The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (60 page)

Despite
his eagerness to move against Sorus, Nick forced himself to remain quiet and
appear patient.

“Have
you noticed our lighting, Dr. Shaheed?” Dr. Beckmann demanded.

Vector
kept any disconcertion he may have felt to himself. “Not particularly, I’m
afraid.”

“It is
unstable,
”
Beckmann pronounced. “It
flickers,
Dr. Shaheed, for the simple reason
that our source of power is inadequate to sustain all the demands we must place
upon it.

“We
need to generate energies comparable to the forces which compose singularities,
but we can’t. We cannot. We scavenge this asteroid swarm constantly for raw
materials, we barter for new technologies and equipment by every means
available to us, we commit crimes ourselves and reward the commission of crimes
in our name, and still we can barely supply power for small real-time
simulations of our true experiments, our essential work.

“Why is
this?” he asked rhetorically. “Because the UMCP force us to operate as
illegals. Instead of sanctioning our work, instead of investing civilisation’s
resources in the quest which offers humankind its only true hope — the quest
for salvation through knowledge — the police compel us to exist on the fringes
of the very society we seek to serve.

“My research,
Dr. Shaheed,” Beckmann insisted, “
my research
has the potential to
secure humankind’s future against any conceivable threat the Amnion can or may
present. Yet I am effectively outcast, and I can only obtain what I need for my
experiments by stealing it.”

Nick
struggled against a desire to sneer. You fucking researchers are all alike. Of
course you feel sorry for yourself. Self-pity is all you’re really good at.
Nagged by a mounting need for action, he had more and more difficulty
concealing his impatience.

Sorus
had
cut
him. She’d fucked him and betrayed his hopes and cut his cheeks
and abandoned him. And now she was
here.

Still
Dr. Beckmann wasn’t done.

“Yet
even the UMCP would not present an insurmountable obstacle,” he went on, “if we
were not confronted with another problem. We face an unalterable deadline. This
asteroid swarm approaches an immolation which nothing can alter. Measured by
the standards of organic matter, we are powerful enough. On the scale of star
systems, however, we are paltry beyond imagining. In a few short years,
Massif-5 will furnace us from existence, and everything we do here will have
been wasted, meaningless.”

He
paused for a moment, then added harshly, “Unless we succeed. Unless we find and
develop the knowledge we seek in time.

“Have I
made myself clear, Dr. Shaheed?”

Vector
considered the question. “I think so, Dr. Beckmann.”

“Nevertheless
let me be explicit,” Beckmann insisted, “so that there will be no
misunderstanding. You wish to use our equipment. In other words, you wish to
use our power. Which of our functions, which of our experiments, should I pause
or postpone so that you will have power?”

His
point was obvious. My resources are stretched thin. I won’t share them with you
unless you have something I need.

Nick didn’t
wait for Vector to answer. Letting his tension show as irritation, he put in, “Under
the circumstances I don’t see how you can take the risk of
not
helping
us.”

Slowly
Beckmann turned away from Vector as if he had difficulty taking anyone else
seriously.

“Your
chronometer is running, Dr. Beckmann,” Nick said trenchantly. “You can count
the number of seconds you have left. If we might produce something that helps
you, even accidentally, you can’t afford to miss the chance.” Then he shrugged.
“If what Vector learns is worthless to you, of course, we’ll have to repay you
in some other way.”

For
several heartbeats Beckmann faced Nick. With his distracted, fanatic’s
expression, he looked like a man who wondered whether he should trouble himself
to step on an insect. When he spoke, however, he addressed Vector without
dropping Nick’s gaze.

“What
do you need, Dr. Shaheed?”

To
himself Nick crowed abruptly,
Got
you! But he wasn’t talking to
Beckmann.

Vector
immediately named several items, but Nick ignored the tally of equipment and
supplies. As soon the geneticist finished, Nick said, “That’s not all.”
Now,
Sorus. Are you ready for this? “Sib has a list of what we need from your
engineering section.” The fact that this was the first Sib had heard of it didn’t
worry Nick. “He can take care of that while Vector works. And I want Pup to req
some of your food stores.” He felt Mikka flinch beside him, but he ignored her.
“Naturally,” he told Beckmann, “you won’t give us anything until we pay for it.
But I want to have everything ready so we can leave as soon as possible when
Vector’s done.”

“Nick —”
Mikka fixed her good eye balefully on him.

At the
same moment Pup said, “Mikka?” in a frightened voice, and Sib began, “Nick, I —”

This
time, however, Chief Retledge didn’t let anyone get in his way. Overriding Nick’s
people, he asked sharply, “What’s your hurry, Captain Succorso?”

Deliberately
Nick turned away from Retledge. Facing Mikka, he said through his teeth while
his mouth smiled, “You knew it would be like this. Just trust Security. They’ll
take care of your brother. You can guard the lab while Vector works.”

Before
she could retort, he swung around to Sib. More harshly than he’d spoken to
Mikka, he told Sib, “You know how much depends on this. Don’t fuck up.”

Tightening
the screws on Sib’s alarm. Ensuring that Security would keep close watch on
him, as well as on Mikka.

Making
Pup look harmless by comparison.

Nick
wanted to laugh out loud. But he couldn’t take the time to enjoy Sib’s sweaty
dismay — not now. Instead he returned his attention to the chief of Security.

“I
think what we have is pretty valuable,” he replied before Retledge could repeat
his question. “If I’m right, then it’s also true that there are ships after us.
Ships that want what we have. The way I see it, the sooner I get out of here,
the less chance they’ll have to turn this place into a battlefield.”

To the
director of the Lab, he remarked, “I would like to get started, if you don’t
mind, Dr. Beckmann. One way or another, the chronometer’s running for all of
us.”

Deaner
Beckmann had made his decision: he didn’t hesitate to act on it. “Dr. Shaheed
can use thirty-one, Sven,” he told one of the men in labsuits. “I’ll ask you to
escort him there and help him settle in. As long as you consider it reasonable,
let him have whatever he needs.”

Did the
director mean, Keep an eye on him? Watch what he does? Nick didn’t know — and
didn’t care. He had no intention of concealing the results of Vector’s
analysis. Telling the truth here was the most dangerous thing he could do to
Beckmann. With luck
Soar
might destroy the Lab for him after he was
gone; Sorus might go that far to protect her Amnion masters from the threat of
an antimutagen.

“Linne,”
Dr. Beckmann went on, speaking to the woman who’d confirmed Vector’s identity, “tell
Dr. Hysterveck to put his TCE simulation on hold until further notice. That
should release enough power for the equipment Dr. Shaheed wants.

“Chief
Retledge,” he concluded as he led the way out of the room, “I’ll leave Mr.
Mackern and Mr — ah — Pup to you.”

Nick
began to think that this might be a good time to take up singing. His spirit
needed music for its feral joy.

He wasn’t
going to be content with cutting Sorus’ cheeks. He was going to leave the marks
of his knife on her fucking heart.

SORUS

F
rom the bridge
Soar’s
captain watched her target ease through
the asteroid swarm and settle into the berth Lab Centre assigned. She listened
to the Lab’s operational communications until she heard that Nick Succorso and
four other people had disembarked to explain their reasons for coming here to
Deaner Beckmann. Then she thumbed her intercom and told the team she’d prepared
to stand by.

She was
morally certain that those four people with Succorso were all former members of
Captain’s Fancy
’s crew. Earlier she’d noticed that the manifest which
Trumpet
had transmitted to Lab Centre made no mention of Angus Thermopyle, Morn Hyland,
or Davies Hyland. Succorso was keeping their presence secret.

Unless
he’d already gotten rid of them somehow? Sorus dismissed that idea. She didn’t
believe that Succorso was capable of killing a UMCP cyborg. And he must have
known that the Hylands were too valuable to kill. So he’d left them aboard the
gap scout to keep them secret; keep them safe.

She
didn’t care. Someone from
Captain’s Fancy
would suit her better in any
case. Taverner would no doubt have approved if she could have put her hands on
Thermopyle or the Hylands. However, some lesser member of the crew would be a
better candidate for what she had in mind.

How
long would Succorso talk to Beckmann? How much time would he need to convince
the director of the Lab to give him what he wanted? That would depend on how
much he was willing to reveal. If he told Beckmann he wanted to analyse a
mutagen immunity drug, he would receive co-operation immediately. Beckmann
might sacrifice half his installation for a share of information like that. But
Succorso might not be willing to expose himself to that extent — in which case
he would have to work harder to convince Beckmann to help him. And Sorus
herself had told Retledge enough about what had happened to Thanatos Minor to
make the Security chief nervous.

Succorso
and Beckmann might spend quite a while arguing with each other before
Trumpet’s
people began moving around the installation; before they became vulnerable.

Sorus
had been coming here for years. She and Retledge had known each other a long
time: on one occasion they’d been lovers. And she’d told him Succorso would do
anything he could to hurt her. She’d told him why.

At the
moment there was nothing more she could do except wait and see whether Retledge
took the hint; whether he believed it would be in the best interests of the Lab
to let her know what Beckmann decided to do about Succorso. If or when he did
that, it would be time to send out her team.

Milos
Taverner studied her without blinking: his lidless eyes, yellow and slitted,
had no human need for moisture, despite the humanness of his appearance. Not
for the first time, he asked her, “What is your intention, Captain Chatelaine?”

His
alien tone seemed insufferably steady. He sounded impervious to pain,
disconcertion, alarm, or any of the other emotions she carried on her tired
back like incubi.

He’d
been standing beside her command station for so long now she’d begun to feel
that he would be there for the rest of her life; that every decision she made
would be scrutinised and challenged by alien exigencies; that every breath she
took until she died would be tainted with alien pheromones. Tainted as she was
herself: false in the same way. Taverner kept her company whenever she was on
the bridge as if his real purpose here was to remind her of facts and
compulsions which she could never forget.

She
hated that. She’d been showing the Amnion for years that she was smart enough
to understand the facts and act on them without their superintendence.

Nevertheless
he wanted to know what her “intentions” were.

She
faced him bleakly. Even though she doubted that he would understand the
connection, she countered, “Did you believe me when I told you
Trumpet
would come here?”

That
had been an intuitive triumph. She might have felt vindicated, if she’d had the
energy — and if she hadn’t had so much cold despair locked away at the bottom
of her heart. By rights
Trumpet
should have gotten away clean. The gap
scout had escaped Amnion space in a way which should have made it impossible
for anyone to follow her.

After
Soar
had rendezvoused with
Calm Horizons
— to take on new equipment and a
supply of specialised mutagens and drugs, as well as to transfer Marc Vestabule
and the shuttle crew to the big defensive — the Amnion vessel had moved off to
track
Trumpet’s
emissions across the debris and static-cluttered void
while
Soar
had headed toward the frontier of human space. In the absence
of any better ideas, Sorus had aimed her ship at the part of the frontier where
the Com-Mine belt bordered Amnion space. That, she’d believed, was the most
logical, as well as the safest, place for
Trumpet
to go. The belt
offered almost any amount of cover to a ship on the run. And Com-Mine Station
was nearby. The Station could provide assistance even if the cops weren’t ready
and waiting.

Before
she’d reached her chosen position, however, Sorus had heard from
Calm
Horizons
. The warship had lost
Trumpet’s
trail. The astonishing
accuracy of Amnion instruments had enabled
Calm Horizons
to follow
Trumpet
as far as a red giant well inside Amnion space; but there the screaming
emissions of the star had proved loud enough to conceal the gap scout’s trace.