The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order Read Online Free PDF Page B

expanded to name every minion who might have been
able to draw on Holt Fasner’s clout with the GCES.
    Hashi
was neither daunted nor appalled, however. Such lists were self-winnowing, in
his experience. Each new fact uncovered by Lane Harbinger, or by ED Security,
would narrow the range of suspects. No, his thoughts ran in other channels.
    What,
he wondered, would be the Dragon’s reaction to the provocative information that
Nick Succorso had brought some sort of cargo or prize back from Enablement
Station? Hashi could hardly guess what it might have been — but he could
estimate its value. It was so precious that the Bill and the Amnion were
willing to fight over it; so precious that Captain Succorso was willing to sell
one of his own people in order to buy it back. So precious that someone would
risk stealing it from such formidable adversaries.
    The
Dragon, Hashi concluded, would want that cargo or prize for himself.
    Hints
and possibilities. He needed more than that.
    Kazes
are such fun, don’t you think?
    If
you can get her, you bastard, you can have her. You deserve her.
    What
was the malign and unreliable Captain Succorso talking about?
    For a
moment he scrutinised his covert mind, probing it for answers. But the
intuitive side of his intelligence wasn’t yet ready to speak. Perhaps it still
lacked sufficient data.
    He
consulted his chronometer; he considered the hazards involved in contacting
Warden Dios and saying, I have received some information concerning events on
Thanatos Minor, but I decided to withhold it from you temporarily. Then he
shrugged. Some processes could not be rushed.
    Whistling
tunelessly through his bad teeth, he keyed his intercom again and issued
another summons.
    This
time he was less peremptory; more subtle. He meant to speak to Koina Hannish,
but he had no wish to betray the nature of his connection with her. So he
instructed Processing to seed Protocol’s routine data stream with an update on
one innocuous subject or another — an update which would catch her eye because
it contained a pre-agreed combination of words. Then he set himself to wait.
    Unfortunately
waiting didn’t constitute distraction.
    You
deserve her? he inquired. Was it possible that Nick
meant Morn Hyland?
    How
could that be? Hadn’t Warden Dios explicitly refused — over Min Donner’s and
Godsen Frik’s strenuous objections — to allow any provision for her rescue to
be written into Joshua’s programming? Whatever Joshua did to Thanatos Minor —
and, not incidentally, to Nick Succorso — his actions would not include any
effort to procure Ensign Hyland’s survival. Therefore she was dead. She wasn’t
aboard Trumpet , and only Trumpet could hope to escape the
destruction of Billingate.
    It
followed impeccably that Morn Hyland was irrelevant.
    Yet the
DA director found that he couldn’t let the matter rest there. It reminded him
of other questions which he hadn’t been able to answer.
    You
need me, but you blew it.
    One was
this: Why had Warden Dios decided to sacrifice Ensign Hyland? The UMCP director
had no history of such decisions. Indeed, he had often displayed a distressing
resemblance to Min Donner in situations involving loyalty toward his
subordinate personnel. Hashi had presented arguments which he considered
convincing; but he was under no illusions about Warden’s ability to ignore
those reasons, if he chose. So why had the director made such an atypical
decision?
    Had he
acceded to Hashi’s reasons because he had already met similar arguments from
Holt Fasner — or perhaps even been given direct orders?
    Certainly
a living Morn Hyland represented a palpable threat to the UMC CEO. To that
extent, she might conceivably constitute a kaze of a peculiar kind. Within her
she carried information which was undeniably explosive.
    As
Hashi had determined during his interrogation of Angus Thermopyle, she could
testify that Com-Mine Security bore no fault for Starmaster’s death. And
she could