The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (95 page)

“You
listening?” he snarled. “Pay attention, bastard.” He needed brutality to
control his fear. “I’ve got orders for you. If you fuck up, we’re all dead.”

Preparing
for his gamble, he’d done several things before he’d left the bridge. One was
that he’d preset
Trumpet’s
command intercom to receive suit
communications on this frequency. Davies would be able to hear him.

He
nearly cried out when Morn’s voice answered him.

“We
hear you, Angus. We’ll do whatever you tell us. I think that dispersion storm
is starting to dissipate.
Soar
might be able to see us again in three or
four minutes.”

Her
tone — husky, full of need, driven by her own desperation — reminded him of the
way she’d once spoken to him aboard
Bright Beauty.
No matter how much it
hurt him, he couldn’t stifle the memory.

I can
save you, she said. I can’t save your ship, but I can save you. Just give me
the control. The zone implant control.

You’re
crazy, he retorted.

Give me
the control, she pleaded nakedly. I’m not going to use it against you. I need
it to heal.

That’s
the deal, isn’t it, he groaned when he understood her. You’ll save me. If I let
you have the control. But I have to give up my ship.

After
he hit her, he promised, I’ll never give up my ship.

He’d
said that; meant it. Nevertheless it was a delusion, like so many others. Empty
talk. He
had
given
Bright Beauty
up. Surrendered her to scrap and
spare parts. Because he hadn’t wanted to die. And because that was the only
deal he’d been able to make with Morn.

We hear
you, Angus. We’ll do whatever you tell us.

The
lift opened while he stood paralysed: the doors to the airlock faced him. Multitasking
automatically, as if his computer ruled him, he entered the codes to unseal the
lock. At the same time, however, his heart hung on the edge of screams.

“You
can’t do this, Morn!” he gasped frantically. “God damn it, what’s happened to
your brains? Are you fucking psychotic?
We need hard g.
I can’t get back
there in time to run the ship. And as soon as we start to burn, you’ll go
gap-sick.” With the command board right under her hands! “Get out of there. Don’t
you understand? You have to leave the bridge! Let Davies do it.

“Davies,
don’t let her stay!”

“He can’t
handle it alone.” Morn was sure despite her desperation. “You know that. There’s
too much of it — and neither of us has your resources. If he takes helm, maybe
he can manage scan at the same time, but he won’t be able to run targ. We’ll be
defenseless, even if we’re moving.”

“Which
we won’t be,” Davies put in fiercely, “because we haven’t got thrust.”

Anger
shivered in his voice. He may have thought Angus had betrayed him.

“So I’m
taking helm,” Morn continued reasonably, as if what she said made sense; as if
anything she did made sense. “He’ll have scan and targ. He knows targ well
enough to handle scan at the same time.”

Enclosed
by the helmet, echoes seemed to beat about Angus’ head, blinding him to the
distinction between what he remembered and what he did. Unable to stop himself,
he cried into his pickup, “You’re crazy!
I’ll lose my ship!
”

“Angus,”
Morn retorted tightly, “we’re dead where we sit. Craziness is the only thing
that might get us out of this. Why else are you going EVA? Stop complaining
about it. Take your own chances. I’ll take mine.”

“And I’ll
lose my ship!” he shouted back. “Is this the same deal over again? You get
helm, but I have to give up my ship?”

Morn
didn’t answer. Instead Davies’ voice crackled trenchantly in his helmet
speakers.

“Take
it or leave it, Angus. She’s right. And she isn’t completely crazy. She’s
already come through hard g once.

“Are
you sure you aren’t the one who’s lost his mind? I checked the weapons inventory
— all you’ve got is that portable matter cannon. It’s a goddamn
popgun
,
Angus.
Soar’s
sinks will shrug it off like water. You’ll hardly scratch
her.”

He had
no time for this. Without noticing what he did, he’d already moved into the
airlock and closed it behind him; already started the pumps cycling to suck out
the air. Scan must be clearing by now.
Soar
would be able to see —

Oh God.

His
resistance crumpled. He already had too many fears hunting like Furies in his
head. Raw with distress, he accessed his computer; instructed it to steady his
pulse, calm his breathing. His hands entered commands to open the airlock as
soon as the air was gone. Then he spoke into his pickup again.

“All
right. We’ve all lost our minds. We might as well be crazy together.

“Pay
attention. I can’t afford explanations right now.

“Thrust
didn’t fail. I powered down the drive. It’s set for cold ignition. All you have
to do is hit the keys and point her in the right direction.”

I’m
not your son.
By degrees the stress of hearing his
voice cramped around his head made him vicious.
I am not your
fucking
son!
His tone sharpened as he went on.

“I want
you to play dead. Don’t make a flicker, don’t experiment with anything, don’t
focus targ.
Sit
there. Until I tell you.” Until I blow that fucker’s
heart out. “Then hit those keys. Hit them fast. Get us out of here. Burn us
back the way we came, full acceleration, all the g you can take.”

“I’ll
do it,” Morn replied promptly. She sounded distant with concentration. “I’ve
got the keys. I’m laying in a course now. We’ll be ready.”

“And
give me scan data,” Angus demanded. “Talk to me — tell me everything you pick
up. I need to know what’s going on.”

“Right,”
Davies muttered as if he was speaking to himself. “It’s still a mess out there.
You’ll probably see better than we can. But the storm’s definitely receding.
The scan computer projects we’ll start getting data we can use in eighty
seconds.”

Eighty
seconds. Shit! That wasn’t enough. He was never going to make it.

He didn’t
have any choice. He had to make it.

The
airlock cycled open, leaving him face-to-face with a nearly invisible curve of
rough stone.

He
could only discern the shape and relative angles of the asteroid because the
rock seemed somehow darker than the void around it; more absolute. And because
erratic flickers of static limned its outlines at unpredictable intervals,
leaving faint afterimages like ghosts on his retinas.

At once
his terror mounted to an entirely new level.

He
hated EVA,
loathed
it. From the core of his heart to the ends of his
fingers, he’d always feared it. Whatever made him small made him vulnerable.
Only babies could be tied down in cribs and searched with pain to the limits of
their being.

Nevertheless
he kicked out of the airlock and floated up the side of the ship along the rock
as if he were driven by his datacore’s commands instead of his own desperation.

DAVIES

S
tricken with dismay, Davies watched as Morn belted herself into the
command g-seat.

He didn’t
know which horrified him more: being abandoned by Angus, or seeing Morn’s hands
on the command board. Memories of gap-sickness flocked in his head, fatal as
ravens: clarity and ruin seemed to thrash like wings against the inside of his
skull.

When
she felt hard g, the universe would speak to her, commanding self-destruct; and
she would obey. That was the nature of the flaw which the strange physics of
the gap had searched out in the tissue of her brain. She wouldn’t be able to
help herself. The voice of the universe overwhelmed every other need and desire.

But of
course
Trumpet
wasn’t about to experience hard g. Not now: maybe never
again. Somehow Angus had lost or damaged the thrust drive. He’d crashed the gap
scout so hard that she’d nearly broken open.

After
that he’d fled as if his datacore or his own terrors had ordered him to cower
and rave elsewhere.

Succorso
is crazy.

He’s
also a fucking genius!

What in
hell was
that
supposed to mean?

“Jesus,
Morn,” Davies breathed so far back in his throat that he hardly heard himself. “Don’t
do this. Please don’t.”

Apparently
she couldn’t hear him. Or she didn’t care what he said. She was concentrating
hard on the console, running her fingertips lightly over the keys and
indicators; reminding herself of what she’d learned in the Academy about
Needle-class gap scouts. Untended and unloved, her hair straggled across the
sides of her face, half hiding her from her son.

“Morn —”
He had to plead with her somehow. There must be some way to reach her; some
need or fear or appeal he could name that she would acknowledge. His heart and
all his synapses burned as if she’d punched the settings of her black box to
full strength, filling him with a frantic, artificial, helpless rush of
extremity; as if he were still in her womb, writhing and struggling through the
imposed dance of her zone implant’s emissions.

“Morn,”
he began again, louder now, impelled by noradrenaline. “Mom, listen. We need to
do better than this.

“Nick
and Sib must have failed. They’re probably both dead. And Angus has run out on
us. We’re the only ones left. Mikka and Vector and Ciro — they’re sheathed in
their bunks, they can’t defend themselves.” Or help us. “We’re all they have.

“Whatever
we do, it’s got to be better than this. They don’t deserve to die just because
you’ve got gap-sickness.”

Morn’s
concentration didn’t shift. Past the scrim of her hair, she murmured, “You
think I can’t handle it.”

Too
tense and dismayed to restrain himself, Davies cried back, “I think you’re too
dangerous to try!”

She
nodded. “So do I.” Her hands tested a sequence of commands. “Have you got a
better idea?”

She was
too far away: her focus made her distant. The scale of the gulf she’d set
around her daunted him completely. A minute ago he might have been able to come
up with several alternatives. Now, however, his brain seemed to hang open like
his mouth. He was so full of anguish that he couldn’t answer.

“Angus
hasn’t run out on us,” she pronounced quietly, as if she addressed him from
another star system. “He’s planning something — something so wild he can’t bear
to explain it. He’s going to need us here — he’s going to need our help.

“Can
you run this whole ship by yourself?”

Her
question held nothing except distance and concentration. If she meant to
criticise him, she didn’t show it. Nevertheless he felt stung, as if she’d
tossed acid at him.
Of course
he could run the ship himself —

But of
course he couldn’t. Only Angus had that much ability; that many resources.

Involuntarily
Davies bared his teeth and wrapped his arms across his chest to contain his
inadequacy.

“You’ve
been studying targ,” Morn went on. “You’ve paid attention to scan. Can you
handle helm at the same time?” You’re as weak as I am. “You probably don’t know
any more about it than I do.” You have the same limits. “That means if you take
helm you won’t have the attention to spare for scan and targ.

“And
that means we’re going to die even if Angus succeeds. Maybe you don’t call that
self-destruct, but the results will be the same.”

It’s
different
,
he retorted voicelessly, as if he’d fallen dumb. It’s at least a way of
trying
to stay alive. It’s not the same as doing something you know is suicidal.

But he
couldn’t shout his protest aloud because he knew she was right. He simply wasn’t
good enough to manage helm, scan, and targ simultaneously. Trusting the ship to
him was as suicidal as gap-sickness because he was flawed with mortality.

She
wasn’t done, however. From somewhere out past Fomalhaut or deep in forbidden
space, she offered softly, “Maybe we won’t burn hard enough to set me off. And
maybe all the time I’ve spent with my zone implant active has changed something
inside my head. Nobody understands gap-sickness.”

Slowly
she turned to look at him. As if she were speaking directly to the core of his
heart — as if she knew him so well that she could slip past all his fear to
touch him at the centre — she said gently, “You want me to be the kind of cop
Bryony Hyland’s daughter ought to be. What do you think she would have done?”

She had
the power to daunt him. He couldn’t beat it back. The more she controlled herself,
the more he quailed. He knew what the mother he remembered would have done.

“If
Soar
captures us,” Morn asked, “do you think Mikka and Vector and Ciro will be
glad I didn’t kill them? Do you think you’re going to
like
what the
Amnion have in mind for you?”