Forbidden Knowledge (25 page)

The other guard climbed into the rear.

With a liquid gurgle and spatter, as if it were powered by acid, the sled began to move.

“Nick,” Morn said, “I want to name him after my father.”

“What?” Nick’s head jerked toward her; through his faceplate, his eyes glared angry astonishment.

“I want to name him after my father.” She’d never said this to him before. “Davies Hyland. I want to name him Davies Hyland.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Confined by the helmet, his voice hit her ears loudly. “This is no time to discuss it.”

“It’s important to me.” She knew this was no time to discuss it: not now; not here. Everybody aboard
Captain’s Fancy
could hear her; so could the authorities of Enablement Station. But she couldn’t stop. Her fear was making her wild. And her memory of her father was the only thing left that she could still trust; the part of her that valued him was all she could fight for. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I loved him. I want to name my baby after him.”

“Goddamn you, Morn.” Nick sounded suddenly distant, as if he were receding from her. Wet, sulfuric light reflecting down his faceplate hid his expression. “I don’t give a flying fuck at a black hole what you name the little shit. Just keep your fucking mouth shut.”

For the first time in what seemed like hours, she caught a glimpse of relief.

Davies.

Davies Hyland.

At least she would be able to recognize that much of herself in him, no matter what else happened. Maybe his name would make him human.

As if it ran on oil, the sled glided across the dock into a hall as wide as a road. Black strips in the floor took hold of the sled and guided it like rails. Other strips could have handled other traffic; yet the hall was empty. The fluid noise of the sled’s drive was the only sound from either direction. The station kept everything except its walls secret from alien eyes. The hall curved steadily, and she thought it declined as it curved, as if Enablement were designed in spirals, helixes, instead of concentric circles—down and around in a tightening circuit, like the descent into hell.

The damp yellow light was more intense here. It played and gleamed across Morn’s EVA suit like a decontamination beam, burning away undetectable microorganisms; burning away reality; at last burning away fear. Somewhere deep within her, she surrendered slowly to the zone implant.

Nick’s voice was abrupt in her ears. “Where are you taking us? I don’t like being this far from my ship.”

Both guards looked at him. From the earphones, Enablement’s mechanical voice said, “Conformity of purpose will be achieved through the mutual satisfaction of requirements. Your requirements necessitate a suitable birthing environment.”

He growled a curse under his breath, then insisted harshly, “Delay doesn’t conform to your purpose or mine.”

“Time,” came the reply, “is not accessible to manipulation.”

As if out of nowhere, Vector Shaheed asked amiably, “Is that philosophy or physics?”

Morn began to relax more completely.

“Goddamn it—” Nick began.

“Vector!” snapped Mikka, “I told you to be quiet.” A moment later she added, “Sorry about that, Nick.”

“Oh, hell,” Nick retorted, “let’s all talk at once. If we’re going to turn this into a farce, we might as well go all the way.”

For a moment the earphones went silent. Then the alien voice inquired, “Presumed human Captain Nick Succorso, what is ‘farce’? Translation is lacking.”

Nick’s fingers dug into Morn’s arm. “Ask me later,” he rasped. “If I like the way you conduct this trade, I’ll give you ‘farce’ as a gift.”

“Presumed human Captain Nick Succorso,” countered the voice immediately, “you claim humanity. Thereby you claim enmity to the Amnion. Also your identity does not conform to known reality. That also constitutes enmity to the Amnion. Understanding is necessary for trade. What is ‘farce’?”

Before Nick could reply, Vector spoke again. “‘Farce’ is a form of play in which humans make themselves ridiculous for the amusement of other humans. Its purpose is to reduce tension and provide community of feeling.”

Clenching his free fist and Morn’s arm, Nick waited. The sled ran fifty meters down the hall before the voice answered, “Translation is acceptable.”

After a long pause, he said, “All right, Vector. I’ll call us even this time. But don’t try me again.”

No one from
Captain’s Fancy
responded.

As smooth as a frictionless bearing, the sled eased to a stop in front of a wide door.

The door was marked with a black strip. To Morn it was indistinguishable from the strips on the floor. But it must have been coded in some way only the Amnion could read: perhaps by pheromones; perhaps by spectrum variation which the sulfuric light made visible to Amnion optic nerves.

The guard in the rear stepped out of the sled, spoke into its headset. At once the door slid aside.

Inside was a large room, unmistakably at a lab: At a glance, Morn saw computers and surgical lasers, hypos and retractors, retorts, banks of chemicals, gurneys that looked like they’d been grown from Amnion skin, and at least two enclosed beds similar to crèches. This must be the “suitable birthing environment”—the place where she and little Davies would live or die.

Almost calm, she looked at the Amnioni waiting for her and Nick.

It resembled the guards to the extent that it had the same red-brown crust for skin and the same cutting teeth; also it wore a headset. But its eyes were large and trinocular. The arm reaching from the center of its chest was the primary one, both longer and stronger than the several limbs around it. The Amnioni’s three-legged stance made it as solid as a pedestal.

One secondary hand—how many fingers did it have? six? seven?—gripped a hypo fitted to a clear vial. Another held what may have been a breathing mask of some kind.

The Amnioni spoke. “This is the birthing environment,” Morn heard through her helmet. “Here conformity of purpose will be achieved. Enter.”

“Who are you?” Nick demanded as if he were having second thoughts.

The Amnioni tilted its head, perhaps as an expression of curiosity. “The question lacks precision. Do you request genetic or pheromonic identification? Humans are not known to be capable of processing such information. Or does your question pertain to function? Translation suggests the nearest human analogue is ‘doctor.’

“You have expressed a desire for haste. Why do you not enter?”

Nick looked at Morn.

From her angle, a wash of sulfur across his helmet erased his face. Dumbly she nodded. Her circumstances and her own actions gave her no choice. And her brain was sinking steadily under the influence of her zone implant. There was nothing left for her to do except follow the dictates of instinct and biology: focus what remained of her will on the well-being of her baby, and let everything else go.

Holding her arm as if he feared to let her go, Nick moved her through the doorway into the lab.

The guards followed.

When the doors closed behind them, they positioned themselves on either side of Morn and Nick.

The doctor scrutinized each of them in turn: it may have been trying to guess which one of them was “presumed human Captain Nick Succorso.” Then, with a decisive movement, it transferred the hypo to its central hand.

“It has been agreed,” said the voice in Morn’s earphones, “that you will concede one deciliter of your blood.” The doctor presented the hypo. “When you have complied, you will be given confirmation of credit.” One of its secondary hands opened to reveal a credit-jack, similar in size and shape to Morn’s id tag—the form of financial transfer specified by the United Mining Companies’ treaties with the Amnion. “Then the female’s fetus will be brought to physiological maturity.” Another arm gestured toward one of the crèches. “As a courtesy, the offspring will be supplied with garments.”

Steady as a pillar, the doctor waited for a response.

For a long moment Nick seemed to hesitate.

“Has it not been agreed?” asked the Amnioni.

Roughly Nick stuck out his hand. “Permit me to inspect your hypo.”

The doctor spoke into its headset. This time no sound reached Morn.

In silence the Amnioni handed Nick the hypo.

He held it up to the light, studied it from several angles. When he was sure that the vial was empty—innocent of mutagens—he returned the hypo.

Still roughly, as if each movement cost him an effort, he unsealed his left glove and pulled it off, then peeled the sleeve of his suit back from his forearm.

“I have always believed that the Amnion trade honestly,” he announced. “Should that belief prove false, however, I have arranged to spread the knowledge throughout human space.”

In a dim way, Morn hoped that the Amnion weren’t equipped by culture or experience to recognize the bluff of a frightened man.

“Conversely,” replied the mechanical voice, “human falseness is established reality. The risk of trade is accepted because what you offer has value. Nevertheless the satisfaction of requirements must be begun by you.”

“Oh, hell,” Nick muttered to no one in particular. “It’ll make a good story even if I lose.”

With a jerk, he offered his forearm to the hypo.

At once two of the doctor’s secondary hands gripped Nick’s wrist and elbow. Efficient and precise, the Amnioni pressed the hypo over the large veins in his forearm; rich blood welled into the vial.

In a moment the vial was full. The doctor withdrew the hypo.

Snarling at the way his hands shook, Nick tugged down his sleeve; he shoved his fingers into his glove and resealed it. Morn imagined him biting into the capsule of the immunity drug and swallowing it. But the idea no longer disturbed her. A mad, clean calm that seemed to border on gap-sickness filled her head. She felt that she was floating a few inches off the floor as she watched the Amnioni give Nick the credit-jack, watched Nick shove it into one of his suit’s pouches.

Like a mantra, she repeated her son’s name to herself.

Davies. Davies Hyland.

If any part of her was worth saving, this was it.

“Now,” Nick rasped, “the baby.”

The doctor was speaking again. “The efficacy and safety of the procedure is established. All Amnion offspring are matured in this fashion. Certainly the human female is not Amnion. Yet even with a human the efficacy of the procedure has been established. Her blood will provide the computers with information for the necessary adjustments. The genetic identity of her offspring will not be altered.

“What are your wishes concerning her body? Will you trade for it? Suitable recompense will be offered. Or do you wish to dispose of it in your own fashion?”

Morn heard the words as if they were in a code she couldn’t decipher.

At her side, Nick went rigid.

“What do you mean,” he demanded dangerously, “‘dispose of it’? What are you talking about? I want to take her with me as alive and healthy as she is right now.”

“That is impossible,” replied the doctor without discernible inflection. “You were aware of this. It is presumed that your requirement contains the knowledge of its outcome. Among Amnion, the efficacy and safety of the procedure is established. Among humans, only the efficacy is established.

“The difficulty involves”—the Amnioni cocked its head, listening—“translation suggests the words ‘human psychology.’ The procedure necessitates”—the doctor listened again—“‘a transfer of mind.’ Of what use is a physically mature offspring with the knowledge and perceptions of a fetus? Therefore the offspring is given the mind of its parent. Among Amnion, this procedure is without difficulty. Among humans, it produces”—another cock of the head—“‘insanity.’ A total and irreparable loss of reason and function. Speculation suggests that in humans the procedure instills an intense fear which overwhelms the mind. The female will be of no further use to you. Therefore the offer is made to trade for her.”

Total and irreparable loss—Morn did her best to concentrate on the danger, but her attention drifted sideways. Trade for her. No doubt the Amnion still wanted her because her sanity or madness was irrelevant to the mutagens. She should have been terrified.

But she was too far gone for that.

A transfer of mind. Little Davies would have her mind. He would be truly and wholly her son. There would be nothing of Angus Thermopyle in him.

Her struggle to find a better answer than rape and zone implants and treason wouldn’t end here. The things her father represented to her might still survive.

She was only aware of Nick peripherally, as if he existed at the edges of a reality which contracted around her moment by moment, making everything clear.

He was close to violence. Releasing her arm, he clenched his fists in an unconscious throttling gesture. Sulfur glared from his faceplate. Through his teeth, he gritted, “That is unacceptable.”

After a momentary pause the voice said, “Presumed human Captain Nick Succorso, it is acceptable. You have accepted it.”

“No, I didn’t!” he shouted back. “Goddamn it, I didn’t know! I wasn’t
aware
that I was asking you to destroy her mind!”

“Presumed human Captain Nick Succorso,” countered the voice implacably, “that is of no concern. An agreement has been reached. That agreement will be acted upon.

“The agreement involves the human female, not you. Her acceptance is indicated by her presence. And your enmity to the Amnion is established. You are suspected of falseness in trade. It is presumed that you will return to human space and report that the Amnion have failed to act upon an agreement. Trust in the Amnion will be damaged. Necessary trade will be diminished. That is unacceptable. Without trade, the goals of the Amnion are unobtainable.”

“Right!” Nick retorted. “And your precious trade will be
diminished
when human space hears that you destroyed one of my people against my expressed wishes! I don’t care what you think she does or doesn’t accept. I’m not going to let you do it. I didn’t
know
what the consequences are!”

“On the contrary”—the voice was remorseless—“records of this event will demonstrate Amnion honesty. They will demonstrate that the female accepts the agreement. You are betrayed by your ignorance, not by the Amnion. Human caution will increase, but human trade will not diminish.”