Forbidden Knowledge: The Gap Into Vision

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Mikka held Morn’s gaze; the corner of her upper lip twitched toward a sneer or a snarl. After a moment she nodded stiffly.

  Several strides ahead of the Amnion emissary and the command second, Morn left the bridge.

  Nick knew about her zone implant. Her son had been traded away.

  There was nothing left to restrain her.

  CHAPTER 15

  Hurrying, she chose a route to her cabin that took her past one of Captain’s Fancy’s tool lockers.

  As she opened the locker, she began to tremble. If someone caught her doing this, she was finished. But she couldn’t afford to hesitate: she had too little time. Despite the risk, she helped herself to a circuit probe, a coil of fine wire, a simple screwdriver, and a wiring laser; she hid them in her pockets. Then she moved on toward her cabin, nearly running.

  She wasn’t worried about what Nick might do to her in the next few hours. He was being challenged on too many sides at once. He had the Amnion to deal with, and the danger that his ship might never get out of forbidden space. In addition he had to consider the reactions of his people to the fact that he was willing to sell human beings. When he traded Davies away, he gave the entire crew reason to distrust him. If he didn’t do something to restore confidence in himself—and do it soon—Captain’s Fancy might be crippled by doubt.

  At the same time, he’d just received his first true glimpse of the masque Morn had played against him. Now he had to recognize that everything he’d felt for her and every decision he’d made regarding her was founded on a lie.

  Under the circumstances, he would leave her alone until after Captain’s Fancy escaped Enablement; until he was far enough from the station to feel safe. And that time might be days away; it might never come. She would face it when or if it happened.

  No, her main worry where he was concerned had to do with her black box. Had he realized yet that her zone implant was meaningless unless she also had a zone implant control? Was he too busy to bother taking it away from her?

  As long as he let her keep it, she retained her advantage.

  When she reached her cabin and keyed the panel, the door swept open.

  She felt certain Nick wouldn’t neglect to lock her in as soon as the computer told him she’d entered her cabin. Nevertheless she went in and let the door close.

  At once a small amber light on the interior panel indicated that she was a prisoner.

  Now she didn’t need to hurry. The Amnion could deliver the equipment immediately, but not the adapters. And even in his worst fury, Nick wouldn’t hand over Davies until the Amnion fulfilled their part of the bargain. She might have an hour—or she might have five. Plenty of time.

  She hurried anyway. Desperation and the effects of her zone implant made her manic.

  With the screwdriver, she pried open the door’s control panel.

  She was as careful as her internal frenzy permitted. Any mistake would alert the computer; would alert Nick. But she’d gone beyond restraint, and the electrical pressure in her brain left no room for uncertainty. Driven by cold, visceral horror and absolute rage, she felt immune to error.

  With the probe, she tested the circuits until she understood them. Then she positioned pieces of wire—as crooked and yet legible as handwriting—to bypass both the locking mechanism and its sensor, so that the computer would always report that the door was shut and locked. When she’d welded her wires into the circuits, she burned out the bypassed controls.

  Now the door couldn’t be opened or closed electronically; but she could shove it aside with the friction of her palms.

  She was ready.

  The time had come for her to wait.

  That should have been impossible. Her son was being traded to the Amnion. They would run tests on him until his psyche tore and his spirit snapped. Then they would make him one of them. They might very well turn him into an improved version of Marc Vestabule. Waiting should have been inconceivable.

  It wasn’t. Her zone implant made her capable of anything.

  On some level, she knew that its emissions were as addictive as any drug, and as destructive. But that didn’t matter: they were also effective. With them, she could have put herself to sleep. Or she could have tuned her body to the pitch of orgasm until her brain went into noradrenaline overload, and everything she would ever think or feel boiled away.

  However, she had a more complex form of suicide in mind.

  After a few adjustments to her black box, she sank into a trance of concentration in which her mind was charged simultaneously with vitality and peace: a trance that allowed her to remember everything she’d ever learned about Captain’s Fancy—every code, every command sequence, every logic tree—as well as every precaution Nick had taken for Enablement Station.

  Instead of going hysterical with apprehension and helplessness, she spent her time preparing to fight the entire ship.

  Try to stop me now. Just try.

  There was nothing left to restrain her. At last she could be utterly what Angus Thermopyle had made her.

  The zone implant left no room for doubt. In her concentrated trance, she saw only one thing which might go wrong.

  What if Mikka didn’t tell her when the trade took place?

  Then she and Davies were both lost. He would be abandoned to the Amnion, and she would be at Nick’s mercy until she died.

  The fear that Mikka might fail or betray her should have been enough to tip her over the edge.

  But it wasn’t. Dread was human: hysteria and revulsion belonged to flesh and blood. She’d left such emotions behind.

  The only one she retained was her long, unappeased rage.

  And Mikka didn’t let her down. Nearly two and a half hours after Morn had entered her cabin, the intercom chimed.

  “Morn?” the command second asked softly, as if she were whispering. “Morn?”

  Nearly two and a half hours. Was that enough time for the Amnion to run their tests on Nick’s blood? Morn didn’t know. How they cultured and examined their specimens was a mystery to her.

  “Morn?” Mikka repeated. The intercom’s tiny speaker conveyed only a hint of anguish. “He’s gone.”

  Nearly two and a half hours. That may or may not have been all the time the Amnion needed, but it was enough for Morn. Keying herself out of her trance, she brought up energy and strength that made her feel like a charged matter cannon.

  “We’ve got the equipment and adapters,” Mikka continued uncertainly. “Vector was impressed. He says they look perfect. He’s already in the drive space. He says if they’re as perfect as they look he can have us ready for thrust in half an hour”—Captain’s Fancy couldn’t use either of her drives while he was inside the engines—“and tach in an our.”

  She may have been trying to comfort Morn. You didn’t lose your son for nothing. At least now we’ll have a chance.

  Morn didn’t answer. She owed Mikka that: as long as she didn’t answer, Mikka was protected. No one could prove that the command second had spoken to her.

  Bracing her hands on the door, she pressed it aside and stepped past it. Then she closed it to disguise her absence.

  If someone saw her now, she would have to silence whoever it was. She was ready for that. But the passage was empty. By this time, Liete’s watch should have relieved Mikka’s; Nick’s should be on emergency stations around the ship. However, Morn was artificially sure those things hadn’t happened. Nick’s best people would be with him on the bridge. And while Captain’s Fancy was docked no one was needed on emergency stations. The rest of the crew would be in the galley or the mess, listening to the intercom for anything Nick let them hear.

  If they weren’t, they were dead.

  Or she was.

  Morn went down to the auxiliary bridge.

  Liete Corregio was there.

  In a sense, it was fortuitous that Morn’s certainty had only misled her to that extent.

  And Liete was alone; she sat in the command seat with her back to the
doorway; she’d activated her board so that she could keep track of what was happening to the ship: more good fortune.

  But she still wore her handgun.

  Morn would have to deal with the command third somehow.

  She didn’t hesitate. Her zone implant inspired her. Deep within herself, she’d reached a place of madness and focus where there was no doubt.

  Silent as oil, she eased across the deck and punched Liete once, hard, behind the right ear.

  Liete snapped forward; her forehead cracked against the console. When she slumped to the side, she left a smear of blood on the board.

  Quickly Morn checked her pulse, her eyes: she didn’t want to kill the command third. But Liete was barely unconscious. Good. Hurrying because she couldn’t predict what the Amnion would do to Davies, or when, Morn took Liete’s handgun. Then she unsealed the command third’s shipsuit, pulled her arms out of the sleeves, and resealed the suit with her arms pinned inside. Not as good as a straitjacket, but good enough so that Liete couldn’t do anything sudden to surprise Morn.

  Morn dragged Liete to the wall near the door, propped her there. She closed the door and locked it. After that she seated herself at the command station and repositioned it to face the door—a precaution in case Nick tried to force his way in while she worked.

  A small groan trailed between Liete’s lips. Blood from her forehead dripped past her nose and around her mouth.

  Morn ignored her.

  Now.

  She felt that she’d arrived at a moment of apotheosis. She’d been alone on the auxiliary bridge of Starmaster when she’d killed her father, killed most of her family.

  Now.

  Self-destruct.

  Perhaps this was what gapsickness felt like. Perhaps circumstances and her black box had recreated that particular abrogation of sanity.

  No matter. This time she was going to save somebody who depended on her. If it could be done, she was going to save her son.

  Clear and confident, she set her fingers to the keys of the auxiliary command board.

  First she opened her intercom so that she would hear anything Nick chose to share with the rest of the ship. Then she went to work.

  Her instructions to the command computer had to be both subtle and compulsory, so that they wouldn’t attract attention while they took precedence over other operations. She needed to dummy Vector’s jury-rigged destruct sequence to her board: that required her to tap into targ, engineering, and maintenance, as well as into Nick’s console. Then she had to issue codes which would deactivate those functions from the bridge, reroute them to her. Along the way, she also needed to commandeer control over the auxiliary bridge doors and life-support—not to mention the airlock which connected Captain’s Fancy to Enablement Station. In addition, she required communications: she would be useless if she couldn’t talk. And she had to achieve all this in a way that couldn’t be countermanded.

  The destruct sequence was easy: it wasn’t integral to the ship’s systems, had no built-in overrides. Nick had obviously intended to dismantle it as soon as he escaped Enablement. Besides, she’d helped Vector design it; she remembered it exactly. But the rest demanded an almost eidetic recall of everything she’d learned from her time as Captain’s Fancy’s scan second; from the ordeal of her attempt to cure Vorbuld’s virus.

  The state which her zone implant imposed on her mind gave her the necessary recall.

  The most crucial thing, the real trick, was to disable Nick’s priority codes. This was his ship, programmed to let him supersede all other instructions no matter who issued them. As matters stood, he could shut her down the instant he realized what she was doing.

  And yet she’d already conceived a simple solution to the problem—a solution so simple that he might never figure it out.

  She wrote an intervening batch command to his board, a command which his priority codes would activate before they took effect; a command which altered his codes by transposing a few digits so that none of the computers would recognize them.

  He would be unable to countermand her until he erased the batch command. And that wouldn’t happen until he realized what she’d done.

  Now. When she keyed in his priority codes herself, all the control she needed would switch to her board. It would belong to her until she gave it up.

  Liete groaned again, twitched, opened her eyes. Like the trickle of blood from her forehead, she breathed, “What the hell are you doing?”

  As if he were answering, Nick’s voice came over the intercom. “Liete, check on Vector. He can’t hear me in there. I want a status report. Find out when we can get out of here.”

  “Nick,” Liete moaned, so weakly that he couldn’t hear her, “Morn’s here. She’s taken over the auxiliary bridge.”

  It didn’t matter if Nick heard Liete. Morn was ready.

  No, she wasn’t. There was one more precaution—

  Nick waited for Liete’s answer. The intercom stayed open: it picked up Lind’s voice in the background.

  “Nick, something’s happening to my board.”

  Morn was out of time. Precautions would have to wait.

  With a few keys, a few codes, she risked everything.

  Indicators articulated her board: instructions and confirmations sped across her readouts. A subliminal shift in the ambient power-hum of the auxiliary bridge seemed to promise that the systems she needed belonged to her now.

  She had communications.

  She had life-support.

  She had doors and airlocks.

  She had self-destruct.

  She could make herself feel like singing; but that wasn’t necessary.

  “Liete!” Nick demanded, “what the fuck are you doing down there?”

  Morn silenced the intercom. “Shut up and sit still,” she told Liete. “I’ve got your gun.” She raised the impact pistol. “I don’t want to kill you, but I won’t let you interfere.”

  Liete licked her lips and tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. After a moment she nodded.

  Now.

  Morn snapped the intercom back on.

  “Nick, this is Morn. I’m on the auxiliary bridge.”

  “Morn, you—” he began.

  She cut him off. “I’ve got the self-destruct. It’s primed and ready. And I’ve canceled your priority codes. You can’t override me.

  “If you leave me alone, there’s a chance we may all survive. I’m even going to protect your credibility with the Amnion. But you sold my son, and I won’t stand for that. If you get in my way, this ship and most of Enablement will end up as atomic powder.”

  Her zone implant enabled her to concentrate on as many different things as necessary. While she talked, she wrote in her last precaution—another batch command.

  This one would work off her board. When it was ready, she could press down on the toggle which displayed the ship’s chronometer on her readouts, and if anything happened to her—if anything made her take her finger off the toggle—the self-destruct would be engaged. Captain’s Fancy would blow in milliseconds.

  “Cut her off!” Nick shouted to somebody else. “Cut power to the auxiliary bridge! Override her—get your boards back!” He hit his keys so hard that the sound carried over the intercom, punctuating his rage.

  Nothing wavered on her board. Her control held.

  “Nick?” she asked conversationally from the depths of her own fury, “don’t you want to know what I’m going to do?”

  “Mikka, get down there!” he yelled. “Cut through the door—cut her to pieces, if you have to!” But a second later he changed his mind. “No, I’ll do it. You take the bridge. I want my ship back! I’m going to tear her fucking guts out with my hands!”

  “Mikka,” said Morn, grinning back at Liete’s horrified stare, “he isn’t listening. Maybe you will. I’ve got the self-destruct on a batch command.” This was now true. “It’s set to the chronometer toggle. My finger is on the toggle.” Her finger pressed the key firmly to the su
rface of the board. “If I’m attacked, or threatened—or even surprised—and my finger comes off the toggle, the ship will blow.

  “You can’t stop it. There aren’t any overrides. And I really have canceled his priority codes.” One lie more or less made no difference to her. Let everyone wonder whether her programming skills were that good. “You’d better make him understand that. He sounds like he’s gone off the deep end.”

  “Morn!” The command second’s shout cracked over the intercom. “What in God’s name are you trying to do?”

  Save us all. Believe it or not. Even sweet, desirable presumed human Captain Nick fucking Succorso.

  “Just listen,” she replied. “You can’t cut off my communications output, but you can hear it. In about a minute, you’ll understand everything.”

  Including why you need to keep Nick from messing with me.

  She left the intercom open. Part of her brain continued to process the gabble of voices from the bridge—Malda Verone’s distress and Carmel’s anger, Sib Mackern’s inchoate protests, Lind’s near hysteria. From the engineer’s station, Pup kept whimpering, “Get out of there, Vector, please, get out of there,” as if proximity to the thrusters were Shaheed’s only peril. But none of that deflected Morn.

  How long would it take Nick to grab a cutting laser and a gun, and reach the auxiliary bridge?

  That didn’t deflect her, either.

  With a few quick taps on the command console—pressing the chronometer toggle flat to the board—she opened communications with the Amnion.

  “Enablement Station, this is Morn Hyland. I’m the human female who gave birth to the offspring you just took from Captain’s Fancy. I want my son back.”

  There was no answer.

  It was possible that Enablement couldn’t hear her—that she’d committed an error of some kind, or that the station had simply cut reception. She didn’t believe either of those things; she didn’t worry about them. Extremity and artificial strength made her certain.

  “Enablement Station, I’ve taken control of this ship. I’ve rigged a self-destruct—it ties both drives and all our fuel into the weapons systems. You know enough about us to guess how much damage that can do. An explosion like that will probably take out twenty-five to forty percent of the station.