Mindship v1 0, p.21
Mindship (v1.0), page 21
“Open up that cask,” Kilgarin said to Reedy. The Physical complied, snapping off the top and offering Kilgarin the first swallow. The Cork took it and drank for a long half-minute. Reedy’s face went from polite interest to concern to outright dismay. Kilgarin didn’t seem to notice.
Six minutes later the packs were set and the rebels were on their way back to the lobby. Kilgarin had made spot checks with the other two members of the team, Halford and Orlando, and bad found them performing similar duties in another section of the plant. Each rebel in both teams worked with a mechanical precision Kilgarin didn’t, understand, even when he witnessed it from within their leader. It seemed as though they’d disconnected their minds and were acting on reflex, letting training assume control of their bodies for the time it took to plant the makeshift bombs. Now that the operation was completed, however, personality was returning to the teammates, and two of them—Orlando and Conners—were eager to escape. Kilgarin sympathized. The empathetic tension he’d experienced during the bomb placement was too strong for his strained nerves. He wanted the evening to be over.
In a minute, it almost was.
Conners and Grenna were on the staircase when the Company guards hit Orlando and Halford. Kilgarin heard the weapon fire from two sets of ears: his own and Conners’s. Instantly he drove more deeply into the large man’s mind, sending directions to the motor control of Conner’s brain, making the man’s hand snap up, latch onto Grenna’s wrist, and literally drag the woman upward, four steps at a time.
“Conners, what is it?” she shouted at him, “What’s wrong?”
Conners didn’t answer. His personality was in a state of shock, stunned at seeing his body act without his instructions. He watched from a comer of his mind as his body launched itself for the door to the lobby, struck and went through, rolling to the floor automatically, and pulled Grenna down with it, thus ducking the burst of weapon fire that tore off the top half of the swinging door. Conners watched, amazed, as his body came to its knees and threw itself with a kick across two meters of space to land heavily against a Company guard holding a rifle. He gaped within bis mind as his body fought a battle without his active control.
Kilgarin, however, realized that something was wrong. Though moving more rapidly than it could have done under Conners’s direction, the rebel body was still reacting sluggishly to Kilgarin’s commands. It was not the smooth lock Kilgarin had felt with Raymond, nor was it the tense linking the Cork bad experienced with Ty’ger—rather, it was painfully incomplete, as though Kilgarin’s bands were holding Conners’s and forcing them to move, instead of guiding them from within.
Something was wrong with the linking, and if Conners was to survive, Kilgarin had to discover where the wrongness lay and correct it quickly, before the moment was past.
Outside the lobby, Reedy was on his feet, clutching the wine cask to his body with trembling hands. “It’s Conners, all right, Kilgarin. That’s him on the floor. And Grenna too. They’ve got to get out of there, Kilgarin. The guards haven’t gotten this far yet, maybe they can still escape. But they’ve got to get out of there.”
Grenna was on her feet now, Kilgarin saw. He stared at the woman in the lobby.
“There’s nothing we can do,” Reedy said behind him. “There’s nothing we can do.”
Grenna did a dance. Like most colonists she’d been taught the art of self-defense at an early age, for use against the unknown dangers of a new world. Now she used it against the known dangers of an old one.
Her foot came up in an arc that ended in an attacking guard’s jaw. The jaw splintered under the skin; Kilgarin could see the shape go out of the man’s face. Grenna carried through with the kick, ending the motion with a dip forward and back, straightened fingers of her hands poking into the soft material of another guard’s chest. From this she moved into a ballet-like motion Kilgarin couldn’t follow. The motion ended and another man fell to the floor, squirming. Startled with the violence of the act, Kilgarin also squirmed—uneasily.
Conners was recovering from his leap, pushing himself off the body of the man he’d thrown to the floor and casting his glance about as though he were wondering what he was still doing in the plant lobby. Across from Conners a door opened and more guards stumbled into the hall. Grenna noticed them at the same moment as Conners, but Kilgarin saw the men just an instant before.
He eased into the rebel’s brain.
Who is that? What are you doing to me?
Kilgarin ignored the question and swung Conners’s body into action. A moment later, the question came again.
What are you doing to me? Who are you?
Reedy’s hand touched Kilgarin’s shoulder. “It’s fifteen minutes,” the small man said.
“So?” Kilgarin’s eyes were unfocused. He couldn’t see Reedy’s face, but he could feel the Physical’s hot breath on his neck.
“That’s how long Conners said we were to wait. He said we were to get out if it was any longer. You heard him, Kilgarin. The packs are going off at any moment.” The squat man’s voice shattered and he choked into silence. Kilgarin ignored him, concentrating on developing the link with Conners’s mind.
Something surged in the subconscious Kilgarin had invaded. A part of Conners was straining for dominance. Kilgarin sensed that the trouble was here: the core of the problem, the failure of the linking here, with Conners. He stepped back from the motor responses and centered his attention on that portion of Conners’s brain that was fighting him. The Cork sensed disorientation and fear; to quell Conners’s disturbance, Kilgarin opened his memory and allowed the Physical in. He expected the rebel’s distress to fade, but instead the man’s struggling increased.
What’s wrong? Kilgarin asked. I’ve given you all the information you need.
Get out of my mind, Conners’s mental voice came back: Stop treating me like a Company puppet, dammit!
Kilgarin dropped back, shocked. A Company puppet?
For god’s sake, let me fight my own battles—the words tumbled in Kilgarin’s mind, emotional, irrational—get out of my mind—get out—get out—!
For a moment Kilgarin debated doing this, then decided against it. There was too much at stake. He wanted to hurt the Company, and hurt it badly. Conners had to win, and Kilgarin would see to it that he did—for Kilgarin would be in control.
From that instant on, Conners’s body began to crumble.
The legs went first. Kilgarin felt the knees buckling as he tried to drive Conners into two guards who’d arrived through an entrance at the rear of the lobby. Gravity seemed to jerk the Physical downward; it required all of Kilgarin’s will to force Conners to remain standing, and he had barely enough strength left to bring the rebel’s hand up in a sweep that intersected the guard’s throat—with little effect. The guard stumbled back, coughing, and his companion slipped past him, grabbing Conners and heaving the rebel backward. Something caught Conners’s heel, his legs collapsed, and the large man went down.
“Come on, Kilgarin, we’ve got to get out of here.”
“Shut up, Reedy.”
“You won’t come, I’m going alone.”
“Then go.”
The small man’s hand fell from Kilgarin’s shoulder. Distantly the Cork heard Reedy’s breathing become harsher as the Physical struggled with himself. Finally there were footsteps that faded, and Kilgarin knew he was alone in the plaza behind the pillar support.
The struggle in the lobby was almost finished. Grenna had been home down by three guards, two holding her arms and a third clinging to her legs desperately. She was screaming and cursing in languages unfamiliar to Kilgarin. The sounds of scuffling in the stairwell Orlando and Halford had used were more sporadic now, and one or two of the uniformed Company men were making noises about helping their fellows finish with the last of the intruders. None of the guards were aware, apparently, that Conners and his fellow rebels had accomplished their mission. The guards thought they’d stopped the saboteurs as they were entering the building, and had no idea of the power packs planted in the sections below. Kilgarin tried once more to gain control of Conners’s brain; the packs, he knew, were only a minute away from detonation.
And you can’t stop them, Kilgarin. There’s nothing you can do.
Kilgarin was as startled by the fact of Conners’s speech as he was by the what the rebel said.
Why would I want to stop it?
You’re a Sensitive, aren’t you? A Company man.
They’re not necessarily the same thing, Kiigarin told him.
Aren't they?
Kilgarin dismissed Conners’s presence. He drove more deeply into the man’s brain and found the motor controls, seized them with more energy than he’d ever expended before.
The guard holding Conners was taken by surprise when the seemingly unconscious man came suddenly awake. Conners’s shoulder caught the guard under the jaw and the Company man fell back, stunned. Conners’s body was on its feet and moving toward Grenna when the building around the two of them abruptly ceased to exist.
An antimatter implosion is unlike any reaction known to man. In the moment of meeting, when matter comes in contact with its structural and material opposite, mutual annihilation occurs—instantly. So complete is the destruction that even the energy produced by the reaction is consumed, in direct contradiction of physical law. Just where the energy and matter vanish to is a subject of intense speculation among researchers, but of little practical importance.
What is important is the effect of such consumption.
Upon the moment of antimatter/matter destruction, the magnetic and gravitational forces intersecting the implosion are warped and twisted out of shape, a vacuum is formed that requires filling, and much of the immediate vicinity collapses under the combined pressure of all that occurs. The amount of antimatter Conners used in the power packs could only have been measured molecularly, but the effect it produced was equivalent to the explosion of several thousand pounds of conventional nitroglycerin.
In a matter of seconds the processing plant was reduced to rubble and Kilgarin was flung against a solid stone wall—part of the pillar he’d been standing near the instant before. Quite probably it saved his life.
There was nothing to save Conners.
Gold was the most prominent color in the morning sky. It streaked the eastern clouds just as it’d gilded the western horizon the evening before. Kilgarin didn’t notice the sky, however; he walked in a daze, drained of all emotion. He’d had revenge, a part of it at any rate, but it seemed to make no difference to the way he felt. He was empty.
Above him the sound of the Company fliers streaking toward the ruins of the processing plant was already growing dimmer. He wondered if the port authorities would think the explosion an accident, or if they’d place the blame properly, and so give reason to the rebels’ sacrifice. He hoped they would. Perhaps it would help him live with the sickness inside him.
Ahead, the Charter’s lights glowed, signaling that lift-off was to be in one hour. Kilgarin hurried. He wanted very much, to be on board when the Charter left Maylind.
He expected to find her in the recreation room, and when she wasn’t there, he tried the lounge. The Cook was the only person in the cafeteria, however; he was sleeping with his head resting on bis arms, an overturned stein of beer lying near his elbow on the grimy table. Kilgarin jogged the gray man’s shoulder twice before the Cook stirred, mumbled something incoherent, and finally pulled himself erect, eyeing the Cork standing over him.
“We thought you weren’t coming back.”
“Where’s Marka?” Kilgarin asked him.
The Cook came awake. “What do you want her for, bey? You’ve done enough to her, to everyone.”
“I know that,” Kilgarin said. “I want to tell her I’m sorry.”
Peering at him with hard gray eyes, the Cook shook his head, slowly. “You’re not, Kilgarin. You think you’re sorry, but you’re not. Full of ideas, but nothing for her. Why don’t you look around you, Kilgarin? Why don’t you look outside yourself?”
“Tell me, Cook. Where is she?”
The small man sighed. He made a decision, and his features grew hard. “Her room,” he said. “The door’s open, or was when we left.”
“You and Raymond?”
“We were all upset. You can understand, after what happened to J’kar? We didn’t like you very much then, Kilgarin. Marka liked you least.”
“Then I’ve got to see her, tell her—”
“Tell her what, Kilgarin?” The Cook turned away. “Go ahead, talk to her. Go ahead.”
For a moment as Kilgarin headed out of the door, the Cook turned toward him, his face softening, and be called after the receding Cork, “I’ll be here, Kilgarin. You can come back here.”
After going to Marka’s room and seeing her sleeping, entwined, with the duty officer from the hydroponics garden, and seeing the credit chits lying in payment on the desk beside her bed, Kilgarin did go back to the lounge. He said nothing, and neither did the Cook.
A drink was already waiting.
Chapter Ten
Tenth month, fifth day, anno Domini 3146
Centauri was ten days’ voyage ahead of them, a week if they strained the crew. The Captain seemed intent on doing just that, Kiigarin learned soon after the Charter left Maylind. Apparently the Company required the ship’s presence on the colonial base, for it’d ordered the mind-ship’s speedy return. Kiigarin felt that pressuring the crew was a mistake, and told the Captain as much, reminding the older man of what had occurred in the mess lounge little over a week before. “Our orders are clear, Kiigarin,” the Captain replied. “This is, after all, a Company-owned vessel. Our first allegiance as ship officers is to the Company, not to the crew of this ship.” To this Kiigarin said nothing.
As a footnote to his experience on Maylind, Kiigarin learned a few days after the Charter passed out of the planet’s system that the government sponsored by the Company on the colony was on the verge of collapse, following the political uproar attendant on the processing plant’s destruction. Kiigarin greeted the news with a disturbed satisfaction. He was not so much pleased as relieved that the rebels had achieved their purpose. This neutral reaction was a continuation of the emptiness he’d felt since leaving the ruins and returning to the Charter, and he dismissed it as simple depression. He didn’t care to delve into its cause.
He didn’t think about Marka at all.
During the early days of the run into Centauri. Kiigarin kept to his room and worked on his wooden figurines. The statuettes were coming along nicely and he hoped they would be finished by the time the mindship reached port. He wanted to sell them at one of the bazaars that crowded the central Centaurian city of New Saint Johannesburg. He had no clear idea of how to accomplish this, since in the past he’d always given the statues away to friends, but he knew he’d think of something when the time came.
As the days passed, however, he grew more and more aware of the tension in the Physical end of the ship, and this awareness began to distract him from his work. Always before he’d managed to maintain a separation between the work his mind performed and the operations that occupied his hands; now, however, he found himself making slips that couldn’t be excused by simple clumsiness. His psychic world was beginning to intrude upon his real one. It was the first sign of a Sensitive breaking.
In an attempt to reinforce the separation he knew had to exist between himself and the crew, Kilgarin stopped going to the lounge, taking advantage of his position as Cork to have his meals served in his quarters. The second day of the new arrangement, the Cook arrived with Kilgarin's dinner. There were two servings on the tray, and the Cook stood against one wall and ate his serving with Kiigarin. When the two men had finished eating, the Cook asked the Cork what was wrong.
“Nothing,” Kilgarin answered. “I just needed to get away.”
“Too much pressure?”
“More than usual, but not too much.”
“I’ve felt it too, Kilgarin. You sensed it the first day you stepped aboard. This is a hate ship, and the hate is building.”
“I’m aware of that, Cook.”
“The Outworlds. All this talk of revolution. It’s set the men on edge.”
“I know,” Kilgarin said.
“Listen, despite everything, I don’t want you to kill yourself, Killy. Tell the Captain you can’t handle this alone. Tell him to assign one of the other Sensitives to help you. It’s been done before, when a Cork wasn’t foolish enough to think he could valve this kind of madness alone.”
“I can do it myself,” Kilgarin said. “I don’t need the Captain’s help.”
“The Captain? Is it still him, Kilgarin?”
“Cook, when the Charter reaches Centauri the Company’s going to break up the crew and send us off to other ships. That’s what usually happens when a mindship gets as sick as this. If I ever want to find out why the Captain killed my brother, I’ll have to find out now. In the next few days. That’s why I can’t start sharing my mind.”
“Kilgarin, you’re too damned independent…don’t let it destroy you. You’ve let it go too far already.”
“Thanks for the coffee, Cook.”
The Cook left, taking the tray, and Kilgarin returned to his figurines. He cut his hand once. It took him several minutes to get the blood off the wood.
On the fourth day out from Maylind Kilgarin applied for permission to take up a post in the Control Room. The Captain agreed; Kilgarin found that the decision left him oddly suspended—in a way, he was no longer sure he wanted to probe the Captain’s mind. He doubted his ability to survive the probe, on top of the regular pressures he encountered as Cork. Yet he knew it was something he had to do. The new urgency demanded it.
