The Snow Queen (26 page)
Authors: Joan D. Vinge
“No. I do
it to learn things, about how the off worlders think, what their plans are, so
I can tell her ...”
“I thought
that’s what she has Starbuck for.”
“It is.”
The invisible wall of his anomie seemed to close them into a place of utter silence,
and his voice that should have been proud barely carried across it: “I am
Starbuck.”
The small
sigh of her indrawn breath was all the answer she made, at first. “I heard that
there was a new Starbuck. Is this true, Sparks? You, a
Summer
,
a—”
A boy
, but she didn’t say it.
“Half
Summer.” He nodded. “Yeah. It’s true.”
“How? Why?”
Her hands lay motionless over the mask’s gaping mouth.
“Because
she’s so like Moon. And Moon is gone.” Arienrhod was the only thing that had
not changed for him. the only thing whole and real, more real to him than his
own flesh. “She knew about Moon, knew what she meant to me. She’s the only one
who could understand ...” The wounded words crept out, to tell her what (but
not all) had passed between Arienrhod and himself after the news of Moon’s
kidnapping reached them. “... So I had to challenge Starbuck; because I love
her. And she let me challenge him, because she loves me. And I won.”
“How did
you manage to kill a man like that?”
“I killed
him with my flute ... in the Hall of the Winds.” Only he didn’t die.
“And you
haven’t played it since.” Fate shook her head, her thick braid rolled on her
shoulder. “Tell me—has it been v.orth it?”
“Yes!” He
flinched back in surprise from his own voice.
“Why did I
think I heard ‘no?”“
His fingers
tightened over a tray of beads, his muscles tightened; she didn’t see it. “I
had to be Starbuck. I had to be the best, or I wouldn’t be—worthy of her. I
have to be the one who counts. But I thought once I won the challenge, the rest
would be easy; and it’s not. I thought it would be everything I ever wanted.”
“And it’s
not.”
He shook
his own head. “What the hell’s wrong with me, anyway! Everything always goes
wrong for me ... everything I do.”
“Then maybe
you weren’t meant to do it. You could still go back to Summer; nothing’s
stopping you.”
“Back to
what?” He spat the words. “No. I can’t go back.” He had already asked it of
himself, and been answered. “Nobody goes back, I know that now; we just go on
and on, and there’s never any reason .... I won’t leave Arienrhod; I can’t. But
if I can’t be what she wants me to be, I’ll lose her anyway.”
everything ...
“You’ll
find a way to take the off worlders pulse. If you were smart enough to outwit
Starbuck, you’re smart enough to take his place. You’ll get the feel of being
him; you’ve already begun to.”
Something
in the words, a sorrow, surprised him. He made a fist, wrapped it in his hand.
“I’ve got to. I’ve got to believe it—before the Hunt comes again.”
“The Hunt
that brings in the water of life? The mer hunt?”
“Yes.” He
stared down through the pavement, through the heart of the city and the world,
toward the spaces of the sea controlled by the Winter nobles. In his mind he
could see the Hunt again: the necklace of barren rocks strewn over the open
sea; the rhythm of the ocean swells singing through the ship timbers, the song
of the world he had left behind. Remembering how he had searched the horizon
with sudden longing ... But if the Lady called him home, he could not hear Her
voice any more. Perhaps because he had come to hunt mers; or perhaps because
the Sea was only the sea, a body of water, a chemical solution.
He had
watched the shore of the nearest island, where the dwindling colony of mers had
lain along the black-pebbled beach ... until the Hounds had driven them back
into the sea, and into the waiting nets that would entangle and drown them. If
they could not resurface twice in an hour to breathe, they died.
No Summer
would kill a mer; they were the Lady’s children, born to Her after stars fell
into the sea and became the islands, her consorts, the Land. It was said that
the sailor who killed a mer by accident had no luck from that day on ... the
sailor who killed one intentionally was drowned by the rest of the crew. He had
heard a hundred different stories of mers saving sailors gone overboard, even
whole crews of a ship that had foundered; seen the mer that lived in the harbor
at
track across the supple cloth of the harbor surface as it guided ships safely
through the treacherous Gateway Reef. He remembered the mers that had greeted
them at the sibyl island. He had never heard of a mer doing anything evil, or
anyone harm.
But for the
good they could do humans—the ultimate good of eternal youth—they must die. He
had always believed that the myth of mers being immortal, and granting
immortality to humans, was only an old tale ... until he had come to Carbuncle.
And then he had met the Queen, who had reigned for one hundred and fifty years
. and Arienrhod had placed the vial of viscous silver liquid into his hands,
and he had let the spray fall into his throat, and realized that he too could
stay young forever.
And so he
had stood by, paying for his immortality with his presence, betraying all that
he had ever been or believed in, while the Hounds netted and drowned their
helpless victims somewhere below.
Then they
had hauled the carcasses aboard the ship, and shoving him aside like the
useless thing he was, they had squatted down with their knives to rip open the
dappled throats. They drained away the precious mer blood while their tentacles
reddened and the deck turned slippery under his feet.
And the red
leaked back into the sea, and the mutilated bodies followed, their dark eyes
still incredulous with death. Wasted ... all wasted! He had turned away, sick
at heart, long before the butchery was finished, trying to lose himself in the
infinite vista of ocean and sky. But there was no escape from the splash of
carcasses plunged back into the sea, too late, too late, or the savage lashing
of the water as the scavengers gathered, defiling the green-blue purity with
the ecstasy of their feeding. The Sea Mother in her pitiless wisdom wasted
nothing, and cursed the wantonness of those who did ....
“Sparks?”
Fate’s voice called him back; the sheltering city closed around him, keeping
him from the Lady’s curses, denying that they even existed at all.
“It was so
ugly—it was all wasted’ I couldn’t—” He shook his head. “But I’m going to do it
right this time. I can gut a dead mer, I’m not some superstitious Mother lover
any more.” Remembering the disdain of the Hounds, which had been all too plain
even without words; remembering Arienrhod’s soothing condescension as she set
free the devils of doubt and self-disgust he carried back with him to
Carbuncle. And then she had handed him the gilded vial of the water of life,
without comment.
“No, I
suppose you’re not, are you?” Again the regret. “Death is never an easy thing
to face. That’s why we all long to taste the water of life. And we take it for
ourselves because our own death is the hardest thing of all ... We do what we
think we have to.” She reached out, searched the air for his arm.
“Uh, not to
interrupt—” A stranger’s voice came at them over his shoulder. “Got a delivery
here.”
Sparks
turned, looking up with Fate at the two figures standing in the alley, one
drab, one inhuman—”You!”
The
faceless face of the servo Pollux regarded him with unchanging nothingness, but
Tor’s gray eyes registered along a scale from incomprehension to acute chagrin.
“Dawntreader?” She shifted from foot to foot. “Hey, uh ... Well, how’ve you
been, kid? Looks like you’ve done all right for yourself,” raising an eyebrow.
“I hardly recognized you.”
“No thanks
to you if I have.”
“Yeah, well
...” She glanced away self-consciously. “Hi, Fate. Got your new load of trims
together finally. You want Pollux to stack them for you?”
Fate began
to push her trays aside, clearing a path to the door. “I’ll show him where. I
didn’t know you were a friend of
Tor.”
“She
isn’t.”
the floating platform of containers. He watched Fate disappear inside, moving
easily into familiar surroundings, and Pollux after her. But he blocked Tor as
she tried to follow, with an arm across the doorway. “Uh-uh.” He backed her
around and up against the building wall. “Let’s talk.
About what
you did to me at the starlbaiting. About what you did with everything I owned,
after you cleaned me out.”
Tor pressed
back against the peeling paint, her eyes looking everywhere but at his face.
“Listen,
I’m really sorry about that, you know? I really hated sticking you like that, I
mean, you were so trusting ... and so stupid ... But I owed my life to Hardknot
over at the Sea and Stars; I lost part of the casino’s daily take I was
delivering up the line. If I didn’t pay it back shed’ve had it taken out of my
hide, you know what I mean? It was either you or me, rfrankly. And I figured
it’d teach you a lesson you needed, anyway.” She shrugged, beginning to recover
her nerve.
“What did
you do with my stuff?”
“Pawned it,
what do you think?”
He laughed
once. “How much did you get for it?” almost casualy.
“Birdseed,
what do you th—” Her voice choked off as his arm came up and across her throat,
pinning her against the wall again. “Ye gods!” She squirmed, trying to look
away from something in his eyes. “What’s gotten into you, kid?”
“I learned
your lesson.” He put more pressure against the arm, enjoying the expression on
her face. “And now you owe me, Tor, and I coulu take it out of your hide right
now.”
“You—you
wouldn’t do that?” He felt her swallow in sudden fright; her hands came up,
tightened over his arm. “What are you—”
“
doing!” Fate’s astonished voice.
He blinked
as the haze of his wounded pride cleared, and let Tor go. “You aren’t worth the
trouble.”
Tor sighed
noisily, feeling her throat with her hands. “Just—just a misunderstanding,
Fate. I’ll get you the money, kid. I mean, come payday—”
“Forget
it.” He turned away, feeling his face hot with anger and embarrassment,
wondering how much of it Fate could see. But something Tor had blurted in the
diarrhea of her excuses caught in his mind, at the root of his bad humor, and
he turned back again with calculated vengeance showing. “On the other hand—no,
don’t forget about it. You owe me. and I’m going to tell you how you can pay me
back. And there might even be something in it for you, if you play it right.”
He pulled out his credit card, and held it up to her face.
Tor looked
at it blankly, “Huh?” She reached for it, hesitant; he pulled it away.
“You’re a
runner for the Sea and Stars, you said. You must know plenty about who controls
what here in the Maze, you must hear a lot of interesting gossip around ... ?”
“Oh, no—I
don’t know anything, kid. I keep my ears closed.” She shook her head, shutting
her eyes against temptation. “I just run a few errands on the side, for a
little extra credit at the tables, that’s all.”
“Don’t give
me that.” He frowned. “But maybe you don’t know enough to find out the things I
want to know.” Inspiration struck him, blinding. “I know somebody who does, so
it doesn’t matter! You can get the information out of him. and I can’t. You’re
going to take care of it for me, take care of him. understand?”
“No.” She
shook her head cguin. “What the hell have you gotten into, anyway? What’re you
trying to get me into?”
“I work for
somebody too. somebody—up the line. Somebody who wants to know what the
opposition’s doing. And there’s a man named
luck. You’re going to pick him up and help him oat; and he’s going to be so
grateful he’s going to tell you anything you want to know.”
“Ha! I know
a Herne, a big spender, and if he’s down on his luck now he can rot. Him and
some of his buddies were drug ugly, and he tried to—” The word wouldn’t come
out; her hands tightened over the seal of her coveralls. “I had bruises in
places I wouldn’t show my own mother before Pollux pulled him of! me and
changed his mind.” She glanced past Fate’s silent witnessing at the phlegmatic
metal being in the doorway. “He may be a dumb machine, but he’s a damn sight
more of a man than the ones who program him.”
discomfiture. “He really must have been drugged out of his mind to pick on a—”
Tor’s face
reddened, her fists came up. “Listen. Summer, you don’t joke about a thing like
that with a Winter woman!”