Forbidden Knowledge: The Gap Into Vision

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  To protect herself, she managed a wan smile. “Do I look like I’m trying to engage self-destruct?”

  Vector’s smile was habitual, almost inflectionless; she couldn’t tell whether he believed her or not.

  Apparently he did. After a moment he stepped past her to the intercom beside the lift.

  “I think she’s all right,” he reported. “I’ll take her to the galley and get some food into her.”

  Without waiting for an acknowledgment, he turned to his companion. “You’re due for sleep, Orn. If you don’t get some soon, you’re going to fall down.”

  Orn Vorbuld didn’t seem to realize he’d been dismissed. He squinted at Morn as if she were growing brighter in some way; soon she would be too bright to be looked at directly. With the air of a man reaching a difficult decision, he said to her, “You’re too much for Nick.” His tone was timid; it made the words sound like a ques-One of his thick hands reached out and stroked her hair.

  Then he walked away.

  Morn ignored him. As soon as Vector said the words “galley” and “food,” she realized that she hadn’t had anything to eat since she’d left Bright Beauty. Her sleepiness was nearly gone, but her weakness remained. She needed food.

  Vector took her arm gently and keyed the lift. As the door opened and he steered her inside, he remarked casually, “Orn is a genius of an odd sort. He’s a good data first, primarily because he can make computers walk on water. And you can tell just by looking at him that he knows too much about sickbays.

  “Unfortunately he has the glands of an ape.”

  Was the engineer trying to warn her? Morn dismissed the question. Her brain could only handle one thing at a time. Vector hadn’t found the control. He wasn’t taking her to sickbay. That was enough. Now she wanted food.

  When they reached the galley, it was empty. Captain’s Fancy must have stopped burning some time ago, and the rest of the crew had already had a chance to eat. Vector seated her at the table, tapped his orders into the console of the foodvend, then went to begin making coffee.

  Peripherally she noted how stiffly he moved. The rest of her concentrated on the thought of food and the smell of coffee. One thing at a time.

  As soon as he placed a steaming tray in front of her, she ate without caring how good the meal was. At the moment she didn’t even care what it was.

  He ate across the table from her. He must have been hungry himself, but he didn’t hurry. She finished well before he did.

  Seeing she was done, he got up, filled two mugs with coffee, set them on the table, and sat down again. But he continued to eat in silence, giving her time to collect herself. Maybe he was trying to calm her for reasons of his own. Or maybe he was naturally courteous; or even kind. Whatever his motives, she took advantage of the opportunity he provided.

  By the time he pushed his tray aside, she was ready.

  She couldn’t match his mildness, but she tried to sound relaxed as she asked, “How long did we burn?”

  “Four hours.”

  Morn raised her eyebrows. “That’s a lot of g.”

  Vector took a sip of his coffee, then agreed, “It’s about as much as some of us can stand—even with drugs. Too much, really. But we don’t want to get caught. We shut down thrust an hour ago. Right now, we’re scanning like mad. If anybody comes after us, we’ll have to burn again, whether we can stand it or not. So far—” He spread his hands.

  “When we reduced g, Mikka tried to rouse you over the intercom. You didn’t answer. She knew you were still alive, she said, because”—his smile broadened slightly—“she could hear you snoring. But she couldn’t make you wake up. Nick wanted her to take the bridge so he could get some rest himself. Orn and I volunteered to see what we could do for you.”

  Morn didn’t respond. She was busy thinking. Four hours at full acceleration was a hell of a lot of g. People died under that kind of pressure. Nick wasn’t just in a hurry: he was urgent; perhaps desperate.

  And yet she’d survived the crisis. She’d slept through her madness; discovered a way to cope with it. That was hope—more hope than she’d expected. For a moment, it was enough.

  To fill the silence, or to give her time to think, Vector continued talking.

  “We’ve reached roughly two-thirds of our theoretical maximum speed. If we burn for another two hours, we’ll zero out thrust. For a ship this size, our drive is pretty powerful, but any engine can only produce so much push. After that, we’ll coast. Unless,” he added, “they chase us. In that case, we’ll all learn more than we ever wanted to know about heavy g. Without a reliable gap drive, our options are limited.

  “Even if they don’t chase us, we’re still going to wish we had a reliable gap drive. No matter how much speed we generate, it won’t be enough. We’ll be coasting for a very long time.”

  That comment pulled Morn out of herself. It sounded remarkably like an offer of information. Scrambling inside, she moved to take advantage of it.

  “How long? Weeks?”

  Vector studied his coffee. “More like months.”

  She mouthed the word, Months?

  “We have to go the long way around. If anybody follows us—Com-Mine Security or the UMCP—we’re in big trouble. Actually, we’re still heading away from where we want to go. But if you knew the ship better—or if you had a particularly good inner ear—you could tell we’re running a course correction right now. It’s very gradual. We aren’t going to take the risk of encountering any other ships—or of getting caught—while we curve.”

  The course correction was certainly gradual. Her sense of balance was normally sensitive enough to tell her when she was experiencing g along more than one vector. She had to wonder if he was telling her the truth—and, if so, why.

  “For a ship with no gap drive,” she commented, “we’re trying to cross a lot of space. Where are we going?”

  “Repairs,” the engineer answered succinctly. “We need to reach a shipyard where we can get the gap drive fixed.”

  Morn faced him in surprise. Discounting Com-Mine Station itself, she couldn’t think of any shipyard in human space that Captain’s Fancy could reach using only thrust. The ship’s speed might well go as high as 150,000 kilometers per second; but even that much velocity was trivial compared to the light-years between the stars.

  Forgetting caution, she asked, “What shipyard? Where is it?”

  Vector’s eyes were as clear as clean sky. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  “No, I don’t,” she retorted. “As far as I can see, you shouldn’t be talking to me at all. As long as you’re doing something I don’t understand, you can’t expect me to guess where your limits are.”

  He smiled, unperturbed. “As I say, we’re going to be coasting for a long time. That means we’re going to see so much of each other we’re likely to turn homicidal. We’ll all have an easier time if we try to be friendly.”

  She didn’t smile back. Vector Shaheed, she told herself, was male. Like Nick Succorso and Angus Thermopyle. If he was “friendly,” he wanted something from her.

  She was prepared to give Nick what he wanted. For her own survival. That’s what the zone implant control was for.

  But nobody else. Nobody. Ever.

  Deliberately cold, she said, “And we’re doing all this on UMCP orders. We’re doing it to keep Hashi Lebwohl’s nose clean for planting station supplies on Bright Beauty. Loyalty is a good thing, but this is ridiculous.”

  Just for a moment, Vector appeared perplexed. Then his expression cleared. “Ah. Your theory that Nick is a DA operative. Now I understand.

  “Listen to me.” He leaned forward to emphasize his words, and his round face gave up its smile. “I wouldn’t count on that assumption if I were you. I wouldn’t even repeat it. It’s too dangerous. You took enough of a chance when you mentioned it the first time.”

  She scowled at him. “Why? I’m a cop myself.” She had no reason to trust him—and no reason to let him think she did. �
�Why else did Nick decide to keep me, if he didn’t have UMCP orders?”

  Abruptly Vector stood up; he went to the coffee maker and refilled his mug. All his movements were wooden, as if his joints had frozen while he sat.

  Not facing her, he said, “Nick kept you for his own reasons. He’ll tell you what they are—if he ever feels like it.

  “As for the rest of us—

  “There isn’t anybody aboard this ship who doesn’t hate the UMCP.” An undercurrent of vehemence ran through his mild tone. “And we’ve got cause. We can just barely tolerate you as it is. If you try to taint Nick with your own crimes, we’ll use your guts for thruster fuel.”

  “‘Crimes’?” His anger stopped hers; but it didn’t stop her questions. “What are you talking about? I didn’t ask you to frame Bright Beauty. I never got the chance. That was your crime, not mine.”

  “The crime of being a cop,” Vector returned without hesitation. However, his vehemence was gone: it vanished as suddenly as it came. “The UMCP is the most corrupt organization there is. It makes piracy look like philanthropy.”

  While Morn stared at him, he returned stiffly to his seat. With his mug in front of him, he faced her, smiling and mild, like a man who knew nothing about anger. “Let me tell you a story.”

  Reeling inwardly, she nodded. She’d been shocked by the bare concept of UMCP complicity in Angus’ false arrest; but the step from betraying a pirate to being “the most corrupt organization there is” was a large one. If it were true, it made lies out of her own reasons for becoming a cop. It stained her father, whom she considered the most incorruptible man she’d ever known; it transformed her mother’s death into something foolish, pitiful. If it were true—

  She listened to Vector Shaheed as if—for the time being, at least—every other question or consideration had ceased to exist.

  “You may not realize,” he said evenly, “that piracy is an unusual vocation for a man like me. I’m not violent. I’m not rebellious—or even larcenous. The truth is, I’m not even a particularly good engineer. If you’d had time to think about such things, you might have wondered what I’m doing here.

  “I’ll tell you.

  “By training, anyway, I’m a geneticist, not an engineer. Engineering is something I picked up later, after I decided to change careers. Before that, I worked for Intertech. In genetics.

  “Actually, that’s where I met Orn. He was the computer expert for our section. He was prone to accidents even then, and some of his surgical reconstructions were more successful than others, but he was in better shape then than he is now. At first I didn’t care for him. He was too—too unscrupulous for my taste. We used to say he’d fuck a snake if it just opened its mouth wide enough. But he was a wizard with computers, and we all depended on him.

  “Anyway, I was a geneticist, and as soon as I proved I was good enough I got assigned to some top-priority research. The kind of research where they check the gaps between your teeth and the slush in your bowels to make sure you don’t take anything classified home with you when you leave work. Intertech was always twitchy about security—you’ve probably read about the trouble they were in years ago, the riots and so on—and they were getting worse all the time.”

  He paused to drink some of his coffee. Morn may have done the same: she was concentrating too hard to notice.

  “From our point of view, that was understandable. Intertech’s charter forbids genetic tampering. You probably know that.” Morn nodded. “It’s a universal prohibition. Even the United Mining Companies charter says the same thing. Intertech could have been dismantled if the things our section did were looked at the wrong way.

  “We were working,” he said as if the statement had no special significance, “on a defense against genetic warfare. An immunization for RNA mutation.”

  Morn’s throat closed in shock; she almost stopped breathing. An immunization for RNA mutation. She may have been only a UMCP ensign, but no space-going man or woman could have failed to recognize the implications. A defense against genetic warfare. If that were achieved, it would be the most important single discovery since Juanita Estevez stumbled on the gap drive. It would transform human space. It would defuse—and conceivably resolve—the peril of forbidden space. It might even end the problem of piracy, if the pirates were deprived of what was by far their largest market.

  No wonder Intertech was “twitchy about security.” The patents alone on such a discovery might make the company rich enough to buy out the UMC.

  But Vector was still talking. While she struggled to catch up with him, he went on, “As you can imagine, we had to be pretty good at tampering ourselves before we could find a way to protect genetic coding against alteration. And we were good. The truth is, we were close. We were so close I used to dream about it at night. It was like climbing a ladder where you can’t see the top because it disappears into a cloud. I couldn’t see the end, exactly, but I could see every rung along the way. All I needed was a handlight, and I could have guessed my way past the rest of the rungs to the answer.

  “What I dreamed, you see,” he said half apologetically, “was that I was going to be the savior of humankind. We were all part of it, of course, our whole section—and we wouldn’t have been able to do that kind of work without Orn—but I was the one who could see the rungs. I was the one who knew how close we were to the end of the ladder.”

  Then his smile twisted ruefully, as if he were amused by his own regret. “That’s as far as I got.”

  “What happened?” asked Morn. A few short weeks ago, she’d been a young officer on her first mission, with ideals she’d adopted from her family, and enough experience of loss to know that such ideals were important. The idea of an achievement as vital, as tremendous, as a mutagen immunization—the idea of being able to do that many people that much good—still touched her, despite Angus and gapsickness.

  Vector shrugged stiffly. “One day, when I went in to work, I found I couldn’t call my research up on the screen. We didn’t do that kind of research in a bio lab. It was too complex and time-consuming to be run physically. We did it all with computer models and simulations. And my research was just gone. The whole project was gone, everything the whole section was doing. No matter whose authorization we used, or what priority it had, our screens came up blank.

  “It was Orn who figured out what happened. He rigged his way into the system and found it was full of embedded codes none of us knew anything about. When those codes were activated, they closed down the project. Sealed it off. None of us could get the smallest fraction of our data back. The system wouldn’t even recognize our names.

  “Those codes were UMCP.” As he spoke, his voice resumed its undertone of vehemence, harsh and bleak. “Not UMC. This wasn’t just a situation where the United Mining Companies wanted to protect itself in case Intertech became too powerful. Orn knew that because the codes included source-and copy-routes. They came from a dedicated UMCP computer over in Administration, and they copied everything we did to the same place.”

  She listened as if she were transfixed. What he was saying made her skin crawl.

  “That computer was DA. It wasn’t supposed to have the capability to do anything except scan Intertech research, looking for developments the cops might find useful. But when Orn got into the system, he learned that computer had the power—and the authority—to blank the entire company.

  “You’re young,” he said to Morn abruptly. “You haven’t been out of the Academy, or away from Earth, very long. Have you ever heard one rumor about an immunization against RNA mutation? Has anyone ever given you a reason to believe we don’t need to spend the rest of our lives in terror of forbidden space? Have the cops—or the UMC—ever released our data?”

  Stunned, she shook her head.

  “We had the raw materials for a defense, we had all the rungs. And they took it, they suppressed it.” Vector’s eyes were so blue they seemed incandescent. “They don’t want us to know that the way we
live now isn’t necessary—and it sure as hell isn’t inevitable. Forbidden space is their excuse for power, their justification. If we had an immunity drug, we wouldn’t need the United Mining Companies fucking Police.”

  He made an effort to control himself, but it didn’t work. “Think about it for a while,” he broke out. “At least a dozen billion human beings, all condemned to the terror and probably the fact of genetic imperialism, and for what? For nothing. Except to consolidate and extend the power of the cops. And the UMC. In the end the whole of human space is going to be one vast gulag, owned and operated by the UMC for its own benefit, with the cops for muscle.

  “I’m one of the lucky ones.” Now at last Vector’s anger began to recede; but his smile didn’t come back. “I got out. Intertech shut down our section and transferred all of us, but I kept in touch with Orn. Mostly because he has so few scruples, he tends to meet people with none at all. I quit Intertech and apprenticed engineering on one of the orbital smelters. Then Orn got me a job on a small, independent orehauler, along with a few other”—at last he permitted himself a mildly sarcastic grin—“disaffected souls. We took over the ship and went into business for ourselves. Eventually we met Nick. Orn understands illegals, and I understand brilliance, so we joined him. We’ve been here ever since.”

  There he stopped. Maybe he could see how profoundly he’d disturbed her. Or maybe he was just exhausted himself, worn out by too much mass and too little rest. He stood up as if he had to fight resistance in every joint, apparently intending to leave her alone with the implications of what he’d said.

  But he wasn’t done after all. Halfway out of the galley, he paused to ask, “Do you know why I move like this?”

  Morn shook her head dumbly.

  “Arthritis,” he told her. “Once I made the mistake of interfering with one of Orn’s less scrupulous pleasures. He beat me up. Rather severely. Quite a few of my joints were bruised or damaged. That’s where arthritis starts. It gets a toehold on old wounds or scar tissue. Then it spreads. Heavy g is—agony.