Gap [1] The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict (8 page)

CHAPTER

10

H
e did his best to believe it was happening. In an odd way, as long as he kept her alive his survival depended on her: he could be truly safe only if he killed her and disposed of her body. And that option was one he no longer considered. He was as likely to destroy
Bright Beauty
as to murder Morn. Therefore he couldn’t afford to be wrong. He had to break her and be sure of it; damage her so much that he could trust the results.

Because he was afraid, he was in no danger of trusting them prematurely.

In the end, however, his success was inevitable. After all, what choice did she have? He’d made himself her entire world; he was everything she felt. He knew how this kind of pressure worked: it had been tried on him more than once. His control of her circumstances—as well as of her physical being—was absolute. With the tap of a button, he could reduce her mind to a brute howl of pain. When she satisfied him, he could reward her, not with pleasure—for some reason, he was reluctant to see what she would look like pleased—but with relief from hurt; with sleep; with the occasional opportunity to choose her own movements, take care of herself in her own way.

By degrees, he beat her down until she was like a child toward him: dependent; urgent to please. He taught her that his survival was hers as well; that any peril he met would hit her first, and harder. And he played on the bizarre ethic to which she’d sworn herself when she became a cop. Again and again, he assured her that she deserved what was happening to her. She’d killed her family, hadn’t she? She’d betrayed them all. No, it wasn’t something she’d done by conscious choice. It was worse: it was something she’d done because of who she was; because of the fundamental flaw which left her vulnerable to gap-sickness.

With all his cunning, he worked to deprive her of her capacity to think in any terms which didn’t come to her from him.

And he watched the results, studied them with a coward’s intuitive precision. He saw the darkness accumulating in her gaze; the gradual slackening of her skin; the change in the way she moved, so that every action became a limp. When he fucked her, he felt her begin to respond, driven to swallow her revulsion by self-loathing and the need to satisfy him. When she slept, he heard her whimpering for help which never came.

At last even his grubby, suspicious nature believed that she’d been damaged enough to risk.

Still cautious, he prepared his safeguards and coercions. Then, with a UMC cop for crew, he took his ship out of hiding.

Six days later,
Bright Beauty
sputtered into Com-Mine Station’s control space and requested permission to dock.

No one asked any awkward questions at that point. No one had reason to: no one knew
Starmaster
was lost.
Bright Beauty
was given permission to dock and instructed to await normal inspection.

The inspector assigned to clear Angus Thermopyle and
Bright Beauty
wasn’t particularly interested in his job that day. Even brain-numb on cat, however, he could hardly have failed to notice the anomalous fact that Angus had left Com-Mine Station purportedly alone and now returned with a woman as crew.

He didn’t ask Angus to explain this detail. He had no wish to risk making a fool of himself. Instead, he got Morn’s name and fed it into the Station’s id computer.

After that, the situation got messy.

Bright Beauty
was slapped in quarantine, and a whole parade of inspectors trooped through her, asking questions, issuing directives, making demands. As the inspectors went up in rank—therefore in determination to be obeyed—their questions and directives and demands became more aggressive and personal. And all of them were aimed at Morn Hyland.

What happened to
Starmaster?

How did you survive?

How did you end up with
him?

Unfortunately, the authorities found themselves in a frustrating position. Center was worried—in fact, outright alarmed—about
Starmaster.
Security practically salivated for the chance to get their hands on Angus. But they had nothing to go on: no formal record of the truth about
Starmaster;
nothing but hints. And Morn refused to answer their questions. She was a cop—and she refused.

Periodically, an inspector tried to appropriate
Bright Beauty’s
datacore. Angus positively declined to release it until he was required to do so by law—until he was formally charged with a crime.

Periodically, attempts were made to get Morn away from him. Each time, she brandished her UMCP id tag and dismissed any superior authority. Although she chose not to speak, she tacitly covered Angus with her police mantle.

The more perceptive Station personnel observed that there was more than a little pain in the way she stood beside Angus. For a cop, she looked unusually vulnerable; almost frightened. If they’d met her alone in the halls of DelSec, they would have assumed she was a derelict. If they were kind, they would have tried to help her.

But here they could do nothing. Her id tag put her beyond challenge. And Angus held his ground with his hands in the pockets of his shipsuit, glowering at everybody and stonewalling expertly.

What happened to
Starmaster?

Blew up, he answered for her. For no reason. Must have been sabotage. We’ll give you the coordinates if you want to search the wreck.

How did you survive?

Freak accident. The auxiliary bridge held. She still would have died eventually, but I rescued her.

Angus could see the terrible hurt behind her eyes, but he relied on the zone implant to keep her quiet. And he relied on her silence—and her id tag—to baffle the inspectors.

Why are you with him? He’s a known pirate. We just haven’t been able to prove it yet. You’re UMCP. What kind of hold has he got on you? Do you actually expect us to believe he’s telling the
truth?

I don’t care what you believe, Angus said with relish. I told you.
Starmaster
blew up. She was sabotaged. That must have been done here. Before she left Com-Mine Station. Morn nodded dully. Angus glowered at everybody and kept his hand in his pocket. She doesn’t know who she can trust, but she’s damn sure she can’t trust
you.

The inspectors wheedled and demanded, but they were unable to make Morn speak.

The only question they really wanted Angus to answer was: What happened to your ship? You look like you’ve been in a dogfight.

Look again. Scan me. That isn’t matter fire. I got hit by a rock.

An experienced “captain” like you? That must have been some rock.

I was in the belt. I was running
Bright Beauty
by myself. I miscalculated. Is that a crime?

The inspectors were in no mood to give up, however. They tried to trap him.

Starmaster
was after you. You crashed trying to run. Isn’t that the truth?

No.

Then how did you happen to be the one who came to the rescue—you with a damaged ship?

Coincidence. I was close enough. The blast made my scan go crazy. Radio interference. Particle noise. That kind of static doesn’t happen unless there’s been a disaster, so I tracked it back and found her. With an effort, Angus refrained from pointing out how virtuous his conduct had been.

The dock manifest says you left without buying supplies. Your air scrubbers should have failed a long time ago. How come you’re still breathing?

Rescuer’s privilege. I took filters from her ship.

His bluff was working. As long as Morn didn’t come apart under the strain, he was going to be safe.

Why is she staying with you? What’s your hold on her?

She’s going to hire somebody to carry a message back to Earth. We’d do it ourselves, but
Bright Beauty
can’t cross the gap. When UMCPHQ sends out instructions, she’ll know what to do. Until then, she trusts me more than you.

In the end, the inspectors had no choice. Of course, they didn’t believe the story. Under other circumstances, they might have stretched the law far enough to keep
Bright Beauty
quarantined at least until Station techs had a chance to visit and analyze
Starmaster’s
wreckage. But Morn Hyland was UMCP; not under Station jurisdiction. The assumption had to be made that she knew what she was doing, that her actions were reasonable and shouldn’t be interfered with.

Bright Beauty
was cleared.

Angus Thermopyle took Morn Hyland directly to DelSec.

His bluff had worked.

He had no actual desire to go to Mallorys. He wanted to seal his hatches and fuck Morn until she wept. It was still possible that his hold on her might snap, and he didn’t want to risk her in public. But he knew he was going to be watched for a long time—at least until inspectors got back from
Starmaster.
It was important to behave normally. At that moment, “normal” meant Mallorys, where he could start trying to buy the information he needed to make money.

He’d been walking down the path to his doom for some time. Now his doom started moving toward him.

Even though she was unfamiliar with DelSec, he stayed half a step behind Morn’s shoulder so he could keep an eye on her. At once elated and afraid, possessive and angry, he noticed how every man they passed looked at her—noticed it and hated them. In the same way that he’d planned revenge against
Starmaster
for driving him off Com-Mine Station, he now evolved elaborate, impossible schemes which would teach all these bastards to fear him. It was conceivable that he could claim salvage on
Starmaster.
Morn’s UMCP id tag might make that possible. With enough money, he would get
Bright Beauty
rebuilt, better than before. Then he would be invulnerable. He could do anything he wanted.

Dreams like that helped him endure the crowds he despised in DelSec and Mallorys.

He hated Mallorys, of course. But it was better than any of the alternatives. As a group, the drunks and ruins and illegals there knew more and cared less than the rest of the people in DelSec. They meant him harm in ways he understood. For that reason, they were less dangerous than they thought.

Station gravity—roughly .9g—made him feel leaden, bloated; he was in no mood for a drink. His bluff had worked! But everybody on Com-Mine was waiting for him to make a mistake and get caught; all the inspectors, everybody in Security, every prospector or miner who’d ever tried the belt, everybody in Mallorys who knew his reputation and didn’t trust him. And Morn walked as if the weight meant nothing—as if in spite of the many ways it could be hurt, her body carried its beauty easily. All those men wanted her. They wanted to get her away from him.

He was already feeling frightened and bloodthirsty when he caught sight of Nick Succorso through the heat and din of Mallorys.

At once, he felt like he’d been hit in the chest by an impact-ram—more so because he couldn’t show it, didn’t dare react in front of all these people, let them see his weakness.

He would have recognized Nick as an enemy immediately in any case: he knew how to interpret that careless grin, that sharp, buccaneering gleam of humor and superiority. He knew Nick’s contempt for him was instantaneous. He was ugly and luckless and not very clean, and Nick had already begun to sneer at him.

Under any circumstances, Angus would have gone a long way out of his way to damage Nick Succorso. That was instinctive and fundamental, like his initial panic when he saw
Starmaster.

But this was worse, much worse: this was like watching someone aim a rifle straight into his face and fire. He saw Nick glance at him, dismiss him—and look at Morn. He saw the scars that underlined Nick’s gaze darken, as if his vision had begun to smolder. And he saw Morn’s reaction.

Her face betrayed nothing. She said nothing. But he knew her intimately—knew every pulse of her heartbeat, every hue of her skin, every shade of horror and hurt in the depths of her eyes. He knew immediately, in front of all those people, without another second for consideration or effort, that Nick Succorso had more power over her than he did.