The Gap Into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die Read online

  He was morally certain that the Dragon’s HO techs could disable or deactivate a Red Priority security lock, no matter how loudly it screamed. At the same time he was quite sure that this would not be done, first, because Holt Fasner would hardly imagine that crucial records were in any danger of exposure, second, because Holt would believe that any embarrassment which might arise from his files could be quashed through Warden Dios, and third, because as a matter of policy the Dragon liked to preserve an illusion of openness and honesty. Rather than resistance Hashi expected passive acceptance: another illusion.

  An illusion which would reveal itself as murderous fury against Hashi himself when the UMC CEO determined that Hashi no longer represented a threat.

  This prospect didn’t trouble Hashi. He could say with considerable accuracy that he did not fear the Dragon in any ordinary sense. The possibility of intellectual inadequacy gave him far more distress than a merely physical threat.

  When his security locks were in place, he used his authority under the provisions of Red Priority to compile the most complete dossiers which Data Storage, joined by microwave downlinks to GCES Security and Anodyne Systems, could provide on both Nathan Alt and Clay Imposs.

  Warden’s summons found him just as he was finishing.

  More than an hour since the shuttle had docked: several hours since the kaze’s blast. Apparently Warden hadn’t been taken by surprise to any meaningful extent.

  That was good and bad; better and worse. The delay had allowed Hashi to complete his immediate research. On the other hand, a longer delay might have given Lane time to produce the results Hashi craved.

  Despite the plain urgency of the summons—and the necessity of obedience—Hashi took the time to call her.

  Her voice over the intercom was brusque and focused; deep in concentration. “Make it quick. I’m busy.”

  Hashi couldn’t restrain himself: his personal imp of perversity made him say, “Too busy to talk to me? Lane, I’m crushed.”

  She let out a sigh that sounded like smoke. “If you want me to work fast, I have to be careful. If you want me to work faster than the speed of light, I have to be more careful than God.”

  He relented. “I understand perfectly.” Above all he valued Lane for her meticulousness. “Nevertheless I must appear before Warden Dios in a matter of moments. The time is apt for results. He will certainly desire results from me.”

  “Then let’s not waste each other’s time. Here’s what I have so far.

  “The id tag and clearance badge were easy.” She didn’t need to organize her thoughts. Hashi suspected that she permitted herself no disorganized thoughts. “They’re legit. I mean Clay Imposs is—or maybe was—a real GCES security guard with a good record. He’s been with them for years. The tag and badge say they’re his. But the body isn’t.

  “You were right, it’s Nathan Alt. Gene scan matches exactly.

  “So how did he get through his own Security?” She asked Hashi’s next question for him. “Right after that first kaze attacked Captain Vertigus, GCES Security started using retinal scans to confirm id. That should have stopped Alt cold.

  “The answer is, this is a new id tag. Made for the job. It says it identifies Clay Imposs, but the retinal signature and the rest of the physical id belong to Alt.”

  “Is that possible?” Hashi inquired. He knew it was.

  “Sure. It worked because the physical id was generated by the same code engine that drove Imposs’ clearances. Everything looked legit on the surface. GCES Security didn’t know they had to run a full playback from the SOD-CMOS chips and compare it to Imposs’ original data to catch the switch. Hell, Hashi, we aren’t doing that here. It would take hours to clear anybody.”

  Sadly, that was true. Indeed, the only reason GCES—or UMCPHQ—Security functioned at all was that the expertise needed to circumvent it was so specialized; and so closely guarded.

  “Are you performing this playback? I require evidence.”

  “One of my techs is.”

  “And—” Hashi prompted her.

  “We haven’t found anything yet.”

  “Have you encountered any patches, or other signs of tampering?”

  As Hashi had told Koina before the extraordinary session, the code-strings Lane had extracted from the credentials of Godsen’s killer were current as well as correct. If that code engine had been patched or altered—lawfully or otherwise, by GCES Security, Anodyne Systems, or anyone else—the change would have been apparent. Such adjustments transformed source-code as much as mutagens transformed human RNA.

  But only older code required patching.

  Lane restrained impatience poorly. “Not yet.”

  “Very well.” He let that question go. “And the code engine itself—?” he probed.

  “It’s valid,” she returned at once. “Current and correct. Which means exactly what you think it means.

  “But if you want confirmation,” she continued without pausing, “the source-code strings we’ve picked up from the id of the kaze who killed Godsen are a perfect match.”

  Hashi nodded to himself. “Confirmation is always welcome. However, this is hardly a surprise.”

  “No,” Lane acknowledged.

  He cast a worried glance at his chronometer, then asked, “Have you gleaned any other data?”

  “That’s what I’m working on,” she retorted. “The body.”

  As she spoke, he heard a subtle shift in her tone; a change of intensity. So far the results she’d given him had been relatively routine, despite their importance: any of the techs in her department could have supplied them. But now she sounded more personally engaged; perhaps excited. At once he became convinced that she was on the track of something vital.

  “But I can tell you right now,” she went on, “we aren’t going to find a detonator.

  “The bomb has to be shielded in the body. Otherwise Security would catch it. And you know what that kind of shielding is like.” Hashi did know. Angus Thermopyle’s body was full of it. “It has to appear organic in order to pass scan. On top of that, it has to reflect back what scan expects to see. Unfortunately—for us—any shield contains the blast when the bomb goes off. Maybe only for a millisecond or two, but that’s enough to throw some of the force back onto the bomb itself. And the detonator. On a molecular level, I’ll be able to find all the pieces you want. But I won’t be able to reconstruct the device those pieces came from.

  “So I’m concentrating on biochemistry.”

  Her voice conveyed an almost subliminal frisson, like a distant electrostatic discharge. Despite the numbers ticking away on his chronometer, he listened harder.

  “His blood is a real witch’s brew. Which is exactly what you would expect if he was in a state of drug-induced hypnosis. I haven’t had time to identify even half the chemicals his body shouldn’t have had in it.” She paused to emphasize what followed. “But there’s one detail that looks a little strange. Or a little stranger than the rest of it.”

  “Tell me,” Hashi put in as if he thought he could hurry her; as if he didn’t know that she was already moving as fast as she could without stumbling into disorganization.

  Instead of hurrying, she began to speak a bit more slowly, articulating each word with deliberate precision.

  “There’s a coenzyme spike in his blood spectrum. I mean a major spike. Of course, it’s a coenzyme. It’s inert. And it isn’t even remotely natural. But it combines with some natural human apoenzymes to produce an artificial holoenzyme, and that one is active. It bears some interesting resemblances to pseudo-amylase, which is one of the enzymes we use to produce shielding in cyborgs, but there are significant differences, too.”

  Involuntarily Hashi drummed his fingers on his desk. He needed to answer Warden’s summons. “Lane, please make your point. I am not in good odor with our esteemed director. This delay while we talk will doubtless vex him.”

  “I’m trying, damn it,” she snapped. “Nobody but you ever gets
to think around here.”

  He swallowed a burst of ire. He had called her before she was ready to report. Her findings were partial or unclear. Naturally she wished to express them cautiously. He would gain nothing by reproaching her.

  “If there were more resemblances,” she explained stiffly, “I would probably assume this particular coenzyme is there because of the shields. But it wouldn’t work well for that. The differences are too significant.”

  Again she paused. In another moment or two, Hashi thought, he would have no choice but to shout at her.

  More slowly than ever, she went on, “If I were asked to come up with a use for the holoenzyme this coenzyme creates, I might say it would make a good chemical trigger. Release it into the bloodstream, and one or two heartbeats later you get a big bang. Like an orgasm so intense it kills you.”

  Without transition his irritation vanished. Lane Harbinger, he hummed to himself, you are a marvel. Is it any wonder that I endure your eccentricities?

  Almost singing his excitement and pleasure, he said, “Check his teeth, Lane.”

  Where could a coenzyme be concealed so that a man in a state of drug-induced hypnosis would be able to ingest it on some preconditioned signal? Where else but in his mouth? And absorption into the bloodstream would be slower. Ten or fifteen seconds at least. Safer for the man who gave the signal.

  “What’s left of them,” she returned. “I’m already working on it.”

  In a glow of perverse gallantry, he answered, “Then please do not allow me to interrupt you. Perhaps when your efforts are complete you will let me persuade you to marry me.”

  So that he wouldn’t hear her laughing in scorn, he silenced his intercom.

  No doubt she could never prove the conclusions he drew. When her research was complete she would probably be able to demonstrate that this particular holoenzyme would serve well as a chemical trigger. Sadly, logic would preclude her from concluding that this holoenzyme did serve in that fashion.

  Nevertheless what she had learned was enough for his immediate purposes.

  Gathering his rumpled labcoat around him, Hashi Lebwohl left his office and walked as quickly as his untied shoes allowed to his meeting with Warden Dios.

  CIRO

  Vector had told him he was cured. Mikka told him over and over again, holding him in her arms and rocking him as if he were a baby.

  Ciro knew better. The walls of his doom had closed around him like the claustrophobia of Mikka’s embrace. His bunk was a coffin. Of course he knew better.

  Sorus Chatelaine had injected a mutagen into his veins: he understood that in the genetic programming of his DNA; understood it more profoundly than anything anyone could have said to him. No mere words could outweigh his cellular comprehension of the way he’d been betrayed.

  Somehow Morn had lured or tricked him into revealing what had happened. Now everyone knew. By the hour his doom became more certain, not less.

  Of course she’d asked Vector for help. Why not? Why should she grant Ciro the simple decency of facing his shame and horror alone? No one had ever taken him that seriously.

  And when the dilemma had been explained to him, Vector had proposed giving Ciro some of Nick’s antimutagen. Vector had said, The drug is essentially a genetically engineered microbe that acts as a binder. It attaches itself to the nucleotides of the mutagen, renders them inert. Then they’re both flushed out of the body as waste. As he spoke, the man who’d once been Ciro’s mentor and friend had sounded confident and calm, inhumanly sure of himself.

  But his reassurances meant nothing. Ciro couldn’t hear them through Sorus Chatelaine’s threats.

  Her words were infinitely stronger.

  The mutagen stays in you, it stays alive, it works its way into every cell and wraps itself around your DNA strings, but it doesn’t change you as long as you have this other drug in your system. The drug she’d offered him in exchange for his compliance. How long the delay lasts depends on how much of this other drug you have in you—or how often you get it. You can stay human until you’re cut off from your supply. After that you’re an Amnioni.

  That’s why I serve them, Ciro. If I don’t they’ll cut me off from the antidote.

  And that’s why you’re going to serve me.

  When she’d injected him—while Milos Taverner had held him—he’d grasped that she was telling him the simple truth. He would stay human as long as his supply of the other drug lasted.

  He knew what he had to do.

  She wanted him to sabotage Trumpet’s drives. Both of them. That was her price for keeping him human.

  He would do it if he ever got the chance.

  Kill everyone aboard; murder them—

  Even Mikka.

  Especially Mikka. The more she knew about her danger, the more stubborn her loyalty to Trumpet’s people became. She stood by them despite the fact that her interference was going to kill him.

  She didn’t understand. How could she? She was stronger than he was. They were all stronger. Instead of leaving him alone—hadn’t he begged her to leave him alone?—she’d daunted him with her strength; smothered him with her devotion. She’d prevented and prevented him. Gripped him in her arms to comfort herself. And all the time his doom had continued counting down; approaching ruin.

  Here, Vector had commanded when he’d returned from examining Ciro’s blood in sickbay. This is a dose of Nick’s antimutagen. He’d thrust a capsule at Ciro. Take it. Then come with me. I want to run a series of blood tests in sickbay. We’ll be able to see it working. That way you’ll know you’re safe.

  Ciro knew better. He’d always known better. But Mikka and Vector were too strong for him.

  While Trumpet ran a relatively quiet part of the swarm, Mikka had compelled him to sickbay. At her urging, he’d looked at the results of Vector’s blood tests; seen the nucleotide profiles shifting until they reached the range designated “human normal.” He’d listlessly watched a video display which purported to give a real-time picture of the mutagen immunity drug binding itself to Amnion RNA strings and carrying them away.

  Vector clearly believed the results. Mikka believed them.

  Beyond question Ciro knew better.

  Sabotage the drives. Both of them. You’ve been trained in engineering. You know how to do it. You make sure Trumpet can’t outrun me. She’s finished if she can’t run.

  Back in his cabin, imprisoned by his sister, he continued waiting.

  Twelve hours. Sorus Chatelaine had said, If I don’t have what I want in twelve hours, you’re on your own. That was all. And only a portion of it remained. Whenever he was due for another capsule, he made Mikka release him so that he could go to the san: he swallowed his next dose of the temporary antidote privately. He was strong enough for that. But the dwindling store in his vial reminded him harshly that he didn’t have much time left.

  Was it already too late? He couldn’t tell. Without warning Trumpet went into battle, and he couldn’t have left his g-sheath no matter how much he wanted or needed to obey. The whole ship was filled with the frying sound of matter cannon, the metallic clangor of impacts and stress. Acceleration g slammed the gap scout in one direction after another. Any fight in an asteroid swarm was a navigational nightmare. Judging by the sounds and pressures, this one was even worse than that. The intense, inexplicable alternation of quiet and violence gave the impression that trumpet was fighting more than one opponent; in more than one part of the swarm.

  Voices over the intercom offered partial explanations, but Ciro paid no attention to them. They were wasted on him unless they forced Mikka to go away.

  Then the ship hit g so extreme that he blanked out. He no longer knew what he needed, or why it mattered. His mind was filled with death and effacement; the last, absolute relief.

  He thought he’d been spared.

  But of course g eased again. Thrust went on roaring in the tubes, but the pressure receded to more human levels. Beside him in the bunk, Mikka recovered conscio
usness. Despite her cracked skull and her exhaustion, she was stronger than her brother.

  “Shit,” she breathed to him softly, as if she feared to raise her voice. “What the hell was that?”

  He didn’t know. He didn’t even know why she troubled to ask him.

  Minutes passed. Or maybe they didn’t: maybe they simply fell to the floor and lay there, swollen as tumors; thick with mutation. Was it time for another capsule? Had he been unconscious that long? No. Like the gap, the darkness of too much g felt vast—and yet it took almost no time at all. Otherwise it would have done him the kindness of killing him.

  Would Mikka force him to suffer helplessly until the end? Could she be that cruel? Yes, she could. Even though she was his sister: even though he was the last of her family left alive.

  If their positions had been reversed, he would have treated her more gently.

  “Mikka?” Davies’ voice barked unexpectedly from the intercom speaker; desperately “Mikka? Do you hear me? I need you.”

  Acid hope stung Ciro’s heart as soon as he heard the stress in Davies’ tone. Suddenly he knew he was going to get the chance Sorus Chatelaine demanded.

  “And don’t tell me you can’t leave Ciro!” Davies went on as if in confirmation. “Let him do his own suffering for a while! I need you. I’m alone here!”

  Mikka tensed. Her grip on Ciro became iron. What else? She clung to him because she understood the danger he was in. The peril he represented. But there were other threats. Davies’ voice made that plain. She was trapped by her own loyalty. She kept watch on her brother to protect Morn and the rest of them. But now they needed something else from her.

  Ciro knew what she would do.

  Davies wasn’t finished. “Vector? Vector, move! I can’t do this many jobs at once. I’m alone here! If I don’t get some help, it’s all going to be wasted.”