Forbidden Knowledge (16 page)

“Mackern,” Nick repeated, as distinct as a filleting knife. “I want a report.”

“Yes,” Mackern winced out. “I’m sorry. Yes.”

Tremors ran through his shoulders as he jabbed his fingers at the keys in front of him.

When his equipment resumed function, he began testing
Captain’s Fancy
’s data. Hardwired systems running at microprocessor speeds reported back to him almost instantly.

“It’s gone.” His voice sounded hollow in the silence; haunted. “All our data—everything.” He may have wanted to cry out, but he was too scared. “It’s all been wiped.

“We’re lost.”

“Goddamn it, Nick!” Mikka rasped. “I warned you.”

Surrounded by swelling, Nick’s scars were as bright as an ooze of blood under his gaze.

For the third time, Morn shook her head.

The danger was real; she knew that. She understood the nightmare of a blind voyage down the endless gullet of the galaxy. But it didn’t touch her. As long as the ship’s position could be fixed—as long as the ongoing course correction could be measured against
Captain’s Fancy
’s destination—she wasn’t doomed. None of them were.

Someone must have spoken to her. If so, she wasn’t aware of it: her true attention was focused elsewhere. After a moment, however, she realized that everybody was looking at her.

Mackern’s lips trembled with dismay. Mikka and Carmel glared their distrust. Lind’s eyes bulged, and his larynx worked like a piston. Malda Verone held her hair back with both hands, as if that enabled her to restrain her fear. The way the helm first stared made him look like he’d swallowed his chin.

“I said,
why
?” Nick repeated. He had no patience for her preoccupation. “Mackern and Lind keep saying we’re lost. You keep shaking your head.” Threats were plain in his voice. “I want to know
why.
”

Morn made an effort to bring herself back from the calm, unconcerned place where her decision of death resided. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was like her head, light and separate. “I thought you understood. You talk about the fact that I’m UMCP. I didn’t realize I needed to explain.”

Nick contained his exasperation with difficulty. “Explain what?”

“I don’t know anything about viruses. I can’t cure what Vorbuld did. But you don’t need to worry about a wipe like this. You haven’t lost anything. The problem isn’t data, it’s function. You can look at anything you want. The virus doesn’t prevent you from looking. You just can’t take action without crashing your systems.”

You may not even be able to stop this course correction without wiping helm.

“Morn—” Nick began; he was close to fury.

“Have you lost your mind?” Mikka cut in, fuming at her. “Function is hardwired! The data is already gone!”

Morn still shook her head. “No, it’s not.”

For one heartbeat, everybody stared at her; two; three.

Then a light like a burst of joy shot across Nick’s face. “Because you’re UMCP!”

She faced him squarely. “I can access your datacore.” It was a temporary fix, but it would work. “Every scrap of data you ever had is copied there. Automatically. Constantly. And that’s hard memory. It can’t be wiped. It can’t be tampered with.

“I can access it for you. I’ve got my id tag. I know the codes. I can copy everything back into your systems. It may take a day or two”—the sheer volume of information in the datacore probably ran to thousands of gigabytes—“but you’ll have everything back where it was a few minutes ago.”

“Amazing!” the helm first breathed as if he were in awe.

Nick’s eyes shone at her with plain delight.

“Wait a minute,” Mikka said. “Wait a minute.” She sounded stunned, as if she’d been hit in the sternum. “What about the virus?”

Morn shrugged without dropping Nick’s gaze. “I presume it’s recorded in the datacore.” She was hardly aware of her own certainty. “It’ll come back with everything else.”

“So we’ll still have the same problem.”

“But you can navigate,” answered Morn. “You can tell where you are.”

What more do you want from me?

Abruptly Nick rubbed his hands together, then slapped his console. He’d recovered his relish. “By hell, we’re going to beat this thing. I don’t give a fuck about viruses. Let the Bill flush the damn thing for us. While we’ve got it, we’ll work around it. We can leave the internal systems on automatic. We may not be comfortable, but we’ll be alive.

“We’ll use the computers to run our calculations, plan what we need to do. Then we’ll cut them out of the loop and enter commands manually. It’ll be sloppy as shit, and we won’t be able to fight our way past a signal buoy, but at least we might get where we’re going.

“All right?” he asked. “Is everybody happy?” But he obviously didn’t expect an answer. “Let’s get started.

“Mackern, let her at your board. She can set it up. Then you and Parmute can run it.”

With an expansive sweep of his arm, he gestured Morn toward the data station.

Light-headed and certain, guided by new priorities, she unbelted herself from the engineer’s seat and walked past Mikka, Carmel, and Lind toward the data first.

Lind grinned at her like a puppy; Carmel frowned noncommittally. Mikka scrutinized her hard as she passed, then asked Nick, “Do you trust her?”

“What harm do you think she can do?” he countered. “We’re already wiped. Without that data, she’s as lost as we are.”

That was true. On this point, Morn had no treachery in her. Angus himself might have been honest now.

But he wouldn’t have lifted a finger to save his son. If she were still under his control, he might have used some of the more esoteric functions of her zone implant to give her the most painful abortion possible.

As she moved, she pulled the chain of her id tag up over her head.

Mackern stared at her. His skin had a gray, strained tinge, and his gaze was rimmed with sweat.

Because he seemed to have nothing whatever in common with men like Orn Vorbuld and Nick Succorso and Angus Thermopyle, she smiled at him as she jacked her tag into his board.

He didn’t smile back. He couldn’t: he was afraid to hope.

With her tag and her access codes, she tapped into
Captain’s Fancy
’s datacore; she set it to provide the same kind of playback Com-Mine Security would have used to search for evidence which might convict Angus of something worse than stealing supplies. Then she told Mackern, “Before you initiate, you’ll have to route the data and set the computers to copy it. You know how to do that.”

He nodded once, carefully, as if he didn’t trust the muscles in his neck.

“When playback ends,” she continued, “all you have to do is unplug my id tag. That resets the datacore. And it’ll release your board. Then you can get back to work.”

He mumbled something which may have been “Thanks.”

Still smiling for his benefit, she turned away.

Nick watched her across the bridge with passion in his eyes and blood in his scars.

Riding the moment, as well as the nameless change within her, she said without premeditation or anxiety, “Nick, I’m tired of being a passenger. I want to work. Let me be data third. I’ve got some of the right training—and I can learn the rest.”

Let me into the systems. Let me find out what we’re doing, where we’re going. Give me a chance to learn the truth.

Trust me.

Mikka started to protest; but when she saw the expression on Nick’s face, she stopped herself, clamped her mouth shut.

His grin intensified. As if he were playing an elaborate game, he said, “I’m like a genie in a bottle.” His tone was a mixture of insolence and lust. “Rub me the right way, and I grant wishes.” Abruptly he waved his arms in a flourish around his head. “Poof! You’re data third.”

Tight with strain and uncertainty, Lind, Malda, and the helm first laughed nervously. Mikka and Carmel frowned their suspicions. Mackern let out a small sigh, a thin gust of relief.

Morn gave Nick a crisp salute like the ones she’d so often given her father. Playing the game back at him, she kept the echoes of death and loss off her face.

“Captain Succorso, permission to leave the bridge.”

“Permission granted,” he replied as if she’d just made a suggestion lascivious enough to quicken his pulse.

Still riding the moment, Morn Hyland crossed the aperture and left the command module.

Without her id tag; almost without any identity she knew or recognized. She’d given that up to purchase something she was in no position to evaluate.

But she didn’t go to sickbay. Filled by a strange, thorough calm, she felt no urgency to act on her decision.

CHAPTER       
8

S
he didn’t go to sickbay. She also didn’t go down to the ship’s core in search of Parmute, the data second, who would be responsible for making sure she knew her duties.

Instead she went to her cabin to prepare herself for Nick.

She felt sure he would come as soon as he had the chance: as soon as he confirmed that the datacore playback was proceeding normally; as soon as he and Mikka Vasaczk had made their plans to “work around” the virus. She’d seen the lust in his eyes and scars. The more she proved herself worth having, the more he would want her; would want to prove his power over her.

She was ready for that. The zone implant made her ready.

But when she was alone in her cabin, lying naked on her bunk with her black box poised under the mattress, she found herself thinking strange thoughts.

What would it be like to have a baby?

She studied her belly to see if the life within her was noticeable. She probed her breasts to learn if they’d begun to swell and grow tender. What sort of pressure would she feel, that would make the pain of childbirth desirable? On an intellectual level, she knew such questions were months premature. Yet they interested her because she was anxious, curious—and lonely. She would never have chosen to be pregnant. But now that pregnancy had been imposed on her, it began to surprise her more and more.

What effect would the zone implant have on her baby?

Would it drive him mad? Could all those inappropriate hormones and neurotransmitters damage him? Would her feigned and limitless lubricity make him more like his father, or less?

Oh, shit.

Without warning, her detachment melted away; her calm streamed out of her, deliquescing like wax. Frightened by the direction of her thoughts, she shook herself, tried to recover her sense of sanity. What the hell did she care what the zone implant did to her unwanted fetus? No matter what happened, she was going to have an abortion. Wasn’t she? Sooner or later—when she had time and privacy to visit sickbay again. Wasn’t she? The clot of chemicals and malice in her womb was just one more consequence of being raped. Like rape, it violated her right to make her own choices. The sooner she rid herself of it, the better.

That was true. It was
true
, dammit.

But if it were true, what did she make of the fact that she’d already chosen a name for her baby?

Without noticing it, as if while her back was turned, she’d decided to call him Davies Hyland. After her father.

Shit!

She wanted to weep again, in frustration and grief. Abruptly she sat up, swung her legs off the bunk to meet her distress standing. At once she began to pace as if she’d been caught and caged. Was she truly so reduced, so damaged, so lost, that she could consider
keeping
the offspring of Angus Thermopyle’s hate? Did she place her own value so low that she was willing to give Angus’ corrupt seed room in her own body, to grow and thrive?

No! Of course not.
Of course not.
She would go get an abortion as soon as Nick expended himself and fell asleep.

And when she did that, she would be alone: as alone as she’d been after she’d killed her family; as alone as she’d been with Angus at his worst. That small worm of protoplasm gnawing its way toward parturition within her was all she had left. When she killed it, too, her bereavement would be complete.

The child was a boy, a human being. Her father’s grandchild. And he was a reason to live. A reason that didn’t have anything to do with rage or hate—or with whether the UMCP was as malign as Vector said. A reason which contradicted the lesson Angus had worked so hard to teach her: that she deserved to be utterly alone and helpless forever, sustained only by the neural chicanery of the zone implant, and by her own stubbornness.

If she kept Davies, she would no longer be alone. She would have a family again; someone who belonged to her—

Someone who deserved better than to be blown up because she couldn’t tell the difference between sanity and self-destruct. Or to be flushed down the sickbay disposal because she couldn’t face the danger of keeping him alive. No matter who his father was; no matter what dark legacy his progenitors left him.

She’d believed things like that once, back in the days when she was truly a cop, and the UMCP was honest. Maybe some part of her still did.

Keeping the child would be like surrendering to Angus Thermopyle.

Which was exactly what she’d done by trading his life for the zone implant control. She’d chosen to let his crimes against her go unpunished rather than to face the consequences of those crimes without the aid of the black box. The question of how reduced or damaged or lost she was had been answered long ago. The only issue that remained was at once simpler and less ponderable.

This fetus threatened her survival aboard
Captain’s Fancy
, her value to Nick. How much was survival worth to her?

Was it worth more killing?

How much loneliness could she endure?

Caught and caged by her past, abandoned by calm, she paced back and forth as if she didn’t know which way to turn, clenching her fists together and knotting her shoulders as if to strangle someone. Despite her fiercest efforts, however, she couldn’t recapture the suicide’s light-headed certainty which had taken her over when she’d decided to abort her son.

She was still pacing when her door chimed. True to prediction, Nick had come for her. She barely had time to dive onto the bunk and key her zone implant control before the delay programmed into the lock let the door open. As a result, she was flushed and panting as he entered, apparently avid.

At once she saw that he’d changed since she’d left the bridge. His scars continued to throb under his eyes, but his grin was gone; his elation had faded. His bruises made him look battered and uncertain. He’d discovered a doubt of some kind.

Not a doubt of
Captain’s Fancy
’s safety or survival: that would only have sharpened his focus, made him fight harder. It must have been a doubt of himself.

Because he was here, she assumed the doubt had something to do with her.

When the door closed behind him, he paused. In a distant voice, he asked, “Why do you do that?”

A compulsory ache rose in her: she could hardly think. Already the change in him was no longer clear to her. “Do what?”

“Why do you make me wait five seconds before your door opens?”

She’d prepared herself for that question long ago. Husky with need, she replied, “I don’t want you to catch me doing anything”—she flicked a glance toward the san—“ungraceful.”

Apparently that answer was good enough: the subject didn’t really interest him. Dismissing it, he moved closer. At his sides, his fingers worked, curling involuntarily into claws and then straining straight.

If the zone implant’s control over her had been less perfect, she would have been afraid.

Abruptly he surged forward, caught her by the wrists, jerked her half upright on the bunk. His eyes burned at her.

“Do you know how I got these scars? Have you heard that story?”

She shook her head. The realization that she’d engaged the control too soon, that she’d made herself helpless at the wrong moment, brought a moan up from her throat.

“A woman did it. She was a pirate—and I was just a kid. Normally she would have merely sneered at me and walked away. But I had information she wanted, so she didn’t sneer. Instead she seduced me to help her catch a ship. And I believed her. I didn’t know anything about contempt—or about women. I thought she took me seriously.

“But after she got that ship, she didn’t need me anymore. That was when she started laughing at me. She butchered all the crew, everybody she found aboard, but she left me alive. First she cut my face. Then she abandoned me, left me alone on that ship to die slowly, so that I would understand just how much contempt she had for me. Maybe she thought I would kill myself or go crazy before I died of thirst.

“Are you laughing at me?”

Morn stared back at him. She should have at least tried to look frightened or indignant, but she was stupid with inappropriate desire.

“Why did you stay with Captain fucking Thermopile?” His hands twisted pain through her wrists, and his eyes blazed. “Why did you come to me? What kind of plot is this? How are you going to betray me?”

At last she understood. He feared that he was growing dependent on her. Women were things he used and then discarded when he’d had enough of them. If they had useful abilities, he made them part of his crew. But he didn’t invest himself in them; he didn’t need them.

Until now.

Now he’d begun to realize how much power she had with him. And he was scared.

“Answer me,” he demanded through his teeth, “or I’ll break your goddamn arms.”

“Try me,” she whispered from the depths of her false and illimitable passion. “Find out if I’m laughing. You know what that feels like. You’ll be able to tell the difference.”

A sound like a throttled cry came out of him. Releasing one of her wrists, he drew back his arm and hit her so hard that she slammed to the mattress, and the walls grew dark around her.

Then he flung off his boots, ripped his shipsuit away, and landed on her like a hammer.

Artificially responsive, she accepted the way she was hurt and answered it with ecstasy.

Take that and be damned, you bastard!

She hated him far too much to laugh at him.

When he was exhausted and asleep, she took out her control and changed its functions to soften her wounds, numb her revulsion; ease the horrors of transition. After that she climbed past him out of the bunk, put on her shipsuit, hid the black box in her pocket, and went to sickbay.

She didn’t encounter anyone along the way. That was probably a good thing; but she didn’t care who saw her like this.

Reaching her destination, she locked herself in. Then she instructed the medical systems to treat her black eye and swollen face, her bleeding lips, her bruised arms and ribs, her torn labia. She didn’t turn off her zone implant until sickbay had done its best to take her hurts away.

But she didn’t get an abortion. And she didn’t try to hide her pregnancy. The only information she deleted from the log pertained to the exact age of her fetus—and to the electrode buried in her brain.

That done, she returned to her cabin. Shivering with transition and disgust, she stripped off her shipsuit, scrubbed herself in the san until her skin was raw, then got back into the bunk.

She hadn’t decided to keep little Davies. She simply wanted to preserve the evidence that Nick Succorso had beat up a woman with a baby.

In case she needed it.

Apparently she didn’t need it. As soon as he woke up, she saw that his doubt was at rest. His eyes were clear, his scars were as pale as whole skin, and he’d recovered his grin. The bruises Orn gave him had started to fade.

He was mildly surprised at her condition: she should have looked much worse. He approved of her explanation, however. At peace with himself, entirely unchagrined, he instructed her to go to the auxiliary bridge so that Alba Parmute could begin teaching her her duties. Then he headed for the bridge to learn how the datacore playback proceeded.

Morn was ready to get to work: she was full of readiness and murder. She had decisions to make, and decisions required information. She left her cabin immediately.

At Nick’s orders, Parmute was waiting for Morn when she reached the auxiliary bridge.

It was up in the drive space beside the engineering console room where Vector Shaheed or his second monitored
Captain’s Fancy
’s relatively gentle navigational thrust. The auxiliary bridge itself was narrower and less vertiginously curved than its counterpart, since it was formed around the bulkheads of the ship’s core; but it contained all the same g-seats, consoles, and screens. Past its arc, the walls of one end were visible from the other. Sitting in front of the data board, Morn could see all the other stations without craning her neck.

The habitual sullenness of Alba Parmute’s face and manner reinforced the impression that she was another of Nick’s discarded lovers. Nevertheless her desire to find somebody else to share her bed showed in the artificiality of her hair and makeup, as well as in the blatant way she displayed her body: she wore her shipsuit only half sealed, and her breasts bulged ominously in the gap. Morn had no sympathy for her, however. Disgusted at the thought of Nick and all things male, Morn found Alba’s obvious hunger pathetic.

Unfortunately Alba’s pouting mood—and her apparently perpetual state of libidinal impatience—failed to conceal the fact that she wasn’t particularly bright. She was able to explain Morn’s responsibilities in only the most concrete terms: how the duty-rotation worked; whom she took orders from; which buttons to push; which codes engaged the various data functions; what damage-control utilities
Captain’s Fancy
had available. Any underlying
how
or
why
she ignored: she did all her work by rote herself, and expected Morn to do the same. By comparison, the self-doubting and ill-equipped data first, Mackern, was a wizard.