MIKKA

Crowded with sorrow, Mikka Vasaczk sat at Trumpet’s command station while Captain Ubikwe maneuvered to grapple onto the gap scout’s hull, and Angus transmitted his last instructions to both the module and Punisher.

Her brother meant to die. If Angus understood that, he didn’t admit it. Instead he made bizarre, implausible provisions for everyone’s survival. But Morn knew. Mikka had recognized the knowledge in Morn’s eyes when Morn had asked her if she would aid Angus. And she suspected that Vector knew as well. Sadly, awkwardly, he’d hugged Ciro before they parted; and Ciro had smiled his demented smile, but he hadn’t returned Vector’s clasp.

Yet they all—and Ciro more than any of them—wanted Mikka to help him end his life.

“We’ve been ready, fat man,” Angus had told Captain Ubikwe aboard the module.

When the module reached them, the grapples would take hold of Trumpet and position her so that one of her airlocks met an emergency access port in the module’s hull. There magnetic clamps would grip her while Captain Ubikwe conveyed her across the fatal gap between Punisher and Calm Horizons. But there was nothing Mikka could do to secure the gap scout; nothing for her to do along the way. Her duties wouldn’t begin until they reached the warship, and Angus and Ciro left the ship.

Ciro meant to die. Somehow Angus had offered him a way out of the distress Sorus Chatelaine had inflicted on him, and he intended to take it.

He wanted Mikka to help him. When Morn and Angus had asked her to run Trumpet’s command board, they were asking her to assist as well as condone her brother’s suicide.

“if this works,” Angus transmitted to Morn while the gap scout drifted, “I’ll get my ship back.” Presumably he meant Trumpet, not Bright Beauty. His old tincan vessel was dismantled months ago. “That makes it worth the risk.”

Did he think the cops would let him go? Turn a welded cyborg loose, with all those enhancements, all that capacity for destruction? If he did, Min Donner didn’t contradict him. Maybe she trusted Warden Dios to control him.

“I hope so,” Morn replied distantly. “This whole gamble is your idea. If you don’t see it through—” She paused as if she couldn’t find an adequate threat, then finished like a shrug, “I’ll kill myself.”

Angus snorted a guttural laugh. “No, you won’t. Not anymore.” At once he added, “But you better jump like hell when the excitement starts. Even if everything goes right, there’s going to be a gap where Calm Horizons can take a crack at you. You can bet your ass she’ll do it.”

His life depended on that gap. So did everyone else’s. Even his useless provisions for Ciro’s survival depended on it.

“I understand,” Morn answered. “I think Patrice can handle it.”

That was all the farewell they said to each other.

It was more than Mikka and Ciro had done.

Earlier—long hours of exhaustion ago—Angus had taken Ciro and Captain Ubikwe aboard Trumpet, ostensibly to repair the gap scout’s drives. By the time they’d returned to Punisher’s bridge, Ciro’s fractured mind had found a focus. He’d learned how to name the death he desired.

Before Angus could stop him, he’d announced, He showed me how to use the singularity grenades. And when Mikka protested, he’d answered, You don’t have any idea what it’s like, feeling like you have to kill everybody you care about. Although Morn must have known. Then he’d referred to Angus. But he does.

In turn Angus had defended him. Ciro is working for me now. None of you understand what Sorus Chatelaine did to him. As if he considered it an act of compassion, Angus had told the bridge, Instead of kicking him into a corner like a goddamn puppy, I’m giving him something to do.

At the time Mikka had been too stricken to argue. Or fight. Trapped by dismay, she’d made no effort to tear Angus’ head off. And perhaps she truly had not understood. But later, while she’d watched over Punisher’s targ, brutalizing herself to perform that small service because everything else was beyond her, she’d learned to understand.

Angus was right. Ciro’s plight was worse than Morn’s.

In the end it wasn’t the fact that Soar’s captain had forced a mutagen into him which had broken Ciro. It was his own compulsory terror. After he’d revealed what she’d done to him—and after Vector had flushed the mutagen out of his cells—he’d taken his first opportunity to obey her; sabotage Trumpet’s drives. At the time he must have believed that was necessary. He was no geneticist: any evidence Vector had shown him to convince him he was safe probably seemed too abstract to outweigh his fear. Involuntarily, instinctively, he must have believed Sorus’ threat more than Vector’s reprieve.

But then the hours had passed; and the antidote Sorus gave him had run out; and he’d remained human. And then his sanity had cracked. The knowledge of his own weakness had been more than he could bear.

The death he named for himself was a form of restitution.

Mikka understood. She would have been more than willing to die herself if anyone had offered her a chance to repair the harm she’d done Ciro by taking him aboard Captain’s Fancy; introducing him to Nick.

For that reason, when Morn and Angus had asked her to run Trumpet’s command board, she’d agreed. Who could take her place? Angus, Morn, and Davies all had other parts to play. And no one else knew the gap scout as well as she did.

For the same reason, she’d gone to sickbay as soon as she reached Trumpet and keyed the systems to dispense every stimulant available: stim and hype; caffeine tablets; complex pseudoendorphin supplements. Her weakness was as great as Ciro’s. She’d run out of strength and courage: her mortality was too heavy to lift without drugs. Everything Angus had in mind for himself and Ciro, for Davies and Vector, for the command module and Trumpet, would be wasted if she failed to stay alert.

Because she understood so well, she was going to help her brother kill himself.

Like Angus, he’d already put on his EVA suit, although they were in no hurry; the trip to Calm Horizons would give them plenty of time. Only his head remained exposed: he’d left his helmet beside Angus’ on the second’s g-seat while he wandered around the bridge, whistling softly to himself. Mikka recognized the tune—a lullaby familiar from her childhood, when her mother was still alive to sing to her.

The sound made her want to wail.

For as long as she could, she ran diagnostic and parameter checks on the gap scout, making sure that Angus’ repairs were stable; that thrust was ready for cold ignition; that passive scan was adequate to give her the information she would need; that the energy cells still held enough power to handle the load of the dispersion field generator. Unfortunately no amount of hype and stim could relieve her loss. After a while her concentration frayed into anguish.

Ciro’s whistling was going to drive her mad.

The next time he passed between her and the display screens, she snapped, “Do you have to do that?”

Inwardly she cringed at her unnecessary harshness. But his reaction hurt her more.

He stopped in front of her, faced her with sudden terror in his eyes and a bland, dissociated smile on his mouth. “No, I don’t.” His voice sounded as bleak as hard vacuum. The idea of singularity grenades had already sucked him away. And yet he offered softly, earnestly, “I won’t do it if you tell me not to.”

In dismay she saw that he was offering her the greatest and most terrible gift he could imagine: the gift of his life; of refusing his part in Angus’ plans.

I won’t do it—

At once Angus wheeled like a burst of flame on the boy. He may have wanted to shout in rage. You what? he might have protested. You little shit, we’re counting on you! But he must have seen the death in Mikka’s gaze. He caught himself in time; clamped his teeth shut.

—if you tell me not to.

She couldn’t bear it.

They had alternatives. They could trade places. She could teach him how to initiate cold ignition. How to use the dispersion field. What to look for on scan. She could try to do his job for him. But the cost would be too high for both of them.

“Never mind,” she told him. She felt her heart tearing like a sheet of hardcopy; but he needed this gift from her more than she needed his. “You know what you have to do. That’s good enough for me.”

Roughly Angus turned away as if he wanted to hide his relief.

By degrees the terror faded from Ciro’s eyes. After a moment he began to whistle again; resumed wandering the bridge.

He intended to die. The prospect didn’t scare him at all.