Forbidden Knowledge (3 page)

As well as she could, she made sure that nobody would ever again have the power to simply turn her off. Her electronics training in the Academy was good for that, anyway.

Her fingers were trembling by the time she was done, and she was terrified that she’d made a mistake. But she couldn’t afford to be terrified.
None of us is safe while you’re aboard.
She also couldn’t afford mistakes. Nick wanted her. But to her “wanting” meant Angus; it meant brutality and rape.
Nick has better sense than you think.
Fighting the shakes, she closed the control cover. Deliberately circumspect, she returned the evidence of what she’d done—the tweezers and needle—to the san. Then she sat down on the berth with her back braced against the bulkhead, raised the control, and touched a button.

At once a wonderful lassitude washed through her. Her body seemed to fill up with rest as though she had a syringe of cat plugged into her veins. Drowsiness spread balm along her limbs, soothed ravaged nerve endings, denatured old and essential anxieties. She relaxed slowly down the bulkhead; her head nodded over her chest.

Healing. Safety. Peace.

She was nearly asleep before the desperation she’d learned from Angus came to her rescue.

That sting of panic gave her the strength to turn off the control.

When reality flooded back into her muscles and neurons, sheer visceral disappointment brought tears to her eyes.

But she already knew that living with a zone implant wasn’t easy. She didn’t expect it to be easy: she expected to be in command of it.

She had a nagging sense that she was asking too much of herself, that no human being could do what she intended and get away with it; that the law against “unauthorized use” was absolutely reasonable. In order to make the zone implant serve her effectively, she needed something akin to prescience—a kind of crystal ball. The control included a timer, and that would help. But suppose she decided to risk the rest her body craved. How could she know how long it was safe to sleep? Suppose she turned on energy by suppressing fatigue in an attempt to get through heavy g without going mad. How could she know how much was necessary, or how long her flesh could stand the strain? For that matter, how could she know which centers of her brain were involved in her gap-sickness, which parts of herself she should stifle in order to avoid that state of lunatic calm when the universe spoke to her and told her what to destroy?

She would be guessing every step of the way. And every guess was dangerous. Any mistake, any miscalculation, any accident might betray her to Nick.

But the problem went deeper. Angus’ use of her had left her half insane and profoundly weary, even though he’d frequently imposed rest on her. How could she know that madness and exhaustion weren’t endemic to the use of a zone implant? How could she know that her efforts to save herself weren’t about to damn her?

She couldn’t know. She wasn’t wise enough to tamper with herself this way.

On the other hand, she was here because Angus had driven her half insane. There was no escape that didn’t also involve insanity.

A small thunk carried through the ship’s hull—the characteristic jolt of undocking. When the grapples and cables snapped clear, everyone aboard always knew it.

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’, 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 had 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 gapsickness. 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 every movement seem like an enticement. His hands knew how to be gentle; his voice conveyed a caress. Those things alone 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.

That possibility might help protect her. It would encourage him to think about her in terms of covert operations and betrayal, not helplessness and zone implants.