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

shit is this?”
    Good
question. Angus would have said that aloud, if his programming had permitted
it. UMCPDA had welded him precisely and explicitly for this mission. Either
Hashi Lebwohl or Warden Dios had made every crucial decision. So what was Angus
doing here? Why had his datacore led him to take this course, when it
could have, should have, forced him to leap for human space?
    “ Calm
Horizons was after us,” he suggested weakly.
    “And
you thought she would follow us past the frontier?” Nick did his best to sneer.
“Commit an act of war right in the cops’ face? So what? She couldn’t have
caught us. We had momentum on her, we had a vector she couldn’t match. And we’ve
got” — he clicked keys, peered at a readout for confirmation, then hissed
softly through his teeth in surprise — “shit, Angus, this ship has a
thrust-to-mass ratio a lumbering tub like that can’t compete with. Once she
gets going, she can probably keep up with us in tach, but she can’t match us in
normal space.
    “Don’t
tell me you came here to hide from her .” Despite the dullness in his
eyes and the pallor of his scars, he was recovering some of his energy. “I
couldn’t believe that even if I used both hands.”
    Angus
couldn’t believe it himself. And yet it was the truth. He himself, Angus
Thermopyle — not his datacore, not Dios or Lebwohl — had made the decision to
come here because Calm Horizons , Soar and maybe some of the Bill’s
ships were after him.
    Echoing
Nick involuntarily, he protested in dismay, What kind of shit is this?
    Then,
like another echo, he remembered the last time his programming had spoken to
him directly. When Milos had attempted to take control of him in the Amnion
sector of Billingate, a soundless voice in his head had countermanded Milos’
orders.
    You
are no longer Joshua.
    Jerico
priority has been superseded.
    You
are Isaac. That is your name. It is also your access-code.
    Your
priority-code is Gabriel.
    “Shut
up,” he told Nick. Let me think. “I don’t care whether you believe it or not.
If I wanted you to know what my reasons are, I would have explained them
already.”
    Access-code
Isaac, he told the gap in his brain which served as a datalink. Why did you let
me come here? Why didn’t I have to head straight for UMCPHQ?
    His
datacore replied with a silence so complete that it seemed to resonate in his
skull.
    That
fit. Although his computer had supplied him with vast impersonal bodies of
information on such subjects as astrogation, Trumpet’s design, and
fusion generators, it’d never revealed anything about itself. Dios had promised
him, Your programming will tell you what you need as you go along. However, no one had ever offered him any kind of explanation.
    The
intercom chimed. “Angus, what’s happening?” Davies’ voice sounded ragged with g
and helplessness. “Where are we? Can I wake up Morn yet? Is it safe?”
    More
vehemently than he realised, Angus hit commands on his board to disable all the
ship’s intercoms.
    He
couldn’t suffer more distractions: he needed to understand .
    Had
Warden Dios or Hashi Lebwohl finally lost him? Had he somehow passed beyond the
limits of his programming; broken free?
    Or were
his tormentors simply playing a deeper game than he could imagine?
    God,
was it possible that he’d broken free?
    “Fine,”
Nick drawled. “Keep it to yourself.” He studied Angus curiously. “Are you going
to do that with your precious Morn, too? How do you think she and her
self-righteous brat will react when they find themselves three light-years deep
in Amnion space, and you refuse to explain why? My people I don’t know about —
I guess they’ve lost their minds. But Morn and Davies are going to go ape-shit.”
    “Shut up .”
The intensity of Angus’ concentration congested his voice in his throat. He could
hardly force out words. “I’m trying to think.”
    Frantic
for answers, he cried his access-code in the silence of his