Mindship v1 0, p.22
Mindship (v1.0), page 22
Also on the fourth day a man committed suicide in the Central Life Support Plant. Kilgarin had been aware of the Physical’s depression but had neglected to soothe it, and so the boy—it wasn’t fair to call him a man; he was hardly over eighteen—had become more and more despondent, until finally he’d taken his life. Kilgarin recalled something about a woman the youth had met on Maylind, some ship follower who’d given the boy a discount because of his age. More than this the Cork couldn’t remember. The suicide was found in the Plant itself; somehow he’d contrived to shut off all LS controls for that section of the chamber, and it wasn’t until late in the afternoon that a maintenance engineer had discovered the malfunction and reported it to the Captain. Kilgarin was present when they finally managed to unfreeze the lock mechanism on the Plant section. Inside the subzero chamber the boy’s body was completely decompressed, blood crusted on his face and under his fingernails, stains marking his suit leggings where his body had completed the indignity he’d begun. Kilgarin wondered at his inability to feel remorse, and decided that it was better he couldn’t; he wouldn’t have known what to do with grief. There was very little of him left to deal with it.
He saw Raymond once in the hallway. The Cork was returning to his cabin from the Control Room and he passed him in the corridor outside the lounge.
Almost, the Physical stopped. His eyes met Kiigarin’s, and a question seemed to spark there for an instant. It must have been his imagination though, Kilgarin decided, for the spark died in the moment of visual contact between the two men. Just as well. Kilgarin had little to say.
“Kilgarin, do you see this?”
The Cork studied the abstraction portrayed on the screen near the Captain’s Set. Rainbow lines radiated from a central boiling core of black. Though each of the men would see it in different terms when they stepped beyond the ship during mind-drive, here both the Captain and the Cork were provided with a common frame of reference for discussion.
“It’s a Black Hole, sir,” Kilgarin said. The Captain nodded, rubbing his fingers over his chin absently as he leaned forward, peering at the screen.
“We’re headed on a course that will take us within several thousand parsecs,” be said. “It’s the only way we can reach Centauri within the next forty-eight hours. Going around would add a week or more to our ETA.”
“Do you think it’s wise to go that close. Captain?”
“We can use her gravitational pull for a boost. It could mean even more time saved.”
“Are we sure we can use that trick in the Back Region?”
“Theoretically, Kilgarin, spacial conditions have equivalents in hyperspace. We already know that Black Holes extend their event horizons into the Back Region, that they exist as singularities both in normal space-time and in the distorted space-time in which mindships travel. My own experience with Black Holes has proven they present no insurmountable obstacles. A little caution is all that’s necessary, and on this occasion we have ample time to prepare. We can use this Black Hole, Kilgarin.”
“As you say, Captain.”
It was near a Black Hole that Marc Kilgarin had died. The Cork thought this hole would serve his purpose perfectly. There could be no further delays.
He was in the lounge picking up a bottle of absinthe when the ship slipped once more into the Back Region. The Cook caught his hand as he turned away, stopping him.
“Be careful, Killy,” the Cook said. “Don’t kill yourself.”
Disengaging his hand, Kilgarin moved away, walking unsteadily—almost as though against his will—toward the corridor. A Physical sitting on a bench not far from the food console glared at the passing Cork, spitting at him as Kilgarin left the room. The Cook’s hand tightened around the neck of a bottle on the counter, and he brought it up, about to swing at the spitting Physical when something touched the Cook’s mind, soothing the anger. He put the bottle down and poured himself a drink. The rage was almost gone.
The Cork was back at work.
Mind-drive:
Kilgarin rises from the ship, tensely extending his mind in a number of directions and encompassing the sphere of mental energy that powers the Charter. Colors swim within the sphere, jagged arrows of yellow and green, blue and fiery red, each an interpretation of his mind of the emotions expressed by the crew. Here, a man is filled with anger. There, a man is overcome with fear. Both emotions are removed by the Cork and fed into the stream of energy powering the Charter’s flight. Love goes also, as do envy, and lust, and greed, and pride, charity, and all the rest of the human emotions Kilgarin has come to know so intimately. All are fed to the Engineer, and all resume existence as power—nothing more.
Kilgarin searches and at last finds the Captain, who is only now drawing on the full strength of his Set, only now slipping into control.
Kilgarin decides that the final moment has come, that it is time to force himself into the Captain’s brain. It is an invasion he’s avoided as long as possible. Now there is no more time—no more room for avoidance.
His mind lunges forward.
He strikes the Captain’s shell, pierces, bounces back. There is no opening. None, none at all.
As he draws within the security of his personality, Kilgarin feels a turmoil in the ship below. Within the mental sphere the colors are becoming agitated—yellows blend with reds, blues with greens, softer colors losing their strength as brighter, more antagonistic tones are produced. It’s his fault, Kilgarin knows. His preoccupation with the Captain has caused him to turn from his duties as Cork. Quickly he moves among the souls represented in the sphere, touching, removing, soothing—easing the pain that is the cause of the antagonism. Yet as he moves among the minds, helping some, others break into rage. He turns to those, and the ones he has healed return to madness.
Suddenly Kilgarin finds himself turning from one man to another, spinning in his efforts to reach them all. Madness erupts around him: in one of the lifeboat pods, a man stabs a Sensitive with a plastisteel sliver ripped from a wall casing; in the lounge, two Physicals fall to the floor screaming, tearing at their faces and clothes; and in the corridor leading amidships a woman is raped by three Sensitives—and she herself is a Physical. Everywhere there is chaos. And abruptly, as he strains to his capacity in an effort to ease the insanity, Kilgarin sees.
Coming into view, an open wound in the flesh of space, the Black Hole.
“Kilgarin, are you all right?” The Captain’s voice echoed in the Cork’s ears and in his mind.
Fine, Captain. Just give me a moment.
“We don’t have a moment, Kilgarin. The ship is pulling apart now.”
I’m trying, Captain. You have to understand, the pressures—
“Damn the pressures, Kilgarin.” (In the Control Room, a hand grasped his arm and drew him to his feet. Vaguely, he was aware of the Captain bending over him, though his awareness was blurred, for his mind was beyond the mind-ship walls.) “Let me give you a shot.”
Not (Kilgarin shoved the Captain’s hands away and shook his head like a drunk man.) I can handle this alone. You won’t kill me like you killed my brother,
“I see.” (The Captain’s physical voice was cold.) His mental voice carried no emotion. ’Take hold of yourself then, Cork. We’re about to pass the hole, and I don’t want you cracking up and taking this ship with you. Understand?”
(Kilgarin settled into a cross-legged position at the’ foot of the Captain’s Set, his eyes staring blankly ahead. The Captain snapped the plugs back into bis body and returned to his trance. Outside the Control Room there were the sounds of a scuffle, blows, someone crying out. Inside the room there was silence.)
It is only four kilometers in diameter, but that small space contains the compressed matter of a star. So great are its gravitational forces no light can ever escape from its horizon, the speed of light insufficient to break the pull of the Black Hole’s gravity. Tidal forces surrounding the hole are on the order of a nightmare—in an instant the pressure of those forces could reach the infinite. Any object passing within the farthest limit of the hole’s event horizon would simply be flattened to the submolecular level. In the Back Region, the Black Hole appears as a puncture in space, surrounded by fragments of color whirlpooling toward its central maw.
The Charter among them.
Kilgarin feels his mind begin to scream. The madness in the psi vessel is reaching the breaking point. He knows he will not survive the dive past the Black Hole, and if the Cork does not survive—neither will the ship.
Images fly through his mind: Marka, lying in the arms of a stranger, not once before Kilgarin, but twice—aboard the Charter, and also three years earlier, on Endrim. The two images become one, a scene of betrayal. She’d made herself part of him, and then she’d tom that part free, leaving him wounded—leaving him on Endrim, forcing him to return to the Drowner, forcing him into the arms of Lucille.
Another image: Lucille abandoning him for Baeder, telling him that he asked too much of her, and gave too little in return. That image is only one of many—each of them an aspect of her mind, which he touched each day as he Corked aboard the Drowner. This image too fades into madness, and becomes one with the third:
Women: the women in his brothel, unthreatening in their expressed lack of need for anything but his credit. No dependence, only simple financial reward. Somehow, this is the most painful image of all.
He pushes the memories away and finds himself floundering in the insanity around him. Each soul demands his attention, each begs his understanding—each needs him. Slavering insanity, boiling him alive.
He screams.
Ahead of him, the Black Hole screams also.
In blind fear Kilgarin gropes for support, sensing himself swirling into a darkness from which he would never truly return. He gropes, and finds support beside him. In the Captain’s mind. A mind open and ready to receive him.
Breaking, he enters, and this is what he learns: the Captain is a Sensitive.
The ship buckles underneath them, but now Kilgarin has the strength to resist the tide of emotion surging below. For several seconds he floats in confusion, stunned by what he’s just learned. Then he moves among the men and women of the mindship Charter, releasing their tension and hatred, their fear and their despair. Strangely lightheaded, he finds his energy doubled; the energy of a second mind added to his own. For the moment he accepts the aid without question. There will be time for probing once the ship is free.
The hole looms closer. Flares of power lunge past the ship, strike it, guide it downward. The mindship resists. One side of the ship seethes in agony; two hundred minds shrieking in torment For an instant it seems as though they are lost.
Then the Charter slips away, passes the hole, and slides out into normal space.
Kilgarin woke to the sounds of heavy machinery, cranes and loading devices at work nearby. At first he was disoriented, but after a moment the harsh light grew softer to his eye, and the sounds less raucous, and he began to remember where he was. He sat up on the narrow cot, blinking in the diffused glow cast by Centauri’s morning sun, and focused on the two men sitting on a bench opposite him. Both men were haggard, dark smudges under their eyes indicating that neither man had slept in recent hours. Kilgarin started to speak, but the Cook waved him into silence. “Plenty of time for you to talk, Killy. Just relax.”
“The Captain…where…7”
Raymond spoke up. “He’s gone to New Saint Johannesburg, Kilgarin. He left right after the crew broke up. Whatever happened between the two of you seems to have upset him quite a bit”
“Let him rest,” the Cook said. “We can talk, but don’t push him for any answers. All right?” He waited for Raymond’s nod before continuing. “The Charter1 s finished, Kilgarin. You should know that. After you and the Captain managed to get us into Centauri, most of the crew deserted. There was some trouble at the port gates; some of the guards were killed. From what the port master tells me, the Company plans to decommission the Charter altogether, possibly turn her into a troop transport.”
“They’re going to need as many of those as they can find,” Raymond said. “The Outworlds are in open rebellion. Looks like they’re going to make it this time.”
“Don’t excite him with that kind of talk,” the Cook said, harshly. He smiled at Kilgarin. “You’ve been out for thirty-six hours straight, Killy. Raymond and I have been with you most of that time. Medic says you’re lucky you didn’t break; he doesn’t know what held you together. One thing’s certain though, Fellow…no more Corking, if you want to stay alive.”
Kilgarin nodded. He noticed that Raymond kept glancing at him and then away again. The Cook caught Kilgarin's look. “I guess you’d better tell him why you’re here,” the small man said to Raymond. The youth frowned.
“During those last few minutes, when you and the Captain were pulling us past the Hole…” He broke off and ran a band uneasily over the bristle darkening his jaw. “…there was some sort of feedback. Some of us, those who knew you…we could see things in your mind… just glimpses, but enough to make us realize what you’ve been going through, even if you don’t. I still think you’ve done some ugly things, Kilgarin, but I suppose I can’t blame you for them as much as I could before.” He paused, finishing with his jaw, and dropped his hand into lap, sighing. ’That’s it”
“Marka?” Kilgarin asked.
“It’s over for the two of you,” Raymond told him. “She’s sorry for what she’s done, but as she says, you didn’t help her be what you wanted her to be. You simply expected it. For now, she’s agreed to go with me to earth; we don’t have any plans for anything serious, we’re just companions for now…but I’ve a feeling it might work into something. I won’t ask as much of her as you did.” Again, Kilgarin nodded. He knew what Raymond had said was true, and felt no anger because the young man had said it. “I was afraid of her,” Kilgarin said. “Don’t you be.”
Raymond grinned. “That’s a promise.”
“Did you find out what you wanted to know, Kilgarin?” the Cook asked. He leaned forward eagerly, apparently ready to accept the Sensitive’s returning health now that he had a question of his own. “About the Captain?”
“And about myself,” Kilgarin said. “About us both.”
“You must have frightened him,” Raymond said. “You should have seen the expression on his face when he left the Charter—like someone who’s seen his own ghost.” “He has,” Kilgarin said.
Getting to his feet, Kilgarin braced himself on the Cook’s shoulder and glanced around the small port office where he’d been recovering. His clothes were draped on the single chair, folded neatly. He wondered if Marka had been there after all, and decided not to ask. “Would you get my clothes?” he asked Raymond, pointing. “I’ve got an appointment in the city.”
When he was dressed, he thanked them for staying with him. The Cook asked when he’d be back. “I’m not sure,” Kilgarin told him. “I’ve got to find out what someone wants of me, first.”
“Who’s that?” Raymond asked.
“Myself,” Kilgarin replied.
Epilogue: ’’Sensitive”
It was several hours before he discovered the tavern where the Captain was drinking. A small outdoor pub, it was in the Sensitive District of New Saint Johannesburg, an area slightly older than the rest of the city, not as well kept as some part of the metropolis, but not as badly kept as others. The pub was named Second Sun—after Beta Centauri, Kilgarin supposed—and was in a court beside a large apartment building. The attendant at the gate probed Kilgarin for identity, realized he was a Sensitive, and allowed him through. Past the grillwork gate that separated the lobby from the central part of the tavern, Kilgarin saw a familiar figure sitting hunched on a stool, sipping from a large stein filled with green liquid. Kilgarin recognized the Captain immediately, though the man was no longer dressed in Company official grays. The Captain’s clothes were loose-fitting port tunic and trousers, the inexpensive disposables sold in most port terminals. Kilgarin guessed that the older man bad changed clothes moments after debarking.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said.
The Captain showed no surprise at Kilgarin’s approach. Instead he indicated the stool next to his with a motion of his chin. “Don’t be sorry, Kilgarin. You only opened up my mind. I was the one who’d blocked it from my thoughts.” ,
“I should have left it that way.”
“How? By killing yourself? By ignoring what I did to your brother, just as I did? You couldn’t have lived with yourself that way, Kilgarin.”
“You did, Captain.”
“I had a mindblock. I pushed everything out of my mind, my Sensitivity, what it did to my brother, what I did to yours…I shut it all away. But that’s no way to live. Sooner or later it all comes crashing in. If it hadn’t 187 been you, it would have been someone else.” He lifted his head, caught the bartender’s eye, and ordered two more steins. When Kilgarin began to protest, the Captain waved his objections away. “Take it. Consider it a privilege. You’ll be the last man to drink with me. The last man I’ll ever toast.”
“What, Captain—?”
“I’m finished, Kilgarin. I’m a dead man. I’m just getting my energy together to do the deed, but it’s only a matter of time. Effectively, I died when you broke through my mindblock.”
“Sir, you aren’t being fair to yourself—”
“Really? Kilgarin, let me tell you what happened to me back there. Perhaps you don’t understand. When I was a child, I was a Sensitive, a prepubertal freak…and the only Sensitive in my colony. I was persecuted by my peers, but that wasn’t why I threw up the block. You see, when I was four years old our entire colony was wiped out by a plague, and everyone died except for me and a few others scattered over the planet…me, my brother, and another man were alone in the city, though. A desert city, on a desert world. You know that man, Ty’ger, that Sensitive your friend killed? You know how he constantly received every emotion around him? I was the opposite, Kilgarin. Everything I felt, I broadcast. Everything I saw, I broadcast again and again.
