This Day all Gods Die: The Gap into Ruin

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  While Warden Dios prepared his final briefing so that Dolph could relay it to Min Donner, Angus boarded Trumpet. Hints of lightness remained with him, buoyed by an ineffable sense of opportunity. He no longer felt heavy enough to be held back. The more honest Dios became, the wider Angus’ horizons seemed to grow. Warden had “persuaded” him to accept exactly the same choices he would have made for himself.

  Trumpet was a good ship; but he’d begun to think he might be able to do better.

  From the gap scout’s airlock, he rode the lift to the corridor which ran the length of her core. But then he had to stifle an impulse to head for the bridge. He wanted to see what condition she was in after having twice fought loose from the grip of a black hole; wanted to examine her fuel cells and inventories, confirm her remaining capabilities. Unfortunately he didn’t think he could afford the time.

  Holt Fasner wasn’t likely to just sit around waiting for the UMCP director to catch up with him.

  Angus coasted along the corridor to sickbay, keyed the door, and went in.

  Mikka lay asleep on the surgical table—unconscious or drugged—with IVs plugged into her forearms and a new bandage that smelled of tissue plasm and metabolins high up on one side of her abdomen. An old scowl gripped her features as if she’d been angry so long that she couldn’t let it go. But her mouth hung open, slack-jawed and vulnerable. Her breathing carried suggestions of pain her medicated body couldn’t feel.

  Davies sat limp in the corner of the compartment, resting there while the sickbay systems worked on Mikka. Once he’d settled her on the table, anchored her with restraints, and keyed the computer for diagnosis and treatment, there was nothing else he could do for her.

  Of course, he could have returned to the command module; listened to what Warden, Dolph, and Angus told each other. But he didn’t look like he could bear to hear much more. The emotional ordeal of accepting Vestabule’s demands and the physical strain of fighting for his life had left him exhausted, despite his elevated metabolism. Obviously he needed rest. However, his slumped posture conveyed the impression that he’d folded into the corner so he could grieve—for Ciro; or for his own fears.

  He raised his head when Angus entered the chamber. At first he didn’t seem to recognize his father. Then he sighed thinly. “That didn’t take long.” With the heels of both hands he tried to rub a little life back into the muscles of his face. “I thought the three of you would have to yell at each other for quite a while.”

  Angus gave Davies the same fierce grin he’d shown to Dios and Captain Ubikwe. “Turns out I didn’t have to yell much. Now that the director of the United Manipulating and Conniving cops has decided to tell the truth, things have become simpler. The only hard part was convincing the fat man to put off arresting anyone for a few more minutes.”

  He pulled himself to the edge of the table, studied the status readout on Mikka’s condition, then went on. “Looks like she’s stable. She needs to go over to the module. Can you handle it, or do you need help?”

  “I can handle it.” Davies nudged himself off the deck; straightened out his legs so that he drifted upright in front of Angus. “But I’m probably going to feel lousy about myself later if I don’t at least ask what you decided. I don’t expect you to care what I think. But I care. Or I will when I’ve had some sleep.”

  Deliberately he studied his father’s face. “How bad is it?”

  Angus chuckled. How bad was it? That depended on how he looked at it. For Warden things could hardly get worse. Or better. The man had chosen an expensive way to keep his promises. But for everyone else—

  “Not bad,” Angus assured Davies. “In fact, the only bad part is”—sardonically he parroted phrases he’d heard repeated to the point of nausea during his years in reform schools and juvenile lockups—“you won’t get to spend your formative years nurtured by a nuclear family. Morn’ll be there. She’ll probably hover until she makes you want to scream. But I’ll be gone.

  “If I have any say in the matter,” he stated, “neither of you will ever Catch sight of me again.”

  Shit, he was making promises himself. Warden’s influence had begun to rot his brain.

  Davies replied with a sigh of resignation. “You’d better tell me what that means.”

  Angus snorted. “Gone is gone. Not here. Why isn’t that clear? Light-years away across the gap. As far as I can get from cops and Amnion who want to rule the galaxy.”

  As far as possible from all the people who’d made him into a man he didn’t recognize.

  In response Davies blinked at him wearily. “That’s not what I meant. I meant—”

  “I know what you meant.” For Davies’ sake Angus restrained the way his thoughts—and his heart—wanted to leap and run in all directions. “From here on everything’s simple.

  “The fat man’ll take you and Mikka to UMCPHQ. Protective custody. Until the Council or the cops decide whether they have the courage to admit you and Morn saved the whole planet’s ass.

  “In the meantime”—he grinned again—“the almighty Warden Dios and I are going after Holt Fasner.”

  Davies nodded slowly. He may have been too tired to consider all the implications. “What happens after that?”

  Angus swallowed another harsh chuckle. Before he could stop himself, he countered, “What makes you think there’s going to be an ‘after’?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Davies said again. “You’ll be gone. I heard that. And I guess maybe Director Dios will finally be satisfied. If he can arrest Fasner. But what about Morn? What happens to her?”

  Urged into motion by eagerness, Angus keyed the sickbay computer to remove its IVs from Mikka’s arms, then began opening her restraints so she could float free of the table. He was absolutely sure that Dios had no intention of arresting the Dragon.

  “If Morn doesn’t watch out,” he answered, “Min Donner’ll probably erect a statue in her honor. Make every damn cop alive stop by at least once and kiss its feet. She’ll be so safe she won’t know what to do with herself.”

  After a moment Davies mustered another nod. Apparently he still trusted the ED director.

  Angus didn’t. Oh, he believed she would protect as well as honor both Morn and Davies with her life. But she might not do the same for him. He could easily imagine her having him shut down like an unstable nuclear pile. If fucking Hashi Lebwohl didn’t get to him first; do something worse.

  When Mikka came loose from the table, he steered her toward Davies. Davies accepted her with both arms; adjusted her against him so that he had one arm free without putting pressure on her injuries.

  “You know, it’s funny,” he mused softly. “I can remember everything you did to her.” He’d been imprinted with Morn’s mind; Morn’s memories. He lowered his head, shrouded his gaze; keeping his grief to himself. “But I still think she’ll be sorry she didn’t get to say good-bye.”

  That touched Angus: he seemed to have no defense against it. Hints of pain and brutality spread out from the point of contact. For a moment he lost the lightness that had carried him out of himself. Weight dragged at him like a burden of regret.

  “Tell her—” he began gruffly. At first he had no idea what he wanted to say. But then it became clear, as if his computer had opened a datalink to the parts of himself he didn’t recognize. “Tell her I’m sorry I wasn’t better.”

  He was sorry she’d chosen Nick to save her. If she hadn’t helped Nick frame him, everything after that would have been different. In spite of himself, however, he understood. Nick hadn’t given her a zone implant.

  At last Davies looked up at him. His son faced him squarely as if he, too, had finally become honest.

  “None of us are that good,” Davies murmured. “I think you’ve done all right.”

  Angus turned away. He’d had all the support he could stand. It touched him too deeply. With his back to Davies, he opened the sickbay door.

  “Just tell her.”

  “I will,�
� Davies promised.

  “In that case—” Angus pointed at the corridor. “Get Mikka out of here. Dios and I need to burn.”

  Davies didn’t say anything more. Pulling on a handgrip, he carried Mikka through the doorway; swung her with him along the corridor in the direction of the lift.

  At the same time Angus launched himself toward the bridge.

  He didn’t recover his sense of lightness until Davies had transferred Mikka to the command module; until Dios came aboard and the airlocks sealed; until Dolph opened the grapples. But as Trumpet hummed to life under his hands, and the first nudge of thrust settled him into his g-seat, he started to soar again.

  He was done with Morn and Davies and vulnerability. Done with cops, orders, legal violence, fear. The time had come to cross the gap which had always blocked him.

  The minute Warden reached the second’s station and closed his belts, Angus fired thrust hard. Trumpet burned like a missile armed with ruin toward UMCHO.

  Their approach to Earth’s largest orbital platform presented no difficulties. Min Donner’s barrage had effectively stripped away HO’s ability to defend itself. Thousands of people remained alive on station: the sheer number of distress signals HO transmitted, and the volume of emergency communications, made that obvious. But the platform’s guns had been crippled. Most of its power was gone. Short of sending out an EVA team, there was nothing Holt Fasner—or Home Security—could do to prevent Angus Thermopyle and the UMCP director from docking at one of the personnel craft ports located in the hub of HO’s revolving torus.

  Angus felt sure Fasner was still on station. As soon as he’d left the command module behind, he’d started scrutinizing the huge platform with all Trumpet’s sensors and sifters, searching for any hint of the Dragon’s escape. And his instruments had the support of Earth’s system-wide scan net: minutes after Calm Horizons’ death, Min Donner had ordered the net reactivated. Angus could pull in data from every ship and station, every navigational buoy and scan relay, around the planet. His screens told him that several dozen ejection pods of various sizes had left HO—most in the direction of UMCPHQ or SpaceLab Station, a few sliding down the gravity well toward Earth’s surface—but that no craft of any kind had fled toward open space and freedom.

  If Fasner ran, he wouldn’t use an ejection pod: no mere pod could carry his treasure of data and secrets. And he wouldn’t head for any destination where he would be arrested as soon as he docked or landed. Therefore he was still within reach when Angus eased Trumpet into the first available port and locked her seals to hold her in place.

  Angus didn’t power down the drives: he wanted the gap scout ready for him if he needed her. But he code-blocked the command board so that no one else—not even Warden Dios—would be able to take her.

  Riding a new wave of eagerness, he asked Dios, “Now what?”

  The director hadn’t spoken since he’d come aboard. Once he’d taken the second’s g-seat, he’d covered himself with silence like a security screen, ignoring anything Angus happened to say. For the most part, he’d also ignored the scan data Angus studied. Instead he’d concentrated on running a playback of Trumpet’s datacore. At first Angus had wondered why Warden bothered. But then he’d realized that the UMCP director was probably the only important man in Earth’s space who hadn’t heard Morn’s story. Apparently Dios was more interested in what she and Angus had done and endured than in anything else.

  So Angus had left him alone. In spite of himself, he was starting to understand the director. One way or another, Dios had staked his entire attack on the Dragon and all his hopes for humankind’s future on Morn and Angus. The same convictions which had driven him to take a risk like that left-him hungry to know what his success had cost them.

  Now he didn’t answer Angus’ question. As soon as Trumpet clamped into her berth, he flipped open his belts and pushed himself out of the second’s station toward the bridge companionway.

  “Shit,” Angus remarked to the display screens. In another minute Dios’ silence was going to make him angry. The man was entirely too eager to end up dead. Like Ciro, he was crazy with mutagens. Or he’d been crazy all along—

  Clearing the command board, Angus released his belts and followed the director.

  He caught up with Dios at the weapons locker. Warden had shucked off his EVA suit, and was helping himself to everything he could carry: an impact rifle and several charge clips; two laser pistols; a dagger with a serrated edge; half a dozen concussion grenades.

  Angus whistled through his teeth. “I guess we’re expecting trouble.”

  Dios fixed a gaze of pure concentration on Angus—a look of such focus that it seemed to admit no weakness, allow no emotion. “You could say that.” The authority in his voice had become as hard as a fist. Like a predator he meant to go for the kill while his opponent was weak.

  “Home Security has worked up here for decades,” he explained. Helping Fasner. “They probably think they won’t like what happens if they don’t resist. When she gets around to mopping up, Min will have the lot of them arrested. They’ll face all sorts of charges, starting with that attack on Suka Bator. As long as they hope there might be a way out of this mess, they’ll fight.”

  Angus tried to imagine “a way out” for them. A ship? A bargain? Some kind of executive miracle? But he didn’t care what it might be.

  At least Warden was talking to him again.

  “So what’s the plan?” he asked while he peeled off his own EVA suit; got rid of the encumbrance.

  Dios clipped the handguns to his belt, stuffed his pockets with grenades. All the hesitation had been burned out of him long ago. “I want you to go after Holt.”

  Angus raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t expected Warden to give him his chance this easily.

  “How am I supposed to find him?”

  “Look for his gap yacht,” Warden answered. “Motherlode. She’s probably berthed somewhere in the hub. If he isn’t there now, he will be eventually. She’s his way out.”

  Shaking his head, Angus moved to take his turn at the weapons locker, “I don’t think so.” He’d already studied that possibility. “From the hub he won’t have a window on open space. Two of Donner’s ships are close enough to hit him before he reaches gap velocity. He’ll have a berth somewhere out on the rim.”

  At the right moment in HO’s rotation, Fasner would have a clear escape vector.

  But the outer perimeter of the torus stretched for at least twenty k. Angus would need hours to search that much of the station.

  Warden paused. “In that case—” He thought for a moment, then said, “You should probably talk to his mother. She might not tell me where he is. But I’m sure she’ll tell you.”

  Angus didn’t try to hide his surprise. He wanted to ask, Fasner has a mother? Still? Isn’t he too old? But he had no time for secondary considerations. Instead he countered, “Why would she do that?”

  Grimly, Dios assured him, “You’ll figure it out when you see her.”

  Before Angus could argue, the director gave him a quick set of directions which made sense to one of his databases.

  “All right.” Angus set his uncertainty aside. He didn’t intend to let it weigh him down. From the locker he selected two impact rifles and a double handful of charge clips. “What do you want me to do if I catch up with him?”

  Again Dios looked at him: a stare like a flare of urgency—or a promise of murder.

  “I trust you. Just do what comes naturally.”

  He seemed to think he could have imposed restrictions on Angus, if he’d chosen to do so.

  Angus grinned fiercely. “A free hand. I like it.”

  Shoving the charge clips into his pockets, he slung his rifles over his shoulders and headed for the lift.

  “All right,” he repeated as the lift sank toward the airlock. “Assume it all works. His mother”—shit, his mother?—“tells me how to find his yacht. I get there in time. What’ll you be doing?”

&
nbsp; “I’m going after his data.” Warden tapped on the keypad to open the inner doors of the lock. “That’s his real power. If he’s still downloading it to his yacht, I’ll cut it off. I want to make sure it can’t be used to do any more damage.”

  “You know his codes?” Angus asked incredulously.

  The director shook his head. “I don’t have to. Hashi put security locks on most of the main HO computers. I know those codes. The locks Won’t prevent Holt from accessing anything he wants to copy. They only block deletions, changes. But they’ll let me find the same files.”

  Apparently he’d thought of everything.

  He reached up to cycle the outer doors; but Angus caught his arm, stopped him. Effortlessly Angus pulled Warden around to face him. A sense of doubt nagged at him. The man he’d become felt concerns he couldn’t forget.

  Deliberately he raised the same question Davies had put to him. “What happens after that?”

  Dios’ single gaze held no compromise; surrendered nothing. “Then all hell breaks loose,” he pronounced harshly. “And Holt is finished.”

  Another promise. Warden made too many of them. They were starting to scare Angus.

  The director had only two or three hours of humanity left. After that his supply of the drug he’d taken from Vestabule would run out. If he didn’t find an antidote in Fasner’s data, he was finished himself—as truly and completely ruined as the Dragon.

  With an effort of will, Angus tried again to reach past Warden’s defenses. Although the memory hurt him, he said, “Davies told me Morn would be sorry she didn’t get a chance to say good-bye. She probably feels the same way about you.”

  Warden’s glare didn’t flicker. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll send her a flare.”

  And another. “Oh, stop it,” Angus snorted. In disgust he let the director go. “You and God. You can handle everything. The rest of us don’t have to worry about it.”

  Then he found that he couldn’t stop himself. A strange fury took fire in his veins, ignited by Dios’ rebuff. An allegiance he didn’t want and couldn’t stifle tilled him with outrage. Abruptly he started shouting.