“That’s not my fault,” Nick put in amiably. “I told you—the mother of that brat went crazy. You might call it a mutiny of one. I got her back under control—but she was crazier than I thought. She escaped again.”
As if Nick hadn’t spoken, Vestabule continued, “On more than one occasion you have promised to fulfill your part of the agreements. But you have not done so. You have accepted our demand for recompense for the difficulties you have caused us. But you have not provided that recompense. This is not honorable trade.”
Nick sharpened his grin. “You aren’t listening. I said she escaped again. I had her locked up, but she got out. That’s the only reason you didn’t get what I promised you. She reprogrammed the ejection pod.”
“That,” the emissary pronounced flatly, “is not our concern.”
“The hell it isn’t.” Nick feigned a little anger. It came easily, but it was pure charade. He was having too much fun to be angry. “She did that—I didn’t, I wasn’t trying to cheat.
“And now it’s out of my hands. The Bill has the pod. He’s got the ‘human offspring’ you’re so eager for. And there’s nothing I can do about that. You’ve goddamn revoked my credit-jack, so I can’t buy the brat back. You’ve left me helpless, and now you want to hold me accountable for it. You say you want me to honor my bargains. I say trying to do business with you is like eating shit.”
“Captain Succorso—” Vestabule made a gesture that appeared to have no meaning. It may have been intended to placate Nick, or threaten him. Or it may have been merely a neural atavism.
“Keep listening!” Nick interrupted, bringing up more anger to disguise what he was about to do. “I’m not fucking done!
“I traded with you honorably. I gave you my blood. Then you wanted to change the deal. You wanted that brat. You offered me gap drive components in exchange. So I gave you the brat. And you gave me faulty components. Damn near killed me in the gap.” The louder and more angrily he spoke, the more his body relaxed. “I can only think of three explanations.
“Remember,” he warned, “this is being recorded. If you mess with me, Operations is going to hear it.
“One”—he held up his index finger—“you were planning to cheat me right from the beginning. You think I’m immune to your fucking mutagens, and you want me dead so I can’t pass my immunity along.
“Two”—he waggled his middle finger at the emissary—“you decided to cheat me after Morn took over my ship. Punish me for letting one of my own people trick me. And make sure she didn’t get away with it.”
Ransum and Sib watched as if they were about to be sick. Vector’s round face revealed nothing. But Liete’s eyes were shining again, and Karster looked like he could almost understand what Nick was doing.
“Three—are you still listening, Vestabule?” Nick’s hand closed into a fist. “This is the explanation I really like. You were using me to test those components for you. You’ve figured out a way to use tach to generate acceleration, and you wanted me to see if it worked.
“Now it’s your turn,” he rasped like the blade of a knife. “Give me a reason why I shouldn’t relay this recording to Operations whether you threaten me or not.”
Vestabule showed no disconcertion. He may have been incapable of it. On one side of his face, his human eye blinked like an appeal. On the other, his Amnion teeth were bare and brutal.
“Relay it,” he replied simply. “Your first explanation will cause your death. Your own kind will kill you to discover the nature of your immunity. Your second will appear only logical and reasonable to such men and women as inhabit Billingate. And your third will not be believed. If we possessed the technology you describe, we would have more reliable means of testing it.”
“More reliable,” Mikka put in unexpectedly, “but not cheaper. Your manufacturing methods are too expensive. You might not be able to afford the dozens or even hundreds of probes or ships you could lose trying to calibrate the parameters.”
Her support surprised Nick without pleasing him. He’d already given up on her: he didn’t want her help now.
In any case, Vestabule ignored her. He kept his dislocated gaze fixed on Nick. “Captain Succorso, I repeat—relay your recording if you wish. Your threats have no meaning to us. I”—again he appeared to grope for a word—“recognize them. They are bluffs. Empty of substance. I waste time listening to them.
“Now you will listen to me.” His Amnion arm made another indecipherable gesture. “If you do not honor your agreements with us, you and your ship are forfeit. We will take you and your people and your ship, and leave you nothing.
“The Bill will not defend you. He will be given a plain, honorable account of our actions. And we have the means to prevent you from defending yourself. If we choose, we can paralyze you completely.”
“How?” Nick demanded.
“You must deliver to us the human offspring called Davies Hyland,” Vestabule continued as if he hadn’t heard. “You must deliver to us the woman who cheated us, his mother. If you do not, we will take all you have in restitution.”
Nick wanted to repeat his demand. How can you prevent me from defending myself? If I wave a finger at Liete, she’ll shoot you where you stand. But an instinctive fear warned him away from challenging the emissary on this. He knew in his guts that Vestabule wasn’t bluffing.
“Come on, Vestabule,” he urged. “Think it through. You’re overreacting. If you go that far, you’ll take damage. Once the Bill hears my recording, he’ll know any honorable account of your actions is phony. You’re probably right—he won’t contest the point. But he’ll stop trusting you.” As much as the Bill could be said to trust anybody. “Every ship here will stop trusting you. That will hurt you in subtle ways—ways you can’t fix.
“It’s better for you to deal with me.
“But you’re making that impossible. Consider the position you’re putting me in. You want me to get Davies from the Bill and give him to you. Do you really believe how I do that isn’t your concern? How do you imagine I’m going to pay for him?
“You’ve only left me two things I can sell. One is the idea that you’ve learned how to use tach for acceleration. But if I try to do that, I’ll have to supply proof. To be honest, I can’t.” This was a calculated risk, an effort to distract Vestabule. “Those components were slagged.
“So I’ve only got one other option.” Abruptly Nick leaned forward, bracing himself on his board to thrust his threat straight into Vestabule’s face. “I’ll have to sell the Bill the secret to my immunity.”
And you don’t want me to do that, do you, you oxidized lump of Amnion shit?
“Nick,” Mikka whispered; a moan of protest.
No one else spoke.
“Unless,” Nick added almost as an afterthought, “you give me time to come up with some other solution.”
Blinking furiously, as if Captain’s Fancy’s atmosphere hurt his human eye, the emissary regarded Nick. Nothing betrayed his reaction: no twitch of the muscles in his cheek, no flexing of his fingers. Nick’s people sat frozen as Vestabule contemplated the situation, thinking his hidden, Amnion thoughts.
When he was done, he said in his rust-rough tone, “Very well.”
Ransum let out an audible breath.
Fortunately every one else kept quiet.
But Vestabule had attention for no one but Nick. “Captain Succorso,” he continued, “if you will immediately provide the recompense you have promised, as a demonstration of your intention to deal with us honorably, we will grant you one of your standard days in which to come to an accommodation with the Bill.
“I warn you plainly, however, that this accommodation must make no mention of your presumed ‘immunity.’” The very expressionlessness of his voice gave his words power. “Such information cannot be kept secret—not in this place, among illegals like yourself. We will learn of it. Then the time for talk will be past. We will exercise our power to paralyze your defenses and take your ship. We w
ill take you and all who remain with you in restitution.
“And if that does not suffice, we will go further. We will destroy Billingate itself before we will permit the knowledge you claim to possess to be disseminated.”
Nick dismissed that threat: it was too big to worry about. Again he wanted to ask, Paralyze our defenses? How? And again he stifled the impulse. He’d gained the only thing he wanted—time—and he didn’t mean to risk losing it.
He summoned a sarcastic laugh. “So you say. If you want to go that crazy, be my guest. But short of that—”
He glanced around the bridge: at Sib’s pale, stricken features; at Mikka’s intractable glower; at Vector’s clear blue gaze and contemplative frown; at the concentrated readiness which seemed to fill Liete’s whole body. Milos was coming to Billingate. Sorus Chatelaine was finally within reach.
“Short of that,” he repeated as he returned the line of his grin and the heat of his scars to Vestabule, “we have a deal. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’ll try”—he bared his teeth—“anything and everything to make it work.”
Marc Vestabule stared back at him, blinking/unblinking, and said nothing.
Abruptly Nick stood. “Liete, escort this fucker off the ship.”
Without hesitation, Liete pointed Vestabule toward the aperture. She kept one hand on the butt of her gun.
Obedient and unconcerned, as if he’d been given everything he could have wanted, the emissary turned and left the bridge between Liete and Simper.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Nick swung around to face Mikka. “Now.” He was poised like a predator. “We’ve succeeded at stalling them for one day. That changes the whole situation. Now we’ve got something to hope for.
“Go get Morn. Wake her up—flush the cat out of her. I want her on her feet and ready to leave in ten minutes.”
Mikka didn’t move. For a moment she didn’t meet Nick’s gaze. When she raised her eyes, they were hot and moist. Far back in her throat, as if she feared her voice might choke her, she asked, “Do you call that stalling?”
“I do,” he snapped because her question and her emotion affected him like a betrayal. “She isn’t the one they want.”
“But she’s still a human being,” Mikka replied, as guttural as a growl. “You’re giving them a human being.” Like a woman who had no words strong enough for what she felt, she said, “I don’t like giving human beings to the Amnion.”
Unexpectedly—so unexpectedly that it stopped Nick’s retort in his chest—Sib Mackern said, “I don’t either, Nick.”
“Make that three of us,” Vector added quietly. Scanning the bridge, he asked, “Anyone else? How about you, Ransum? Would you want to be turned into something like Vestabule? Would you do that to your worst enemy? Arkenhill? Scorz? Karster?”
They all should have said, We’ll do whatever Nick tells us. We trust him. He’s saved our lives more times than we can count. And he knows more than we do. This is his ship, and he’s the best. We’re on his side to the end.
None of them did, however. Karster drummed his fingers on the targ board, studying his readouts as if he wanted to shoot someone. Ransum was breathing too hard, like a woman on the verge of a heart attack. Arkenhill had turned as pale as Sib: he may have been about to puke.
At last Scorz murmured in a small voice, as if he were belittling them all, “We’ve done worse.”
It wasn’t enough; not for Nick Succorso; not now and not ever. The only women he’d ever given himself to had betrayed him. The Amnion were on top of him, threatening to paralyze his defenses, take his ship and his life. The Bill had Davies—and refused to repair Captain’s Fancy. Sorus was still laughing at him. He’d already lost more pieces of himself than he could count.
He might have predicted a reaction like this from Vector. The engineer had never really belonged aboard Captain’s Fancy. And Sib was weak enough to be bent in any direction. But for Mikka Vasaczk, his command second, to oppose him like this—
Scorz’ support didn’t come close to being enough.
Nick wanted to scream at Mikka, rage and rant at them all; he wanted to beat her face to pulp. Was this the best they had to give him? Then he would see them in hell. He would sacrifice every fucking one of them to the Amnion, and he would laugh when they begged him to rescue them—
But he didn’t have the strength for it. Energy and hope seemed to drain out of him like water, as if Mikka had knocked a hole in the bottom of his heart. While everyone on the bridge waited for him to go up like a supernova, he took one slow breath and another, and let his shoulders sag.
Then he said softly, “What makes you think I have a choice?”
They couldn’t argue with that. Even Mikka couldn’t. If Nick Succorso was beaten, what choice did any of them have?
Wheeling away from him, she strode off the bridge as if she were taking the last vestige of his invincibility with her.
NICK
e waited in his cabin for Mikka to tell him that Morn was ready; but he wasn’t idle. Sealed by his priority codes, one of his lockers served him as a personal safe. He opened it to stow Morn’s id tag and zone implant control securely: the Amnion had no discernible interest in the latter; and his negotiations with Marc Vestabule had gone well enough to spare him the necessity of offering the former.
Of course, there was always the possibility that the Amnion would make her into something like Vestabule. If they did, she would retain some—most?—of her human mind; and they would learn that she was more valuable than they’d realized. But Nick couldn’t help that. It was out of his hands.
From his locker he took a vial of capsules—his precious store of the immunity drug—and poured two into his palm. A small tic pulled at his cheek, but he ignored it. One capsule he swallowed immediately, just as a precaution; the other he shoved deep into one of the pockets of his shipsuit. Then he put the vial away and relocked the safe.
Rubbing his hands over his scars, he glanced at his chronometer. How long would it take to flush enough of the cat out of Morn’s veins so that she could walk? Not long. In another minute or two he would be on his way to the Amnion sector of Billingate: the place reserved for them, where they could breathe their own acrid air—and set up their own defenses.
To go there was dangerous; but it was necessary. And it would give him at least a measure of revenge for Morn’s lies.
While he thought about such things, another part of his mind was busy imagining how he might kill Mikka Vasaczk.
Women; always women. No sooner had he found a way to get rid of Morn Hyland than Mikka turned against him. And the question of how he would revenge himself on Sorus Chatelaine was still unresolved. He would simply shoot her, if that was the best he could do; but he wanted more, needed more. He was being undone by women: he owed it to himself to exact as much female pain as he could in recompense.
Marc Vestabule talked about “recompense,” but he didn’t use the word with Nick’s intimate intensity.
Sorus would have to wait, however. First Morn. And when that score was settled, he would turn his attention to saving Captain’s Fancy. He felt sure that somewhere during that process he would be able to rid himself of Mikka.
Without realizing it, he’d begun to pace back and forth in his cabin as if he were shuttling feverishly between real and imaginary possibilities for revenge.
The sound of the intercom stopped him. “Nick,” Mikka said flatly. “I’ve got her up. She’s groggy, but she can walk.”
To vent some of his tension, he snap-punched the intercom toggle. “Meet me at the airlock. I’ll take her from there.”
Mikka clicked off without acknowledging him.
Promising murder, Nick keyed open the door and strode out of his cabin.
For the second time in little more than an hour, he had to leave his ship. And the second occasion was deadlier than the first: the Amnion were more likely than the Bill to do him active harm. Nevertheless he didn’t delay. Tension wasn?
??t the same thing as energy or confidence, but it could serve the same purpose.
He caught up with Mikka and Morn in the access passage of the airlock. They moved slowly: Morn’s steps were nothing more than a stupefied shuffle; without Mikka’s support, she would have folded to the deck. From the back they looked like sisters with their arms around each other for encouragement.
Sneering his disgust, he noticed that Mikka had taken the time to put Morn into a clean shipsuit. Presumably Mikka had also cleaned Morn herself, washing off twelve or so hours’ worth of accumulated filth. Wasted dignity. A woman who was about to lose her humanity entirely didn’t need it. And he didn’t want her to have any left when he handed her over to her ruin.
“Far enough,” he growled at Mikka. “You can go back now.
“I’m leaving you in command. I don’t expect you to like what I’m doing. I don’t expect you to forget about it when it’s over. But I do expect you to take care of the ship while I’m gone. You aren’t any safer without me.” Nick had guaranteed that by telling Scorz to record his discussion with Vestabule. “And I still know more about what’s at stake here than you do. As matters stand, I’m the only hope you’ve got.”
Mikka glared at him. “I’m not stupid, Nick. Don’t make that mistake.”
“I’ll be lucky if I get the chance,” he retorted, driven by bitterness. “You’re too busy making it for me.
“Go to the bridge,” he ordered so that he wouldn’t have to listen to her anymore. “Pull a raiding team together—the best people we have for weapons, demolition, stealth work. Take them off duty, get them rested, ready, equipped. I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet”—he admitted this because he knew it would make Mikka more likely to comply—“but when the time comes we’ll need to give it our best shot.”