Forbidden Knowledge (17 page)

Nick and his ship had been more dependent on Orn Vorbuld than Morn had realized.

She was no wizard herself; but she soon found it easy to believe that she could be more valuable to
Captain’s Fancy
than Alba Parmute was.

After enduring the general uselessness of Alba’s instructions for half an hour, Morn grew frustrated enough to dare asking to be left alone on the auxiliary bridge. So that she could “practice her duties.”

She was UMCP: she may have been untrustworthy. But Alba was bored—and anyway Morn wasn’t male. The data second shrugged and went away.

That was Morn’s chance, her first chance. She was determined not to waste it.

The compartments where she kept the black pieces of her hate were breaking down. Nick’s violence—and the fact that she was pregnant—damaged her defenses. Bits of revulsion and self-loathing, outrage and dire need, leaked together inside her, fomenting bloodshed. Alone on the auxiliary bridge, in front of the data console as if its readouts could display her fate, she risked looking for answers.

But she didn’t neglect the caution she’d learned from Angus. Careful and bitter, she keyed the intercom to the bridge and asked permission to activate the auxiliary data board so that she could study the equipment.

“Go ahead,” Nick answered. With his doubts at rest, he was in an indulgent mood. “Study as much as you want. Just don’t
do
anything. If you trigger another wipe, you’re fired.”

Beating her knuckles against the console for self-control, she replied as cheerfully as she could, “Thanks.” She had no intention of doing anything which might activate Orn’s virus. She wasn’t going to lay a finger on
Captain’s Fancy
’s data: she was just going to look at it.

The system was unfamiliar, but not much different than the ones she’d used in the Academy, or aboard
Starmaster.
And Alba had given her the basic codes. As soon as the auxiliary board was ready, she checked on the progress of the datacore playback.

The information she needed had already been restored.

Navigational data. Astrogation and scan.

Like any new computer, this one had programming tics and quirks she didn’t know about. For five or ten minutes, she floundered around in the system, flashing only gibberish across the displays. But then she found her way into a summary of the programming parameters, where she quickly learned the things Alba Parmute had neglected or been unable to tell her.

After that she began to obtain useful results.

Navigational data enabled her to plot
Captain’s Fancy
’s trajectory away from Com-Mine Station. Astrogation and scan enabled her to fix the ship’s present position and to call up a list of possible destinations—places which could be reached along this course.

The list was long. It included everything from points dead ahead around in a vast curve back to Com-Mine itself. But she restricted the field considerably by assuming that Nick intended to maintain lateral thrust for at least two more months and by discounting any goal that would take more than seven or eight more months to reach—in effect, by eliminating from consideration everything past the midpoint of the huge circle implied by
Captain’s Fancy
’s arc.

When she was done, the list had become short.

So short that it made her blood run cold.

It included only a red giant with no significant satellites; the farthest tip, virtually uncharted, of the asteroid belt served by Com-Mine Station; one of the hostile outposts which guarded forbidden space; and a hunk of dead rock as big as a planetoid, hanging a few million kilometers inside the borders of forbidden space—far enough inside to be absolutely off limits for any human ship, and yet far enough away from the outpost to be accessible to any human ship willing to risk the consequences.

That rock had a name: Thanatos Minor.

Morn had heard of it. Its name made her shiver as though her heart were freezing.

She’d heard it in the Academy, whispered by people who were appalled by what it represented: a depth of betrayal so unfathomable as to work toward the destruction of the human species for mere gain.

Thanatos Minor.
No wonder forbidden space sheltered it, condoned it, despite diplomatic protests, ambassadorial outrage—despite the fact that its very existence was prohibited by signed treaty. Forbidden space threatened every human being alive, even though the threat was genetic rather than military; even though no human ships were ever attacked, and no alien vessels ever crossed the border outward, and no accords were ever broken—except by such telling omissions as the refusal to extirpate Thanatos Minor. And Thanatos Minor served that threat more effectively than warships and matter cannon.

At least by reputation, the rock was a shipyard and clearinghouse for pirates. Ships were built there (ships like
Bright Beauty
?): ships went there for repairs. And pirates like Nick Succorso and Angus Thermopyle took their plunder there, to one of the few markets rich enough to buy ore and supplies on the scale they offered; a market fueled by forbidden space’s unquenchable appetite for human resources, human technologies, and—if the rumors were true—human lives.

Morn ignored the red giant, the outpost, the asteroid belt. As surely as if Nick had given her the answer himself, she knew where
Captain’s Fancy
was headed.

Thanatos Minor
, where he would sell her secrets for money and repairs; where everything she knew about the UMCP would, in effect, be sold to forbidden space.

That wasn’t just crime: it was treason. A betrayal of humankind.

She had no loyalty to the United Mining Companies Police. Vector had argued that her superiors and heroes to the highest levels were corrupt—and it was at least conceivable that he was right. He certainly believed his own evidence. Whether they were corrupt or not, however, she’d already turned her back on them: she’d accepted the zone implant control from Angus and gone with Nick instead of giving herself up to Com-Mine Security. She was no longer a cop in any effective sense.

But none of that mattered here. She couldn’t know whether the UMCP had betrayed humankind. She had to consider whether she was prepared to betray humankind herself.

And if she answered,
No!
—what then? Then the question became: How could she prevent Nick from forcing that betrayal on her?

Automatically she calculated the remaining distance: nearly six months at half the speed of light along
Captain’s Fancy
’s present course, including deceleration time—more heavy g.

What could she do?

What else, besides sabotage
Captain’s Fancy
?

The best she could hope for was self-destruct, immediate death. Any other form of sabotage would leave her adrift in black space with a ship full of people who knew that she’d effectively killed them all. But the mere thought of self-destruct filled her with dark, cold terror. It meant murdering herself so absolutely that everyone connected to her died as well.

Or she could simply kill herself and let Nick go on without her.

She felt so trapped and cold that she was hardly able to continue breathing. Involuntarily her knuckles hit the edge of the data console until they cracked, and both her hands turned bloody. There was no way out of this mess that didn’t involve self-murder; a surrender to the moral gap-sickness which had consumed her life ever since
Starmaster
had first sighted
Bright Beauty
and gone into heavy g.

No, she thought. No. It’s too much. I can’t bear it.

She hadn’t come all this way just to kill herself. She hadn’t suffered Nick’s touch all this time, endured beating and revulsion, just to kill herself.

Trapped.

Finally the cold in her heart grew so intense that she had to clamp her arms across her chest and huddle over her stomach for warmth.

She was still in that position—hunched down as if to protect her baby—when Vector Shaheed found her.

He must have been passing outside on his way to his console room. From the doorway, he asked, “Morn?”

She should have said something to make him go away. She should at least have concealed her hands. But she couldn’t.

“Morn? Are you all right?” He came closer; he touched her shoulder. Then his grip tightened. “What the hell are you doing to yourself?”

Like a flare of cold fire, she rose to face his look of mild surprise, mild concern.

“You should have told me,” she rasped thickly. “Back when I first asked you. You should have told me where we’re going.”

Turning her back on him, she left the auxiliary bridge and went back to the artificial courage of her zone implant.

When a chime from the intercom informed her that it was time for her to take her turn on the bridge, she obeyed, even though her fingers were so stiff with crusted blood and pain that she could hardly move them. Reckless and uncaring, she carried her black box switched on low in her pocket, not to numb her physical hurt, but to muffle her emotional distress. The damage to her knuckles was useful: it helped keep her in the present. And her zone implant prevented the present from overwhelming her.

Muted by subtle electronic emissions, she stepped onto the bridge to take her place as
Captain’s Fancy
’s data third.

Liete Corregio was command third: this was her watch. Nevertheless Nick met Morn as she arrived. He gave her a sharp grin which she hardly knew how to answer, but he didn’t say anything. Instead he dangled her id tag by its chain for a moment, then flipped it to her.

That told her the datacore playback was finished.

It might have told her other things as well, but she was in no condition to notice them.

Wincing involuntarily, she caught her id tag and closed it in her fist.

Then she did her best to keep her features blank against his reaction when he saw the state of her hands.

His eyes turned instantly hard; his grin locked into place. Without transition his body passed from movement to poised stillness. Casually—too casually—he asked, “Morn, have you been fighting again?”

For a heartbeat or two, the effects of her zone implant almost broke. She’d been fighting, all right. And nothing was resolved. But the control held. A shade too late, she shook her head.

“I fell. Caught myself on my fists.”

As if that were the end of the matter, she pulled the chain over her head and dropped her id tag into her shipsuit.

He didn’t appear to know whether to believe her or not. Noncommittally he said, “Go to sickbay. Liete can wait for you.”

Again Morn shook her head. “If it hurts enough, it might teach me to be more careful next time.” Then she added, “I want to do my job.”

Slowly the danger eased out of him. He may have decided to believe her. Or he may have believed that she hadn’t lost whatever fight she’d been in. Her black box helped her look like she hadn’t lost. With a shrug, he dismissed the subject.

To the command third, he said, “You’re on.” Then he left the bridge.

Morn looked at Liete Corregio, received a nod, and went to seat herself at the data station.

Every time she touched the keys in front of her, her knuckles hurt as if they were broken.

That was what she desired.

Liete was a small, dark woman with blunt features and a voice that barely carried across the bridge. In addition her manner conveyed so little obvious authority that at first Morn wondered whether Liete had obtained her position by being another of Nick’s discarded lovers. But the command third looked too plain to suit Nick Succorso’s romantic tastes. And before long Morn became convinced that Liete Corregio was nearly as competent as Mikka Vasaczk. She lacked Mikka’s overt aggressiveness, but not her certainty or skill. Apparently Nick’s tolerance for women like Alba Parmute didn’t extend to the command positions aboard his ship.

Despite Liete’s competence, however,
Captain’s Fancy
was in serious trouble.

Part of the problem, of course, was that Liete’s people were the weakest members of the crew. Regardless of Morn’s opinion of Lind, for instance, she had to admit that he was orders of magnitude better than the communications third. The men who handled scan and targ were, respectively, an habitual drunk who understood demolition better than spectrography and a huge brawler so ham-fisted that he could scarcely hit one key at a time. And helm was managed by a malodorous weasel at once erratic and brilliant: he seemed capable of anything except following orders. Liete’s ability to make such individuals function together grew increasingly impressive to Morn as time went on.

Unfortunately there was a larger difficulty. It involved Nick’s decision to “work around” Orn Vorbuld’s virus.

None of Liete’s watch had the least idea how to make their equipment operate manually. In fact, no one aboard could do it, except Vector, Pup, and Carmel; Mikka, Liete, and Morn; and Nick himself. Ships had been run cybernetically for so long that most spacefarers had no experience with anything else. Overrides existed, of course; and men and women who’d been trained in places like the UMCP Academy or Aleph Green understood them. But of necessity pirates attracted crew with motley histories and oblique skills, imprecisely relevant to the ship’s needs. Nick’s people simply didn’t know how to do their jobs without exposing their computers to the virus.

Liete Corregio’s assignment when Morn joined her watch—and for a number of weeks afterward—was to teach the thirds how to run
Captain’s Fancy
without triggering wipe.

The process went badly from the beginning. Morn was on only her third watch when the drunk at the scan station contrived to erase all his data. That cost the ship twenty hours while she ran another datacore playback.

A day or two later, Mikka Vasaczk’s targ second, Karster, accidentally triggered a random matter cannon barrage which scorched a ten-meter-wide strip of
Captain’s Fancy
’s skin and vaporized a doppler sensor before it was stopped. That cost the crew a week in EVA suits, working to replace the sensor.