The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (59 page)

Gravitic
tissue mutation, Nick snorted to himself. No wonder the man looked like he was
losing his mind. If Beckmann wanted to live in a black hole, all he had to do
was find one and let go. That would fucking cure him.

Nevertheless
Nick kept his contempt private. As far as he was concerned, the more spaceshit
crazy Beckmann was, the better. It would make the scientist easier to
outmanoeuvre.

In any
case Beckmann may have simply been concerned about the nearly subliminal unsteadiness
which afflicted his lighting like an electron palsy.

“I’m
Captain Succorso,” Nick announced with a cheerful smile to the whole group. “Thanks
for letting us in.” Disingenuously he added, “I don’t think you’ll regret it.”

“Captain
Succorso, I’m Dr. Beckmann.” In contrast to his anxious expression, his voice
was clipped and decisive; impervious to doubt. “Forgive the guards. They aren’t
here to make you feel like a prisoner.”

“We’re
here,” one of them put in abruptly, “because your ship is a Needle-class UMCP
gap scout.” Chevrons above the black sun sigil on his uniform distinguished him
from the other guards. “The last time you were here, your vessel was a frigate
of” — he pursed his mouth sternly — “questionable legality,
Captain’s Fancy
.
Now you look like you’re working for the cops.”

“This
is Chief Retledge,” Dr. Beckmann commented by way of introduction. “He runs
Security for us.”

Apparently
Chief Retledge’s duties didn’t require a deferential attitude. As if Dr.
Beckmann hadn’t spoken, he went on, “I want to hear a better explanation than
the one you gave us, Captain Succorso.”

Nick
didn’t hesitate; he was beyond hesitation. Ignoring the guards, he faced
Beckmann.

“Dr.
Beckmann, let me introduce my crew. Mikka Vasaczk, command second.” He indicated
each of his companions with a nod as he said their names. “Sib Mackern, data
first. Our cabin boy, Pup. And I think you know Vector Shaheed, at least by
reputation. He used to be my engineer.” With a shrug, he added, “Of course, we
all have different duties now.”

Dr.
Beckmann paid no attention to the others; his troubled gaze concentrated on
Vector. He didn’t interrupt his chief of Security, however.

“Saying
you aren’t a spy is easy, Captain Succorso,” Retledge continued coldly. “We’re
at risk here. We’re always at risk. Between them, VI and the UMC would make you
rich for betraying us. We cut into their profits too much. Sure, we let you in.
That was easy, too. But you won’t leave until I stop worrying about you.

“Make
me stop worrying, Captain Succorso.”

Nick
thought that he could hear
Soar’s
presence in Retledge’s tone. The
guards and researchers seemed more nervous than they needed to be. On that
assumption, he asked innocently, “Have you heard what happened to Billingate?”

A
couple of the guards glanced at each other, but no one answered.

No
question about it:
Soar
was responsible for the chief of Security’s
distrust. He would certainly have demanded information from her. And Sorus
Chatelaine wouldn’t have scrupled to reveal some of the facts, if for no other
reason than to account for her presence here. But Retledge didn’t want to admit
that; didn’t want to give Nick any hint of where he stood.

The
situation was tricky. How much Nick should say depended on what Sorus had
already told Retledge. He would have to guess what that was. But he wasn’t
afraid: he feared nothing now. He was Nick Succorso, and he could play this
game better than Retledge, Sorus, and Hashi Lebwohl combined.

“It’s
complicated,” he explained blandly to Beckmann’s concentration and the group’s
silence. “I need to be careful — I don’t want to give you the impression I’m
promising something I can’t deliver. Here’s how it happened.

“I took
Captain’s Fancy
to Enablement Station. That worked out well in one way,
not so well in another. I got what I went for — the same thing that brought me
here.” One lie was as good as another. “But the Amnion didn’t like it. They
came after me.

“My gap
drive failed while they were chasing me. Billingate was as far as I could get,
and the Amnion were on my heels. Frankly, I thought I was finished.” Nick
smiled as if the idea amused him. “But by coincidence” — he spread his hands — “at
least I assume it was coincidence —
Trumpet
arrived about the same time.
The story I heard was that she’d been stolen by an illegal named Angus
Thermo-pile” — Nick couldn’t resist the old insult — “and the deputy chief of
Com-Mine Security, Milos Taverner, who happened to be working with Thermo-pile.
Apparently Taverner sprung Thermo-pile from UMCPHQ when he was on the verge of
getting caught himself, and the two of them took
Trumpet
for a ride.

“I don’t
know if any of it’s true.” Nick retailed this kind of bullshit with perfect
equanimity. “At the time I didn’t care. All I cared about was a ship. One with
a gap drive. I knew Thermo-pile — we did business occasionally. So I let him
think we could team up. While he and Taverner were out in Billingate, I got
some of my people aboard his ship. Then I sent
Captain’s Fancy
to create
a diversion while we borrowed
Trumpet
.”

At his
side, Mikka ducked her head as if she were swallowing curses. Vector gazed back
at Beckmann like a man whose questions had all been answered; but Mikka had
trouble keeping her composure. Nick knew her well; he knew the signs — the
dangerous angle of her hips; the way her shoulders hunched against the fabric
of her shipsuit. She wanted to call him a liar.

He wasn’t
afraid of her, any more than he feared Sorus. For Morn’s sake — and her brother’s
— she would keep her mouth shut.

“Unfortunately,”
he continued with no hint of regret, “Thermo-pile and Taverner were left
behind.” He showed his teeth. Deaner Beckmann may have been an illegal for the
research rather than the money, but he was still illegal. He wouldn’t be able
to pretend that he was shocked by what Nick claimed to have done. “They
probably would have been all right, but someone sabotaged Billingate’s fusion
generator. For all I know, they did it themselves. I didn’t ask — I just took
their ship. Barely in time, as it turned out. We only got out seconds ahead of
the shockwave.

“Once
we were clear, we headed here.”

Retledge’s
expression didn’t shift. For a moment after Nick finished, none of Beckmann’s
people reacted. Then the chief of security rasped, “Interesting.”

“I’ve
always said —” Dr. Beckmann began.

Retledge
cut him off. “It’s a pretty story, Captain Succorso, but it doesn’t give us
much reason to trust you.”

“I know
that,” Nick retorted. “But it gives you a reason to take the risk. As I’ve
already said.”

He
turned to the director of the Lab. “Dr. Beckmann, all I want from you is a
little time for Vector in one of your genetics labs. That and some supplies,
which I’ll be able to pay for — if the risks
I’ve
taken pay off. Did you
hear me say,” he asked as if the point were unclear, “that I stole something
from Enablement? Or that it’s valuable? Otherwise the Amnion wouldn’t have
tried so hard to get it back.

“If you’ll
let Vector analyse it — whatever it is,” he concluded, “I’ll give you a share
of the results.”

Dr.
Beckmann hadn’t objected to Retledge’s interruption. On the other hand, he didn’t
let himself be deflected.

“I’ve
always said,” he repeated, “that money is a petty reason to do anything. It
begs for pettiness in response.” Somewhere in the background of his voice ran
an undertone of passion as acute as savagery. “If human beings never dreamed
higher than money, they wouldn’t be worth saving.”

Apparently
“saving human beings” was what he thought he and his Lab were doing. Maybe he
was no longer sane.

Nick
started to respond, “But money buys —”

“Excuse
me,” one of the women said unexpectedly. “Dr. Shaheed?”

Vector
turned his head toward her, gave her the benefit of his mild smile. “Yes?”

“Dr.
Shaheed” — she spoke like a woman with a dry throat; a woman who hated calling
attention to herself — “I used to know the man who ran your computers. At
Intertech.”

Nick
looked at her closely for the first time. She was a small creature with
unfortunate hair and a flat, inherently expressionless face — the kind of face,
he thought in a flash of confident inspiration, that medtechs sometimes
produced when they were trying to repair extensive damage on the cheap.

“Orn
Vorbuld,” Vector answered as if he weren’t surprised by her remark. “He and I
joined Captain Succorso together. After UMCPDA shut down my research.” Unlike
Mikka, he seemed more than willing to go along with Nick. “But we lost him
weeks ago.”

Nick
didn’t doubt for an instant that the woman had known Vorbuld.

“He
committed what you might call suicide,” Mikka put in darkly, confirming Vector’s
reply. Her tone told Nick, however, that she was making a subtle effort to
cause trouble.

But the
woman didn’t react to Mikka’s hint: she was looking for something else. Without
quite meeting Vector’s gaze, she asked, “Dr. Shaheed, how would you expect me
to feel about that?”

It was
one thing to know Vorbuld’s name: it was another to know what he was like. This
was Dr. Beckmann’s oblique way of verifying Vector’s identity.

Now
everything depended on the former engineer.

Fearing
nothing, Nick smiled at Beckmann’s people and let Vector take his time.

Vector
frowned ruefully. With just the right combination of understanding and
detachment, he answered, “At a guess, I would say that you’re glad — or perhaps
simply relieved — to hear that he’s dead. He hurt women whenever he had the
chance. But” — Vector lifted his shoulders delicately — “you may also regret
that you didn’t have a hand in killing him.”

The
woman nodded slowly. Her eyes had slipped out of focus, as if they were turned
on memories which she would never voluntarily describe to anyone. Nevertheless
a sense of tension eased out of the room. Vector had just passed his id check.

Mikka
clenched her fists; but she didn’t mention Vorbuld’s “suicide” again.

“Dr.
Shaheed,” Beckmann said as if he hadn’t been staring at Vector for minutes, “welcome.
It’s good to meet a colleague of your reputation. I hope you understand that we
need to take precautions. None of us has ever had the honour of meeting you.
From our perspective it would be painfully easy for someone to steal your id
tag and pretend to be you. We wouldn’t know the difference unless we subjected
you to a full gene scan.”

No
illegal Nick knew had ever willingly submitted to a gene scan — not if the
results could be compared with the data stored in his id tag. As a rule only
spies made that kind of mistake. And of course they passed: their id tags were
forged. But the fact that they submitted told against them in places like the
Lab.

“Dr.
Beckmann” — Vector showed his palms in a gesture of deference — “the honour is
mine. Certainly I understand. I don’t object to your methods. I admire your
resourcefulness.”

Nick
nodded bland approval.

“Unfortunately,”
Dr. Beckmann went on without pausing, “this research that Captain Succorso has
in mind troubles me. Naturally I’m interested in any artefact or compound which
comes to us from forbidden space. As a scientist it’s my duty to be interested,
regardless of any conceivable relevance to my personal research. And of course
the possibility of relevance always exists. You know of our work here, Dr.
Shaheed?”

“Only
in the vaguest terms,” Vector conceded. “I’ve read your seminal papers on” — he
mentioned a couple of topics which meant nothing to Nick — “but that was a long
time ago. Since then I’ve only heard rumours.”

“And?”
Deaner Beckmann pursued.

Vector
considered his options momentarily. He may have wanted to ask Nick for
guidance, but he resisted the impulse. Instead he said, “Frankly, I can’t
speculate. I know what I’m hoping to learn here, but I really have no idea what
you need.”

“What I
need most, Dr. Shaheed,” Beckmann returned incisively, leaving no room for
Retledge to interrupt him, “is time.

“We
live in a difficult era. The Amnion that Captain Succorso so blithely visits
have given the UMCP the excuse which police-minded men have sought throughout
history — the excuse to impose a tyranny of choice and knowledge on the
citizenry they purport to protect. The fact that the threat which the Amnion
represent is real only confirms the moral imperialism of Warden Dios and his
henchmen. And the result, the true cost, of such tyranny is here.”

One or
two of the people in labsuits shifted their feet, lowered their eyes
uncomfortably. No doubt they’d heard Deaner Beckmann deliver this speech on any
number of occasions. But he didn’t notice their reaction; he didn’t pause. A
fanatic’s passion had risen in his voice. He might not have been able to stop
if he’d wanted to.

Nevertheless
the director of the Lab hadn’t survived so long under such precarious
conditions by being stupid. He must have a reason for what he was saying.