The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (55 page)

“Just
don’t let them out of your sight. Don’t let them touch anything.”

Anything.

“Don’t
let them do or say or even
think
anything that gives them the impression
they can get out of this.

“And
don’t kill them,” he added abruptly. “I’m not done with them.

“Is
that
clear?”

“It’s
clear,” Angus answered in a dead tone.

Angus —

“Good.”
Nick flashed his teeth. “When I get back, you can tell me all about it.”

Morn,
help me. Tell me how to help you. We’ve got to get out of this.

Mikka
still hadn’t moved; her companions hadn’t moved “It’s not clear to me,” she put
in roughly. “You expect us to take your orders because we’re afraid of what
Angus will do to Morn if we don’t. But you just told him to do whatever he
wants. What have you got left to threaten us with?”

Despite
her weakness, she was trying to put pressure on Nick; force him to give Morn
and Davies some protection.

Nick
swung toward her, flung his voice at her like a fist. “I didn’t threaten you
with what
he’ll
think up. I threatened you with what
I’ll
think
up
for
him.”

Mikka
shrugged stiffly. “Is that worse?”

“Try
me,” he countered, nearly shouting. Flecks of saliva sprayed from his lips. “
Try
me.”

Mikka
faced him without flinching; but she didn’t answer. Maybe she couldn’t.

Angus
hadn’t told Nick how to replace Morn’s zone implant control. He may have been
saving that for himself.

“You
try him if you want to, Mikka,” Vector said unexpectedly. The blue calm in his
eyes disturbed Davies, like a glimpse of something unfathomable. “I’m going to
take orders like a good boy.”

Ciro’s
eyes widened as if he were dismayed; as if he expected Vector to resist. Mikka
shifted her weight so that she could confront Vector without putting pressure
on her neck.

“The
truth is,” Vector continued, “I don’t really care what he does with this
antimutagen. Assuming I can actually figure out the formula. I just want to
know if I was on the right track — if the research I did for Intertech could
have worked.”

“Do you
mean
that?” Sib protested. “You really don’t care what he’s going to
do?
”

The
former engineer shrugged gently. “It’s not as callous as it sounds. By itself
the formula is useless to him. I could give him every chemical miracle in the
galaxy, and he couldn’t synthesise one of them. He doesn’t have the equipment.
The formula means nothing until he sells it.

“And
every sale is a form of dissemination. Maybe it’s not as good as actually
making the drug public, but it goes in that direction. The more people who know
about it, the closer it comes to being common knowledge. A discovery like this
does good simply by existing. I’ll spread it any way I can.”

He was
out of his mind. Apparently he believed Morn’s insistence that there was
something
else going on.
Something to hope for. But Nick had given Morn and Davies to
Angus to play with. There was nothing left.

Through
her teeth, Mikka told Vector softly, “That’s not good enough.”

“Shut
up, Mikka,” Nick snapped. “I don’t have time for this. You’re going to take
orders, and you’re going to start
now
.” He closed his fingers
threateningly around the butt of his handgun. “Centre knows we have injuries
aboard. That’s why they aren’t harassing us already — they think we need time
to pull ourselves together. But if we don’t go soon, they’ll start asking
questions. The wrong questions. I don’t want that.

“Are
you going to
do what I tell you,
or do I have to shoot a few chunks out
of your brother to convince you?”

For a
moment Mikka stiffened. She leaned toward Ciro as if she meant to step in front
of him. From under her bandage her good eye flashed a glare of belligerence.
But she must have been able to see that there was nothing she could do.
Gradually her instinct for combat faded.

“I’m
sorry, Morn,” she sighed. “I don’t know what else to do. It’s too much for me.”

“Don’t
worry about it.” Morn’s tone held firm, even though her gaze ached with doom. “I
would make the same decision.”

Davies
wanted to protest, I wouldn’t.
I
wouldn’t. But he knew better. He had no
idea what else any of them could do.

Without
warning the bridge speakers came to life.

“
Trumpet
,
this is Centre,” a tense voice announced. “We thought you were going to
disembark. Is there a problem? Do you need help?”

Nick
swore impatiently. Bounding back to the command station, he keyed his pickup.

“Centre,
this is Captain Succorso. I don’t mean to keep you waiting. I just wanted to
give sickbay time to finish with Vector and Mikka. They’re ready now. We’ll be
opening our airlock in five minutes.”

Palpably
insincere, Centre replied, “Take your time.
We’re
in no hurry.”

With
the pop of a toggle, the communication channel closed.

Nick
silenced his pickup.

“Now.
Let’s do it.”

Unexpectedly
slow, almost languid in his movements, he turned for the companionway. He
seemed completely at ease; altogether sure of himself. Nevertheless his scars
looked like streaks of acid under his eyes, burning deeper and deeper into his
cheeks. Heat poured off him as if he were overflowing.

“The
lift,” he told Mikka and Vector, Sib and Ciro. “Go.”

Mikka
and her companions hesitated for a second. But after a quick glance at each
other they shoved off from the handrails and began drifting backward along the
passage.

Davies
couldn’t let Nick go. His fear was Morn’s: he had to do something about it. “Wait
a minute,” he objected; insisted. “You still haven’t told us what happened.
What are you so excited about? What’s going on?”

He
thought Nick wouldn’t answer. Nick had gone too far into his strange personal
exaltation: he might not be able to hear ordinary questions — or deal with them
if he heard them.

His
reaction surprised Davies. He squinted up the companionway to be sure that
Mikka and the others were out of earshot. Then he gave a burst of febrile
laughter, a quick, spasmodic clench of his fists. “Sorus,” he announced. He
began with a chuckle; but almost at once the name seemed to stick in his throat.
“Sorus fucking Chatelaine.” For a moment he gaped as if he couldn’t breathe.
Then he croaked, “She’s here.”

He
might have been strangling on joy.

Davies
wanted to demand,
Soar
? Here? Doesn’t she work for the Amnion? But
memories of the woman who’d helped the Bill interrogate him stopped him. She
was the same woman who’d cut Nick because she despised him — and hadn’t
considered him worth killing. The Bill had told her to question Davies. Torture
him, if that was what it took. She hadn’t done that: apparently she didn’t go
to those extremes unless she was sure they were necessary. But he’d believed
that she would do it.

She
would have done it, if Angus hadn’t rescued him —

— the
same Angus who was now under Nick’s control. Who had been given permission to
play
with
Davies and Morn.

The
same Angus who sagged over his board as if his spine or his spirit had snapped.

Still
moving slowly, Nick coasted toward the companionway. Then, suddenly, he grabbed
for the back of Angus’ g-seat, pulled himself around beside his second. His
whole body seemed to emit malice as he leaned forward to pat Angus’ cheek as if
Angus were a kid of whom he’d become inordinately fond.

“Have
fun,” he said cheerfully. “Opportunities like this don’t come along every day,
you know.”

Grinning
at Morn and Davies, he somersaulted to the treads as if he were showing off,
handed his way up the railing, and disappeared toward the lift.

A
moment later Davies heard servos hum as the lift opened; closed. Hydraulic
systems gave off a nearly inaudible whine while the lift moved. Nick and his
involuntary crew were about to unseal the airlock. About to go meet Deaner
Beckmann.

Davies
and Morn were alone with his father — the man who’d first ripped her life
apart.

Deliberately
he shifted his position so that he stood between Morn and Angus.

She put
one hand on his shoulder. She may have intended her touch to comfort or
restrain him in some way; remind him of his importance to her. But slowly her
fingers dug into his flesh, gripping him as if she couldn’t find any other
strength to support her.

Angus
hadn’t moved. He leaned like a broken thing over his board, a puppet with his
strings cut — severed from will and passion and hope by the inexorable demands
of his datacore.

“Come
on, Angus,” Morn said abruptly. Her voice was harsh with dread and raw,
helpless defiance; full of memory. “Get it over with. Show us your worst.”

Davies’
heart struggled against his ribs like a prisoner. Instinctively he braced
himself to fight.

Released
by Morn’s words, a tremor ran through Angus. Shuddering, he raised his head.
For a time he fumbled at the catch of his belt: his hands appeared to be stiff
with cramps. Then, one painful muscle after another, he pulled himself upright.

Unsteady
as a derelict, he turned to face his victims.

The
sight of them seemed to shock him. They were only two meters away, but he
squinted at them as if they were almost out of sight; beyond comprehension. He
began breathing harder: his chest heaved as if he were trapped in an EVA suit
with no air. Damage glazed his yellow eyes. By degrees pressure blackened his
face. His hands crooked into claws, straining for bloodshed.

Abruptly
Angus jerked up his arms and hammered both sides of his head with the heels of
his palms.

Davies
flinched involuntarily. Morn’s fingers gouged his shoulder.

As if
his life depended on it, Angus struggled to say something. But he couldn’t
articulate the words through his hoarse gasping; couldn’t force them out
clearly enough.

Davies
watched in dismay while Angus hit himself again; and again.

Then
the pressure inside him appeared to burst and fall away. Grinding his teeth, he
rasped like an obscenity, “I’m not your son.”

His
voice rose into a rending shout, as if his throat were torn by clarion triumph
or wild despair.

“I am
not your
fucking
SON!”

At once
he broke into a fit of coughing that sounded like sobs.

MORN

A
ngus’ cry shocked her like stun. Charged with fear, her muscles
turned to jelly; the marrow seemed to bleed from her bones. She wanted to
protest, What?

What?

What are
you
talking
about?

But she
couldn’t find the words. Words were strength — anything she might have said,
any response was a kind of strength — and all the strength had burned out of
her. The torn triumph or pain in Angus’ voice had left her helpless.

I’m not
your son.

Frantically
she glanced at Davies.

He,
too, had been hit hard. He remembered Angus as well as she did. And his ability
to distinguish himself from her was fragile: he’d only had a few days in which
to try to recreate himself as a separate human being. Something laboured in
him, strove to rise against the blow — some defence or rejection, some instinct
for intransigence or violence. She could see the struggle on his face.
Nevertheless for the moment he was caught the same way she was; trapped and
held by the sheer extremity of Angus’ shout.

I am
not your
fucking
SON!

Now he,
Angus, broke into coughing as if he’d ripped open his lungs —

— and
stopped. Just like that: between one heartbeat and the next. Tears of pain
smeared his cheeks, but he ignored them.

Maybe
he didn’t know they were there. He looked as stunned as Davies, as stunned as
Morn herself.

Slowly,
as if he, too, had only jelly to support him, he turned back to the second’s
station.

Morn
recognised that instant transformation. His datacore had taken control:
emissions from his zone implants had stifled his coughing, forced down his
despair, smothered his triumph. He was a welded cyborg, ruled by decisions made
for him days or weeks ago by men who didn’t care what he felt or how he suffered;
who cared only how he could be used. Briefly his raw human distress had burst
its bounds. But now the inexorable pressure on the neural centres of his brain
had recaptured him.

Whatever
he did here, it would be because Warden Dios or Hashi Lebwohl — or their proxy,
Nick Succorso — required it of him, not because he chose it.