Milos watched her, listened to her, as if he were blind and deaf.
“Captain Chatelaine,” the speaker replied, “you’re cleared to return, if that’s really what you want. Approach course and protocols follow.”
The helm first studied his board, then murmured, “Got it, Captain,” as codes and routing came in. Apparently Retledge wasn’t angry.
Nevertheless he added a warning. “But if you intend to pick a fight with Captain Succorso, don’t waste your time coming back here. We don’t want any part of your petty feuds. Go away and leave us alone. Retledge out.”
Center’s transmission fizzled to silence.
You self-righteous sonofabitch, Sorus thought harshly. Damn you, don’t you know I’m desperate? Do you think I would do any of this if I had a choice?
You’re already dead. It wouldn’t cost you anything to help me.
After a moment an ache in her fingers made her aware that she was clenching her fists.
Damn you all to hell.
Sighing, she instructed helm, “Take us in. And don’t forget to be careful. But make it as quick as those protocols will tolerate.” More for her own benefit than for his, she remarked, “I assume Retledge would have said so if Trumpet was still in dock. Time is precious.”
She turned to Milos. “Looks like we’re on our own.” A rasp of weariness crept into her voice: he had that effect on her. “I don’t like the odds. You’ve given me conflicting priorities. If I concentrate on one, I risk losing the other.
“You told me you can call for help.” The Amnioni had said that when Soar had left her rendezvous with Calm Horizons. “Maybe you’d better do it.”
As if he were performing an act of courtesy, Milos shifted his stance slightly toward her.
“Why do you need help, Captain Chatelaine?”
“Because,” you Amnion bastard, “if Trumpet left the Lab too soon after we did, she might get out of this swarm before we can catch up with her.” God, she hated explaining herself to this former human being. She was tired of it. “Once she has a clear line of acceleration, she can go into tach. Then we’re going to have hell’s own time trying to find her again.
“We need another ship out on the fringe to turn her back if she tries to run.”
Milos shook his head—an atavistic gesture which meant nothing. “I do not understand. Do you now believe that Ciro Vasaczk will not sabotage Trumpet’s drives, as you instructed?”
With an effort, Sorus kept her obscenities to herself. “I’ve already answered that question. I believe it’s stupid to assume nothing will go wrong. That’s why I want help.” A moment later she added sourly, “Although you haven’t bothered to mention what kind of help you think you can whistle up in the middle of a system like Massif-5.”
The Amnioni appeared to consider the implications of her sarcasm. Then he announced impassively, “I am in contact with Calm Horizons.”
“What?” Sorus couldn’t contain her incredulity—or her indignation. “All the way from here to forbidden space? Don’t bullshit me, Milos. Even with drones you would need at least a day just to get a message there—and you haven’t been using any drones. But that’s not all. A tub like Calm Horizons might take as much as two more to reach us. Two more days, Milos.
“You told me you can get us help when we need it. You didn’t say anything about having to wait for three days.”
Milos studied her. Like his eyes, his emotions—if he had any—were hidden.
“I am in contact with Calm Horizons,” he repeated evenly. “The contact is instantaneous. I am able to transmit and receive communication without measurable delay. The device which makes this possible was brought aboard from the defensive after the destruction of Thanatos Minor.
“At present its range has not been perfected beyond 2.71 light-years. For that reason Calm Horizons began an encroachment into human space when we set course for this system.”
Sorus fought an impulse to gape at him. Her bridge crew were already staring.
“A covert encroachment,” he said without emphasis. “Marc Vestabule is confident that Calm Horizons has not been detected.
“The defensive’s position is presently 1.38 light-years from ours. Only course and velocity require adjustment. Calm Horizons can attain any position you desire outside this asteroid swarm in approximately three hours.”
He stunned her. Amnion technology was capable of achievements she could barely conceive. Deep in her belly, despair and frustration seethed and spat, as hot as outrage.
“‘Instantaneous contact’?” she snarled. “And you didn’t tell me you could do that? You didn’t think I might need to know?”
The Amnioni remained still. Somehow his immobility suggested a shrug.
Sorus growled her disgust, but there was nothing she could say that would make a difference. All her dealings with the Amnion were like this. They could listen to reason—or to her human, unreliable version of reason—but they offered nothing, exposed nothing; ignored every appeal.
“Just tell her to get here,” she sighed roughly. “I’ll give you an exact position when I know what course Trumpet took away from the Lab.”
Milos bent forward from the waist: he may have been trying to remember how humans bowed. Then he turned to leave the bridge.
Apparently his instrument for “instantaneous contact” wasn’t an implant. He must have kept the device in the quarters she’d assigned to him when he came aboard.
Before Milos completed his exit, however, the communications first spoke.
“Captain, it’s the Lab. Chief Retledge wants to talk to you again.”
Sorus held up her hand, advising Milos to wait. “Let’s hear it,” she told the woman on communications.
The snap of a toggle brought the bridge speaker to life.
“Captain Chatelaine?” the chief asked. “This is Retledge.”
Sorus faced her pickup, took hold of her waning courage, and said firmly, “Now it’s my turn to be surprised, Chief Retledge. I thought you’d already explained your position.”
Retledge cleared his throat. “Sorry about that, Sorus. Too many people listening in Center. Now I’m alone. This is a secure transmission.”
“I see.” She softened her tone. “In that case, it’s nice to hear from you. Can I assume you’ve reconsidered?”
The chief didn’t answer directly. Instead he said, “As it happens, there is something you can offer me.”
“Name it,” Sorus returned promptly.
Retledge took a moment to choose his words. “You think Captain Succorso is a threat. You want to put a stop to it. That gives us something in common.”
She glanced over her shoulder to be sure Milos was still there, then replied, “I’m listening.”
Carefully Retledge said, “Dr. Beckmann made a deal with Captain Succorso, More particularly, he made a deal with Vector Shaheed. He doesn’t break those kinds of agreements. He figures no one will come here if we start taking sides in feuds like yours. And he has quaint ideas about ‘professional courtesy.’ He wouldn’t consider mistreating a ‘colleague’ like Shaheed.”
The chief paused. When he continued, his grimness was plain, despite the distance and static.
“But Security is my problem, not his. I have to worry about keeping us alive. And I don’t think we can survive the secrets Trumpet is carrying.
“They’re—explosive, Sorus. Take my word for it. When they go off, we’re going to get caught in the wave front.”
You’re already caught, she thought. You’re already dead. But she didn’t say that aloud.
“I’ll answer your questions,” he finished, “if you promise me you’ll destroy that ship. Completely. No survivors. Nothing left but dust.”
Sardonically he added, “I’ll tell Beckmann Succorso suffered a ‘navigational mishap.’ ”
Sorus didn’t believe him. He didn’t care whether Shaheed’s “secrets” were explosive: he cared whether they were exclusive. What Beckmann had
learned from Shaheed would be far more valuable if no one shared it.
But his reasons didn’t matter. His information did.
“My friend,” she said before he could think that she was hesitating, “you have a deal. Complete destruction. No survivors.” Including you. “Nothing left but dust.”
Like her heart.
“Then you’d better get started,” Retledge responded quickly. “Shaheed finished his research faster than I was expecting. Succorso is already on his way.”
“I’m still coming in,” Sorus warned. Images of slaughter twisted like nausea in her stomach. She and the chief of Security had been lovers once. At the time the experience had been a pleasure; nothing more. But now the memory scraped like a dull knife across the strings of her despair. “I want to get behind him. Once I reach you, I’ll turn and trail him until we’re out of your range. That way you won’t know anything embarrassing.”
Retledge hesitated momentarily, then said, “All right.” Through a random scatter of electrons, he advised her, “Stand by to copy Trumpet’s departure course and protocols.”
A few seconds later helm reported again, “Got it, Captain.”
“We have it, Chief,” Sorus informed Retledge. “We’ll turn as soon as we reach your immediate control space.” Hurrying to end the transmission before her voice betrayed her, she said, “Captain Chatelaine out,” and silenced her pickup with her fist.
Good-bye. I’m sorry. For whatever that’s worth.
“Captain Chatelaine,” Milos observed behind her, “the falseness of your kind is without end.” Then he asked, “Can you now identify the position you wish Calm Horizons to attain?”
Full of flaming curses, Sorus swung her station toward him. But his stolid stance and covered eyes stopped her. Just a few hours of his company had been enough to make her forget that he’d once been human. And she knew the Amnion well enough by now to understand that no individual member of that species would ever have given in to the pressure they’d exerted on her.
Maybe she deserved what they were doing to her. Maybe she’d always deserved it.
Through a black gloom she called Soar’s charts of the swarm up onto one of her display screens; overlaid the data Retledge had just supplied; ran some quick calculations. Then she gave Milos the coordinates he was waiting for.
At once the Amnioni left to apply himself to his “instantaneous contact” device.
As Soar moved back into the asteroid swarm, deeper toward the heart of Deaner Beckmann’s domain, targ began using spare thrust capacity to charge her super-light proton cannon.
MIKKA
Through the hull, she heard the hiss of hoses pulling free, the snap as cables jerked from their sockets; she felt the visceral jolt of grapples unclamping. Metal rang as if it were in distress. Trumpet was leaving dock. For better or worse, the gap scout was free of that place.
Still she didn’t move. Crouched at one end of her bunk with her back pressed into the corner of the wall, she remained where she’d been ever since she and Ciro had come into their cabin. As Trumpet drifted loose and lost the asteroid’s weak g, she tucked one of her legs under the bunk’s webbing so that she wouldn’t start to float. Other than that, nothing changed. Leaving the Lab didn’t really make any difference.
Ciro lay in front of her with his upper body propped on her knees and his head turned away; her arms were wrapped around him. He refused to speak. He hadn’t said a word since he’d begged her to kill him. Now. While you have the chance.
Please.
Now, she’d panted back at him, almost gasped, when they’d reached the privacy of their cabin. You’re going to tell me what happened. What Sorus Chatelaine had done to him. What Nick had sacrificed him for. Whatever it is, we’ll face it together.
He’d stared at her as if she were threatening to tear out his heart; as if she’d already started—Tearless, and as pale as death, he’d stared at her until she couldn’t bear it; until she was the one who looked away. But he hadn’t answered.
Tell me! she’d howled at him: a cry so fierce that it seemed to rend her throat; and yet only a small thing, barely a whimper, compared with the extremity of her dismay. Tell me, God damn you! I can’t help you if you don’t tell me!
He hadn’t answered. Instead he’d rolled himself onto the nearest bunk and turned his face to the wall.
Needing to breathe, desperate for air and hope, she’d pushed onto the bunk with him; squeezed into the corner; pulled him toward her until he lay across her knees and she could hold him. Still he didn’t say anything. He refused to let her see his face. Eventually she found that she didn’t care whether or not she could breathe.
Her brother. And her responsibility: she’d brought him to this. He’d joined Captain’s Fancy because of her; Nick had accepted him because of her. Now he was the only person left that she still knew how to love.
She’d survived losing Nick. But if she lost her brother—
For a while after she’d realized that he wasn’t going to talk to her, she’d wept. That was over now. As dry-eyed as he was, she crouched in the corner and simply held him while Trumpet eased out of dock and slowly, almost unnoticeably, began to adjust attitude for departure.
Across the Lab’s immediate control space. Back into the long, jockeying moil of the asteroid swarm.
How long would it take? A gentle nudge of thrust moved the ship. First the relative void around the Lab. Then the swarm itself. Then the Massif-5 system. How long before Nick took her and her brother and the whole ship beyond the reach of any imaginable help?
How long could she suffer Ciro’s silence?
Presumably Morn and Davies had ambushed Nick in the airlock. Had they succeeded? Mikka didn’t think so—not when he could get Angus’ help just by commanding it. No, it was more likely that Morn and her son were dead. Unless Nick kept her alive because he was addicted to hurting her—
Why had Angus given them guns?
Ciro shifted against Mikka’s arms. In a small, strained voice, he murmured, “I want to be alone.”
Involuntarily her muscles clenched as if she’d been hit by a stun-prod.
“They need you on the bridge.” He kept his face stubbornly away from her. His voice was muffled by her arm; he sounded like a little boy. A boy who knew that nothing good could happen unless he was left to die. “I’ll be all right. I just want to be alone.”
She would have said, No. Would have said, I won’t do it. I can’t leave you like this. But she couldn’t unlock her throat.
“If you don’t go, they’re going to come here. Vector or Sib. Or Nick, if he still wants to punish you. I can’t stand it. If you go, you can make them leave me alone.”
He was lost. Nick had sacrificed him to Sorus Chatelaine, and now he was completely gone.
Mikka swallowed, trying to moisten her throat and mouth. She couldn’t help him. He didn’t want her help: he was out of reach. The only gift she had left to give was the dignity of letting him face whatever had happened to him on his own terms.
She tried to say, All right. If that’s what you want. But when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. She’d already exhausted her capacity for tears.
“Please, Mikka.”
She was going to do it. As soon as she could undo the knots in her muscles, she would get up from the bunk, go to the door—
The chime of the intercom stopped her.
“Mikka?” Morn’s voice. “Ciro?” Morn’s. “Are you all right? May I come in? I need to talk to you.”
At once Ciro began to babble. “No, Mikka, don’t let her, I don’t want to see her, I can’t see her, don’t let her in—”
A sudden thunder of blood and need nearly deafened Mikka. Her damaged forehead throbbed. She shot a look at the intercom. No, Morn couldn’t hear him. The pickup hadn’t been activated.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to come,” Morn went on. “I know you’re in trouble. I want to help. But there’s been so much—Please let me in. We ne
ed to talk.”
There’s been so much—
Through the thunder Mikka suddenly understood what she was hearing. Morn’s voice. Morn was alive. And making her own choices regardless of Nick.
Why hadn’t he killed her?
That question was urgent enough to reach Mikka in spite of her distress; urgent enough to outweigh Ciro’s pleading. She wasn’t able to dismiss all the lives that hinged on it.
Moving roughly because she couldn’t yet unclench her arms and legs, she shifted Ciro aside and pushed off from the bunk. He was still babbling—“Mikka, no, please, don’t, no”—but she ignored him. As soon as she reached the control panel, she keyed in the code to unlock the door.
Ciro stopped as if she’d cut his vocal cords.
Morn waited in the passage, holding a handgrip outside the door. She was alone. Her eyes seemed unnaturally dark; almost fatal; haunted by doubt and worry.
As the door swept aside, she showed Mikka an uncertain smile, then came determinedly into the cabin. There she let Trumpet’s gentle acceleration tug her to a halt. After a glance at Mikka, her gaze turned to the bunk where Ciro lay with his back toward her and his face hidden against the wall.
“My God,” she whispered. “What happened to him?”
Mikka drew a shuddering breath. Without transition the thunder became fury. Rage rolled and crashed like a storm in her head. “Nick set him up. Left him as bait. Sacrificed him. He wanted Soar to take him—I don’t know why. Some kind of scheme.”
Her throat closed. No words could convey what she felt. She made a helpless gesture. “He’s been like this ever since she let him go. First”—it was impossible to say this, it hurt too much, but somehow she forced it out—“he told me to kill him. Now he wants me to leave him alone.”
Morn’s eyes widened: the darkness haunting them grew deeper. Her mouth formed the words, “Kill him?” Then she bit her lip.
Mikka started to speak again. Or she thought she did. She meant to. Meant to ask, Where’s Nick? What’s going on? Why are you alive? What did Angus do to you? But she didn’t make a sound. Her head hurt as if she’d just been hit. The bandage on her forehead obscured her vision in one eye. And Morn was looking at Ciro as if she saw his doom in the taut lines of his back.