The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (80 page)

“I want
to get rid of Succorso,” he answered. “I would have done it myself already, but
my programming won’t let me. I want to pay back that fat bastard Taverner
somehow. And I want help against
Soar
. That proton cannon is a hell of a
gun. I don’t like tackling her without — something extra.

“We’ll
take a chance. See if Captain Sheepfucker’s as crazy as Davies says he is.”

He
considered Sib momentarily. Then he told Vector, “I don’t need him. If he wants
to cover us, I say let him.”

Sib
sighed as if he’d hoped Angus would refuse him.

Davies
ducked his head to conceal a relief so intense that it brought tears to his
eyes.

Without
pausing Angus ran a command on his board, wheeled his station so that he could
see the results on the screen. “We’re coming up on a rock you can use. It’s big
enough to hide behind — not so big it’ll get in your way. Time to move.”

He
aimed a glare at Sib. “Get it right,” he growled. “If you screw up, we’re all
going to feel like shit.

“Take
him to the EVA locker. Strap his arms behind him after he puts on a suit. You
carry the guns. I’ll take you close — you can drift to the rock. If you need
them, the suits have jets. Don’t cut him loose until we’re out of range. After
that he probably won’t turn on you. If he isn’t completely crazy, he’ll realise
he might need you.

“We won’t
be able to talk to you for long. Too much rock and static in the way. And we
don’t have Beckmann’s relay net. But those suits have distress beepers we can
use to find you later. If we don’t come back, it’ll be because we can’t.”

Angus
made a rough gesture of dismissal. “Go.”

Deliberately
he began concentrating on his board as if Sib and Nick were already gone.

Davies
scrubbed his eyes clear. For a short time, at least, his relief had changed
everything. The fire in him had been temporarily appeased. In its place he felt
abashed at the scale of the risk Sib had agreed to take.

Because
he needed to express his gratitude somehow, he moved to help Sib with Nick.

Sib
nodded as Davies untaped Nick from the handgrip, but he didn’t say anything.
His determination took the form of a dumb misery with no other outlet. His skin
was damp with anxiety: the moisture in his eyes was liquid fear.

Nick
paid no attention to them. He was murmuring to himself, happily repeating the
same phrases and sentences over and over again. “Poor bitch. She’s dead, and
she doesn’t even know it yet. She’s laughed at me for the last time. Poor
bitch.”

Together
Sib and Davies steered him to the companionway.

“Davies.”

Morn’s
low voice stopped him like a hand on his shoulder. Bracing himself against the
rail, he turned to look at her.

“What’s
happening to you?” she asked for the second time. Her eyes were as dark as gaps
opening on the abyss between the stars. “Who are you?”

At once
his relief died: flames leaped up to devour it. A blaze that might have been
rage filled him like his father’s hate. When he needed her, she turned her back
on him. Instead of backing him, helping him, she was afraid of him.

“As far
as I can tell,” he answered her, grinding the words between his teeth, “I’m
Bryony Hyland’s daughter. The one she used to have — before you sold your soul
for a zone implant.”

Leaving
a sting of bitterness in the air behind him, he tugged Nick and Sib up the
companionway off the bridge.

SIB

S
ib Mackern wanted to be spared.

In
retrospect, he thought that must have been what he’d wanted his entire life.
Perhaps it was because he’d been spared so little. Unheeded supplication was
his whole story.

Spare
me.

No.

Right
from the beginning —

His
name was short for “Sibal”: his mother had wished for a girl. Ever since he’d
become conscious of it, he’d wanted to be spared his own name.

No.

He’d
never liked data work, never liked space or ships. In particular he hadn’t
liked his family’s orehauler. Spare me, he’d said — not in so many words, but
in every other way he could think of. Nevertheless his father had compelled
him, because he was needed. And that had led him to the one crucial occasion on
which he’d tried to spare himself.

When an
illegal had peeled upon the orehauler, he’d hidden between the hulls in an EVA
suit. At the time he’d had the crazy idea that he might reach one of the guns
and use it. An idea as crazy as Nick’s.
That’s the only reason I’m still
here
, he’d told Morn and Davies.
Still human
—

We
weren’t killed. Instead of killing us, they lined us up and started injecting
us with mutagens.

I
saw everything. If they were just being killed, I would have gone back inside
and tried to fight for them. I might have. I was desperate enough. But I saw
them injected. I saw them change. It paralysed me.

Then he’d
started screaming. He hadn’t been able to stop. But first he’d deactivated his
suit pickup.

Sparing
himself —

He’d
gone on screaming until he’d lost his voice. He was irrationally sure that as
long as he could hear his own voice he wouldn’t be turned Amnion just by
watching his family mutate.

Of
course, events had shown that there was a price to pay for being spared.
Always. Inevitably. He’d been rescued by a pirate looking for illegal salvage.
That had been bad enough. But a few years later, still hoping to evade his
endless fear, he’d tried to change his fate by joining Nick Succorso.

Crime
after crime, Nick had taught him to hear that implacable
no
whenever he
found himself begging the blank stars for mercy he couldn’t have and probably
didn’t deserve.

In a
sense, when he’d first turned against Nick by helping Morn out of her cabin, he
might have been trying to deserve what was going to happen to him anyway.

Now he
was doing it again. Only this time it was much worse. This time he was helping
Davies guide Nick along
Trumpet’s
central passage toward the suit
locker. He was going to go EVA
again
in the wild hope that he would be
able to protect the people he cared about
again
. And he was doing it in
the company of the man he feared and distrusted most. He could feel everything
inside him sweating with horror.

Spare
me.

No.

He must
have been out of his mind.

“She’s
dead,” Nick muttered cheerfully, “and she doesn’t even know it. Poor bitch.”

Davies
ignored Nick. As they passed sickbay, he said suddenly, “Just a minute.”
Releasing Nick, he opened the door and went inside. When he came back out, he
had a scalpel in his hand. “For cutting tape,” he explained.

“She’s
laughed at me for the last time,” Nick promised nonchalantly.

Steering
him between them, Sib and Davies moved on to the suit locker.

Indicators
above the compartment showed that it was unlocked: Angus had entered the
necessary codes from the bridge. Sib and Davies positioned Nick in front of the
locker. Then Sib drifted a meter or two away and drew his handgun while Davies
began slashing Nick’s bonds.

As soon
as his arms came free, Nick stopped muttering.

In a
spasm of activity, he stripped the rest of the tape off his limbs, wadded it
up, flung it away. At once Davies floated out of reach. Instinctively Sib
tightened his grip on the gun. He couldn’t hold it steady — he’d never been any
good with firearms — but he hoped Nick would believe that he couldn’t miss at
this range, no matter how much he wavered.

Nick
stretched his arms, twisted his back until his spine cracked. “That’s better,”
he announced. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Without
transition he looked like his old self — confident, cunning, and unbeatable.
All sign of the tic which had once distorted his insouciance was gone. He
cocked an eyebrow at Sib’s gun, bent his mouth in mock chagrin, then chuckled
to himself and turned to open the suit locker.

“Which
one did I wear last time?” he asked rhetorically. “Oh, here it is.”

Whistling
tunelessly through his teeth, he pulled an EVA suit from its hangers and began
climbing into it.

He
checked the suit’s indicators and seals casually, as if he already knew that
nothing could go wrong. The helmet went over his head and locked into place. He
snapped the faceplate shut; his features slowly vanished as he tuned the plate’s
reflective surface. With a hiss, air processing inflated the suit.

“Are
you ready?” Sib asked, although he wasn’t sure that Nick could hear him.

But
Nick had activated his suit’s transceivers. His external speaker crackled. “Do
it,” he instructed. “I want to get this part over with.”

He put
his arms behind him, making it easy for Sib and Davies to bind him.

His
confidence scared Sib almost as badly as what they were planning to do. But Sib
had made this decision himself: he needed to go through with it. If he didn’t,
the pain of being refused mercy
again
would be more than he could bear.

He
tossed his roll of tape to Davies and kept his gun aimed at Nick while Davies
strapped Nick’s arms.

Then it
was his turn. He didn’t hesitate: he’d been hesitant all his life, and it only
made matters worse. There was a price to pay for being spared. Always.
Inevitably. He gave his handgun to Davies, picked out an EVA suit, and settled
into it.

The
sensation of the waldo harness around his hips reminded him that he hadn’t been
able to control his manoeuvring jets on Thanatos Minor. Maybe they would be
easier to use in zero g. Or maybe he would misfire them; send himself tumbling
away from the ship and Nick, out of reach, beyond hope —

If that
happened, he would have to beg
Trumpet
to save him.

He
trusted Morn and Davies. He trusted Mikka and Vector. Nevertheless he already
knew the answer.

Spare
me.

No.

“Give
me a line of tape,” he told Davies, “so I can hold on to him. I’m no good with
these jets. If we’re separated, I might not be able to get back to him.”

Davies
nodded: he’d seen Sib’s difficulties on Thanatos Minor. While Sib finished
checking his suit and sealing himself into his helmet, Davies attached ten
meters of tape to Nick’s wrists and folded it over its adhesive to form a rope.

His
suit’s air processor built pressure in Sib’s lungs. The indicators inside his
helmet told him that the suit’s atmosphere was identical to
Trumpet’s
.
Still he felt that he couldn’t breathe. With the controls on his chestplate, he
reduced the volume of air, increased the proportion of oxygen. Gradually some
of his claustrophobia eased.

He’d
forgotten to toggle his transceivers. Davies moved his mouth soundlessly for a
moment, then reached out to key a frequency on Sib’s chestplate. At once the
internal speaker came to life.

“Pay
attention, Sib,” Nick said. “If you can’t hear me, we might as well stay here.
We’ll be useless.”

At the
same time Sib heard Davies say, “I’ll give Angus your frequency. We’ll hear you
as long as you’re in range. Which won’t be more than a few minutes under these
conditions. But if you need help during that time, we can probably do
something.”

Sib
nodded dumbly, then realised that Davies couldn’t see his face. Swallowing
against the dryness in his throat, he replied, “All right.”

Davies
moved to the nearest intercom to talk to Angus. He kept the gun pointed at Nick’s
head.

Because
he’d left himself no choice, Sib drifted past them toward the weapons locker.

Angus
coded the locker open as Sib reached it. Determined not to hesitate, not to
freeze — not to let the vast cold outside the ship consume him — Sib selected a
laser rifle the size of a portable missile launcher for Nick, picked a smaller
rifle for himself. Without waiting for Nick’s approval, he closed the locker.

“Fine,”
Nick pronounced as soon as he saw Sib’s choices. “If I can’t cut into Sorus
with that, I’m wasting my time. That matter cannon Angus lugs around doesn’t
hold enough charge.”

“They’re
ready, Angus,” Davies told the intercom. “We’re going to the lift now.”

Ready?
Sib thought. Ready? He wasn’t sure the word made sense. Had he ever been ready
for anything?

But
Nick was ready. Even though his arms were taped behind him, he seemed primed for
action. He kicked himself in the direction of the lift before Davies finished
talking to Angus.

Sib
followed as if he were being tugged along by Nick’s eagerness.

The
lift was waiting. By the time Sib and then Davies reached it, Nick had already
entered the car.