Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top (16 page)

“In a legend of your planet, Philomela was a girl turned into a nightingale by the gods. That image pleased me, to be chosen by the gods, elevated to the heavens. Only later did I learn that the nightingale is also a symbol of death.”

Trelayne bowed his head. “Phi, there’s nothing—”

“No, but allow me at least my bitterness. And guilt.”

Guilty of being spared. By him. She and Procne spared, only because an addict and xenocide and soon-to-be traitor needed his drug source close. He had stopped trying to examine his motives beyond that. The Scream would mock the small voice in him that spoke of a last remnant of honor and noble intent.

“My sister is on that shuttle,” Philomela said quietly.

Trelayne said nothing for there was nothing to say. They watched the tiny ship fall toward the planet below . . .

At each planet on that trip, we gathered to us the castoffs, the unwanted, the remnants of a dozen races, together with the Fallen. And then, suddenly, there was no turning back . . .

Trelayne’s first officer, a young lieutenant-commander named Glandis, confronted him on the bridge. She wasn’t backing down this time. “Captain, I must again register my concern over continued irregularities in your command of this mission.”

Trelayne glanced at the monitor by his chair. Mojo and eleven other ex-Rippers were disembarking from a shuttle in the ship’s docking bay. In two minutes, they would be on the bridge. He tapped a command, deactivating all internal communications and alarms. He turned to Glandis. “Irregularities?”

“The ip
cargo
we have acquired at each of our stops.”

“Those
people
are to be transported to the Entity’s Product R&D center on Earth,” Trelayne responded.

Glandis snorted. “What research could the Entity conduct with—” She read from her PerComm. “—a Mendlos subject?”

“Physiological adaptation to high-grav,” Trelayne replied.

“A Fandorae kit? A Fanarucci viper egg?”

“Biotech aural receptor design, and neural poison mutagenics development.”
One minute more
, he thought.

Glandis hesitated, some of the confidence leaving her face. “You have also protected one specific breeding pair of Angels for purposes that have yet to be made clear to me.”

“They, too, are slated for Entity research.” Trelayne rose.
Thirty seconds
. “Synthesization of Scream.”

“What about this stop? It was not on our filed flight plan.”

“Late orders from RIP Force command.”
Fifteen seconds
.

“I was not informed.”

“You just were.”

Glandis reddened. “And what purpose will a dozen disgraced ex-members of RIP Force serve?”

Now
, thought Trelayne. The door to the bridge slid open. Mojo and four other ex-Rippers burst in, Tanzer rifles charged and pointed at Glandis and the bridge crew. Glandis turned to Trelayne with mouth open then froze.

Trelayne had his own weapon leveled at Glandis. “Their purpose, I’m afraid, is to replace the crew of this ship.”

And so the Fallen rose again, to scale a precipice from which there was no retreat, and each new height we gained only made the final fall that much farther . . .

After leaving the Bird Queen, Feran ran past the closed tubes of the barkers, the games of chance, and the sleep pods of the performers. The kit moved easily among the ropes, refuse, and equipment, his path clear to him even in the dim light of sputtering torches and an occasional hovering glow-globe.

The show used fewer glow-globes than when Feran had first arrived. The Captain said the globes cost too much now. Feran didn’t mind. He needed little light to see, and liked the smell of the torches and the crackle they made.

Turning a corner, Feran froze. Weasel Man stood outside the Captain’s pod. The Captain said that the man’s name was Weitz, but he reminded Feran of the animals the kit hunted in the woods outside the circus. The door opened. Weasel Man stepped inside.

Feran crept to the open window at the pod’s side. He could hear voices. His nose twitched. His ears snapped up and opened wide, adjusting until the sound was the sharpest.

Trelayne lay on his sleep pod bunk, shaking from withdrawal. Feran was late bringing his nightly hit. Weitz lounged in a chair, staring at him. It had been five days since their meeting in the jail. “Where’ve you been, Weitz?” Trelayne wheezed.

“Had some arrangements to make. Need a hit, don’t you?”

“It’s coming,” Trelayne mumbled. “What do you want?”

Weitz shrugged. “I told you. The Angels.”

“But not to hand them back to the Entity, or you’d have done it by now,” Trelayne said. But if Weitz wanted the Angels, why didn’t he just take them? He had his own men and a ship.

Weitz smiled. “Do you know there are rebels on Fandor IV?”

“Rebels? What are you talking about?” Where was Feran?

“Ex-RIP rebels like you, or rather, like you once were.”

“Like me? God, then I pity the rebels on Fandor IV.”

Weitz leaned forward in his chair. “I’m one of them.”

Trelayne laughed. “You’re RIP SS.”

“I assist from the
inside
. I supply them with Scream.”

Trelayne stared at Weitz. This man was far more dangerous than he had first appeared. “You’ve managed to surprise me, Major. Why would you risk your life for a bunch of rebels?”

Weitz shrugged. “I said you were my hero. The man who defied an empire. I want to do my part, too.”

Trelayne snorted. “Out of the goodness of your heart.”

Weitz reddened. “I cover my costs. No more.”

I’ll bet
, Trelayne thought. “Where do you get Scream?”

“I . . . acquired a store doing an SS audit of a RIP warehouse.”

“You stole it. A store? Since when can you store Scream?”

Weitz smiled. “A result of intense research prompted by your escape with the Angels. You made the Entity realize the risk of transporting breeding pairs. Angels are now kept in secure facilities on Lania and two other worlds, producing Scream that’s shipped to project worlds with RIP forces. Angels live and die without
ever
leaving the facility they were born into.”

Trelayne shuddered. Because of him. But the Scream in him ran too low to find any joy in this new horror.

They fell silent. Finally Weitz spoke. “So what happened, Trelayne? To the Great Rebel Leader? To the one man who stood up to the Entity? How’d it all go to hell?”

“Screamers are in hell already. We were trying to get out.”

“You got out, in a stolen Entity cruiser. Then what?”

Shivering, Trelayne struggled to sit up. Where was Feran? “We jumped to a system the Entity had already rejected. Only one habitable planet. No resources worth the extraction cost.”

“And set up a base for a guerrilla war on the Entity.”

“No. A colony. A home for the dispossessed races.”

“You attacked Entity project worlds,” Weitz said.

“We sent messages. There was never any physical assault.”

“Your data bombs flooded Comm systems for entire planets.”

“We tried to make people aware of what the Entity was doing. Almost worked.” Trelayne fought withdrawal, trying to focus on Weitz. The man was afraid of something. But what?

“I’ll say. You cost them trillions hushing it up, flushing systems. But then what? The reports just end.”

“The Entity still has a file on us?” That pleased Trelayne.

“On you,” Weitz corrected. “You’ve got your own entire file sequence. Special clearance needed to get at them. Well?”

Trelayne fell silent, remembering the day, remembering his guilt. “I got careless. They tracked us through a jump somehow, found the colony, T-beamed it from orbit.”

“An entire planet? My god!” Weitz whispered.

“A few of us escaped.” But not Phi’s children, her first brood. More guilt, though she had never blamed him.

“In a heavily armed cruiser with a crew of ex-Rippers.”

He looked at Weitz.
That
was it. Even through the haze of withdrawal, he knew he had his answer: Weitz thought Trelayne still had a band of ex-Rippers at hand, battle-proven trained killers with super-human reflexes and their own Scream supply. Something like hope tried to fight through the black despair of his withdrawal. Weitz would try to deal first.

“And this?” Weitz took in the circus with a wave of a hand.

“After we lost the base, we had to keep moving. As a cover story to clear immigration on each world, I concocted a circus of aliens. Then I ran out of money, had to do it for real.”

“What if someone had recognized you? Or knew about Angels?”

Trelayne struggled to speak. “We avoided anywhere with an Entity presence, stayed off the main jump routes.” He started to shiver. “Why do you want Angels if you have a store of Scream?”

“My supply’ll run out, and I can’t count on stealing more.”

Trelayne stared at Weitz. “So what’s the deal?”

Weitz smiled. “Why do you think I won’t just take them?”

“Against a crew of ex-Rippers pumped on Scream?”

Weitz’s smile faded. He studied Trelayne. “Okay. Let’s assess your position. One: I gave your ship’s beacon signature to Long Shot’s space defense. If you run, you’ll be caught.”

Trelayne said nothing.

“Two: if you’re caught, your ip pals get sent back to their home worlds. And you know what that means.”

Trelayne stayed silent, but his skin went cold.

“Three: you, Mojo, and the medic get executed for treason.”

“Like I said, what’s the deal?”

Weitz studied Trelayne again, then finally spoke. “Both Angels for my store of Scream—a lifetime supply for you and your men. I lift the order on your ship and turn my back as you and your band jump. Your life goes on, with Scream but no Angels.”

Life goes on, if you called this life. That much Scream was worth a fortune. But nowhere near the value of a breeding pair.

So there it was. Betray his love or die. What choice did he have? Refuse, and Weitz would turn them over to the Entity, and all would die. Run, and be killed or caught by the planetary fleet. Give her up, along with Procne, and at least the others would be free. Besides, she had turned from him, taken one of her own. She had only used him to escape, had always used him. She was an alien and hated him for what he had done to her race.

She had never really loved him.

All that stood against this were the remnants of his love for her, and a phantom memory of the man he once had been.

Outside, Feran waited for the Captain’s reply to Weasel Man. He didn’t know what the Captain would do but he knew it would be brave and noble. Feran listened for the sound of the Captain leaping to his feet and striking Weasel Man to the floor. But when a sound came, it was only the Captain’s voice, small and hoarse. “All right,” was all he said.

“You’ll do it?” That was Weasel Man. Feran did not hear a reply. “Tomorrow morning.” Weasel Man again. The door opened, and Feran scooted under the pod. Weasel Man stepped out smiling. Feran had seen sand babies smile like that on Fandor just before they spit their venom in your eyes.

As he watched the man walk away, fading into the darkness, something inside Feran faded away as well. He stood staring into the shadows for a long time, then turned and entered the pod. The Captain lay in his sleeping place. He seemed not to notice Feran. The kit put the pouch from the Bird Queen on the table, then left without a word. The Captain did not call after him.

How long Feran wandered the grounds, he did not know. Some time later, he found the Cutter and Mojo sitting in front of a fire burning on an old heat shield panel from the ship.

“Seen the Captain, Feran?” asked Mojo. Feran just nodded.

“He’s had his bottle? All tucked in for the night?” the Cutter asked. Feran nodded again as Mojo scowled at the Cutter.

They sat silently for a while. “Does it hurt when you lose someone you love?” Feran asked, ashamed of the fear in his voice, the fear that he felt for Philomela.

The Cutter spoke. “Hurts even more to lose ’em slowly. Watch ’em disappear bit by bit ’til nothing’s left you remember.”

Feran knew the Cutter meant the Captain. “Shut up, Cutter,” Mojo growled. “You’ve never been there. Only a Screamer knows what he lives with.” He patted Feran’s head. “Never mind, kid.”

The Cutter shook his head but spoke no more. Feran rose and walked slowly away to once again wander the Circus grounds. This time, however, something resolved itself inside his young mind so that when he found himself outside the sleep pod of the Angels he interpreted this as a sign that his plan was pure.

The Bird Queen was alone. She spoke little as he told his tale, a question here or there when the words he chose were poor. She thanked him, then sat in silence, her strange eyes staring out the small round window of the pod.

Feran left the Angel then, not knowing whether he had done good or evil, yet somehow aware that his world was a much different place than it had been an hour before.

*** Search Results Continued ***

Xenobiology File: Lania: Life Forms: 1275

The impending release of a brood of mature nestlings prompts the male Angel to initiate final coupling. This act triggers the female’s production of higher concentrations of Scream. Scream is the sole nourishment that the young can ingest upon emergence, and also relieves the agony of the male after the brood bursts from him. The female must receive the nestlings within hours of the final coupling, or she will die from the higher Scream level in her blood, which the nestlings cleanse from her system.

The evolutionary advantage of this reproductive approach appears to stem from the increased survival expectations of a brood carried by the stronger male, and the ensured presence of both parents at birth. Although Teplosky drew parallels to the Thendotae on Thendos IV, we feel . . .

Unable to sleep, Feran rose early the next day. A chill mist hung from a grey sky. For an hour, he wandered outside the big dome, worrying how to tell the Captain what he had done and why. He stopped. Toward him strode the Captain, with Mojo at his side. Both wore their old long black cloaks, thrown back to reveal weapons strapped to each leg. The gun metal glinted blue and cold, matching the look in the Captain’s eyes.