The Snow Queen (17 page)

“This way!”
Cress materialized beside her, pointing left. “That’s a dead end. Elsie?”

“Here.” The
door banged behind them. “Don’t talk about it, get to the LBf”

They ran;
Moon caught the old woman’s hand, lending her strength and speed. Up ahead she
saw the alien in a band of reddish gold starlight, disappearing into a
bolt-hole of shadow; behind them she heard the door fly open and a shout of
discovery. Her free hand went dead suddenly up to the wrist; panic gave her
wings.

Cress slid
to a halt where she had seen the alien disappear. She saw a night-gilded board
fence, saw him duck through the space between two rotten planks. She followed
him through, pulling Elsevier with her, and almost fell over a peninsula of
piled driftwood on the other side. “Get to the LBf” Cress waved them on
frantically. “I’ll plug the gap.”

“This way.”
Elsevier pulled at her arm, started away through the stacks and mounds of
salvage and flotsam. Moon went with her, looking back as Cress dragged the
spiny-armed corpse of a tree shrub up against the gap. A limb caught in his
parka as he turned away and jerked him back; she saw him struggle free before a
pile of moldy sails cut off her view. Elsevier stumbled over some obstacle in
the shadows beside her, and she put out a steadying arm. Before them now across
the shadow and gold of the star-washed yard she saw a lens of battered metal
lying in the midden. A hatch stood open in its side, and a ramp extended to the
ground. “What is it?”

“Sanctuary,”
Elsevier gasped. They reached the ramp and went up it together to find Silky
waiting at the top. “Switched on?”

The alien
grunted affirmation, gestured with a tentacle.

“Then strap
in, we’re getting out of here.” Elsevier leaned against a bulkhead, a hand
pressed against her heart. “Cress?” She looked toward the hatchway, but it
showed them only junk and smoldering sky.

Moon turned
back, leaned out to look down the ramp. Cress came running; but as she watched
he tripped and fell, lay stunned on the ground for a space of heartbeats. When
he pushed himself up at last and came on, she thought of a man running
underwater, with every motion resisted. “Here he comes!”

He reached
the foot of the ramp, stopped, and looked up it for a long moment with his arms
wrapped across his stomach before he began to climb. Behind him she saw one of
their pursuers round the heap of sails. “Cress, hurry!”

But even as
she called to him he slowed, midway up the ramp, his eyes glazing with despair.

“Come on!”

He shook
his head, swaying where he stood.

Across the
lot she saw both police officers now, saw one of them taking aim at him, heard
a voice shout “Hold it!”

Moon pushed
out and down the ramp, grabbed the flapping sleeve of his parka and dragged him
forward through the hatch. The ramp telescoped upward behind them, and the door
hissed shut, hurting her ears with pressure-change. Cress clutched at the frame
of the inner doorway as Moon found her balance, letting him go. Her hand was
still crippled with a strange paralysis; she looked down at it and gave a
small, disbelieving cry as she saw it smeared with blood.

“Cress, get
up front and—” Elsevier stopped as Cress crumpled to the floor. Moon saw the
vivid stain on his jacket and knew that the blood was not her own.

“Oh, my
gods, Cress!”

“What
happened?” Moon dropped to her knees beside him, reaching out.

He struck
her reddened hand aside. “No!” She saw the hilt of her own scaling knife
protruding from the pouch pocket at the center of the jacket’s spreading stain.
“Don’t touch it ... I’ll gush.” Moon pulled back, folded her hands against her
sides. “Elsevier?” He looked past her.

“Cress,
how
did it happen?” Elsevier let herself
down stiffly on his other side, laying her hand against his cheek. Silky
appeared in the doorway behind her.

Cress
laughed through white lips. “Should’ve let the young mistress keep her dagger
... fell on the goddamn thing, running. Put me in the freezer, Elsie, I’m
h-hurting ...” He struggled to push himself up, groaned through clenched teeth
as they hauled him to his feet.

“Silky, get
to the controls.”

Silky moved
ahead of them as they guided Cress through into the next chamber and let him
down onto a level couch in the cramped space.

“Putting
her knife in your pocket! Dear boy, that was incredibly stupid, you know.”
Elsevier kissed her fingers and laid them lightly above his eyes.

“I’m an
astrogator, not ... not a hired killer. What do I ... know about it?” He
coughed; a trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth, ran down his
cheek toward his ear.

Elsevier
stepped back as a smoke-colored translucent cone lowered over the couch,
shutting him away from their view. “Sleep well.” It had the sound of a
benediction; but she shook her head, looking up into Moon’s unspoken question.
“No. This will keep him alive until we can get him to help.” Her face changed.
“If we can even get out of the atmosphere before those Blues call down heaven’s
wrath. Strap in, dear, the acceleration may be unpleasant your first time.” She
pushed past, settled into a padded, upright seat before a panel of controls.
The alien was settled in a second seat, tentacles suspended above a board of
lights. In front of them a wide, thickly glassed port showed her another view
of the junkyard. Moon took the third upright couch and fastened the straps
uncertainly. The alien made a guttural query.

“Well, what
else am I going to do?” Elsevier said sharply. “We can’t leave her to the
police; not a sibyl. Not after she fought to save me—you know what they’d do
... Lift!”

Moon leaned
forward, listening, was driven back into the seat by the crest of an unseen
wave. She gasped in surprise, gasped again as the pressure went on increasing,
squeezing the air out of her lungs. She fought against it like a dr owner with
no more success; collapsed into the cushioning curves with a whimper of
disbelief. Between the forward seats she could no longer see the junkyard or
any ground at all, but only stars. As she watched, the moon fell like a stone
past the window and disappeared. She shut her eyes, felt herself being sucked
down into a whirlpool of nightmare, bottomless and black.

But among
the tumbled waters of dark panic she found the memory of another blackness,
more utter, more absolute than any she would ever know—the black heart of the
Transfer. The Transfer . this was like the Transfer. She clung to that anchor,
felt the solid weight of familiarity slow the spiraling of her fear. She
centered her concentration on the disciplined rhythms of mind and body that
kept the narrow thread of her awareness tied to reality . slowly she settled
into enduring.

She opened
her eyes again, saw that the stars were still outside; rolled her head to look
over at the wall of blinking lights and dials beside her own seat. She did not
try to touch them. She became aware of Elsevier’s voice, strained, almost
inaudible, and the alien’s responses; one was as unintelligible to her as the
other.

“...
Checking. No tracking alerts going out yet. Hope that they hadn’t re layers ...
by the time they call it in we may clear ... Are the shields green?”

Silky
responded, in unintelligible alien speech.

“I hope it
too ... but stay ready to shift power.”

(Response.)

“Affirmative,
we’re damped. They look for inbound runners, anyway . they don’t look behind
them enough ... I pray they don’t.”

(Response.)

A weak
chuckle. “Of course ... Time elapsed?”

Moon closed
her eyes again, comforted, letting the words go on by. They were flying,
somehow, in this metal-bound cabin; but it was nothing like her flight with
Ngenet. She wondered why, and how, wondered dimly whether this was anything
like being on an off worlder starship ... Her eyes came open suddenly.
“Elsevier!”

“Yes ...
Are you all right, Moon?”

“What are
we doing? ... Where are we going?” She gasped for air.

“We’re
leaving ... Time elapsed?”

(Response.)

“Out of the
well!” A squeezed laugh of triumph. “Cutting energy . we’d better save what we’ve
got left for rendezvous.”

The
pressure vise dissipated around her, as abruptly as it had come. Moon stretched
her arms in release. With the crushing weight gone from her body, she felt as
though she had no substance at all, rising like a bubble through the waters of
the sea ... rising from the padded couch against the restraining straps. She
looked down at herself wildly, clutched the straps with her hands.

“Ohh,
Silky. I’m getting too old for this. This is no way for a civilized person to make
a living.”

(Response.)

“Of course
it’s been the principle of the thing! You don’t think I would have carried on
TJ’s work just for money? And certainly not for the thrill of it.” She tsked.
“But there won’t be any more trips, anyway. We won’t make a brass cawie from
this one, we’ve still got all the goods on board ... Ah, poor Miroe! The gods
know what’s become of him.” There was the sound of a catch releasing; Moon saw
Elsevier’s silvery head begin to rise up past the seat back. “But we never
shall, now.” Elsevier turned to look back at her. “Moon, are you—”

“Don’t be
afraid!” Moon raised wondering eyes. “It’s the Lady’s presence. The room is
full of the Sea, that’s why we’re floating ... It’s a miracle.”

Elsevier
smiled at her, a little sadly. “No, my dear—only the absence of one. We’re
beyond the reach of your goddess, beyond the grasp of your world. There’s
simply no gravity this far out to hold you down. Come forward and see what I
mean.”

Moon
unstrapped uncertainly, and pushed herself up. Elsevier lunged and caught her
by the leg before she crashed into the cone that hung, like the one that
protected Cress, above her own couch. “Gently!” Elsevier drew her forward to
the window and pointed down. Below them lay the curve of Tiamat’s sphere, a
foam-flecked swell of translucent blue breaking against the wall of stars.

In her
heart she had known what she would find; but as she drifted to the window, the
vision surpassed anything she had imagined, and she could only breathe,
“Beautiful ... beautiful ...” She pressed her hands against the cold
transparency.

“Wait until
you pass through the Black Gate, and see what lies on the other side.”

“Oh, yes
...” A dark seed of doubt sprouted in her mind. She pulled her eyes away,
turning her head. “The Black Gate? But that’s how the off worlders go to other
worlds ...” She looked back and out, at her entire world that had seemed so
immense and so varied lying below her feet like a blue glass fishing float. “No
... no, I can’t go through the Gate with you. I have to go to Carbuncle. I have
to find
Sparks
.”
She pushed firmly away from the window, caught herself on the back of Silky’s
seat. “Will you take me back down, now? Can you, would you put me—ashore at the
star port

“Take you
back down?” A frown creased the space between Elsevier’s blue-violet eyes; she
pressed her hands against her lips. “Oh, Moon, my dear ... I was afraid that
you hadn’t understood. You see, we can’t take you back down. They’ll track us,
and we’re low on charge besides—there’s no way we can go back now. I’m afraid
that when I told you about the Gate I wasn’t offering you a choice.”

“You’re the
owner of this vehicle?” Jerusha stood beside the hovercraft on the quay, her
breath frosting in the frigid night air. She frowned her bad humor at the big
man who leaned against it with the same false self-possession the tech runners
in the bar had displayed. Gundhalinu stood beside her, rising and settling on
his heels with barely controlled frustration.

“I am, as I
plainly have every right to be.” His voice was like crunching gravel. The man
gestured abruptly at his face; the light was poor, but he was obviously an off
worlder—from D’doille, she guessed, or maybe Number Four. “Have you come all
the way from Carbuncle just to give me a parking ticket, Inspector?”

Jerusha
grimaced, using her irritation to disguise her discomfort. She kept her arms
crossed tightly against her heavy coat, nursing the one that the girl in the
bar had struck with a mug. Her right forearm was a white-hot star, burning
furiously at the center of her body’s shivering universe; the pain nauseated
her, only the intensity of her anger kept her mind clear. An old woman and a
handful of misfits had made an ass of her, and eating at her was the suspicion
that it was because shed wanted them to. Damn it, her place was to enforce the
law, not rearrange it to suit herself! And at least this one hadn’t gotten
away. “No, Citizen Ngenet, we’ve come to accuse you of attempting to buy
embargoed goods.”

His face
was the picture of resentful surprise. Gods, what I wouldn’t give to just once
see one of them put up his hands and say, “I admit it.”“

“I’d like
to know on what evidence you’re making the accusation. You’re not going to
find—”