For several heartbeats Beckmann faced Nick. With his distracted, fanatic’s expression, he looked like a man who wondered whether he should trouble himself to step on an insect. When he spoke, however, he addressed Vector without dropping Nick’s gaze.
“What do you need, Dr. Shaheed?”
To himself Nick crowed abruptly, Got you! But he wasn’t talking to Beckmann.
Vector immediately named several items, but Nick ignored the tally of equipment and supplies. As soon the geneticist finished, Nick said, “That’s not all.” Now, Sorus. Are you ready for this? “Sib has a list of what we need from your engineering section.” The fact that this was the first Sib had heard of it didn’t worry Nick. “He can take care of that while Vector works. And I want Pup to req some of your food stores.” He felt Mikka flinch beside him, but he ignored her. “Naturally,” he told Beckmann, “you won’t give us anything until we pay for it. But I want to have everything ready so we can leave as soon as possible when Vector’s done.”
“Nick—” Mikka fixed her good eye balefully on him.
At the same moment Pup said, “Mikka?” in a frightened voice, and Sib began, “Nick, I—”
This time, however, Chief Retledge didn’t let anyone get in his way. Overriding Nick’s people, he asked sharply, “What’s your hurry, Captain Succorso?”
Deliberately Nick turned away from Retledge. Facing Mikka, he said through his teeth while his mouth smiled, “You knew it would be like this. Just trust Security. They’ll take care of your brother. You can guard the lab while Vector works.”
Before she could retort, he swung around to Sib. More harshly than he’d spoken to Mikka, he told Sib, “You know how much depends on this. Don’t fuck up.”
Tightening the screws on Sib’s alarm. Ensuring that Security would keep close watch on him, as well as on Mikka.
Making Pup look harmless by comparison.
Nick wanted to laugh out loud. But he couldn’t take the time to enjoy Sib’s sweaty dismay—not now. Instead he returned his attention to the chief of Security.
“I think what we have is pretty valuable,” he replied before Retledge could repeat his question. “If I’m right, then it’s also true that there are ships after us. Ships that want what we have. The way I see it, the sooner I get out of here, the less chance they’ll have to turn this place into a battlefield.”
To the director of the Lab, he remarked, “I would like to get started, if you don’t mind, Dr. Beckmann. One way or another, the chronometer’s running for all of us.”
Deaner Beckmann had made his decision: he didn’t hesitate to act on it. “Dr. Shaheed can use thirty-one, Sven,” he told one of the men in labsuits. “I’ll ask you to escort him there and help him settle in. As long as you consider it reasonable, let him have whatever he needs.”
Did the director mean, Keep an eye on him? Watch what he does? Nick didn’t know—and didn’t care. He had no intention of concealing the results of Vector’s analysis. Telling the truth here was the most dangerous thing he could do to Beckmann. With luck Soar might destroy the Lab for him after he was gone; Sorus might go that far to protect her Amnion masters from the threat of an antimutagen.
“Linne,” Dr. Beckmann went on, speaking to the woman who’d confirmed Vector’s identity, “tell Dr. Hysterveck to put his TCE simulation on hold until further notice. That should release enough power for the equipment Dr. Shaheed wants.
“Chief Retledge,” he concluded as he led the way out of the room, “I’ll leave Mr. Mackern and Mr.—ah—Pup to you.”
Nick began to think that this might be a good time to take up singing. His spirit needed music for its feral joy.
He wasn’t going to be content with cutting Sorus’ cheeks. He was going to leave the marks of his knife on her fucking heart.
SORUS
From the bridge Soar’s captain watched her target ease through the asteroid swarm and settle into the berth Lab Center assigned. She listened to the Lab’s operational communications until she heard that Nick Succorso and four other people had disembarked to explain their reasons for coming here to Deaner Beckmann. Then she thumbed her intercom and told the team she’d prepared to stand by.
She was morally certain that those four people with Succorso were all former members of Captain’s Fancy’s crew. Earlier she’d noticed that the manifest which Trumpet had transmitted to Lab Center made no mention of Angus Thermopyle, Morn Hyland, or Davies Hyland. Succorso was keeping their presence secret.
Unless he’d already gotten rid of them somehow? Sorus dismissed that idea. She didn’t believe that Succorso was capable of killing a UMCP cyborg. And he must have known that the Hylands were too valuable to kill. So he’d left them aboard the gap scout to keep them secret; keep them safe.
She didn’t care. Someone from Captain’s Fancy would suit her better in any case. Taverner would no doubt have approved if she could have put her hands on Thermopyle or the Hylands. However, some lesser member of the crew would be a better candidate for what she had in mind.
How long would Succorso talk to Beckmann? How much time would he need to convince the director of the Lab to give him what he wanted? That would depend on how much he was willing to reveal. If he told Beckmann he wanted to analyze a mutagen immunity drug, he would receive cooperation immediately. Beckmann might sacrifice half his installation for a share of information like that. But Succorso might not be willing to expose himself to that extent—in which case he would have to work harder to convince Beckmann to help him. And Sorus herself had told Retledge enough about what had happened to Thanatos Minor to make the Security chief nervous.
Succorso and Beckmann might spend quite a while arguing with each other before Trumpet’s people began moving around the installation; before they became vulnerable.
Sorus had been coming here for years. She and Retledge had known each other a long time: on one occasion they’d been lovers. And she’d told him Succorso would do anything he could to hurt her. She’d told him why.
At the moment there was nothing more she could do except wait and see whether Retledge took the hint; whether he believed it would be in the best interests of the Lab to let her know what Beckmann decided to do about Succorso. If or when he did that, it would be time to send out her team.
Milos Taverner studied her without blinking: his lidless eyes, yellow and slitted, had no human need for moisture, despite the humanness of his appearance. Not for the first time, he asked her, “What is your intention, Captain Chatelaine?”
His alien tone seemed insufferably steady. He sounded impervious to pain, disconcertion, alarm, or any of the other emotions she carried on her tired back like succubi.
He’d been standing beside her command station for so long now she’d begun to feel that he would be there for the rest of her life; that every decision she made would be scrutinized and challenged by alien exigencies; that every breath she took until she died would be tainted with alien pheromones. Tainted as she was herself: false in the same way. Taverner kept her company whenever she was on the bridge as if his real purpose here was to remind her of facts and compulsions which she could never forget.
She hated that. She’d been showing the Amnion for years that she was smart enough to understand the facts and act on them without their superintendence.
Nevertheless he wanted to know what her “intention” was.
She faced him bleakly. Even though she doubted that he would understand the connection, she countered, “Did you believe me when I told you Trumpet would come here?”
That had been an intuitive triumph. She might have felt vindicated, if she’d had the energy—and if she hadn’t had so much cold despair locked away at the bottom of her heart. By rights Trumpet should have gotten away clean. The gap scout had escaped Amnion space in a way which should have made it impossible for anyone to follow her.
After Soar had rendezvoused with Calm Horizons—to take on new equipment and a supply of specialized mutagens and drugs, as we
ll as to transfer Marc Vestabule and the shuttle crew to the big defensive—the Amnion vessel had moved off to track Trumpet’s emissions across the debris-and static-cluttered void while Soar had headed toward the frontier of human space. In the absence of any better ideas, Sorus had aimed her ship at the part of the frontier where the Com-Mine belt bordered Amnion space. That, she’d believed, was the most logical, as well as the safest, place for Trumpet to go. The belt offered almost any amount of cover to a ship on the run. And Com-Mine Station was nearby. The Station could provide assistance even if the cops weren’t ready and waiting.
Before she’d reached her chosen position, however, Sorus had heard from Calm Horizons. The warship had lost Trumpet’s trail. The astonishing accuracy of Amnion instruments had enabled Calm Horizons to follow Trumpet as far as a red giant well inside Amnion space; but there the screaming emissions of the star had proved loud enough to conceal the gap scout’s trace.
Once again Amnion thinking had been inadequate to deal with human cunning and treachery. Without Sorus to help them, the Amnion would have lost Trumpet. In all likelihood they would also have lost the present, unstable peace. Their undeclared war against humankind would have been doomed.
But Sorus had guessed well when she’d selected her position near the frontier. And after that her guesswork had risen to the level of pure inspiration.
She’d seen a UMCP cruiser arrive near the belt—presumably intending to meet and protect Trumpet’s return to human space. She’d seen the cruiser pause unexpectedly to exchange transmissions with some other vessel, one Soar’s scan couldn’t reach through the intervening rock of the belt.
And then Sorus had seen Trumpet arrive out of the gap, flare her own transmission in the direction of the hidden ship, and head away, plainly making no effort to contact—much less join—the UMCP cruiser. Almost immediately the cruiser had turned in pursuit of the gap scout. If Sorus had remained where she was, she might have caught sight of the hidden ship if or when that vessel emerged from the belt. But Trumpet would have been lost.
Soar hadn’t remained there, however. Trumpet’s strange behavior had given her the information she’d needed—the kind of information which made exalted guesswork possible.
“Give chase,” Taverner had ordered her. “Trumpet must be caught. The ship must be stopped. If you do not act now, they will attain reinforcements. Your weaponry will enable you to defeat the warship.”
The weaponry he’d referred to was Soar’s super-light proton cannon. Apparently he assumed—as Sorus herself did not—the cops didn’t know that Soar had formerly been Gutbuster: that the space-normal illegal which had once done so much damage with her proton gun now ran under another name—and was gap-capable. Sorus hadn’t bothered to argue with him. Or to obey him. Instead she’d issued orders of her own, building up velocity as hard as she could for an entry into human space and the gap.
“Captain Chatelaine,” Taverner had asked then as he asked now, “what is your intention?”
She’d answered him then—but only after Soar was well under way.
If Trumpet was acting directly—and willingly—for the UMCP, why hadn’t the gap scout simply tucked herself into the cruiser’s shadow and let the warship protect her all the way back to Earth? Sorus hadn’t been able to think of a reason. Therefore she’d jumped to the conclusion that either Succorso or Thermopyle had his own ideas.
Ideas which might not please the cops.
Instinctively she’d dismissed Thermopyle, not because he was insignificant, but because he was a welded UMCP cyborg, incapable of initiative or disobedience.
So what in hell was Succorso doing?
Taverner had told her that Succorso had a mutagen immunity drug which Hashi Lebwohl had given him.
What would she have done in his place?
Knowing that the Amnion couldn’t follow her—and that the cops couldn’t follow fast enough to stop her—she’d have headed for the best and most secure bootleg lab she knew, so that she could try to analyze and profit from her precious cargo before the cops or anyone else interfered.
Only one place fit that description. And it just happened to lie on Trumpet’s heading away from the Com-Mine belt.
Driving her crew to their limits, Sorus Chatelaine had brought Soar by great leaps to the Lab. To Deaner Beckmann’s brilliant—and brilliantly defended—exercise in futility.
Yet now, here, where any fool could see the benefits of leaving matters in her hands, Milos Taverner challenged her to justify herself again.
She didn’t expect him to understand her retort, but she stood by it anyway, grimly claiming responsibility for her own damnation.
At first he didn’t appear to comprehend her question. “‘Believe’ is not an Amnion concept,” he answered in his inflectionless voice. His mutation had taken place scant days ago, yet already he seemed to be losing his ability to think like a human—the very ability for which he’d been assigned “decisiveness” aboard her ship. But a moment later he added, “In your terms, however, it might be correct to say that we did ‘believe’ you You are human. Among humans false dealings are endemic. Perhaps they are congenital—an organic flaw. Yet we have the means to ensure that you are not false to us.” He placed no stress on the threat. He didn’t need to: it had been a fact of her life ever since she’d stumbled into the hands of his kind. “And I acceded to your judgment in this matter. Does that not indicate ‘believe’?”
Sorus snorted to herself. She wasn’t interested in Amnion hairsplitting.
“Was I right?” she demanded.
Taverner considered the question as if it weren’t rhetorical. “Your prediction of Captain Thermopyle’s actions has proved to be accurate. Your perception of his motives may also be accurate.”
“Then leave me alone,” she rasped. “Let me work. I’m still human. I know how to go about this. Having to explain myself all the time just wears me out.”
Taverner studied her for a long moment. His unblinking eyes and pudgy face gave no hint of what might be in his mind. Then, however, he surprised her by stepping closer to the command station, bending forward, and crooking one index finger as if he wanted her to put her head near his.
Taken aback, she leaned to comply.
In an oddly conspiratorial, almost human whisper, he breathed so that no one else could hear him, “Captain Chatelaine, you must be made aware that the Amnion have developed airborne mutagens. These are slow acting and somewhat crude, but they suffice to meet the present need.”
She stared at him. Airborne—Panic clutched her stomach. Only years of dark resolve and bitter discipline enabled her to keep herself from grabbing her gun and blasting him in the face so that he wouldn’t say what came next.
“Sacs of them,” he went on quietly, almost inaudibly, “have been set upon the scrubber pads of this vessel.” That must have been done while equipment and supplies were being loaded from Calm Horizons. “I am able to trigger their release. If you deal falsely with us, I will provide that your crew does not.”
Constricted rage and hopelessness boiled inside her, blocked from any outlet. “You bastard,” she murmured through her teeth, “that wasn’t part of the deal.”
What did I do it for, all these years of betrayal and harm, if you’re going to take even my crew away from me?
But her protest was a lie, and she knew it. She hadn’t done it for them: she’d done it for herself.
His response was as low as the murmur of Soar’s support systems. “Your statement is not correct. We did not enter into a ‘deal’ with you. You are ours. Until now your crew has been left human so that they might function in human space effectively. However, the present need transcends former policies.
“You do not wish to explain your intentions. Very well. Do not. Your humanness remains necessary. But understand the consequences if you deal falsely with us.”
Sorus understood. Oh, she understood. The Amnion had owned her for years. Taverner had only raised the stakes, no
t changed the nature of the game.
A sense of fatigue as crushing as stone settled into the curve of muscle where her neck met her shoulders. She couldn’t make him go away, so she sighed instead, “I told you. I know what I’m doing.” For a moment gray weariness seemed to fray the edges of her vision. Then she added, “And if I’m wrong, we’ll still have time to do it your way.”
Taverner appeared to accept her assertion. Nevertheless he stayed at her side while she waited to hear from Chief Retledge.
“Captain Chatelaine?”
The Security chiefs voice on her intercom sounded clipped and sure of itself. Retledge was like Beckmann in that respect; he didn’t try to second-guess his decisions when he made them.
Sorus shook herself alert. “Chief Retledge. Thanks for calling. Am I allowed to ask what’s going on?”
Milos Taverner gazed at her incuriously, as if he didn’t care what she did.
“Dr. Beckmann has given Captain Succorso and Dr. Shaheed permission to use one of the labs,” Retledge reported crisply. “The rest of Trumpet’s people are here, too. My men are keeping an eye on them.”
There: confirmation. Sorus had been right all along. Vector Shaheed was going to analyze Lebwohl’s mutagen immunity drug so that Succorso could start selling the formula. She resisted an impulse to shake her fist in Taverner’s face.
But Retledge couldn’t know what his information meant to her. His thoughts were elsewhere. He paused for an instant, then went on, “Captain Succorso didn’t mention you.” A note of grim humor came across the intercom speaker. “A curious omission, I think. If you believe him, the enemies he worries about are all somewhere else.”
Sorus cocked an eyebrow in surprise, but didn’t respond.
“Of the two of you,” Retledge went on, “I know which one I would rather trust. But I’m not going to let anything happen. Trumpet came in. She does what she’s here for. Then she goes. Clean and simple. Is that clear, Captain?”