well. And he was caught between them — between his memory of her pain
and his recognition of Angus’. Anger was his only defence. When it failed, he
was lost.

This
decision was beyond him.

She, on
the other hand —

You’re
the second most important thing in the galaxy. You’re my
son.

She was
the woman Angus had raped and degraded. Whether he knew it or not, he’d given
her the right to choose his doom.

But
the
first,
the
most
important thing is to
not betray my humanity.

Everything
she’d learned came to this: revenge was too expensive. Humankind couldn’t
afford it.

Deliberately
she set a lifetime of grudges and self-punishment aside.

“We’ll
do it,” she told Angus, although her voice nearly stuck in her throat, and the
hammering of her heart brought her chills up again with redoubled force. “We’ll
trust you.”

More
for Davies’ benefit than for Angus’, she added, “It’s not just you. We’ll trust
whoever wrote your core programming.” Shivering like the damned. “I think it
was Warden Dios. I think he’s trying to find some way to fight Holt Fasner. And
if he is, I think we should help him.”

Shivering
as if the cold had become metaphysical — a tremor of the soul which only
incidentally affected her body.

Nevertheless
she finished, “We’re cops. We don’t
use
people.”

Angus
began to clench and unclench his fists while his mouth slowly pulled back into
a feral grin.

She
started to weep as soon as Davies turned and put his arms around her.

NICK

N
ick Succorso walked in the light g of the Lab’s asteroid like he was
riding a cloud. He was elevated by triumph, nearly giddy with aspiration.
Hungers which had hag-ridden his life were about to be fed;
were
being
fed.
Trumpet
had become
his.
For reasons which meant nothing to
him and didn’t interest him, Warden Dios had given him his own pet cyborg.
Mikka and Vector were stuck taking his orders. Soon he would possess an
effectively limitless supply of UMCPDA’s mutagen immunity drug — all the wealth
he would ever need. Morn herself was
his
as surely as
Trumpet
and
Angus, ripe to be hurt.

And
Soar
was here, Sorus Chatelaine was
here.

His
heart and head were so full that they seemed to lift him from step to step,
almost carrying him off his feet. He could hardly keep track of the deck.

With
Mikka and Vector at his shoulders, Sib and Pup behind him, he left
Trumpet’s
airlock to enter the access passage which led into Deaner Beckmann’s
installation.

Mikka
glared murderously past her bandage, but Vector had perfected his look of mild
calm, and his face showed nothing. As for Sib and Pup, Nick didn’t give a shit
what they thought or felt. He intended to sacrifice them in any case. Get even
with them for daring to turn against him. Only Vector truly mattered. Mikka was
just cover. And he’d made sure that she didn’t know
Soar
was in. She
wouldn’t interfere because she wouldn’t be able to guess his intentions.

The
passage was featureless: a straight concrete corridor toward another airlock,
lit by long, flat fluorescents which flickered as if their power source were
unstable. Nick didn’t see any scan fields and detection sensors. The Lab relied
on other defences, and he’d already passed most of them.

Bouncing
to the interior lock, he thumbed the intercom and announced, “Captain Succorso.
We’re here. Sorry to keep you waiting.” He glanced backward to confirm that
Trumpet
had resealed herself, then added, “My ship’s lock is tight.” The installation
didn’t need to hear this from him. Routine dock communications covered such
points as a matter of safety. Nevertheless he always checked. “You can let us
in.”

“Thanks,
Captain.” The response suggested stifled impatience. “Stand by. We’re opening
now.”

Servos
hummed. A small gasp of air equalised the slight pressure differential. Then
the airlock irised, letting Nick and his people into the warmer light of
Beckmann’s domain.

The
lock admitted them to a room like a holding area — the Lab’s version of
Reception. It seemed full, almost crowded. Nick counted six guards in addition
to three women and two men in labsuits — an entire reception committee.

The
guards carried impact pistols. And they all sported prostheses of various kinds
— scanners, communications gear, augmented limbs, and, presumably, concealed
weapons. To that extent, they might have been transplanted here from
Billingate. But the fact that they lived in a world substantially unlike the
Bill’s showed in their eyes, which were clear of the complex haze of chemical
dependencies: stim or cat, nerve-juice or pseudoendorphins. Most of the surgery
which they’d undergone was probably voluntary. In certain ways they were more
dangerous than the men and women who’d served the Bill.

Nick
didn’t recognise any of the women in labsuits. He’d ignored the women the last
time he was here: in his experience, women who dedicated themselves to research
and labs were usually too ugly to live; certainly too ugly to notice. But he
knew one of the men by sight.

Deaner
Beckmann: the founder, driving force, and embodiment of the Lab in person.

Either
Vector’s name or Nick’s hints had struck sparks in high places.

The
director of the Lab was a short, squat man who looked even shorter and thicker
because of the way he seemed to hunch into himself as if he was trying to
increase his mass by an act of will. He alone might have been on drugs. His
researchers projected alertness or subservience to varying degrees, but he had
an air of being distracted and driven, almost frightened, as if he were crazed
by dreams which were in danger of failing.