The Snow Queen (45 page)

“The
Commander of Police chasing down strays in the outback? Since when?” amused.

“Well, I
was the only one they could spare.” She grinned ruefully, stretching the unused
muscles in her cheeks.

Laughter.
“Damn it, Jerusha, you know you don’t need an official excuse to come by here.
You’re welcome any time ... as a friend.”

“Thank
you.” She understood the qualification and was grateful for it. “It’s nice to
be singled out as a human being for a change, and not as a Blue.” She plucked
at her coat, suddenly embarrassed by it.
My shield, my armor.
What will I do when they take it away from me?
“I ... I tried to call you,
a couple of weeks ago. But you were gone.” It occurred to her suddenly to
wonder why he hadn’t returned the call.
Gods,
who could blame him, when I never returned any of his?

“I’m sorry,
I couldn’t—” He seemed to reach the same question, without finding an answer
either. “You’ve been—busy, I suppose.”

“Busy! Oh,
hell and devils, it’s been ... sheer hell, and devils.” She leaned against the
patrol craft pulled down the door and slammed it. “BZ is gone, Miroe. Dead.
Killed by bandits outside the city. And I just can’t ... I can’t stand it any
more.” Her head bowed in invisible bondage. “I don’t know how I’ll be able to stand
going back to Carbuncle again. When all I can think of is how much better it
would be for everyone, how glad everyone would be, if I never came back at all.
How much better it would be if I’d been the one who’d been lost.”

“By all the
gods, Jerusha—why didn’t you tell me?”

She turned
away from his outstretched hand, leaning on the hood, looking desperately out
to sea. “I didn’t come here to—to use you for a garbage can, damn it!”

“Of course
you did. What are friends for?” She heard his smile.

“I did not!”

“All right.
Then why not? Why not?” He pulled at her elbow.

“Don’t
touch me. Please, Miroe, don’t.” She felt his hand release her, felt her arm
still tingling with the contact. “I can handle it. I’ll be all right, I can
handle it alone.” Her control hung by a thread.

“And you
feel like dying is the way to do it?”

“No!” She
brought her fist down on the cold metal. “No. That’s why I had to get away ...
I had to find some other way.” She turned back, slowly, but with her eyes shut.

He was silent
for a moment, waiting. “Jerusha—I know the kind of screws they’ve been putting
to you, all this time. You can’t handle that kind of pressure by holding it all
back. You can’t do it alone.” Suddenly almost angry, “Why did you stop calling?
Why did you stop—answering? Didn’t you trust me?”

“Too much.”
She pressed her mouth together, stopping an absurd \ giggle. “Oh, gods. I trust
you too much! Look at me, I haven’t been > here five minutes and already
I’ve spilled my guts to you. Just seeing you breaks me down.” She shook her
head, keeping her eyes closed. ;: “You see. I can’t lean on you, without
becoming a cripple,”

“We’re all
cripples, Jerusha. We’re born crippled.”

Slowly she
opened her eyes. “Are we?”

He stood
with hands locked behind him, looking out toward the , sea. The wind stiffened,
whipping his raven-feather hair; she shrank down inside her heavy coat. “You
know the answer, or you wouldn’t ] have come. Let’s go up to the house.” He
looked back at her; she ] nodded.

She
followed him up the hill, making hesitant small talk about crops and weather,
letting all her resistance flow out of her and down to the sea. They passed the
creaking windmill that stood like a lonely sentinel over the outbuildings. He
used it to pump water from his well; it occurred to her again, as it had
occurred to her before, ; that it was an absurd anachronism on a plantation
that functioned ‘ on imported power units.

“Miroe,
I’ve always wondered why you use that thing to power your pump.”

He glanced
back at her, away at the windmill, said good-naturedly, “Well, you took away my
hovercraft, Jerusha. You can never tell when I might lose my generators.”

It was not
the answer she had been expecting, but she only shook her head. They reached
the main house, went in through the storm shuttered porch, into the room she
still remembered perfectly from the first time; and from the handful of stolen
evenings in the years since then that she had spent cross-legged before the
fire, wrapped in warmth and golden light, caught up in a game of 3D chama or
feeding Miroe’s quiet fascination with her reminiscences about another world.

She pulled
off her helmet, shook out her dark curls. She let her eyes wander over the
comfortable junk-shop homeliness of the room, where relics of his off worlder
ancestors, heirlooms by default, kept uneasy truce with rough-hewn native
furniture. Moving to the broad stone hearth she turned to face him, letting her
back begin to thaw. “You know, after all this time I feel like I haven’t even
been away. Funny, isn’t it, how some places are like that?”

He looked
up at her from halfway across the room; didn’t answer, but smiled. “Why don’t
you take your things upstairs? I’ll get us something to eat.”

She picked
up the shoulder bag she had hah filled with a change of clothing, climbed the
worn staircase to the second story. It was a large house ... filled with echoes
of children and laughter ... filled with memories. The banister under her hand
was worn smooth by the polishing of countless hands; but the halls, the rooms,
were empty and silent now. Only Miroe, the last of his line, alone. Alone even
among the Winters who worked for him here. She sensed the bond of trust and
respect that seemed to exist between them, a stronger bond than she would have
expected between owner and workers, natives and off worlder But there was
always an intangible field of reserve surrounding him, keeping him separate,
self-contained. She felt it, sometimes, striking sparks against her own.

She entered
the room she had always taken, threw her bag and her helmet down on the rumpled
bed, watched them sink into the comforters. The wooden-framed bed itself was as
hard as a board—was a board, for all she knew—but she had never lam awake here
for half the night, praying for sleep while her eyes burned a hole through her
lids in the dark ...

She
unfastened her coat, took it off, started toward the massive wardrobe with it.
Stopped, as her gaze landed on the eye-stunning chartreuse flightsuit lying in
a heap on the wardrobe’s floor. She hung her coat on a hook mechanically,
picked up the jump suit and held it against herself. Held it at arm’s length
again, studying the contours. Then, slowly, she took her coat back and hung the
flightsuit in its place.

She went
back to the bed, looked again at the rumpled covers; picked up the brush lying
on a stool at bedside, fingered the strands of long, fair hair. She put it down
again. She stood silently, suddenly in her mind seeing a small, solitary,
curly-haired child, in threadbare underpants and sandals, who crouched to watch
silvery wogs flit in a dying pool. The sunlight poured over her like hot honey,
suffocating all sound, and the stone-studded, blistered moraine of the dry
riverbed stretched away forever ...

Jerusha
took back her helmet and her bag from the bed, and went quickly down the
stairs.

“Jerusha?”
Miroe straightened away from the low planked table near the fire, frowning his
lack of comprehension. “I thought you were—”

“You didn’t
tell me you had—other guests.” The word took on meanings she hadn’t intended.
“I won’t stay.”

His face
changed, like the face of a man who had just been caught in a terrible
oversight. Her own face seemed to have froZen to death.

He said
quietly, “Aren’t you ever off duty?”

“Your
morals are no all—concern of mine, even on duty.”

“What?”
Another expression entirely. “You mean-Is that what you thought?” His relief
burst out in deep laughter. “I thought you were looking for smugglers!”

Her mouth
opened.

“Jerusha.”
He picked his way across the cluttered room to her. “Ye gods, I didn’t mean it
like that. It isn’t what you think; she’s only a friend. Not a romance. She’s
young enough to be my daughter. She’s out on a boat right now.”

Jerusha
looked away, down, “I didn’t want to—intrude.”

He cleared
his throat. “I’m not a plastic effigy, gods know—” He picked up a flabby, faded
cushion, put it down.

“I didn’t
expect you were.” She knew she was saying it badly.

“I ... you
said once that I wasn’t a stupid man. But in all this time, all the visits
you’ve made here, I never realized ...” his hand rose to touch her in a way he
had never touched her, “... that you wanted something more.”

“I didn’t
want you to.” Didn’t want to admit it, even to myself. She tried to move, tried
to step away from his hand, tried, tried-trembling like a wild bird.

He took his
hand away. “Is there someone else? In the city, back on your world, another—”

“No,” her
face burning. “Never.”

“Never?” He
held a long breath. “Never? ... No one has ever touched you like this—” along
the nape of her neck, her earlobe, the line of her jaw “—or like this—” tracing
the seal of her tunic down over her breast “—or done this—” slowly surrounding
her with his arms, tightening her against him until she felt the lines of his
body melt into hers, and his mouth was on her mouth like nectar.

Murmuring,
“Yes ... now ...” as his kiss released her. She found his lips again,
demanding.

“Beg your
pardon, sir!”

Jerusha
gasped, breaking his hold in reflex; saw the ancient cook with back turned to
them in the doorway.

“What is
it?” Miroe’s voice was frayed around the edges.

“Midday,
sir. Midday meal is ready ... but it’ll keep until you are, sir.” Jerusha heard
the knowing smile as the cook shuffled back into the pantry.

Miroe sighed
heavily, his face trying to smile and frown but only managing to look
aggrieved. He reached for her hand, but she slipped it through his fingers
before they closed. He looked at her, she saw his surprise.

“You asked
the question eloquently.” Her own smile wavered with the static of her
emotions. “But you should have asked it another time, Miroe.” She shook her
head, pressing her hands to her lips for a moment. “It’s too close to the end
for me now ... or not close enough.”

“I
understand.” He nodded, suddenly noncommital; as though the moment that had
just been between them, the moment she had waited so long for, meant nothing to
him.

Disappointment
and sudden shame pinched her chest.
Is
that all it would have meant to you?
“I’d better be getting back to the
city.”
So you can tell your
Winter
doxies how you almost had the Commander of Police for
lunch.

“You don’t
have to go. We can—pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Maybe you
can. But I can’t pretend, any more. Reality is too loud.” She pulled on her
coat, began a crooked course to the door.

“Jerusha.
Will you be all right?” The concern caught at her.

She
stopped, turned back, under control. “Yes. Even a day outside Carbuncle is like
a transfusion. Maybe ... will I see you again, at the Festival—before the final
departure?” She hated herself for asking when he would not.

“No, I
don’t think so. I think this is one Festival I want to miss. And I’m not
leaving Tiamat; this is my home.”

“Of
course.” She felt an artificial smile starting again, like a muscle cramp.
“Well, maybe I’ll—call, before I go.”
Go
to pieces, go to
hell ...

“I’ll walk
you out.”

“Don’t
bother.” She shook her head, settled her helmet on, pulling the strap down
under her chin. “No need.” She opened the dark, iron hinged door and went out,
putting it between them as quickly as she could.

She was
halfway down the hill when she heard him calling her name. She looked back to
see him come running down the slope after her. She stopped, her hands making
awkward fists inside her gloves. “Yes?”

“There’s a
storm coming.”

“No there
isn’t. I checked the weather bulletin before I left Carbuncle.”

“The hell
with the forecasts; if those bastards would get off their simulators and look
up at the sky—” He swept a hand from horizon to zenith. “It’ll be here by
daybreak tomorrow.”

She looked
up, seeing nothing but scattered clouds, a pallid double sundog haloing the
eclipsing Twins. “Don’t worry. I’ll be home by dark.”

“It’s not
you I’m worried about.” His eyes were still on the northward horizon.

“Oh.” She
felt her face lose all expression.

“The girl
who’s staying here, she’s up the coast in a small boat.

She’s not
due back before late tomorrow.” He faced her grimly. “I’ve fished her out of
the sea half-frozen once already. I might not be so lucky again. I’ll never reach
her in time, unless—”