The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (107 page)

Calm
Horizons
intended to commit suicide.

When
she did, Sorus’ hopes would die in a burst of inconceivable static.

“You
would have been instructed to perform this function,” Taverner remarked
inflexibly. “Damage deprives
Soar
of any future use to the Amnion.
However, your gap drive lacks the necessary power.”

Then he
repeated heavily, “
Trumpet
must be stopped.”

If
Sorus didn’t act in time, she would lose her only chance.

She met
his alien gaze. A harsh smile bared her teeth.

“You
heard him, helm,” she drawled. “We’d better reach the fringes fast. So we can
see.”

“Right,
Captain,” helm replied.

At once
unsteady thrust multiplied through the ship, doubling and then tripling
Soar’s
velocity; nudging Sorus back into her g-seat.

“Scan,”
she continued, “this rock should be thinning out.
Find
that ship. She’s
still in the swarm somewhere. Otherwise her transmission wouldn’t bounce. And
if she tried to leave, she would already be dead.”

Calm
Horizons’
super-light proton cannon would see to
that.

“I’m on
it, Captain,” scan acknowledged. She faltered momentarily, then said, “But we’ve
got so much damage — Some of our instruments don’t work for shit. The rest aren’t
adequate. They weren’t designed to function alone.”

She was
offering Sorus an excuse, in case
Soar’s
captain wanted to miss
Trumpet
.

But
that wasn’t what Sorus wanted. Not at all. On the contrary, she needed to know
exactly where
Trumpet
was.

She
needed to know immediately.

“Do your
best,” she ordered. “This is vital. If we don’t spot that ship, we won’t have
anything to hope for.”

Are you
listening, Taverner? Do you understand?

You
would have been instructed to perform this function.

She was
sure that he was too alien to understand anything as human as what she had in
mind.

“Forget
it!” a raw voice barked behind her. “You’ve got
nothing
to hope for. You
fuckers are all
finished!
”

Stung
by surprise,
Soar’s
people wheeled their stations. The Amnioni jerked
his attention away from Sorus.

Panic
and recognition and a kind of cold, absolute rage took hold of her. She turned
her head to look past the edge of her g-seat.

Nick
Succorso stood in the entrance to the bridge.

Of
course.

Scan
gasped, “Christ!” No one else made a sound.

Succorso
wore a battered, nearly ruined EVA suit, but he’d discarded the helmet. Above
his bare teeth, his eyes seemed to cry out like small shrieks of madness. The
scars Sorus had given him were as black as gangrene; slashes of rot eating
fatally into his face. Despite the barely palpable g of
Soar’s
rotation,
he appeared to wobble as if he could hardly stay on his feet.

In his
hands he held the biggest laser rifle she’d ever seen. Its muzzle pointed
straight at her head.

He may
have been almost too weak to stand, but he held his rifle steady.

“You
bitch,” he rasped, “I’m going to burn your head off.”

He
looked like he wanted to scream; but his throat couldn’t sustain the extremity
of his vehemence. He broke into a fit of coughing. The black hole’s g may have
damaged his lungs.

Between
spasms he forced out words.

“Then I’m
going —

“— to
cut your fucking heart out —

“— and
eat it.”

His aim
still didn’t waver.

He must
have abandoned his attack on
Soar’s
proton cannon just in time to avoid
being caught by the blast when Sorus jettisoned the gun. After that it was easy
to guess what he’d done. Impossible to understand — but easy to guess.

He’d
reached the relative protection of the breached cargo bay before
Soar
met
Trumpet
; fought
Free Lunch
. Even then he should have died. If
nothing else, the energies of all that matter cannon fire should have fried his
suit’s systems. So he must have cut the airlock wiring and forced his way
inside before the battle. Must have found some wall or bulkhead to support him
while
Soar
was in the terrible grip of the singularity.

Then he’d
worked his way to the bridge, moving slowly, cautiously; trusting that Sorus
would be too busy to study her maintenance status readouts.

Cold
fury kept her firm. Her people flung mute consternation and alarm at her from
all sides, but she ignored them. Concealed from Succorso by the back of her
g-seat, she undipped her impact pistol from her belt, even though she knew she
would never be able to raise her gun and fire at him fast enough to prevent him
from killing her.

He
retched for air.

“Did
you think you could beat me?” he demanded. “I’m Nick Succorso.
I’m Nick
Succorso!
You can’t beat
me!
I could rip —”

Again
coughing broke him into fragments.

“— your
goddamn ship apart —

“— all
by myself.

“I
could do it in my
sleep!
”

Helm
and targ stared at him as if they were afraid to take their eyes off his rifle.
Scan faced Sorus with pleading in her gaze.

Sorus
forgot nothing. She forgave nothing. “You’re wrong, Succorso,” she retorted. “You’re
asleep now — you’re already dreaming.” Rage held her hands and arms steady, but
her voice shook. “Beating you is easy. It’s putting up with you that’s hard.”

So that
he wouldn’t fire, she went on quickly, “There’s something I should tell you.
Before you kill me. I don’t know why.” She scowled darkly. “Honour among
illegals? Or maybe it’s just pity.”

You
fucking sonofabitch —

“You
see Milos Taverner?”

— if
you think —

“You
see that strange box he’s carrying?”

— I’m
going to —

“It’s a
detonator.”

—
let you —

“He’s
put mutagens in the scrubbers. Mutagen mines. They’re airborne. If you breathe,
you’re finished.”

—
stop me now —

“If you
kill me, he’ll set them off. He has to. He can’t control the ship without me.”

—
you didn’t learn anything when I cut you.

“Too
bad you got rid of your helmet.”

Exhaustion
must have slowed his brain. He needed a moment to understand her.

Then
his face seemed to break open. He wheeled toward the Amnioni with a howl in his
throat, turned his rifle —

In that
instant she whipped her hand and arm over the back of her g-seat and fired.

Force
that could buckle plate steel and powder stone caught him in the centre of his
chest. He’d already begun to clench the firing stud of his rifle, but her fire
kicked him backward, flung his arms up. His laser scored the ceiling for an
instant: then he dropped it.

Blood
spouted from the hole in his suit. He looked down at the wound. When he raised
his head, his features were contorted with grief. A lifetime of hunger
underlined his gaze.

Like an
accusation, he breathed, “You did this. You did this to me.”

Then he
toppled.

“Morn —”
he sighed as he fell. “God —”

After
that he was gone. His blood settled slowly around him, staining his EVA suit.

“Good
riddance,” Sorus growled to herself. “I should have done that the last time I
had the chance.”

Around
her, her people let out their shock and fear in gasps and curses.

“Captain
Chatelaine —” A moment of humanness seemed to overtake Milos Taverner. He had
to clear his throat before he could say, “That was well done.” Then he added, “It
will not be forgotten.”

She
grimaced her disgust. “It’s history. Nothing’s changed.” Other issues were more
important. Raising her head, she told the bridge, “We have work to do. Let’s
get on it.”

She
forgot nothing. She forgave nothing.

In a
flurry of whispers and keys, her people obeyed. Taverner didn’t comment when
she put her pistol back in her lap.

 _

 _

Still slowly, despite the
best helm could do for her,
Soar
slipped forward.

Sorus
resisted an impulse to hold her breath.

Succorso
didn’t matter to her. He was gone; trivial. Behind her his corpse dripped its
last blood into his suit. She cared about other things.

Death
or victory were only minutes away; but she was no longer sure that she could
tell the difference between them. Maybe there was no difference. Or maybe it
didn’t matter. Years of excruciating subservience had brought her to this.

Despite
the cost, however, her heart was high. Violence and joy seemed to swell in her
veins. At last she’d conspired with her doom to bring
Soar
to the edge
of her personal abyss. Death or victory. She would be happy with either one.

“Captain,”
scan reported, “
Calm Horizons
and that cruiser are hitting each other
hard. They’re
frying
space out there.”

Fine.
Sorus nodded. Let them.

If
Taverner hadn’t been watching her, she would have grinned fiercely.

“Swarm’s
thinning, Captain.” The scan first sweated on her keys. “Scan range improving
by the second.”

Muttering
over her board, communications observed, “Shaheed’s message must be set for
automatic broadcast. It repeats constantly. And it’s
loud.
That little
ship has one hell of a powerful transmitter.”

Sorus
nodded again. Fine. Let her.

Death
or victory.

“Can
you triangulate yet?” she asked.

“I’m
trying,” communications returned. “Give me two more minutes. I’ll find her as
soon as I can calculate the reflection vectors.”

Taverner
turned away from Sorus. “
Calm Horizons
also seeks to triangulate,” he
stated. “Your co-ordinates and hers will identify
Trumpet’s
location.”

Releasing
his grip on the command station, he drifted to communications. Anchoring
himself there, he instructed the woman to display everything she could glean
about
Trumpet’s
broadcast.

The
communications first looked quickly at Sorus.

“Fine,”
Sorus said aloud. “Let him.”

As soon
as the data appeared, he entered it on his SCRT.

“Better
slow down, helm,” Sorus warned while Taverner was too busy to contradict her. “We
need to stay in the fringes. That’s our cover. If we overshoot it,
Trumpet
might be able to hit us before we spot her.”

Or the
cruiser might.

“But
make sure
Calm Horizons
can see us,” she went on. “We don’t want her
confused about where we are or what we’re doing.”

Helm
nodded. He was working too hard to speak.

A
moment passed before Sorus realised that she, too, was nodding. Her head bobbed
up and down as if she couldn’t stop.

“Ready,
targ?” she asked.

“Ready
as I’m likely to get, Captain,” the man replied, “considering the damage.”
Considering that Succorso had cost
Soar
her best gun. “Matter cannon
charged. Torpedoes primed. Lasers on-line.”

Sorus
swallowed an impulse to repeat, Fine. Fine.

One k
at a time,
Soar
eased into position. Helm did his job perfectly. When
she settled to wait and watch, she had a clear view of
Calm Horizons
,
but caught only glimpses of the cruiser.

One by
one communications identified the reflection vectors for Vector Shaheed’s
broadcast. They converged on one of the screens, guiding scan —

“Got
her!” scan cried suddenly. “That’s
Trumpet
. No mistake.”

A blip
appeared on the screen in front of Sorus.

Like
Soar
,
Trumpet
waited in the fringes of the swarm, where she could still use a
few big asteroids to occlude her from
Calm Horizons
. Was the gap scout
also concealing herself from the cruiser? Sorus couldn’t tell: the scan image
wasn’t precise enough to make that detail clear.

“Open
fire,” Taverner commanded immediately.

“Can’t,”
scan and targ retorted at the same time.

“Too
much rock in the way,” targ explained. “We don’t have a clear line on her.”

“Of
course,” scan followed, “that also means she doesn’t have a clear line on us.”