As in all human endeavor, concerted action proved more effective than individual effort: groups could take more.
Gangs of one kind or another became inevitable as soon as having was invented.
In another sense, however, guttergangs were more recent. They were a product of modern mechanization and urbanization. More specifically, they were a symptom of as well as a reaction against the slow collapse of Earth’s social infrastructures.
Because the services of well-meaning but overtaxed communities could no longer feed or care for their young adequately; because educational systems tried harder to control than to excite their students; because transitional life-styles and intense technological changes eroded the ability of families to provide stability for their children; because humankind’s rush to exploit the planet and consume its resources led to a rising tide of poverty which no one could stem; because the fiscal policies of governments were designed primarily to defend the comfort of the few against the hunger of the many; and because, finally, no one could pay for enough police to combat crime: for all these reasons and more, guttergangs flourished throughout Earth’s sprawling urban structures with a vigor unprecedented in human history.
The gangs were starving, loveless, abused, despised, cornered: therefore they fought back. And they were able to fight back successfully because they wrested their survival from the same crumbling infrastructure which had created the conditions for their existence—thereby, of course, hastening the decline of that infrastructure; worsening the state of people who lived within rather than against Earth’s social compacts; encouraging the growth of more guttergangs.
Much like corporations or governments, they bred chaos around them for the sake of creating order for themselves. Creating nothing, producing nothing, they took away what other people produced or created. More than that, they took away the very constructs and compacts which enabled creation and production to occur. They were parasites on the body of human civilization, just as civilization itself was a parasite on the body of the planet. Some cynics argued that they represented the inevitable outcome of humankind’s imprecise moral sense: rapacity and selfishness carried to logical extremes.
Sooner or later, parasites usually lose. They feed on their host until the host dies; and with the death of the host, the parasites themselves starve away. But the guttergangs were too entrenched to be rooted out by anything short of complete cataclysm or absolute tyranny. And the development of the gap drive made their existence more secure rather than less.
Interstellar travel supplied humanity with the opportunity to exploit distant asteroid belts and planetary systems; in other words, with a vast increase of available wealth. Naturally the influx of new resources shored up Earth’s tottering infrastructures—which in turn gave the guttergangs more to live on. By prolonging the life of the host, the gap drive gave the parasites more time in which to spread and multiply; increased the rate at which the parasites devoured the host.
It was easy to believe that guttergangs would eventually rule the Earth.
This entire societal equation was altered, however, by contact with the Amnion. The discovery of a fundamental, insidious, and above all external threat to humankind’s existence turned the tide of history against the guttergangs.
The effects of this discovery were not simple. Obviously the struggle for the survival of the race would take place hundreds or thousands of light-years away, and would be carried on by the forces of the infrastructure. The fate of humankind would be decided elsewhere: the guttergangs would live or die with their host. By the ordinary laws of parasitism, therefore, neither society nor the guttergangs had any reason to change. Yet the knowledge of an enemy they could not see and would never have to fight changed the guttergangs profoundly.
They did not suddenly discover patriotism, of course. They did not put aside their clenched internecine attack on all social structures outside their own for the sake of humankind’s greater good. Nevertheless they were human beings—genophobic to the core. Like patriots and religionists, environmentalists and native Earthers, nations and corporations, politicians and cops, they could not stifle the visceral frisson of their revulsion against imperialism by mutation.
By degrees too small to be measured, too small even to be noticed in the short term, the guttergangs began to erode.
This process took any number of forms. As one crude example: thanks to the Amnion, the appetite of the UMCP for young bodies was as intense as, and inherently more comfortable than, the guttergangs’. Active recruitment by the police gave the hungry youth of Earth a choice distinct from the more passive, as well as more brutal, accretion of the guttergangs.
Or a more subtle instance: hating and fearing the Amnion, the ordinary people of Earth—the natural prey of the guttergangs—had less hatred and fear to spare for those gangs. Therefore in complex, almost indefinable ways the guttergangs began to lose their mystique, their attraction for the lost and disenfranchised of the planet. In comparison to the Amnion, the gangs were perceived as more bearable, more manageable, more normal; therefore less threatening to humankind—and less appealing to humankind’s downtrodden. Over time, no human enterprise could oppose—or remain unchanged by—this kind of perceptual shift.
Slowly across the decades, genophobia united humankind against its common foe.
Cynics saw this turning of the tide as a demonstration that prejudice was the only true survival instinct humanity had left. Less cynical observers had difficulty deciding whether to be grateful or terrified.
NICK
y the time Trumpet’s airlock cycled shut behind him, and he crossed the scan field to the complex of passages which accessed the visitors’ berths from Reception, Nick Succorso knew that Milos had told him the truth.
You’re a dead man—
When he’d left Trumpet’s bridge, he’d been sure of what he meant to do. Thermopile and that bugger, Taverner, had cut him off from every recourse, every line of escape: all but one.
Only a fool pays his debts to a dead man.
Like Sorus Chatelaine, he was going to enlist in the service of the Amnion. He would tell them what Angus and Milos were doing; warn them that an attempt would be made to rescue Morn Hyland. He would let them have his ship and his skills and his knowledge of the cops in exchange for his life.
That option stank. He hated it. Not because it was any different than the dealings he’d had with the UMCP for years: he saw no reason to think he wouldn’t be able to serve the Amnion with the same misleading loyalty he’d given the cops. Not because some of his crew would hate it, or would hate him for doing it: he could always get a new crew. And not even because it was the same choice Sorus herself had made: nothing he was forced to do now would change his revenge on her.
No, he hated enlisting with the Amnion because that would affect his reputation. It would cost him glamour: it would make him appear as mortal and outmaneuvered as he felt.
He intended to ensure that Thermopile and Taverner suffered the tortures of the damned for doing this to him.
That determination lasted until he crossed the scan field and started along the passages toward Reception.
Then some things Angus had said to him hit home; they went off inside him like timed grenades.
“Report” is what Milos does best.
You aren’t the only one he talked to while we were coming in. He also sent messages to Tranquil Hegemony.
They answered before you did.
Milos was playing some kind of bugger game. Me and Succorso and the UMCP and the Amnion, all against each other.
Nick felt himself breaking up inside. Sweat stood like blood on his forehead; the whites of his eyes glared at the walls; pale as bone, his scars pulled at his face like fresh cuts. Some kind of bugger game. Apparently his brain had shut down when Angus hit him. He must have been stunned. “Report” is what Milos does best. He hadn’t really understood those words at first. They answered before you did. After his initial rush of pa
nic, he’d forgotten them. Maybe his skull was cracked: it hurt badly enough for that. And since then he’d been reacting on pure instinct.
But now he began to think again.
Where did Angus get that kind of strength?
What if everything he’d assumed about Angus and Milos had been wrong from the beginning?
Oh, shit.
What if Milos and Angus weren’t working for the cops? What if they were just faking it? What if the whole point of this shuck-and-jive was to get Morn back to UMCPHQ and make it look like they rescued her?
What if the Amnion had turned her into some kind of genetic kaze, and now they wanted the cops to have her so she could go off where she would do the most damage?
Of course the Amnion knew the cops wouldn’t trust her, wouldn’t let down their defenses, unless they were sure she was innocent. What if Angus and Milos were working for the Amnion to make Morn look innocent?
Oh, Christ!
Nick was momentarily frozen with panic, not because he cared about the threat to humankind, but because he’d just lost his last option.
If Angus and Milos were working for the Amnion, Nick didn’t have anything to offer that might save him.
Frightened motionless, he stood where he was and tried to believe Angus had lied to him.
You aren’t the only one he talked to—He also sent messages to Tranquil Hegemony.
They answered before you did.
It was too tidy, too convenient. Angus must have invented it, trying to pressure Nick into helping him.
Nevertheless it was inherently credible. Milos Taverner was exactly that kind of buggering sonofabitch.
How was it possible for Thermopyle to be so fucking-strong?
Goaded by chagrin, Nick broke into a run.
He had to get back aboard Captain’s Fancy before the full weight of the Bill’s anger and Angus’ treachery and his own miscalculations came down on his neck.
Displays at the ends of the access passages indicated ship id for the berths they served. Half the signs were blank: some of the others showed names he recognized. When he noticed Soar, he took charge of himself, slowed his pace to a walk. He would see himself in hell before he risked letting any of Sorus Chatelaine’s people witness his panic.
Soar’s display flashed at him. Under the ship’s name ran the words SECURE FOR UNDOCK.
Good. Despite his fear, his mouth aped a predator’s grin. His plan was working. Whatever else happened, he was going to get that bitch.
In command of himself now, even though he couldn’t control the muscles spasming in his cheek, he continued on his way.
There: around a corner; twenty meters past the only other display in this section of the corridor: Captain’s Fancy.
His alarm turned instantly to fury when he saw that the access to his ship was guarded.
Two men stood there, both gripping impact rifles. One had a video prosthesis in place of his left eye; the other looked like a gorilla that had been rebuilt so that it could dismantle concrete with its bare hands.
They were both breathing hard, and their faces were flushed, as if they’d just arrived running.
They’d already seen Nick; they watched him as he approached. Their rifles pointed ominously at his chest.
He should have turned and run himself. Those men had come to arrest him. Either the Bill wanted to confront him with the rumors Mikka and Sib had started about Sorus, or he’d been connected to Davies’ rescue somehow. He was finished if he didn’t get out of here; didn’t get out of here fast—
He was finished without his ship.
And he had nowhere to run.
His head hurt as if he had splinters of bone sticking into his brain. Driven by momentum and outrage, he walked straight toward the guards as if they had nothing to do with him; as if he could simply brush between them and go on to his ship.
His thin bluff was wasted on them. They shifted to block the passage completely. The one with the bugeye in his head raised his rifle to his shoulder and tightened his finger on the firing stud.
Nick stopped. He had no choice.
Somehow he was going to kill at least one of these men before he was taken.
“What the fuck are you assholes doing?” he snarled. “That’s my ship. I’m going aboard.”
“No, you ain’t.” The gorilla smiled to show his bad teeth. “You been barred.”
Barred?
“Pending a resolution of your disagreements with the Bill,” the other guard explained as if he were quoting, “you are denied access to your ship.”
Barred?
“Asshole,” the gorilla finished happily.
He might as well have said, The Bill has decided to kill you. He just hasn’t decided how yet.
For an instant, Nick believed that he was finished. He had nowhere to go, no defenses left. All his options had failed. The pressure of defeat rose up in him like a cry.
But then he realized that the guards weren’t here to arrest him. He still had his freedom of movement.
Without transition a fighting calm came over him. You’re a dead man. Milos had told him the truth. Here in Billingate, he was nothing without Captain’s Fancy.
Nothing except himself. Nick Succorso. The man who never lost.
The man whom Sorus Chatelaine had cut and then abandoned aboard the original Captain’s Fancy; the man who had resurrected himself from that death to become the stuff of legends.
He measured distances; estimated his chances of knocking both rifles aside in time to land a few blows.
The gorilla looked like he could absorb a punch which would pulverize Nick’s fist, and go on smiling.
Nick returned a grin of his own. His scars curved blackly under his eyes; the tic was gone from his cheek. As if he hadn’t just received a death sentence—as if in the face of Amnion threats and the Bill’s muscle, UMCP treachery and Angus’ malice, he’d at last recovered his true immortality—he asked almost casually, “I don’t suppose the Bill happened to mention what he wants me to do before I can have my ship back?”
The guards shook their heads. “You got to ask him,” the gorilla sneered.
“I will,” Nick said for the sake of his self-image, “as soon as I can spare the time.”
Turning his back sharply, he strode away.
Thermopile and Taverner and the Bill and Hashi fucking Lebwohl were out of their minds if they thought they could do this to him.
Grinning hard enough to stretch his scars, he rounded the corner, passed out of sight of the guards—and nearly collided with Mikka Vasaczk.
She put a hand on his chest to ward him off. He didn’t need to look into her eyes to see how angry she was; how desperate. The force of her thrust and the set of her hips told him that she’d come close to hitting him.
Sib Mackern and Vector Shaheed stood behind her like bodyguards. They had Pup with them. But as soon as Nick registered their presence he ignored them. He didn’t have time to consider the implications of the fact that they were together. The orders he’d given them should have kept them apart: therefore they hadn’t obeyed him. That was dangerous, but secondary. They would pay for it later. Mikka and the guards outside Captain’s Fancy were his immediate concern.
“Just the people I was looking for,” he announced softly. His sardonic assurance was so complete that he almost believed it himself. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”
He moved past her as if she had no choice except to follow him.
“Nick.” She caught his arm, pulled him to a halt. “Listen to me.” Her grip was as hard as she could make it. For some reason it reminded him of the strength of her legs when he’d had sex with her. “This is the last chance you’re going to get.”
Deliberately he glanced at the nearest bugeyes. “Save it. The Bill won’t hesitate to use anything you say against you.”
Against me.
Apparently Mikka didn’t care. “Listen to me.” The lines of her face were clenched and bitter. She looked
like a woman who’d decided to step in front of matter cannon fire. “We’re not taking any more orders. We don’t work for you. We’re not your crew any longer. You’ve made it too obvious we’re expendable. And we don’t much like what you’re expending us for.
“Now we’re going to stop you.”
She didn’t let go of his arm.
Nick couldn’t help himself: he gaped at her. “Say what?”
Sib Mackern edged closer to her shoulder, as if he wanted her to protect him—or as if he’d decided to die with her.
Nick’s incredulity didn’t touch her. “The bugeyes are part of it,” she grated. “A little trick we learned from you. The strategic use of recordings. No matter how fast you are, you can’t kill all four of us before one of us manages to tell the Bill at least some of the things you don’t want him to know.”
“That’s right,” Vector put in. He sounded calm and a little sad. “In fact, I don’t think you’ll be able to kill any of us before Operations sends those guards”—he nodded in the direction of Captain’s Fancy—“to find out what all the noise is about.”
The engineer was right. Unless Operations or the Bill had too many other things to concentrate on, the guards were probably already headed this way.
“But if you don’t kill us,” Mikka continued as Nick stared at her, “you won’t be able to prevent us from talking to anybody we want. Captain Chatelaine for one.” Like his scars, her eyes were full of blood. “Captain Thermopyle for another.”
Despite the danger of the guards, Nick stood still, let his heart beat two or three times while he met her fierce glare. She’d always been the best of his crew—the most capable and intelligent; the most loyal. If only she’d been better looking, she might have held his interest longer. He still didn’t understand how he’d lost her.
Abruptly, as if he could do such things without effort, he twisted his arm free. In the same motion he shifted a few steps to the side. Involuntarily Mikka, Vector, and Sib turned to face him; they moved as if he were steering them, positioning them between him and the corner.
Lazily he swung up his hand and pointed his index finger into Mikka’s face. “I’m not going to try to kill you,” he said distinctly. “I told you—I need you. We’ve got work to do.
A Dark and Hungry God Arises Page 41
