The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (75 page)

“Somehow,”
she murmured distantly, “a long time ago, he and I made a deal. A commitment to
keep each other alive. He gave me the control to my zone implant. I took it and
went with Nick. Instead of turning myself in to Com-Mine Security. That way
Security didn’t have enough evidence to execute him. And I got what I thought I
needed to go on living.

“Apparently
that — I don’t really know what to call it — that accommodation still holds for
him. He honours it. And maybe he thinks I honoured it by letting him free
himself.”

Slowly
Morn opened her eyes and turned to face Mikka. Now the darkness in her gaze
looked like a wail of loss.

“Right
now he’s leaving the choices to me.”

Mikka
tried, but she couldn’t hold Morn’s eyes. Not for the first time, she felt weak
and limited in Morn’s presence; essentially ashamed. Morn should have been the
weakest person aboard. Certainly she was the most damaged. And yet she was
stronger than anyone else. She just didn’t know it.

Despite
the tremor of need which made her voice shake, Mikka asked, “So what choices
are
you
making?”

Morn
considered the question for a moment. She seemed to flinch inwardly as she
answered, “We’re going after
Soar
.”‘

That
struck a nerve. Without warning Ciro thrashed around to face Morn. His
expression ached with an intensity Mikka couldn’t interpret — hope or despair
so extreme that they were indistinguishable from each other.

Now,
however, Morn didn’t look at him. Instead she concentrated on Mikka as if she’d
forgotten about him.

Intuitively
Mikka understood. She, too, refused to look at him — she didn’t want to drive
him back into his clenched rejection. Instead she asked Morn sourly, “Now why
would you go and do something like that?”

A small
frown pained Morn’s forehead. “That ship used to have another name. She was
called
Gutbuster
, and she killed my mother. She killed the only mother
Davies remembers. In a strange way, she’s the reason he and I both became cops.
So we could try to get the ship that killed our mother.”

Ciro
raised himself on one elbow as if he wanted to see Morn’s face better. His free
hand started to reach toward her, then fell back.

“He
wants that more than I do,” she went on. “Or I want it, but I don’t trust it.
Revenge is too expensive. And maybe we have more important things to do.

“But
our minds started diverging as soon as he was born. We’ve been changing in
different ways. There’s enough of Angus in him to affect the way he thinks. And
everything that’s ever happened to him has been twisted — He needs simple
decisions. They help him hang on to who he is.”

Morn
shrugged. “And I’m supposed to be a cop. I need that. So maybe if I’m going to
turn myself into the kind of cop I can believe in, I have to start from the
beginning.”

Soft as
a whimper, Ciro protested, “No. Don’t —”

Still
without turning away from Mikka, Morn spoke to him.

“Do you
understand what I’m saying, Ciro? We’re going after
Soar
. And
Soar
did
something to you.” An undercurrent of anger began to surge in her voice,
whetting her words like knives. “Sorus Chatelaine wants to use you against us
somehow.

“Not
just against Nick,” she insisted. “Do you understand that, Ciro? I don’t know
what she told you, but this isn’t aimed at him. He’s irrelevant. She works for
the Amnion. And they want
us
dead. We have an immunity drug. We have
Davies. We know about their near-C acceleration experiments. If they can’t take
us, they need to kill us.

“She’s
hunting us right now. No matter where we go, she’ll come after us. We’ll never
be safe. That’s as good a reason as any to hunt her ourselves.”

“Please,”
Ciro moaned as if she were cutting at him; as if what she said flensed the skin
from his bones. His eyes clung to her like pleading. “Don’t do this to me.”

“I’m
not,” Morn retorted. “
She
is. Sorus Chatelaine did this to you. I’m just
trying to help you understand it.”

Slowly
she shifted on the edge of the bunk until she could face him. Mikka held her
breath as Morn moved her hand — so slowly that it seemed inexorable — to Ciro’s
chest and gripped the front of his shipsuit. With her fist, she lifted him
upright to sit in front of her.

He
stared naked dread at her. His eyes were so full of white fear that they
appeared to have no irises. His mouth hung open. But he didn’t resist. Somehow
she’d taken control of him.

“Maybe
you can change it,” she told him. Anger and pain made her strong. “If we leave
you alone, and you do whatever it is she wants from you, we’ll all die. One way
or another. If we don’t die fighting her, they’ll make us Amnion. All of us, Ciro.
Not just Nick. Not just Angus. Mikka and me. Sib and Vector and Davies. A
handful of antimutagen pills — which is all we have left — won’t save us.

“If we
lock you up so you can’t do anything, we can probably keep her from taking us.
But she still might kill us. That ship has a super-light proton cannon. One hit
is all she needs.”

Mikka
winced. Super-light — ? Oh, shit!

“Leave
him alone,” she breathed at Morn. “Don’t you think he’s scared enough already?”

Ciro’s
lower lip quivered. His fear seemed to leave him mute.

Morn
went on as if she’d forgotten remorse and knew nothing about terror. Each word
was as distinct as an incision.

“But if
you tell us what she wants you to do, we might be able to use that against her.
We might have a chance. And if you tell us what she did to you, we might be
able to help you.

“It’s
up to you, Ciro,” she finished. “But you’d better make up your mind soon. We
don’t have much time.”

Still
she didn’t let him go.

“I mean
it, Morn,” Mikka warned thinly. Pain and thunder muffled everything. She could
hardly hear herself. “That’s enough. It would be kinder if you just tortured
him.”

Morn
ignored her. Her gaze and her grip on Ciro’s shipsuit didn’t waver.

He
squirmed against her grasp. His voice shook. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Maybe.”
Morn didn’t shirk the possibility. “Maybe we will. But before it comes to that
we’ll do everything in our power to save you. And right now, with Angus and
this ship on our side, we have a
lot
of power.

“Ciro,”
she added more gently, “tell us. Please. Give us a chance to show you you’re
not alone.”

“
Alone?
”
His voice cracked, but he didn’t stop. Morn had tapped a core of frenzy in him
— a passion as knotted and extreme as his sister’s. “You’re going to show me I’m
not alone?

“What
about Mikka? How
alone
is she?”

Mikka
gaped at him in surprise.

“You’re
a cop,” he cried, “a cop, you keep telling us you’re a
cop.
Well,
she’s
an illegal. So is Sib. Even
Vector’s
an illegal. What’re you going
to show
them?
What are they going to have left when you’re done being a
cop? Why is it worse for them to die now? At least they can fight. They don’t
have to sit around waiting to be
executed!
”

Morn
flinched as if he’d flung acid in her face.

When
she heard him — and saw Morn’s reaction — Mikka snapped; she couldn’t endure
any more. Flailing her nearly weightless limbs, she swam to the edge of the
bunk, grabbed it, hauled herself down, and drove her desperate fury at her
brother.

“Don’t
give me that
bullshit!
I don’t
care
about being executed! I don’t
care about anything that might happen days or weeks or
months
from now,
if we’re lucky enough to live that long. I care about
you!
”

Struggling
to control herself, she lowered her voice. “And after that I care about
fighting the bastards who got all of us into this mess. I can take
responsibility for my own crimes.”

But the
effort of restraint seemed to hurt her as much as his fear. She needed to howl;
needed to raise her head to the ceiling and wail while her heart tore.

“If you
want to betray us,” she rasped bitterly, “then
do it.
But don’t use
me
as an excuse. And don’t use Sorus Chatelaine, either. All she did is lean on
you. She isn’t here holding a gun to your head.”

Ciro
couldn’t match her when she was like this. She could see what was left of his
resistance crumbling under her scorn. He was already broken: Sorus had
shattered something that he depended on to keep him whole. Morn had brought him
out of his defences in order to put pressure on him. And now his sister snarled
at him as if he were contemptible —

“No,”
he admitted like a whipped child. “She isn’t. It’s worse than that.”

Like
Morn, Mikka stared as if she were paralysed. Angus had cracked her skull. Why
hadn’t he deafened her as well? She didn’t want to hear this. It was more than
she could bear.

But
Ciro had made his decision. Crouched and beaten on the bunk, with his heart in
his eyes and his throat full of pain, he told her and Morn what they’d asked to
hear.

“She
serves the Amnion because they gave her a mutagen. A special one. It’s slow.
Then they gave her an antidote. One that just postpones the mutagen. She stays
human as long the antidote lasts. As long as they keep her supplied. But if she
doesn’t take it — or if they don’t give it to her — the mutagen starts up
again.”

His
voice sank as he spoke. And yet no matter how low it was, Mikka could still
hear it. The clamouring reverberation in her head gave her no protection. She
was powerless to forgive herself. Nick had sacrificed him, and it was her
fault. She’d given her brother to Nick as surely as if she, too, had considered
him only bait.

“She
did the same thing to me. She and some man. I think he might have been Milos
Taverner.”

Tears
began to spill from his eyes, but he didn’t notice them. Mikka herself hardly
noticed them.

“If I
sabotage the drives so we can’t run or fight, she’ll take me with her. She’ll
keep me supplied.” His throat closed on a sob. “So I can stay human.”

Take me
with her. Mikka groaned. “And you believe that?”

“I have
to,” he answered simply.

Have
to? Of course he did. Sorus Chatelaine had injected a mutagen into his veins.
There was nothing else left for him to believe.

Mikka’s
need to howl mounted until she couldn’t contain it. Pushing back from the bunk,
she brandished her helpless fists and brought up a scream from the bottom of her
heart.

At
once, Morn caught her by the front of her shipsuit, held her the same way she’d
held Ciro. Her eyes were cold and dark, as bleak as ice. Lines of authority
marked her face like emaciation. “Mikka! We don’t have
time
for this!”

Her
shout hit Mikka like a slap. Mikka swung a wild blow at Morn’s head. But there
wasn’t enough g to anchor her. Her own force tossed her away from the impact,
out of control.

By the
time she’d reached the wall and recovered, Morn was at the intercom.

Ignoring
Mikka now, Morn thumbed the pickup toggle.

“Vector.
Are you there? I need you.”

“I’m
here, Morn,” Vector answered promptly. Metallic circuits or concentration made
him sound abstract; too far away to be reached. “Give me twenty minutes. I don’t
want to stop in the middle of this.”

“Vector
—” Morn began.

“It’s
going to be great,” he went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “I’m coding a
transmission. It’s in my name — maybe that will give it some credibility. In
essence, it says that since I left Intertech I’ve finished the research I was
doing there. I’ve developed an antimutagen. I’ll include the formula. Maybe
suggest test procedures for verification. We can set it to broadcast
constantly, wherever we go. Anybody who hears it can produce the immunity drug
for themselves.

“God,
Morn, I’ve
dreamed
of doing something like this. I still can’t believe
it’s happening. It’s going to make everything else worthwhile.”

“But
not
now,
” Morn cut in fiercely. Outrage bristled in her voice. “Vector, I
need
you! That can wait. This can’t.”

The
intercom was silent long enough to make Mikka think that Vector would refuse.
Then the tiny speaker crackled.

“All
right. I’m on my way. Where are you?”

“Mikka’s
cabin.”

At once
Morn silenced the pickup.

Mikka
clung to a handgrip. After a moment she realised that she was gasping. She
couldn’t think; didn’t understand — Somehow Morn’s growing anger seemed to
consume all the air in the cabin.

A faint
glitter that might have been hope showed in Ciro’s gaze. “What can Vector do?”
he asked hesitantly.

. Morn
faced him as if she were resisting an impulse to shout. “Damn it, Ciro, what do
you think antimutagens are
for?
I don’t know if this can work. An
immunity drug isn’t the same as an antidote. It’s supposed to be in your system
before
you get the mutagen. I don’t know what happens if the mutagen is
already there. But,” she promised, “we are going to find out. It is by God
worth a try.”