This Day All Gods Die (3 page)

Of course she'd asked Vector for help. Why not? Why should she grant Ciro the simple decency of facing his shame and horror alone? No one had ever taken him that seriously.

And when the dilemma had been explained to him, Vector had proposed giving Ciro some of Nick's antimutagen. Vector had said, The drug is essentially a genetically engineered mi-crobe that acts as a binder. It attaches itself to the nucleotides of the mutagen, renders them inert. Then they're both flushed out of the body as waste. As he spoke, the man who'd once been Ciro's mentor and friend had sounded confident and calm, inhumanly sure of himself.

But his reassurances meant nothing. Ciro couldn't hear them through Sorus Chatelaine's threats.

Her words were infinitely stronger.

The mutagen stays in you, it stays alive, it works its way into every cell and wraps itself around your DNA strings, but it doesn't change you as long as you have this other drug in your system. The drug she'd offered him in exchange for his compliance. How long the delay lasts depends on how much of this other drug you have in you—

or how often you get it. You

can stay human until you 're cut off from your supply. After that you 're an Amnioni.

That's why 1 serve them, Ciro. If I don't, they'll cut me off from the antidote.

And that's why you're going to serve me.

When she'd injected him—

while Milos Taverner had held

him—

he'd grasped that she was telling him the simple truth.

He would stay human as long as his supply of the other drug lasted.

He knew what he had to do.

She wanted him to sabotage Trumpet's drives. Both of them. That was her price for keeping him human.

He would do it if he ever got the chance.

Kill everyone aboard; murder them—

Even Mikka.

Especially Mikka. The more she knew about her danger, the more stubborn her loyalty to Trumpet's, people became.

She stood by them despite the fact that her interference was going to kill him.

She didn't understand. How could she? She was stronger than he was. They were all stronger. Instead of leaving him alone—

hadn't he begged her to leave him alone?—

she'd

daunted him with her strength; smothered him with her devo-tion. She'd prevented and prevented him. Gripped him in her arms to comfort herself. And all the time his doom had continued counting down; approaching ruin.

Here, Vector had commanded when he'd returned from examining Ciro's blood in sickbay. This is a dose of Nick's antimutagen. He'd thrust a capsule at Ciro. Take it. Then come with me. I want to run a series of blood tests in sickbay. We'll be able to see it working. That way you'll know you're safe.

Ciro knew better. He'd always known better. But Mikka and Vector were too strong for him.

While Trumpet ran a relatively quiet part of the swarm, Mikka had compelled him to sickbay. At her urging, he'd looked at the results of Vector's blood tests; seen the nucleotide profiles shifting until they reached the range designated

"human normal." He'd listlessly watched a video display which purported to give a real-time picture of the mutagen immunity drug binding itself to Amnion RNA strings and carrying them away.

Vector clearly believed the results. Mikka believed them.

Beyond question Ciro knew better.

Sabotage the drives. Both of them. You've been trained in engineering. You know how to do it. You make sure Trumpet can't outrun me. She's finished if she can't run.

Back in his cabin, imprisoned by his sister, he continued waiting.

Twelve hours. Sorus Chatelaine had said, If I don't have what I want in twelve hours, you're on your own. That was all.

And only a portion of it remained. Whenever he was due for another capsule, he made Mikka release him so that he could go to the san: he swallowed his next dose of the temporary antidote privately. He was strong enough for that. But the dwindling store in his vial reminded him harshly that he didn't have much time left.

Was it already too late? He couldn't tell. Without warning Trumpet went into battle, and he couldn't have left his g-sheath no matter how much he wanted or needed to obey.

The whole ship was filled with the frying sound of matter cannon, the metallic clangor of impacts and stress. Acceleration g slammed the gap scout in one direction after another.

Any fight in an asteroid swarm was a navigational nightmare.

Judging by the sounds and pressures, this one was even worse than that. The intense, inexplicable alternation of quiet and violence gave the impression that Trumpet was fighting more than one opponent; in more than one part of the swarm.

Voices over the intercom offered partial explanations, but Ciro paid no attention to them. They were wasted on him unless they forced Mikka to go away.

Then the ship hit g so extreme that he blanked out. He no

•

longer knew what he needed, or why it mattered. His mind was filled with death and effacement; the last, absolute relief.

He thought he'd been spared.

But of course g eased again. Thrust went on roaring in the tubes, but the pressure receded to more human levels. Beside him in the bunk, Mikka recovered consciousness. Despite her cracked skull and her exhaustion, she was stronger than her brother.

"Shit," she breathed to him softly, as if she feared to raise her voice. "What the hell was that?"

He didn't know. He didn't even know why she troubled to ask him.

Minutes passed. Or maybe they didn't: maybe they simply fell to the floor and lay there, swollen as tumors; thick with mutation. Was it time for another capsule? Had he been unconscious that long? No. Like the gap, the darkness of too much g felt vast—

and yet it took almost no time at all. Otherwise it would have done him the kindness of killing him.

Would Mikka force him to suffer helplessly until the end?

Could she be that cruel? Yes, she could. Even though she was his sister: even though he was the last of her family left alive.

If their positions had been reversed, he would have treated her more gently.

"Mikka?" Davies' voice barked unexpectedly from the intercom speaker; desperately. "Mikka? Do you hear me? I need you."

Acid hope stung Ciro's heart as soon as he heard the stress in Davies' tone. Suddenly he knew he was going to get the chance Sorus Chatelaine demanded.

"And don't tell me you can't leave Ciro!" Davies went on as if in confirmation. "Let him do his own suffering for a while! I need you. I'm alone here!"

Mikka tensed. Her grip on Ciro became iron. What else?

She clung to him because she understood the danger he was in. The peril he represented. But there were other threats. Davies' voice made that plain. She was trapped by her own loyalty. She kept watch on her brother to protect Morn and the rest of them. But now they needed something else from her.

Ciro knew what she would do.

Davies wasn't finished. "Vector? Vector, move! I can't do this many jobs at once. I'm alone here! If I don't get some help, it's all going to be wasted."

Mikka shifted positions; faced Ciro with her bandaged glower. Conflicts twisted her familiar scowl.

He tried to make it easier for her. "You'd better go."

Tension clutched at his throat: his voice sounded like a croak.

"There isn't anybody else. I'll be all right."

That was a lie. He knew he was never going to be all right again. But it didn't matter. He couldn't afford honesty.

"I hear you." The shipwide intercom channel brought Vector's voice to the cabin. He might have been shouting to make himself heard over the hull-roar. Or else all this g had brutalized his sore joints, and he shouted against his pain.

"Tell me what you want. I'll do it."

"I can't," Mikka breathed through her teeth. "You're in no condition—

"

"Angus is outside!" Davies retorted. "He shouldn't be alive. But he left his pickup open. I can hear him breathing.

"Put on a suit. Go get him—

bring him in."

"See?" Ciro told her. "There isn't anybody else." He spoke as if her predicament were as simple as his. "Vector has to rescue Angus. Morn can't handle hard g. Sib is gone."

Even Nick was gone. Dimly Ciro remembered hearing someone—

Davies? Morn?—

tell Mikka that Nick and Sib had left

the ship to attack Soar in EVA suits. "I'll just rest until you come back."

"I'm on my way," Vector replied. Even when he shouted, he didn't sound like a man who understood ruin.

With an inward convulsion, Mikka made her decision.

"Do that," she ordered bitterly. "Lock the door after me. Seal your g-sheath, don't get out of bed." In spite of her wounds and exhaustion, she was too strong to ignore Davies' need—

or

Trumpet's. "I won't be gone long. Just until we get past whatever Davies is upset about."

Just until Ciro did what he had to do in order to save his soul.

When Sorus Chatelaine captured the gap scout, she would give him back his humanity. His sanity—

The g of Trumpet's acceleration canted the cabin steeply.

Brandishing her glare like a fist, Mikka rolled out of the bunk, planted her feet, and climbed to the door. When she'd reached it and keyed it open, however, she turned toward him again.

"I mean it," she insisted. "Don't get out of bed. You're safe here. As safe as it's possible for any of us to be. That mutagen is gone. This isn't something Vector could be wrong about. And you know him. You know he wouldn't lie to you."

She might have gone on. Pronouncing reassurances he couldn't hear. He could tell she wanted to. But she must have seen that he was out of reach. Abruptly she clamped her mouth shut. The muscles at the corners of her jaw knotted dangerously as she left the cabin.

Left the cabin.

Left him alone.

She wouldn't come back: he was sure of that. Not when Davies needed her so badly. I'm alone here. I can't do this many jobs at once. Ciro trusted her implicitly, even though she'd nearly driven him crazy.

His heart pounded like terror in his chest. A dozen different vitriols seemed to burn through his veins.

The mutagen stays in you.

Somehow he forced himself to wait until he heard the wheeze of the lift as it strained against the fierce g. That sound meant Vector was on his way to the airlock. The central passage of the gap scout was probably clear.

At once Ciro ripped his g-sheath aside, flipped off the bunk, and flung himself toward the door like an unleashed animal; frantic for freedom.

It stays alive.

A dread coded into the most primitive structures of his DNA compelled him. Out in the passage, he moved directly to the nearest emergency toolkit. He knew where it was: in his demeaning role as Trumpet's cabin boy, he'd been given the job of putting the C-spanner with which Nick had attacked Angus several days ago back where it belonged; and so he'd learned where all the toolkits were stowed: It works its way into every cell and wraps itself around your DNA strings.

If anyone else came into the passage now, they would see what he was doing. Mikka, Davies, even Morn: any of them would try to stop him. But he ignored the danger. There was nothing he could do about it except hurry—

and he was already

hurrying as much as the gap scout's thrust allowed.

From its g-case he retrieved the spanner. Flakes of dried blood and a crust or two of tissue still clung to its shaft: he hadn't cleaned it very well. But that didn't matter. Angus'

blood was still human. So was his scalp. Ciro tucked the spanner under his belt. Into his pockets he put a circuit probe, a small utility laser, an assortment of wires, clamps, and solder.

Then he went looking for an access hatch which would let him into Trumpet's drive space.

That's why I serve them, Ciro. If I don't, they'll cut me off from the antidote.

And that's why you're going to serve me.

The job would probably take a long time. He'd never seen the inside of the drive space; had no idea how the circuits and equipment might be arranged. And he didn't want to risk wrecking the wrong systems. The idea that he might cripple, say, life support and leave the drives active terrified him. He would have to probe and test and search until he found the right control panels. But he knew how to do that. Vector had taught him. And he carried the vial Sorus Chatelaine had given him. He could afford to spend a few hours carrying out his mission.

In his own way, he was as loyal as Mikka.

last to reach Warden's des-

ignated office—

one of the private, utilitarian, and above all secure rooms in which the director of the UMCP officially ceased to exist for the outside world. Koina Hannish and Chief Mandich were there ahead of him.

Koina sat against the wall to the left of the door where Hashi entered: a deliberately self-effacing position which may have expressed her awareness that Protocol had only a small role to play at the moment. Opposite her stood Chief Mandich.

The two of them approximately bracketed Warden's desk.

Obviously the UMCPED Security Chief was here to account for his own inadequacies in person; but he also represented Min Donner by proxy. His discomfort was plain in his refusal to accept a seat. Although his back was to the wall, he did nothing so casual as lean on it. He stood with his hands clasped behind him and his shoulders stiff. The heat which had mottled his face and neck earlier had subsided, but it remained apparent.

Warden sat behind his desk with his forearms braced on the desktop and his palms flat. His single eye glittered with penetration, complementing the resources of the IR prosthesis hidden by his patch. He was not an especially large man, but the strength of his frame and the immobility of his posture made him appear carved in stone; as unreachable as an icon.

Hashi shuffled quickly into the room, strewing apologies in all directions, although he hardly listened to them himself.

The door closed behind him: he heard the seals slot home, metallic and final. That sound gave him the unsettling impression that he'd entered the presence of ultimate questions.