Free The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order by Stephen R. Donaldson Page A

settled in her muscles.
Both Vestabule and Taverner were able to relax their clamped postures.
    “All
green,” data reported. “Sensors aren’t picking up any rubs or vibrations. Looks
like we’re spinning true.”
    “Confirmation?”
Sorus asked scan.
    “No,”
the scan first said. “Not yet. I’m sure we’re the only ships here. That whole
fucking rock is gone, and everything else with it. But I can’t see far enough
yet to get an exact fix on anything. We might have instrument tremor, or we
might not.”
    Sorus
kept her relief to herself. With a trenchant snort which was as close as she
could come to outright mockery, she answered Taverner, “I didn’t have a choice.
You know that. I couldn’t attack Captain’s Fancy because I was busy
rescuing you.
    “I hit
her once, hard enough to be sure she wasn’t going to live much longer. After
that I had my hands full trying to take hold of your shuttle without reducing
you to so much g-flattened meat. I had to grab you carefully . If I hadn’t
done that — or if I’d left you to concentrate on Captain’s Fancy — you
would probably be dead right now.”
    Smiling
into his eyes, she thought, Argue with that and be damned.
    “Precisely,
Captain Chatelaine.” Taverner retained enough of his human resources to smile
back. “You comprehend the essential concept. Confronted with two conflicting
requirements, you found that one outweighed the other, despite the fact that
both tended toward consequences which were uncertain. Perhaps we” — he made a
stilted gesture that included Vestabule, the shuttle pilot, and the guard — “would
have died. Perhaps not. Perhaps Captain’s Fancy would fail to inflict
serious damage on Tranquil Hegemony . Again, perhaps not. It is at the
intersection of perhaps and perhaps not that decisiveness exercises itself. You
chose rightly to rescue us. Was it not conceivable that Tranquil Hegemony might successfully defend herself?
    “ Calm
Horizons chose not to fire on Trumpet because it was conceivable
that Trumpet might be captured. Perhaps the destruction of Thanatos
Minor would fail altogether. Perhaps it would be delayed. Perhaps Trumpet would come within range of a laser which would cripple her drives without
killing the humans aboard. Confronted with conflicting requirements — to
capture Trumpet and to prevent her escape — Calm Horizons found
that one outweighed the other. To capture Trumpet would prevent her
escape, but to prevent her escape might preclude her capture.”
    “The
Amnion understand,” Marc Vestabule inserted in a crusted tone, “that what you
name ‘a ruse’ has been practised against us. Indeed, events suggest that humans
have dealt falsely with us in several ways, or in one way with several
implications. Milos Taverner has spoken of his perception that the actions of
this ‘cyborg’ were directed against us as well as against Billingate in ways
which we do not yet comprehend.”
    His
stance conveyed no impatience, no tension; but his human eye blinked
frantically, as if the last of his human emotions had no other outlet.
    “Yet
the fact that a ruse was at work has been known to us from the first. On a
previous occasion prior to his union with the Amnion, Milos Taverner informed
us of Captain Nick Succorso’s false dealings on behalf of the United Mining
Companies Police. He informed us of Morn Hyland’s identity as a United Mining Companies
Police ensign. For that reason we sought to retain her body. The tissues of a
UMCP ensign would have yielded much.
    “We
have always presumed that their dealings were designed for our harm. We have
allowed their ruse to proceed so that we may learn its meaning, and so that we
may turn it to our own purposes.
    “But
this is not an intersection of perhaps and perhaps not, Captain Chatelaine.
This is an incidence of must . Action is essential. You are required to
initiate the course and acceleration which Calm Horizons has instructed.”
    Beyond
question