Don"t do it, he told the blurred shapes around him, even though his silence was so vast that no sound could cross it. Don"t even try. Find some other answer.
If he laughed much harder, he was going to weep.
Don"t make me go back to what I was.
Please.
Morn herself had never chosen to have her zone implant removed or neutralized. She was dependent on the artificial stimulation which had tortured and exalted her. The emissions that controlled her also gave her strength.
Abruptly Davies announced like a cry, "No! He isn"t unconscious. His zone implants are doing this to him."
Two of the shapes gave the impression that they turned to face the third.
"He"s in stasis," Davies explained hurriedly. "He warned Morn and me about that. Before he edited his datacore. He said some of the commands were hardwired. His zone implants obey automatically. He told us, "The whole system will freeze if you pull the chip." That"s why we had to wire him in to the ship"s datacore before he could work.
"Something he did outside-or something that happened to him-maybe being hurt so much-It triggered those commands. Sent him into stasis."
Very good, Angus chuckled desperately. You"re smarter than you look.
What"re you going to do about it? Tell me what in h.e.l.l you think you can do about it.
"But if you"re right-if it"s hardwired-" Mikka"s voice trailed away.
"If it"s hardwired," Vector finished for her, "we don"t know how to countermand it." After a moment he added, "I was always pretty mediocre as an engineer. I can use systems like these"-he must have meant sickbay"s-"but I don"t really understand how they work. I"m out of my depth here. Sorry."
Pa.s.sing responsibility to someone else.
"Don"t look at me," Mikka muttered. "I thought I was at least competent as a programmer, but I didn"t know it was even possible to edit a datacore."
Only the Amnion could tamper with SOD-CMOS chips. The Amnion and Angus. But he was in no position to offer suggestions.
"s.h.i.t," Davies said through his teeth. "Morn"s going to wake up soon. When she does-I can"t tell her this. I just can"t. After what she"s been through- "He"s the only one who can repair the drives."
Repair the drives?
"We don"t know that for sure." Mikka didn"t sound hopeful. "Vector and I haven"t tried yet."
Repair-?
"So what?" Davies protested bitterly. "Even if you can, we"re helpless without him. We don"t know enough about the ship. We don"t know enough about what"s going on. Who"s he working for really? Why did they give him to Nick-and then let us take him back? Why are we on the run?"
Angus breathed a nonexistent obscenity. What happened to the drives?
"The cops are coming after us," Davies went on. "You know that. We"re sending out a Cla.s.s-1 UMCP homing signal. I can"t figure out how to turn it off. If they chase us long enough, they"ll catch us.
"When that happens, we"re finished. We may not die out here, but we won"t be able to make any choices.
"Whose side is that cruiser on? The side that sent Nick Angus" codes? The side that wants to suppress our antimutagen? The side that let Nick have Morn in the first place? Or the side that gave us the chance to set Angus free?
"We need to know what"s going on."
Davies" young voice rose as if he wanted to wail. "I can"t tell Morn that the only man who stands a chance of helping us is stuck in f.u.c.king stasis."
"Try his priority-codes," Vector suggested. His habitual calm sounded frayed.
"They"re blocked," blocked," Davies retorted. Davies retorted.
"Try them!" Mikka snapped. "What the h.e.l.l do you think we have to lose?" Mikka snapped. "What the h.e.l.l do you think we have to lose?"
Fiercely Davies complied. "Isaac," he rasped. "Gabriel. "Gabriel. Wake up. End stasis. Wake up!" Wake up. End stasis. Wake up!"
Angus waited in suspense. But of course the commands couldn"t reach him. He"d erected a wall against them.
The Amnion had taught him well.
"Nothing." Despair roughened Mikka"s tone. "No change. He can"t wake up."
Inside his head, he laughed until tears ran down his soul like sweat.
Davies reacted as if she were taunting him.
"G.o.d d.a.m.n d.a.m.n it!" he raged. "What the f.u.c.k is it!" he raged. "What the f.u.c.k is wrong wrong with Ciro? What was he with Ciro? What was he doing? doing? Didn"t you tell him he"s been Didn"t you tell him he"s been cured? cured? Didn"t you at least Didn"t you at least try try to convince him he doesn"t have to take orders from G.o.dd.a.m.n Sorus Chatelaine?" to convince him he doesn"t have to take orders from G.o.dd.a.m.n Sorus Chatelaine?"
Ciro did it? Sabotaged the drives? Well, d.a.m.n. That sounded like something Angus might have done himself.
"Of course we told him," Mikka replied wearily. "Of course we tried to convince him. Vector showed him the tests, for G.o.d"s sake. The hurt"s just too deep, that"s all. We can"t reach the place where she damaged him. I can"t." She may have shrugged. "There isn"t anything worse than what she did to him."
A paroxysm of fury took hold of Davies. "I don"t care!" "I don"t care!" he yelled. "I"m not interested in he yelled. "I"m not interested in excuses! excuses! We"ve got to do We"ve got to do better than this! better than this! I would be a f.u.c.king Amnioni I would be a f.u.c.king Amnioni myself myself right now if Morn hadn"t found a way to do better. She was right now if Morn hadn"t found a way to do better. She was alone alone on on Captain"s Fancy Captain"s Fancy, Nick had her locked in her cabin! locked in her cabin! She still saved me. She still saved me.
"Don"t tell me how bad Ciro"s been hurt! Tell me-"
Angus heard a sound like a blow. Davies stopped suddenly, as if he"d been struck. As if he"d struck himself- "What is it?" Mikka breathed tensely.
Without transition Davies" voice changed. It became at once lighter and sharper. More like Morn"s? His intensity gave him focus; seemed to give him authority.
"Vector," he commanded, "let"s turn him over."
"What?" Vector asked uncomprehendingly.
In silence Angus echoed, What?
"Turn him over," Davies insisted. "Put him on his stomach."
Hands jerked along Angus" sides. He couldn"t tell how many there were. After a moment the restraints fell away, releasing him into zero g.
"Mikka," Davies went on at once, "set the systems to open up his back."
"Why?" she demanded. Vector may have been swayed by Davies" pa.s.sion; but she was tougher.
Don"t ask stupid questions! Angus shouted uselessly. Just do it!
"So we can pull his datacore," Davies retorted. "He said the stasis commands are hardwired. Taking out the chip freezes the whole system. Maybe if we unplug his datacore and then put it back, the computer will reset itself."
Aping Mikka, he growled, "What the h.e.l.l do you think we have to lose?"
s.h.i.t! Abrupt amazement shot through Angus" trapped mind. It might work. It might- This time he hadn"t been ordered into paralysis. His programming had imposed it on him because he"d gone down one of its logic trees too far to recover. Under the circ.u.mstances, anything which forced or enabled his computer to reevaluate his condition might set him loose.
He landed on his face, felt the restraints close again.
"No good," Mikka reported. "The computer wants a code. Sickbay won"t do it without the right code."
Davies didn"t hesitate. "Then get me a first-aid kit. I"ll cut him open myself." Muttering, he added, "It"s not like I haven"t done this before."
Only a few seconds pa.s.sed before Angus felt a sharp line run along the skin between his shoulder blades. It should have hurt; but he was too far removed from it for pain. It might as well have belonged to some other reality.
All this was familiar. Alone with Warden Dios, he"d sprawled under the light like a sacrifice while the UMCP director had worked on his back: cut him open; swabbed away the blood; unplugged his old datacore; set a new one into the socket. Dios hadn"t stopped talking the whole time.
If Min knew why why I"m doing this, she"d turn against me herself I"m doing this, she"d turn against me herself.
We call the process "welding." When a man or woman is made a cyborg voluntarily, that"s "wedding." "Welding" is involuntary.
In essence, you"re no longer a human being. You"re a machina infernalis- machina infernalis-an infernal device. We"ve deprived you of choice-and responsibility.
Davies swore steadily under his breath while he did the same things for different reasons. Back then Angus had been able to recognize the change when his datacore was taken out: he"d felt a void as deep as the gap between the stars crouching just beyond the window which linked him to his computer; poised to consume him-But now he recognized only the tug which plucked at his back when Davies pulled the chip. Nothing shifted.
He already belonged to the void. Its power over him could not be made worse.
Yet he knew that wasn"t true. Trapped and suffocating in the crib in the crib in his EVA suit, he"d launched a singularity grenade against in his EVA suit, he"d launched a singularity grenade against Free Lunch. Free Lunch. And then he"d fired his portable matter cannon; fired it And then he"d fired his portable matter cannon; fired it accurately accurately despite the chaos of the swarm and the instability of cold ignition. He"d despite the chaos of the swarm and the instability of cold ignition. He"d created created that singularity by his own skill and cunning, no matter who hurt him, or why. Morn had set him free to fight for himself. that singularity by his own skill and cunning, no matter who hurt him, or why. Morn had set him free to fight for himself.
And then he"d been brought back from the edge of his personal black hole. He wasn"t alone here: other people had saved him. They could have left him to die, d.a.m.n right, that"s what he would have done himself, get rid of the butcher the rapist the illegal who looked like a toad and stank like a pig while they had the chance, no one would ever know the difference. Gone and good riddance.
The people around him hadn"t done that. They"d retrieved him from the fringes of his doom. And now they were trying to do the same thing again in another way.
Beyond question the power of the void could could be made worse. Davies, Vector, and Mikka could fail- be made worse. Davies, Vector, and Mikka could fail- Angus" terror might have eaten him alive if he"d been able to feel its full strength. His body was immune to it, however. Only his mind remained vulnerable.
"How long do we have to wait?" Mikka asked tensely.
"How should I know?" Davies retorted. "I"ve never done this before. And I sure as h.e.l.l didn"t design design this s.h.i.t." this s.h.i.t."
Sounding unnaturally calm, Vector remarked, "Orn Vorbuld"-a name Angus didn"t know-"used to say we have to drain the bad juju out of the chip."
Mikka snorted. "Orn Vorbuld was an a.s.shole."
Was. Dead now, apparently. Another casualty.
Like Angus himself.
Try it, he groaned. Haven"t you waited long enough? Haven"t you tortured me enough? Try Try it, for G.o.d"s sake! it, for G.o.d"s sake!
Save me or let me die- "f.u.c.k it," Davies muttered through his teeth. "I don"t know what we"re waiting for. Give me a swab. I can"t plug anything in if I can"t see the d.a.m.n socket."
We"ve committed a crime against your soul.
Angus felt pressure on his back, roughly gentle, mopping blood away. The raw edges of Davies" incision seemed to sting with cold as if they froze in the air of sickbay; as if the deep chill of s.p.a.ce leaked in to claim him for the last time.
It"s got to stop.
Pressure again: harder; more focused. There, in the center of his back; at the nexus of his being.
Silence.
Mikka murmured, "Is it in all the way?"
"I"m not sure," Davies breathed.
Angus was sure enough for both of them.
Without transition a window opened in the darkness of his head-a window of relief so intense that he would have sobbed aloud if his zone implants had allowed it.
Before he slipped away into the dark, his chronometer informed him that he"d been in stasis for more than four and a half hours.
DAVIES.
Davies stared at the b.l.o.o.d.y gap in Angus" back where he"d just reinserted the datacore chip into its socket, and waited for his heart to break.
He didn"t have any other ideas. If this didn"t work, Angus might as well be dead. Sickbay might keep him alive indefinitely; but no one aboard Trumpet Trumpet would ever reach him again. would ever reach him again.
It wasn"t working. Davies could see that. Held by his restraints, Angus lay like a slab of meat on the surgical table. Only the autonomic rasp of his breathing indicated that he wasn"t a corpse.
Another failure. The last one: the fatal one. He hadn"t been good enough to help Angus save the ship. If Morn hadn"t risked gap-sickness to aid him, they all would have died. For a while he"d been so caught up in his own exhaustion that he"d let Morn and Angus suffer for long, unnecessary minutes. And after that he"d had to rely on Mikka to run helm, despite her injuries and Ciro"s pain, because he hadn"t been able to cope by himself.
He didn"t know how to repair the drives. He wasn"t even smart enough to turn off Trumpet"s Trumpet"s homing signal. homing signal.
But there was worse.
He"d failed to understand himself. h.e.l.l, he hadn"t even tried. He"d refused to look at what lay behind his fury for revenge on Gutbuster. Gutbuster. Instead he"d let Nick commit his bizarre suicide. He"d killed Sib Mackern as surely as if he"d pressed the firing stud himself. And he"d taken his roiling terror out on Morn as if it were anger; as if she were inadequate in some way, not good enough for him. Instead he"d let Nick commit his bizarre suicide. He"d killed Sib Mackern as surely as if he"d pressed the firing stud himself. And he"d taken his roiling terror out on Morn as if it were anger; as if she were inadequate in some way, not good enough for him.
I"m Bryony Hyland"s daughter. The one she used to have-before you sold your soul for a zone implant.
Now he"d failed to bring Angus back from stasis. Trumpet"s Trumpet"s drives were dead: the gap scout couldn"t navigate; couldn"t cross the gap in any direction; couldn"t even decelerate. All her choices were gone. She was doomed to drift like a coffin consigned to the sea of s.p.a.ce until death or the UMCP intervened. drives were dead: the gap scout couldn"t navigate; couldn"t cross the gap in any direction; couldn"t even decelerate. All her choices were gone. She was doomed to drift like a coffin consigned to the sea of s.p.a.ce until death or the UMCP intervened.
He wanted wanted his heart to break; wanted something essential inside him to snap. Otherwise he would have to face the consequences of all the things he couldn"t do. his heart to break; wanted something essential inside him to snap. Otherwise he would have to face the consequences of all the things he couldn"t do.
He wasn"t listening when Vector sighed, "Well, what do you know. Would you look at that?" Nevertheless an unfamiliar congestion in the geneticist"s tone made him turn his head.
Mikka caught her breath as she followed Vector"s pointing hand.