The Snow Queen (27 page)
Authors: Joan D. Vinge
His grin
fell away abruptly. “By “r—by the gods, that’s not what I meant! If it’s the
same
you’ve got nothing to worry about. He won’t give you any trouble this time.
You’ll find him near the Parallax View. I’]] pay the expenses, and make it
worth your while; just make sure that he never knows why you’re doing it. Don’t
ever mention me.” He lowered his voice, turning away from Fate. “If I
don’t get
what I want, you’ll regret it, and even Pollux won’t be enough to keep you
safe.”
Tor’s pallid
face turned paler; he felt a brief surprise as he realized that she believed
him. “Meet me back here at the same time in—one week.”
“Yeah,
sure,” she said weakly, and oozed out from behind the barricade of his body.
“Come on, Pollux, let’s go.”
“Whatever
you say, Tor.” He stepped down off the porch and followed her away. She hit him
spitefully on the chest, went on down the alley rubbing her hand.
“Shut up,
you damn junk pile; I’m going to trade you in on a dog’
Fate was
sitting again, decorating the naked, gaping mask form as though it were the
only reality in the universe. She did not speak to him, or look up with any of
her eyes.
her withdrawing from him—as though she too were setting herself apart from him;
or as though he had done it for her.
“You said
I’d find a way to solve the problem. And I’ve done it.”
“Yes. I
suppose you have.” She picked up a piece of satin cloth.
“I thought
you didn’t make moral judgments.”
“I try not
to. We all choose our own paths to hell. But some of the choices are easier to
watch than others ... I don’t like to watch my friends being hurt.”
“I just
said that. I wouldn’t hurt her.” But he knew that just for a moment he had been
inches from it. And that was the moment that Fate had seen.
“
“Today’s
word is tomorrow’s deed,”“ she quoted softly. “And I consider you my friend,
too.”
“Still?”
“Yes,
still.” She looked up at him, but without smiling. “Take care. Sparks. Life
isn’t woven from a single thread, you know.”
“All
right.” He shrugged, not really understanding. “I’ll see you again, Fate.”
She smiled
at last, but it wasn’t the smile he had been waiting for. “
“In one
week, at this same time.”
“
“
“Scuse me.
buddy, have you seen a guy called H-Hcrne?” Tor broke off as the derelict’s
face looked up at her, glaring with the use less hatred of a chained animal,
and she realized that she had seen it before. Gaunt and bearded, it was still
the same face: a dark off worlder face, a too-handsome face with eyes that were
long lashed and beautiful and as cold as death. She stood for a moment staring
down, pinched between the vise-fingers of the present and the past. This was
Herne, the same
whose eyes looking at her once had not seen a human being but a thing.
But there
was no sign of recognition when he looked up at her now, no acknowledgment of
the irony of their reunion. She backed up a step from the stink of him, his
filthy coveralls, remembering the richness of his clothes the last time. Maybe
the drugs had gotten the last laugh on him after all ... She almost smiled.
There were a half-empty bottle and a dented can with a handful of coins in it
sitting on the box beside him. As she came along the alley she had seen a Blue
lieutenant with incongruous pink freckles give him a citation for begging. But
the truculent expectation faded from his face as her question registered; he
inventoried her, and Pollux with her, in a quick, expressionless glance. “Maybe
I know a
Can’t seem to remember.” His hand closed significantly around the can. “Why?”
She dug
into a pocket, tossed her loose change into the can. “I hear he’s down on his
luck. Maybe I want to change it.”
“You?” He
took a swig from the bottle, wiped his hand across his mouth. “Again, why?”
“That’s
between him and me.” She folded her arms, almost beginning to enjoy the game.
“So where is he?”
“I’m
“You?” She
echoed his incredulity; laughed, going it one better. “Prove it.”
“You
bitch!”
She leaped
back from the memory of his brutal strength; but he only swayed forward on the
box, would have fallen off it if Pollux had not put out a rigid hand to push
him upright again. Tor stood staring, still beyond his reach, while she tried
to assess what she had just seen. “So that’s what he meant. You’re a cripple!”
His mouth
twisted. “Who? Who sent you here?”
“Nobody
important.” She shrugged awkwardly. “I’m the one that wants to see you, Herne.
I’m the one you better worry about.” She leaned against Pollux, ran a hand
along the cool metal of his shoulder, smiling. “What do you figure you’d do to
me, if our positions were reversed ... ?”
Startled
doubt tightened the muscles in his cheek. He studied her again, and Pollux. For
a moment she thought she saw recognition; or maybe it was only the fear of
recognition. How many enemies did a man like that have in a place like this ...
how many real friends did he have in the whole universe?
“Do what you want, I don’t give a fuck.” He took another drink from the bottle.
“No.” She
shook her head, remembering Dawntreader and her own troubles with something
nearing empathy. “Just asking. So how’s business?” She peered into the can.
“Slow.” She
felt him refusing to ask her her own business; a subtle tension filled the half
of his body that still responded. Patrons from the Parallax View passed them by
with averted eyes.
“You’ve
come a long way down, since the last time we met.”
He didn’t
remember. She was certain now, not sure if she was glad or sorry. “I’ve begged
before; it never killed me.”
She shifted
her weight against Pollux, looked him over slowly. “I think it might, this
time.”
He glanced
up, down again; didn’t answer.
“I hear you
really knew your way around the Maze before your-uh, accident.” She wondered
what or who had done this to him. “I hear you really know which way the power
flows, off world and on. Well, that’s worth something to me.”
“Why?”
sharply.
“What’s it
to you?” She countered, not sure what reason was going to come off her tongue
that wasn’t the truth. “You ask a lot of questions for a beggar.”
“I want to
know why a Winter would want to know. There’s only one Winter—” He frowned.
“There’s
thousands of us, and we’re just as interested in making it big as your are,
foreigner.” She unfastened a pocket and pulled out her credit card, held it up
in front of him as
want to get my slice before all of you go off world and take the cake with
you.” She felt a dim surprise that the words made sense to her.
He nodded,
noncommittal, as though they even made sense to him. “You said it’s worth
something. How much?” He squinted at the card face.
“I don’t
have much ... but it’s more than you’ve got. You even got a place to stay?”
A single
shake of his greasy, unkempt head.
She swore.
“That’s what I figured. You can stay at my place, for now. You need somebody
around to feed you and clean up after you anyhow.”
“I need
money, not somebody to wipe my goddamn nose! Don’t waste my time.” He reached
over his shoulder and scratched, grimacing.
She watched
him scratch. “It’s a wonder anybody gets close enough to put anything in that,”
she gestured at the can. “What are you going to do when your clothes crawl
right off your back some night?”
“You want
to take ‘em off tonight, instead, sweetheart?” He leered.
Her mouth
thinned; she forced it back into a smile. “You’re not my type, cripple. Pollux
here does all my dirty work for me. He’s used to dragging around dead weights.”
“Whatever
you say, Tor,” Pollux droned benignly. There was an indefinable suggestion of
approval in the toneless voice. She stood away from him again, a little
uneasily. Sometimes it was hard to remember that he was nothing but a
predictably programmed loading device.
“You can have food and shelter as long as you’re worth it to me, Herne.
Take it or leave it.” Take it or leave it,
you bastard. I’m screwed either way.
“I can’t
keep up with what’s happening unless I get to circulate. I need money for that,
I need a way to—”
“You’ll get
what you need—as long as I do.”
As long as Dawn treader keeps his bargain with us.
He leaned
back, with a smile that was something ugly on his handsome face. “Then you’ve
got yourself an advisor, sweetheart.” He stretched his arms, carefully.
“I’ve got
myself a big pain in the ass.” She picked up his battered can and emptied the
coins out into her hand. “All right, Polly, cart him home.”
The
limitless absence of light and life wrapped Moon’s senses in a smothering
shroud, deprived her of all sensation. Falling into a bottomless well, she knew
herself for the last feeble spark of life in a universe where Death reigned
undisputed ... the consort of Death, whose intangible embrace sapped her of
strength and sanity. She had come into this place outside life, searching for
her lost love, by a gate she had passed through many times; but this time she
had lost her way, and there was no one to answer her cries, no ear to hear
them, no voice to carry ...
Let me go
home ...
“Let me go
home!” Moon sat up in bed, her voice beating back at her from the tight walls
of the tiny room.
“Moon,
Moon—it’s only a nightmare. You’re safe with us now. Safe.” Elsevier’s arms
were around her, gentling her, as Gran had comforted a child in the night; so
long ago, so long ago ...
The room
filled her wet blinking eyes with painful artificial day; the threedy set into
the wall fountained noise and motion—just as they had before she slipped down
into uncertain sleep. Since the ordeal of the Black Gate, she could not stay in
a darkened room. She swallowed a knot of aching grief, rested her head against
Elsevier’s soft-robed shoulder, feeling the cool movement of air over the back
of her own clammy nightshirt. The world slowly congealed around her, reaffirming
her place in it; her heart stopped trying to tear itself out of her chest. She
found herself listening for the sound of the sea.
“It’s all
right. I’m all right now.” Her voice still sounded thin and unconvincing ...
the nightmare loss of strength and control had become a part of her waking
existence. She sat up again, away from Elsevier’s reassuring presence, pulling
strands of damp hair back behind her ears. “I’m sorry I woke you again. Elsie.
I just can’t—” She broke off, ashamed of her helplessness, rubbing miserably at
her eyes. They burned as though they were full of windblown sand. It was the
third night in a row that her haunted dreams had carried through the thin
partitions of the apartment. She saw weariness and worry settling deeper into
the lines of Elsevier’s face as each day passed. “It’s stupid.” Her hands
clenched. “I’m sorry, keeping you up all night with my stupid—”
“No, Moon,
dear.” Elsevier shook her head; the tenderness in the indigo eyes silenced Moon
with surprise. “Don’t apologize to me. Nothing you could do would bother me.
I’m the one who should be begging your pardon instead; it’s my fault that you
have these dreams, my fault that you can’t wear your trefoil—” She glanced
across the room at the sibyl sign lying alone on the single chest of drawers.
“If I could take your fear on myself I’d do it gladly; it would be small
penance for the wrong I’ve done you.” She looked away, her fingers massaging
her arms.
“It wasn’t
your fault. It was my fault; I wasn’t strong enough to be a sibyl.” Moon
tightened her jaws until her teeth hurt. Her fault that she had come through
the Black Gate and out of her Transfer a stranger, haunted by a split reality.
By the time they had reached Kharemough she had functioned again, was almost
human again; but still, when she closed her eyes and left her mind unguarded
...
She had
worn her trefoil freely here in the orbiting spaceport city, gratified when
total strangers from worlds she had never heard of acknowledged her with smiles
and obeisances. But then a man had come up to her and asked her to answer a
question. She had turned away from him in sick tenor and refused—rejused.
Elsevier had driven him away; but she had known in that moment that she would
never be able to answer another question ... “I’ll—I’ll be all right when I get
home, to Tiamat.” Where the sky at night was on fire with suns—not this black
and bitter nothingness which consumed even the life force of a star, where even
the stars were shrunken and icy and hopelessly alone. Where the only thing that
mattered to her as much as the thing she had destroyed coming here still waited
to be done, and the one person who would understand what it meant to lose her
life’s desire.
had to find him. “How much longer—?” She had tried not to ask the question in
the time they had spent here, afraid to; wanting to ask it every day, every
hour.