Gap [1] The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict (16 page)

Almost immediately, he finds himself in the domain of the Gibichungs, a human tribe with failed ambitions and an imprecise moral sense. They are led by Gunther, unwed; his spinster sister, Gutrune; and his half-brother, Hagan (Alberich’s son and agent). The Gibichungs want glory through Siegfried; Hagan wants the ring. Toward those ends, they conspire to give Siegfried a potion which causes him to forget Brünnhilde. Then they send him to obtain Brünnhilde for Gunther (using the tarnhelm to appear as Gunther), for which his reward will be Gutrune’s hand in marriage. (This only works because Siegfried can’t remember ever meeting another woman, so to him Gutrune looks good.)

When Brünnhilde is brought from the safety of her magic fire and given to Gunther, she is quite understandably outraged by Siegfried’s apparent betrayal. She denounces him furiously. Hagan promptly gives Siegfried another potion which causes him to remember Brünnhilde and forget Gutrune; and as soon as Siegfried unselfconsciously admits the substantial accuracy of Brünnhilde’s denunciation, Hagan claims that revelation as an excuse to spear Siegfried in the back.

Even in death, however, Siegfried is so strong that no one can get the ring away from him. And Brünnhilde is at last able to see the truth of his behavior. To honor him, she commands a funeral pyre and joins him on it. As soon as fire melts the ring, the Rhine Maidens are able to reclaim their gold. The story ends with the natural order restored—and Valhalla burning in the background. So the gods are brought to an end, and humankind is freed from arbitrary external dominance to work out its own destiny.

(The logic here is profound, yet difficult to explain. Once Wotan’s spear was broken, the gods were, in effect, kept alive by the force of Alberich’s curse. They couldn’t die: The holder of the ring could be murdered, but everyone else who fell under the curse was compelled to yearn and suffer helplessly, as long as the ring—and therefore the curse—endured.)

So what, one might well ask, does all this have to do with ore piracy and space stations?

The answer is simple enough, as long as another, more concrete question is answered first. If Angus Thermopyle is a pirate who preys on human miners and shipping, to whom does he sell his booty? Ore isn’t cash, after all: It’s relatively useless unless it can be processed. And ore processing is capital intensive. Pirates like Angus and Nick would never exist—and the UMCP in turn would have no mandate to combat them—unless they had a market for their ill-gotten gains. So what kind of world lies behind
The Real Story?
Is humankind publicly divided against itself? Or is it in conflict with something else; something anti-human? Doesn’t the UMCP mandate against piracy derive its moral authority from the fact that the pirates are, in effect, selling out humankind?

Once such questions have been asked (in the context of
Der Ring des Nibelungen)
, the step from
The Real Story
to the next book,
Forbidden Knowledge
, is a small one. As soon as I began to think of the UMCP as legal gods threatened by the science fiction equivalent of shape-changing dwarves, I could hardly stop before I reached the wonderfully perverse notion of Angus and Morn as Siegmund and Sieglinde. And after that, as I’ve already indicated, my story became a gusher.

However, imagining Angus and Morn as Siegmund and Sieglinde suggests just how fundamentally non-literal my use of
The Ring
is.
The Ring
is not my story: It is one of the seeds from which my story grew. In several ways, I’ve moved a considerable distance from my source.

For one thing, there are themes in Wagner that I don’t want to pursue. His work contains a kind of structural sexism which leaves me cold. (The Rhine Maidens make me think of the scene in
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
where a peasant shouts at Arthur, “You can’t wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart pitched a sword at you!”) And I don’t respond to characters whose power derives from their “innocence”: To my mind, Siegfried is untrammeled by fear, not because of his innocence, but because he’s too stupid to live. Wagner’s idea that knowledge paralyzes power seems inadequate to me—witness the entire
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

For another, “Angus Thermopyle” alters the essential terms and possibilities of “Richard Wagner.” In a sense, setting
is
story—and the setting of
The Real Story
is science fictional rather than mythopoeic. Almost by definition, the conflicts of the story now become political rather than archetypal. Of necessity, every valence of
The Ring
is transformed. The most obvious result is that the onus of the story shifts from gods and dwarves to human beings. If human life in space is to be preserved, it must be preserved, not by All-Fathers and Valkyries, but by the descendants of the Gibichungs.

The consequences of this transformation are everywhere. Just to mention a few examples. My “gods” derive their ability to endure, not from immortality, but from their control over information. As a crime against the order which the UMCP is pledged to protect, incest would have no meaning; so there’s no reason for Angus and Morn to be siblings. And I use no direct analogues to either Wotan’s staff or Alberich’s ring—although Angus’s ability to edit datacores has interesting implications.

Yet
The Ring
is present in each of the four novels which follows
The Real Story.
When characters like Warden Dios, Min Donner, Godsen Frik, and Hashi Lebwohl take the stage, they come, as one might say, “trailing clouds of glory”—the ether of their Wagnerian avatars. And who better to represent the dwarves than the Amnion, who desire nothing less than the destruction of the natural existence of humanity?

Whether Angus and Morn can preserve their own humanity (not to mention their entire species) is a question which could only have arisen from the intersection of
The Real Story
and
Der Ring des Nibelungen.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen R. Donaldson
was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1947, and as the son of an American missionary spent his early years in India. After serving as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, he attended Kent State University, where he earned a master’s degree in English. Donaldson made his writing debut with the first Thomas Covenant books in 1977; the series quickly became an international bestseller and earned him worldwide critical acclaim. He was awarded the prestigious John W. Campbell Award as Best New Writer in 1979. He currently lives in New Mexico, where he is working on the fifth and final novel in the Gap series.

Read a special preview
of Forbidden Knowledge
,
the second volume in the Gap Cycle—
available now
wherever Bantam Books are sold

In FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE, Morn Hyland has traded the evil Thermopyle for the doubtful sanctuary of Nick Succorso, Thermopyle’s archrival. She now possesses the control to her own zone implant. That power, and her careful manipulation of Succorso’s desire for her, may be her only defense against a new enemy—the Amnion. An alien force that barters a bizarre reward for the right to mutate human bodies into alien forms, the Amnion is Morn’s most terrifying challenge yet—a challenge only slightly less daunting than the struggle to fight the insanity that seizes her whenever faster-than-light travel drags her through the madness of the Gap.

FORBIDDEN
KNOWLEDGE

Morn Hyland didn’t open her mouth from the moment when Nick Succorso grabbed her arm and steered her through the chaos in Mallorys to the time when he and his people brought her to the docks where his frigate,
Captain’s Fancy
, was berthed. His grip was hard, so hard it made her forearm numb and her fingers tingle, and the trip was a form of flight; frightened, almost desperate. She was running with all her courage away from Angus even though Nick never moved faster than a brisk walk. Nevertheless she clung to the zone implant control in her pocket, kept both fists buried in the pockets of her shipsuit to mask the fact that she was concealing something, and let Nick’s grasp guide her.

Over his shoulder, he told his second, “Assign her a cabin. Get her food. Cat if she wants it. God knows what that bastard did to her.”

As he strode away, Morn heard him say, “We’re leaving. Now.” He had hunger in his voice and a livid flush in the scars under his eyes. “Security doesn’t want us to hang around. That’s part of the deal.”

Morn knew what his hunger meant. But now she would have a little time to get ready for it.

Inside her shipsuit, she was sweating so fearfully that she reeked of it.

Nick’s second, a woman named Mikka Vasaczk, was in a hurry. Maybe she was eager to get to the bridge herself. Or maybe she knew she was being supplanted, and didn’t like it. Whatever the reason, she was brusque and quick.

That suited Morn.

Riding the soft pressure of hydraulics, they took the lift down—“down” would become “up” as soon as
Captain’s Fancy
undocked and engaged her own internal-g spin—to the cabin deck, which wrapped around the ship’s holds, engines, databanks, scan- and armament-drivers.
Captain’s Fancy
was luxurious by any standards, and she had more than one cabin for passengers. Mikka Vasaczk guided Morn to the nearest of these, ushered her inside, showed her how to code the lock and key the intercom. Then the second demanded, not quite politely, “You want anything?”

Morn wanted so many things that her desire left her weak. With an effort, she replied, “I’m all right. I just need sleep. And safety.”

Mikka had assertive hips; she moved like she knew how to use them in a variety of ways. The way she cocked them now suggested a threat.

“Don’t count on it,” she grunted sardonically. “None of us are safe while you’re aboard.

“You’d better be careful. Nick has better sense than you think.”

Without waiting for a reply, she left. The door swept shut behind her automatically.

Morn was running out of time.

As
Captain’s Fancy
floated free, g disappeared. The involuntary contraction of her muscles, bracing herself against undock, sent her adrift in the cabin.

In moments, however, the intercom piped a warning, and the bridge crew engaged the spin that produced internal g. The berth reoriented itself; Morn settled to the new floor.

Such maneuvers were familiar to her. Instead of distress, she felt simple gratitude that Nick engaged g so soon. Most captains liked to run a considerable distance out from dock—to be sure they were clear, and to refresh their recollection of zero g—before they took on the inertial inflexibility of spin.

Grimly she pushed another button.

Wrong one, wrong one, this button brought
pain
, the entire surface of her skin seemed to catch flame. Angus had told her that her father was flash-blinded when she blew up
Starmaster’s
thrust drive. His face must have felt like
this
, all fire and agony, every nerve excoriated beyond bearing.

Her muscles convulsed in a spasm of fire and remembrance. She stabbed wildly at the control, trying to hit CANCEL.

She missed. Instead, she got the button she’d already tried, the one that made her rest.

The effect astonished her. In an instant, she was transformed.

It was magic, a kind of neural alchemy. Out of absolute pain, it created something she needed more than energy, something which would enable her to deal with Nick—something which Angus had never tried on her, either because he didn’t know what it would do or because he didn’t want it.

In a sense, the combination she’d keyed didn’t ease the pain, not entirely. Instead, the hurt was translated almost miraculously into something quite different—a sensual ache which focused itself in the most sensitive parts of her body, so that the tips of her breasts burned as if they could be quenched by kisses, and her mouth and loins became hot and damp, hungry for penetration.

For several moments, she was so overwhelmed by the sensations of desire that she couldn’t stop them. She didn’t realize she was writhing hungrily on the berth until thrust ran through
Captain’s Fancy
and caught her off balance, toppled her to the floor.

Not much thrust: just enough to get the ship under way. Nevertheless the fall restored Morn’s self-awareness; she grabbed the control and canceled it.

Then she clung to the berth and breathed hard, trying to absorb the shock of sensation and discovery.

She’d found it, the answer to her immediate problem: a way of responding to Nick that wasn’t predicated on revulsion. For the time being, she now had the means to endure his touch.

And if, like Angus’s, Nick’s lust included the desire to inflict pain, she would be able to experience it as pleasure. She would be protected—

No wonder Angus had never used this particular function. It would have made her paradoxically invulnerable: accessible to everything his hate required; inaccessible to terror.

Now she could rest. At the moment, the only guess she had to make was, when would Nick come? How much time did she have? Thrust complicated the direction of
Captain’s Fancy’s
g; it made movement around the cabin awkward. All the more reason to roll into the berth, velcro herself secure, and let her exhaustion take her away. When he arrived, she would have to face his suspicions. Whatever they were. Until then—

She didn’t do it. Angus Thermopyle had taught her more things than either of them realized. There were still precautions she could take, ways to camouflage the truth.

She went back to work on her door lock.

This time she keyed the door to open on request—after a five-second delay, and a chime to warn her that someone wanted in.

Then, bracing herself against the tug of complex g, she moved into the san, peeled off the ill-fitting shipsuit Angus had given her, consigned it to the disposal chute, and took a long shower. She didn’t emerge until her arms felt leaden from scrubbing herself, and the san’s suction had dried her pristine. She couldn’t wash away her crime, but the shower made her skin more comfortable.

After that, she stretched out naked on the berth and hid her zone implant control under the head of the mattress; she pulled the blanket up to her chin and sealed the velcro strips.

While thrust took the ship away from Com-Mine Station—away from sanity and any conceivable help—she settled her clean body in the clean berth and began doing what she could to evolve contingency plans. Under the influence of the zone implant, she wouldn’t be able to think effectively. She had to prepare herself now for whatever might happen.

Maybe it was a good thing Angus had given her so much enforced rest. No matter how her head—or her soul—felt, her body really didn’t need sleep.

Captain’s Fancy
would do a certain amount of maneuvering when she left dock, getting clear of Com-Mine’s gear and grapples, the antennae and ports and gantries, the tugs and other ships; assuming attitude and trajectory for departure. That, presumably, would occupy Nick’s attention for a while. Of course, he wouldn’t be obliged to oversee any of this personally: his bridge crew could handle it. Mikka Vasaczk looked like she could handle almost anything. But most captains enjoyed the business of running out from Station. All that communication with Center and all those routine decisions could be made by habit; but it was good to refresh the habits, good to renew the priorities and necessities of command. In fact, most captains wouldn’t consider leaving the bridge until they were well outside Station control space, beyond the likelihood of encountering other ships. Morn didn’t expect that much diligence from Nick Succorso; but she did expect him to make sure
Captain’s Fancy
got away clean before he turned over the bridge to anyone else.

She would have that much time before he put her to the test.

She was right. Whether he intended to or not, he gave her that time.

When he came for her, she was as ready as possible, under the circumstances.

She had to compartmentalize her mind to do it. Angus Thermopyle in one box; everything he’d done to her in another. The harsh death of
Starmaster.
Her gap-sickness. Revulsion. Fear of discovery. Everything dangerous, everything that could paralyze or appall her, had to be separated and locked away, so that she could be at least approximately intelligent in her decisions.

Willpower was like the zone implant: it dissociated mind and body, action and consequence.

Angus had taught her that, too, without knowing it.

When the door chimed, she felt a new shock wave run through her, the brisance of panic. Nevertheless by her own choice she’d entered a world of absolute risk, where nothing could save her except herself. Before her door opened, she reached under the mattress and hit the combination of buttons her life depended on. Then she rolled over to face the man who’d rescued her.

Nick Succorso looked like he belonged in the romantic stories people told about him back on Com-Mine; like the stories were true. He had smoldering eyes and a buccaneer’s grin, and he carried himself with the kind of virile assurance that made very movement seem like an enticement. His hands knew how to be gentle; his voice conveyed a caress. Those things along might have made him desirable. But in addition he was dangerous—notoriously dangerous. The scars under his eyes hinted at fierceness: they showed that he was a man who played for blood. When his passions made those scars turn dark, they promised that he was a man who played for blood, and won.

He entered her room as if he were already sure that she could never say no to him.

Morn Hyland knew virtually nothing about him. He was a pirate, a competitor of Angus Thermopyle’s; as illegal as hell. And, like Angus, he was male. In fact, the differences between him and Angus were cosmetic, not substantive. He’d only been able to trap Angus by making use of a traitor in Com-Mine Security. That was all she had to go on.

Nevertheless she was in no danger of seeing him in romantic terms. She knew too much about what piracy—and maleness—cost their victims.

But instead of nausea, or panic, or the deep black horror which had lurked in the back of her mind, waking or sleeping, since the destruction of
Starmaster
, she felt a yearning heat arise. Her blood became a kind of liquid need, and the nerves of her skin seemed to leap into focus like a vid scan. That sensation helped her raise her arms as if she wanted Nick to come straight into her embrace.

He replied with a smile, and his scars intensified his eyes; but when he’d stepped into the cabin and locked the door behind him, he didn’t approach closer. He studied her hard, although his manner was relaxed. After a moment, he said easily, “We don’t have any choice about heavy g. That bastard did us damage. My engineer says we’ve got a gap flutter. We might go into tach and never come out. If we want to get anywhere, we’ll have to use all the thrust we’ve got.”

He paused; he seemed to want Morn to say something.
Better sense than you think.
But she didn’t respond. The problem of g could wait: it didn’t scare her now, not with this warm ache surging through her veins and every inch of her skin alive. As long as Nick was in her cabin, she was safe from gap-sickness.
Captain’s Fancy
wouldn’t increase thrust now: his hunger wasn’t something he could satisfy under hard acceleration.

She held out her arms and waited. She couldn’t see her own face; but the way she felt must have been plain to him.

He came nearer, balancing against the ship’s movement effortlessly. With one hand, he unsealed the blanket’s velcro and flipped it aside. In one of the compartments of her mind, she flinched and tried to cover herself again. But that compartment was closed; shut off. All of her body aspired to his caress. She arched her back, lifting her breasts for him.

Still he didn’t touch her; he didn’t come into her embrace. Instead he reached for the id tag on its fine chain around her neck.

He couldn’t read the codes, of course, not without plugging the tag into a computer. And he couldn’t access any of her confidential files without plugging her tag into a Security or UMCP computer. However, like virtually everyone in human space, he knew what the embossed insignia meant.

“You’re a cop,” he said.

He didn’t sound surprised.

Didn’t sound surprised.

Through the pressure mounting inside her, she thought, He should be surprised. Then she realized: No. He had an ally in Com-Mine Security. He could have known from the day he first saw her that she was a cop.