Gap [1] The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict (17 page)

That possibility might help protect her. It would encourage him to think about her in terms of covert operations and betrayal, not helplessness and zone implants.

“You rescued me.” Her voice was husky, crowded with desires which transcended reason or fear. “I’ll be anything you want me to be.”

For the moment, that was true. The zone implant made it true. She took hold of his hand, drew it to her mouth, kissed his fingers. They left a trace of salt on her tongue—the sweat of his concentration when he ran
Captain’s Fancy
out from Station; the sweat of his hunger.

And yet, despite the way her whole body urged him, he still held back. The demands of the zone implant mounted in her; synapses she couldn’t control fired out messages of need. She didn’t want him to talk; she wanted him to come to her, come into her, quench himself in the center of her.

“Is this the approach you used on Captain Thermopyle? Is that why he kept you alive?”

“No,” she said automatically, “no,” without thinking. But she needed to think,
had
to think, because the next words she would say without thinking were, He didn’t use this combination.

Her own hunger seemed like a roar in her ears. Swallowing hard to muffle it, to equalize the pressure, she offered the cheapest answer Nick might accept. “You’ve seen him. I left him for you. I couldn’t feel this way about him.”

She knew nothing about him. Maybe he would be vain enough to accept that.

He wasn’t. Or his vanity was too profound to be satisfied cheaply. He didn’t move; his smile was crooked and bloodthirsty. “Try again.”

Try again. Try again. She couldn’t think. She wasn’t supposed to think, not while the zone implant did
this
to her. What could she tell Nick that would be true enough to be believed and false enough to protect her?

“Please, Nick,” she said, almost whimpering with urgency, “can’t we talk about this later? I want you now.”

He smiled and smiled, but he didn’t relent. Instead, he ran his hand down her chest and circled her breast with his fingertips. Involuntarily this time, she arched her back again. His smile and his eyes gave her no warning as he flicked her nipple hard with one of his fingernails.

Just for an instant, the balance of the zone implant shifted toward pain. She gasped; she nearly screamed.

“Your name is Morn Hyland,” he said almost kindly. “You’re UMCP. And Angus Thermopyle is the slimiest illegal between forbidden space and Earth. He’s sewage—and you’re one of the elite, you work for Min Donner. He should have obliterated you. He should have taken you apart atom by atom, and never risked coming back to Com-Mine. Tell me why he kept you alive.”

Fortunately the functions of the control recovered their poise almost immediately. Her scream evaporated as if it’d never existed.

“Because he needed crew,” she answered. True enough to be believed. “He was alone on
Bright Beauty.
And I was alone on
Starmaster
—I was the only survivor.” False enough to protect her.

“There was nothing I could do to threaten him. So I made a deal with him. He could have left me to die.” She couldn’t think—but she’d made herself ready to answer him. “He kept me alive to crew for him.”

Perhaps because she burned for him so hotly, she seemed to see Nick struggling with himself. His scars were black with blood; everything he looked at was underlined by primal and acquisitive passion. His fingers stroked her nipple as if to wipe away the hurt. She felt a tremor in his muscles as he bent over her and lightly kissed her breast.

“That’s not good enough.” His voice seemed to stick far back in his throat; it came out in a rasp. “But it’s a start. Right now, I want you. You can tell us all the rest later.”

When Morn heard him unfasten his shipsuit, what was left of her mind went blank with anticipation.

Now at last she had a chance to learn what she needed most to know about him.

She had no conception of the romantic way her escape from Angus Thermopyle to Nick Succorso was viewed back on Com-Mine. The idea that anything about her situation was romantic might have made her hysterical

THE GAP INTO CONFLICT:
THE REAL STORY

A Bantam Spectra Book
Bantam hardcover edition published February 1991
Bantam export edition / October 1991
Bantam paperback edition / July 1992

All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1991 by Stephen R. Donaldson
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 90-39569.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.

eISBN: 978-0-307-57385-8

Bantam Books art published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

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