“But before you try that,” she warned in a cutting tone, “I should tell you that while we’re under conditions of war I’ll consider any attempt to replace or interfere with Director Dios to be an act of madness. On my personal authority,” she drawled as if her voice were a flensing knife, peeling skin from bone, “and on my oath as UMCPED director, I will order UMCPHQ to ignore any announcement that Warden Dios has been fired. No member of the UMCP will acknowledge or obey a replacement until we receive direct confirmation from Warden Dios himself.”
Decisively Min faced Cray. “End this transmission, communications. Inform Center that I no longer have anything to say to CEO Fasner. Then verify that his orders and my response have been formally logged as well as recorded.”
At once she turned her back on Cray’s station. Slowly she gave the bridge a bloody-minded grin.
“I don’t know whether that accomplished anything.” Harsh pleasure rang in her voice. “Saying no to the Dragon is usually like sticking your head in an incinerator. But I have to admit it felt good.”
For a moment her audacity seemed to stun Punisher’s people. Then Glessen began to pound his hands together in applause.
Captain Ubikwe was the first to join him, but an instant later all the duty officers started clapping—Porson and Patrice enthusiastically, Bydell with deep fervor. Davies wanted to applaud as well. The UMCP may have been corrupt; but these men and women were eager to do their jobs without regard for Holt Fasner’s needs or desires.
Vector studied Min uncertainly: his distrust of the cops ran deep. Mikka was too tired to care what the ED director did. However, Morn’s approval showed in the strict lines of her face and the keenness of her gaze.
Like her son, she seemed to trust Min more and more.
After a moment Dolph said cheerfully to Min, “I notice you didn’t mention singularity grenades—after I went to all the trouble of convincing you we have an excuse for whatever we do.”
Min nodded like a shout. “I didn’t want an excuse. I’m tired of lies.”
But now Davies hardly heard them. Instead he thought furiously, tracing a chain of inferences which started at the hint Holt had given him—
Tell me—
He could feel his doom close like a noose around his neck. In another minute Morn would demand an answer from him. If he failed to reach a decision he could stand behind, he would be lost—as doomed as if the Amnion did what they wanted to him.
She needed an answer that didn’t involve self-destruct.
Even though Sorus Chatelaine’s body was full of mutagens, she’d opened fire on Calm Horizons to save her soul.
Tell me, Director Donner—
Davies wanted to know what he was being asked to sacrifice himself for. Whose vision of the cops—and the future—was he expected to serve?
What was Warden Dios doing aboard Calm Horizons?
Why was Fasner so eager to obtain Trumpet’s people?
Urgently Davies put the scattered pieces of his comprehension together.
It was inconceivable that Warden would have betrayed Com-Mine Security, or sold Morn to Nick, or suppressed Vector’s research, without Fasner’s consent. No, more than that: it was inconceivable without his explicit orders. None of those things would have happened if they hadn’t suited the Dragon’s designs.
When Trumpet had first reached human space from Billingate, Angus had flared a report to UMCPHQ. Warden must have shared it with his boss: he could hardly have avoided doing so. Therefore Holt had known days ago who was aboard the gap scout. He must have known who Davies was, and why the Amnion wanted him.
Days ago. More than time enough to formulate his own dark ambitions for Trumpet’s people.
Now both Min Donner and Hashi Lebwohl believed that Warden was trying to bring the Dragon down. He’d sent his PR director, Koina Hannish, to deliver appalling accusations to the GCES. And he’d accepted Vestabule’s demand to negotiate aboard Calm Horizons. Where Holt couldn’t reach him.
Couldn’t give him any more explicit, abominable orders.
“Davies,” Morn insisted quietly when the applause had died away, “it’s time. We can’t wait any longer.” She hesitated; then finished in pain, “Don’t force me to choose for you.”
Obliquely he wondered what choice she would make. But that was secondary: he could live without knowing.
He trusted Min’s evaluation of Warden’s actions. So what he really wanted to know was this: How long ago had Warden begun to plan his attack on the Dragon? How far back did his subversion reach? When had his intentions first diverged from Holt’s?
Before Calm Horizons came to Earth? Earlier?
Before Trumpet left for Thanatos Minor?
Before Angus was framed?
Unfortunately Davies couldn’t simply pose his question in so many words. Min would tell him the truth as she saw it—he believed that—but her unsubstantiated opinion wasn’t enough. He needed facts: information concrete enough to support the weight of his decision.
“Director Donner—” He was sweating, and the alien fabric of his shipsuit chafed his joints. Vast implications hovered just out of reach, waiting for him to translate them into existence; make them real. “After we left forbidden space—before we hit Massif-5—you sent us a message.” His voice sounded thin in his ears; stricken by the scale of the crisis. “In effect, you ordered Angus to give Nick his priority-codes.
“Why did you do that?”
Nobody has any secrets.
Min faced him like a poised predator. Her eyes were the eyes of a hawk stooping for its prey. As if she’d been expecting his question—and knew exactly why he asked it—she replied, “The order came from Director Dios, but he didn’t send it to me. He sent it to Punisher. Highest possible priority. Backed by his personal authority. He ordered Punisher to relay that message.”
Davies’ mouth dropped open. “The order wasn’t sent to you? You mean Director Dios wasn’t sure you would carry it out?”
Min didn’t flinch from answering. “That’s how I took it. He knows me. He knows how I feel about letting anybody hurt my people.” She indicated Morn with a glance. “Especially a man like Succorso. And he knows how I feel about him. He knows I trust him enough to assume he wouldn’t send a message like that unless Holt Fasner demanded it. He may have thought I would try to protect Morn—and him—by keeping his message to myself.”
That made sense. The Min Donner Davies remembered might well have risked insubordination in order to protect one of her own from Nick.
He tightened his grip on himself. Strain beaded on his forehead. “The message we heard,” he pursued, “was it the same? Exactly the same? You didn’t edit it? Add anything? Leave anything out?”
Min shook her head. “You got what we were told to send.”
Holding her gaze, Davies asked over his shoulder, “Captain Ubikwe, will you vouch for that?”
“Davies—” Morn objected. “She’s Min Donner. She just told us she’s tired of lies.”
Unable to contain his urgency, he wheeled to face her. “God damn it, Morn! This is important! I’m the one Vestabule wants! He can do without you. Angus probably isn’t crucial. Even Vector is secondary. But if I don’t go there and let him—”
Terror closed his throat before he could finish.
“Of course I’ll vouch for it,” Dolph put in quickly. “Hell, if you’re worried, Cray can pull up the communications log, run a bit-by-bit comparison. We sent it exactly the way it came in.”
Davies refused the offer with a wrench of his head. As soon as he stopped shouting, he began to tremble. He believed Min. He believed Dolph. In another life he would have been eager to serve under commanders like them. But now there was too much at stake: everything he did mattered too much. He held his fear so hard that his arms shook.
He turned back to the ED director.
“The words were clear enough,” he told her, “but they were embedded in a bunch of code we couldn’t read. What was tha
t? What did it say?”
Who gave Angus permission to show Warden’s message to Davies and Morn? Whose game were they playing?
Min shrugged, but her eyes were keen with certainty. “We can’t read it either,” she said as if she were acknowledging a defeat; admitting that she couldn’t help him. “We’ve been trying to crack it. So far we haven’t succeeded.” Then she added, “But we’ve figured out what kind of code it is.
“According to our computer study, it’s a machine language. The type of language we use to program datacores.”
The type of language Hashi Lebwohl had used to program Angus. UMCP machine code.
Warden’s work, not Holt Fasner’s.
That meant Warden had begun to oppose Holt before he’d learned that the Amnion were willing to risk a war over Davies. Holt had ordered him to betray Morn and Davies and even Angus by giving Angus to Nick; but Warden had found a way to protect them behind the Dragon’s back.
He’d kept at least that one of his promises.
And now he was aboard Calm Horizons. The man who defined the ideals which the Hyland family had served for generations was as much at risk as any human being alive. For no apparent reason except to put himself beyond Fasner’s reach, he’d taken the chance that the Amnion would destroy him.
Abruptly Davies’ tension flushed away. A weakness like sorrow took its place. In an instant the sweat on his forehead turned cold. Nevertheless he no longer trembled. His loss was as sure as the light in Min’s eyes.
“All right,” he told Morn without looking at her. “I’ve made up my mind.” He didn’t have the strength to turn and meet her gaze. “I’ll go. You can tell Director Dios I’ll go.”
For an instant a rush of eagerness overwhelmed Min’s self-discipline. It flared up in her face like a cheer. She bared her teeth as if she wanted to fasten them in Fasner’s throat.
Dolph allowed himself a sigh of relief and dismay. Bydell hid her face in her hands. Glessen nodded angry approval.
But Morn made a tight sound like a groan. “Oh, Davies.” Her voice labored out of her chest. “I told you you don’t have to do that. I don’t want—You didn’t bring Calm Horizons here. You don’t have to let Director Dios off the hook.”
“Morn—” Fighting weakness, Davies shifted his feet until he could look at her.
In her damaged eyes he saw all the hurt she’d suffered for him; all the death she’d held in her hands to keep him alive.
On one occasion she’d had sex with Nick in front of Captain’s Fancy’s bridge crew, placating him for Davies’ sake. Later she’d forced the Amnion to return her son by threatening to blow up Captain’s Fancy and half of Enablement Station. Still later, despite Nick’s murderous rage, she’d broken out of the cabin where he’d imprisoned her so that she could divert Davies’ ejection pod away from Tranquil Hegemony to Billingate.
Davies did his best to explain.
“You heard the Dragon,” he sighed thinly. “He wants us.He’s probably wanted us ever since he found out we were aboard Trumpet. I think Director Donner is right. Fasner ordered Warden to let Nick have Angus’ codes. He could bargain with Nick. And Warden had to obey. But he didn’t want to betray us, so he wrapped that code around Fasner’s orders. He gave us a way out.”
“Those strings didn’t make any sense to me,” Angus put in unexpectedly. “Trumpet’s computers didn’t recognize them. But when I recited them to my computer datalink—like an instruction set of some kind—” A light the color of sulfuric acid glared in his eyes. “At first nothing changed. But as soon as Nick left the ship, my datacore made me show Davies the message.”
Not Morn: Davies. The UMCP director had no way of guessing how badly Morn might have been hurt by Angus and Nick. He couldn’t gauge what she might do if she controlled Angus. So he’d chosen her son. Without knowing him, Warden Dios had given Davies the same power Nick had.
At the time the decision to free Angus had been too much for Davies. Morn had been forced to reach it alone. But he could make choices now.
—kept at least that one of his promises.
“I can’t turn my back on him,” he said to his mother. He felt weak enough to faint. “Not after he saved us. Not while he’s aboard Calm Horizons.”
So that he wouldn’t collapse, he folded to the deck; sat with his elbows braced on his knees and his hands covering his face. If they could, the Amnion would use him to destroy humankind. In his pocket, Min’s handgun seemed to dig at his thigh, but he no longer cared.
ANGUS
Angus sneered at everyone around him because he didn’t know what else to do.
Ever since he’d announced his refusal to rescue Warden Dios, he’d been effectively paralyzed. Oh, he could still move and speak: in some superficial sense he could make decisions. But on a deeper level he was trapped between Morn’s commitments and his own rejection; between his need to escape the crib and his utter dependence on the mad, fractured woman who abused him.
Morn had released him from his priority-codes; from compulsions and torments which Warden Dios had forced onto him. Yet what she needed from him now was his help extricating Dios from the hands of the Amnion. He had nothing else to offer her.
And he couldn’t do it. The prospect terrified him. Warden Dios terrified him. Without the support of his zone implants, he might not have been able to form words when Dios had spoken to him; asked him, Are you all right? Only his artificial resources had given him the strength to say, We’re waiting for you to keep at least one of your promises.
Despite his pose of sarcasm and belligerence, he’d nearly fallen to his knees in drooling, idiot panic when Dios had told him, I’m considering it He knew what Dios “considered,” and it wasn’t his promises to Angus; or to Morn.
Angus had spent a lifetime fearing and fighting cops: he’d learned how Dios’ mind worked. He was intimately familiar with Hashi Lebwohl’s designs. And he understood failsafes.
He didn’t believe for a second that his priority-codes were the only hold Dios and Lebwohl had on him. When Dios had spoken to him, he’d feared he was about to find out what other forms of coercion the UMCP director could invoke.
But he hadn’t been coerced. Dios was still considering it. He wanted to see how Trumpet’s people would answer Marc Vestabule before he took the final step in Angus’ welded dehumanization.
So Vector Shaheed, the Savior of Humankind, was willing to let the Amnion have him: that was fine. So Davies had finally talked himself into surrender: that was fine, too. Angus didn’t really care. Even Morn’s decision not to go meant nothing to him—except that it spared him the maddening humiliation of being forced by his computer to keep her aboard Punisher against her will; of having his own volition overridden by Warden Dios’ chiseled commandment to preserve her life.
None of those things altered his essential plight.
Morn had set him free from his priority-codes. And now she needed his help; needed him to resubmit himself to compulsion and the crib by rescuing Warden Dios. She didn’t know it, but that might be the only way to keep her son human.
Her open distress at Davies’ decision touched Angus oddly, in places he didn’t recognize. That he cared about. He hated seeing her in pain. But he couldn’t afford to let her move him.
He refused. God damn fucking right he refused. Unfortunately it accomplished nothing. Dios was still considering. As soon as he made up his mind, Angus would be driven to obey.
He mocked the people around him because he had no other outlet for his bitterness.
When Davies sank to the deck in emotional exhaustion, Angus told Morn, “Don’t try to talk him out of it.” Fervently he hoped that Davies’ surrender would be enough; that Dios would let him, Angus, off the hook. “Call Calm Horizons and tell your precious director he can have most of what he wants.Do it before your kid suffers another moral spasm and changes his mind.”
Davies was his son. Nevertheless Angus did his utter best to believe that he didn’t give a shit wh
at happened to the boy. And in fact it may have been true that he didn’t care at all whether the Amnion used Davies to help them doom humankind. But it was also true that he saw himself in his son. Davies had been tied into yet another version of the crib; shackled to the slats by “millions of lives” and Dios’ dark authority. Like Angus, he was dependent on those who tortured him.
More than once Angus had killed people who reminded him of his own helplessness. At least once he’d nearly killed Morn for the same reason.
The look she turned on him might have withered his heart, if he hadn’t already been so full of desolation. Her eyes were mute wails of loss. Lines as strict as the exigencies of his programming marked her face. Despite everything the cops had done to her—and everything she’d suffered for Davies—she still thought it was her duty to save lives. No matter what that cost her.
Another crib.
“Do you think it’s enough?” she countered as if she meant something else entirely. The stress in her voice implied outrage, loathing; desperation. “You’ve already refused. I’m going to refuse. Will the Amnion accept a deal like that?”
“Well, hell, they should,” he replied out of the wilderness. “He’s all they really want. The rest of us are just smoke.” He snorted. “‘Compensation for an act of war’ is a load of crap. They’re trying to hide the truth. Even Vector doesn’t count. Davies is the whole point of this exercise.”
“It can’t hurt to try, Morn,” Min put in quietly. “If we don’t give them what they want—or at least keep the negotiation open—they might not leave us enough time for anything else.”
Angus was sure he knew what the ED director meant: enough time for Morn to do what she’d come here for in the first place. He hated all cops—but in some strange way he was starting to trust Min Donner. He believed that if Morn satisfied Calm Horizons Min would do her best to satisfy Morn.
The idea made him want to kill her. She was a cop; Enforcement Division in person: she had no right to be honest.