She may have been trying to defy Nick; but he didn’t react to it. He was on fire with a strange, personal ecstasy. The passion that heated his gaze and darkened his scars gave the impression that he’d achieved a state of exaltation in which he, too, couldn’t be reached.
Something had happened—something as acute and fatal as Punisher’s transmission.
“You underestimate me,” he retorted. “But at the moment I don’t give a shit. While you’ve been sleeping your damn brains out, the game has suddenly gotten a whole lot bigger.”
“Why?” Davies and Morn asked simultaneously. “What do you mean?” she pursued. “What’s going on?” he added.
“Good.” Nick nodded in satisfaction. “I like that. You two are so fucking identical, you might as well be twins. Maybe if you make a special effort to keep me happy, I’ll let you entertain Beckmann and his collection of tech bozos by reading each other’s minds.”
“Fine,” Mikka said from the head of companionway. “Morn and Davies are in charge of entertainment. Where does that leave the rest of us?”
She stood with Sib and Ciro on either side of her as if she needed their support. Sickbay had patched and bandaged her forehead: no doubt it had given her transfusions as well, pumped her full of drugs. Nevertheless the damage to her skull required more time to heal. She looked wan and uncharacteristically fragile, as if she’d broken more bones than sickbay could treat.
Behind her Vector moved stiffly, awkwardly: apparently his joints hurt even in this low g. Bandages made his cut hand thick and imprecise, like the head of a mallet, but he still had the use of his fingers. If he needed them. He was probably capable of operating the Lab’s equipment with one hand.
Sib and Ciro were in better shape physically. Short of neural breakdown, the aftereffects of stun didn’t linger. But Sib’s cheeks were hollow, and his eyes had sunk in his head; he looked like he was being eaten alive by his fears and failures. And Ciro appeared to suffer from a kind of emotional nausea. Perhaps he felt sickened by the fact that he’d let Nick take his stun-prod away from him.
“It leaves you with me,” Nick answered. His tone was like a ghoul’s mimicry of his former ominous casualness. “I’m going to take Vector to meet Beckmann and use his facilities. You’re coming along.
“Let me tell you something about that, just in case you’re still groggy enough be stupid. You’re going to take orders. You will fucking do what I fucking tell you.”
He hit keys to clear his board, then unbelted himself from his g-seat and stood up, at least in part so that everyone else could see the impact pistol clipped at his waist. At some point during the past several hours, he must have paid a visit to the weapons locker.
“Never mind the fact that I’ll shoot you if you don’t. Fucking heroes like you probably don’t care. No, you’re going to take orders because you can imagine what I’ll make Angus do to Morn if you don’t.
“Is that clear enough so far?”
Mikka and her companions hadn’t moved from the top of the companionway. Her bandages seemed to twist her frown into an act of brutality. “I take it that means Angus and Morn aren’t going with us. What about Davies?”
Nick shook his head. “He’s staying behind, too. To tell you the truth”—his expression might have looked impish if his scars hadn’t been so dark—“Center doesn’t know they’re aboard. I left them off the manifest. As far as Beckmann and his guards are concerned, there’s only the five of us. Which means Angus here can give us all the cover we need while we’re off the ship.”
He turned toward his second. “You listening, asshole?”
Angus’ voice was confined in his chest, caught by conflicting pressures. “I’m listening.”
He didn’t lift his head or look around.
“Good,” Nick rasped. He spoke to Angus as if none of the other people on the bridge existed. “Listen hard, because I’m not going to put up with any bullshit.
“The five of us are leaving. We probably won’t be back until Vector gets somewhere with that drug. Depends on how good he is. Right now he probably thinks he’ll gain something by being slow. But after he’s considered the situation, he’ll realize that the longer he takes, the more people are going to get hurt.
“Until then”—Nick drifted a step or two closer to the second’s station—“you’ll cover us.” Leaning forward, he demanded, “Are you listening? ”
Davies held his breath. Angus must be Nick’s weak point, the place where his plans could go wrong. If his control over Angus failed while he wasn’t here to enforce it, he wouldn’t have a ship to return to.
Angus still didn’t look up. “I’m listening.”
“You damn well better,” Nick shot back. Saliva gathered at the corners of his mouth like froth, but he appeared unaware of it. “I’ll tear your heart out—and you know I can do it.”
Angus didn’t retort or protest; he hardly seemed to be alive. His nod was like the shudder of a broken machine.
But that was enough for Nick.
“Monitor every communications and scan channel you can tap,” he ordered, “watch for trouble. If you see or hear anything that sounds like we’ve got problems, charge the matter cannon and start making threats. This ship has enough power to gut the whole installation from here. That’s something Beckmann will listen to. His research is too precious—he won’t risk it.”
To himself, Davies admitted that Nick was right. Deaner Beckmann had made a serious mistake when he’d let Nick get this close to him.
Now Nick turned his baleful grin on Davies and Morn, although he continued speaking to Angus.
“In the meantime”—fires laughed in his hot gaze—“the Hyland twins are yours.”
Davies thought he could feel his heart stop. He heard Sib choke in shock and chagrin, heard Mikka breathe a low curse; but those sounds meant nothing to him. For an instant the bridge constricted around him, shrank to darkness. In the void helpless memories beat about his head like black wings: Angus with the zone implant control; Angus cocking his fists; Angus erect past the seams of his shipsuit, charged with violence—
He jerked a glance at Morn, saw the thin blood drain from her face. She held herself still, poised, as if she could bear anything; but the sudden pallor of her cheeks and the white rim of panic around her irises betrayed her fear.
Nick clapped sarcastic applause. Then he told Angus, “If that computer in your malicious little head will let you play with them, go ahead. I don’t care.”
Don’t care, Davies heard. Don’t care.
“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 synthesize 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. “Center 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.” Morris 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 Center,” 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.
“Center, 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, Center 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
Angus’ 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 re-create himself as a separate human being. Something labored in him, strove to rise against the blow—some defense 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.