“Enablement Station, I’ve taken control of this ship. I’ve rigged a self-destruct—it ties both drives and all our fuel into the weapons systems. You know enough about us to guess how much damage that can do. An explosion like that will probably take out twenty-five to forty percent of the station.
“I’m going to blow us all up unless I get my son back.”
Still no answer.
Morn chuckled as if she were delirious. “Enablement Station, if you don’t reply, I’m going to assume your answer is negative—and then I won’t have anything left to live for. Captain Succorso will kill me, if you don’t. You have five seconds. Starting”—she kept time with the toe of one boot—“now.
“Five.
“Four.
“Three.”
“Enablement Station to presumed human Captain Nick Succorso,” said the mechanical voice of Amnion authority. “What occurs aboard your ship? Answer immediately. There is falseness here. Do you seek to annul the mutual satisfaction of requirements?”
Oh, there’s falseness here, all right. Humans are like that. You can’t begin to guess just how much falseness there is.
“Enablement,” Mikka snapped rapidly, “this is command second Mikka Vasaczk. Captain Succorso is unavailable. He’s trying to find a way to stop this Morn Hyland.
“What she says is true. She’s sabotaged bridge function—she has control from the auxiliary bridge. Our instruments indicate she’s created a self-destruct.” Apparently Mikka also was willing to lie. “She’s turned the whole ship into a bomb, and she’s got her finger on the detonator.
“We urgently request you reply to her. Don’t give her an excuse to blow us up. She’s that offspring’s mother. Losing him has driven her insane. She’s going to kill us all if you don’t at least talk to her.”
Well, good for you, Mikka, Morn thought. Nick may have gone into meltdown, but you’re still using your head.
“Morn.” Over the intercom, Vector sounded tense, almost frightened. “Christ on a crutch, woman! What do you think you’re doing?”
Good. Vector was safe. He couldn’t have heard what was going on unless he’d finished hooking up the Amnion replacements and come out of the engine space to begin testing them.
“Vector,” she answered, “we’re hanging by a thread here. Maybe we’ll make it, maybe we won’t. At the moment I’m not sure I care which. But I think you’d better get that gap drive functional as quick as you can. If the thread holds, we’ll need to get out of here fast.” Just to make everybody nervous, she asked, “How good are you at going into tach cold?”
If he replied, she didn’t hear it. Instead she heard hammering on the door of the auxiliary bridge—
—and Nick’s voice over the intercom, shouting, “Goddamn you, Morn! This is my ship! My ship!”
—and an Amnioni saying, “Enablement Station to Morn Hyland. What is the purpose of this threat? The Amnion emissary Marc Vestabule reports that trade for the new human offspring was negotiated directly with presumed human Captain Nick Succorso. His requirements have been satisfied. It has been stated repeatedly that the ship Captain’s Fancy may depart Enablement Station freely. This is—translation suggests the word ‘honorable’ trade. Why do you seek to dishonor your dealings with the Amnion?”
“Listen to me!” Morn spat back at Enablement. Sudden fury fired through her, and she flung every gram of it into the communications pickup. “I’m only going to say this once.
“Captain Succorso may have traded directly with you, but he didn’t do the same with me! That ‘offspring’ is my son. Do you hear me? My son. Captain Succorso didn’t have the right to give him away, and I refuse to give him up!”
As she watched, a hot, red spot like a flower bloomed near the lock of the door. Almost at once, a trickle of slag started down the surface. A smell of ozone charged the air.
Liete Corregio began struggling inside her shipsuit, writhing to get her arms free.
“Maybe I’m insane,” Morn raged at the station. “Maybe that ‘force-growing’ process just cost me reason, not function.” That idea might give her threat credibility. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. I want my son back! I want him back now. If I don’t get him, I’m going to blow myself up, and this ship, and as much of your goddamn station as I can take with me, because I just don’t give a shit!”
With her free fist, she pounded off the communications pickup. Into the intercom, she shouted, “Mikka! Stop Nick! Do you hear me? Stop him!”
When the command second replied, she sounded worn out and beaten. “Have you ever actually tried that? I’m not sure it can be done.”
“Enablement Station to Morn Hyland. Your behavior is a violation of trade. For this, you have earned the unending enmity of the Amnion. As soon as you depart Enablement Station, the defensives Tranquil Hegemony and Calm Horizons will hunt you until you have been destroyed.”
Furiously Morn punched the pickup back on. “‘Unending,’ my ass,” she snarled. “It’s going to end in about five minutes if you don’t give me my son back.”
At the same time Mikka protested from the bridge, “Enablement Station, that’s not fair! We didn’t do this! She’s threatening all of us, not just you. You can’t punish us for what she does. If you start doing business like that, no human is ever going to trade with the Amnion again.”
The command second was still thinking, still fighting for Captain’s Fancy’s survival—and, incidentally, for Davies’.
The Amnion authorities ignored her. “Enablement Station to Morn Hyland,” said the flat, alien voice. “Proof of your self-destruct is required.”
Morn was ready for that, too. “Here it comes,” she rasped; ozone filled her throat. “Don’t miss it.”
Stabbing a few keys, she dumped a literal copy of every instruction and sequence in the auxiliary command board along Enablement’s transmission line. Everything. Including Nick’s priority codes. She was in no mood to be selective. Even with that information, the Amnion wouldn’t be able to stop her: they had no link to Captain’s Fancy’s internal systems.
Liete forced the seal of her shipsuit apart a few centimeters. Jamming her fingers into the gap, she began tearing the suit open.
Morn dropped her free hand to the impact pistol.
Abruptly the lock failed. A beam of red, coherent light flicked, then vanished. The door swept out of Nick’s way.
He blazed into the room like a solar flare. The cutting laser was his only weapon—the only weapon he needed. His scars were dark acid eating at his face; his eyes were black holes. He came one step past the doorway, two. As steady as steel, he aimed the laser at Morn’s chest and switched it on.
He missed because Liete threw herself across the barrel of the laser.
Red ruin hit the screen beyond Morn’s shoulder. The display melted blank before the beam was cut off.
With her weight on the laser and Nick’s arm, Liete pulled him to the floor. He tried to drive her aside with the butt, but she squirmed out of the way, twisted herself on top of him.
“Nick, listen to me!” she shouted into his face. Small drops of her blood splashed onto his features. “I’ll tackle her myself, if you tell me to! I’ll walk over there and jump at her. But hear me first. Listen!
“She’s keyed self-destruct to the chronometer toggle—and she’s got her finger on the toggle!”
When her warning reached him, Nick froze.
“If you touch her,” Liete continued, “if anybody touches her, she’ll lift her finger. She doesn’t have to be alive to do it. And we can’t stop her. She won’t let us get that close.”
“Besides,” Morn commented in a tone of murderous satisfaction, “I’ve got a gun.” She held up the impact pistol. “I’m not going to miss. Not at this range. Not when I’ve got a chance to kill the man who sold my son.”
“Then kill me!”
Nick swung the laser across his body, hammering Liete off him. Gasping as if he’d broken her ribs, she rolled away
.
“Kill me now!”
He surged to his feet. Facing straight down the muzzle of Morn’s gun, he pointed the laser between her eyes.
“I’m not going to let you have my ship!”
But he didn’t fire.
She didn’t, either.
She would have loved killing him. She relished the bare idea of tightening her finger on the trigger. She wanted to see his face crumple and spatter from an impact-blast—wanted it so intensely that the desire made her giddy.
Nevertheless she restrained herself.
“You bastard,” she sighed as if she no longer cared what he did. With a negligent flick, she tossed her gun at his feet. “Stop thinking with your gonads and use your brain. We’re all going to live or die in the next few minutes, and the only thing you can do about it is make us die faster.” She nodded at her finger on the toggle. “But if you’ll leave me alone, I might just get us out of here in one piece. If Vector does his job right.”
Awkward with pain, Liete climbed to her feet. New blood seeped from a gash on her cheek, joining the ooze from her forehead. Her eyes were glazed, barely conscious. She was able to stand, however.
Nick’s gaze widened as Morn discarded her gun; but his grip on the laser didn’t waver. Almost without transition, however, his scars had gone as pale as his face. He looked like all the blood was draining out of his heart.
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?”
&
nbsp; 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.