The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (62 page)

“Any
problems?” she asked her command third.

The man
shook his head. “We found him in what Beckmann calls the refectory. He was
sitting at one of the tables, trying to fill out a req. You think he’s scared
now, but he wasn’t any calmer when we located him. I guess Succorso told him to
order supplies, but didn’t bother to let him know what they needed.” He glanced
to the other members of the team. “Security never saw us with him. They had
other things on their minds. As far as they know, he wandered off while they
weren’t looking.”

Sorus
nodded. “Good.” Retledge’s men would begin hunting as soon as they noticed the
boy’s absence, but the nature of the search would be conditioned by the idea
that Ciro had gone somewhere on his own — perhaps simply exploring, perhaps
acting on Succorso’s orders.

She
intended to put him back where he could be found before Security had time to
become urgent.

Saluting,
she dismissed her team. They filed out of the airlock behind her, leaving her
alone with Ciro and Taverner.

Taverner
hadn’t spoken. He might have been blind behind his eyeshades — blind and deaf,
unaware of anyone else’s presence.

She
considered suggesting that he do her dirty work for her.

But she
didn’t want that, in spite of her self-disgust. Her responsibility for her own
actions was all that kept her sane — and human.

“Ciro,”
she asked distantly, as if she were lost in thought, “do you know who I am?”

The boy
didn’t react. He stared white panic at her, betrayed nothing else.

“Do you
know who this is?” She indicated Taverner with her head.

Ciro
didn’t so much as flick his eyes in Taverner’s direction.

She let
a little weariness creep into her tone. “Why do you think I had you brought
here?”

A
moment passed before he decided to answer. “I thought you wanted crew. Ships
like this do that. I’ve seen Nick do it, when he was desperate. Steal crew —”
Slowly the muscles at the corner of his jaw tightened, thrusting out his chin. “I’m
not really a cabin boy. I’ve been trained for engineering.

“But
that’s not it.” Just for an instant his voice rose as if it were about to
break. Then he controlled it. “You aren’t interested in me. You said so. You
want to use me against Nick.” He swallowed hard. “Or
Trumpet
.”

Sorus
sighed to herself. So Ciro could still think, despite his alarm. And he had
engineering experience. That was good, from her point of view. But it would
make what was about to happen that much worse for him.

“That’s
right,” she answered. “In fact, you’re essentially irrelevant — I mean you
personally. I could have used anyone. You just happened to be available.

“Pay
attention to me now,” she told him as if she thought he might be capable of
attending to anything else. “Your life depends on it. I want you to understand
this situation. I want you to understand that I’m serious.”

He gave
a quick nod like a jerk. His eyes never left her face.

Taverner
stood without moving. Just once she would have liked to see him appear restless
or uncomfortable. The fact that the Amnioni didn’t fidget made her feel jittery
by comparison.

Harsh
with vexation, she began, “I’m Captain Chatelaine. This ship is
Soar —
we
were at Thanatos Minor when
Captain’s Fancy
went down. I’m the woman who
cut your Captain Succorso.

“I
serve the Amnion.”

Involuntarily
Ciro’s jaw sagged.

“I don’t
mean I work for them.” Sorus didn’t mind letting her anger and revulsion show.
She wanted to scare the boy — scare him right to the edge of paralysis. “I
serve
them, Ciro. I’m going to tell you why.

“Years
ago,” in a different life, when Sorus had turned illegal because that was the
path she chose, “this ship had another name. But she wasn’t gap-capable then,
and eventually the cops caught up with us. They couldn’t take us — she’s too
powerful — but they did us real damage. Enough to finish us. It was just a
matter of time, we were crippled. Limping to our grave.” She remembered it all
too well. “The next time the cops found us, they were going to tear us apart.

“But
the Amnion found us first. We were doing business with them anyway, and we
missed a contact. They came looking for us.”

Ciro
stared back at her dumbly; close to terror.

“They
weren’t nice about it,” she rasped. “When they saw how bad we were hurt, they
didn’t offer to help us. Not them. Instead they handed me an ultimatum. Meet
their terms or die. They were going to let us sputter away until we starved or
crumpled, unless I gave them what they wanted.”

Can you
guess what’s coming, boy? Do you know how much trouble you’re in?

“What
they wanted was to use me in an experiment. They’d developed a new — I guess
you could call it a drug — and they wanted to know if it worked on humans.
If
it worked, they told me, I would still be human when it was done. I could
have my ship back, they would save us, give us a gap drive, anything we needed.”

Sorus
paused to let some of the pain of the memory pass, then said, “If the
experiment
didn’t
work, I would turn into one of them.”

She
shrugged to loosen the tension in her shoulders.

“I
figured I knew what would happen if I said no. They wouldn’t risk a fight —
they didn’t want damage. So they would leave us alone until we were too far
gone to defend ourselves. Then they would board us and do their damn
experiments anyway. One way or another, we were all lost. The Amnion would get
what they wanted, and I would get nothing.

“So I
let them have me to experiment on.”

If Ciro
had showed any reaction, she might have started to yell at him. She needed an
outlet for the gnawing pain of her despair. But for some reason his focused,
unresponsive fear daunted her, like Taverner’s immunity to restlessness.

“It
worked,” she told the boy bitterly. “I’m still human.”

Again
she shrugged. “But they hadn’t bothered to tell me what kind of drug it was. I
didn’t find out until afterward.

“It’s
not an antimutagen, it’s more subtle than that. It doesn’t stop their mutagens.
It postpones them. Like a temporary antidote. The mutagen stays in you, it
stays alive, it works its way into every cell and wraps itself around your DNA
strings, but it doesn’t change you as long as you have this other drug in your
system. How long the delay lasts depends on how much of this other drug you
have in you — or how often you get it. You can stay human until you’re cut off
from your supply. After that” — she snapped her ringers — “you’re an Amnioni.”

She
shifted her feet, adjusted her balance against the asteroid’s light g.

“That’s
why I serve them, Ciro. If I don’t, they’ll stop giving me the antidote.

“And
that’s why
you’re
going to serve
me
.”

Sliding
her left hand into a pocket of her shipsuit, she brought out a loaded hypo.

For a
kid, the boy was quick. His face stretched and then crumpled as if he were
panicking; he flinched backward a step. But his retreat was a feint. Too fast
for real panic, he launched a flying kick at the hypo.

Fortunately
Sorus was ready for him. She shifted to the side, pulled her left hand out of
the way, blocked him past her with her right forearm.

The
force of his kick glanced toward Milos Taverner.

Without
effort, Taverner caught the boy’s boot, spun him in mid-air, and wrapped both
arms around him from behind.

Ciro
struggled fiercely, wildly; making no sound. But he might as well have been
trying to break free of an armcuff. The Amnioni had more than enough strength
to hold him.

Now
Sorus didn’t hesitate. If she did, the darkness of her own actions might well
up and drown her. Swift and relentless, she slapped a grip onto Ciro’s wrist,
stretched his forearm out from its sleeve to expose a patch of bare skin, and
jabbed her hypo into him.

In two
seconds the hypo was empty.

Nick
Succorso’s so-called cabin boy had approximately ten minutes of humanity left.

She
stepped back quickly, in case he tried another kick. But she saw at once that
he was done fighting. He hung rigid in Taverner’s grasp; gaped at the tiny red
stigmata which the hypo had left on his skin. Then he drew back his head and
opened his mouth for a scream of absolute horror.

With a
long sweep of her arm, Sorus struck him across the cheek. The blow did nothing
to ease her revulsion, but it stopped Ciro’s cry.

“I told
you to pay attention!” she barked. “
Look
at me.”

As his
head recoiled, he’d dropped his eyes to his forearm again; the mark of the hypo
seemed to pull his gaze down. When she demanded it, however, he slowly brought
up his face.

His
expression made her feel like shooting him.

Trembling
somewhere deep inside, she put the hypo away and took out a small vial.

“Think
for a minute, Ciro. If I turned you into an Amnioni, you wouldn’t be able to
help me. Succorso would never let you back aboard.

“You’re
right. You have a mutagen in you. But it’s slow. Are you listening? It’s
slow.
It won’t start to work for ten more minutes.

“
This
”
— she held the vial up in front of his face — “is the antidote. The drug that
keeps the mutagen passive.”

His
eyes seemed to claw at the vial as if he wanted to swallow it, plastic and all.

“There
are six capsules here,” she went on. “Each one lasts for an hour. I can give
you six hours of your life back right now. And there’s more where this came
from.
Plenty
more. Enough to keep us both human as long as we live.

“But I
want you to
think.
”

Abruptly
Ciro thrashed against Taverner, threw himself into a fury of resistance. But
the effort was useless: no doubt Taverner could have held Sorus as easily as he
gripped the boy. After twenty seconds Ciro slumped, dangling in Taverner’s
arms.

“You
want to know why we’re here.” Now he didn’t look at Sorus or the vial; his head
hung as if his neck were broken. “You want me to tell you.” His voice struggled
like a groan out of his constricted chest.

“Wrong.”
His dread touched fury in her. “I already fucking
know
why you’re here.
I know all about Shaheed’s research. So try again.”

He
flinched. “Then you want me to do something for you. Something to Nick. Or the
ship.”

“Think,”
Sorus insisted.

“You
can’t want me to try to kill any of them,” he breathed. She couldn’t see his
face; she could barely hear him. “I’m just a kid. I wouldn’t stand a chance.

“You
want me to do something to the ship.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t
know how to work the command boards,” he protested. “I don’t have the
priority-codes. And anyway I’m never alone on the bridge.”

She
nodded slowly. “That’s probably true. You’ll have to think of something else.”

He held
his breath for a moment, then let it out in a burst like a muffled sob. “You
want me to sabotage the drives.”

“
Both
of them,” she pronounced so that he couldn’t misunderstand her. “You’ve
been trained in engineering. You know how to do it.

“That’s
all. You make sure
Trumpet
can’t outrun me. I’ll handle the rest. She’s
finished if she can’t run. I’ll beat her, grapple on, cut my way in if I have
to, take what I want. Then you can come with me. I’ll keep you supplied for the
rest of your life.”

“Give
me the pills,” Ciro begged in a whisper.

“Not
yet,” she countered, tightening her fist on the vial. “There’s one more thing I
want you to understand.

“When I
let you go, you could tell Succorso what I’ve done. As you say, you’re just a
kid. You might decide to be a hero. Or maybe you’ll think I’ve been lying to
you.

“But
you can’t hurt me. Try to understand that. I’m going to leave dock as soon as
you’re off the ship. Without more of this drug, you’ll turn Amnion. Your
friends will have to kill you. And I won’t be any worse off than I am now. I
can still tackle your ship in the swarm, before she can run.

“Is
that clear, Ciro?”

She
thought that he would nod: he appeared beaten enough to agree to anything. But
she was wrong.

Still
without raising his head — still hanging as if his neck had snapped — he
objected, “What if it takes longer than six hours? I’ve never seen those
drives. I’ve never even seen how they’re accessed. What if I need more time?”

Now his
head came up, lifted by the pressure of his racing heart. “Or what if Nick isn’t
done? What if I’m stuck here and you’re out there when I run out of time?”

This
time his voice cracked like a cry.