"Perhaps it is a family trait, this madness," he said, his voice rising with an edge to it. "You haven't heard the scuttlebutt, then. They say Flattery's my father. whoever my mother was, she was one of his diversions back at the beginning. I was the 'poor fruit' of that diversion, as some might say."
Mack was not as surprised at Brood's ancestry as he was by the cold anger with which Brood related it.
Hot anger stings, he thought, but it's cold anger that kills.
Mack started to speak but Brood's upturned hand stopped him.
"Spare me your sympathies, Doctor. It's not sympathy that I require. I am not the only one so privileged, there are others. If he knows, he finds favor in me because I do not challenge him. If he doesn't. "
A shrug, a pull at the lip. The ghost-light pooled his ankles.
"Others have not been so fortunate. My mother, whoever she was, for example. The Director requires power and I require power, that is clear. One way or another, I will have it."
"They've called a 'Code Brutus' down there. Are you a part of that?"
Brood snapped out a laugh. Those sharpened teeth sent a shudder down Mack's spine.
"I'm a winner, Doctor," he said. "I side with winners. I can't lose. If Flattery wins, then I've saved his Voidship for him, saved his precious kelpways, and I win. If Flattery loses, then I've captured the Voidship and the precious kelpways to hold for the winner."
"What happens if one of the others asks your help?"
"Then we'll suffer a communication breakdown," Brood said. "That's nothing new up here, is it, Doctor?"
Mack smiled.
"No, no it's not. We've been having that problem all day."
"So I noticed. My men, they are new to these airwaves, but thorough. We have monitored you here for quite some time — for practice, you understand. I know you quite well, Dr. MacIntosh. How well do you know me?"
"I don't know you at all."
"I wouldn't say that," Brood said. "You knew that I wouldn't blow the Gridmaster — not yet. You knew if I really wanted your men dead they'd be dead, and yourself along with them. Tell me what else you know about me, Doctor."
Mack stroked his chin. Leakage from the body of the number-two man drifted close, globs of blood floating with it like party decorations. Mack kept trying to remember which of his men it was, but it wouldn't come to him. But Brood was in a talkative mood, and Mack tried to keep him at it.
"You've covered all bases," Mack said. "If you take the wrong side, you can always run off with the Voidship — provided you can muster a crew."
"I have you, Doctor," Brood smiled. "An original crew member. I have the OMC, too. And I'll bet that you, a smart man and commander, would have a backup system — probably something handy, like the Gridmaster? Yes, a backup for a backup. "
Brood laughed again, more to himself this time. He reached out his lasgun barrel and nudged the blood globules enough to clump them together and push the glob out of reach toward the turret. A smear of dark blood glistened on the muzzle.
From somewhere deep inside his training-memory, Mack recalled one of his instructors telling him how clean a lasgun kill was, how the charge neatly sealed off blood vessels in its quick cone of burn through the body. In practice, as usual, this wasn't always the case.
Suddenly, the entire Current Control suite filled with overwhelming, blinding light. A stab of pain punched at both of Mack's eyes and he covered them reflexively. He heard Brood struggling nearby, bumping a bank of consoles toward the hatch.
"What the hell.?"
Mack tried his eyes and found that he could see if he squinted tight enough, but tears poured down his cheeks, anyway. What he saw made his already racing heart race faster.
If light were a solid, this is what it would look like, he thought.
It wasn't bright now as much as it was all-encompassing. He could actually feel the light around him. It wasn't heat, such as sunlight would deliver, but the pressurelike sensation of an activated vacuum suit.
Mack kicked off and made a grab for Brood's lasgun as he fumbled upside-down with the hatch mechanism. He missed the lasgun. Brood happened to open his eyes at that moment and the barrel snapped up to take aim between Mack's eyes.
"Doctor, you just don't get the picture, do you? I ought to cook you on the spot, but I'll wait a bit. I'd rather have you and your girlfriend together for that. Now you tell me what the hell is happening here."
A frightened voice came over the intercom:
"Captain Brood, we can't see in here. There's a light filling the OMC chamber, and it's coming from this brain. "
This was cut short by sounds of a struggle, and Mack assumed that his crew had penetrated the OMC chamber. For the first time, Brood looked worried, perhaps even a little afraid.
"I don't know what's going on here. "
"Don't give me that crap, Doctor," Brood yelled.
A fine spray of saliva skidded into the air around his head.
"It must be the kelp," Mack explained.
He used the calmest possible voice he could muster.
