Min started to say, Get me that readout. The words boiled up in her, hot with anger. But before she could speak, Porson let out a croak from the scan station.
“More traffic, Captain!”
“Shit,” someone growled; Min didn’t see who it was. She and Dolph snapped around in unison to face the scan officer.
Without transition Dolph dropped his harsh manner. Calmly he drawled, “Tell me about it, Porson.”
“She just resumed tard”—unsteady on the keys, Porson ran commands, clarifying and interpreting sensor data—“God, that was close! Captain, she came out of the gap only five thousand k off our stern. Heading the other way, away from forbidden space. Velocity .2C.” His voice cracked. “Into the belt, she’s heading into the belt, she’s going to hit—”
Min left scan to Dolph. Fire ached in her palms as she gripped the edges of the communications board and pulled her face down to Cray’s, demanded Cray’s attention. “That ship is transmitting,” she whispered intensely, as if she knew the truth; as if she were sure. “She’s here to use that listening post. Catch it, Cray. Whatever she transmits, catch it! I want that message.”
“She’s firing!” Porson blurted. “Laser fire, trying to cut that asteroid out of her way, she’s not going to make it!”
“Keep track of her,” Dolph ordered, deliberately nonchalant. “When you get a moment, check on that ship in forbidden space. And watch Free Lunch. I don’t want to let her off the hook.”
“Aye, sir.”
Compelled by Min’s intensity, Cray flung her hands at her console, fought to reorient Punisher’s dishes. An instant later she looked back up at Min, her face stricken with chagrin. “Missed it, sir. She must have started flaring right after she resumed tard.”
Must have known exactly where the post is.
Must have known that flaring the post was more important than survival.
“She’s turning!” Porson cried. “That’s impossible, nobody can take that much g-stress! They must all be unconscious. Or dead. But she’s clear! Veering out of the belt.”
“Then get it from the post log,” Min rasped. “Every ship in the goddamn galaxy can’t have codes to deny us access.”
“Aye, sir.” Cray hurried to obey.
A blip from her board snagged her attention. She gaped at her readouts, typed quickly, received verification.
“Sir,” she breathed, “that ship—the one that just passed us—She’s broadcasting a homing signal. A Class-1 UMCP homing signal, trace-and-follow, emergency priority. She’s—”
“I know.” Min felt that her heart had stopped beating. “Needle-class UMCP gap scout Trumpet.” Angus was still alive; his mission was still alive. “Worry about her later. I want her flare.”
Swallowing urgency, Cray went back to work.
Five seconds later she reported, “Got it, sir.” Her eyes were wide with relief.
Abruptly Porson jerked out, “Captain, the ship in forbidden space just started to burn! And she’s shifting course. Now on the same heading as that gap scout.”
“Trumpet,” Dolph remarked in a comforting rumble. “Director Donner knows her. What about Free Lunch?”
“Still drifting, sir. No effort to evade us. And she doesn’t want a fight—she hasn’t charged her guns.”
Min ignored everything around her. As if Trumpet’s message were all that mattered, all that existed, she focused on it. With one hand she indicated a communications readout: the other turned the station so that she could read over Cray’s shoulder.
Cray copied Trumpet’s transmission to the readout and stared at it with Min.
Min saw at once that the flare was coded for Warden Dios. Not Hashi Lebwohl.
No matter what Hashi thought he was doing, Angus still reported to Warden.
Grimly she concentrated on the message. With the ease of long practice, she sorted through the codes and id, the transmission and routing data, to the body of Angus’ report.
It said, Isaac to Warden Dios, personal and urgent.
Mission to Thanatos Minor successful.
Gabriel priority activated. Milos Taverner has gone over to the Amnion.
Personnel aboard include survivors from Captain’s Fancy: Morn Hyland, Davies Hyland, Nick Succorso, Mikka Vasaczk, Ciro Vasaczk, Vector Shaheed.
Amnion vessels in pursuit.
Morn? Only years of training and harsh experience enabled Min to contain herself when she saw Morn’s name. Morn was alive!
I have reason to think Morn Hyland may survive what’s happened to her.
Warden had told the truth. He hadn’t abandoned Morn. Risked her, yes: let her suffer. But not abandoned her. Apparently he’d never meant to abandon her.
I want someone to make sure she stays alive—That means you.
He was playing a deeper game—
Clutching Cray’s g-seat for support, Min followed Angus’ message as it scrolled down the readout.
Urgent, he insisted. The Amnion know about the mutagen immunity drug in Nick Succorso’s possession. It is possible that they have obtained a sample of the drug from Morn Hyland’s blood.
Morn must have fallen into the hands of the Amnion somehow. Who rescued her? And why was she still human? Did Nick, Nick Succorso, give her the drug?
Hashi, you moron! Didn’t you have the brains to see this coming as soon as you trusted a man like him?
Urgent. Bright with phosphors, Angus’ message moved relentlessly across the small screen. Davies Hyland is Morn Hyland’s son, force-grown on Enablement Station. The Amnion want him. They believe he represents the knowledge necessary to mutate Amnion indistinguishable from humans.
Min ignored Cray’s small gasp of fear. She clung to the readout, unwilling to be deflected.
Urgent, Angus continued as if he feared no one would listen to him. The Amnion are experimenting with specialized gap drives to achieve near-C velocities for their warships. Nick Succorso and his people have direct knowledge of this.
We will try to survive until new programming is received.
Message ends. Isaac.
“Director,” Dolph interrupted with a touch of asperity, “what do you want us to do? Free Lunch won’t wait around indefinitely. We’ve got an unidentified vessel burning toward us from forbidden space. And for some reason”—he smiled like a grimace—“Trumpet left us a homing signal to follow. Let’s make up our minds, shall we? One way or another, we need to do some burning of our own.”
Min hardly heard him. Morn Hyland. Alive because Warden had saved her. Morn with a zone implant and a force-grown son. And Amnion in pursuit. Presumably the ship from forbidden space was Amnion: the stakes were high enough for that.
And she was stuck on a fleeing gap scout with the two men who’d hurt her most; the two men she had most cause to fear.
I want someone to make sure she stays alive—
It was time: time for Min to prove herself; time to show that Warden had chosen well when he selected her.
She held up one stiff hand to silence Dolph. With all her authority in her eyes, she faced the communications officer.
“How many courier drones have you got left?”
Cray didn’t need to check: she knew her job. “Three, sir.”
“Use one,” Min ordered. “This can’t wait for regular service—not out here. That could take hours. Send a message to UMCPHQ. Code it for Director Dios. Give him a copy of Trumpet’s transmission. Dump in everything that’s happened since we reached this sector, he can sort it out. And include all the data you get from that homing signal—velocity, heading, gap parameters, whatever comes in before you launch the drone.
“Tell him”—at last she looked across the bridge at Dolph, met his questioning gaze with a glare like a promise—“we’re going after Isaac.
“Do it now.”
Instinctively Cray glanced at Captain Ubikwe for confirmation.
The muscles under his fat were strained tight; his eyes bulged with anger or doubt. Nevertheless he rep
lied with a short nod, and she went to work.
He held Min’s eyes as if he wanted to shout at her. “Let me be clear about this, Director,” he said in a voice full of raw harmonics. “We’re going after this ‘Isaac,’ whoever he is. You want me to turn my back on a possible Amnion incursion into human space, even though it might constitute an act of war. And you want me to turn my back on Free Lunch and her dubious contract with UMC First Executive Assistant Cleatus Fane, even though that might constitute an act of treason. Instead you want me to concentrate on what’s really important, which is a Needle-class gap scout crewed by people so crazy or stupid they can’t maintain a safe distance from an asteroid belt.
“Does that about sum it up?”
“No,” Min snorted. She understood his need to express his frustration—both for his own sake and for the sake of his crew. But she was near the end of her tolerance. “She came in so close because flaring that post was more important than staying alive.”
“Sure. That’s clear.” Cocking his head at scan, Dolph asked, “Porson, can you tell where Trumpet came from?”
“Just the general direction, sir.” Under the pressure of his duties, Porson didn’t have time to feel defensive. “Somewhere in forbidden space. But if you’re asking if she came from Thanatos Minor, the answer is, no. Her heading was all wrong.”
“Oh, well”—Dolph made a show of throwing up his hands—“that’s all right, then. As long as nothing makes sense, I’m satisfied.
“You heard the director,” he told his helm officer. “Bring us around on a pursuit heading. Triangulate from her homing data. As soon as we’re secure for hard g, give us as much acceleration as we can stand without falling out of our seats.
“Director Donner,” he finished dourly, “you’d better find a place to strap yourself down. This is going to be rough. We need a hell of a lot of thrust to match Trumpet’s velocity.”
Min nodded sharply. Her heart was full of yelling, but none of it was aimed at Captain Ubikwe or Punisher. Morn was one of her people. She’d been raped and tortured, she’d had a zone implant forced into her head, at least two murdering illegals had done whatever they wanted to her for months, the Amnion had her for a while—and the UMCP had set her up for it. The organization Min served had sold Morn when she most needed help.
Now Warden wanted her back. Wasn’t he done with her yet? How much more did he think she could endure?
“I’ll be in my cabin,” Min answered Dolph. “I want regular reports. If I make the mistake of falling asleep, wake me up. I want to know what’s going on.”
Captain Ubikwe opened his mouth to retort, but something in her face stopped him. Instead he murmured, “Yes, sir,” then turned his attention to the helm station and the display screens.
The helm officer had already opened a ship-wide intercom channel. “All personnel secure for g,” he announced. “We’re going to burn. Watch officers report when ready.”
He hit the acceleration warnings, and klaxons like distant cries went off everywhere.
As Min left the bridge, the entire ship seemed to echo with g-alarms and urgency.
ANCILLARY
DOCUMENTATION
GAP COURIER DRONES
Gap courier drones were marvelous devices, in their way. They conveyed information—news, records, and messages, contracts, financial transactions, and corporate debates, data reqs, id files, and cries for help—from one part of human space to another in a matter of hours; seldom in more than a standard day. Considering that the distances involved were measured in dozens or hundreds of light-years, communication within hours was an amazing achievement.
In essence, a gap courier drone was all power. Aside from its fuel cells, the negligible bulk of its miniaturized transmitter and receiver, and the virtually nonexistent weight of its SOD-CMOS chips—which carried astrogational data as well as messages and other information—it had no mass except that of its drives. Therefore it could be given thrust-to-mass ratios and hysteresis parameters which no manned vessel might hope to emulate. It could accelerate faster, attain higher velocities, and perform longer gap crossings than a manned vessel.
Indeed, gap courier drones might have performed their function in minutes instead of hours, if they hadn’t been required to execute maneuvers in real space: acceleration and deceleration; course shifts to avoid obstacles, or to correct the inevitable inaccuracies of gap crossing.
Under normal circumstances, a gap courier drone never arrived in physical contact with the transmitters and receivers it serviced. The instant it resumed tard within range of its programmed target, it fired off its cargo of data in intense microwave bursts, then immediately began deceleration. By the time the target was ready to transmit new informational cargo, the drone was positioned to commence acceleration back in the direction from which it had come. Thus the drone could shuttle between its targets with no time lost waiting. It was only required to stop moving when it needed maintenance, or when its fuel cells had to be recharged.
Gap courier drones were a familiar feature of humankind’s interstellar life. Only their cost prevented them from being truly common. For most ordinary purposes, however, individuals, corporations, and governments found it less expensive to commit their informational cargo to manned vessels which happened to be going in the desired direction anyway. This method of communication compensated for its relative inefficiency by being far cheaper. And the inefficiency was only relative: normal commercial traffic was regularly able to deliver informational cargo to its intended recipient in a few days, a week at most. Naturally most individuals, corporations, and governments chose to accept the delays of commercial traffic rather than to invest in gap courier drones.
For that reason, the United Mining Companies Police was much the largest single user of drones, although the UMC and the GCES as well as humankind’s distant stations kept them available for emergencies; and the UMCP used them primarily to service the listening posts which watched the frontiers of Amnion space.
Still gap courier drones were familiar, as common to public knowledge—if not to public use—as the gap drive itself. They were assumed to be steadily at work everywhere, helping the GCES to govern, and the UMCP to defend, the species’ interstellar territory.
As much as any other single human exercise in self-delusion, they contributed to the irrational perception that vast space was small enough for men and women to manage.
WARDEN
Warden Dios was as scared as he’d ever been in his life.
He’d planned for this occasion, prepared for it. In some sense it was almost predictable. Surely by now he ought to be ready. If he weren’t, he never would be.
Nevertheless he was scared to the bone; so frightened he wanted to beat his fists together and yell.
Unfortunately he couldn’t.
He’d just received Punisher’s—Min Donner’s—report. It scrolled remorselessly down the phosphors of a readout on his desk in one of his secure offices. But he couldn’t study it now because Koina Hannish, his new director of Protocol, sat across the desk from him, talking intently about matters which had consumed her attention since he’d appointed her. He had to finish with her, get rid of her, before he could absorb Min’s report.
He was scared because Min hadn’t used his exclusive priority codes. She’d allowed Punisher to code and route her message through normal UMCPHQ channels.
He had no reason to think anyone outside UMCPHQ Communications could read her transmission. Still “normal channels” meant that its arrival was common knowledge in both Communications and Center. In other words, the fact of the report’s existence had already been included in the routine data-sharing which occurred constantly between UMCPHQ and Holt Fasner’s Home Office.
The Dragon would hear about Min’s report soon—if he hadn’t already.
That was predictable: entirely in character for Min Donner, as well as for the relationship between UMCPHQ and Fasner. And Warden had schemed hard to bring it about.
>
Yet now that it’d happened, it appalled him.
He didn’t know what was in Min’s message; what it entailed; what it cost. The consequences of his acts were about to bear fruit he couldn’t control and might not be able to imagine.
Here the contest between him and his master began in earnest. From now on he would have no leeway to make ambiguous decisions, no opportunity for misdirection. If he couldn’t carry his old fight into the open and win, everything he’d striven for himself, as well as everything he’d asked of his people, would be wasted.
He needed to know what was in that message.
His fear wasn’t Koina’s problem, however. She hadn’t caused it, and couldn’t cure it. In fact, he had no one but himself to blame for it. He hadn’t warned Min Donner to be secretive; hadn’t ordered her to conduct Punisher’s operations as if they were in any way different than any other UMCPED action. Instead he’d left her free to contact him in a way which would inevitably come to the Dragon’s attention.
By an act of will, he let nothing of what he felt show on his face in front of the PR director. Years of planning and searching to recover his compromised integrity had taught him at least that much self-abnegation.
Immaculate and self-possessed, she watched him expectantly while he tapped a key to pause the scrolling of his readout. If she’d had a IR scanner like his prosthesis, she could have seen his turmoil; but of course she wasn’t afflicted with artificial devices and perceptions—or with artificial loyalties like the ones which had doomed Godsen Frik. Warden saw her clearly enough to know that she brought nothing into his office except her honesty; her commitment to her job.
Nevertheless she was tense; emanations of strain colored her aura. If she was honest, she wasn’t done.
Indicating his readout, he told her, “This is urgent. I need to deal with it. Is there anything else we should talk about before I let you go?”
He’d been so difficult to track down, so preoccupied by the subtle and dangerous implications of the information he’d been given by Hashi Lebwohl, that by the time he’d granted Koina a private conference, she’d accumulated a substantial list of matters for discussion. But he’d already covered a number of items with her, primarily Special Counsel Maxim Igensard’s demands for data and explanation, similar requests from such GCES Members as Vest Martingale and Sigurd Carsin, and generalized appeals for cooperation and pacification from Abrim Len. For the most part, he’d simply reassured her that he did indeed want her to carry out her duties as she thought right. In particular he’d reaffirmed the importance of “full disclosure” to the GCES—although he hadn’t offered to fill in any of the gaps which prevented her “disclosure” from being truly “full.”