Fortunately his task became easier then. Lift her onto the table with her legs downward. Secure a g-sheath and restraints around her, leaving her shattered arm free. Settle her wrist, forearm, and upper arm firmly into passive clamps provided by the surgical apparatus. Key the cybernetic systems for automatic diagnosis and treatment; automatic g protection.
Done. The g-sheath and restraints held her. The sickbay equipment would take care of her as well as it could.
He’d stopped breathing effectively. The gravity well dragged more air out of him with each exhalation, let him inhale less. By now he knew that he wouldn’t be able to regain the bridge. No matter what he’d said to Mikka, he couldn’t leave this room until Trumpet won free of the black hole. The effort would kill him.
He didn’t try to talk to her, tell her he was staying with Morn. The intercom was entirely out of reach. Instead he folded himself carefully to the deck, then released the table and slid to the lower wall. There he stretched out with his back against the bulkhead to endure the brutal seconds while Mikka Vasaczk fought to save the ship.
If Angus could still breathe, he’d already survived worse than this—much worse—without the benefit of a padded g-seat and belts; without so much as a wall at his back. But Davies didn’t really believe that his father was alive. If Angus continued drawing in air and letting it out, that was only because his smashed bones and pulped flesh didn’t have enough sense to die.
Three times his own weight squeezed Davies into the junction of the deck and wall. And the stress increased constantly. Soon he would be helpless to do anything except pass out.
But while he clung to consciousness he found that he couldn’t prevent himself from grieving for both his parents. Or for himself.
Nearly an hour elapsed before Vector brought Angus in.
By that time g had ceased to be a factor. Trumpet was well away from the black hole, moving easily at last toward the fringes of the swarm.
Sib Mackern had been left for dead. His friends hadn’t had any other choice.
Limping and sore, as if he’d been cudgeled from head to foot, Davies had returned to the bridge as soon as he could, resumed his place at the second’s station. He was there, working scan and communications while Mikka picked Trumpet’s way among the rocks, when his intercom speaker snapped to life, and Vector announced, “I have him. We’re in the airlock. As soon as it cycles, I’ll take him to sickbay.”
The former engineer sounded cruelly exhausted. An arthritic pain seemed to throb in the background of his voice. Still his tone suggested that he was proud of himself.
Davies was nearly exhausted as well; sore to the bone; drained of energy. More and more he felt like a little kid who might start to cry at any moment. What he wanted more than anything was to give responsibility for the ship to someone else. Return to watching over Morn and let the rest go. The need for revenge had lost its hold on him. He didn’t think he could afford the effort. His mortality was too heavy for him.
He couldn’t imagine feeling proud of anything he did.
Fearing the worst, he asked Vector wanly, “How is he?”
The unmistakable hiss of the airlock came across the intercom as atmosphere accumulated around Vector, transmitting vibrations to his helmet pickup.
“According to his suit indicators,” he answered, “he’s intact. Relatively. He’s unconscious and dehydrated. I can see some bleeding. There may be other problems.” No EVA suit had instruments to measure internal hemorrhaging, or the condition of vital organs. “It looks like all of his systems red-lined while he was out there.
“But his suit thinks he’s going to be all right.”
A sudden tightness closed Davies’ throat. For a moment he felt sure he was going to weep.
But he’d already made too many mistakes; let too many essential details slip past him. He needed to stay in control. Trumpet was far from safe. Soar might still be alive; might still be hunting the gap scout. That UMCP cruiser, Punisher, was presumably somewhere in the VI system, tracking Trumpet for her own—or Warden Dios’—dangerous reasons. And the gap scout had already been attacked by one strange vessel. Where there was one, there could easily be more.
Trumpet wouldn’t be out of immediate danger until she escaped the swarm and acquired enough velocity to go into tach.
Cursing to beat back his weakness, Davies rasped into his pickup, “Can you take him to sickbay? Morn’s there. She’s probably done by now.” How much could he ask Vector to do? He didn’t know. Roughly he added, “She should be in her cabin.”
“Take him to sickbay?” Vector echoed. He sounded vague, as if he were falling asleep. “Take Morn to her cabin? In zero g? I think I can handle it.”
Then he went on more strongly, “But I have to tell you, Davies, I’m tired of not knowing what’s going on. Being outside in that much g was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I didn’t think I was ever going to reach Angus—or keep my grip on him when I did. And I didn’t exactly relish the prospect of being sucked into a black hole. I’m not Deaner Beckmann.” His tone hinted at a fleeting smile. “It bothered me that I didn’t know why I had to do it. Whenever I think I’m about to end up dead, I can’t help wanting to know why.”
Slowly—she did everything slowly now that Trumpet was out of the well—Mikka tapped a toggle to open a ship-wide intercom channel.
“Tell him,” she said to Davies flatly. “And tell Ciro. They both need to know.”
She didn’t mention her own needs. Maybe she’d gleaned everything she could absorb from the log. Or maybe in some basic way she’d temporarily ceased to exist for herself.
Instinctively Davies shied away from her demand. He’d made too many errors, forgotten too much, served the ship and her people too poorly. Now he feared that if he thought about all the things he couldn’t forgive, his weakness might overwhelm him.
Nevertheless he knew that Mikka was right.
Precisely because he felt so weak, he had to act strong.
She watched him dully as he faced his pickup.
“None of this was my idea,” he rasped, coercing himself with fierceness, “or Morn’s. Angus set it up.”
Remember that. Remember who kept us alive.
“We thought we were following Soar out of the swarm, but she managed to get behind us. Then we ran into Free Lunch.” Davies had fired at her stupidly, without so much as focusing targ. “Morn told you about her. Angus wasn’t sure how to fight her, so we headed back into the swarm. He wanted to deal with Soar-first, before we had to face Free Lunch again.
“Angus didn’t leave us any choice.” Davies tried to make his meaning unmistakable. He hadn’t saved Trumpet himself: everyone aboard would have died if their lives had depended on him. “He set the ship to play dead—I guess he thought he could lure Soar in. He programmed everything he wanted. Then he took that portable matter cannon of his and went outside.
“Before we could move, Free Lunch caught up with us. She started firing at Soar” Grimly Davies described what he and Morn had done; what he knew of Angus’ actions. Then he grated, “It should have been impossible, but it worked. Free Lunch fell into the black hole. Maybe Soar did, too—I don’t know. I’m assuming she’s still around somewhere, trying to find us.
“Breaking out of the gravity well wasn’t easy. We never had a chance to let Angus come back inside. G shattered Morn’s arm.” He had no intention of explaining that she’d caused her own injury. He didn’t think he could bear to say that aloud. “And we couldn’t go back for Sib.” He swallowed once, fiercely. “By now he’s dead. If the black hole or the fighting didn’t kill him, he ran out of air.”
Brave, terrified Sib Mackern deserved a better farewell; but Davies couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“At the moment we’re safe. Sort of. We’re following our old course out of the swarm. We still haven’t caught any sign of Soar. Maybe we’ll know more when this rock starts to thin out, and scan can see farther.”
He
glanced at Mikka to see whether she was satisfied. But she wasn’t looking at him. She sat in her g-seat with her head back and her good eye closed, resting briefly while she listened.
His readouts told him that the lift had reached the central passage. Soon Angus would be in sickbay. After that Davies could key his board to call up a display of Angus’ condition from the sickbay systems. If he had the nerve—If he wanted to be reminded that no one was left to relieve him of responsibility.
He didn’t try to answer that question. Instead he returned his attention to the intercom.
“In the meantime,” he went on, “there are other things you should know.” Now that he was done remembering his mistakes—at least temporarily—he could speak more easily. “I’ve been learning my way around communications, and I’ve found two more details Angus must have programmed before he went outside.”
Decisions Angus had made without consulting anyone; not even Morn.
“One is that we’re already broadcasting Vector’s message. And I mean broadcasting. We’re spraying it in all directions as loud as we can. Nobody can hear us yet. There’s too much rock in the way, too much static. But as soon as we reach the fringes of the swarm, somebody is going to receive this transmission. Once we’re past the rocks, VI won’t be able to avoid hearing us.”
Not to mention every other ship in this quadrant of the Massif-5 system.
“Unfortunately that’ll make us very easy to spot. We might as well shout our location at anybody who wants to find us.”
Davies paused. Mikka blinked her eyes open, turned a look like a groan in his direction.
“That’s all right,” Vector put in. His helmet no longer constricted his voice. He was using the sickbay intercom. “The risk is worth it. We don’t need much time to make sure Valdor hears that message. Then we’ve won. It won’t matter if Soar gets us. It won’t even matter if Calm Horizons herself comes after us. VI will know about the immunity drug.
“Humankind will finally have a defense that works.”
Davies nodded wearily, even though Vector couldn’t see him. “In any case, there’s no point in postponing transmission until we’re out of trouble. Angus made sure of that.”
Mikka lowered her wounded face into her hands as if she were afraid to hear what was coming.
“The other thing he did,” Davies explained, “was activate a homing signal. A Class-1 UMCP homing signal, emergency trace-and-follow. It doesn’t just tell where we are, it gives coordinates, course, and velocity. If we go into tach, it includes our gap drive parameters and settings.” So that any UMCP vessel in pursuit would know where to reacquire the signal. “That must be how Punisher got close enough to reach us with a message. She knew exactly where we were.
“There’s probably some way to turn it off,” he finished, “but I haven’t figured out how.”
Deliberately he didn’t say, If Soar catches us—or if Calm Horizons actually comes after us—maybe we’ll have help. He didn’t dare. Like Morn and Vector, he knew too much about UMCP corruption. He couldn’t stifle his inherited respect for Min Donner, but he no longer trusted anything Warden Dios did.
If the UMCP director had really intended to free Angus, why had he first given Nick Angus’ codes?
“Shit,” Mikka breathed. “This is a mess. A fucking mess. Whose side are we on? What’re we supposed to do? Angus rescues us from Soar and Free Lunch, I still don’t understand how, and then he starts shouting so loud we can’t hide from anybody. God, that datacore in his head must have made him crazy.”
Davies reached out to silence the intercom, then stopped himself. “Vector,” he asked, “is there anything you want to say while you have the chance? Anything else you want to know?
“Ciro?”
Vector made a tired sound which might have been intended as a chuckle. “Words fail me,” he drawled. “I’m just glad I’m not trained for helm. Or targ. This is your problem. You’ll handle it better than I would.”
Ciro didn’t reply. He may not have heard the intercom at all.
Thanks. Davies took a bitter breath, let it out slowly. Just what I wanted to hear.
“In that case,” he muttered thinly, “you’d better brace yourself for another fight. Secure Angus in sickbay, Vector. Take Morn to her cabin, put her to bed. Then do the same yourself. No matter what we do, we aren’t safe until we get away from Massif-5.”
“Right.” Davies’ speaker emitted a small pop as Vector toggled the sickbay intercom.
Mikka kept the ship-wide channel open, however. As soon as Davies silenced his pickup, she leaned over hers.
“Ciro, did you hear all that? Are you all right? Ciro?”
Still Ciro didn’t say anything.
Was he asleep? Unconscious?
Or was Vector wrong?
If Sorus Chatelaine’s mutagen had become active—
Even now Mikka moved slowly. Fatigue and gloom weighted her movements as she undipped her belts and floated up from the command station. “I need to check on him,” she murmured as if she were talking to herself; as if no one else would care what she did. “If he’s all right, he would have answered.”
“Mikka!” Davies protested involuntarily. The thought of being left alone appalled him. He couldn’t do everything himself; the burden was too much to bear. “I can’t run helm!”
But the panic in his voice dismayed him. Despite his weakness, he swallowed as much distress as he could. “I haven’t had time to learn,” he said more quietly. “If Soar shows up while you’re off the bridge, we won’t stand a chance.”
She didn’t look at him. Squinting with anxiety or yearning, she studied the empty passage at the head of the companionway as if she were peering into a darkness as deep as the black hole Trumpet had left behind. Yet she didn’t move away. Adrift above the command station, she stared one-eyed at the passage like a woman who hoped that the singularity’s attraction might release some fatal truth, if only she waited for it long enough; wanted it enough.
Watching her, Davies thought his heart would stop. He’d come to the end of what he could do. No wonder Morn had chosen to go with Nick instead of turning herself over to Com-Mine Security. Her son would have done the same: her hunger for the artificial transcendence of her zone implant made sense to him. Like her, he didn’t know how to live with his limits.
“Please, Mikka,” he breathed. “Vector did the best he could. He said the antimutagen worked. I need you here.”
So softly that he barely heard her, she answered, “You don’t know what it’s like. He isn’t your brother. You don’t know him the way I do.
“Vector cured him, but he’s not all right. Sorus—She hurt him in places I can’t reach.”
Surrendering to the drag of her weariness, she sank back to the command g-seat. Her hand on the seat back settled her against the cushions. She closed the belts around her again. For a moment she bowed her head: she may have been praying. Then, burdened and slow, her movements clogged with loss, she lifted her hands to the board and began tapping keys like a woman who’d abandoned hope.
Places I can’t reach.
Davies didn’t think he would be able to put off weeping much longer.
Indications of battle reached Trumpet before she found the fringes of the swarm. Emissions on particular wavelengths leaked through the thinning barrier of stones: characteristic spikes of violence registered on the ship’s sensors and sifters.
Matter cannon, the scan computer announced across one of Davies’ readouts. Two sources, presumably blasting at each other. One delivered fire in concentrated barrages, pausing to recharge between them. The other blazed away less powerfully but more steadily, pouring out a nearly continuous stream of force.
One source—the one firing constantly—appeared closer to the swarm. The other lay more directly in line with Trumpet’s heading.
Davies routed everything scan gave him to the displays so that Mikka could follow it with him. But he didn’t say anything. She didn’t need
advice or instructions. After her years with Nick, she knew far more about actual combat than he did.
In any case, he felt too weak to talk. As far as I can tell, I’m Bryony Hyland’s daughter. The one she used to have—before you sold your soul for a zone implant. Driven by distress, he’d sneered at Morn; but he saw clearly now that he’d been dishonest with her—and with himself. If anyone had offered him a zone implant here, he would have accepted at once, despite all the time he’d spent watching her pay for her decisions.
Mikka herself was too weary to discuss the situation. Mutely they concentrated on their separate responsibilities.
First she slowed Trumpet’s pace to a walk. Then she began picking her course forward with extreme care, keeping the gap scout occluded by the largest asteroids she could find. From behind rocks charged with static, Trumpet could peek out toward the embattled ships while taking the smallest possible risk that either of them might catch a glimpse of her.
They could hear her already: that was unavoidable. If her scan could see their cannon firing, their dishes could certainly receive her transmissions. But her broadcast and the homing signal still reached outward by bouncing off quantities of stone. For that reason, the combatants might not be able to triangulate on her position.
As Trumpet eased past the horizon of each successive asteroid, Davies sharpened his efforts to learn everything he could about those ships.
The same radiant reflection which helped conceal the gap scout prevented him from determining their positions with any precision. Nevertheless the rough angles of the rocks did little to distort other kinds of information: thrust characteristics; energy profiles; emission signatures. Before Trumpet reached the last stones she could trust to cover her, stones several times her size, his computer gave him id.
As steadily as he could, he coded the display blips which approximated the locations of the combatants.
One was Calm Horizons. An Amnion “defensive” engaged in an act of war. The computer knew her too well to be mistaken.