Stephen Donaldson - Gap 4 - The Gap into Madness

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MIN

Battered, weary to the bone,

and profoundly baffled, Min

Donner joined Punisher shortly after Warden Dios returned to

UMCPHQ from Holt Fasner's Home Office. She hadn't slept

since the day before her visit to Sixten Vertigus, hadn't eaten

since her ride back to UMCPHQ from Suka Bator. A headache

like a threat of concussion throbbed in her forehead. Occasionally

her hearing buzzed like neural feedback.

She felt that her whole life was being rewritten around her;

reinterpreted to mean something she hadn't chosen and couldn't

understand.

Why was she here?

In some sense, Warden had answered that question. The last

time she'd spoken to him, he'd told her, to her utter astonishment,

I have reason to think Morn Hyland may survive— Even though

he'd convinced her long ago that Morn was being abandoned, that

he'd sold her body and soul, he'd said, If she does, I want some-

one to make sure she stays alive, someone I can trust. That means

you. For that reason—apparently—he was sending Min away from

her duties at UMCPHQ.

Nevertheless his reply explained nothing. All she really knew

was that she was here now because he'd lied to her earlier; lied to

her systematically and incessantly for months.

What in God's name was going on?

His signal of farewell reached her as she rode her personal

shuttle out toward the gap range where Punisher had already

turned and started preparations for an outbound acceleration; but

she didn't answer it. She had nothing more to say to him. Instead

of returning some vacant acknowledgment or salute, she replied

to the questions of her crew by shaking her head. Let Warden

Dios take her on faith, as she was required to take him. He'd left

her no other way to express her galling confusion—or her blind,

baffled hope.

With as much of her accustomed grim determination as she

could muster, she put kazes and assassinations, treachery and in-

trigue behind her, and concentrated instead on the job ahead.

Her orders were superficially simple. She was instructed to

take command of the first available UMCP warship—in this case,

Punisher—and go immediately to the Com-Mine asteroid belt.

Under cover of the belt, she was supposed to "watch for and

respond to developments" from the direction of Thanatos Minor.

In other words, to observe and presumably deal with the outcome

of Angus Thermopyle's covert attack on Billingate.

That was plain enough. But why was it necessary? After all, at

Fasner's orders human space along the Amnion frontier—espe-

cially in the broad vicinity of Com-Mine Station and the belt—

was being webbed with the most intensive communications net-

work ever deployed. Any decipherable information from the di-

rection of Thanatos Minor would reach UMCPHQ in a matter of

hours, whether she was present in the belt or not.

What kind of "developments" did Warden expect? Angus

Thermopyle—Joshua—would either succeed or not. If he suc-

ceeded, Nick Succorso and the danger he represented would be

finished. Min's suspicions of Milos Taverner would come to noth-

ing. And Morn might—conceivably—survive. On the other hand,

if Angus failed, everyone and everything would be lost. Morn

would be just one more casualty.

Either way, there would be nothing for Min to do, except

possibly pick up survivors—or warn off an Amnion pursuit. Com-

Mine Station could have done that. Punisher herself, despite her

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battle-worn and depleted condition, could have done it. Min Don-

ner-was the UMCP Enforcement Division director: she belonged

elsewhere. Back at UMCPHQ, rooting out kazes and traitors. Or

even down on Suka Bator, helping Captain Vertigus prepare and

present his Bill of Severance. She had no reason to be here.

No reason, that is, apart from Warden's desire to get her out

of the way—to dissociate her from the fatal game he played with

or against Holt Fasner. And his unexpected assertion that Morn

might get away alive.

If she does, I want someone to make sure she stays alive—

Was that the truth? Or had Warden said it simply to ensure

that she obeyed him?

She didn't know; couldn't know. But in the end, his orders

were enough. She obeyed because she had sworn that she would.

Nevertheless she couldn't shake the dark feeling that she was

doomed; that between them Warden Dios and Holt Fasner were

about to cost her everything she had ever believed in or trusted.

At last her shuttle thunked against the docking port in Pun-

isher's side; grapples jerked home. Min nodded to her crew and

stepped into the shuttle's airlock as if she didn't care whether she

ever returned.

The bosun commanding the honor guard which greeted her

inside the ship's personnel bay looked as worn-out and abused as

she felt. Min winced inwardly at the sight: she hated seeing her

people in such bad shape. However, she kept her chagrin and

anger to herself while she returned the bosun's salute.

"Captain's apologies, Director Donner," he said. He sounded

even worse than he looked—a young officer who had been under

too much pressure for far too long. "He can't leave the bridge.

We weren't expecting to head out—he hasn't had time to get

ready—" The bosun caught himself, flushed like a boy. "You

already know that. I'm sorry.

"Captain will see you whenever you want. I can take you to

your quarters first."

Min had scanned Punisher's reports before leaving UM-

CPHQ. The cruiser had just come home from a bitter struggle

with fifteen or twenty illegal ships which had turned Valdor In-

dustrial's distant binary solar system into a virtual war zone.

Because of the kind of mining, processing, and heavy manu-

facturing carried on by the station, Valdor and the traffic it ser-

viced were rich with prizes. And like most binary systems this

one was a maze of orbits—masses of rock revolving around each

other in patterns so complex that they defied mapping by anything

less than a megaCPU. The pirates were entrenched among the

almost innumerable planets, planetoids, and moons cycling

around the twinned stars called Greater and Lesser Massif-5.

Over a period of six months, the Scalpel-class cruiser had

engaged in dozens of pitched battles, weeks of pursuit. And all to

little avail. Two pirates had been destroyed, one captured. The rest

had fought back with such concerted ferocity, or had fled with

such intimate knowledge of the system's hiding places, that no

mere cruiser could have hoped to deal with them all.

No wonder the bosun was exhausted. No wonder the faces of

the honor guard ached with despair at the prospect of another

mission. Punisher needed rest, deserved rest. The UMCP were

spread too thin; would always be spread too thin, simply because

the gap drive made available more space than any police force

could control. Not for the first time, Min thought that as long as

the threat of the Amnion endured—as long as forbidden space

offered wealth in exchange for stolen resources—her people were

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doomed to fail.

As usual, she kept that idea to herself. Instead she told the

bosun, "I'll go to the bridge." Then, before he could give any

orders himself, she dismissed the honor guard. In general she

disliked the formalities of her position; and in this particular case

she actively hated wasting the energy of these weary men and

women on ceremonial duties.

Momentarily flustered, the bosun began, "Director, Captain

ordered—" But an instant later he swallowed his discomfiture.

With a salute, he let the guard go. "This way, Director."

Min knew the way. On any ship the UMCP had commis-

sioned, she could have found the bridge blindfolded. She let the

bosun guide her, however. She'd already undercut him enough by

dismissing his honor guard.

By the time she left the first lift and headed forward through

the ship's core, she knew Punisher was in trouble. Because of the

recent damage to her eardrums, she still couldn't hear clearly

enough to pick up the cruiser's characteristic hums and whines.

But she could feel centrifugal g through the soles of her boots;

she could sense vibrations with the nerves of her skin. Subtle

stresses reached her like undamped harmonics.

"You've got internal spin displacement," she commented to

the bosun. "Bearings are grinding somewhere."

He gaped at her sidelong. "How—?" She was the ED direc-

tor, however: he wasn't supposed to question her. With an effort,

he mastered himself. "Forward," he answered. "We took a hit

that knocked the whole core off true. But that's not all. We've got

micro-leaks in some of the hydraulic systems. Several doors stick

until the pressure rectifies. Half a dozen bulkheads don't quite

seal. And we've been holed twice. We've kept integrity, but we

lost the conduit to one of the sensor banks. Captain has men

outside right now, trying to jury-rig leads before we go into tach.

For the rest—

"Director, we haven't had time to trace those leaks or patch

those holes. We've been at battle-stations for most of the past six

months. And only a shipyard can fix internal spin."

The young officer sounded so raw that Min frowned to herself.

"No criticism intended, bosun," she told him quietly. "It was

just an observation."

He swallowed hard. "Thank you, Director." Until he blinked

them clear, his eyes were perilously moist.

Punisher was desperate for rest.

Full of outraged protectiveness toward her people, Min

thought harshly, Fuck you, Warden Dios, and the horse you rode

in on. You had goddamn better know what you're doing.

The ship was a swarm of activity. Men and women hurried in

all directions, rushing to and from the hundreds of duties required

by a new mission. The few who recognized Min Donner paused to

salute; but most of them were concentrating too hard—focused by

fatigue and urgency—to notice her. Scalpel-class cruisers carried

a crew of sixty-plus, but Punisher didn't have that many to work

with. Her reports had cited four dead and eleven confined to their

quarters or sickbay by injuries or battle-shock: fifteen crewmem-

bers lost across the four watches. As soon as Min had received

Warden's orders, she'd dispatched a provisioning shuttle to meet

the cruiser; but in the time available Punisher couldn't be ade-

quately resupplied. No wonder the captain was too busy to leave

the bridge. Damaged, short-handed, and ill equipped, his com-

mand was a poor candidate for any important assignment. Pun-

isher's best hope was that this mission proved to be as trivial as

Min feared.

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With one palm she stroked the butt of her handgun to steady

herself as she accompanied the bosun forward.

Aside from weight, armament, and crew, one of the differ-

ences between a cruiser like Punisher and a destroyer like Star-

master was that Punisher's bridge occupied a command module

which could be detached from the main ship to function sepa-

rately. If Captain Davies Hyland had had a vessel like this, he

might well have survived Starmaster's destruction; survived to

keep his daughter out of Angus Thermopyle's hands. That was

another detail for which Min blamed herself uselessly, despite the

fact that she herself had approved Starmaster's construction and

had selected Davies Hyland as captain.

None of that showed on her face, however, as she went with

the bosun—ahead of him now—through the aperture which

linked the rest of the ship to the command module. She encoun-

tered Punisher's captain and bridge crew with her features set in

characteristic lines, stern and unreadable.

Almost instantly all movement on the bridge stopped: techs

working on the screens and boards froze; the bridge crew—helm,

targ, data and damage control, communications, engineering, scan

—hesitated momentarily, their hands poised on their stations,

their faces tense.

Their attention made her feel that she deserved her reputation

as Warden Dios' executioner.

But then the captain, Dolph Ubikwe, broke the pause by

swinging his g-seat toward Min. In a granite rumble, he said

stolidly, "Director Donner. Welcome aboard."

At once the bridge crew rose to salute. The techs moved out of

Min's way as if they believed—or wanted to believe—that they

were beneath her notice.

There was no welcome in Captain Ubikwe's voice, however. It

seemed to pulse from his chest like the cut of a subsonic drill.

Even if Min had been deaf, she might have been able to hear him

through the bones of her skull. Ensigns under his command often

said that his voice could strip paint at twenty paces.

He was a large man—almost too large to pass the UMCP

physicals—with a heavy mass of muscle hidden under his fat. Too

much strain and too few showers caused his black skin to gleam

in the featureless light. Red rimmed his bloodshot eyes; they ap-

peared to bulge in their sockets. Fists as heavy as cudgels rested

on the arms of his seat.

"Thank you, Captain." Min didn't expect welcome. "At

ease," she told the bridge crew without shifting her gaze from

Dolph Ubikwe. As they resumed their g-seats, she asked him,

"How soon can you go into tach?"

His fists tightened slightly. "Depends on whether that's a re-

quest or an order. You order it and we're gone. All we need to

know is where. But if it's a request"—he lifted his heavy shoul-

ders—"we can probably be ready in three or four months."

In another place, at another time, Min might have smiled. She

knew this man well. He had first come to her attention in the

Academy ten years ago, when his air of insubordination and his

poor grades had threatened to deny him a commission. She had

overruled the Academy commander in person to make Dolph

Ubikwe an ensign. Despite his resistance to discipline, which had

showed in his sloppy classroom work as well as his excess weight,

she had sensed a fettered emotional power in him, a charisma

similar to Warden's. It might make him an effective leader—if he

ever learned how and when to unleash it. Since then, he had

vindicated her judgment by rising swiftly to the command of his

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own vessel. Under other circumstances, she would have had no

qualms about using him to carry out Warden Dios' orders.

"If it were a request," she replied to his tight stare, "I

wouldn't be here."

His mouth twisted. "Then perhaps the Enforcement Division

director would condescend to tell us where we're going. It does

make a difference, you know—heading, velocity, all those trou-

blesome little gap details."

Now she did smile—a smile as humorless and bleak as an

arctic wind. Instead of reacting to his sarcasm, she said simply,

"The Com-Mine belt. Close to forbidden space."

At once a new tension crackled across the bridge. The data

officer breathed, "Oh, Jesus," and the man on targ muttered,

"Shit!" as if he thought Min wouldn't be able to hear him.

A muscle at the corner of Captain Ubikwe's mouth twitched

like a flinch. "Now why in hell," he asked Min, "would we want

to do a thing like that?"

She didn't snap at him. She also didn't drop his gaze. She

could have made Punisher obey her blind—she could require

unquestioning compliance from any ship in the fleet—but she had

no intention of doing so. For one thing, she owed this ship an

explanation. And for another, she knew that Dolph Ubikwe would

serve her better if she let him be himself.

"Because," she answered, "there's been a covert UMCP at-

tack on Thanatos Minor's bootleg shipyard. As I'm sure you re-

member, that planetoid is in forbidden space relatively near the

Com-Mine belt. For the better part of a decade, illegals have been

using the belt to cover them on their way to Thanatos Minor. The

Amnion tolerate encroachment from that direction, if not from

anywhere else.

"While we're standing here, the shipyard is under attack. I'm

not prepared to discuss the nature of the operation here, except to

repeat that it's covert. For now, the important point is this.

There's going to be fallout.

"I have no idea what kind of fallout. I can't know. There may

be survivors." Morn Hyland may survive— "Our people, or ille-

gals on the run. Or there may be a full-scale Amnion retaliation."

Borrowing Warden's conviction because she had so little to

spare of her own, Min concluded, "Whatever it is, we're going

out there to deal with it."

The bridge crew stared at her. They had all turned their sta-

tions toward her. From their g-seats—command and communica-

tions in front of her, engineering and data off to the sides, scan

and helm and targ apparently hanging upside down over her head

—they studied her in fear or anger or despair or plain numb

weariness, as if she had just instructed them to commit suicide.

For a moment Dolph lowered his eyes. When he raised them

again, they seemed oddly naked, as if he had set aside some of his

defenses. "Permission to speak frankly."

Just for an instant Min wondered whether she should refuse.

Then she decided against it. By some standards, disagreements—

not to mention hostility—between commanders was bad for disci-

pline. On the other hand, Punisher was his ship: the tone which

either inspired or dismayed his people was his to set, no matter

what she did. She was willing to trust his instincts.

She nodded once. "Please."

He shifted his posture as if to launch his voice at her from a

more stable platform. "Then let me just ask you, Director Don-

ner," he said in a tone of raw outrage, "if you are out of your

incorrigible mind. Don't you read reports anymore? Haven't you

got a clue what we've just been through? Or maybe you think

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dodging matter cannon fire and asteroids alone for six months is

some kind of holiday. You sent us out to Valdor to do a job which

would have been too much for five cruisers. We're lucky to get

home limping instead of just plain dead.

"We're short-handed here. That was in the reports, too. Some

of my people are drifting around Massif-5 in caskets. We've got

holes and hydraulic leaks and a scan bank with no wiring. But

never mind that. After what we've been through, we can stand a

few minor inconveniences. We've got worse problems."

His voice was harsh enough to hurt Min's ears, but she knew

from experience that he still had plenty of volume in reserve. For

the sake of her personal comfort, she hoped that he didn't use it.

"Have you listened to this ship yet, Director Donner? Or have

you forgotten what internal spin displacement sounds like? Have

you forgotten what that kind of displacement can do to a warship?

In case you've been spending too much time behind your desk

and not enough on the firing line, let me remind you. If the bear-

ings go and internal spin freezes before we can shut it down,

centrifugal inertia is transferred to the whole ship. The whole ship

starts to spin—which is a nightmare for scan and helm, never

mind targ. Punisher isn't made for that kind of maneuver. And if

we start to spin like that in the belt—or in combat—then you can

kiss your hard ass good-bye along with all the rest of us.

"This is all crazy, Director Donner. How many warships have

we got now? Fifty? Fifty cruisers, destroyers, gunboats, and full

battlewagons? Do you expect me to believe they're all unavailable

for this job? That not one of them is in reach?

"If that's true, let Com-Mine Station do it, whatever it turns

out to be. Hell on ice, Director, they've got enough in-system

firepower to slag three ships like this. Let them police their own

goddamn belt for a few more hours.

"We are in no shape for this."

For reasons which she had never tried to explain to herself,

Min often liked her officers best when they were angry at her.

Perhaps because she understood Captain Ubikwe's indignation

and approved of it, or perhaps because she was so angry herself

that his ire formed a strange bond between them, she smiled back

at his protest with something like affection.

"Are you done?"

"No." Her reaction disconcerted him, but he obviously didn't

want to show it. "I'm going to say it all again, and this time I'm

going to say it loud.''

"That won't be necessary," she drawled. "You've made your

point."

Captain Ubikwe studied her hard. After a moment he asked

more quietly, "Then why do I get the impression you're not going

to let us off the hook?"

"I'm not," she replied. "You are the only ship available.

You're here. Sure, I could pull your replacement away from

Valdor. I could signal a battlewagon from Betelgeuse Primary, or

take a destroyer off frontier patrol. I could try Com-Mine and

hope they do a good job.

"But none of them can get me out there."

The bridge received this in surprise, dull shock, or dread. The

man on scan let a thin whistle through his teeth like an effort to

ward away spooks. From above Min, the targ officer muttered

again, "Shit."

Dolph flashed a look upward. "Glessen," he rasped at targ, as

throaty as a combustion engine, "if you say that again in front of

Director Donner, I'm going to take you out in the woodshed and

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cane you." None of his people laughed: they knew better. "In

case you weren't paying attention, the director of the entire

UMCP Enforcement Division, which we so proudly serve, has

just announced that she's putting her life in our hands. She isn't

sending us out to the belt to see what we're made of—she's going

with us. Where I came from, we called that 'putting your money

where your mouth is' "—abruptly he pounded a fist on his board

—"and we respected it."

Suddenly everyone on the bridge seemed busy with one task

or another. No one glanced at the Glessen as he murmured, "Aye,

sir."

Glowering excessively, Captain Ubikwe returned his gaze to

Min. She suspected that he was swallowing a grin. His tone was

grave, however, as he asked, "Are you telling me ED has a stake

in this covert attack? I thought only DA did work like that."

Min didn't want to mention Morn Hyland. She wasn't ready

to open that door into her own heart. Instead she said what she

thought Warden Dios would have wanted her to say.

"No. I'm telling you the UMCP has a stake in it. Humankind

has a stake in it."

The captain sighed. For a moment or two he peered at his

hands while he considered the situation. Then he dropped his

palms onto his thighs. "In that case—" With a heave, he rose

from his g-seat and stepped aside. "As Enforcement Division

director and the highest-ranking UMCP officer aboard, the bridge

is yours. Take the command station. I'll evict targ—I can work

from there until we're ready to go into tach."

Min made a quick gesture of refusal. "She's your ship, Cap-

tain. We're better off with you in command. And I need rest." In

fact, she hadn't slept for two days; hadn't eaten in twelve hours.

"If you'll detail someone to show me my quarters, I'll get out of

your way."

A touch of gratitude softened Dolph's face as he sat down

again, but he didn't thank her. Automatically he hit keys on his

board, checked his readouts. "Bosun will take you." The young

man still stood by the aperture. "If you've got more orders for us,

better spell them out. We were busy before you came aboard, but

we're a hell of a lot busier now."

Min didn't hesitate. "I want to be on the other side of the gap

in two hours," she answered promptly, "and in the belt in three.

That means you'll have to cut it fine."

She knew the risks. If internal spin froze in the gap, Punisher

might resume tard half a hundred or half a million kilometers off

course, tossed askew by the interplay between inertia and hystere-

sis—almost certainly a fatal problem near an asteroid belt. And if

spin froze while Punisher navigated the belt, some kind of colli-

sion would be inevitable. To protect herself the ship would be

forced to do almost everything without g. And she hadn't been

designed for that. Her people weren't used to it.

But whatever Angus Thermopyle did or failed to do was out

of Min's control, beyond her knowledge. Somewhere in the vicin-

ity of Thanatos Minor, the chronometer was running on a dead-

line which she didn't know how to meet. That fact gave her a

greater sense of urgency than Warden's actual orders did.

"As soon as we hit normal space," she continued, "I want

communications on maximum gain across all bandwidths. If it's

out there, I want us to hear it.

"Assuming we don't encounter any surprises, take us into the

belt over on the far side—say, ten thousand k from the border—

and find some rock we can hide behind, anything with enough

magnetic resonance to confuse opposing scan. Wake me up when

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something happens or when we're in position, whichever comes

first. I'll go into more detail then."

Captain Ubikwe lifted his head and bared his teeth, dismissing

her. "Consider it done."

Softly but distinctly, so that everyone could hear her, she pro-

nounced, "I do. Otherwise I would have taken command."

To spare him the distraction of answering her, she turned away

and let the bosun guide her through the aperture back into the

main body of the ship.

On the way to her assigned quarters, she made a mental note

to consider transferring Dolph's targ officer to her personal staff.

She wanted people around her who were willing to raise objec-

tions.

If Warden had let Min raise enough objections, she might not

be here now, dragging a damaged ship with a battered crew across

the gap on a mission which would turn out to be either so useless

or so critical that it should have been given to someone else.

HASHI

Hashi Lebwohl was not a dis-

honest man. It was more ac-

curate to say that he was a-honest. He liked facts; but truth had no

moral imperatives for him, no positive—or negative—valuation. It

had its uses, just as facts had theirs: it was a tool, more subtle than

some, cruder than others.

It was a fact of his position as the UMCP director of Data

Acquisition that he was expected to satisfy certain requirements.

Warden Dios himself liked—indeed demanded—facts. For that

reason among others, Hashi respected his director. Warden Dios

made no effort to play fast and loose with reality, as the late and

unlamented Godsen Frik had done endemically; or as even Min

Donner did, in ways which she characteristically failed to recog-

nize. Warden lived in the world of the real. Under no circum-

stances would Hashi Lebwohl have hesitated to do his job by

supplying Warden with facts. And he was seldom reluctant to

share his understanding of the way in which facts linked with

each other to form more complex, less tangible realities.

On the other hand, he felt no obligation whatsoever to tell

Warden Dios—or anyone else—the truth.

He received his first hints of what had happened on Thanatos

Minor long before anyone else; quite some time before any other

information reached UMCPHQ. Yet he withheld the facts for

nearly an hour. And he kept the truth entirely to himself.

The hints went to him, first, because they were coded exclu-

sively for his use, and second, because no one in UMCPHQ Com-

munications knew that they had anything to do with Billingate or

Joshua. They were nothing more or less than flares from DA

operatives, and such messages were always routed straight to the

DA director the moment they came in.

The earlier of these two signals was a cryptic transmission

from Nick Succorso aboard Captain's Fancy. Initially Hashi

didn't mention it because it contained no useful information.

Later, however, he suppressed its contents because they disturbed

him.

If you can get her, you bastard, Nick had sent, you can have

her. I don't care what happens to you. You need me, but you blew

it. You deserve her. Then, for no apparent reason, Nick had added,

Kazes are such fun, don't you think?

A pox upon him, Hashi thought in bemusement. Curse his

black soul. Her? Who? You can have her. Was he talking about

Morn Hyland? Was he deranged enough to think that Joshua had

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been sent to Billingate to rescue her?

No. His reference to kazes contradicted that inference. Clearly

he meant to warn or threaten Hashi concerning some woman who

was involved with kazes. Yet that, too, made no sense. What could

Nick possibly know about events here? How could he be aware

that UMCPHQ and the GCES had suffered terrorist attacks?

Perhaps the "her" he referred to was Captain's Fancy her-

self? Perhaps he meant to suggest that if Hashi or the UMCP

made any attempt to interfere with Captain's Fancy the frigate

would become a kaze aimed at UMCPHQ?

You deserve her.

"Deserve" her?

You need me, but you blew it.

Apparently Nick Succorso had lost his mind.

At last Hashi put that flare aside. He found himself unable to

divine Nick's intentions. And that troubled him. He disliked his

sense of incomprehension.

The later signal was another matter.

No one outside his domain, and perhaps no more than three

people within it, knew that Angus Thermopyle, Milos Taverner,

and Nick Succorso were not the only men he'd helped send to

Thanatos Minor; or that the fourth had been dispatched for pre-

cisely this reason, to observe events and report on them.

The transmission was from a purportedly legal merchanter

called Free Lunch; "purportedly" because Hashi had equipped

her with false id and records so that she could travel freely in

human space while she nurtured her private reputation—also

more putative than real—as an illegal. According to her captain,

Darrin Scroyle, he and his ship had escaped the vicinity of Thana-

tos Minor just ahead of the shock wave of the planetoid's destruc-

tion.

So Joshua had succeeded. That was good, as far as it went.

But Captain Scroyle's message conveyed other facts as well, the

implications of which inspired Hashi's decision not to pass his

information along to Warden Dios immediately. He needed time

to consider the situation in the light shed by Captain Scroyle's

revelations.

Under Hashi Lebwohl's absolute supervision, Data Acquisi-

tion employed agents and operatives of all kinds. Some were free-

lance rogues, like Nick Succorso. Others were spies in the more

traditional sense, hunting secrets under deep cover among the

tenuous spiderweb societies of humankind's illegals.

And others were pure mercenaries. Unlike the rogues, they

were men and women of peculiar honor, who gave their loyalty

and their blood to anyone who paid their price. They could be

trusted to do a specific job for a specific price, to question noth-

ing, to complain about nothing—and to say nothing about what

they'd done when the job was finished.

The only disadvantage to such an arrangement, from Hashi's

point of view, was that the next job any given mercenary accepted

might well be for some other employer; perhaps for one of hu-

mankind's enemies. As much as he could, he avoided this embar-

rassment by keeping his mercenaries busy—and by outbidding

other employers.

Darrin Scroyle was a mercenary. He and Free Lunch were

among the best of the breed: daring, heavily armed, and fast;

capable of both recklessness and caution, as occasion warranted;

willing for violence on almost any scale, and yet able to act with

subtlety and discretion.

When Free Lunch reached human space and passed her mes-

sage through a listening post by means of a gap courier drone to

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UMCPHQ, Hashi gave Captain Scroyle's report his full credence.

The gist was this. Free Lunch had left Billingate as soon as

Captain Scroyle had become convinced that events were near their

crisis. That was as Hashi had ordered: he didn't want Free Lunch

caught up in whatever explosion resulted from Joshua's mission.

But during her departure from Billingate's control space, Free

Lunch had scanned the planetoid and its embattled ships with

every instrument she had, and had observed several significant

developments.

A team in EVA suits had emerged from docked Trumpet in

order to sabotage Billingate communications. After that they had

broken into the Amnion sector—and then escaped.

Captain's Fancy had destroyed Tranquil Hegemony, not by

matter cannon or lasers, but by ramming—apparently to prevent

the Amnion warship from killing the EVA team.

A shuttle had left the Amnion sector to be picked up by Soar.

And Free Lunch had seen Calm Horizons moving to intercept

Trumpet's escape, supported by a small flotilla of illegals sent out

by Billingate.

That was bad enough; full of surprises and unexplained pos-

sibilities. But there was worse.

Before their departure, Captain Scroyle and his people had

spent as much time as they could around the installation, studying

scan and communications, listening to rumors, looking for infor-

mation. They had witnessed Captain's Fancy's arrival from the

direction of Enablement Station, harried by warships. They had

seen Captain Succorso's ship launch an ejection pod which had

veered away from Tranquil Hegemony in order to be intercepted

by Soar. And they had heard stories—

The story that the Amnion had revoked Captain Succorso's

credit on Billingate.

The story that he, the Amnion, and the Bill were locked in a

three-way conflict over the contents of the ejection pod.

The story that Captain Succorso had spent time together in a

bar with Captain Thermopyle and his second from Trumpet.

The story that the Bills guards had been attacked and the

contents of the pod stolen.

The story that Soar's captain, a woman named Sorus Chate-

laine, had a mutagen immunity drug for sale.

The story that Captain Succorso had bartered one of his own

people, a woman, to the Amnion in order to obtain—so the rumor

went—Captain's Fancy's freedom to leave Billingate.

Taken all at once, such information might have given Godsen

Frik the vapors with a vengeance—the worst case of collywobbles

in his adult life. It had a different effect on Hashi Lebwohl, how-

ever. In a sense, he lived for such crises: oblique events with

disturbing implications which called for all the cunning, misdirec-

tion, and initiative he could supply. The fact that he took nearly an

hour to consider the situation before sharing what he knew—or

some of what he knew—didn't mean that he was frightened. It

simply meant that he wanted to give his best attention to this

particular conundrum.

Soar and Captain's Fancy. Trumpet and Calm Horizons. Tran-

quil Hegemony and an Amnion shuttle.

Joshua, Nick Succorso, the Bill, Milos Taverner, Sorus Chate-

laine, the Amnion. Not to mention Morn Hyland, who must have

played some crucial part in Nick's decision to visit Enablement,

and who therefore simply could not be irrelevant to Nick's con-

flict with the Amnion—or with the Bill.

If you can get her, you bastard, you can have her.

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Stephen Donaldson - Gap 4 - The Gap into Madness

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