Forbidden Knowledge (12 page)

“You know better than that,” Nick replied. “You’ve been with me a long time. You know the rules.”

“But you never brought a woman like her aboard!” Orn protested. “Not a woman who looks like her. You should have kept her locked up. I’m only human, Nick. I’m just a man—like you. What do you want from me?”

Nick’s grin was as feral as a predator’s. “I want you to say good-bye, Orn.”

At last some of the fearlessness Vector had ascribed to Orn showed in his voice. “Nick, don’t do this,” he said almost firmly. “If you touch me, you’re a dead man. I won’t have anything left to lose.”

As soon as he said that, Morn knew she would have to intervene. The virus:
a complete wipe.
Somebody had to tell Nick—

Somebody had to tell him he couldn’t afford to kill Orn.

Hugging her sore ribs, she glared at Orn Vorbuld and said nothing.

“You’re going to end up dead,” Orn concluded. “Even if you beat me. Which I don’t think you can do.”

In response, Nick threw back his head and laughed.

He was still laughing as he kicked Orn in the temple.

Orn saw the blow coming in time to slip the worst of it past his ear. Despite his ungainly appearance, he was fast. The ease with which he’d mastered Morn was no accident. And he was bigger than Nick by at least twenty kilograms; he had heavier muscles. The punch that countered Nick’s kick looked powerful enough to topple a gantry.

Nick caught the punch with a rising block, snapped a short blow into Orn’s belly, then danced away before the bigger man could grapple with him.

Orn shrugged off the pain as if it were trivial. “You fucker,” he panted. “You’ve got a death wish.”

Unsealing his shipsuit, he reached inside it and pulled out a knife with a long, black blade. Steady in one fist, he held it poised for Nick’s vitals. With his other hand, he wiped fresh blood off his face.

“Now, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” asked Nick sardonically. “Knives are against the rules. Do you think a little gut-sticker like that is going to scare me?”

Fast and deadly, he kicked again.

This time Orn was ready—and this time the kick was a feint. When Orn tried to slash Nick’s leg, Nick hooked his kick around and ripped the knife out of Orn’s hand with the heel of his boot.

The knife skittered away.

Stolidly Mikka Vasaczk stepped forward and picked it up.

Orn spat at her, “
Bitch!
” and flung himself at Nick.

For a moment Orn’s attack was so hard and furious that he seemed to have Nick on the defensive. Nick blocked with his fists and elbows, ducked and bobbed to avoid blows. One punch clipped his jaw with enough force to jam his teeth together loudly; another rocked his head back; a third made him stagger. He appeared to be going down—

Two or three people shouted warnings or encouragement—but not to Orn. Vector stood with his arms folded across his chest, shaking his head for his friend.

Morn watched the fight helplessly, so sick with anger that she could hardly stand. She was doomed either way. If Orn won, he would kill her—she was sure of that. Unless she found some way to give him what he wanted without being killed for it. And if Nick won, the whole ship was finished.

A complete wipe.

So why didn’t she do something? Why didn’t she try to stop the fight? Wasn’t it better to risk being raped a few times than to die? She’d saved Angus, hadn’t she? Why did she care how many other men who wanted to brutalize her she kept alive?

No, not again; not after Angus.

Let them die, she thought coldly. Let them all die.

Panting in hoarse, raw spasms, Orn drove Nick back against one of the tables. Nick was still on the defensive; he couldn’t retreat farther. He blocked hard and fast, misdirecting most of Orn’s force; but he didn’t land any blows of his own. No matter how well he protected himself, Orn was able to hurt him. One clear, solid hit would break his skull, or his neck—

“Stop playing with him!” Mikka barked suddenly. “He might get lucky!”

As if that were his cue, Nick lashed out with one foot; the side of his boot struck Orn’s shin.

The kick was hardly more than a slap: it was too short for power, had too little weight behind it. Nevertheless it made Orn shift his balance backward.

During that small instant, Nick hit him with three sharp uppercuts to the belly, three blows that had all the strength of his legs and all the torque of his shoulders behind them.

Orn stumbled—and Nick slammed the heel of his palm straight into Orn’s throat.

Gagging, Orn fell.

He tried to roll and rise. Nick promptly kicked him once in the stomach, once in the ribs, once in the forehead. The last kick was surgically precise: it lifted him up onto his knees and left him there with his head lolling as if he’d been positioned for execution.

Nick paused to evaluate his handiwork.

Orn couldn’t move. He could hardly breathe: he had broken ribs, and his larynx may have been damaged. His eyes were glazed; his mouth hung open, drooling blood. Blood made most of his face look like pulp.

With an air of formality, Mikka Vasaczk stepped away from the wall and handed Nick Orn’s knife.

Orn didn’t move as Nick Succorso slashed his face, three times under one eye, twice under the other. More blood streamed from his jaw and splashed onto his knees.

“Morn,” he gasped as if he were drowning. “Morn, please.”

Orn’s appeal made Nick turn to look at her.

She came close to saying, Give me the knife. Let me finish him. Her wish to see Orn dead was so intense that it nearly swept all other considerations away. She wanted him dead, wanted to kill him herself. Seeing him beaten now didn’t satisfy her; not at all. Instead his helplessness seemed to stoke a dark fire inside her, feeding her hunger for his blood.

Let me finish him.

But then a strange dislocation of consciousness came to her rescue. She could feel Angus Thermopyle in her, thinking her thoughts, saying what she wanted to say. Give me the knife. Let me finish him.

That stopped her.

As if she were recoiling from a precipice, she panted, “He told me you can’t kill him. You can’t afford to.”

Nick’s bruises made his face look congested with fury; he might have been planning to hit her himself. Like his eyes, his grin was sharp and murderous.

“He says he planted a virus in the computers,” she explained. “And he’s the only one who can work around it. He put it in the first day he came aboard. You’ve been at his mercy ever since. If you try to do anything without him, you’ll trigger a complete wipe.”

Her words stung everyone around her like a stunprod. Mikka and Pup went pale; Vector closed his eyes as if he were ill; men and women Morn didn’t know stared horror and dismay at Orn.

Blazing, Nick wheeled back to the data first. As if he didn’t understand, he demanded, “You did
what
?”

With his remaining strength, Orn nodded once. The cuts Nick had given him ran like tears.

“If that happens,” Morn finished, “we’re lost. We’ll never arrive anywhere. We won’t be able to find our way. We’ll coast out here until we go mad. Or starve.”

Poised in front of Orn, Nick asked Vector dangerously, “Is he capable of that?”

The engineer shrugged without opening his eyes. “Sure.” As always, he spoke mildly. Nevertheless he looked old and bleak, almost haggard despite the roundness of his face. “From his point of view, it was a reasonable thing to do. Like buying life insurance.”

Abruptly Nick started laughing again—a rough sound with death in it. “There’s no question about it, Orn, you motherfucker. I don’t get mad easily, but you have definitely found a way to piss me off.”

“Nick—” Mikka said. She may have been trying to warn him. Or stop him.

He ignored her. Whirling suddenly, he kicked Orn’s head so hard that everybody in the mess heard Orn’s neck break.

“Nick.” This time Mikka said his name like a moan. But he still ignored her.

Grimly he left the room. As he passed her, he said to Morn as if he held her accountable, “I hope they taught you something about computers in the Academy.”

Morn hugged herself and tried to believe that she wasn’t going to be the next person Nick killed.

CHAPTER       
6

I
n the aftermath of the fight, Morn Hyland felt weary and sore, drained to the bone.

She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off Orn’s corpse. Like everyone else in the mess, she studied him as if she were praying to see him move, hoping for some sign that he wasn’t dead. But he lay with his face in a small puddle of the blood from his smashed nose and the cuts Nick had given him. Everyone had heard his neck snap.

They were all going to die because of him.

Unlike the crew, however, she didn’t regret his death. Such men didn’t deserve to live, no matter how expensive it was to get rid of them.

And Nick had said,
I hope they taught you something about computers in the Academy.
At last she was going to get access to the ship’s systems—which meant that she might learn the answers to some of her questions.

The idea failed to lift her spirits.

How could she help save
Captain’s Fancy
? She was no computer wizard. And it wasn’t worth the effort. If the ship survived, so would she—and then she would have to go on dealing with men like Orn Vorbuld and Nick Succorso; fighting them off or surrendering to them until her black revulsion cracked its containers and devoured her mind. She should have thought of some way to save herself from Orn. She should have—but she hadn’t. It was beyond her.

“All right, boys and girls,” Mikka Vasaczk said harshly, “the party’s over. We’ve all got work to do. You know what the stakes are, so pay attention.”

Around the mess, people raised their heads. Some of them plainly wanted orders; they wanted to be told what to do, as a defense against their fear. Others were already too scared.

“What work?” The woman who spoke was an artificial blonde with sullen features. “I don’t know how to cure a computer virus. None of us does. We just use the systems, we don’t design them. Orn was the only one who could do that.”

Mikka replied with a smile as humorless as the blade of Orn’s knife. “Fine. If you think Nick’s beaten, you go tell him. All I want is a chance to watch. He’ll make you think Vorbuld got off easy.”

Without warning her voice cracked into a shout like a cry from her dour and unyielding heart.

“
Have any of you EVER seen Nick beaten?
”

Now she had them: every eye in the mess was fixed on her. There were no more protests.

Mikka took a deep breath to steady herself, then repeated, “We’ve all got work to do. I want the firsts on the bridge. Mackern, you’re promoted to data first.”

Mackern was a pale, nervous man with a nearly invisible mustache. His only apparent reaction to his promotion was a desire to disappear into the bulkheads.

“That makes you second, Parmute,” Vasaczk continued to the artificial blonde.

“The rest of you, get back to the overhaul. Shut it down—secure everything. I want us tight and ready for maneuvers in an hour. Anybody who isn’t done by then can trade jobs with Pup.”

The boy they called Pup met her threat with a flash of hope. For him, any trade would be an improvement.

“Do it now,” Mikka finished grimly. “The timer is running.”

Still looking ashen and old, Vector Shaheed pushed his swollen joints away from the wall. At once the whole crew started to move as if he’d broken them out of a stasis-field.

In ten seconds Morn and Mikka were alone with Orn Vorbuld’s body.

With an air of grim restraint, Mikka turned to Morn. Her eyes held a fierce gleam, fanatical and deadly. “This is your fault,” she rasped. “Don’t think I’m going to forget that. Don’t ever think I’m going to forget.”

Morn held Mikka’s glare without flinching. Everything was beyond her; for the moment, she didn’t care whether she survived.

“Goddamn it,” Mikka chewed out, “what do you use for brains? Do you do all your thinking with your crotch? Any imbecile could have told you not to tackle Orn alone. Hell,
Pup
could have told you. You should have talked to Nick before things got this bad. If you’d warned him in time, we might have been able to avoid this mess.”

Morn shrugged. She had no reason to justify herself to Nick’s second. And yet she found that she couldn’t refuse. The nature of Mikka’s anger touched her. She could imagine her mother being angry in just that way, if someone had threatened Morn.

Stiffly she asked, “How many times have you been raped?”

Mikka dismissed the question with an ungiving scowl. “We aren’t talking about rape. We’re talking about
brains.
”

Morn wasn’t deflected. “After a while,” she said, “you hurt so bad that you don’t want to be rescued anymore. You want to
eviscerate
that sonofabitch for yourself. Eventually you don’t even care that you haven’t got a prayer. You need to try.

“If you don’t try, you end up killing yourself because you’re too ashamed to live.”

Nick’s second opened her mouth to retort, then closed it again. For a moment she continued to frown as if nothing could reach her. When she spoke, however, her tone had softened.

“Go to sickbay. Don’t come to the bridge until you’ve done something about those bruises.” Unexpectedly she dropped her gaze. “If you feel better, you’ll think better. Maybe you can think of some way to limit the damage.”

Turning on her heel, Mikka left the mess.

Limit the damage.

Morn remained with Orn for a minute or two. She wanted to see if it was possible to feel any grief or regret for him.

No. For him her only regret was that she hadn’t been able to beat him herself.

Think better.

Because she saw no danger in it, she obeyed Mikka. After all, she was alone. Under the circumstances, no one was likely to intrude on her. She could easily erase the results of her examination from the sickbay log before she went to the bridge. And she needed the stim sickbay would probably give her: she needed artificial help to counteract her accumulating despair. Since she still didn’t feel reckless enough to carry her zone implant control with her, she would have to rely on stim.

Dully she went to sickbay and stretched out on the table to let the cybernetic systems supply whatever treatment they decided she required.

She got stim, as well as an analgesic which softened her hurts. In addition, one of the drugs stilled the nausea which had become a constant part of her life, so familiar that she was hardly aware of it. Distracted by that simple relief, she almost forgot to take the elementary precaution of checking the results of the examination before expunging them.

At the last moment, however, she remembered.

What she learned hit her as hard as Orn; revolted her as much as Nick; threatened her as acutely as Angus.

The records informed her that she was pregnant.

Her child was a boy.

The computer told her exactly how old he was.

Too old to be any son of Nick Succorso’s.

In her womb like a malignancy, dark and inoperable, she bore the child of Angus Thermopyle.

Well, she thought on a rising note of hysteria, that explained the nausea.

It was insane. What was she doing pregnant? Most spacefaring women made sure they were infertile, whether they wanted children or not. Life in space was too fragile: any risk to themselves was a risk to the entire ship. In any case, no ship—except, perhaps, the most luxurious passenger liners—had the facilities for rearing infants. Most women found the whole prospect too horrible to contemplate. If they wanted children, they had them on station.

But for Morn the problem was infinitely worse. Like
Captain’s Fancy
, her baby was doomed. The end would almost certainly not be quick, however: it would be protracted and appalling. Once the computers wiped, the ship would lose astrogation, navigation. The vessel itself might coast the black void until the end of time—a sailing coffin because everyone aboard had died of thirst or hunger. But that wouldn’t happen for many long months. In the meantime Morn’s plight would deteriorate steadily.

As her pregnancy progressed, she would become less attractive to Nick—less worth preserving. She would become physically more vulnerable. And the closer Nick and his people came to death, the more they would blame her for it. In all likelihood, she and her baby would be the first to die.

And this was Angus’ son, Angus Thermopyle’s child. The fetus was already as brutal as his father, damaging her survival in the same way that Angus had damaged her spirit.

How could she be pregnant? What had happened to the long-term birth control injections she’d accepted routinely back in the Academy? They were supposed to be good for up to a year, and she’d had her last one only—only—

Only a year ago.

Without warning she began to weep.

Oh, shit!

She’d forgotten all about getting another injection. Her periods had never been particularly difficult. And from the Academy she’d been assigned to
Starmaster
, her father’s command, a ship on which most of the people she’d lived and worked with were family. She hadn’t wanted sex with anybody aboard. Engrossed in the excitements and responsibilities of her first post, she hadn’t given much thought to sex at all.

An immediate abortion was the only sane solution. The sickbay systems could do it in a matter of minutes.

But she couldn’t force her hands to key in the necessary commands. She couldn’t force herself to lie back down on the surgical table.

As suddenly as it flared up, her weeping subsided.

Instead of fear or dismay or outrage, she was filled with a strange numbness—a loss of sensation as inexorable as the effects of her zone implant. She was in shock. Orn’s attack; the fight; the danger to
Captain’s Fancy
: her emotional resources were exhausted. The decision to have an abortion was beyond her.

Fortunately it could be postponed. Nothing had to be decided right this minute. The sickbay could rid her of the fetus whenever she wanted.

Angus’ son.

Numb or not, she was too ashamed—and too afraid—of what she carried to risk letting anyone else find out about it. However, Angus had taught her more than she realized. She didn’t expunge the sickbay log. That was too risky: it might attract suspicion. Instead she edited the records so that whoever chanced to check them would see she’d come here as ordered, but wouldn’t find any evidence of her zone implant, or her baby.

Like Angus, Nick had disconnected his sickbay from
Captain’s Fancy
’s datacore. The sickbay log had no copies. Soon nothing incriminating remained to threaten her.

Temporarily safe, she left sickbay.

Maybe she should have gone by her cabin to pick up her black box. Nick would expect her to help tackle the problem of Orn’s virus, and she was too numb to think: she needed help. But she needed her numbness as well. If she used the zone implant to sharpen her brain, she would have to face the dilemma of her pregnancy.

Cradling the sense of shock as if it were an infant in her womb, she went to the bridge.

Nick was there, sitting in his command seat, drumming his fingers on his board while he waited for his people to check their systems. When Morn crossed the aperture to stand beside him, he gave her a quick, fierce grin like a promise that he didn’t regret killing Orn for her; that he was too excited by the challenge of saving his ship to fear failure. For once, his scars throbbed with a lust which had nothing to do with her. Instead of marring him, his bruises seemed to accentuate his vitality.

Then he shifted his attention back to his crew.

Morn looked at the display screens for information. But they were blank, probably because the ship’s speed made them effectively useless. So she scanned the bridge.

Only the engineering station was vacant: Vector and his second were probably in the console room. All the other firsts were at their posts.

“Status,” Nick commanded in a tone of veiled eagerness, as if he were having a wonderful time.

His mood ruled the bridge. The dread Morn had observed in the mess had no place here. Even Mackern, occupying Orn Vorbuld’s seat for the first time, worked his board with a degree of concentration which approximated confidence.

Almost immediately Carmel answered. “Scan checks out fine. At this velocity, we might as well be blind ahead. We’re outrunning our effective scan time. And the starfield is dopplering noticeably. But the computer compensates for that. We can fix our position well enough.”

“Communications the same,” reported Lind. “There’s nothing out there to hear except particle noise”—the residual crackle and spatter of deep space—“but if there was, we could pick it up.”

“Targeting and weapons the same,” put in a woman named Malda Verone. She sounded vaguely disinterested; under the circumstances her systems were the least vital ones aboard.

Nick nodded and waited.

Hunching over his board, Mackern said, “I’m running diagnostics. We’ve got all the usual debug programs.” He pulled at his mustache while he worked. “So far, they don’t show anything.”