The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (14 page)

He
expected her to activate the black box, but she didn’t. She hugged it to her
chest for a minute or two, then lowered her arms and pushed the control into
one of her pockets.

“Oh,
Davies,” she repeated through her tears, “what did he do to you?”

She was
his mind: he understood her perfectly. Fighting the constriction in his throat,
he answered thickly, “Nothing. I remembered, that’s all. Seeing him made me
remember. It was hard, but he didn’t do it.”

Loyalty
required him to say this, despite the crimes Angus had committed against her.

“He
rescued me. From the Bill. I still don’t know how.” Angus had said,
I can
hide us visually, but I can’t block sound. Not without distorting every bugeye
in range
— How was that possible? “He brought me to the ship. He protected
me from Nick. And he made Nick and the others” — Mikka and Ciro, Sib and Vector
— “help us rescue you. I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing either. But he
hasn’t done anything to me.”

One of
her hands clutched at his arm; the other tried to rub tears out of her eyes. “I’m
glad,” she murmured as if the words were a cry from so far away that it was
barely audible. “I don’t understand, but I’m glad.”

The
intercom chimed again. This time Sib spoke.

“Davies,
Vector is here. Nick isn’t trying anything, but Vector can hold the gun on him.
And Pup still has that stun-prod. If you want, I’ll stay with Morn so you can
come to the bridge.”

Davies
looked a question at Morn. She nodded; took more of her weight on her legs.
When he was sure that she could stand, he went to the intercom and toggled the
switch.

“She’s
awake. We’re both coming down.”

“Good,”
Mikka put in abruptly. “We need to talk.”

Davies
silenced the intercom without answering.

“You
ready?”

Morn’s
bruised gaze hung on his face as she took one unsteady step toward him;
another. Fearing she would fall, he put out his arms. But she stayed on her
feet until she reached him.

Shaking
weakly, her hands rose to touch the sore places on his cheekbones and along his
jaw where Nick had hit him.

“I
couldn’t,” she said, nearly choking, “couldn’t believe you were safe. They told
me you were, but I didn’t dare believe it until I heard your voice — Then you
took off your helmet, and I saw you’d been beaten up. I thought Angus did it,
but you say he didn’t.”

Obliquely
Davies remembered that at one time she hadn’t been able to say Angus’ name.
Somewhere in the course of her imprisonment and rescue, her own perceptions of
his father had undergone a subtle shift.

“Who
was it?”

“Nick,”
he answered roughly. Then, because he owed her the truth, he added, “I started
it. I had to keep him from leaving the ship. I knew he was cheating, but Angus
didn’t. He didn’t know Nick had already sold you to the Amnion.”

Morn
bit her lip, gave him another loose nod. “I understand. And you remember what
he did to me. You remember it all. That’s why you wanted to lock him out of the
ship.

“But
there was something else. After you took off your suit, when you headed for the
bridge, there was something —” Her gaze dropped, then came back up to his like
an appeal. “You looked proud.

“I can’t”
— her throat closed convulsively — “can’t remember what that feels like. What
were you proud of? What did you do?”

Proud?
Davies thought. The moment had been so brief, and what followed after it had
been so urgent, that he had difficulty recollecting it. Proud?

Then it
came back to him.

“It’s
hard to explain. The Bill had me. He talked to me a couple of times, questioned
me — he was trying to find out what I knew so he could decide who to sell me
to. But I didn’t know anything. Except that I was finished as soon as he made
up his mind. So I told him lies. I invented stories — about you and Nick — to
make him unsure of himself.”

Davies
shrugged uncomfortably. “It worked. I didn’t know the truth, but I made up lies
that were so close to it he couldn’t ignore them. And if I hadn’t done that, I
would have been out of reach. The Bill would have sold me, and Angus might
never have been able to rescue me. Somehow I saved myself.

“When I
finally learned the truth — when I saw why my lies worked — it felt good.”

That
wasn’t the whole truth, however. He didn’t go on to say, And I’m proud of
Angus. When I don’t think about you, about his crimes, about who he is, the
things he does make me proud. He’s my father — and he’s superhuman.

That
emotion seemed so odd and unjustifiable that Davies couldn’t bring himself to
admit it aloud.

Morn
blinked as if she were fighting fresh tears. “What lies?”

Those
memories were no more painful than any of the others. “The first time,” he
answered, “I told him you and Nick were working together. For the cops. I
wanted to keep him from handing me back to Nick. And I wanted to make him think
I was valuable — give him a reason to hold on to me, instead of turning me over
to the Amnion.”

So
what you’re saying
, the Bill had replied later,
is
that our Captain Nick had the colossal and imponderable gall to cheat the
Amnion on one of their own stations
.

Then
the woman with him — Davies guessed now that she was Sorus Chatelaine — had
said,
It’s more than that. He’s saying Succorso had something so valuable to
offer them that they were willing to trade force-growing for it. And then he
cheated by not giving it to them.

“The
second time was more complicated. I had to make him think the stakes were so
high that he couldn’t afford to let go of me.”

The
Bill had countered by revealing that Nick had just turned Morn over to the
Amnion. And Davies had replied with his best lie; his masterstroke.

“I told
him you and Nick had a mutagen immunity drug.”

Morn’s
eyes widened. “You were
guessing?
”

Davies
nodded mutely.

After a
moment a fragile smile eased her appearance. “You’re good at it. I’m proud of
you myself.”

He
smiled in return. Her approval released him from at least one of his fears.

She
closed her eyes briefly; she might have been basking in the simplicity of his
reaction. When she looked at him again, her smile was gone. Nevertheless some
of the dullness had left her gaze. Her own questions had begun to clarify
themselves.

“I
guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” she murmured. “Let’s go. I want to know
where we are.”

Davies
also felt ready; readier now than just a few moments ago. He offered her his
arm. She accepted it, leaned on him gratefully while he keyed the door.

DAVIES

T
ogether they went out to the companionway and started down to the
bridge.

Davies
saw at a glance that everyone except Angus was there, Nick lay on the deck
below one of the display screens with his head braced on his hand as if he
couldn’t be bothered to stand. A red welt swelled along his temple and ear; in
a few hours it would match the livid bruise on his forehead.

Two or
three meters out of his reach, a C-spanner rested against the bulkhead. Its
head was crusted with dried blood.

More
blood marked the left side of the command console There was blood on the deck.

Mikka
sat in Angus’ g-seat. Sib had taken the second’s station: he used the board to
support his forearms so that he could keep his handgun trained on Nick without
tiring. Both Vector Shaheed and Ciro, Mikka’s young brother, were on their
feet. The engineer peered at an auxiliary command board which he’d located off
to one side of the screens. Apparently Ciro had already accepted his new role
as
Trumpet’s
cabin boy: he was passing around a tray laden with
sandwiches, coffee, and hype.

They
all turned when they heard Davies and Morn on the companionway. Concern filled
Sib’s face, but Vector grinned with sudden pleasure. Mikka’s ingrained glower
loosened without releasing its grip on her features. Only Nick kept his
attention to himself. Except for the way he chewed the inside of his scars, he
looked relaxed and self-absorbed, as if he were alone.

“Morn,
you shouldn’t be up,” Sib protested. “You need —”

Mikka
cut him off brusquely. “Worry about something else, Sib. She knows what she’s
doing.”

With
unexpected precision, Davies remembered the exact moment at which Morn had told
Mikka about her zone implant. He could taste the specific loneliness which had
inspired her to take that risk.

As she
and Davies finished their descent, she demurred thinly, “I wouldn’t go that
far.” Then she let go of her son’s arm and gestured toward Ciro. “But I know I
need food.”

Eager
to help, Ciro hurried to offer her his tray.

“Thanks.”
She took a hype capsule — affectionately known as “industrial-strength caffeine”
— then helped herself to a sandwich and a mug of coffee.

Everyone
but Nick watched her while she swallowed the capsule, bit into the sandwich,
sipped the coffee; they all waited to hear what she would say, see what she
would do.

Between
bites, she asked impersonally, “Where’s Angus?”

Mikka
answered in a tone as harsh as her glare. “He didn’t say where he was going. He
just told us to leave him alone. ‘For a while,’ he said.”

“Sickbay,
probably,” Nick supplied for no apparent reason. A grin jerked like a spasm
across his teeth and then faded. “He’s got one hell of a dent in his skull.”

“Nick,
I don’t understand you,” Mikka retorted with elaborate patience. “Don’t you
ever
think
about what you’re doing?” Behind her patience, exasperation
seethed like acid. “He’s the
captain
of this ship. If he’s like you, he’s
got everything locked away with priority-codes we can’t touch.”

“I’ll
vouch for that.” Vector pointed at the board he’d been studying. “I’ve been
trying to look at his records, just to see what this ship can do, how she does
it. But I can’t get access. I can’t even call up engineering diagnostics. Scan
and astrogation are available — nothing else. Not even communications.

“Unless
he let you in on any of his secrets.” He cocked an eyebrow at Davies.

Davies
shook his head. He had no idea what codes Angus might have invoked in the past
hour.

“You
kill Angus,” Mikka finished, “and we might as well cut our throats. We’ll be
helpless.”

“You
mean,” Nick sneered back at her, “you don’t already feel like you’ve had your
throat cut?”

“Nick —”
Mikka began hotly.

“That’s
enough, Mikka.” Although Morn’s tone was quiet, it stopped Nick’s former second
like a command. She seemed to take over the bridge just by being there, despite
her weakness. She was only an ensign, had never commanded a vessel before; yet
she might have been
Trumpet’s
true captain, regardless of who held the
priority-codes. “Don’t waste your time on him. He’s just dangerous — he isn’t
important anymore.”

Mikka
glared at Nick while anger clenched and unclenched on his face. Sib tightened
his fist around the gun. But Nick didn’t move; didn’t glance at Morn or Mikka.
After a moment Mikka breathed, “Right,” and turned back to Morn.

“Do you
want to sit down?” As if in recognition of Morn’s position, Mikka offered her
the command station. She sounded perplexed as she added, “You don’t look
strong.”

No
doubt she’d assumed that Morn was using her zone implant to keep herself on her
feet.

“Thanks.”
As Mikka stood, Morn moved to the g-seat and lowered herself like a sigh into
her place. For a moment she closed her eyes and bowed her head, as if she were
waiting for hype or coffee to take effect. Then she emptied her mug and clipped
it into a holder on the side of the armrest.

“We’ve
got a lot to talk about,” she announced softly. “We should probably do it
before Angus comes back.

“If you
can access scan and astrogation, I assume you know where we are.”

Mikka
glanced at Vector. In response, he hit keys on the auxiliary board, and at once
a schematic starchart gleamed to life on one of the screens. More keys: a blip
marked
Trumpet’s
position on the chart.

“Oh,
shit.” Davies didn’t need anyone to tell him what the co-ordinates along the
sides of the display meant. Morn’s years in the UMCP Academy were fresh in his
mind; he knew what she knew about astrogation. “What are we doing
here?
”

Trumpet
rode a tight elliptical orbit around a red giant in Amnion space.
She was roughly three light-years from the frontier of human territory.

Mikka
shrugged tightly. “I guess that’s why Angus says we’re safe for a while.
Calm
Horizons
probably won’t think to look for us in this direction. And that’s
a loud star — it’s roaring like a smelter all across the spectrum. So it
provides a lot of cover.”