Forbidden Knowledge (30 page)

Indicators articulated her board: instructions and confirmations sped across her readouts. A subliminal shift in the ambient power-hum of the auxiliary bridge seemed to promise that the systems she needed belonged to her now.

She had communications.

She had life-support.

She had doors and airlocks.

She had self-destruct.

She could make herself feel like singing; but that wasn’t necessary.

“Liete!” Nick demanded, “what the fuck are you doing down there?”

Morn silenced the intercom. “Shut up and sit still,” she told Liete. “I’ve got your gun.” She raised the impact pistol. “I don’t want to kill you, but I won’t let you interfere.”

Liete licked her lips and tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. After a moment she nodded.

Now.

Morn snapped the intercom back on.

“Nick, this is Morn. I’m on the auxiliary bridge.”

“
Morn
, you—” he began.

She cut him off. “I’ve got the self-destruct. It’s primed and ready. And I’ve canceled your priority codes. You can’t override me.

“If you leave me alone, there’s a chance we may all survive. I’m even going to protect your credibility with the Amnion. But you sold my son, and I won’t stand for that. If you get in my way, this ship and most of Enablement will end up as atomic powder.”

Her zone implant enabled her to concentrate on as many different things as necessary. While she talked, she wrote in her last precaution—another batch command.

This one would work off her board. When it was ready, she could press down on the toggle which displayed the ship’s chronometer on her readouts, and if anything happened to her—if anything made her take her finger off the toggle—the self-destruct would be engaged.
Captain’s Fancy
would blow in milliseconds.

“Cut her off!” Nick shouted to somebody else. “Cut power to the auxiliary bridge! Override her—get your boards back!” He hit his keys so hard that the sound carried over the intercom, punctuating his rage.

Nothing wavered on her board. Her control held.

“Nick?” she asked conversationally from the depths of her own fury, “don’t you want to know what I’m going to do?”

“Mikka, get down there!” he yelled. “Cut through the door—cut her to pieces, if you have to!” But a second later he changed his mind. “No, I’ll do it. You take the bridge.
I want my ship back!
I’m going to tear her fucking guts out with my
hands!
”

“Mikka,” said Morn, grinning back at Liete’s horrified stare, “he isn’t listening. Maybe you will. I’ve got the self-destruct on a batch command.” This was now true. “It’s set to the chronometer toggle. My finger is on the toggle.” Her finger pressed the key firmly to the surface of the board. “If I’m attacked, or threatened—or even surprised—and my finger comes off the toggle, the ship will blow.

“You can’t stop it. There aren’t any overrides. And I really have canceled his priority codes.” One lie more or less made no difference to her. Let everyone wonder whether her programming skills were that good. “You’d better make him understand that. He sounds like he’s gone off the deep end.”

“Morn!” The command second’s shout cracked over the intercom. “What in God’s name are you trying to do?”

Save us all. Believe it or not. Even sweet, desirable presumed human Captain Nick fucking Succorso.

“Just listen,” she replied. “You can’t cut off my communications output, but you can hear it. In about a minute, you’ll understand everything.”

Including why you need to keep Nick from messing with me.

She left the intercom open. Part of her brain continued to process the gabble of voices from the bridge—Malda Verone’s distress and Carmel’s anger, Sib Mackern’s inchoate protests, Lind’s near hysteria. From the engineer’s station, Pup kept whimpering, “Get out of there, Vector, please, get out of there,” as if proximity to the thrusters were Shaheed’s only peril. But none of that deflected Morn.

How long would it take Nick to grab a cutting laser and a gun, and reach the auxiliary bridge?

That didn’t deflect her, either.

With a few quick taps on the command console—
pressing the chronometer toggle flat to the board
—she opened communications with the Amnion.

“Enablement Station, this is Morn Hyland. I’m the human female who gave birth to the offspring you just took from
Captain’s Fancy.
I want my son back.”

There was no answer.

It was possible that Enablement couldn’t hear her—that she’d committed an error of some kind, or that the station had simply cut reception. She didn’t believe either of those things; she didn’t worry about them. Extremity and artificial strength made her certain.

“Enablement Station, I’ve taken control of this ship. I’ve rigged a self-destruct—it ties both drives and all our fuel into the weapons systems. You know enough about us to guess how much damage that can do. An explosion like that will probably take out twenty-five to forty percent of the station.

“I’m going to blow us all up unless I get my son back.”

Still no answer.

Morn chuckled as if she were delirious. “Enablement Station, if you don’t reply, I’m going to assume your answer is negative—and then I won’t have anything left to live for. Captain Succorso will kill me, if you don’t. You have five seconds. Starting”—she kept time with the toe of one boot—“now.

“Five.

“Four.

“Three.”

“Enablement Station to presumed human Captain Nick Succorso,” said the mechanical voice of Amnion authority. “What occurs aboard your ship? Answer immediately. There is falseness here. Do you seek to annul the mutual satisfaction of requirements?”

Oh, there’s falseness here, all right. Humans are like that. You can’t begin to guess just how much falseness there is.

“Enablement,” Mikka snapped rapidly, “this is command second Mikka Vasaczk. Captain Succorso is unavailable. He’s trying to find a way to stop this Morn Hyland.

“What she says is true. She’s sabotaged bridge function—she has control from the auxiliary bridge. Our instruments indicate she’s created a self-destruct.” Apparently Mikka also was willing to lie. “She’s turned the whole ship into a bomb, and she’s got her finger on the detonator.

“We urgently request you reply to her. Don’t give her an excuse to blow us up. She’s that offspring’s mother. Losing him has driven her insane. She’s going to kill us all if you don’t at least talk to her.”

Well, good for you, Mikka, Morn thought. Nick may have gone into meltdown, but you’re still using your head.

“Morn.” Over the intercom, Vector sounded tense, almost frightened. “Christ on a crutch, woman! What do you think you’re
doing
?”

Good. Vector was safe. He couldn’t have heard what was going on unless he’d finished hooking up the Amnion replacements and come out of the engine space to begin testing them.

“Vector,” she answered, “we’re hanging by a thread here. Maybe we’ll make it, maybe we won’t. At the moment I’m not sure I care which. But I think you’d better get that gap drive functional as quick as you can. If the thread holds, we’ll need to get out of here
fast.
” Just to make everybody nervous, she asked, “How good are you at going into tach cold?”

If he replied, she didn’t hear it. Instead she heard hammering on the door of the auxiliary bridge—

—and Nick’s voice over the intercom, shouting, “Goddamn you, Morn! This is my ship!
My ship!
”

—and an Amnioni saying, “Enablement Station to Morn Hyland. What is the purpose of this threat? The Amnion emissary Marc Vestabule reports that trade for the new human offspring was negotiated directly with presumed human Captain Nick Succorso. His requirements have been satisfied. It has been stated repeatedly that the ship
Captain’s Fancy
may depart Enablement Station freely. This is—translation suggests the word ‘honorable’ trade. Why do you seek to dishonor your dealings with the Amnion?”

“Listen to me!” Morn spat back at Enablement. Sudden fury fired through her, and she flung every gram of it into the communications pickup. “I’m only going to say this once.

“Captain Succorso may have traded directly with
you
, but he didn’t do the same with
me!
That ‘offspring’ is
my son.
Do you hear me?
My son.
Captain Succorso didn’t have the right to give him away, and
I
refuse to give him up!”

As she watched, a hot, red spot like a flower bloomed near the lock of the door. Almost at once, a trickle of slag started down the surface. A smell of ozone charged the air.

Liete Corregio began struggling inside her shipsuit, writhing to get her arms free.

“Maybe I’m insane,” Morn raged at the station. “Maybe that ‘force-growing’ process just cost me reason, not function.” That idea might give her threat credibility. “I don’t know, and I don’t care.
I want my son back!
I want him back
now.
If I don’t get him, I’m going to blow myself up, and this ship, and as much of your goddamn station as I can take with me, because I just don’t
give a shit
!”

With her free fist, she pounded off the communications pickup. Into the intercom, she shouted, “Mikka! Stop Nick! Do you hear me? Stop him!”

When the command second replied, she sounded worn out and beaten. “Have you ever actually
tried
that? I’m not sure it can be done.”

“Enablement Station to Morn Hyland. Your behavior is a violation of trade. For this, you have earned the unending enmity of the Amnion. As soon as you depart Enablement Station, the defensives
Tranquil Hegemony
and
Calm Horizons
will hunt you until you have been destroyed.”

Furiously Morn punched the pickup back on. “‘Unending,’ my ass,” she snarled. “It’s going to end in about five minutes if you don’t give me my son back.”

At the same time Mikka protested from the bridge, “Enablement Station, that’s not fair!
We
didn’t do this! She’s threatening all of us, not just you. You can’t punish us for what she does. If you start doing business like that, no human is ever going to trade with the Amnion again.”

The command second was still thinking, still fighting for
Captain’s Fancy
’s survival—and, incidentally, for Davies’.

The Amnion authorities ignored her. “Enablement Station to Morn Hyland,” said the flat, alien voice. “Proof of your self-destruct is required.”

Morn was ready for that, too. “Here it comes,” she rasped; ozone filled her throat. “Don’t miss it.”

Stabbing a few keys, she dumped a literal copy of every instruction and sequence in the auxiliary command board along Enablement’s transmission line. Everything. Including Nick’s priority codes. She was in no mood to be selective. Even with that information, the Amnion wouldn’t be able to stop her: they had no link to
Captain’s Fancy
’s internal systems.

Liete forced the seal of her shipsuit apart a few centimeters. Jamming her fingers into the gap, she began tearing the suit open.

Morn dropped her free hand to the impact pistol.

Abruptly the lock failed. A beam of red, coherent light flicked, then vanished. The door swept out of Nick’s way.

He blazed into the room like a solar flare. The cutting laser was his only weapon—the only weapon he needed. His scars were dark acid eating at his face; his eyes were black holes. He came one step past the doorway, two. As steady as steel, he aimed the laser at Morn’s chest and switched it on.

He missed because Liete threw herself across the barrel of the laser.

Red ruin hit the screen beyond Morn’s shoulder. The display melted blank before the beam was cut off.

With her weight on the laser and Nick’s arm, Liete pulled him to the floor. He tried to drive her aside with the butt, but she squirmed out of the way, twisted herself on top of him.

“Nick, listen to me!” she shouted into his face. Small drops of her blood splashed onto his features. “I’ll tackle her myself, if you tell me to! I’ll walk over there and jump at her. But hear me first. Listen!

“She’s keyed self-destruct to the chronometer toggle—and she’s got her finger on the toggle!”

When her warning reached him, Nick froze.

“If you touch her,” Liete continued, “if anybody touches her, she’ll lift her finger. She doesn’t have to be alive to do it. And we can’t stop her. She won’t let us get that close.”

“Besides,” Morn commented in a tone of murderous satisfaction, “I’ve got a gun.” She held up the impact pistol. “I’m not going to miss. Not at this range. Not when I’ve got a chance to kill the man who sold my son.”

“
Then kill me!
”

Nick swung the laser across his body, hammering Liete off him. Gasping as if he’d broken her ribs, she rolled away.

“
Kill me now!
”

He surged to his feet. Facing straight down the muzzle of Morn’s gun, he pointed the laser between her eyes.

“
I’m not going to let you have my ship!
”

But he didn’t fire.

She didn’t, either.

She would have loved killing him. She relished the bare idea of tightening her finger on the trigger. She wanted to see his face crumple and spatter from an impact-blast—wanted it so intensely that the desire made her giddy.

Nevertheless she restrained herself.

“You bastard,” she sighed as if she no longer cared what he did. With a negligent flick, she tossed her gun at his feet. “Stop thinking with your gonads and use your brain. We’re all going to live or die in the next few minutes, and the only thing you can do about it is make us die faster.” She nodded at her finger on the toggle. “But if you’ll leave me alone, I might just get us out of here in one piece. If Vector does his job right.”

Awkward with pain, Liete climbed to her feet. New blood seeped from a gash on her cheek, joining the ooze from her forehead. Her eyes were glazed, barely conscious. She was able to stand, however.

Nick’s gaze widened as Morn discarded her gun; but his grip on the laser didn’t waver. Almost without transition, however, his scars had gone as pale as his face. He looked like all the blood was draining out of his heart.