The Gap Into Ruin This Day All - Stephen R Donaldson, ebook
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HASHI
It was typical of Hashi
Lebwohl that he did not re-
port to Warden Dios as soon as he returned to UMCPHQ.
He wasn't trying to avoid another confrontation with the
man who had outplayed and, in a strange, piquant sense,
shamed him. On the contrary, he felt remarkably sanguine
about the prospect of talking to the UMCP director. He simply
made no effort to bring about a conversation himself. He as-
sumed that Warden Dios was perfectly capable of recognizing
an emergency when he saw it—and that he wouldn't hesitate
to summon Hashi when he wished to speak to his DA director.
A kaze had attacked the Governing Council for Earth and
Space in extraordinary session, apparently intending to exter-
minate Cleatus Fane, the First Executive Assistant of the
United Mining Companies. Only Hashi's personal intervention
had prevented serious—not to say embarrassing—bloodshed.
And as a direct result of the attack the GCES had voted to
reject Captain Sixten Vertigus' Bill of Severance. Indeed, the
Members had been stampeded into clinging to the status quo
for their lives; to Holt Fasner and the UMCP. None of them
had wanted to take on the responsibility for their own safety—
and certainly not for the safety of human space.
If Warden didn't call this an emergency, he must have lost
all contact with the world of factual reality. Or else his game
was deeper than anything Hashi had dared to imagine. Perhaps
it was deeper than he could imagine.
Neither prospect offered reassurance. On the whole, how-
ever, Hashi preferred the latter. That which he found impene-
trable today might well appear transparent tomorrow. And he
could always push himself to expand his own capacities. The
challenge might conceivably be good for him. In the meantime
he could endure the shame of being outplayed.
But if Warden Dios had lost his grasp on events—
From that fount endless disasters might spring.
This was all speculation, of course. Still Hashi wondered
—and worried. The quantum mechanics of his conundrum re-
mained as Heisenberg had defined them. By his own efforts he
had taken hold of events in flux in order to name them accu-
rately; establish them in their positions. Therefore he was pre-
vented from knowing where those events tended. Certainty
precluded certainty.
He chose not to report to Warden on his own initiative
because he wanted to know how long Warden would wait be-
fore summoning him. That interval would reveal more surely
than words the extent to which Warden had been taken by
surprise.
In any case the DA director still had plenty of work to do
in order to ready himself for Warden's summons; to confirm
and solidify what he'd learned on Suka Bator. No one would
criticize him for spending every available moment on an effort
to be sure of his facts.
Using a tight-beam transmission coded exclusively for
Data Acquisition, he'd begun speaking to Lane Harbinger as
soon as the UMCP shuttle had left the GCES island and bro-
ken free of Earth's gravity well; supplying her with prelimi-
nary data; preparing her for the research he required. He felt
some discomfort as he did so because he wasn't alone on the
shuttle. Protocol Director Koina Hannish rode with him, ac-
companied by her retinue of aides and techs. And UMCPED
Chief of Security Mandich was also aboard: he was on his way
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to explain his failures to Warden Dios, since his immediate
superior, Min Donner, was absent from UMCPHQ. He'd left
Deputy Chief Forrest Ing in charge of Security's version of
"martial law" on Suka Bator.
At the best of times Hashi disliked being overheard—
unless he had some use for his eavesdropper. But his present
circumstances didn't supply privacy, or justify delay. He owed
Warden restitution for his earlier mistakes. Instead of waiting
for the shuttle to reach UMCPHQ, he kept his exchanges with
Lane as brief as possible; and when he spoke, he employed the
impermeable jargon of DA to disguise what he was saying.
To all appearances Koina ignored him completely. No
doubt she had more than enough to occupy her contempla-
tions. Although she was new to her duties, she'd acquitted
herself admirably during the extraordinary session. And she
had reason to be grateful to Captain Vertigus, despite the fail-
ure of his proposed legislation. On the other hand, Hashi
deemed that most of her thoughts were more troubled. He
knew her well enough to suspect that she feared her perfor-
mance before the Council may have triggered or catalyzed the
kaze's attack. For her it must have been easy to believe that the
men who'd sent a kaze against the GCES would not have felt
compelled to go so far if they hadn't been surprised or fright-
ened by her declaration of the UMCP's neutrality in the debate
over a Bill of Severance; her declaration of Warden Dios' in-
dependence from Holt Fasner.
Hashi knew better. Earlier he'd been uncertain: now he
was sure. Her performance may in fact have been a catalyst.
Nevertheless it was essentially incidental. The men responsible
for Clay Imposs ne Nathan Alt could not have known that
Sixten Vertigus, Senior Member for the United Western Bloc,
would introduce a Bill of Severance. In addition, Imposs/Alt
had been moving past Captain Vertigus toward Cleatus Fane
when Hashi had accosted him. Therefore Captain Vertigus
wasn't the intended target. The motivations behind the kaze's
attack operated independently of the UWB Senior Member
and his bill, as well as of Warden Dios' neutrality.
Hashi said nothing to reassure Koina. She hadn't asked
for anything of the kind. And she would hear what he'd
learned soon enough.
In contrast Chief Mandich studied Hashi narrowly while
he spoke to Lane. Clearly Mandich was waiting for a chance
to talk to the DA director.
A pox on the man, Hashi thought with unwonted vexa-
tion. The Chief of Security's rectitude was as ironclad as Min
Donner's, but he lacked her flexibility of intelligence, her ca-
pacity to acknowledge concepts which violated her personal
reality. For example, Hashi didn't doubt that if Mandich were
suddenly exalted to the position of UMCP director, the man
wouldn't hesitate to fire Hashi for having done things which
disturbed the Chief's scruples. Min Donner, on the other
hand, might well retain Hashi in DA, even though she knew
far more about his actions and policies, and therefore had ex-
perienced far more outrage to her peculiar sense of honor.
Still Hashi did nothing to fend off Chief Mandich. Instead
he made himself accessible as soon as he'd finished his inter-
change with Lane.
The Chief took the opportunity to move to a g-seat beside
Hashi, belt himself down. "Director Lebwohl," he began
without preamble, "I need to know how you knew that man
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was a kaze."
Hashi's blue eyes glittered dangerously behind his
smeared lenses. "Do you?" he countered in a tone of false
amiability. No doubt Mandich meant, How were you able to
spot him when we couldn't?
"I do." Chief Mandich was a blunt man with a blunt
face; stolid as bone. His nearly colorless gaze had the dull
tenacity of a pit bull's. "And then I need to know why you
didn't do anything to stop him sooner.
"Something about him made you suspicious. You left
your seat and moved around the hall specifically so that you
could get close to him. But you didn't say anything."
Mandich spoke with undisguised bitterness. He hated his own
failures. "We're just lucky nobody in the hall was killed. If
you'd bothered to warn us, a GCES Security guard would still
be alive. Ensign Crender would still have his left hand.
"With respect, Director Lebwohl," he sneered, "what the
hell did you think you were doing?"
A tremor ran along Hashi's frame. His own reaction to
the danger and indignity of the past few hours seemed to shrill
inside him. "Very well." He folded his thin hands in his lap to
conceal their indignation. "You answer my questions, and I
will answer yours.
"To use your phrase, Chief Mandich, what the hell did
you think you were doing when you assigned a whelp like
Ensign Crender to take my orders?"
Mandich's eyes widened.
Wheezing sharply, Hashi sent his words like wasps into
the Chief's blunt face. "I made my needs known explicitly to
Deputy Chief Ing. I informed him that I desired him and his
men to stand ready to carry out my requests and instructions.
"He replied that he could not comply without consulting
you.
"I did not consider that adequate. 'If I ask you to "do
something," I will need it done without the delay of applying
to your chief for permission.' Those were my exact words. I
told him plainly that I did not know what to expect, but that I
wished to be prepared for whatever might transpire.
"Still he hesitated. I answered, 'Then kindly inform Chief
Mandich that I require him to assign personnel to me who
have been given his authorization to do what I tell them.'
Again those are my exact words.
"Director Hannish supported my wishes."
Obliquely Hashi observed that Koina was staring at him,
her lips slightly parted in surprise. It was probable that in the
years she'd worked with him she'd never heard him sound so
angry.
An undignified flush stained Chief Mandich's neck, mot-
tled his cheeks with his own anger. He opened his mouth to
deliver a retort. But Hashi wasn't done. He didn't give the
Chief a chance to speak.
"How did you respond?" he went on harshly. "By as-
signing to me a boy so untried that he was unable to react
without hesitation—hesitation which could well have resulted
in murder in the meeting hall of the Governing Council for
Earth and Space.
"True, he mastered his hesitation. He took the action nec-
essary to save lives. For that I honor him.
"But I do not honor you, Chief Mandich." If Hashi
hadn't controlled his hands, they would have flown like stings
at the Chief's eyes. "I am the United Mining Companies Po-
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lice Director of Data Acquisition, and you did not take my
stated requirements seriously enough to assign personnel capa-
ble of prompt obedience.
"Shall we discuss our separate motivations now, or do
you prefer to wait until we can explain them in front of Direc-
tor Dios?" Hashi shrugged dismissively. "For myself, I am
content to wait."
Chief Mandich closed his mouth. Congested emotion
made his features appear swollen. Poor man, he was cursed
with a sense of probity so strict that it left him defenseless.
Min Donner would have faced down Hashi's challenge in or-
der to pursue the answers to her own questions; but her Chief
of Security couldn't do the same.
After a moment he murmured through his teeth, "You
have a valid grievance, Director Lebwohl. If you want to cen-
sure me, I won't fight it."
Stiffly he undipped his belts and drifted back to his for-
mer g-seat.
Oh, censure you, forsooth, Hashi thought in the direction
of the Chief's retreat. I would not trouble myself. Our present
circumstances are accusation enough. We confront a dilemma
which censures us all.
Honesty with himself forced him to admit that he'd en-
joyed scathing Chief Mandich.
Koina met Hashi's look when he glanced at her. Gravity
and speculation darkened her gaze. "Aren't you being just a
little disingenuous, Director Lebwohl?" she asked crisply.
"Even a 'whelp' like Ensign Crender wouldn't have hesitated
if you'd told him what you were looking for."
Hashi spread his hands as if to show her that his equanim-
ity had been completely restored. "My dear Koina, have you
studied Heisenberg?"
She shook her head.
"A pity." He settled himself in his g-seat to await the
shuttle's arrival at UMCPHQ. "If you had, you would under-
stand that I could not possibly have known what I was looking
for until I found it."
That may have been as close as he'd ever come to telling
her the truth.
Lane Harbinger met him at the dock "as soon as the shuttle
powered down its systems and the space doors of the bay
sealed to restore atmosphere.
On Suka Bator he'd supervised the essential chore of
placing Imposs/Alt's earthly remains in a shielded, sterile
bodybag and loading them into the shuttle's cargo space. Now
he watched over the delivery of the bodybag into Lane's care.
A glance at the corridor in which the kaze had been deto-
nated had assured him that too many people had trampled too
much evidence—and indeed that the corridor itself was too
large—to permit the kind of meticulous scrutiny Lane had
given Godsen Frik's office. Of necessity he'd surrendered his
desire for some form of microscopic data from the region
around the body, and had instead concentrated on Imposs/
Alt's corpse—on the smears of his blood and the mangled
mess of his tissues. The body itself had been simply scooped
into the bodybag with a sterile shovel. But every streak or
droplet of blood Hashi could locate had been cut out of the
concrete with a utility laser and added to the bodybag's con-
tents.
He hoped devoutly that these remains would enable Lane
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to find the answers he needed.
No, not the answers: the proofs. He already knew the
answers.
A fuming nic dangled from her mouth as she joined him
beside the cargo space. Her eyes glittered like shards of mica
—a sign that she rode levels of stim and hype which would
have poleaxed anyone whose metabolism hadn't been inured
to them. In the pockets of her labcoat her fingers twitched as if
they were entering data on a purely metaphysical keypad.
While the bodybag was being loaded onto a sled for transport
to her lab in Data Acquisition, she asked tensely, "You sure of
his id?"
"My dear Lane," Hashi chided gently. She knew as well
as anyone who worked with him that he was unlikely to mis-
take an id.
She shrugged like a twitch. "Just checking. If you're
right, my job's that much easier."
Certainly she would be required to spend less time wait-
ing for Data Storage to run its vast SAC routines.
"Any chance I'll find a detonator?" she continued.
Hashi made a conscious effort to remain calm; amiably
unruffled. He didn't want to be infected by her congenital ten-
sion. "Who can say?" There were too many factors: the type
of explosive, its brisance, the shape of the charge, blast reflec-
tion from the nearby walls. "But if you do," he went on more
sharply, "the information will be vital. Do you understand me,
Lane?"
She sucked on her nic. "What's to understand? Isn't that
what it all hinges on?"
"Not all," he countered with a shake of his head. "But
enough." He knew the truth: whatever Lane learned wouldn't
change it. Nevertheless the proof he wished to give Warden
Dios depended heavily on what Lane could discover.
"In any case," he added, "these will be of interest."
Casually, almost covertly, as if he didn't wish to be seen,
he slipped Imposs/Alt's clearance badge and id tag into Lane's
pocket.
She identified them with her fingers, nodded decisively.
"I'm sure they will."
The sled was ready to go. Lane moved to accompany it.
Despite the nature of the emergency, however, and his own
desires, he called her back. Camouflaging his seriousness with
his peculiar sense of humor, he told her that he wished to see
her results "relatively instantaneously. Engage your gap drive,
Lane. Defy time if you must."
He wanted her findings before Warden summoned him.
She replied with a snort of smoke, "Don't I always?"
He wheezed a laugh. "You do. Indeed you do."
He waited until she and her sled had left the dock before
shifting himself into motion.
By then he'd already begun to wonder how much longer
Warden would delay.
More than an hour passed before a call from the director of the
UMCP reached Hashi, instructing him to present himself im-
mediately to one of Warden's private offices.
Hashi hadn't wasted the time. First he'd issued a number
of Red Priority—"screaming red," as it was sometimes called
—security locks: one for every communications channel and
computer that belonged or connected to Anodyne Systems, the
UMC subsidiary which manufactured SOD-CMOS chips; one
for the UMCP's own personnel files; and one for each of Holt
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