The sheer scale of the pain was going to kill him right now, every neuron in his body misfired anguish across his senses, he couldn’t see or feel anything except the hurt in his skull.
He’d been hit from behind, his computer explained. His attacker was moving around the g-seat to get at him; moving fast—
Instantly his zone implants switched off the pain. They galvanized his muscles like an electric charge. His senses cleared.
He flipped over onto his back in time to see Nick plunging at him like Captain’s Fancy out of the void toward Tranquil Hegemony, as full of ruin as a mine-hammer.
Loss and wild rage twisted Nick’s face into a mask of savagery. His scars seemed to stream from his eyes like streaks of dark tears; a soundless howl stretched his mouth. As he dropped toward Angus, his right fist swung a C-spanner in a fatal arc for Angus’ head. He must have found it in one of Trumpet’s emergency toolkits. Its head was stained with blood and hair from Angus’ skull.
“Fucking sonofabitch!” Nick snarled as the spanner fell. “You did this to me!”
Savage himself, Angus snatched up his hand and caught the spanner centimeters away from his forehead.
One hand was all he needed. Despite Nick’s force and weight, the blow stopped as if it had struck a bulkhead. He was stronger than Nick in any case. And welded struts reinforced his joints, improved his leverage; his reflexes ran at microprocessor speeds. He caught and held the spanner so solidly that Nick lost his grip and tumbled forward, throwing himself onto Angus.
With a twitch of his shoulder and a flick of his wrist, Angus clapped the spanner against Nick’s temple and ear. Nick fell to the side, slapped his length along the deck.
At once he tried to crawl away. But he was too weak with shock and damage to move effectively. His hands seemed unable to find the surface under him: his elbows couldn’t hold his weight. He collapsed onto his face; struggled up and collapsed again.
Angus rolled onto his feet and stood over Nick.
His hands and face were full of murder: violence steamed like vitriol in his veins. He wanted to kill Nick, would have given anything he could think of to take Nick’s neck between his strong fingers and snap it like a stick.
His zone implants didn’t permit that: they held him, trembling with fury and numb pain, where he stood.
“You dumb shit.” Words were the only outlet he was allowed. Most of them came out in a clenched growl; some shouted like klaxons against the walls. “That was stupid. Do you think you can survive without me? Do you think you or Mikka or Morn or any of you”—his vehemence spattered blood from his temple and cheek—“can survive without me? I’ve already locked the bridge with priority-codes you don’t know and can’t break. You’re three light-years deep in Amnion space. Without me you’re going to drift here until you rot!”
Nick found the deck, pushed himself up onto his hands and feet. “I know,” he murmured as if he were talking in his sleep. With a tortuous effort, he forced one leg under him, then the other, and staggered upright. “I know it was stupid. I just don’t know why.”
Wobbling on unsteady knees, he turned to face Angus.
“Why you’re able to do things like that.” Stupefied by his griefs and hurts, he couldn’t keep what he was thinking to himself. “Why you can do things like that, but what you do with it doesn’t make any sense.”
Angus’ programming prevented him from murder. On the other hand, it did grant him certain kinds of latitude. As smooth and swift as a snake, he reached forward and grabbed Nick by the front of his shipsuit, twisted the fabric into a knot. Shifting his weight, he lifted Nick into the air.
Eyes closed and neck limp, Nick dangled from Angus’ grasp. Slowly the pressure of the knot at his throat began to strangle him; yet he didn’t resist. Blood mounted in his face; his face swelled; spasms of anoxia ran reflexively along his arms. Nevertheless he didn’t lift a hand to defend himself.
Good. The disasters which had overwhelmed him ever since he’d taken Morn aboard his ship may have driven him out of his mind, but he was still capable of learning—if the lessons were loud and hard enough.
“Can you think of any reason,” Angus rasped harshly, “why I should explain myself to you? Why I should tell you anything except what I want you to do when I want you to do it?”
Retching for breath, Nick shook his head; mouthed, No.
“That’s better.”
With a silent curse of regret, Angus opened his hand and let Nick crumple to the deck. After one hoarse whoop for air, Nick sprawled flat and lay still.
Abruptly Angus’ heart began to pound, and his own breathing caught in his throat. The window in his head had started to impinge directly on his optic nerves, flashing alarms across his vision to get his attention. The damage to his skull was serious. If his zone implants had let him feel it, the pain would have overwhelmed him like a tidal wave. He needed to get to sickbay.
Swallowing a rush of panic, he turned back to the command station.
Fortunately his computer kept his hands steady, his manner even. He typed a quick series of codes to reenable Trumpet’s intercoms, then thumbed a toggle to open channels to all the cabins. He didn’t know who had taken which cabin, and didn’t care: it didn’t matter.
“All right, listen,” he pronounced roughly. “For the next eight hours or so we should be about as safe as we’re likely to get. Mikka, Davies, I want you on the bridge to keep an eye on Nick. He just tried to kill me. If he hadn’t fucked it up, you would all be as good as dead.”
Why didn’t he bind and gag Nick, lock the bastard in a cabin? Because his programming declined to permit that. Even now, Nick was protected by his association with UMCPDA.
“I don’t care what the rest of you do,” Angus added. “Just leave me alone for a while.”
He started to silence the intercom, then changed his mind. “Davies,” he went on more quietly, “wake Morn up if you want to. Otherwise let her sleep. She looks like she can use it.”
He could only guess what she’d been through aboard Captain’s Fancy—not to mention in the Amnion sector of Billingate—but it was obvious that she needed more than sleep to heal what Nick had done to her.
He wanted to heal her. She’d belonged to him once—been totally in his power, to use or abuse or adore as much as he desired. That made her part of his heart. He hoped—
No. Cursing again, he stopped himself. Hope was dangerous. He’d known that all his life; but in the confusion of his welding and mission he’d let himself forget it. Now it came back to him, however, as vivid as the warnings from his datacore. Nick wouldn’t have been able to sneak up on him, hurt him like this, if he hadn’t been distracted by his hunger for hope. Fear kept him alive. Heroes were all dead men: only cowards survived.
Carrying the damage to his skull as if it were the reason for his fear—as if it had nothing to do with his hope—he climbed the companionway and headed for Trumpet’s sickbay.
DAVIES
When Angus finally answered him over the intercom, Davies began to burn like hard thrust.
In a sense, he was always on fire. The endocrine intensity which his body had learned to accept as normal in Morn’s womb kept his nerves hungry, his heart hot. He lived on the edge of combustion. Yet when he heard Angus’ voice the flame in him leaped higher.
Sometime earlier, perhaps only half an hour ago, he’d taken Morn from the bridge into the first cabin he could find. It might have been Angus’: it might once have been used by Milos Taverner, for all he knew. He didn’t care. It had what he needed—two bunks equipped with g-seal webbing and sheaths to protect their occupants during high acceleration. As more and more of her memories came back to him, he found that he knew how to use her black box. If he’d trusted himself, he could have put his fingers on the right buttons with his eyes closed. When he was sure that she was deeply asleep, he’d secured her in one of the bunks, then done the same for himself. After that he’d waited for Trumpet to live or die.
More helplessness; more waiting.
He’d already lost track of how long he’d been alive. He’d spent too many of his few hours just like this, waiting in one kind of prison or another while other people somewhere else decided his survival. He couldn’t distinguish this day or this moment from their predecessors. In a sense, Morn’s past was more precise than his own; more distinct, as if it were more recent. Nevertheless, when g came slamming through Trumpet’s hull, he’d been grateful—briefly—for the restraints which kept him from being beaten to pulp against the cabin walls.
Once the ship appeared to have settled on a stable course, however, with clear gravity under her and no pressure from the thrust drive, larger questions had loomed. He’d waited as long as he could stand; then he’d risked leaving his bunk in order to reach the intercom and ask Angus what was happening.
The fact that Angus hadn’t answered—that the intercom had gone dead under his thumb—made this prison no different than any of the others; as comfortless as his cell aboard Captain’s Fancy, or his constricted ride in the ejection pod, or his room in Billingate. Because he wanted to live, he’d returned to his bunk, resealed the g-sheath and webbing. He could make that choice; but no others were allowed to him.
Then the intercom chimed, and Angus spoke at last.
“All right, listen.” His voice was guttural with stress or pain. “For the next eight hours or so we should be about as safe as we’re likely to get. Mikka, Davies, I want you on the bridge to keep an eye on Nick. He just tried to kill me. If he hadn’t fucked it up, you would all be as good as dead.
“I don’t care what the rest of you do. Just leave me alone for a while.”
Angus paused. More quietly he finished, “Davies, wake Morn up if you want to. Otherwise let her sleep. She looks like she can use it.”
Davies’ heart responded like a magnesium flare. Without transition the questions became larger with a vengeance.
He flung himself out of his bunk. He needed movement; freedom from restraint. As safe as we’re likely to get How safe was that? For the next eight hours or so. Where were they—where had Angus taken them? He just tried to kill me. How safe could any of them be with Nick aboard?
But when he turned to consider Morn, he stopped; froze.
All the essential questions of his life were there in her abused face and imposed sleep.
She didn’t look like she could “use” sleep: mere slumber was too fleeting to meet the scale of her need. She looked like she required the solace of physicians and psy-techs and utter peace, months of rest and healing.
She hadn’t had time to lose much more weight since he’d first seen her in the Amnion birthing environment where he’d been force-grown. Nevertheless she seemed frailer, more emaciated, as if strain and zone implant addiction caused her to consume her own flesh for fuel. Her eyes had sunk deep into her skull; the sockets were as dark as wounds. Grime and unlove clogged her hair, but couldn’t conceal the fact that patches of her scalp had been pulled bare: she might have just been through a failed course of chemotherapy. Despite the insulation of her g-sheath, her slack lips quivered as if she were freezing—or as if even the coercive emissions of her zone implant couldn’t protect her from dreams of terror and loss.
She’d been a beautiful woman once. Now she looked spectral and condemned, stricken by mortality.
She was his mother. And she was virtually everything he knew about himself. His past and all his passions were hers.
The sight reminded him that she looked like this because she wanted him to live; that she’d exposed herself to Amnion mutagens and Nick’s brutality—that she’d taken on all of Captain’s Fancy alone and risked putting herself back in Angus Thermopyle’s power—for him.
And he, Davies Hyland, held the black box which ruled her.
He didn’t have time to stand over her, absorbing her pain—not if he wanted to help Mikka handle Nick—and yet he couldn’t do anything else until this was done.
A sound like a palm slapped the cabin door. Muffled by bulkheads, Mikka Vasaczk called out, “Come on, Davies! If we don’t stop that bastard, nobody else will.”
Frustration and fire rose like a conflagration in Davies’ chest until he heard Sib Mackern’s voice.
“Take care of Morn, Davies. I can help Mikka. I’ve still got the handgun.”
A rush of relief deflected the pressure. “I’ll be there in a minute,” Davies answered. He didn’t know whether Mikka and Sib could hear him.
Gripping the zone implant control, he turned back to Morn.
She’d committed a crime.
Angus had done this to her. His violence and the sickness of his lust came back to Davies easily. Whenever he let himself remember them, they filled him with so much visceral loathing and disgust that he wanted to puke. Angus had put the electrode in her head, initiated her addiction.
But then he’d handed her the black box. She’d struck a deal with him, and he’d given her this small tool which made her simultaneously so much more and less than human. Instead of turning herself over to Com-Mine Security and the UMCP so that they could help her, she’d sold her soul to obtain Angus’ power over her.
Davies remembered how she’d felt and what she’d thought well enough to understand her. Nevertheless he didn’t share her addiction—or rather he was unaware of the nature of his own dependencies, his developmentally programmed appetite for levels of noradrenaline, serotonin, and endorphins which might have killed an ordinary man. He couldn’t stop thinking like a UMCP ensign.
You’re a cop, she’d told him for Nick’s sake. From now on, I’m going to be a cop myself. We don’t do things like that.
He should pick her up, carry her to sickbay; program the cybernetic systems to remove the electrode from her brain. Then he could help her face the consequences of her addiction. Surely he knew her well enough to get her through any crisis, even one that massive and personal.
Or else he should turn her over to the UMCP. They wouldn’t punish her; they would acknowledge the circumstances which extenuated her crime. But they would be able to give her the kind of rehabilitation she deserved as well as needed.
Then he should arrest Angus. Nick had told him that Angus worked for the cops. He doesn’t want to, of course, but they’ve got his neck in a noose. He’s doing this little job for them to keep them from snapping his spine. And Angus had confirmed it, at least indirectly, by admitting that his former second, Milos Taverner, was a bugger for the UMCP. But that justified nothing. If for no other reason than to make them account for the fact that they’d chosen a rapist and butcher to do their work for them, Davies should deliver Angus to the police.
Yet Morn’s lips still quivered as if she struggled to say his name through a veil of dreams and weeping. The fine muscles around her sore and sunken eyes twitched as if her dreams were full of pleading.
While he looked at her, he realized that he couldn’t do any of the things he should. Could not. Not because Angus controlled the ship, controlled the lives of everyone aboard, but for entirely different reasons.
Morn was his mother; she was his mind; she’d performed miracles and suffered torments in his name. As far as he was concerned, she’d earned the right to choose her own fate. And Angus was his father. Angus had rescued him from the Bill—fought Nick for him—done everything possible to keep him safe. Regardless of what the cops or the law said about it, Davies was in Angus’ debt.
Without warning, the intercom chimed. “Davies,” Mikka said tightly, “you’d better get down here. You won’t believe this if I just tell it to you. You need to see it for yourself.”
That was true, he thought, looking at Morn. He needed to let her and Angus determine their own dooms. See for himself what they would do.
A strange sadness filled him as he touched the button which canceled the zone implant’s emissions; but he didn’t let it stop him. Gently he eased one of Morn’s arms out of the g-sheath. The marks on her forearm appeared to be healing. As
if the act were a caress, he folded the black box in her fingers and slid her hand back into shelter. For a minute grief clogged his throat; then he swallowed it down and moved toward the door.
“Davies.”
She woke up more quickly than he would have believed possible. Exhaustion and prolonged dread turned his name into a croak.
Caught by sorrow—and by a touch of his father’s unreasoning fear—he wheeled to face her.
With an effort, she blinked her dull gaze into focus. Slowly she forced her mouth to shape words. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know.” Like a kid, he wanted to go to her, comfort her; let her comfort him. “I’m going to find out.”
Shaking with strain, she propped herself up on her elbow. “Take me with you,” she breathed in a hoarse whisper.
“You need rest,” he protested. “You’ve been through hell. I think we’re done with heavy g, but you still need sleep. Wherever this is, we’re probably going to be here for a while. You can afford—”
She shook her head. For a moment her head went on wobbling on her neck as if she lacked the strength to stop it. “I don’t know what Angus thinks he’s doing,” she said like the rustle of hardcopy. “I don’t trust him. I can’t”—she faltered and closed her eyes as if she were praying, then forced them open again
—“can’t let him make all the decisions.”
Weakly she began to pry herself out of the g-sheath.
Davies started forward to help her, then stopped. Her weakness was painful to see: maybe if he let her struggle alone she would exhaust her little energy and drop back to sleep.
But when she got her hands out of the sheath, she found the zone implant control in her grasp.
“Oh, Davies.”
Sudden tears spilled down her cheeks. Hugging the black box, she huddled into herself as if she were about to break.
He couldn’t bear it. A brief flash of killing rage at Angus and Nick and all men like them burned through him. Then he strode to the side of the bunk and took her in his arms. While she clung to her control, he unsealed the g-sheath and webbing, and lifted her out. After that he held her upright until she could remember how to stand.