Chaos and Order: The Gap Into Madness

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Bryony Hyland’s daughter. Before you sold your soul—

  With a touch of her finger, Mikka keyed her intercom. For the first time in nearly two hours, she broke the silence.

  “All right, Vector, Ciro—Angus and Morn, if you can hear me. This is it.” Fatigue throbbed in her voice, but she seemed to ignore it by an act of will. She was nothing if not a fighter. “We’re at the edge of the swarm. And we have two ships in our way. They’re going at each other hard. Maybe they’re fighting over us. The computer says one of them is UMCP cruiser Punisher. The other’s our old friend Calm Horizons.”

  She scowled darkly. “At least now we know what we’re worth. Apparently war isn’t too high a price to pay.”

  Somehow Warden Dios or Hashi Lebwohl had brought this about. But was it what they wanted? Or had they simply made some terrible miscalculation?

  “I can’t be sure,” Mikka growled, “but I think by now our broadcast is leaking out where it can be heard. It’s a good bet both Punisher and Calm Horizons know what we’re doing. Before long they won’t be the only ones.

  “That’s the good news.

  “The bad news is, we can’t get past them. They have us covered. Unless we want to go all the way back through the swarm,” back past the raging hunger of the black hole, “we’re stuck here until one of them finishes the other off.

  “I guess we’d better hope Punisher does the finishing. We still don’t know what the damn cops want, but they aren’t likely to kill us as fast as the Amnion will.”

  Tiredly, Mikka silenced the intercom. Without a glance at Davies, she went back to work, looking for ways to improve Trumpet’s position which wouldn’t expose the gap scout to direct scan from either Punisher or Calm Horizons.

  Shamed by her example, he wrestled for calm. Bryony Hyland’s daughter, like hell. The woman who’d stayed at her post and died to save her ship would have cringed at the sight of him. There were worse things than zone implants; worse crimes than selling his soul. Being too weak to remember his parents was one of them; too weak to remember what he cared about, or why—

  Angus and Morn had saved his life. It was his turn.

  Angus had told him once, You’re spending too much time on the guns. Concentrate on our defenses. Weapons wouldn’t save Trumpet now; she couldn’t face down a warship in open space. No matter what Hashi Lebwohl had done for her, she didn’t have that much firepower.

  Davies let his hands shake. Trembling wouldn’t kill him. He had more important things to worry about.

  Deliberately he checked the dispersion field generator; ran every status and diagnostic check he could find. Then he turned to scan again, searching the discernible spectrum for information he might be able to use.

  He nearly cried out when he caught sight of Soar.

  Like Calm Horizons, she was too well-known; the computer couldn’t be wrong about her.

  She was scarcely forty k away—a trivial distance in space, but still considerable in the fringes of the swarm. In fact, it was possible that she hadn’t spotted Trumpet yet. Plenty of rock jockeyed and ricocheted in the gap between them. Most of Trumpet’s data about her enemy came in by reflection—and there was nothing symmetrical about the way emissions bounced around the stones.

  Soar appeared to be limping; maneuvering poorly. But her guns were charged—poised for use.

  Shaking feverishly, Davies labeled her blip on the display so that Mikka could see it.

  Her jaw sank as she looked at the screen. “Perfect,” she muttered to herself. “Fucking perfect.”

  Even his bones shook. His brain itself seemed to tremble. Unsteadily he asked, “What do you want to do?”

  The muscles at the corner of Mikka’s jaw knotted. “Get her. Get her now. Before she fixes targ on us.”

  “We can’t.” Bryony Hyland’s daughter. “Too many asteroids in the way.” If we can stand being that ashamed of ourselves. “We don’t have a clear line of fire.”

  Soar also had no clear line.

  “And if we try,” he went on urgently, fearfully, “Calm Horizons’ll see it. She’ll know where we are. Just this much rock won’t stop that proton cannon from reaching us.”

  Mikka turned a glare like a curse on him. “Then what can we do?”

  His voice shook like his hands. “If Calm Horizons uses her matter cannon, I can keep her from hitting us once. We have a dispersion field—it breaks up that kind of blast. But we can’t face a super-light proton beam. We’ll have to run.”

  “Run where!”, Mikka snapped back.

  Davies had no idea. “Anywhere. Out past Punisher. Maybe she’s on our side. Maybe she’ll try to cover us.”

  “From a proton cannon?” Mikka rasped. “No chance. One good hit, and that gun’ll smash both of us.”

  Nevertheless she bent to her console and began designing hypothetical trajectories, hunting for a viable route through the last rocks; a course which would allow Trumpet to emerge from the swarm as much as possible in Punisher’s shadow.

  The gap scout truly could not fire at Soar: scan and targ agreed on that. Too many obstacles. The same stones which protected her also paralyzed her.

  But Soar must have spotted her by now; must have. And Sorus Chatelaine worked for the Amnion. Even if reflection distorted the precision of her instruments, she could transmit what she knew of Trumpet’s position to Calm Horizons.

  Then the Amnioni would be able to triangulate—

  What was the lag? A second? Less? How much time did Trumpet have before Soar talked to Calm Horizons! Before the defensive acted on Sorus Chatelaine’s information?

  “That rock!” Davies croaked suddenly. “The biggest one!” He pointed frantically at the scan display. “Get behind it! Before Calm Horizons fires!”

  Maybe Mikka understood him. Or maybe she’d already grasped the danger for herself. Hard and fast, she stabbed at the helm keys. Thrust kicked through the ship, roaring like a furnace, as Mikka scrambled for the occlusion of the largest remaining asteroid.

  An instant later the Amnioni’s proton cannon spoke.

  During the space between one nanosecond and the next, the asteroid shrugged, staggered, and transformed itself to scree.

  Debris tore at Trumpet’s shields like a barrage. When it passed, it left the gap scout exposed to open space; effectively naked in the face of another onslaught.

  For a moment Davies couldn’t comprehend why Calm Horizons didn’t fire again immediately. Then he understood. If she turned her other guns away from Punisher, the cruiser would smash her. And she needed time to recharge her proton cannon.

  A minute? Two?

  Trumpet had that much longer to live.

  SORUS

  It could be done. The helm first was good; one of the best. Even though the ship had lost a 30° arc of navigational thrust as well as one of her main tubes, he performed miracles with the jets she had left. And her surviving enemies were out of scan range; beyond knowledge. If either Trumpet or Free Lunch still lived, they weren’t near enough to pose a threat. Soar would be able to reach the coordinates Milos Taverner had provided; take up the position Calm Horizons wanted.

  Limping and sputtering, close to ruin, she moved tortuously through the long seethe of the stones like a cripple looking for death.

  Sorus Chatelaine had her own ideas about that, but she kept them to herself; hid them in her heart and wrapped silence around them so that they wouldn’t show.

  Taverner stood in front of her, as uncompromising as a statue. For the time being, he’d finished talking to Calm Horizons. Instead of attending to his SCRT, he watched Sorus and the bridge: absorbing everything scan, data, and helm showed on the screens; noting every order Sorus gave. Nevertheless his fingers continued to tap the keys of his odd device as if he were recording a Jog of what was said and done. Maybe he was preparing the testimony he would present to the Amnion Mind/Union so that his actions could be judged.

  Sorus snorted to herself. She was sure that she and her ship would
be judged long before the Mind/Union learned what had happened here.

  Once again she checked her maintenance status readouts. Some time ago one of the ship’s lifts had moved—the one nearest the breached cargo bay. More stress damage? Probably. Like thruster tubes and scan vanes—like Sorus herself—lifts could malfunction or break under enough pressure.

  Casually, dishonestly, she asked Taverner, “How does that thing work? It’s hard for me to believe you’re in instantaneous contact with Calm Horizons.”

  Intervening rock would have baffled any ordinary transmission. According to Taverner, however, his SCRT was far from ordinary. It sent messages back and forth, he’d claimed, without measurable delay. And he’d said it had a range of 2.71 light-years.

  The way he looked at her suggested that he’d forgotten how to shrug. “It functions by means of crystalline resonance,” he answered without inflection. “Do you doubt that I have described its capabilities accurately?”

  She shook her head. “You aren’t stupid enough to lie to me about it.” Not under these conditions. “I’m just—amazed. I didn’t know that kind of communication was possible.” She may have been looking for an oblique reassurance that Calm Horizons was indeed “heavily engaged” by a UMCP cruiser.

  To disguise her intentions, she added, “This whole job would have been easier if we’d put one of those boxes aboard Trumpet. Then we would have known where she was all the time. We could have forced that poor kid to tell us what she was doing, instead of expecting him to sabotage her.”

  She was morally certain that Ciro Vasaczk would have tried to carry out her orders, if he’d had the chance. Still she suspected that he’d been betrayed by his own distress. Trumpet’s people had noticed his terror and prevented him from doing what she’d instructed.

  “That was not possible, Captain Chatelaine,” Taverner replied. “Such devices are”—language failed him momentarily—“difficult to produce. Calm Horizons could not have supplied us with another, and this one could not be spared.”

  Apparently he’d taken her comments literally. Very little of his former humanity remained accessible to him.

  She was counting on that.

  “How’re you doing, helm?” she inquired so that the Amnioni wouldn’t say anything else. “Is it getting any easier?”

  “Not bad, Captain,” the man replied, stolid with concentration. “I wouldn’t say it’s getting easier, but I’m getting better at handling it.”

  “Do you need rest? I don’t want to relieve you, but your second can probably cope if you want a break.”

  “I’m fine, Captain.” He glanced up from his board long enough to meet her gaze, smile faintly. “This isn’t easy. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else.”

  Sorus cocked an eyebrow. Some hint in his eyes, some echo in his voice, gave her the impression that he, too, understood, that she and the woman on scan weren’t the only ones who’d begun to hope.

  If targ understood as well—

  Hiding grimly from Taverner’s scrutiny, Sorus turned to scan. “Anything I should know about?”

  “It’s not clear yet, Captain.” Like helm, scan kept her attention fixed on her board. “But we’re close enough—I think I’m getting hints of a battle. Some of my readings don’t look like static. If Calm Horizons and that UMCP warship are firing their matter cannon, maybe what I see are discontinuities leaking into the swarm.

  “I’ll know in another five minutes.”

  “Calm Horizons and the UMCP warship are firing,” Taverner pronounced unnecessarily.

  “In that case, targ,” Sorus said quietly, “it’s time to charge the guns.”

  The targ first nodded without speaking.

  Five minutes. Less?

  Yes, less.

  “Captain,” scan announced abruptly, “that’s definitely battle emission. We’re almost there. We should reach the fringe of the swarm in”—she tapped keys—“call it twenty minutes. We’ll be able to see Calm Horizons and the cruiser from there.”

  If Trumpet was alive, maybe they would be able to see her as well.

  Sorus touched her intercom; warned her people that they were going back into battle. Taverner wanted her to help Calm Horizons against the cruiser. And to help kill Trumpet. She intended to show him that she was ready to obey.

  “Captain,” communications called suddenly, “we’re receiving a transmission!”

  Memories of Succorso’s attack tightened around Sorus’ heart. “Source?” she demanded.

  Succorso had outplayed her in the swarm. She hadn’t forgotten that—and she hadn’t forgiven him.

  “Can’t tell,” the woman replied. “There’s too much reflection. We’re picking up the signal from three or four directions at once.”

  A transmission from an EVA suit wouldn’t bounce. It would be too close—

  Sorus let herself breathe for a moment before she asked, “What does it say? Is it coded?”

  “For compression, not encryption,” communications said. “There’s a lot of data here.” A moment later she tensed. “Captain, it’s from Vector Shaheed! Aboard Trumpet.”

  Taverner turned away from Sorus as if he pivoted on oil, faced communications and the rest of the bridge. His fingers sped on the keys of his SCRT.

  So the gap scout had escaped the black hole. Taverner was right. Under other circumstances, Sorus would have hated that. But now It pleased her.

  It suited her hopes.

  Studying a readout, communications summarized the transmission as her computer decoded it.

  “He says he’s developed the formula for a mutagen immunity drug.” Involuntarily she glanced at Taverner; snatched her gaze back to her board. “My God, the formula’s here! He included it. And a whole series of test designs to prove it works.”

  Swallowing hard, she concluded, “Captain, Trumpet must be trying to get this to VI.”

  “Triangulate,” Milos ordered flatly. He moved to the communications station as if to ensure that he would be obeyed.

  “I can’t,” communications snapped at him. “I already said there’s too much reflection.”

  “Scan,” Sorus put in, “is the swarm thin enough for that transmission to leak out?”

  The scan first chewed her lip. “Hard to tell, Captain. Are they ahead of us? Behind us? Maybe—”

  “This signal,” Taverner intoned like a sentence of death, “can be received beyond the swarm. Calm Horizons has heard it.”

  Disaster. The ruin of everything the Amnion had risked by sending Soar after the gap scout; by committing Calm Horizons to an act of war.

  From the communications station, he confronted Sorus again. “Captain Chatelaine, Trumpet must be stopped.”

  “Why?” she sneered. “We can’t exactly erase that transmission. It’s out there now. You ordered me not to kill her when we had the chance. This whole exercise has been wasted.”

  He didn’t hesitate. Calm Horizons had already given him his answer.

  “Gap drive implosion,” he pronounced passionlessly, “emits electromagnetic static sufficient to disrupt all microwave coherence. The volume of space affected is limited only by the power and hysteresis settings of the drive imploded. Because the static crosses the gap, the area affected is many times greater than the distance a waveform travels in a comparable time.

  “When Trumpet has been destroyed, Calm Horizons will implode her gap drive.” If he felt any emotion, his alien voice was unable to show it. “This transmission will be effaced from the Massif-5 system.”

  Calm Horizons intended to commit suicide.

  When she did, Sorus’ hopes would die in a burst of inconceivable static.

  “You would have been instructed to perform this function,” Taverner remarked inflexibly. “Damage deprives Soar of any future use to the Amnion. However, your gap drive lacks the necessary power.”

  Then he repeated heavily, “Trumpet must be stopped.”

  If Sorus didn’t act in time, she would lose her only chance.
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  She met his alien gaze. A harsh smile bared her teeth.

  “You heard him, helm,” she drawled. “We’d better reach the fringes fast. So we can see.”

  “Right, Captain,” helm replied.

  At once unsteady thrust multiplied through the ship, doubling and then tripling Soar’s velocity; nudging Sorus back into her g-seat.

  “Scan,” she continued, “this rock should be thinning out. Find that ship. She’s still in the swarm somewhere. Otherwise her transmission wouldn’t bounce. And if she tried to leave, she would already be dead.”

  Calm Horizons’ super-light proton cannon would see to that.

  “I’m on it, Captain,” scan acknowledged. She faltered momentarily, then said, “But we’ve got so much damage—Some of our instruments don’t work for shit. The rest aren’t adequate. They weren’t designed to function alone.”

  She was offering Sorus an excuse, in case Soar’s captain wanted to miss Trumpet.

  But that wasn’t what Sorus wanted. Not at all. On the contrary, she needed to know exactly where Trumpet was.

  She needed to know immediately.

  “Do your best,” she ordered. “This is vital. If we don’t spot that ship, we won’t have anything to hope for.”

  Are you listening, Taverner? Do you understand?

  You would have been instructed to perform this function.

  She was sure that he was too alien to understand anything as human as what she had in mind.

  “Forget it!” a raw voice barked behind her. “You’ve got nothing to hope for. You fuckers are all finished!”

  Stung by surprise, Soar’s people wheeled their stations. The Amnioni jerked his attention away from Sorus.

  Panic and recognition and a kind of cold, absolute rage took hold of her. She turned her head to look past the edge of her g-seat.

  Nick Succorso stood in the entrance to the bridge.

  Of course.

  Scan gasped, “Christ!” No one else made a sound.

  Succorso wore a battered, nearly ruined EVA suit, but he’d discarded the helmet. Above his bare teeth, his eyes seemed to cry out like small shrieks of madness. The scars Sorus had given him were as black as gangrene; slashes of rot eating fatally into his face. Despite the barely palpable g of Soar’s rotation, he appeared to wobble as if he could hardly stay on his feet.