“You can give your people a chance to think that we did it together—that we planned this to get Davies and Captain’s Fancy away from the Amnion without ruining your credibility, and without being blasted. How could you have done it otherwise? You didn’t have anything except my son to sell for those gap drive components. But if you sold him, you couldn’t get him back without breaking your bargain. Your only hope was to run a scam—to use me against the Amnion.
“They won’t believe it at first. But they’ll start to wonder. They can’t be sure you would have killed me if Liete hadn’t stopped you. And I’ll back you up. Eventually they’ll have to believe it. As long as you treat me like we did it together. And you don’t hurt Davies. You don’t have to pretend you like him—or want him around. He isn’t your son. Just leave him alone.
“Think about that story for a minute,” she urged, steaming like dry ice. “Is there anyone in human space who’s ever had the nerve to run a scam like that on the Amnion?”
As far as she was concerned, all the glamorous tales about Nick Succorso were lies anyway. Why should this one be any different?
Abruptly he let go of her and pushed her away. Her legs failed; she fell back on the berth. Standing over her, he breathed so heavily that he seemed to be shuddering. The lines of his face were remorseless.
After a moment he whispered, “I’ll kill you for this.”
She met him squarely. “I know.”
“But I’ll pick a better time. Unless you don’t back me up. Then I won’t have any reason to wait.” He took another hard breath, let it out slowly. “Tell me how to restore my codes.”
Morn held his glare. “I want to see Davies. He needs me.”
“No chance,” Nick growled at once. “He’s the only hold I’ve got on you. I don’t trust this.” He slapped his pocket again. “For all I know, it’s a dummy, and you’ve got half a dozen others hidden around the ship.”
She shook her head. She didn’t care what he believed about her black box: she was suddenly afraid for her son.
“Nick, listen,” she said as steadily as she could. “He’ll go crazy by himself. Maybe he’s crazy already. He’s got my mind—he thinks he’s me.” For the second time, she pleaded, “At least let me talk to him.”
“No,” Nick retorted harshly. “You’ve been lying to me. You’ve been lying from the moment I first saw you with Captain fucking Thermo-pile. And I believed you. I thought you really gave yourself. But you were just using me. Like all the others.” He’d become as cold as she was—and as unreachable. “Tell me how to restore my codes.”
In hope and despair, she told him.
He nodded once, acknowledging the effectiveness of her gambit. Then he turned to the door.
When it opened, he faced her as if for the last time. There was a look of farewell in his eyes. Nevertheless his tone was raw and malign.
“You’re back on Mikka’s watch. But when you’re not on duty, I want you here. I’m going to keep you out of trouble. As soon as I can afford the time”—he indicated his pocket and bared his teeth—“we’ll find out how you like being on the other side of this thing.”
After he left, the door locked behind him.
Nursing the pain in her head, Morn stretched out on her bunk and tried to keep herself from wailing at the thought of her son’s plight.
CHAPTER 17
Half an hour later, the intercom chimed, summoning Mikka Vasaczk’s watch to the bridge.
After a moment the door control status indicators in Morn’s cabin winked green. Nick had unlocked her.
She hurried out into the passageway before he could change his mind.
She should have gone to sickbay. The pain in her head abated too slowly: each beat of her heart knifed through her as if she were in the grip of a cerebral hemorrhage. At alarming intervals her vision slid double; and the effort required to bring her eyes back to single focus made her sweat and tremble with old, familiar nausea. Stress or numbness caused her fingers to tingle. Maybe one of her occipital bones was cracked. Or maybe the top of her spine—or her brain itself—was bruised. If she developed a hematoma inside her skull, or along her spinal cord, she might drift into paralysis as the swelling grew.
Nevertheless she headed for the bridge, not sickbay. She was urgent to get her hands on the data board.
Without the support of her zone implant, she was so weak that she felt invalid, hardly able to walk. From time to time she blundered against the walls. In one of the surviving compartments of her mind, she wondered how deep her addiction to her black box had become; wondered whether she would have to go through withdrawal on top of her other problems. The weight of her limits threatened to overwhelm her. But she kept going.
She had too few chances left. She couldn’t afford to miss any of them.
When she crossed the aperture to the bridge, Nick met her with a grin that might have looked lascivious if it hadn’t been so bloodthirsty—or if his scars hadn’t been the pale gray color of cold ashes.
She was the last of Mikka’s watch to arrive. Except for Sib Mackern and Nick himself, the firsts had already left—no doubt desperate for rest. But everyone on the bridge turned to stare at Morn.
Obviously Nick hadn’t told them that she was about to resume her duties.
Mikka’s glower was unreadable, effectively blank. Maybe she could guess what Morn’s arrival meant—or maybe she didn’t care. The knuckles of her right hand were swollen and discolored, but she gave no sign that they hurt.
Scorz stared with his mouth open, as if he’d forgotten to breathe. The scan second’s eyes flicked between Morn and Nick; he seemed to wish he had a doppler sensor to gauge the meaning of Morn’s presence. The twisting of Karster’s features made him look like a boy with a math problem he couldn’t solve.
Involuntarily, caught by shock, Mackern murmured, “I don’t believe it.” A crisis of doubt stretched his features. “Morn, are you all right? He said—but I assumed—” Abruptly the data first shut his mouth as if he were appalled by his own thoughts.
“Are you serious, Nick?” demanded the twitchy helm second, Ransum. She was too tight with anxiety to keep quiet. “Do we have to work with her? She just about got us all killed.”
“You’re going to work with her,” Nick replied with a grin, “and you’re going to like it. If you think anything else, you don’t know me very well.”
“But what about the self-destruct?” put in Scorz. “If you let her touch the computers, she can still blow us up.”
“I told my watch,” Nick retorted flatly. “Now I’ll tell you. I’ve got my priority codes back. Vector has already dismantled the self-destruct.” Only the knotted muscles in his neck betrayed the strain of self-coercion. “It served its purpose. We don’t need it anymore.”
“Holy shit!” Karster breathed as if he’d been struck by a revelation. “You did it deliberately.”
Then he realized what he’d said. Turning back to his board, he began working studiously, pretending he was busy.
The implications in the air were too dangerous to be faced directly. The rest of Mikka’s watch followed Karster’s example. Suddenly only Nick and Mikka were left looking at Morn.
Nick, Mikka—and Sib Mackern.
Uncertainty tangled around the data first: he couldn’t find his way out of it. He seemed more distressed by Morn’s presence on the bridge than by anything else she’d done. As if the words were being forced out of him, he asked her, “Were you bluffing?”
The question sounded like an accusation. Apparently he preferred to think of her as an enemy.
Her head throbbed horribly, and she was tired of lies. For Davies’ sake, however, she faced Mackern squarely. “We needed those gap drive components. And I need my son. How else could we do it?”
Mikka might have challenged the lie. She’d been with Morn on the auxiliary bridge: she’d seen the truth for herself. Nevertheless she said nothing. Instead she folded her arms across her chest and went on gloweri
ng impartially. Earlier she’d supported Nick with her fist: now she supported him with her silence.
For a moment Mackern’s mouth opened in protest; sweat or tears filled his eyes. But then, looking suddenly frightened, he mastered himself. In a fumble of movements, as if he’d lost the habit of his limbs, he left the data station and made his way off the bridge.
Nick’s nod hinted at satisfaction as he turned to Mikka.
“You’re on,” he said, standing up from the command console. “If I’d known we could go this fast, I would have tried it long ago. Just hold us steady. Monitor everything. And work up a status report we can trust. I don’t want any surprises at this velocity. We’ll start thinking about deceleration tomorrow.
“Morn,” he continued almost casually, “try to analyze what happened. You’ve got our science data—Vector can give you whatever engineering has. If we understand this, we might be able to control it. We might even be able to do it on purpose. Knowing how to hit speeds like this would be worth a fortune.”
Morn accepted the order; but she didn’t move toward the data station. With the best approximation of nonchalance she could manage, she asked, “Nick, how is Davies?”
She was pushing her luck. A grimace twisted Nick’s face, and he growled, “How the hell should I know? I haven’t exactly had time to hold his hand.”
A tremor started up in her, threatening her self-command. She fought it down. Needles of pain probed her vision: she ignored them. Carefully she said, “That’s what I mean. You’ve been too busy to worry about him. Did you tell anybody else to take care of him? How’s he doing?”
Nick flashed a savage glare at her. He didn’t break the pact, however. Snarling under his breath, he slapped the command station intercom. “Liete!”
The command third answered a moment later, “Nick?”
“Morn is concerned about our guest,” he sneered. On this subject, he didn’t need to hide his anger. “He’s your problem. He probably wants food. He can have that. And he probably wants companionship. He can’t have that. If he gets loose, I’ll take it out of your hide. I’ve got enough problems without having to play foster parent for somebody else’s bastard.”
Quietly, so that her voice wouldn’t shake, Morn said, “Thanks.” Then she went quickly to the data station, sat down, and belted her fear to the seat.
She was in trouble.
Her head throbbed unconscionably. She couldn’t produce enough saliva to keep her mouth and throat working. Her fingers were numb and imprecise, resisting the data board. Under pressure, her eyes slid out of focus; and when that happened, her stomach twisted queasily. Her duties alone threatened to be too much for her—and yet she also had other problems to tackle.
She needed help; needed her zone implant. Every difficult thing she’d accomplished aboard Captain’s Fancy had been done with artificial strength and concentration. But now those benefits were denied her: she was left with only their cost.
Addiction. Limits. And the knowledge that without her black box she might never prove equal to the challenge of saving herself, or her son.
Sometimes her vision failed because she’d been hit so hard. Sometimes it failed because she was weeping. The board in front of her blurred, and the display screens dissolved in streaks.
Nick would call it a betrayal if she let anyone see her weep. But she couldn’t tell whether any of the people around her noticed her condition.
She had to do better.
She had to try. That necessity held: it was the cold, hard core of what kept her going. Davies was even more helpless than she was. Unless she found some way to reach him, he was lost.
She had to try.
At first the effort was beyond her. By themselves, the tests and data Mikka required would have been enough to use up her resources; but in addition she had to work on the analysis Nick wanted. She had no time to get anything else done; no concentration to spare; no strength at all.
But then, as unexpectedly as if he’d just come out of the gap, Pup appeared at her station with a mug of coffee and a plate of sandwiches.
“Vector said,” the boy mumbled, “you haven’t had time to eat anything. He sent this for you.” Self-consciousness affected him like chagrin. When she didn’t move to accept Vector’s offering, he added awkwardly, “He asked Mikka. She says it’s okay.”
“Hell,” Scorz drawled, “if I’d known I could get my meals delivered just by threatening to blow up the ship, I would have done it long ago.”
Ransum giggled nervously.
Morn took the coffee and food. Hiding behind her hair, she murmured, “Thank you,” and waited for Pup to leave.
When he was gone, she ate and drank, and became a little stronger. Some of the life returned to her fingers.
After a few minutes she started working on her personal problems.
She put the tests and information Mikka wanted up on one of the big screens and kept them moving to show that she was busy. On another display, she ran a search-and-compare program to look through Captain’s Fancy’s data for analogues to what had happened in the gap.
But her console readouts she used for research which had nothing to do with her duties.
Simplest problems first. Without much difficulty, she discovered where Davies was being held.
His cell was one of the passenger cabins. In fact, his room was only two doors from hers. That didn’t make him physically accessible: he would be monitored—and Nick would make certain that she had no chance to sneak out of her cabin. But just knowing where her son was eased her distress. And his circumstances could have been worse: Nick could have decided to secure him by sealing him in one of the ejection pods Captain’s Fancy used as lifeboats. In a cabin Davies could at least move around; keep himself clean; be comfortable.
She still didn’t know how to reach him. But trying to think about that problem stunned her sore brain. To distract herself, she went to work on the ship’s communications log.
That research was harder. She had to study the log without letting Scorz—or Mikka—catch what she was doing. And her duties still demanded her attention. The command second wanted to test alloy fatigue hypotheses, to learn what effect time dilation and particle stress might have on Captain’s Fancy’s hull. Some theorists had argued that as a physical object approached the speed of light it would bleed substance until it was reduced to light. If Captain’s Fancy was bleeding, Mikka wanted to know about it. And Morn’s search-and-compare programs repeatedly came up empty, requiring her to redefine their parameters. For an hour, she was unable to nudge the information she desired out of the communications computer.
Then she got it.
Nick had sent only one message since resuming tard.
It hadn’t been aimed at Thanatos Minor. Instead it had been beamed at the nearest UMCP listening post.
It was a demand for help.
Nick reported his position, direction, and velocity, and claimed—without explanation—that he was being pursued by Amnion warships. He reminded the UMCP that they couldn’t afford to let him be captured. He urged them to send a destroyer into forbidden space to save him.
No chance, Morn said to herself as she read the message. If you think you’re worth that, you’d better think again. The UMCP may have been willing to conceal an Amnion mutagen immunity drug from the rest of humankind; but for that very reason no one at UMCPHQ would have approved the risks Nick had just taken. He’d proven himself too foolish to live. Any ship the UMCP sent out would come as a threat, not as help.
After that, however, she couldn’t go on. Nick’s dealings with UMCPHQ didn’t give her any leverage with him, any way to make him let her talk to Davies. And she couldn’t imagine how to reach Davies on her own. Her watch wore to an end without the answer she needed most.
• • •
When Mikka signaled for Liete’s people, Nick arrived to escort Morn back to her cabin.
The fever in his eyes and the strain in his grin told her what his intent
ions were: she didn’t need to interpret the leer he forced toward her, or the significant way he tapped the pocket of his shipsuit. Without warning, her eyes filled with tears again, and the last energy seemed to run out of her muscles. Only her zone implant had enabled her to bear his touch; and now that control would be used against her.
“I hope she’s worth it,” Scorz muttered—not to Nick, but for Nick to overhear.
“You’ll never know,” Nick retorted a little too harshly.
Just for a moment Morn recovered her anger. She couldn’t smile for Nick, or act pleased, so she kept her part of the pact by making an obscene gesture in Scorz’s direction.
Karster and Ransum laughed tightly as she left the bridge.
As soon as she and Nick were through the aperture, he stopped grinning.
He held her arm as if he thought she would try to get away. Because she couldn’t, she tried to tell herself that she would be able to endure whatever he did to her; that for her son’s sake she could face being under Nick’s power the same way she’d been under Angus’. But she knew she was lying.
When they reached her cabin, he rasped, “This is where the fun starts,” and thrust her through the doorway.
Somehow, against the edge of her bunk, she turned to face him.
The door slid shut. He held her black box like a grenade, gripped it so hard that the cords on the back of his hand stood out.
He may have wanted her to plead with him. Fall on her knees and beg. That may have been what he needed.
If it was, he didn’t get it. Without control over her zone implant, she couldn’t do anything else for herself; but she could refuse to beg.
His fist started to shake. His scars were the color of dried bone, all the passion desiccated out of them.
Morn faced him, waiting for him to explode; waiting for her ordeal aboard Bright Beauty to begin again.
Abruptly he said, “I told you about the woman who cut me.”
His voice quivered like his hand.
She waited without blinking; almost without breathing.
“What you did was worse.”