Forbidden Knowledge (22 page)

Almost casually, Morn asked, “Are you going to tell Nick?”

“Hell, no!” Mikka said at once. “If he can’t tell the difference between real passion and—and what you give him—that’s his problem.”

Abruptly she stood again. “I’ve been here too long. He’s going to ask awkward questions. I’ve got to lock you in so we can decelerate. Is there anything you want first?”

One piece of honesty led to another. Morn didn’t gauge the risk: she simply answered, “I want to talk to Nick.”

The command second’s eyes narrowed. “He isn’t going to like that. He’s under a lot of pressure.”

Morn shrugged. “So am I.” Apparently he’d made a deal with the UMCP to rescue her from Angus. Apparently, also, the UMCP were corrupt. It was therefore conceivable that the UMCP wished him to take her to Enablement Station—that they intended him to sell her. She wanted an explanation from him. She was no longer afraid of his anger. Her only fear now was that he would give her to the Amnion.

She got to her feet, facing Mikka expectantly.

Mikka frowned. “If you tell him about your zone implant,” she said sternly, “he’ll feel betrayed. He may kill you.”

“I know,” Morn replied. “But there are other things that scare me worse right now.”

Mikka grunted again. But she stood and gestured toward the door. “After you.”

Morn wrapped her fingers around her black box and gripped it hard. It was her last resort—and her last hope. As long as she had it, she could still kill herself: she could still escape whatever Nick might try to do to her.

With Mikka she went to the bridge.

When they entered, Nick wheeled his seat to face them as if he were about to fling curses. His face was tight with tension; his eyes hinted at urgency. As soon as he saw Morn, however, he halted. “What’re you doing here?” he demanded. Abruptly he turned on Mikka. “What did you bring her here for?”

His second cocked her hips and raised her palms, disavowing responsibility. “She wants to talk to you.” Her tone was no more trenchant than usual. “Since she’s the reason we’re here, I thought you might give her a few minutes.”

Around the bridge, everyone stopped working. Carmel kept her head bent over her board, but Lind, Sib Mackern, and Malda Verone craned their necks to watch, and the helm first pivoted his seat for a better view.

Nick aimed a look like pure hate at Mikka; but his scars were as pale as old bone. He faced Morn again.

“We haven’t got time for this.”

With his strained features and murderous eyes, he seemed as dangerous as a charged matter cannon. Nevertheless Morn was no longer afraid of him.

“It’s my life,” she said, answering a question he hadn’t asked. “And my baby’s. I’ve got a right to know.

“You burned out the gap drive to get us here. Unless you’ve got resources you haven’t mentioned, you’ll never get back to Thanatos Minor. It’s too far away. And you don’t have anywhere else to go. Even if the Amnion let you leave Enablement Station, you’ll never see human space again.

“This is an unholy mess, Nick. I want to know why you’re doing it.”

I want to know what’s at stake.

Like Mikka, he looked like he’d been driven to honesty. “Don’t you understand?” he snarled. He seemed cornered and frantic, trapped by his own foolhardiness; yet he wasn’t beaten. Being trapped fired a deep, combative rage inside him. “I want to keep you. This is the only way I can do it.

“This is the choice you gave me. If I don’t let you keep your fucking baby, you’re going to sabotage me. You made that perfectly clear. But if I do let you keep it—”

With his fist, he made a gesture of fierce negation. “That’s impossible. We’re
illegal
! We run and fight, and half the time we take damage. We can’t spend the next ten or fifteen years nursemaiding your
brat
—or covering for you while you do it. If you have a baby, I’ll have to ditch you.

“This is the only answer I’ve got left. The Amnion.”

Mackern’s face ran sweat. Malda looked like she wanted to throw up. Lind made obscure clinking noises with his teeth.

Nick ignored them all to concentrate his fury on Morn.

“They can force-grow babies. Maybe you didn’t know that. The cops want you to be a nice little genophobe—they wouldn’t want you to understand what real genetic engineering is good for. The Amnion can take that piece of garbage out of you and give you back a physically mature kid while
you
take a fucking
nap.

“All I have to do is make a bargain that’ll stick. The Amnion keep their bargains. They never cheat when it comes to money. Or DNA. All I have to do is offer them something they want badly enough.

“Have I made myself clear?” he concluded savagely. “Now get off the goddamn bridge. We need to decelerate. Go back to your cabin. If you don’t, I’ll have Mikka pump you so full of cat you’ll think you’re never going to wake up.”

Morn hardly heard the command. She hadn’t known the Amnion could force-grow babies; but the information didn’t surprise her. She couldn’t think about such things. If she felt any surprise, it was of an entirely different order.

Could it be that everything she’d done to herself with her black box, all her efforts to stifle her nausea and abhorrence, were going to pay off?

“I still don’t understand,” she murmured. “You’ve had hundreds of women. Why do you want to keep me?”

Nick bared his teeth as if he were about to howl. “Are you really this stupid? Do I have to draw you a goddamn
map
?

“I’m
Nick Succorso.
People talk about me for parsecs in all directions. I’m
the
pirate, the one they tell stories about, the only man who does what he wants in the whole galaxy. I’m the man who makes his own laws, the man who sneers at station Security, the man who makes idiots out of the UMCP, the man who dances with the Amnion and gets away with it. Hell, I even beat Captain Angus sheepfucker Thermo-pile. I beat everybody.” As he spoke, the lust came back into his scars, pulsing darkly; his rage was transported. “I can go anywhere in human space because nobody’s ever been able to prove anything against me, and when I walk into a bar they whisper my name into all the corners. Total strangers pass my reputation along. Total strangers want to give me whatever they have, just so that they can hope to be included in one of the stories.

“I
like
that. I
deserve
it.”

The helm first bobbed his head. Carmel chuckled appreciatively. Mikka watched with a congested expression, all her conflicts hidden.

Nick didn’t notice them. He stabbed a finger at Morn. “You’re already included. A cop who gave up the whole UMCP to be with me—you’re already part of one of the best stories. But this one’s going to be even better. People are going to be talking about
Nick Succorso
, who risked his life and his ship and everything against the Amnion so that Morn Hyland could have his son. They’re going to tell that story long after the United Mining Companies spaceshit Police have become as extinct as the humpback whale.”

He stopped, breathing hard, his scars black, as if he’d identified a personal apotheosis.

Morn couldn’t face him. Down in the bottom of her heart, a small hope had begun to sing. She believed him at last. He wasn’t going to sell her. Or her baby. A man who lived for the kind of stories that were told about Nick wouldn’t betray her or anyone who belonged to him to the Amnion.

She had won: more than he knew; more than she would have thought possible.

Because of her small hope, she failed to hear that there was more than exaltation in Nick’s voice. There was also an undertone of acid, a gnawing doubt. A man who lived for the stories told about him shouldn’t have to tell them himself. He was the artist, dependent on his absolute mastery of his tools. For him, it would be intolerable if he’d been fooled; if his tools were false; if the story became that of
Nick Succorso, who risked his life and his ship and everything so that a woman who didn’t love him could have her baby.

It would be intolerable if anyone—even total strangers—ever had reason to laugh at him.

Morn missed that. In a faint voice, as if to test him, she replied, “But I still don’t understand. Why me? Why do all this for me?”

Without meaning to, she hit the sore place in him. Sudden rage and violence boiled up in him, seething from an old core of betrayal.

“I’ll show you,” he grated. “Take off your shipsuit.”

Abruptly Carmel raised her head, slapped keys on her board. “Nick, we’ve got traffic. Amnion ships—warships, by their configuration.”

Mikka Vasaczk wheeled to the scan first. “Course?”

Carmel hit more keys. “Not toward us. They’re converging on Enablement.”

“Hailing?” Mikka demanded of Lind.

Lind tightened the receiver in his ear, ran commands on his board. “Nothing. If they’re talking, it isn’t beamed out here.”

Mikka spun back to Nick and Morn. “Nick, we’ve got to decelerate. Enablement serves all the outposts. Warships go in and out all the time. The ones we’ve spotted could be routine. But we can’t risk coming up on them at this velocity. They won’t believe anything we say until we slow down.”

Nick ignored her: he ignored the bridge. His gaze held Morn’s, as unwavering as death; his scars throbbed as if they might ooze blood.

“I said, take off your shipsuit.”

Here. In front of the whole bridge. He wanted to prove himself against her here.

Only minutes ago she would have refused him almost calmly. Inspired by a transcendent fear of the Amnion, she would have risked defying him. She would have had nothing left to lose. While she lived, she loathed him. His every touch revolted her. He was a pirate and a traitor; he was male. That he wanted to humiliate her by fucking her in front of his watch would have been more than she was willing to bear.

And her zone implant enabled her to escape him—

But he’d given her reason to hope that she might not die; that she might still be able to save herself and Davies; that the Morn Hyland who had once cared about such things as treason and children wasn’t altogether doomed. Long before she’d decided to keep her baby, she’d named him after her father because she’d wanted to recover the things her father represented—the conviction and commitment. On an intuitive level, she’d wanted to care about and believe in herself. That, she now realized, was why her decisions about her baby’s fate and her own had depended on each other.

In a sense, Nick had given her back her life.

Now everything was different.

When she didn’t obey, he came out of his seat at her, launched by fury and doubt.

She faced him without flinching.

But he didn’t touch her, didn’t hit her, didn’t tear the fabric from her shoulders. Blazing like a laser, he stopped inches away from her; his face twisted savagely.

Between his teeth, so softly that no one else could hear him, he breathed, “Morn, please”—begging her to let his people see that his power over her was complete.

Then she knew that she was safe. He’d swallowed the lie: he was addicted to the masque. As long as she helped him keep his doubts at bay, he would never give her up.

For the sake of her safety, and Davies’—for the sake of the Morn Hyland who had been broken and nearly killed by Angus Thermopyle—she reached into her pocket and brought up a surge of artificial lust from her zone implant control. Then she unsealed her shipsuit and stepped out of it.

A delicate pink hue flushed her skin, but it wasn’t shame.

With everyone on the bridge watching, she gave herself to Nick like a woman who would have bartered her soul for his caress.

He took her on the deck; hard and fast and desperate. From that position, she couldn’t see anyone else’s face except his—and Mikka Vasaczk’s.

Mikka’s eyes bled tears, grieving involuntarily: perhaps for herself; perhaps for Morn, or for Nick; perhaps for them all.

CHAPTER       
11

C
aptain’s Fancy
had to decelerate hard. Nevertheless she didn’t undergo as much g as she did when she left Com-Mine. Nick felt he had more time to work with. He believed that as long as Enablement could see
Captain’s Fancy
braking, the station would probably listen to what she had to say before deciding whether or not to destroy her.

So he fired reverse thrust at less than full burn for two hours at a time; then he let his ship coast for two hours before decelerating again, so that his people could at least try to recover from the strain. For the same reason, his crew rotated watches on a four-hour cycle.

In that way, alternately braking and coasting, he took Morn Hyland toward her first meeting with the Amnion.

Because of her gap-sickness, she was virtually useless most of the time. While the ship slowed, she had to remain in her cabin, blanked out by her zone implant.

That made the hours hard to bear.

If she could have worked, she might have been less vulnerable to her growing apprehension. But as she drew closer to Enablement Station, her dread increased—a dread so visceral that it was almost cellular; her genes themselves might have been crying out in fear. Despite Nick’s assurances, she was terrified of the Amnion. They were a threat to the integrity of her membership in the human species. They had the power to change the most fundamental thing she knew about herself.

The idea of submitting herself to them—of letting them take Davies from her and “force-grow” him in one of their labs—filled her with horror.

Of course, she could have eased her dread by putting herself to sleep for the entire approach. Appeased by her submission on the bridge, Nick had given her exact information about his plans for g. She could have set the timer on her black box and slept for eighteen or twenty-four hours without fear that anyone would need her in the meantime.

For some reason, she was acutely reluctant to escape in that way.

She told herself this was because she wanted to know what was going on. She wanted to know how Nick would protect his ship. And she wanted to know what he and the Amnion said to each other, what kind of bargain he would strike with them. All the details on which her survival depended might be worked out during those rests between decelerations. If she weren’t present when Nick talked, she wouldn’t hear anything.

So each time the thrusters fired she set her timer for slightly more than two hours; and each time when she woke up she headed for the bridge. As an excuse for being there, she took along coffee or food for the watch; then she lingered unobtrusively, hoping that Nick or Mikka or Liete wouldn’t send her away. Whenever possible, she provided Sib Mackern or Alba Parmute with an hour or two of relief.

Yet gradually she became aware her reluctance grew from another source.

She was beginning to distrust the effects of her zone implant.

At the moment of her greatest triumph over Nick Succorso, some of her revulsion for him had perversely transferred itself to the means by which she’d bested him. She’d become ashamed of the way in which she’d won. He’d never intended to sell her to the Amnion: therefore he deserved better.

Her zone implant control gave her power over herself. It made her valuable to Nick. It enabled her to survive. But it did nothing to heal her lacerated opinion of herself. Precisely because its resources were artificial, it eroded her self-esteem.

If she wanted to believe in herself, she needed the things her father represented in her life. She needed honesty and integrity; courage; the willingness to die for her convictions.

She needed her son.

Which meant that she needed the Amnion.

This realization scared her so profoundly that she began thinking more and more about leaving her black box switched off during deceleration. The idea of spending two hours locked up alone and conscious with her gap-sickness came increasingly to seem like the lesser evil. If she did that, she might learn something about the severity or duration of her illness. She might discover the limits of the destructive clarity with which the universe spoke to her. She might even find out how cunning she could be when she was sick—

Putting herself to sleep felt like a surrender to genetic terror. Each time she went back to her cabin, she had to exert a greater force of will to overcome her impulse to leave her zone implant control alone.

Nevertheless she coerced herself. If she wanted her son—if she wanted conviction and commitment—she had to face her fear.

Morn switched herself off while
Captain’s Fancy
decelerated. She haunted the bridge while
Captain’s Fancy
coasted.

With nothing to stop it, her dread multiplied, replicating itself from cell to cell inside her like a malignant neoplasm.

•      •      •

When Nick had cut two thirds of his ship’s velocity, he started talking to Enablement Station.

By this time, two of the Amnion warships had reacted to his arrival. One altered course to a trajectory that would intersect
Captain’s Fancy
’s just outside her attack range: the other assumed a defensive attitude between her and Enablement. But still no demands for identification or explanation had been beamed at her. Lind had begun to receive the kind of traffic data—control space coordinates, ship vectors, docking approach lanes—any station might transmit for the sake of vessels arriving out of tach. Nothing else had come in.

“They’re waiting to hear from us,” Nick said, settling himself more firmly in his command seat. “We’re the aliens here—I guess they figure it’s up to us to go first.”

He looked strong and sure of himself, eager for the chance to measure himself against whatever happened. A stranger would have said that he was rested and well, ready for anything. Morn knew him better, however. She could see that fatigue and the aftereffects of doubt affected him like a low-grade infection. Strain made his grin inflexible, like a rictus; his hands did everything too quickly; his eyes hinted at emergencies. He didn’t object to Morn’s presence, but he glanced at her sidelong at unexpected moments, as if he feared what she might do.

Mikka Vasaczk was on the bridge as well, looking as angry as ever—and competent to the bone. And Vector Shaheed occupied the engineer’s station. He smiled at Morn with impersonal geniality from time to time, but he didn’t say anything. Everyone else belonged to Nick’s watch: Carmel, Lind, the helm first, Sib Mackern, Malda Verone. The rest of Mikka’s people were presumably resting. Liete’s watch had been ordered to battle stations around the ship.

“Send them standard id,” Nick told Lind. “Ship, captain, registry, last port. Don’t beam it too tight. We want those warships to hear everything.”

Lind jerked a nod. Like Nick’s, his nervousness showed in the speed of his hands; but his fingers didn’t fumble. After a moment he reported, “Done.”

Enablement would presumably take some time to decide on a response. Morn knew better than to hold her breath. Nevertheless she had to force herself to breathe: dread and uncertainty seemed to close her lungs. She’d never heard of force-growing babies, had no idea how it was done or what its dangers were. And she couldn’t imagine why Nick thought he could trust the Amnion to deal honorably.

Targ and helm had nothing to do but wait. Carmel kept herself busy pulling data out of the vacuum and passing it to Mackern for analysis. Mackern ran studies of the scan data, comparing it to
Captain’s Fancy
’s stored knowledge, refining his picture of the station and its control space. But neither of them paid any attention to the results.

Abruptly Lind croaked, “Here it comes.”

“On audio,” Nick snapped.

Lind complied with a touch to his board. At once a voice made mechanical by static and distance came from the speakers.

“Enablement Station to encroaching human ship. You are in violation of treaty and presumed hostile. Identification transgresses acceptable norms. Restate and explain.”

Presumed hostile. Mikka didn’t react; but Mackern groaned involuntarily, wiped sweat out of his eyes. Malda hunched over the targ board and began keying status checks.

“Interesting,” Vector murmured. “Do they mean we’ve identified ourselves in the wrong form, or
as
the wrong form?”

Lind looked to Nick for instructions.

Nick didn’t hesitate. If he was worried, he kept it to himself. “Repeat id. Tell them we’ve been here before—give them the date for confirmation. Tell them we need help for a medical difficulty, and we’re prepared to pay for it.”

Swallowing convulsively, Lind obeyed.

Morn thought that she would suffocate before the Amnion replied again. She knew Nick wouldn’t welcome questions at a time like this; but she felt that if she didn’t do something to counter her dread she would founder in it.

“Why did you do it?” she asked stiffly. “Why did you come here before?”

Mikka flicked a glance at Nick, then looked hard at Morn, warning her. “We had essentially the same problem. We needed repairs we couldn’t afford. That time we got paid well.”

Her scowl darkened as if she were on dangerous ground. “This time it may not be so easy.”

“The circumstances were a little different that time,” Nick commented laconically. “What made the deal so attractive was that we got paid by both sides. That was almost as much fun as beating Captain fucking Thermopile.”

“Which is why,” Mikka put in grimly, “it may not be so easy this time.” Like Nick, she spoke to Morn; but her words seemed to be addressed to him. “The Amnion may think we cheated them.”

The fever in Nick’s eyes flared, but his scars stayed pale. “Which is precisely why,” he countered, “they won’t be able to turn me down now.”

“Nick,” Lind gulped.

Enablement’s answer came in.

“Enablement Station to encroaching human ship. You are in violation of treaty and presumed hostile. Identification transgresses acceptable norms. Previous arrival and departure of the ship
Captain’s Fancy
is confirmed. The name ‘Nick Succorso’ is contrary to established reality and presumed false. Amnion defensive
Tranquil Hegemony
has orders to repel approach. Transmit acceptable identification.”

“‘Contrary to established reality,’” muttered Malda anxiously. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Morn found that she was holding her breath again.

“You weren’t with us last time,” Nick answered with apparent ease. “These bastards don’t recognize people by name—and they sure as hell don’t recognize them by what they look like. As far as they’re concerned, appearance has nothing to do with identity. The only thing they recognize is genetic code. I think the slimy sods can actually smell each other’s DNA.”

He grinned fiercely. “They’ve got reason to think I can’t be here. If I’m not dead, I must be”—his teeth gleamed—“somebody else.

“Mackern,” he ordered, “you’ve got my gene data. It’s in my id file. Here’s access.” He tapped codes into his board. “Copy it to Lind.”

Sib went to work with his hands shaking.

“Lind,” Nick continued, “repeat the previous message. All of it. Add my DNA structure. Request instructions for approach deceleration and trajectory.”

“Right.” Lind tightened the receiver in his ear. After a moment he nodded to Mackern. “Got it.” Tensely he began transmission.

The bridge was so quiet that Morn could hear the click of every key; she could hear the almost subliminal hum of the air-scrubbers.

Mikka moved closer to Nick’s console and pointed at the intercom. “With your permission?”

Nick nodded.

She thumbed the toggle. “Liete?”

Liete Corregio’s voice replied, “Here.”

“Reassure me,” Mikka demanded brusquely.

“We’re all on station.” The intercom muffled whatever emotion Liete’s voice carried. “Alba feels sorry for herself. The rest of us are as ready as we’re likely to get.”

“Stay that way.” Mikka shut off the intercom.

“I don’t understand,” Morn said, breathing deliberately so that she wouldn’t stop again. “What kind of deal did you make with them? Why do they believe you would die—or turn into somebody else?”

She could think of an explanation herself, but it was so sickening that she didn’t want to consider it. She certainly didn’t want to say it aloud. Nevertheless she needed to know—

With an abrupt motion, Nick swung his seat to face her. A hint of color came into his scars, underlining his eyes with risks. “Take a guess.” His casualness sounded slightly ragged, frayed by strain. “If you think this is a good time to ask questions, you can help figure out the answers.”

Dread closed around Morn’s heart. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

“Nick,” Vector interrupted mildly, “none of us like this, but she’s got more at stake than anyone else. She has two lives to lose. Even you’ve only got one. Naturally she wants to know what we’re up against.”

Nick wheeled toward the engineer. “What’re you doing here?” he snapped. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the drive space?”