Forbidden Knowledge (8 page)

“They can prove that themselves,” Vector observed unnecessarily. “They don’t need Morn’s testimony.” After a pause he added, “There’s no other way to tamper with a datacore. That’s the whole point of having them. If what they record could be changed, they wouldn’t be good for anything.”

“So they’re lying.” Carmel had a penchant for assertive statements. “They have some other reason for wanting her back.”

Unexpectedly Mikka put in, “No. That’s too risky. She’s UMCP. They can’t silence her. If we took her back, and she found out they were lying, they would be in shit up to their eyebrows. The tampering must be real. They just don’t know how it was done yet. They think maybe she can tell them.”

“Or maybe,” Morn said to Nick, so giddy with relief that she was willing to take risks, “this is a smoke screen. Your connection knows you won’t take me back. He can say anything he wants. He’s trying to cover his ass.”

Nick aimed a black glance at her, then looked away. After a moment, he started to laugh harshly. “That fucking bastard,” he said in grudging admiration. “If I knew how to tamper with my datacore, we would all be safe forever. And rich. We could make enough credit selling that secret to buy our own station.”

Before anyone else ventured an opinion, he pointed Morn toward communications and commanded Lind, “Record her. If we like what she says, we’ll send it.”

Still obeying promptly, Lind got his console ready.

Sustained by her reprieve, Morn walked the curve of the bridge to Lind’s post. He ignored her, kept his eyes on his hands, as she lifted her id tag over her head and plugged it into his board. There, just for a second, she hesitated. She was taking a dangerous step: as soon as she said her verification code, Nick would have it; he could use it and her tag however he wished. She would be that much more isolated, that much more exposed to him and his crew.

Nevertheless she’d created this situation: she couldn’t afford to falter now. When the board had copied what it needed, she put the tag back around her neck inside her shipsuit. Then she spoke as if she were saying a final good-bye to herself and all her old life.

“This is Morn Hyland, ensign, UMCP.” Distinctly she articulated the verification code. “I have authorized business aboard
Captain’s Fancy
, which does not fall under your jurisdiction. If you need acknowledgment, query Min Donner, Enforcement Division, UMCPHQ.”

That was safe to say, since Com-Mine was certain to query Min Donner in any case.

“I have no evidence in Com-Mine Station’s case against the captain of
Bright Beauty.
” Her inability to utter Angus’ name eroded her stability, but she kept going. “To my knowledge, datacore tampering is impossible. I did not witness the removal of any chips. If they were removed, they were not given to me. My grievances against the captain of
Bright Beauty
are personal, and I do not choose to prosecute them publicly.”

In that way, she kept faith with Angus Thermopyle. She may have betrayed everyone else, but she was true to him.

“Captain Nick Succorso of
Captain’s Fancy
has my support and cooperation. Refer all further inquiries to UMCPHQ, Enforcement Division.”

To her own surprise, she added, “Farewell, Com-Mine Station.”

After that her throat closed, and she couldn’t say anything else.

“That’ll do,” Nick told Lind. “Send it. No repeats. If they miss part of it, let them sweat.

“Vector, I want you in the drive space. We’re going to give Station about ten minutes, so they’ll decide we aren’t running. Then we’re going to burn.”

Without warning Morn’s stomach turned over. Again she felt the brisance of panic, compressing her heart and lungs against her rib cage. “Burn” meant heavy g. The hardest acceleration
Captain’s Fancy
’s thrusters could produce.

If Nick feared her gap-sickness, he didn’t show it. Instead he snapped out orders. “Mikka, take her back to her cabin. Lock her in. Be sure she can’t get out while we burn. I want her secure until we’re out of g—and she can convince us she’s sane.” Pivoting his seat, he faced Morn with a feral grin. “Staying alive is
her
problem.”

Before Morn could think or react, Mikka grabbed her arm and pulled her through the aperture, off the bridge. A few minutes later she was back in her cabin. Outside, Mikka locked the door.

Nick’s second left her alone with the gap-sickness which had killed her father and most of the people she’d ever loved.

ANCILLARY
DOCUMENTATION

DATACORES

F
or convenience, history is often viewed as a conflict between the instinct for order and the impulse toward chaos. Both are necessary: both are manifestations of the need to survive. Without order, nothing exists: without chaos, nothing grows. And yet the struggle between them sheds more blood than any other war.

The instinct for order is an expression of humankind’s devout desire for safety (which permits nurture), for stability (which permits education), for predictability (which permits one thing to be built on another)—for equations of cause and effect simple enough to be relied upon. Indeed, without resistance to change, growth itself would be impossible: resistance to change creates safe, stable, predictable environments in which change can accumulate productively.

The instinct for order is therefore aggressive. It actively opposes any alteration of circumstance, any variation of perspective, any hostility of environment or intention. It fights to create and defend the conditions it seeks.

The impulse toward chaos is a manifestation of humankind’s inbred knowledge that the best way to survive any danger is to run away from it. This instinct focuses on the resources of individual imagination and cunning, rather than on the potentialities of concerted action. Its most common overt expression involves an insistence upon self-determination (freedom from restriction), individual liberty (freedom from requirement), and nonconformity (freedom from cause and effect). However, such insistence is primarily a rationalization of the desire to flee—to survive by escape.

Therefore the impulse toward chaos is also aggressive. The very act of escape breaks down systems of order: it contradicts safety, avoids stability, defies cause and effect. Like the instinct for order, it fights to create and defend the conditions it seeks.

Nevertheless stability and predictability themselves would be impossible without chaos. Chaos exerts the pressure which requires order to shape itself accurately. Without accuracy, order would self-destruct as soon as it came into being.

For these reasons, the struggle between order and chaos is eternal, necessary—and extremely expensive. By nature, human beings are at their most violent and belligerent in self-defense. The cost of their survival would be prohibitive in any less fecund universe.

In this context, the importance of datacores is easily understood.

Both metaphorically and actually, they were powerful tools for order. They gave the governments of Earth—and their effective enforcement arm, the United Mining Companies Police—the ability to
find out what happened
to any ship anywhere in human space. Ultimately anything that could be known could be controlled—or at least punished.

Of course, this was not the rationalization when they were first introduced. Then the rationalization was simply that space was vast; the gap, mysterious; accidents, common. If the future wanted to learn from the past—in order to make space travel safer—it needed to know what the past was. Therefore a record was required of what every ship knew, did, and experienced, so that its past would be available for analysis and understanding. And, naturally, this record had to exist in some unalterable form, so that it couldn’t be falsified by damage or self-interest, by stupidity or malice. Surely it stood to reason that every ship should carry the technology to make such recordings—for the sake of all future spacefarers.

However, the possibilities for control were so obvious that enforcement of these records was not left to reason. It became an absolute requirement: no ship could be built and registered unless it carried, in effect, an automatic and permanent log which would keep track of everything that ship did or encountered: every decision, every action, every risk, every malfunction, every crisis.

The codes which unlocked these logs belonged to the UMCP.

The datacores designated for use as permanent and automatic logs were a development of CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology. The great advantage of CMOS chips was that they drew power only when they changed state: that is, when information was written to them. Because of this, they could store data in a physically permanent form, without a sustained energy supply. Like any other chip, however, they were accessible to electronic emendation: once power was applied to the source and drain, the chip’s state could be altered; its data could be changed.

The invention of SOS (silicon on sapphire) CMOS chips was a step in the direction of real permanence. However, true datacores were not possible until the development of silicon on diamond semiconductors. SODCMOS chips were too intractable for ordinary computer use; but they were ideal for storing data in an unalterable form. Crudely put, SOD semiconductors never changed state at all: they added state. Instead of storing data in the normal on-or-off binary form, they stored it in an accumulation of on-then-off sequences. Therefore the “on” which preceded the “off” remained transparent when the data was accessed.

Not only were the data unalterable, but any attempt to alter them was unalterably recorded. In effect, this provided a kind of Write Only Memory: with the proper UMCP codes, it could be read; but it could never be rewritten.

Inevitably the impulse toward chaos took exception to the whole idea of the datacore.

At this period, however, the instinct for order was ascendant. The threat of forbidden space gave it an unprecedented legitimacy. For that reason, the requirements of the UMCP—backed by the imponderable commercial muscle of the United Mining Companies—were usually granted. No economically vulnerable government of a genophobic species could refuse—especially when the requirement sounded so reasonable. By law, every human ship carried a datacore. If it did not, it was denied registration; which in turn meant that it would be denied dock anywhere in human space.

Vehement protestation founded on arguments for self-determination and individual liberties gained only two compromises in the final legislation. First, since the police were given sovereignty over all datacores, they were prohibited from seizing access to any datacore unless they possessed evidence that some crime had been committed. Second, to protect the privacy of ordinary citizens, any non-UMCP—or non-Security—ship was permitted to keep its sickbay log separate from its datacore; in effect, to operate its sickbay systems hermetically. Ordinary citizens might not be able to travel without id tags from which their files could be read by any UMCP or Security computer; they might not be able to control the contents of those files; but at least aboard ship they could sedate their insomnia or treat their warts without making that information available to the police.

The impulse toward chaos feared—loudly—that it was only a matter of time before the instinct for order began to supply ships with datacores which contained programming designed to override anything the ship or its captain might decide to do—programming intended to limit the ship’s choices, control the ship’s actions. In most circles, however, this fear was considered implausible. For the UMCP to prejudge the exigencies which a ship might encounter a thousand light-years from Earth would involve carrying the instinct for order to suicidal extremes.

Even the most frightened nonconformists, the most paranoid libertarians, had no cause to think that either the United Mining Companies or the United Mining Companies Police were suicidal.

CHAPTER       
4

S
he had so little time—and no idea what to do. Nick had said ten minutes, heavy g in ten minutes. And she knew almost nothing about her gap-sickness; she didn’t know how to control it.

She’d already disabled her zone implant’s capacity to simply shut her off, render her catatonic.

Fool.

Something else. She had to do something else, and do it fast. Nick wasn’t going to wait for her to master her panic. He was punishing her for her small triumph on the bridge, that was one reason he’d decided to go into full acceleration so quickly, even though he risked burning her brain away—

He had a gift for revenge.

At most only a minute or two remained. A minute or two before heavy g drove her completely insane.

The zone implant control was her only hope. She’d retrieved it from its hiding place; she had it in her hand. But which function should she use? She couldn’t guess what part of her brain had been damaged, where her vulnerability lay; which complex of neurons was responsible for the utter clarity with which the universe spoke to her, commanding ruin.

She couldn’t think.

Goddamn it, she swore at Angus, where are you when I need you?

Without warning
Captain’s Fancy
reduced spin; internal g drained out of the cabin. Standard procedure: it saved wear on the equipment and spared the crew the distress of being pulled in more than one direction at once; it also freed the thrust drive from fighting the inertia of spin.

She had no more time. Frantically she reached her bunk, rolled herself into it, pulled up and sealed the blanket so that she wouldn’t fall out when shifting g reoriented the furniture. That way the berth would serve her as a kind of g-couch, absorbing as much of her body’s stress as it could.

Almost at once a low rumble came through the hull—the muffled, sudden thunder of the thrusters.

In desperation she jerked up the control and hit the button which would flood her with rest, wash her away into sleep and oblivion. Then she jammed the black box under her mattress.

Right or wrong, that solved all her problems—at least for the time being. Panic and consciousness left her as if they were squeezed away by the sudden pressure which made her as massive as death. She filled up with relaxation as she filled up with weight; g itself felt like irrefusable slumber.

Nevertheless she went on cursing while her mind lasted.

Fool.

Nobody could stand the strain of full thrust for long: nobody aboard would survive unless Nick reduced g at regular intervals. If she’d asked somebody on the bridge how long burn would last, she could have set the control’s timer to let her go when acceleration eased.

But she hadn’t done that, not her,
fool
,
fool
, and now it was too late. She was lost. She wasn’t going to wake up until somebody found the control and switched it off.

Until somebody found the control—

—and switched it off—

The next thing she knew, the walls were moving on either side of her. Which didn’t make sense—and in any case her cabin didn’t have walls like that. But apparently it was true.

Other details also didn’t make sense. What was she doing upright? Why did she feel like she was hanging by her arms? She couldn’t account for those things. Yet they appeared as true as the walls.

But of course the walls weren’t moving: she was. Her boots dragged the deck. She was being carried forward; she could feel hard shoulders braced under her arms.

That pressure brought back her panic.

By the time she reached the lift, she was awake enough to struggle.

She was too weak. Immeasurable sleep still clung to her, sapping her strength; her muscles were clogged with transition. Nevertheless she continued to fight, feebly but stubbornly, until a voice nearby said, “Let her go. Let’s see if she can stand.”

The shoulders removed themselves.

She nearly fell on her face.

More by luck than anything else, she managed to catch herself against the door of the lift.

“Hang on,” the voice said. “You’ll be all right. We’re taking you to sickbay.”

It was starting to sound familiar.

Holding her breath for stability, she turned around and forced her eyes to focus on the two men who stood an arm’s length away, watching her.

One of them was Vector Shaheed.

The other may have been the same man who’d sat at the data console while she was on the bridge. She couldn’t be sure. He was large enough. And not very well put together—

Neither of them had the zone implant control. At least not out in their hands where she could see it.

Vector’s voice was the one that sounded familiar.

“Morn, say something,” he urged gently. “Convince us you aren’t crazy.”

She blinked at him and tried to think, but she couldn’t understand his question. She had too many of her own, too much fear: her brain was full of hubbub, like the sound of a mob coming closer. Her whole body ached; she felt like she’d spent hours in a slag pulverizer. G did that—g and helpless sleep.

With an effort, she croaked, “Why—”

Why am I here?

Why am I awake?

“We need to know if you’re still gap-sick,” Vector explained. “If you are, we’re going to take you to sickbay and run some tests. See if we can find a way to bring you out of it.” His smile was stretched too thin: he looked exhausted. “This is Orn Vorbuld.” He indicated his companion. “We don’t have a medtech aboard, but he has a lot of experience with sickbays.”

Still Morn missed the point; her brain was running too far behind her circumstances. She couldn’t get past the dilemma of being taken to sickbay.

Any routine examination performed by any decent sickbay’s cybernetic systems would reveal her zone implant. And
Captain’s Fancy
surely had a decent sickbay. If Vector took her there, he would learn the truth.

He already knew the truth. Didn’t he? Why else was she awake? He must have found the control and switched it off.

Helpless, weak, as good as beaten, she groaned on the verge of tears. “No sickbay. Please.”

“Why not?” He studied her closely, but without impatience.

In contrast, his companion stared at her as if he feared she were about to burst into flames.

Abruptly the strain of her conflicting panics—she was already caught, she was about to be caught—seemed to create a clear space between them like the eye of a coriolis; a place where she could think.

Maybe Vector hadn’t found the control. He didn’t act like he knew about it. Maybe she was awake because he’d taken her out of its range.

Maybe she wasn’t lost.

Sick with relief, she almost let herself sink to the floor. But she didn’t; she couldn’t afford to look that weak. Instead she cleared her throat and lifted her head to face her escorts.

“I don’t like sickbays. I’m not crazy. I just took too much cat. I didn’t know how long”—she could feel pain in all her muscles—“how long we were going to burn.”

Orn Vorbuld continued staring at her dumbly.

“Who gave you cat?” inquired Vector. His manner concealed the danger of the question. Nick hadn’t ordered drugs for her.

“I had it with me. From
Bright Beauty
’s stores. When I found out I had gap-sickness, I stole some.” Unnecessarily she added, “I didn’t trust him.”

Vector could probably guess that she meant Angus Thermopyle.

The engineer still scrutinized her. “You said heavy g brings it on. How do you know when it’s over?”

To protect herself, she managed a wan smile. “Do I look like I’m trying to engage self-destruct?”

Vector’s smile was habitual, almost inflectionless; she couldn’t tell whether he believed her or not.

Apparently he did. After a moment he stepped past her to the intercom beside the lift.

“I think she’s all right,” he reported. “I’ll take her to the galley and get some food into her.”

Without waiting for an acknowledgment, he turned to his companion. “You’re due for sleep, Orn. If you don’t get some soon, you’re going to fall down.”

Orn Vorbuld didn’t seem to realize he’d been dismissed. He squinted at Morn as if she were growing brighter in some way; soon she would be too bright to be looked at directly. With the air of a man reaching a difficult decision, he said to her, “You’re too much for Nick.” His tone was timid; it made the words sound like a ques-

One of his thick hands reached out and stroked her hair.

Then he walked away.

Morn ignored him. As soon as Vector said the words “galley” and “food,” she realized that she hadn’t had anything to eat since she’d left
Bright Beauty.
Her sleepiness was nearly gone, but her weakness remained. She needed food.

Vector took her arm gently and keyed the lift. As the door opened and he steered her inside, he remarked casually, “Orn is a genius of an odd sort. He’s a good data first, primarily because he can make computers walk on water. And you can tell just by looking at him that he knows too much about sickbays.

“Unfortunately he has the glands of an ape.”

Was the engineer trying to warn her? Morn dismissed the question. Her brain could only handle one thing at a time. Vector hadn’t found the control. He wasn’t taking her to sickbay. That was enough. Now she wanted food.

When they reached the galley, it was empty.
Captain’s Fancy
must have stopped burning some time ago, and the rest of the crew had already had a chance to eat. Vector seated her at the table, tapped his orders into the console of the foodvend, then went to begin making coffee.

Peripherally she noted how stiffly he moved. The rest of her concentrated on the thought of food and the smell of coffee. One thing at a time.

As soon as he placed a steaming tray in front of her, she ate without caring how good the meal was. At the moment she didn’t even care what it was.

He ate across the table from her. He must have been hungry himself, but he didn’t hurry. She finished well before he did.

Seeing she was done, he got up, filled two mugs with coffee, set them on the table, and sat down again. But he continued to eat in silence, giving her time to collect herself. Maybe he was trying to calm her for reasons of his own. Or maybe he was naturally courteous; or even kind. Whatever his motives, she took advantage of the opportunity he provided.

By the time he pushed his tray aside, she was ready.

She couldn’t match his mildness, but she tried to sound relaxed as she asked, “How long did we burn?”

“Four hours.”

Morn raised her eyebrows. “That’s a lot of g.”

Vector took a sip of his coffee, then agreed, “It’s about as much as some of us can stand—even with drugs. Too much, really. But we don’t want to get caught. We shut down thrust an hour ago. Right now, we’re scanning like mad. If anybody comes after us, we’ll have to burn again, whether we can stand it or not. So far—” He spread his hands.

“When we reduced g, Mikka tried to rouse you over the intercom. You didn’t answer. She knew you were still alive, she said, because”—his smile broadened slightly—“she could hear you snoring. But she couldn’t make you wake up. Nick wanted her to take the bridge so he could get some rest himself. Orn and I volunteered to see what we could do for you.”

Morn didn’t respond. She was busy thinking. Four hours at full acceleration was a
hell
of a lot of g. People died under that kind of pressure. Nick wasn’t just in a hurry: he was urgent; perhaps desperate.

And yet she’d survived the crisis. She’d slept through her madness; discovered a way to cope with it. That was hope—more hope than she’d expected. For a moment, it was enough.

To fill the silence, or to give her time to think, Vector continued talking.

“We’ve reached roughly two-thirds of our theoretical maximum speed. If we burn for another two hours, we’ll zero out thrust. For a ship this size, our drive is pretty powerful, but any engine can only produce so much push. After that, we’ll coast. Unless,” he added, “they chase us. In that case, we’ll all learn more than we ever wanted to know about heavy g. Without a reliable gap drive, our options are limited.

“Even if they don’t chase us, we’re still going to wish we had a reliable gap drive. No matter how much speed we generate, it won’t be enough. We’ll be coasting for a
very
long time.”

That comment pulled Morn out of herself. It sounded remarkably like an offer of information. Scrambling inside, she moved to take advantage of it.

“How long? Weeks?”

Vector studied his coffee. “More like months.”

She mouthed the word,
Months?

“We have to go the long way around. If anybody follows us—Com-Mine Security or the UMCP—we’re in big trouble. Actually, we’re still heading away from where we want to go. But if you knew the ship better—or if you had a particularly good inner ear—you could tell we’re running a course correction right now. It’s
very
gradual. We aren’t going to take the risk of encountering any other ships—or of getting caught—while we curve.”