The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (76 page)

Ciro
stared at her, then put his hands over his eyes as if he were afraid to think
that she might be right.

To her
chagrin, Mikka found that she couldn’t keep up; couldn’t bounce from despair to
hope like this. Her torn emotions refused. She needed to do something to
contain her turmoil. So that she wouldn’t start to scream again, she thrust
herself toward the door and keyed it open in case Vector didn’t know which was
her cabin.

She
caught him outside with his hand raised to knock.

Vehemently
— she didn’t care how vehemently — she grabbed his shipsuit and swung him
through the doorway, then closed the door after him.

Taken
by surprise, he flapped his arms in a wasted effort to manage his trajectory.
At once, however, Morn moved to help him stop; put both hands on his shoulders
to steady him — and herself.

His
blue eyes shone: he was as close to excitement as Mikka had ever seen him. But
he’d always been a man who knew how to concentrate. As soon as he saw Morn’s
face, and Ciro’s, and Mikka’s, he put his personal eagerness aside.

Calmly
he asked, “What’s wrong? How can I help?”

Morn
took a deep breath, held it for a moment as if she needed time to marshal her
courage. Then she gave Vector a quick summary of Ciro’s story.

When
she was done, she added, “You know more about mutagens than the rest of us —
and antimutagens. Tell us what to do.”

As an
engineer, Vector Shaheed may have been only competent. In other areas, however,
he was considerably more than that. A slight frown creased his round face — a
mild acknowledgement of Ciro’s plight — but he knew how to respond.

“First
things first,” he told Ciro in a blunt, avuncular tone: the tone of a man who
saw no reason to panic. “Don’t stop taking that antidote. It may be temporary,
but it gives us time.

“By the
way, how much time
do
we have?”

Mikka
hardly understood him; she was full of chaos and doom. But Ciro faced Vector’s
question as squarely as he could. Although his larynx bobbed convulsively, he
was able to say, “She gave me enough pills for twelve hours. I’m due for
another one in” — he flicked a glance at the cabin chronometer — “nine minutes.”
From a pocket of his shipsuit, he brought out a small vial. “This is all I have
left.”

Vector
nodded. “That should be enough.” Without hesitation he turned toward the door. “I
need a hypo. I’ll be right back.”

Mikka
foundered; she might have been drowning. She didn’t know how to deal with her
fear that Morn was wrong; that Vector had come too late to save Ciro. Panting
for air, she rasped, “What good is that going to do?”

Vector
cocked an eyebrow at her. “I need a blood sample,” he explained. “The sickbay
systems can analyse it. They might not be able to answer all my questions, but
they can tell me how closely this mutagen resembles the ones Nick’s antimutagen
can handle.” As if the point were incidental, he remarked, “I know a lot more
about that drug’s limits than I did a few hours ago.”

Ciro
seemed to cling to every word as if Vector might keep him human simply by
talking to him. Nevertheless Mikka couldn’t stop. If she let herself believe
that Vector could help Ciro, and he failed, she might kill him.

Nearly
choking, she demanded, “And what good is knowing
that
going to do?”

Vector
shrugged. “If there’s enough of a resemblance — and if the antidote really
keeps this mutagen passive — our antimutagen should work. Remember, it’s not an
organic immunity. It doesn’t make human DNA resistant. The drug is essentially
a genetically engineered microbe that acts as a binder. It attaches itself to
the nucleotides of the mutagen, renders them inert. Then they’re both flushed
out of the body as waste.

“Of
course, it wouldn’t normally accomplish anything to take this drug after a
mutagen was injected. That’s because most Amnion mutagens act immediately. But
if this mutagen is just sitting there, our drug should have time to catch up
with it.”

Morn
nudged him toward the door. “Do it now,” she urged him. “We can talk about it
later.”

Vector
nodded. Still he paused long enough to let Mikka raise more objections.

She set
her teeth on her lip and knotted her fingers in the thighs of her shipsuit to
make herself shut up.

Vector
inclined his head like a bow. The movement seemed curiously formal — an
indication of respect. A moment later he bobbed to the door and let himself out
of the cabin.

At once
Mikka left the wall to reach the bunk and Ciro.

This
time when she wrapped her arms around him he returned her embrace.

“I’m
sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to be so hard on you. I’m just scared out
of my mind.”

He
nodded mutely and tightened his grip.

From
someplace far away, Morn said, “I’m going back to the bridge. They need to know
what’s happening.” She meant Sib, Davies, and Angus. “And maybe Angus can help
us. One of those UMCP databases might tell him something useful.”

The
bandage blurred Mikka’s vision. She didn’t reply. She was too busy holding on
to her brother.

DARRIN

D
eep in the asteroid swarm protecting Deaner Beckmann’s installation,
Darrin Scroyle sat at his command station and watched three of his people work.
They’d gone EVA, but they were easily close enough for
Free Lunch’s
lights and cameras to reach them. He watched them on the largest of the display
screens.

Through
the fabric of his shipsuit, he scratched his chest absentmindedly. He didn’t
take his eyes off the screen. His bridge crew would tell him quickly enough if
their instruments picked up hints of trouble from the seething space around the
ship; but if his people outside encountered any difficulties, he wanted to see
what happened himself. That might enable him to react in time to save them.

They
clung with grapples and compression pitons to the rough surface of an asteroid
not much larger than
Free Lunch’s
bridge. At the moment they were
anchored beside a concrete emplacement which held one of the relays that
bounced scan data and operational communication to and from the Lab.

If the
information Darrin had gleaned the last time
Free Lunch
visited the Lab
was still accurate, his ship had reached this position without being detected
by Beckmann’s scan net. Lab Centre didn’t know he was here.

Unless
he’d made a mistake —

He
shrugged mentally. Mistake or not, he was here. And if his people did their
jobs right, he would soon know if he’d miscalculated, one way or the other.

The
sight of fragile human beings bobbing like bubbles amid the imponderable rush
of so much rock made his stomach queasy. That was normal for him — he always
found EVA easier to do than to observe — but he didn’t shirk it. If his people
risked their lives outside the ship, the least he could do was to endure a
little nausea in order to keep an eye on them.

After a
few minutes, the bridge speaker emitted a spatter of static. “I think we’re
done here, Captain.” A woman’s voice: his command second, Pane Suesa. “It looks
like it should work. How’s it coming through?”

“Data?”
Darrin asked without glancing away from the screen.

“Clear
enough, Captain,” the data first answered. “At this range, we can handle the
static, no problem. But we’ll have to crack their coding.”

“Is
that going to be a problem?” Darrin inquired even though he knew the answer.

Data
chuckled sardonically. “For me? No.” If he hadn’t routinely justified his high
opinion of himself, he would have been insufferable. “We’ll know everything the
Lab knows by the time our people reach the airlock.”

“Good.”
Darrin leaned toward his pickup. “Pane,” he transmitted, “it’s coming through
fine. You’re done. Get back in here before I get spacesick watching you.”

“Aye,
Captain,” the speaker replied.

After
another moment his command second and her two companions aimed their
manoeuvring jets and began riding gusts of compressed gas in the direction of
Free
Lunch
.

From
her place at the targ station, Alesha turned a grave look toward Darrin. Like
him, she was belted into her g-seat. The ship floated without internal spin:
centrifugal g would have made
Free Lunch
too hard to handle in the
swarm. Alesha had to twist against her restraints in order to face Darrin.

“Are
you sure they won’t detect what we’re doing?”

“‘They’?
Succorso and Thermopyle?” His attention was consumed by Pane and her crew: for
an instant he didn’t understand Alesha’s question. Then he said, “Oh, you mean
Lab Centre.”

She
nodded.

He
shook his head. “Yes and no. If I’ve made a mistake — or they’ve moved their
emplacements — they might know we’re here. But even if they do, they can’t
detect our transmitter. It’s completely passive. It doesn’t add or subtract anything,
interrupt anything, distort anything — or leave any ghosts. All it does is read
the signals passing through the relay and echo them to us. So we’re safe, at
least for a while.”

The
cameras tracked
Free Lunch’s
people as they coasted for the ship. Changing
focus slowly blurred the image of the asteroid in the background. More to calm
his stomach than because Alesha needed the explanation, Darrin went on, “When
data gets it decoded, that echo will show us everything in this quadrant of
Beckmann’s scan net. We’ll hear every message Lab Centre gets from this
vicinity — or sends out here.

“We’ll
know where
Trumpet
is. If she’s left the Lab, we’ll know where she’s
going. We’ll know if there are any other ships around her — or after her.”

Darrin
considered what he’d said briefly, then finished, “Also — if the occasion
arises — we can blow our transmitter and knock out this whole sector of the
net. That’ll blind anybody who happens to be relying on it.”

“Sounds
good,” Alesha remarked with a hint of challenge in her tone. “In fact, it
sounds too good. Too easy. If we can do this, why can’t
Trumpet
”? Why
can’t
Punisher
, or the ship that followed
Trumpet
out of
forbidden space?”

“They
could.” The closer Pane and her companions came, the less queasy Darrin’s stomach
felt. “But
Trumpet
won’t take the time. She’ll be in a hurry to get out
of the swarm. And
Punisher
isn’t here yet.” His shipsuit protected his
chest: he could scratch as much as he liked. “I don’t know where the hell that
other ship is. She might not be in this system at all. Or she might be lurking
right on top of
Trumpet
. That’s one reason we’re tapping into the scan
net. We need to know who else we have to deal with.”

Alesha
nodded again. “I know. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

On
several occasions over the years, she’d told him — sometimes with more than a
little exasperation — that he had the gift of making even the most impossible
situations sound manageable. But there was no exasperation in her voice now.
She’d put her larger anxieties aside in order to concentrate on the present; on
doing her part to keep
Free Lunch
alive.

The
cameras tracked the three EVA suits all the way to the waiting airlock in the
ship’s scarred flank.

With
obvious satisfaction, the data first stabbed a key. “Got it, Captain.” He made
no effort to conceal his smugness. “I’m relaying to scan and communications
now.”

“Looks
good, Captain,” scan commented as he studied his readouts. “If you’re done
watching Pane, I’ll put it on the big screen.”

Pane
had taken hold of a cleat outside the airlock; she was ushering her companions
inside. Darrin decided to believe they were safe. With a small sigh of relief,
he said to data, “Nice work.” Then he told his scan first, “Do it.”

At once
the video image flickered off the display, and a 3-D scan schematic took its
place.

A maze
of blue dots indicated rocks. Green showed scan emplacements and relays; yellow
pointed to guns. A void filled one corner of the schematic: the clear space
around the Lab. The image wavered slightly as Beckmann’s net adjusted itself to
account for the shifting positions of the asteroids.

Two red
blips amid the maze marked ships.

They
were identified in the schematic by code rather than name. Nevertheless Darrin
could see at a glance that neither of them was
Free Lunch
. Neither was
this close to a relay. And both were moving.

The Lab
didn’t know his ship was here. Therefore he could be morally certain no one
else did, either.

One of
the blips picked its way through the centre of the quadrant, heading away from
the Lab. The other was nearing the installation’s control space at the fringes
of the schematic.

After a
moment helm added a yellow blip to the image:
Free Lunch’s
position. She
was no more than a couple of thousand k away from the vessel in the middle of
the screen.