Forbidden Knowledge (31 page)

Through his teeth, he breathed, “You’re bluffing.”

“That’s what Enablement thinks,” she retorted. “That’s why we might end up dead. But you don’t have to believe it. Talk to Mikka. She’s still got most of her command functions. She can look at what I’ve done. She just can’t change it without your priority codes—and I’ve made them useless.”

Nick’s cheeks and forehead had turned ashen, the color of old bone. His eyes grew bleak, haunted by memories of despair and contempt. “Morn,” he said to her softly, “I don’t lose. I don’t
lose.
If you beat me here, I swear to you I’ll make you and fucking Thermo-pile’s son pay so much for it that you’ll wish you’d sold
yourselves
to the Amnion.”

She wanted to spit at him. She wanted to sneer, Don’t underestimate yourself—I’ve been in hell and agony ever since you first touched me. Yet she resisted those desires, just as she’d refrained from shooting him. Instead she made a sacrifice which seemed more expensive, and infinitely harder, than killing herself. She offered him a way out of his dilemma; a way to salvage his ego.

She said, “I’m not trying to beat you. I’m trying to beat the Amnion.”

He muttered, “The shit you are.” But his scornridden gaze betrayed an appeal, as if despite his outrage he were begging her to make what she said true.

“Enablement Station to Morn Hyland.”

Morn turned away from Nick. Keying communications, she answered harshly, “I hear you.”

“False trade is unacceptable,” said the mechanical voice. “You have been dealt with honorably. Therefore the human offspring belongs to the Amnion. This is unalterable. He must belong to the Amnion.”

She started to retort; Nick surprised her by holding up his hand, demanding silence. Still clutching his laser, he walked toward her.

She pressed the chronometer toggle hard enough to whiten her knuckles. But when he reached her station, he dropped the laser. Instead of attacking, he leaned so close to her that she could smell the fury on his breath, as acrid as Amnion air.

“Enablement,” he rasped to the communications pickup, “this is Captain Succorso. You’ll get your damn offspring. I’ll make sure of that.”

While he spoke, his gaze held Morn’s, daring her to contradict him. “You’re right—you traded for him honorably. But Morn’s calling the shots at the moment. She can blow us up, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

“But she’s only human,” he snarled. “She’s got to rest sometime. And she can’t do that unless she releases self-destruct.

“I’ll get my ship back,” he promised. “And when I do, you can have the offspring.”

“Presumed human Captain Nick Succorso,” said Enablement promptly, “you have made a commitment which you will be required to fulfill.”

As if his words had freed the Amnion from an impasse, the station announced, “Morn Hyland, your offspring waits outside your airlock. You will be permitted to take him aboard.”

Permitted
—

Nick, you shit.

—
to take him aboard.

Without her zone implant, she might have sagged in relief, might have lost control of herself or the situation. Fortunately the charge in her brain held. Silencing the pickup, she told Nick, “Go back to the bridge. Get us out of here. When I feel secure, I’ll tell you how to restore your priority codes.

“Liete,” she continued as if she were still certain, “take your gun and get Davies. Make sure he comes alone—and they haven’t planted anything on him.” For instance a tracking device to help them find him again. “Tell Nick when it’s safe to go.”

Liete nodded dumbly. Half stumbling, she retrieved her impact pistol and left.

Nick had recovered his grin. Still leaning close to Morn as if he wanted to smother her, he said, “You’re finished. I hope you know that—I hope it breaks your heart. You aren’t human, not with that fucking electrode in your head, and for all I know you can go for years without rest. But you’re still finished. Gap-sickness will get you.

“We’re going to head for human space. As soon as Vector says we’re ready, we’ll start accelerating. That’s how much time you’ve got left. You mentioned going into tach cold, but you know we can’t do that. Stationary objects in gap fields tend to reappear near where they started. Slow-moving objects tend not to go where they’re aimed. We need a certain amount of speed—and that means hard g. Unless you want to spend weeks picking up velocity.”

And hard g triggered her gap-sickness.

“You can’t get around it. You didn’t go through all this just so you could blow us up an hour from now. Before we hit the gap, you’ll have to give my ship back.

“Then you won’t have any way to make me do it. You won’t be able to prevent me if I decide to stop and give them that asshole. We’re just marking time here—just going through the motions. As soon as you come up against your gap-sickness, you’re
mine.
”

Morn laughed in his face.

What he said was true, of course. But she meant to overcome that obstacle as well. She was already as close to gap-sickness as she intended to get.

In the meantime, she had the satisfaction of seeing doubt run like lightning across the dark background of his gaze.

He pulled back in dismay. “You’re crazy,” he rasped; but the words carried no conviction. Once again her zone implant made her more than he was; enabled her to outdo him.

Wheeling away to hide his chagrin, he strode off the auxiliary bridge.

Left to herself, Morn Hyland cackled like a madwoman.

She knew that in the end she couldn’t win this contest. She probably wouldn’t survive it. He would regain control of his ship: her gap-sickness made that inevitable. But she and her son would be safe from the Amnion. When they died, their deaths would be as brutal as Nick could make them—and they would be human.

And there was still a chance that she could change Nick’s mind. His doubt was a tectonic fault running through the core of his personality. If she could find the keystone, she might be able to shift it—

For some reason, tears streamed down her cheeks as if she were weeping.

Later. She would worry about things like that later. Right now, she had other problems.

“Nick,” Liete reported over the intercom, “he’s aboard. He says they didn’t have time to do anything to him. As far as I can tell, he’s clean.”

“Lock him up somewhere,” Nick ordered immediately. “I don’t want him wandering around the ship.”

“Davies,” Morn inserted, nearly choking on a grief she couldn’t name, “are you all right?”

Sounding preternaturally like his father, he replied, “If you call being this helpless ‘all right.’”

Just for a moment, her relief was strong enough to overwhelm the zone implant’s emissions.

She considered demanding that he be allowed to join her, then dismissed the idea. She couldn’t credibly insist that she was willing to blow up
Captain’s Fancy
and Enablement Station simply to spare Davies incarceration.

“Take care of yourself,” she told her son, even though she wasn’t sure he could still hear her.

With her free hand, she called up the self-destruct batch command to one of her readouts and began editing it.

“Enablement Station, this is command second Mikka Vasaczk. Prepare to disengage.”

First things first. Carefully she removed the sequence which keyed self-destruct from the chronometer toggle. When she’d replaced the old batch command with this new version, she was able to lift her finger.

More relief. Her imposed capability seemed to be failing. She wanted to put her head down on the console.

With an audible thunk and jolt,
Captain’s Fancy
separated from dock.

At once g changed. Suddenly insecure in her seat, she paused to belt herself down. Then she went back to work.

Mikka’s intercom remained open. Morn heard her ask, “Drive status?”

“Thrust is green.” Pup’s voice had a note of fright which made him sound even younger than he was. “Vector says you can have it whenever you want. He’s still working on the gap drive. The new equipment functions fine, but the control parameters need adjustment. And some of the tests don’t seem to run right.”

“Take us out of here,” Mikka instructed the helm first. “Follow their protocols exactly. They already have too many reasons not to trust us. Don’t give them another one.”

“Are you getting this, Morn?” Nick put in. “You’re running out of time.”

He’d left the intercom open, hoping to torment her.

The first small touch of thrust nudged her against the side of her seat. They were leaving Enablement Station; escaping the Amnion. She and her son. No matter what Nick did to her later, she was winning now.

With an effort of will, she continued her preparations for the crisis of g.

She’d learned this trick from Angus. No, “learned” wasn’t the right word for it. She’d seen him do it; she’d experienced its results; she’d even looked at it, in the files he’d let her see. But to remember it now, remember it well enough to reproduce it after so many months, so much intervening pain—

She had to make the effort.

While her artificial clarity gradually frayed and faded, she wrote a new batch command. Not for the self-destruct this time: for her black box itself.

As Angus had once done, she created a parallel zone implant control, using the circuits of the auxiliary communications station. Through the command board, she switched the functions of her black box to those circuits, then shoved the box itself into her pocket for what may have been the last time. After that, she programmed the parallel control to put her to sleep the moment
Captain’s Fancy
experienced g higher than 1.5—and to wake her up again when it dropped below that.

Even 1.5 was a risk; but she had to assume that her flawed mind could stand at least a little strain. If she set her sleep threshold any lower, she would be unconscious while g was still soft enough to let Nick’s people move against her.

If this worked—if she remembered it right, did it right—she could avoid her gap-sickness without being forced to relinquish the self-destruct. Nick had never been in her cabin with her during acceleration or deceleration: he didn’t know how she took care of herself. Before he could risk challenging her, he would have to discover—or guess—what her defenses were. And that might take time.

It might take long enough for
Captain’s Fancy
to cross the gap.

Once he reached human space, he might reconsider the commitment he’d made to the Amnion.

Morn’s arrangements took a long time to set up. They were complex—and she was losing recall. Emotional exhaustion drained her despite the pressure of the electrode in her brain.

At the fringes of her awareness, she noticed the steady increase of g as
Captain’s Fancy
took on thrust.

From the bridge, Carmel’s report reached her:
Tranquil Hegemony
and
Calm Horizons
were following
Captain’s Fancy
outward.

Abruptly Mikka entered the room. Without hesitation, she sat down at the auxiliary scan station. Scowling impersonally, she announced, “Nick sent me to keep an eye on you. Don’t worry, I won’t get in your way.”

A new threat. Mikka would see her helplessness under g. To protect herself, Morn slid her finger back onto the chronometer toggle. But her attention was contracting: her window of clarity shrank. She struggled with her preparations. If she made a mistake, g would drive her mad—

Then, over the intercom, she heard Vector say, “I don’t know about this, Nick.”

“I’m in no mood to guess,” Nick snapped back. “Say what you mean.”

“The new equipment checks out fine, as far as I can tell,” Vector answered. “I’ve got it powered up, and it looks stable. But, Nick”—the engineer faltered momentarily—“some of the tests don’t run. They come up blank. The rest are absolutely green, dead-center tolerances. But these ones—There must be fifty possible explanations. I’ll need a month to try them all.”

“Chance it,” Morn croaked into the intercom.

“No!” Nick shot back, “I won’t do it. Morn, you’re out of time. You can’t stay awake on that toggle for another month. And I’m not going to risk tach. We need too much g—you’ll blow us up. And if the drive fails, we’ll fry in the gap.

“Face facts, Morn! There’s no way out of this one.”

A visceral dread, cold and familiar, closed her throat. She had to force herself to reply. “And if we run tests for a month, Enablement will have plenty of time to find out you cheated them. Then those warships are going to start shooting.”

He would listen to that: he had to.

Grimly she continued, “I’ll give you ten minutes to pick up velocity. I’m setting the timer now.” Her fingers keyed commands. “After that, I’m finished with you. I’ll self-destruct.”

“Morn!” Vector protested, “what about your gapsickness?”

As hard as she could, she kicked Nick in the keystone of his doubt. “Goddamn it!” she shouted because she was terrified, “what the hell do you think I’ve got a zone implant
for?
”

Let him believe she wasn’t helpless. Let him believe she didn’t need unconsciousness to protect her. Please let him believe that.

She could tell by the way Nick cursed that he did.

“Secure for burn!” he yelled at his ship. He didn’t want to wait ten minutes. “You’ve got thirty seconds!” At once he began barking instructions for Vector and the helm first.

Thirty seconds. Time for one last bluff—one last, desperate attempt to keep herself and Davies alive. Fear mounted like a storm in her as she turned to Mikka.

“You know what’s at stake for me,” she said as firmly as she could. “You know I’m out of choices. I’m going to turn my seat so you can’t see how I take care of myself.” So Mikka wouldn’t see her go to sleep; wouldn’t see her release the chronometer toggle. “That’s for your protection as well as mine.”

Please don’t try to jump me. I beg you.

Mikka shrugged distantly. “It’s your neck. I’m not the one who has to face him when this is over.” A moment later she added, “I’m reasonably sure you’re not going to blow us up now. And I want out of Amnion space myself.”