Stephen Donaldson - Gap 2 - The Gap into Vision

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Milos Taverner sighed, ran his hand back across
his mottled scalp as if to verify that what
remained of his hair was still present, and lit
another nic. Then he glared again at the transcript hard-
copy on his desk and tried to imagine an approach that
might work - without getting himself into so much
trouble that the people he was paid to please would turn
against him.
He was responsible for the ongoing interrogation of
Angus Thermopyle.
It wasn't going well.
That pleased some people and infuriated others.
Angus' trial had been a simple enough affair, as such
things went. Com-Mine Security had recovered the
pirated supplies. The search which located the supplies
aboard Angus' ship, Bright Beauty, had adequate legal
justification. With a number of vague, troubling ex-
ceptions, the evidence of the ship's datacore supported
the charges against him - the less damning ones. He
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mounted no defense, apparently because he knew it was
futile. Everything was correct and in order; Angus
Thermopyle was guilty as charged.
On the other hand, despite provocative rumors con-
cerning zone implants, rape, murder, and the wrecked
UMCP destroyer Starmaster, no evidence had turned up
to convict him of anything more serious than the bur-
glary of Station supplies. He was sentenced to life impris-
onment in Com-Mine Station's lockup; but the law
simply could not be stretched to include his execution.
Case closed.
Station Security had no intention whatsoever of letting
matters rest there.
Milos Taverner had mixed feelings about that. He had
too many conflicting priorities to juggle.
As Deputy Chief of Com-Mine Station Security,
interrogation was his responsibility. True, the present
charges against Angus Thermopyle had been adequately
proven - and true, the evidence didn't justify any other
charges. But Security knew Angus of old. His piracies
were a moral, if not a provable, certainty; his dealings
with illegals of every description, from druggers and psy-
chotics to the bootleg ore industry in all its guises, were
unquestionable, if indemonstrable. His crew had a dis-
tressing tendency to disappear. Additionally the un-
explained chain of circumstances which brought him
back to Com-Mine accompanied by a UMC cop who
should have died aboard Starmaster was profoundly
intriguing - not to mention disturbing.
All things considered, Taverner couldn't question the
decision to keep after Angus Thermopyle until he broke
or died.
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Nevertheless the Deputy Chief didn't really want the
job. For a number of reasons.
Because he was personally fastidious, he found Angus
repulsive. As far as anyone knew, an addiction to nic was
Milos' only vice. Even people he made no effort to please
would have admitted that he was clean, circumspect, and
correct in all his dealings. And no sane observer would
have ascribed those virtues to Angus.
More than anything, he looked like a toad bloated by
malice. His bodily habits were offensive: he only took a
shower when the guards forced him into the san cubicle,
only put on a clean prisonsuit at stun-point. That and
the way he sweated made him smell like a pig. The color
of his skin was like ground-in grime. His mere existence
made Milos feel vaguely ill: his presence inspired a sense
of active nausea.
In addition his eyes glared yellow with a belligerent
wisdom that made Milos feel exposed; dangerously
known.
Angus was cunning, crafty; as insidious as disorder.
And people like that were risky to work with. They lied
in ways which confirmed their interrogators' illusions.
They learned from the questions they were asked, they
gained as much knowledge as they gave - as much or
more, in Angus' case - and they used that knowledge to
perfect their lies; to work for the ruin of their interrog-
ators even when they had nothing tangible to work
with and had themselves been worked over regularly by
experts to encourage cooperation. When they should
have been at their weakest, they became most malignant.
Angus caused the Deputy Chief to feel that he himself
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was the one being tested, the one whose secrets might
be laid bare; the one put to the question.
And, as if all that weren't enough to contend with,
Milos had to wrestle daily with the fact that his interrog-
ation was potentially explosive. Angus Thermopyle was
an ore pirate. Therefore he had buyers. He had obtained
Bright Beauty by illegal - if unproven - means; had
outfitted her illegally. Therefore he had access to bootleg
shipyards. Some of his technology smelled alien, and his
records were patently too clean, even though they were
unimpeachably recorded in his ship's datacore. And all
those conclusions, all those strands of inference, ran in
only one direction.
Forbidden space.
Angus Thermopyle had dealings - direct or indirect
- with secrets destructive enough to shift the balances of
power everywhere in the United Mining Companies' vast
commercial empire. Those secrets could threaten the
security of every Station; perhaps they could threaten the
security of Earth.
Milos Taverner wasn't sure he wanted those secrets to
come out. In fact, as time passed he became more and
more convinced that he needed them to remain hidden.
Angus' silence infuriated some of the people Milos was
paid to please: his secrets, if they were revealed, would
infuriate others. But the people who hated Angus' silence
were less immediately dangerous.
On the other hand, every moment he spent with Angus
Thermopyle was recorded. Transcripts were regularly
reviewed on-Station. Copies were routinely forwarded to
the UMCP. The Deputy Chief of Com-Mine Station
Security couldn't tackle this assignment with anything
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less than complete diligence and expect to get away with
it.No wonder he couldn't give up nic. He found the
habit disgusting in other people - and yet he couldn't
quit himself. Sometimes he thought nic was the only
thing that enabled his nerves to bear the stress.
Fortunately Angus Thermopyle refused to participate
in his own interrogation.
He faced down questions with unflagging hostility and
silence. He absorbed stun until he puked his guts out,
and his entire cell stank with ineradicable bile; but he
didn't talk. He suffered hunger, thirst, and sensory depri-
vation relentlessly. The one time he cracked was when
Milos informed him that Bright Beauty was being dis-
mantled for scrap and spare parts. But then he only
howled like a beast and did his best to wreck the interrog-
ation room; he didn't say anything.
In Milos' opinion, telling Angus about Bright Beauty's
fate had been a mistake. He'd said so openly to his
superiors - after taking considerable pains to plant the
suggestion in their minds. It would reinforce Angus'
intransigence. They'd insisted on the ploy, however.
After all, nothing else seemed to work. The outcome
was about what Milos had expected. That was one small
victory, anyway.
In other ways, most of the interrogation sessions were
unenlightening.
How did you meet Morn Hyland?
No answer.
What were you doing together?
No answer.
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Why would a UMC cop agree to crew for a murdering
illegal like you?
No answer.
What did you do to her?
Angus' glare never wavered.
How did you get those supplies? How did you get
into the holds? Computer security wasn't tampered with.
Nothing happened to the guards. There's no sign you
cut your way in. The ventilation ducts aren't big enough
for those crates. How did you do it?
No answer.
How did Starmaster die?
No answer.
How did Morn Hyland survive?
No answer.
She said she didn't trust Station Security. She said
Starmaster must have been sabotaged - she said it must
have been done here. Why did she trust you instead of
us?No answer.
Why were you there? How did you just happen to be
in the vicinity when Starmaster's thrust drive destructed?
No answer.
You said - Milos consulted his hardcopy - you were
close enough to pick up the blast on scan. You implied
you knew a disaster had occurred, and you wanted to
help. Is that true?
No answer.
Isn't it true that Starmaster was after you? Isn't it true
she caught you in the act of some crime? Isn't it true
you crashed when she chased you? Isn't that how Bright
Beauty got hurt?
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No answer.
Sucking nic so he wouldn't start to shake, Milos
Taverner studied the ceiling, the stacks of hardcopy in
front of him; he studied Angus' stained face. Angus'
cheeks used to be fat, bloated like his belly; not anymore.
Now his jowls hung from his jaw, and his prisonsuit
sagged down his frame. The punishment he received had
cost him weight. Nevertheless his physical deterioration
didn't weaken the way his eyes fixed, yellow and threaten-
ing, on his tormentor.
Take him outside,' Milos sighed to the guards. 'Soften
him up. Again.'
Shit, the Deputy Chief thought when he was alone.
He didn't like foul language: 'shit' was the strongest
expletive he used.
You shit. I shit. He shits. We all shit.
Now who am I supposed to be loyal to?
He went back to his office and made his usual reports,
dealt with his usual duties. After that, he rode the lift
down to Communications and used Security's dedicated
channels to tight-beam several transmissions in his pri-
vate code, none of them recorded. Just to reassure him-
self, he put through a data req which - when an answer
came - would tell him the balance of the bank account
he held on Sagittarius Unlimited under an alternative
name. Then he resumed Angus Thermopyle's interrog-
ation.
What else could he do?
His one and only definite opportunity to break his
prisoner came when Angus attempted to escape.
In spite of his personal intransigence, his plain soci-
opathy, Angus was hit hard by what Milos told him about
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Bright Beauty. When his burst of grief or fury was over,
he didn't crumble in any obvious sense. He was failing,
of course, worn down by the physical stress of interrog-
ation and stun; but in front of Milos Taverner, at least, he
preserved his uncooperative demeanor. Nevertheless his
behavior when he was alone in his cell changed. He began
eating less; he spent hours sitting on his lean bunk,
staring at the wall. Observers reported that his manner
was listless, almost unreactive; that when he stared at the
wall his eyes didn't shift, didn't appear to focus on any-
thing. As a matter of course, Milos ran this information
through Security's psy-profile computer. The program
paradigms suggested that Angus Thermopyle was losing,
or had already lost, his will to live. In the absence of
that will, the use of stun as an aid to questioning was
contraindicated. Angus could die.
Milos thought Angus was faking his loss of will in an
effort to get his punishment eased. The Deputy Chief
decided to ignore the computer.
That was another small victory. His judgment was
confirmed when Angus contrived to beat up his guard
and break out of his cell. He got as far as the service shaft
which led into the labyrinth of the waste processing plant
before he was recaptured.
Shit, Milos said to himself over and over again. He
was using the word much too often, but he didn't have
any other way to express his visceral disgust. He didn't
want Angus' interrogation to succeed - but now he had
a lever he could use, and he would never get away with
not using it.
When he'd issued certain very explicit instructions, so
that his own plans wouldn't be compromised, he let the
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guards have Angus for a while to vent their frustrations.
Then he had Angus brought in front of him again.
In a sense, stun wasn't a very satisfying outlet for frus-
tration. Its effects were strong, but it felt impersonal; the
convulsions it produced were caused by mere neuro-
muscular reaction to an electric charge. So this time the
guards hadn't used stun: they'd used their fists, their
boots, perhaps a sap or two. As a result, when Angus
reached the interrogation room he could hardly walk. He
sat like a man with cracked ribs; his face and ears oozed
blood; he'd lost a tooth or two; his left eye was swollen
shut in a grotesque parody of Warden Dios.
Milos found Angus' condition distasteful. Also it
scared him because it increased his chances of success.
Nevertheless he gave it his approval before he dismissed
the guards.
He and Angus were alone.
Smoking so hard that the air conditioning couldn't
keep up with it, he left Angus to sit and sweat while he
keyed a number of commands into his computer console.
Let Angus' resolve erode under the pressure of silence.
Alternatively, let him use the respite to recover his deter-
mination. Milos didn't care. He needed the time to take
the risk on which he'd decided to stake his own safety,
even though the dangers made his fingers tremble and
his guts feel like water.
He was preparing the computer to provide two record-
ings of this session. One would be the actual recording:
the other would be a dummy designed to protect him in
an emergency.
When the session was over, he could use whichever
recording he needed. He was the Deputy Chief of Secur-
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