Forbidden Knowledge (44 page)

“Keep it simple,” she advised him. “You’ll live longer.”

Opening the door, she ushered the two men inside.

Angus found himself in a room like an interrogation chamber in an old video. Lit by a single light, a long table surrounded by hard chairs stood in the center of the space. The light was so bright, so narrowly focused, that the middle of the table gleamed as if it were hot; but its ends remained dim, shrouded, and the walls were barely visible. A quick glance told him that the corners were thick with monitors of all kinds. However, none of them was active. Apparently no one would eavesdrop on or record him this time.

That made his anxiety worse.

Min Donner pointed him into a chair within the circle of light. Milos she instructed to take a seat opposite him. Then she sat down at one end of the table. In the gloom, she looked as hard and unreachable as her reputation.

“This is fun,” Angus muttered. “What do you want us to do now? Make friends?”

Min watched him from the dimness. Milos’ dull gaze revealed nothing.

Impelled by mounting apprehension, Angus demanded, “Did I tell you how he betrayed Com-Mine? How he and that glamorous fucker, Succorso, set me up? Hell, if more cops were like him, there wouldn’t be anything left for
me
to do.”

The ED director didn’t move a muscle.

“Personally,” another voice remarked, “I would be more interested in hearing how you acquired a name for such despicable crimes without accumulating evidence against yourself in your ship’s datacore.”

Angus jerked his head to look at the other end of the table.

A man sat there.

Angus hadn’t heard him come in. And he definitely hadn’t been in that chair a moment earlier. Yet he was there now. Maybe he’d been hiding under the table. Or maybe the purpose of the contrasting dazzle and gloom was to let him come and go with as much stealth as he pleased.

He was hard to see, but Angus made out enough detail to perfect his fear.

The man had a chest as thick as a barrel, short, sturdy arms, strong fingers. Despite the dimness, the lines and angles of his face appeared as exact as if they’d been machine-tooled; his mouth, jaw, and forehead might have been cut from a block of steel. Gray hair uncompromisingly cut spread stiffly across his scalp. Only the crookedness of his nose moderated his features: it gave the impression that it had been broken several times.

Glints of light reflected piercingly from his single eye, the right one. Over the socket of the left he wore a synthetic patch glued to his skin.

Warden Dios.

UMCP director.

In effect, he was the most powerful man in human space. Holt Fasner, UMC CEO, wielded the political influence, the economic muscle. But the fighting force intended to protect humankind from the Amnion took its orders from Warden Dios.

Oh, shit.

That patch was the clue which identified him. All the stories about Dios which circulated across space mentioned it. For reasons which varied according to the source of the story, Dios’ left eye had been replaced by an infrared prosthesis which enabled him to read people as accurately as a vital stress monitor. He’d become a man to whom no one could lie.

Someone else, with different goals and priorities, would have had the prosthesis added like Angus’ to his natural vision, so that it didn’t show. Not Dios. He flaunted his augmented sight as if daring anyone to mislead him. According to some of the stories, he wore the patch as a courtesy to his subordinates, so that they wouldn’t be disconcerted by having to look into a mechanical eye. Others said that he wore it because it made him appear more dangerous. Still others insisted that it concealed, not an eye, but a gun.

In any case, the patch would be no obstacle to the prosthesis. That material wouldn’t stop either infrared wavelengths or impact fire.

Angus was on the verge of hysteria. Nevertheless his fear steadied him: he was at his best when he was terrified. “Most of the time,” he answered as if he were calm, “I did it by interrupting scan. My ship”—memories of
Bright Beauty
gave his voice a vibration of anger—“didn’t record what she couldn’t see.”

Because his computer was no longer programmed to interrogate him, it let this statement pass.

“Then the interrupts should have been recorded.” Dios’ tone was mild and firm. He didn’t threaten anyone because he had no need of threats. “I don’t have your transcripts in front of me,” he said to Milos. “What did you find in his datacore?”

Milos twisted as if he were squirming. Perhaps because he, too, feared the UMCP director, he took the nic out of his mouth. “There were glitches. We decided they were interrupts. We couldn’t think of any other explanation.”

Dios smiled like a piece of steel. “They were fortuitous, at any rate. I commend your foresight, Angus. Without those ‘glitches,’ Com-Mine Security would almost certainly have gathered enough evidence to execute you. Then neither of you would be available to us now.

“As it happens, we need you.” His eye glittered at Angus and Milos alternately. “In fact, the need is so acute that you’ll be leaving in about an hour. This will be your last briefing.”

Milos opened his mouth to speak, then changed his mind. Instead he put his nic back between his lips.

“From here,” the director continued, “you’ll be taken to your ship. She’s a Needle-class gap scout. Crew of two, space for eight. According to her official records, she has no armaments—just some rather sophisticated shielding and defenses. However, we’ve concealed a few refinements that will probably interest you.

“Actually”—he fixed his gaze on Angus—“you know all about her. You could rebuild her from scrap, if you had to. But you haven’t accessed the data yet, for the simple reason that we haven’t told you her name. We call her
Trumpet.
You’ll find a complete data base coded under that name.”

Deliberately Angus resisted the temptation to call up the information and look at it. He couldn’t afford to be distracted.

Dios resumed. “You’ll depart on your mission as soon as you’ve familiarized yourself with
Trumpet.
You already know what your mission is. That is,
you
know, Milos. Angus, your programming will tell you what you need as you go along. But I’ll say this.

“I intend you to destroy the shipyard called Billingate on Thanatos Minor. That’s your destination.”

A new pang shot through Angus. He blinked to disguise his outrage. Destroy Billingate? The director’s arrogance offended him. He’d been dependent on places like Billingate more often than he cared to remember. Without them, he would have died long ago. Or been caught and convicted.

If you think I’m going to do that kind of bloody work for you—

On the other hand, it would be better to destroy Billingate than to be destroyed himself.

“Of course,” Dios added as if he were responding to Angus’ emotion, “it would be simpler to send a battle-wagon and blast that rock to rubble. But our treaties with the Amnion prevent it. I don’t want to precipitate an open war. In any case, it’s likely that Thanatos Minor is fairly well defended. All in all, a covert approach is preferable.”

“Director.” Milos stiffened his resolve. “I’ve said this before—often—but I’ll say it again.” He kept his nic in his mouth as if it gave him courage. Light made the stains on his scalp vivid. “I’m not the right man for this mission.”

Dios fixed Taverner with his single stare and waited for Milos to go on.

Exhaling smoke, Milos said, “You’ve trained me for it. You probably don’t have a substitute handy. But I’m still the wrong man. For one thing, I’ve had no experience with covert operations—or combat, either. A couple of months of training can’t take the place of real experience. And for another”—he glanced at Min Donner as if he had an irrational desire to ask for her support—“the experience I do have is all from the wrong side. Lying isn’t my job.” Angus snorted at this, but Milos ignored him. “Breaking down liars
is.
My experience—the training of my
life
—isn’t just inadequate. It’s wrong for this mission. It’ll work against me. I’ll make mistakes I won’t even notice. I’ll betray you—I won’t be able to help myself.”

“In other words—” Angus began.

“You underestimate yourself, Milos,” put in Warden mildly. “You aren’t the wrong man.”

“—you’re scared shitless,” Angus went on. “The mere thought of being alone with me makes you crap your suit.”

“Nor are you the perfect man,” Dios continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “You’re the only man.

“As I’m sure you’ve been told, we can’t simply let Angus Thermopyle loose on an unsuspecting galaxy. Why is he free? How did he get his hands on a ship like
Trumpet
? We have to account for him somehow. He must be able to account for himself. He’ll never be trusted otherwise.

“
You
are the answer. You’re his cover, Milos. When you realized that Com-Mine Security was about to nail you for your—shall we say, indiscretions?—you broke him out of lockup. Precisely because you aren’t trained for space, you needed him. Together you stole
Trumpet.

“Without you, Milos—without you and no one else—I’m afraid he’ll be totally ineffective.

“However,” the director said to Angus, “Milos makes an important point. If I were you, I wouldn’t rely too heavily on his reflexes in emergency situations. His instincts haven’t been”—Dios’ eye gleamed—“as well honed as yours.”

He sounded so clear and irrefutable—and so untouched by the dull panic glowering in Milos’ eyes—that Angus couldn’t resist challenging him.

Harshly he said, “You probably think I’m grateful you’re going to put me on a ship with a coward and a traitor who has bad reflexes as well as the power to shut me down whenever he panics. If I wanted to get away from you, he’s the man I would choose to be in charge of me.”

For the first time, Min Donner spoke. “Angus, nobody here makes the mistake of thinking you’re grateful for anything.”

Angus ignored her. “But that’s beside the point, isn’t it. You’re throwing up static mines. You want me to be so keen on outmaneuvering this lump of shit that I won’t think about what’s really going on.”

“And what,” Dios asked steadily, “do you imagine is ‘really going on’?”

“You tell me. We’ve both been here for months. Now all at once we’re in a hurry. What makes your fucking ‘need’ suddenly so fucking ‘acute’?”

In the dimness, Dios’ mouth twisted; he may have been smiling. “Events converge. Everything you need to know about them is already in your datacore. You’ll be given access to it in due course. However”—he glanced down the table at Min, then returned his gaze to Angus—“I’ll just mention that people you know are involved. Nick Succorso and
Captain’s Fancy
should be arriving at Billingate—oh, any time now.”

Calmly, as if the details had no special meaning, he added, “He has Morn Hyland with him. We don’t know where they’ve been, but an analysis of their transmission vectors suggests that they’re approaching Thanatos Minor from the direction of Enablement Station.”

Morn.

“They’ve spent some time in forbidden space.”

Angus sagged in his chair. He didn’t care about forbidden space. He cared about Morn Hyland. She was the only person alive who could betray his last secret; his last hope.

He was alive because he’d made a deal with her. Had she kept it? Would she keep it?

“Min,” the director continued, “what did Nick’s last message say?”

“It was short,” Min answered as if she were restraining an impulse to snarl. “It said, ‘I rescued her for you, goddamn it. Now get me out of this. If you don’t, I can’t keep her away from the Amnion.’”

For Angus, the gravest danger wasn’t that she might be given to the Amnion. It was that he might be programmed to rescue her, bring her back to the UMCP—and she wouldn’t keep her promise.

And yet the thought of seeing her again seized his heart like a clutch of grief.

Behind his nic, Milos looked like he was about to vomit.

“I’m afraid,” Dios remarked, “Nick Succorso isn’t particularly trustworthy. But we really can’t ignore the possibility that a UMCP ensign is about to fall into the hands of the Amnion.”

Without shifting his posture or his tone, he said to the ED director, “Take Milos to
Trumpet.
Make sure he remembers his instructions. Remind him of the consequences if he violates them. Don’t worry about boring him—a little repetition won’t do him any harm.

“I want to talk to Angus for a few minutes. I’ll bring him to you when I’m done.”

Donner’s gaze narrowed. “Do you think that’s safe?”

“Do you think it isn’t?” Dios countered.

At once she got to her feet. Her face looked closed and hard in the gloom. “Come on, Milos.”

Taverner’s hands shook feverishly as he took the nic out of his mouth, dropped it on the floor, and stood up. He moved toward Min as if she would escort him to his execution.

They were at the door when Warden said softly, “It isn’t an insult, Min. Even I have to do without protection sometimes. If I’m not willing to take a few risks for my convictions, what good am I?”

“I ask myself that question,” she retorted in a rough voice, “almost every day.”

As she and Milos left, the director smiled after her.

It didn’t make him look happy. It made him look like he was about to condemn someone. The glittering of his eye conveyed the impression that he hated doing that; loathed it with a passion too strong to be articulated.

Maybe, Angus thought, inspired by panic, Warden Dios was about to condemn himself. Maybe he was about to make a mistake that would improve his, Angus’, chances.

That didn’t seem very likely.

Alone with Warden Dios, he sat and sweated. The director studied him, saying nothing. He could feel Dios’ eyes on him, the hidden one probing for his secret. He wanted to duck his head—wanted to get out of the room. He wasn’t the right man to face down the director of the UMCP: he had too much panic bred in his bones. Let him go with Milos aboard
Trumpet.
Let him get back to people and places he understood. Then he would have a chance. Here he was lost.