The Gap Cycle - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Morn Hyland, an ensign with the United Mining Companies Police, is on her first mission aboard the UMCP destroyer Starmaster (which is crewed by members of her extended family). When they arrive at Com-Mine Station, a ship, Bright Beauty, piloted by the pirate Angus Thermopyle, flees, and Starmaster follows. Witnessing Angus slaughtering a small mining settlement (Angus had left Com-Mine without supplies and needs air scrubbers), Starmaster attempts combat, but is almost destroyed by a massive internal explosion. Morn suffers from gap-sickness, a mental disorder that inflicts itself on a small portion of people who travel through the Gap (the series' analogue to hyperspace). Symptoms of gap-sickness vary wildly; in Morn, it manifests itself as an uncontrollable urge to engage in self-destruction and is triggered by exposure to high-gravity conditions. Morn, left alone on the auxiliary bridge when Starmaster engaged Angus' ship, experienced gap-sickness for the first time, and attempted to destroy Starmaster.

Angus boards the wreck hoping to salvage some air scrubbers, murders Morn's father (who had survived Morn's attempted self-destruction) and kidnaps Morn. Seeking both control of her gap-sickness, and Morn herself, Angus places a zone implant — a remotely-controlled electrode — into her brain, which allows Angus to control Morn's every feeling and action. By giving Morn an unauthorised zone implant, Angus has committed a capital crime, and will be executed if he is caught.

On the way back to Com-Mine, Angus activates Morn's zone implant, allowing him to repeatedly rape and abuse her. Unwittingly, he also starts to form an emotional attachment to her.

Back at the station, Morn makes contact with another pirate — Nick Succorso, captain and owner of the ship Captain's Fancy, who she sees as a potential rescuer. She aids Nick in framing Angus for stealing station supplies, and Angus is arrested. Before he is taken away, though, Angus gives Morn the remote control to her zone implant, in exchange for her silence. With the control in her possession, Morn is effectively a superwoman and is able to disregard fear, pain, or fatigue; but by accepting the control she is also complicit in Angus' crime against her.

Morn leaves with Nick in his ship. Nick, however, turns out to be every bit as nasty as Angus. When Morn turns out to be pregnant (with Angus' child, although she tells Nick it is his), Nick takes Morn to Enablement Station, a space station in alien-influenced space. The aliens are known as the Amnion and are masters of genetic manipulation. Where humans control space through physical, military and political means, the Amnion gain control by genetic methods — mutating non-Amnion life-forms into Amnioni. Only the technological and military might of the UMCP keeps them at bay.

At Enablement Station, the Amnion use their advanced biological technology to speed up Morn's pregnancy, allowing her to give birth much earlier than normal. Her child, named Davies after her now-dead father, is force-grown into an adult and imprinted with Morn's mind. During the imprinting procedure, Morn uses her zone implant to retain her sanity. This surprises the Amnion, as normally the process of mind-imprinting destroys the original mind — Morn has used some process to preserve her sanity, but the Amnion don't know what this process is. If they can discover and replicate this process, the Amnion can create human-resembling Amnion and potentially gain control over human-inhabited space. As such, Davies becomes very valuable to the Amnion. When Morn breaks Davies out of the Amnion's captivity and flees aboard Captain's Fancy, the Amnion commit an act of interstellar war and pursue them into human space.

Meanwhile, the UMCP has "requisitioned" Angus from his prison on Com-Mine Station, and transformed him into a cyborg under their direct control, to be used as a tool against other pirates. Secretly though, Angus has orders to rescue Morn from Nick and return her to Earth.

Warden Dios, Director of the UMCP, turns out to be playing a very deep game. His boss, Holt Fasner — known as "The Dragon", is CEO of the United Mining Companies and owner of the UMCP, and is the most powerful human being in existence. Fasner is utterly corrupt, and Dios wants to end the corruption — corruption in which he has been entirely complicit. Dios is using Morn and Angus to create an artificial crisis through which he can expose the Dragon's corruption and remove the UMCP from the UMC's control — destroying himself in the process. If Dios is to be successful, Morn is required to arrive on Earth to testify that she helped Nick (who is an occasional agent-of-convenience of the UMCP) to frame Angus with the assistance of Com-Mine Station Security — an act which led to the passage of the Preempt Act and made the Dragon the de facto ruler of humanity.