At once Vector spread his hands as if to show that they held no more interruptions. “Please.”
Mikka scowled in chagrin. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—” She bit her lip. With a gesture that seemed to indicate the whole bridge, she added, “This can wait. We’ll still be here when you get back.”
No, it couldn’t wait. Morn needed to say it now; needed to make her intentions plain before another ship appeared on scan.
Although any movement might bring on the next surge, she straightened her back and squared her shoulders like a woman who meant to fill the command station completely. As firmly as she could with so much pain looming toward her, she announced, “I also want the GCES to hear my story.”
Vector and Mikka probably knew what she meant, but she explained it anyway.
“The UMCP gave me to Nick. I don’t know why. But they could have stopped me before I boarded Captain’s Fancy. Com-Mine Security must have consulted with them about me. Com-Mine wouldn’t have let me go without orders from UMCPHQ.
“The GCES needs to hear that. But there’s more.
“I know for a fact that Angus was framed. He may have committed every crime we can think of, but he didn’t do the one he was arrested for.” Arrested and convicted. “He says he can prove Nick was in collusion with Milos Taverner. He found a datalink between them before he was framed—a link he could have traced. I assume the evidence is in Bright Beauty’s datacore. But when the cops welded Angus and aimed him at Billingate”—she still didn’t understand any of this—“they sent Taverner along to control him.”
More than anything else, that single fact had precipitated an act of war.
“The more I think about it, the uglier it looks. It stinks of conspiracy. Which is just another way for the cops to destroy themselves.”
Distress began to rise around her again, shrilling along her nerves, drawing a wail from every crack and tear in her arm. She couldn’t wait any longer. With her left hand, she opened her belts so that she could drift out of the command station.
Pain and consequences. Better answers.
She held on to the back of the g-seat while she finished.
“I guess what I’m saying is that I want to get back to Earth. And when I get there I want to be free to make my own decisions. I want to be able to talk to the Council without interference from corrupt cops who’ve been ordered to stop me by Warden Dios or Holt Fasner.
“If that means I have to patch the drives with duct tape and fight cops the whole way home, I’m willing to do it.”
That was enough. Clear enough: painful enough. She had to go now. If she stayed, she would cross the line info self-punishment; into shame and rage.
When I’m in trouble, the only thing I can think of is to hurt myself.
She pushed off toward the head of the companionway.
Vector actually saluted her while she coasted across the bridge. “Have I ever mentioned that I like the way you think?” he called after her.
Morn reached the companionway rails and kept moving. She was sure he didn’t mean to stop her.
But Mikka did. Raising her voice to make Morn pause, she asked, “What if Angus won’t go along with it?”
Morn closed her fist on one of the rails, swung around to face the bridge.
“Then I’ll convince him to change his mind.”
One way or another, she was doomed to deal with Angus Thermopyle.
Moving one-handed, full of pain, as awkward as a cripple, she impelled herself in the direction of sickbay.
ANGUS
Angus Thermopyle awoke the instant Morn said his name. Without transition his zone implants imposed new conditions on him. The regular alpha of sleep was canceled: dreams he couldn’t remember stopped as if they’d never existed: his long escape from the loud ravage of the swarm and the excruciating forces of the black hole ended severely, as if it had been cut off with a knife. Emissions programmed by his computer swept safety away; snatched peace out of his synapses and ganglia. Morn said his name, and his entire neural state of being was transformed. He didn’t twitch or tighten: his body remained still. Nevertheless, from the depths of a fathomless, healing dark, he moved instantly into light and consciousness.
Morn spoke again. “Angus. It’s time to wake up. We need you.”
He heard the anxiety in her voice, the pressure of self-coercion. He knew her too fucking well. She loathed him: she’d always loathed him. If she’d consulted only her own desires, she wouldn’t have come within thirty light-years of him. She was here because she needed him. Trumpet needed him. The people she cared about needed him.
Yet she was here. She’d survived hard g and gap-sickness in the swarm; come through them somehow.
What had Davies said earlier? When he’d risked removing Angus’ datacore? Morn’s going to wake up soon. I can’t tell her this. After what she’s been through—Bitterly he’d protested, I can’t tell Morn that the only man who stands a chance of helping us is stuck in fucking stasis.
Something had happened to her. Something brutal. Like everything Nick Succorso and Angus himself had done to her.
And still she was here.
In a flash of disgust as swift as the effects of his zone implants, he realized that he was glad.
His eyes were open. For all he knew, they’d been open the entire time. Lying on his belly on the surgical table, with his right cheek leaning into the cushions, he had a clear view of the sickbay console and readouts.
The sterile light of the room illuminated the indicators distinctly. They told him he was awake. No shit. In addition they assured him he was healing rapidly.
But Morn was on the other side of the table. Maybe she couldn’t see that his eyes were open. Or maybe she hadn’t looked at the readouts yet. “Angus,” she said for the third time. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know if you can hear me. But it’s important. You’ve got to wake up.”
Damn right Trumpet needed him. He’s the only one who can repair the drives. That brain-dead little shit Ciro had sabotaged them. Carried out Sorus Chatelaine’s orders even after Vector flushed her mutagens out of him.
No one else could get past the lock Angus had set on most of the gap scout’s internal systems. He, on the other hand—
He had the necessary database in his head, ready and waiting on the other side of his datalink. He could rebuild the ship from scratch without consulting damage control. Hell, he could fabricate half the goddamn parts himself, if he had to—
He swallowed to clear his throat. He was going to say, Go away, you stupid bitch. I don’t care how much you need me. I don’t need you. He was going to say that and fucking mean it.
But it was bullshit. He didn’t want her to go away. He no longer had any intention of hurting her—
When he hurt her, he hurt himself.
That was the story of his whole fucking life. For years, decades, he’d raped and killed and beaten and destroyed with all his strength. And after every act of violence his choices had dwindled. His freedom shrank. No matter what he did, he sank deeper into his personal abyss—the void of terror and pain from which he’d always fled.
Until Morn released him from his priority-codes.
His programming still restricted him in more ways than he could count; but now no one had the power to compel his allegiance.
And he’d survived the crib. Alone outside the ship in his EVA suit, hammered by the energies of warships and the swarm and a black hole, he’d fallen into the pure, blind, helpless agony he’d always feared; and he’d survived.
He definitely didn’t want Morn to go away.
But it was more than that; worse than not meaning to hurt her. He didn’t want her to think she couldn’t reach him. Didn’t want her to feel helpless—
“I hear you.” His voice was a dry scrape in his throat. “Don’t push me. I’ve got a lot to think about.”
God, what was the matter with him? What was he going to do next?—beg her to fucking forgive h
im?
No. Not now: not ever. He was alive, God damn it, in spite of everything. He’d survived the crib. He was Angus Thermopyle, not some shit-crazy philanthropist who wanted or maybe even needed to apologize for living.
“Thank God.” Morn’s relief was as plain as a message from his datacore. Despite her loathing, she didn’t wish him dead.
We need you. You’ve got to wake up.
Which didn’t make any sense. Ciro sabotaged the drives? Then why the hell was Trumpet still alive? How had she survived? Where was she?
Davies had said, The cops are coming after us. Angus had heard that. We’re sending out a Class-1 homing signal. Then Davies had asked as if he thought Angus had the answer hidden away somewhere, Whose side is that cruiser on?
What the fuck was going on?
He decided to move. But he couldn’t: the table’s restraints held him. He flexed against them, then remembered what they were for. To keep him still while sickbay—and Davies—operated on him. To protect him from g.
“If you’ll let me out of these damn straps,” he croaked, “I’ll sit up.”
If you trust me that much.
While he waited, he asked his computer for a status report.
Internal diagnostics informed him that he’d suffered a dislocated hip (corrected), severe dehydration (treated), and massive hemorrhaging (stopped). Blood chemistry analysis reported appropriately high levels of metabolins, coagulants, analgesics, antibiotics. Prognosis: complete recovery in forty-eight hours.
All of his welded resources were functional. If he had to, he could cut his way out of the restraints.
But Morn had already begun to tug awkwardly at has fetters, releasing them one after another. The moment he was free, he rolled over and swung his legs off the table.
Pain lanced through his hip as he moved. Maybe he shouldn’t have tried to use his suit jets against the singularity’s pull. Or maybe that small extra support was all that had saved him.
Almost instantly his zone implants muffled the sensation. Only a residual throbbing ache remained to remind him that he needed more time to heal.
Anchored on the edge of the table, he looked at Morn for the first time since he’d left the bridge to risk EVA in the swarm.
She floated an arm’s length away. “We let you sleep as long as we could,” she said at once. Anxiety complicated her tone. She seemed to speak quickly so that she wouldn’t freeze; so that her loathing wouldn’t get the better of her. “But we’re out of time. There’s another ship on scan. Resumed tard five minutes ago. We’ve got id.
“It’s Punisher. A UMCP cruiser. The same ship we passed when we first reached human space.” She faltered, then finished, “The same one that ordered you to give Nick your priority-codes.”
She appeared to think Angus would consider that detail significant; but he didn’t. He wasn’t listening.
Rest had done her some good: he saw that at a glance. The young woman’s beauty of her face was gone, permanently eroded by suffering and desperation. Stark against her pale features, her eyes were as dark as caves. Nevertheless sleep or food—or both—had improved her skin tone and restored some of the elasticity to her muscles. It had eased the deep-cut lines around her mouth, between her brows, at the corners of her eyes.
He dismissed those details as soon as he noticed them, however. His attention was caught by the cast which encased her right arm in acrylic from shoulder to wrist; by the straps which closed her arm against her chest.
At the sight, black rage came to fire in him as suddenly as the explosion of an incendiary grenade. Only his zone implants kept him from launching himself at her, grabbing her, shaking her to learn the truth.
Nearly choked by dark flame, he demanded harshly, “Who did that to you?”
In about a minute the bastard responsible was going to find himself strangling on his own balls.
A small wince plucked at the side of her face. “I did it to myself,” she answered thinly. “That’s how I controlled my gap-sickness. While I was at the command board.”
To herself. He swore through his teeth. To herself? He believed her instantly. And he wanted to slap her.
“You’re crazy, you know that?” he rasped. “Out of your goddamn mind. You know what g does to you. How many times”—he started shouting, had to shout so that he wouldn’t hit her—“did I tell you to leave the fucking bridge?”
Her forehead knotted into a frown. She was afraid of him, always afraid of him. But she was also stronger than he was. Even when she was terrified, she knew how to concentrate.
“Angus,” she pronounced distinctly, “we don’t have time for this. A lot’s been happening. You’ve been asleep for—”
“I know.” His computer supplied the information. “Six hours.” More than enough time for every enemy he’d ever had to line up and take shots at him. “And before that I was unconscious. In stasis.”
His fury needed a better outlet. He hungered for violence. Anything that hurt Morn hurt him, and he wanted to repay it. Nevertheless he made an effort to match her. We need you. With the support of his zone implants, he imposed calm on the avid fire crackling inside him.
“Punisher is after us,” he went on. “You said that already. And Ciro sabotaged the drives. Davies said that.” Beyond question the thrusters were dead. He couldn’t hear the muted hull-roar of an active drive. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Where are we? How did we get here?
I saw Free Lunch die. Where’s Soar?
What do you want from me?
Morn caught her lip between her teeth as if she were restraining a retort. With a visible effort, she swallowed her impatience. After a moment she nodded slowly.
“I’m sorry. I forgot how much I need to tell you. And we’re out of time—” She grimaced. “But I can’t very well ask you to help us if I don’t explain what kind of help I want.
“I was asleep myself for most of it. But Davies, Mikka, and Vector told me the story.”
Angus wrapped artificial calm around his black fires and braced himself to listen hard.
“We got away from that black hole,” she reported flatly. The strain of suppressing her urgency made the darkness in the caves of her eyes seethe. “I guess that’s obvious. We knew you were still alive because we could hear you breathing over your suit pickup. By then I was”—she referred to her arm with a glance—“finished, so Vector brought you in. Mikka and Davies took us out to the edge of the swarm.
“But we were stuck. Both Punisher and Calm Horizons were there. How Calm Horizons found us I don’t know.” Punisher had followed Trumpet’s homing signal, of course—at least until Nick had turned it off. “The same way Soar did, I guess.
“Punisher and Calm Horizons blazed at each other the whole time. According to Davies, Punisher was trying to cover us. But Calm Horizons has that super-light proton cannon. And she knew where we were. We were hidden by asteroids, but she still fixed our position somehow. There was nothing Mikka and Davies could do. But just when Calm Horizons was about to smash us, Soar showed up and opened fire on her.”
Morn raised her hands to ward off questions. “I can’t explain that either.” Angus didn’t try to interrupt, however. He assumed she was telling the truth. If she lied, he could learn the truth by looking at Trumpet’s log. And for right now he cared only about the facts. Explanations meant nothing to him unless they helped him predict what his enemies would do.
Tensely Morn continued, “I guess Calm Horizons couldn’t handle both Punisher and Soar. She used her proton cannon to destroy Soar.
“Then she needed time to recharge. That gave us a chance. Before she could fire again, Mikka burned out of the swarm and hit the gap, got us away from Massif-5. We’re 1.4 light-years out in the middle of nowhere.”
Triggered by numbers, Angus’ computer began multitasking seamlessly. Involuntary astrogation databases scrolled through his head, extrapolating possible positions. Nevertheless he missed nothing Morn said; n
othing she appeared to feel.
She sighed. “So far, so good. Unfortunately no one knew what Ciro was doing. He must have thought he still had to obey Sorus Chatelaine. He found his way into the drive spaces somehow. Whatever he did to the drives knocked them out right after we resumed tard. Since then we’ve been coasting. Living on the energy cells.
“Now Punisher’s found us. And she’s overtaking us fast. Give her thirty minutes, and we’ll be in point-blank range. If she wants to, she can catch us in two hours—if she’s willing to put off deceleration that long and brake that hard.”
Through his datalink, damage-control schematics overlaid potential starfields. Diagnostic parameters and repair protocols marshaled themselves for use. But he also noticed the particular tightening of Morn’s muscles; the squirming shadows behind her gaze when she mentioned the cruiser.
She was a cop. She should have been fucking delighted to see a UMCP warship. But she wasn’t. She dreaded that vessel more than she feared Angus himself.
This was something he needed to understand.
“What does she want?” he asked as soon as Morn paused.
Her eyes flared bitterly. “How should I know?”
A feral grin twisted his mouth. “What does she say she wants? Is she talking?”
Morn sagged a little. Apparently he was pushing close to the sources of her urgency.
“Emergency UMCP hailing,” she answered dully. “We’ve been ordered to slow down, let her come alongside. Maybe her scan hasn’t figured out yet that we’ve lost thrust.”
Again Morn bit her lip. “This is difficult for me,” she said unnecessarily. “I’m torn—
“Angus,” she broke out suddenly, “Min Donner is aboard that ship. Min Donner.” The UMCP Enforcement Division director. “God knows what she’s doing there.” For a moment Morn sounded baffled; wracked by uncertainty. Then she tapped an anger of her own. Weeks of suffering and self-expenditure had whetted her to a knife’s edge. “Somebody saw this coming a hell of a long way off. She must have joined ship before Punisher left UMCPHQ for the Com-Mine belt.
“She’s doing all the talking. Like she thinks we wouldn’t listen to anyone else.”