The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (90 page)

Just a
little while ago — an hour or two at most — she’d made decisions and stood by
them. But now she could hardly hold up her head. She’d learned to desire
revenge on
Gutbuster
at the same time and in the same way that she’d
learned to be ashamed of herself. As a child, her secret disloyalty to her
parents’ calling had undermined her self-esteem; left her feeling culpable for
her mother’s death. And since then that flaw at the core of her convictions had
eroded everything she did.

Now her
shame came back to her in a new way.

As
far as I can tell, I’m Bryony Hyland’s daughter.

She
couldn’t see any way out of it. After everything she’d done and endured, the
logic of her illness still held her.

And she
was useless. She couldn’t help Vector work. Nor could she take either of the
command stations. There was combat ahead — urgent manoeuvres and hard g. As
soon as
Trumpet
faced action, Morn would have to return to her cabin,
dope herself senseless with cat, and lie passive in her g-sheath while other
people determined whether the ship would live or die.

As
useless as Nick in his bonds —

The
thought made her feel like weeping again. If she couldn’t comprehend Nick, she
understood all too well the pressure which had impelled Sib to go with him.

.As for
the rest —

I
understand
him
, Davies had protested.
I understand him
better than
you
do! I remember what
you
remember. And I’m
male.
Whatever that means. I know what he’ll do!

He
needs this too much.

Morn
was familiar with absolute commitments. She had her own, which had carried her
to extremes she would have found unimaginable scant weeks ago. Nevertheless her
heart refused to accommodate the sheer scale of Nick’s hunger to repay Sorus
Chatelaine.

How
much time did she have left? — how long before she was forced to return to her
cabin and hide herself in drugs?

Do
you really think it’s
preferable
to keep him
tied up here like a piece of meat?

At the
moment she felt it would be preferable to put the muzzle of an impact pistol in
her mouth and squeeze the firing stud.

“That’s
it,” Angus muttered abruptly. “We’ve lost their transmission. Sib and Captain
Sheepfucker are out of range. If Succorso wants to kill him, he can do it
anytime now.”

Morn
looked at him. He seemed to squat like a toad over his console; his face and
movements burned with concentration. He still hadn’t troubled to pull up his
shipsuit. She could see his bloated chest too well: remembered it too well —
the black triangle of hair covering his heart like a target; his pale skin stained
with sweat. Yet he was changed in some way, subtly different from the butcher
and rapist she knew. And different as well from the clenched, bitter machine
who’d rescued her on Thanatos Minor. Something essential had been set loose in
him when she’d allowed him to edit his datacore. His concentration was as hard
as his old malice and brutality; but it had new implications.

She
searched for ways to test him; to discover what the changes in him meant.
Facing him with the screens behind her, she asked unsteadily, “Are we really
going to go back for Sib?”

Have we
sent him out to die just so you can get rid of Nick?

Angus
paused with his fingers on the helm keys. Slowly he lifted his yellow eyes to
meet her gaze. She saw shadows of hunger in them; hints of grief behind his
certainty and focus. Before
Trumpet
left forbidden space, she’d asked
him,
What do you want?
And he’d answered,
I want you.
But when
she’d told him,
I would rather make myself into a lump of dead meat
, his
reaction had surprised her.

He’d
seemed almost relieved. As if her revulsion spared him a vulnerability he
couldn’t afford.

She
understood now that he’d always wanted his freedom more than he’d ever wanted
her. To the extent that she could trust him here, it was because she’d released
him from the coercion of his priority-codes.

At the
auxiliary engineering console, Vector cocked his head, obviously listening for
Angus’ reply. Davies gave no sign that he’d heard her question.

Angus
studied her for a moment. Then he shrugged. “If we get the chance. Why not? He
got rid of Succorso for me. That counts for something. And if he’s that crazy,
he might be useful again.”

His
gaze held hers as if he never blinked.

“You
don’t care about anything else?” she pursued. “Sib himself doesn’t matter to
you?”

“I’ll
tell you what I care about.” Angus clenched one fist and started tapping it
softly on the edge of his console. However, the rest of him showed no emotion.
He had zone implants to keep him steady. “I care about why you didn’t want to
let Captain Sheepfucker go.”

Mom
frowned. What was he getting at?

“You
broke my heart,” he said gruffly. “You know that? You always wanted him. You
wanted him the first minute you saw him, that time in Mallorys.” As he spoke,
his voice became more guttural: it sounded like the exhaust of a combustion
engine. “I would have killed to have you look at me that way. Hell, I would
have killed everybody on the whole damn station.” His mouth twisted. “I would
have stopped hurting you if you’d ever looked at me that way.”

As sudden
as a cry, he demanded, “Is that what’s going on now? Are you fucking falling
apart right in front of me because you think you’re never going to see him
again?”

He
shocked her. Too quickly to stop herself, she caught fire; the needy tinder of
her spirit burst into flames of protest. He’d hurt her too much for too long,
far too long, she’d believed he was destroying her. Pain as hot as a smelter
seemed to roar and devour through her.

“
Wanted
him?” she yelled into his bloated face and yellow eyes. “You think I
wanted
him? Do you think I’m
crazy?
I never
wanted
him. Wanting to
die
would have been easier!”

Her
shout jerked Vector around in his seat, made even Davies look up at her. But
she ignored them.

“All I
wanted
,”
she flung at Angus, hurling words like knives to tear at him, “all I
ever
wanted
was somebody to help me
get away from you!
”

Abruptly
she stumbled silent. Again he shocked her. Instead of drawing back or looking
away — or answering with his own anger — he watched her with a grin dawning on
his face as if she’d filled him with sunrise.

“Is
that true?” he asked in amazement. “Do you mean it?”

Bitter
as acid, she finished, “I was sick of men. Anything male revolted me. But Nick
was the only one I saw who looked like he might have a chance.”

Angus
went on grinning. Slowly he began to chuckle like a maladjusted turbine.

“Shit,
Morn. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have spent so much time wishing he was
dead.”

He was
too much for her. Revulsion crackled and swirled inside her, as fresh as when
he’d first degraded her; as fresh as fire. She wanted to flay his skin from his
bones — draw blood for all the damage he’d done her.

“Of
course.” She strove to make her voice as harmful as his. “Of
course
, you
sonofabitch.
You
don’t care what happens to Sib.
You
don’t care
what Nick was like.
You
don’t care who he hurt, or how he did it, or
what it cost. All
you
care about is that I didn’t
want
him more
than I wanted you.”

Angus
shook his head. By degrees his strange mirth subsided; the sunrise faded from
his expression. Her attack must have reached him. “Maybe that’s true,” he
admitted. The admission seemed to pain him, however. Her attack restored his
familiar anger. “And maybe it doesn’t matter.

“I’m a
machine,” he rasped with his accustomed harshness. “A goddamn machine. That’s
all. Warden Dios tells me what to do, and I do it. Sometimes he pulls the
strings. Sometimes I get to make my own choices. Sometimes I can’t even tell
the difference. What the fuck do you
expect
me to care about?”

“You
aren’t being fair,” Davies put in unexpectedly. Despite his youth, he sounded
as stern as her father delivering a reprimand. “He got you away from the
Amnion. Since then he’s been on your side. As much as Nick let him. We would
all be dead without him. What more do you want?”

Carried
by conflagration, she wheeled on her son. He was too much like Angus, too male
and belligerent: he hadn’t earned the right to reproach her.

“‘Bryony
Hyland’s daughter’,” she quoted trenchantly. “‘The one she used to have’ before
I sold my soul — the pure one.” The one who hated Nick and
Soar
so much
he was willing to let Sib die for it. “I want you to care about what you’re
doing. I want you to care about what it costs.”

Davies
met her squarely. He didn’t shout or argue; didn’t so much as raise his voice. “You
don’t know anything about what it costs me.”

She
couldn’t stop: she was too angry. “I’ll tell you what I don’t know. I don’t
know why you feel so sorry for yourself. And I don’t want to know. It doesn’t
interest me. I gave you life, whether you want it or not. I’ve kept you alive
ever since.” Angus had only rescued Davies in order to trade him for her. “If
you aren’t willing to talk about what’s eating you, at least stop sneering at
me.”

That
stung him. Abruptly furious, he faced her with a look like black hate.
Straining against his belts, he cried, “I killed my father! I killed my whole
family! The universe spoke to me, and I did what it said! I did it with my own
hands. And
it wasn’t even me!
I don’t
exist.
I’m just a shadow of
you!”

Then
his voice dropped to a low snarl. “I need to be the kind of cop you should have
been. And you don’t,” he repeated, “know anything about what it costs me.”

As
effectively as a splash of foam, he doused the flames in her, quenched her
desire to draw blood. He was right: she couldn’t begin to guess what his life
cost him. And she had no idea what Hashi Lebwohl and UMCPDA had done to Angus;
no idea how much he suffered for it. They didn’t deserve her indignation.

But
without it she had nothing left except shame.

“You’re
right.” She couldn’t meet his eyes, or Angus’. “I’m sorry. It’s withdrawal — I
don’t know how to handle it.”

“You
know,” Vector offered quietly, “we might be able to find a dosage of cat that
protects you without leaving you unconscious. If we titrate it right.”

Morn
didn’t respond. She meant withdrawal from the artificial stimulation of her
zone implant. But she also meant withdrawal from the ability to transcend her
limitations, rise above her flaws. And for that loss there was no drug to help
her.

 _

 _

Angus ran the swarm as
smoothly as he could. With the chart Beckmann had supplied, Lab Centre’s
earlier operational input, and
Trumpet’s
penetrating sensors, he found
ways through the throng of rock that didn’t require sudden course changes,
emergency evasions. The gap scout slid from side to side on relatively gentle
thrust, dodging out of the depths of the swarm.

G
pulled Morn in every conceivable direction. Her feet drifted off the deck; her
body arced slowly this way and that. But the pressure didn’t threaten her. With
one hand on a zero-g grip she was able to control her movement enough to avoid
bruising herself against the bulkhead.

Angus
should have sent her off the bridge to protect her; or to protect
Trumpet
from what she might do if her gap-sickness took her. Instead he took care of
her in other ways. Under the circumstances, she could afford to wait awhile.

She
clung to the bridge the same way she clung to her handgrip, using her presence
at the centre of decisions and action to help her manage the stresses pulling
at her heart.

At the
second’s station, Davies worked obsessively, verifying and refining his mastery
of the gap scout’s targ.

Clinging,
Morn studied the data he routed to one of the displays, and was dumbfounded by
the power and complexity of
Trumpet’s
weaponry. The ship was a gap
scout: according to her public specifications, she was totally unarmed. In any
case, she should have been too small to carry heavy guns. But the UMCP’s
researchers must have achieved miracles of miniaturisation. The weapons
Trumpet
shouldn’t have had could deliver more destruction at greater distances than
Morn would ever have guessed.

Trumpet
wasn’t equipped with lasers. They were problematic in any case;
vulnerable to EM distortion as well as to the jolts and line fluctuations of
the ships powering them. In battle it was difficult for human technologies to
maintain coherence. But the gap scout had enough other armaments to make the
absence of lasers seem trivial.