Forbidden Knowledge (35 page)

Vector.

Stiffly he climbed to his feet. “I’ve fixed your door,” he said in the same tone. “You won’t be able to rig it again.

“I’ll go tell him you’re awake.”

The door hissed open for him, swept shut. The status lights on the control panel told her it was locked.

By the time it opened again, and Nick Succorso stalked into her cabin, her vision had improved. The back of her head still felt like the site of a thermonuclear accident, but her tears had stopped, and she was able to concentrate. Her vulnerability had gone to ice; at the core, she’d become hard and untouchable, like supercooled rage.

She needed to be hard. Otherwise the sight of his strained features and flagrant scars would have cracked her courage.

He had reason to look like that, she reminded herself. He was the fooled artist, betrayed by a tool he’d thought belonged to him body and soul. She’d given him something which touched him at the heart of his dark and complex needs—and now he knew that the gift was false.

And he was perfectly capable of murdering people for less cause.

He paused briefly just inside the door, letting her see what she was up against; giving her a chance to gauge her danger by the intensity of his expression. Then he came at her like the slam of a piston and struck her so hard across the cheek that she crumpled to her bunk.

Fires like novas blazed through her head. Incandescent pain paralyzed her: white conflagration blinded her. She couldn’t defend herself as he rummaged through her shipsuit until he found her black box; she couldn’t do anything to stop him as he took control of her life away from her.

Gripping the box, he stepped back. Holding it up so that he could watch her while he studied it, he read the function labels.

Ablaze with pain, she was helpless to react when he pressed one of the buttons.

It did nothing to her.

“There,” he rasped as he buried her zone implant control in his own pocket. “Now it’s off.

“Get up.”

She couldn’t. She heard the command in his voice; she understood her peril. But she was too weak to obey, too badly hurt. Without artificial help, she was only human—a woman who was already exhausted, already beaten.

“I said,
get up.
”

Somehow she levered her arms under her, pried herself into a sitting position. Confused and drained by the clangor of suns, that was as far as she could rise.

“You’re mine now, you bitch,” he snarled. “You’ve diddled me and lied to me for the last time.

“For a while there, I thought you’d turned Vector against me. I even had doubts about Mikka. But you couldn’t manage that. You have limits, don’t you. I’m going to make sure you keep them.” He slapped his pocket. “I’m going to make you suffer—I’m going to make you bleed and die like an ordinary human being, instead of some goddamn superwoman.

“This is your last chance. Get
up
!”

“Why?” Despite the pain, her core of ice held solid. “So you can hit me again? I’m done with that. I’m done acting like one of your toys. If you want to make me ‘bleed and die,’ you’ll have to come get me. I won’t help you.

“And I’ll make you pay for it. I swear I’ll make you pay for it.”

Somehow.

Like the lash of a solar flare, he caught hold of her, snatched her to him. Almost spitting into her face, he demanded, “How do you think you’re going to do that?”

She glared back at him, ice against his fire.

“You can’t dismantle that self-destruct. Your priority codes are still useless.” That was a guess, but a safe one: he hadn’t had time to solve the problems she’d left him. “Your ship is a bomb waiting to explode. And you don’t know how I’ve programmed it. Maybe I’ve set it up to blow if I don’t input to it every couple of hours.

“You can probably figure out what I did to your codes. Or you can use my control to make me tell you. But you might not be able to do it in time. Thanatos Minor works for the Amnion. You illegals always think you work for yourselves, but you serve them. As soon as we’re in scan range, that shipyard will tell them we’re still alive. Then you’ll have warships after you.

“If you aren’t quick enough, you’ll have to face them with a live self-destruct and no priority codes.”

She could see that he heard her. His rage didn’t diminish, but it changed character. His instinct to fight for his ship and his own survival took precedence over his need to hurt her.

“That’s temporary,” she went on. “You can solve all those problems without me. But until they’re taken care of, you’ll have to keep me alive—you’ll have to keep my brain intact. Maybe that’ll give you time to realize there’s a better reason why you don’t want to hurt me. Or Davies.”

He heard her. He couldn’t help himself. She was talking about issues he couldn’t ignore. And she still had one advantage over him, even without her zone implant: she knew him better than he knew her. He was the one who’d been blinded by their masque of passion. It had revealed him—and concealed her.

Rage turned his skin the color of his scars; the cords of his neck knotted. But he didn’t hit her. Through his teeth, he grated, “What reason?”

“Because,” she articulated distinctly, as if she didn’t care that he was angry enough to extinguish her, “you’re Captain Nick Succorso, and you never lose.”

He glowered at her like the muzzle of a gun. His fists didn’t release her.

“You want people to believe that. You want every illegal or cop who’s ever heard of you to believe it. But it’s bigger than that. You
need
your crew to believe it. They don’t love you for your charm. Even your women don’t. They love you for your reputation. They love the Nick Succorso who never loses.

“So how do you think you look right now? How do you think your reputation looks? For the sake of a woman who was ‘diddling’ you, a woman you couldn’t figure out because she had a zone implant, you risked your life and your ship in forbidden space—and the result was a disaster. You got yourself in so much trouble that you had to let the Amnion cheat you. In fact, you got yourself in so much trouble that you had to sell them a
human being
just so they would have the chance to cheat you. And then the mother of that human being took over your ship. She put her finger on the self-destruct and forced you
and
the Amnion to do what she wanted.

“For a man who never loses, that was a real triumph.”

As she spoke, Nick’s face set like concrete, hardened to blankness. His scars faded; the fury in his eyes receded. In that way, she knew her threat was potent. She’d driven him to regain his self-mastery.

His rage had been something she understood. But now she couldn’t read him. He was dangerous in a new way, as if the peril in him had become absolute.

She was absolute herself, on the edge of her resources—and her doom. She didn’t falter.

“What do you think you’ll accomplish by torturing or killing me—or my son? Is that going to restore your reputation? You know better. You’ll still be the Nick Succorso who lost, but now everybody will know that when you lose you punish helpless women and children for it.

“
That story
will spread, just like all the others. People aren’t going to talk about you as the hero in a war against corrupt cops.” Her voice rose, hinting at bloodshed. “They’re going to talk about you as if you’re Angus Thermopyle.”

That was the first time she’d said Angus’ name aboard this ship. It was only the second time she’d ever said it aloud.

“Or what?” Nick countered with an impersonal snarl, leaving his rage in the background. “You wouldn’t have brought this up if you weren’t going to offer me an alternative.”

Like
Captain’s Fancy
in the gap, Morn rode the rim of nonexistence and fought to save herself.

“Or,” she told Nick, “you can change the story.”

“How?” His face was concrete; but his quickness betrayed the intensity of his attention.

“You can accept me,” she replied without hesitation, “welcome me, put me back on duty. You can smile and look like a hero. You can even act like we’ve been fucking each other’s brains out for hours.”

He started to sneer a retort; but she overrode him.

“You can give your people a chance to think that we did it together—that we planned this to get Davies and
Captain’s Fancy
away from the Amnion without ruining your credibility, and without being blasted. How could you have done it otherwise? You didn’t have anything except my son to sell for those gap drive components. But if you sold him, you couldn’t get him back without breaking your bargain. Your only hope was to run a scam—to use me against the Amnion.

“They won’t believe it at first. But they’ll start to wonder. They can’t be sure you would have killed me if Liete hadn’t stopped you. And I’ll back you up. Eventually they’ll have to believe it. As long as you treat me like we did it together. And you don’t hurt Davies. You don’t have to pretend you like him—or want him around. He isn’t your son. Just leave him alone.

“Think about
that
story for a minute,” she urged, steaming like dry ice. “Is there anyone in human space who’s
ever
had the nerve to run a scam like that on the Amnion?”

As far as she was concerned, all the glamorous tales about Nick Succorso were lies anyway. Why should this one be any different?

Abruptly he let go of her and pushed her away. Her legs failed; she fell back on the berth. Standing over her, he breathed so heavily that he seemed to be shuddering. The lines of his face were remorseless.

After a moment he whispered, “I’ll kill you for this.”

She met him squarely. “I know.”

“But I’ll pick a better time. Unless you don’t back me up. Then I won’t have any reason to wait.” He took another hard breath, let it out slowly. “Tell me how to restore my codes.”

Morn held his glare. “I want to see Davies. He needs me.”

“No chance,” Nick growled at once. “He’s the only hold I’ve got on you. I don’t trust this.” He slapped his pocket again. “For all I know, it’s a dummy, and you’ve got half a dozen others hidden around the ship.”

She shook her head. She didn’t care what he believed about her black box: she was suddenly afraid for her son.

“Nick, listen,” she said as steadily as she could. “He’ll go crazy by himself. Maybe he’s crazy already. He’s got my mind—he thinks he’s me.” For the second time, she pleaded, “At least let me talk to him.”

“No,” Nick retorted harshly. “You’ve been lying to me. You’ve been lying from the moment I first saw you with Captain fucking Thermo-pile. And I believed you. I thought you really gave yourself. But you were just using me. Like all the others.” He’d become as cold as she was—and as unreachable. “Tell me how to restore my codes.”

In hope and despair, she told him.

He nodded once, acknowledging the effectiveness of her gambit. Then he turned to the door.

When it opened, he faced her as if for the last time. There was a look of farewell in his eyes. Nevertheless his tone was raw and malign.

“You’re back on Mikka’s watch. But when you’re not on duty, I want you
here.
I’m going to keep you out of trouble. As soon as I can afford the time”—he indicated his pocket and bared his teeth—“we’ll find out how you like being on the other side of this thing.”

After he left, the door locked behind him.

Nursing the pain in her head, Morn stretched out on her bunk and tried to keep herself from wailing at the thought of her son’s plight.

CHAPTER       
17

H
alf an hour later, the intercom chimed, summoning Mikka Vasaczk’s watch to the bridge.

After a moment the door control status indicators in Morn’s cabin winked green. Nick had unlocked her.

She hurried out into the passageway before he could change his mind.

She should have gone to sickbay. The pain in her head abated too slowly: each beat of her heart knifed through her as if she were in the grip of a cerebral hemorrhage. At alarming intervals her vision slid double; and the effort required to bring her eyes back to single focus made her sweat and tremble with old, familiar nausea. Stress or numbness caused her fingers to tingle. Maybe one of her occipital bones was cracked. Or maybe the top of her spine—or her brain itself—was bruised. If she developed a hematoma inside her skull, or along her spinal cord, she might drift into paralysis as the swelling grew.

Nevertheless she headed for the bridge, not sickbay. She was urgent to get her hands on the data board.

Without the support of her zone implant, she was so weak that she felt invalid, hardly able to walk. From time to time she blundered against the walls. In one of the surviving compartments of her mind, she wondered how deep her addiction to her black box had become; wondered whether she would have to go through withdrawal on top of her other problems. The weight of her limits threatened to overwhelm her. But she kept going.

She had too few chances left. She couldn’t afford to miss any of them.

When she crossed the aperture to the bridge, Nick met her with a grin that might have looked lascivious if it hadn’t been so bloodthirsty—or if his scars hadn’t been the pale gray color of cold ashes.

She was the last of Mikka’s watch to arrive. Except for Sib Mackern and Nick himself, the firsts had already left—no doubt desperate for rest. But everyone on the bridge turned to stare at Morn.

Obviously Nick hadn’t told them that she was about to resume her duties.

Mikka’s glower was unreadable, effectively blank. Maybe she could guess what Morn’s arrival meant—or maybe she didn’t care. The knuckles of her right hand were swollen and discolored, but she gave no sign that they hurt.

Scorz stared with his mouth open, as if he’d forgotten to breathe. The scan second’s eyes flicked between Morn and Nick; he seemed to wish he had a doppler sensor to gauge the meaning of Morn’s presence. The twisting of Karster’s features made him look like a boy with a math problem he couldn’t solve.

Involuntarily, caught by shock, Mackern murmured, “I don’t believe it.” A crisis of doubt stretched his features. “Morn, are you all right? He said—but I assumed—” Abruptly the data first shut his mouth as if he were appalled by his own thoughts.

“Are you serious, Nick?” demanded the twitchy helm second, Ransum. She was too tight with anxiety to keep quiet. “Do we have to work with her? She just about got us all killed.”

“You’re going to work with her,” Nick replied with a grin, “and you’re going to like it. If you think anything else, you don’t know me very well.”

“But what about the self-destruct?” put in Scorz. “If you let her touch the computers, she can still blow us up.”

“I told my watch,” Nick retorted flatly. “Now I’ll tell you. I’ve got my priority codes back. Vector has already dismantled the self-destruct.” Only the knotted muscles in his neck betrayed the strain of self-coercion. “It served its purpose. We don’t need it anymore.”

“Holy shit!” Karster breathed as if he’d been struck by a revelation. “You did it deliberately.”

Then he realized what he’d said. Turning back to his board, he began working studiously, pretending he was busy.

The implications in the air were too dangerous to be faced directly. The rest of Mikka’s watch followed Karster’s example. Suddenly only Nick and Mikka were left looking at Morn.

Nick, Mikka—and Sib Mackern.

Uncertainty tangled around the data first: he couldn’t find his way out of it. He seemed more distressed by Morn’s presence on the bridge than by anything else she’d done. As if the words were being forced out of him, he asked her, “Were you
bluffing
?”

The question sounded like an accusation. Apparently he preferred to think of her as an enemy.

Her head throbbed horribly, and she was tired of lies. For Davies’ sake, however, she faced Mackern squarely. “We needed those gap drive components. And I need my son. How else could we do it?”

Mikka might have challenged the lie. She’d been with Morn on the auxiliary bridge: she’d seen the truth for herself. Nevertheless she said nothing. Instead she folded her arms across her chest and went on glowering impartially. Earlier she’d supported Nick with her fist: now she supported him with her silence.

For a moment Mackern’s mouth opened in protest; sweat or tears filled his eyes. But then, looking suddenly frightened, he mastered himself. In a fumble of movements, as if he’d lost the habit of his limbs, he left the data station and made his way off the bridge.

Nick’s nod hinted at satisfaction as he turned to Mikka.

“You’re on,” he said, standing up from the command console. “If I’d known we could go this fast, I would have tried it long ago. Just hold us steady. Monitor
everything
. And work up a status report we can trust. I don’t want any surprises at this velocity. We’ll start thinking about deceleration tomorrow.

“Morn,” he continued almost casually, “try to analyze what happened. You’ve got our science data—Vector can give you whatever engineering has. If we understand this, we
might
be able to control it. We might even be able to do it on purpose. Knowing how to hit speeds like this would be worth a fortune.”

Morn accepted the order; but she didn’t move toward the data station. With the best approximation of nonchalance she could manage, she asked, “Nick, how is Davies?”

She was pushing her luck. A grimace twisted Nick’s face, and he growled, “How the hell should I know? I haven’t exactly had time to hold his hand.”

A tremor started up in her, threatening her self-command. She fought it down. Needles of pain probed her vision: she ignored them. Carefully she said, “That’s what I mean. You’ve been too busy to worry about him. Did you tell anybody else to take care of him? How’s he doing?”

Nick flashed a savage glare at her. He didn’t break the pact, however. Snarling under his breath, he slapped the command station intercom. “Liete!”

The command third answered a moment later, “Nick?”

“Morn is concerned about our guest,” he sneered. On this subject, he didn’t need to hide his anger. “He’s your problem. He probably wants food. He can have that. And he probably wants companionship. He can’t have that. If he gets loose, I’ll take it out of your hide. I’ve got enough problems without having to play foster parent for somebody else’s bastard.”

Quietly, so that her voice wouldn’t shake, Morn said, “Thanks.” Then she went quickly to the data station, sat down, and belted her fear to the seat.

She was in trouble.

Her head throbbed unconscionably. She couldn’t produce enough saliva to keep her mouth and throat working. Her fingers were numb and imprecise, resisting the data board. Under pressure, her eyes slid out of focus; and when that happened, her stomach twisted queasily. Her duties alone threatened to be too much for her—and yet she also had other problems to tackle.

She needed help; needed her zone implant. Every difficult thing she’d accomplished aboard
Captain’s Fancy
had been done with artificial strength and concentration. But now those benefits were denied her: she was left with only their cost.

Addiction. Limits. And the knowledge that without her black box she might never prove equal to the challenge of saving herself, or her son.

Sometimes her vision failed because she’d been hit so hard. Sometimes it failed because she was weeping. The board in front of her blurred, and the display screens dissolved in streaks.

Nick would call it a betrayal if she let anyone see her weep. But she couldn’t tell whether any of the people around her noticed her condition.

She had to do better.

She had to try. That necessity held: it was the cold, hard core of what kept her going. Davies was even more helpless than she was. Unless she found some way to reach him, he was lost.

She had to try.

At first the effort was beyond her. By themselves, the tests and data Mikka required would have been enough to use up her resources; but in addition she had to work on the analysis Nick wanted. She had no time to get anything else done; no concentration to spare; no strength at all.

But then, as unexpectedly as if he’d just come out of the gap, Pup appeared at her station with a mug of coffee and a plate of sandwiches.

“Vector said,” the boy mumbled, “you haven’t had time to eat anything. He sent this for you.” Self-consciousness affected him like chagrin. When she didn’t move to accept Vector’s offering, he added awkwardly, “He asked Mikka. She says it’s okay.”

“Hell,” Scorz drawled, “if I’d known I could get my meals delivered just by threatening to blow up the ship, I would have done it long ago.”

Ransum giggled nervously.

Morn took the coffee and food. Hiding behind her hair, she murmured, “Thank you,” and waited for Pup to leave.

When he was gone, she ate and drank, and became a little stronger. Some of the life returned to her fingers.

After a few minutes she started working on her personal problems.

She put the tests and information Mikka wanted up on one of the big screens and kept them moving to show that she was busy. On another display, she ran a search-and-compare program to look through
Captain’s Fancy
’s data for analogues to what had happened in the gap.

But her console readouts she used for research which had nothing to do with her duties.

Simplest problems first. Without much difficulty, she discovered where Davies was being held.

His cell was one of the passenger cabins. In fact, his room was only two doors from hers. That didn’t make him physically accessible: he would be monitored—and Nick would make certain that she had no chance to sneak out of her cabin. But just knowing where her son was eased her distress. And his circumstances could have been worse: Nick could have decided to secure him by sealing him in one of the ejection pods
Captain’s Fancy
used as lifeboats. In a cabin Davies could at least move around; keep himself clean; be comfortable.

She still didn’t know how to reach him. But trying to think about that problem stunned her sore brain. To distract herself, she went to work on the ship’s communications log.

That research was harder. She had to study the log without letting Scorz—or Mikka—catch what she was doing. And her duties still demanded her attention. The command second wanted to test alloy fatigue hypotheses, to learn what effect time dilation and particle stress might have on
Captain’s Fancy
’s hull. Some theorists had argued that as a physical object approached the speed of light it would bleed substance until it was reduced to light. If
Captain’s Fancy
was bleeding, Mikka wanted to know about it. And Morn’s search-and-compare programs repeatedly came up empty, requiring her to redefine their parameters. For an hour, she was unable to nudge the information she desired out of the communications computer.

Then she got it.

Nick had sent only one message since resuming tard.

It hadn’t been aimed at Thanatos Minor. Instead it had been beamed at the nearest UMCP listening post.

It was a demand for help.

Nick reported his position, direction, and velocity, and claimed—without explanation—that he was being pursued by Amnion warships. He reminded the UMCP that they couldn’t afford to let him be captured. He urged them to send a destroyer into forbidden space to save him.

No chance, Morn said to herself as she read the message. If you think you’re worth that, you’d better think again. The UMCP may have been willing to conceal an Amnion mutagen immunity drug from the rest of humankind; but for that very reason no one at UMCPHQ would have approved the risks Nick had just taken. He’d proven himself too foolish to live. Any ship the UMCP sent out would come as a threat, not as help.

After that, however, she couldn’t go on. Nick’s dealings with UMCPHQ didn’t give her any leverage with him, any way to make him let her talk to Davies. And she couldn’t imagine how to reach Davies on her own. Her watch wore to an end without the answer she needed most.

•      •      •

When Mikka signaled for Liete’s people, Nick arrived to escort Morn back to her cabin.

The fever in his eyes and the strain in his grin told her what his intentions were: she didn’t need to interpret the leer he forced toward her, or the significant way he tapped the pocket of his shipsuit. Without warning, her eyes filled with tears again, and the last energy seemed to run out of her muscles. Only her zone implant had enabled her to bear his touch; and now that control would be used against her.