The Snow Queen (80 page)

“Commander?”

She pulled
her eyes back to the space around her, expecting one more request or
verification. “Yes, I’m—Gundhalinu!” He saluted. His grin highlighted the
spectral gauntness of his face; his uniform hung on him like something borrowed
from a stranger.

“What the
hell are you doing out here? You shouldn’t be—”

“I came to
say good-bye, Commander.”

She broke
off, set down the computer remote on the makeshift desk of empty shipping
containers. “Oh.”

“KerlaTinde
told me—that you were resigning, that you’re going to stay on Tiamat?” He
sounded bewildered, as though he expected her to deny it.

“It’s
true.” She nodded. “I’m staying here.”

“Why? Your
reassignment? I heard about that, too.” His voice turned flat with anger.
“Nobody likes it, Commander.”

I can think of one or two who were overjoyed
. “Only partly because of that.” She
frowned through him at the idea of the force chewing gossip about her
resignation like old men in the town square. Having decided that it would be
useless to complain, she had kept her anger in; but there was no way she could keep
the fact of her humiliation from the others. And she had refused to discuss her
decision or her resignation with anyone—whether out of fear that they would try
to change her mind, or fear that they wouldn’t, she wasn’t sure.

“Why didn’t
you tell me?”

Her frown
faded. “Ye gods, BZ. You’ve had trouble enough without me giving you another
load.”

“Only half
the trouble I’d have had if you hadn’t covered for me, Commander.” The point of
his jaw sharpened with feeling. “I know if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t still
have the right to wear this uniform. I know how much it’s always meant to you
... a lot more than it ever meant to me, until now; because I never had to
fight for it. And now you’re giving it up.” He looked down. “If I could, I’d do
my damnedest to help you get this assignment changed. But I—” He was looking at
his hands. “I’m not my father’s son, any more. ‘Inspector Gundhalinu’ is all I
have left. I’m ten times as grateful to you that I still have that much.” He
looked up at her again. “But all I can do in return is ask you, Why here? Why
Tiamat? I don’t blame you for resigning—but hell, any world in the Hegemony is
better than this one, if you want to make a new life for yourself. At least if
you don’t like it you can leave it.”

She shook
her head, with a small, resolute smile. “I’m not a quitter, BZ. I wouldn’t be
doing this if I didn’t have something better I was going to. And I think I’ve
found it here, unlikely as that sounds.” She glanced up and away, toward the
line of high windows overlooking the field—the empty hall where Ngenet Miroe
kept unseen watch on the Hegemony’s departure, waiting for the moment when she
would become wholly and irrevocably a part of this world at last.

Gundhalinu
followed the line of her glance, puzzled. “You always hated this world, even
more than I did. What in the name of ten thousand gods could you have found—?”

“I’ll be
swearing by just one, now.” She shook her head. “And working for Her too, I
suppose.”

He looked
blank. Comprehension came back into his eyes: “You mean ... the Summer Queen?
You mean Moon ... you, and Moon?”

“That’s
right.” She nodded. “How did you know, BZ? That she’d won.”

“She came
to me, in the hospital; she told me.” The color faded from his voice. “I saw
the mask of the Summer Queen. It was like a dream.” His hands moved in the air,
touching something out of memory; his eyes closed. “She had Sparks with her.”

“BZ, are
you going to be all right?”

“She asked
me that, too.” He opened his eyes. “A man without armor is a defenseless man,
Commander.” He smiled, bravely, barely. “But maybe he’s a freer man for it.
This world ... this world would have broken me. But Moon showed me that even I
could bend. There’s more to me, more to the universe, than I suspected. Room
for all the dreams I ever had, and all the nightmares: heroes in the gutters
and in the mirror; saints in the frozen wasteland; fools and liars on the
throne of wisdom, and hands reaching out in hunger that will never be filled
.... Anything becomes possible, after you find the courage to admit that
nothing is certain.” His smile twitched self-consciously. Jerusha listened in
silent disbelief.

“Life used
to look like cut crystal to me, Commander—sharp and clear and perfect. My
fantasies stayed in my pockets where they belonged. But now ...” He shrugged.
“Those clean hard edges break up the light into rainbows, and everything gets
soft and hazy. I don’t know if I’ll ever see straight again.” A forlorn note
crept back into his voice.

But you’ll be a better Blue for it
. Jerusha saw his eyes search the
vastness of the sunken field, settle on the nearest exit, as though he expected
that somehow his new vision would grant him one last glimpse of Moon. “No, BZ.
She isn’t here. The star port is forbidden ground to her.”

His gaze
sharpened and cleared abruptly. “Yes, ma’am. I know the law.” But it told her
he understood now that even the laws of nature were imperfect; that the laws of
men were no less flawed than the men who made them; that even he could realize
what Moon was and what she, Jerusha, intended to help her do ... and look the
other way. “Maybe it’s for the best.” Not even believing that.

“I’ll do my
best to take care of her for you, BZ.”

He laughed
shyly, the echo of a caress. “I know, Commander. But what force in the galaxy is
stronger than she is?”

“Indifference.”
Jerusha surprised herself with the answer. “Indifference, Gundhalinu, is the
strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless.
Love and hate don’t stand a chance against it. It lets neglect and decay and
monstrous injustice go unchecked. It doesn’t act, it allows. And that’s what
gives it so much power.”

He nodded
slowly. “And maybe that’s why people want to trust Moon. Because things matter
to her, and they do; and when she touches them they know they matter to
themselves.” He held his hands up in front of him, stared at the scars still
waiting to be erased. “She made my scars invisible ...”

“You could
stay, BZ.”

He shook
his head, let his hands drop. “There was a time ... but not now. It wasn’t just
my life that was changed. I don’t belong here now. No,” he sighed, “there are
two worlds I don’t ever expect to see again, barring the Millennium. This one,
and my own.”

“Kharemough?”

He sat down
unsteadily on the stack of crates. “My own people will see my scars forever,
even when they’re gone. But what the hell, that still leaves six to choose
from. And who knows what I’ll find where I’m going?” But his gaze returned to
the empty exit, searching for the thing he would never find again.

“A distinguished
career.” She flicked a switch at her throat as her communicator began to buzz
again.

Gundhalinu
sat on the crates, patiently watching while the final cargo was loaded, the
final report given to her, the confirmation relayed to the heart of the looming
ship. They stood together as the last of her men saluted her for the last time
and self-consciously wished her well before heading back to the cargo lift.

Gundhalinu
nodded after them. “Aren’t you coming aboard to give your final report?”

She shook her
head, feeling her heart suddenly squeezed by a relentless hand, the moment of
schism. “No. I can’t face that. If I set foot on that ship now, I don’t think
I’d be able to leave it again, no matter how sure I was that this is right.”
She handed him the computer remote. “You can give them the all clear for me,
Inspector Gundhalinu. And take these.” She reached up to her collar again,
unfastened her Commander’s insignia. She handed them to him. “Don’t lose them.
You’ll need them someday.”

“Thank you,
Commander.” His freckles crimsoned, making her smile. His good hand closed over
the pieces of metal like rare treasure. “I hope I wear them with as much honor
as you did.” He held up his twisted hand in an instinctive Kharemoughi gesture;
she pressed her own against it in farewell.

“Good-bye,
BZ. The gods smile on you, wherever you go.”

“And on
you, Commander. May your many-times-great grandchildren venerate your memory.”

She glanced
toward the distant, darkened windows where Ngenet waited; smiled privately. She
wondered what those many-times-great grandchildren might say to his, on the day
of their return.

Gundhalinu
drew his healing body up with an effort, and made a perfect salute. She
returned it—the final salute of her career, the farewell to a life and a galaxy.

“Don’t
forget to turn out the lights.” He started away to where the other patrolmen
waited, already in the lift and holding it for him. She turned her back on the
sight of them, of the lift like an open mouth calling her, calling her insane
... She went as quickly as she could without running to the nearest exit from
the field.

She found
Ngenet watching the doorway for her as she entered the deserted auditorium. She
joined him at the wall of shielded glass, looking down across the field at the
inert mass of the solitary coin ship, alone in the vast, ruddy pit, as they
were alone. Miroe spoke quietly, complimenting her competence, asking innocuous
questions; his voice was hushed, as though he were experiencing a religious
event. She answered him distractedly, barely hearing what either of them said.

The ship
lay in its berth for a long time—made longer by her straining anticipation—and
she let him listen over her headset to the last drawing-in of cranes and
equipment, the ship’s officers going through their final checks and tallies.

“Are you
clear, Citizen PalaThion?”

Jerusha
started as the captain’s voice addressed her directly. “Yes. Yes, I’m clear.”
Citizen
.
An
irrational disappointment stirred in her. “All clear, Captain.”

“You’re
sure you want to stay behind here?”

Miroe
looked up at her, waiting.

She took a
deep breath, nodded ... said, as an afterthought, “Yes, I’m sure, Captain. But
thanks for asking.”

Life and
noise continued at the other end of the gap for a few seconds longer, and then
her communicator went dead. She stood very still for a long moment, as though
she had heard herself die, before she pulled off the delicate spider’s web of
the headset.

Below them
she saw the hologrammic lights of the ignition sequence play across the ship’s
hull and fade, mute warning. She stared until her eyes ached, searching for
motion.

“Look.
They’re lifting.”

Now she saw
the motion, too, saw the ship’s structure tremble—as the grids of the star port
repellers engaged and it began to rise—and the faint distortion of the air. It
drifted up and up, toward the portion of the star port protective dome opening
like a flower on the deeper, ruddy field of the star-choked night. It passed
through into the outer darkness where, somewhere far above, it would join
itself to a convoy of a dozen others, in a fleet of dozens and dozens more. And
from there their fusion drives would carry them on to the Black Gate and they
would pass through, and never in her lifetime would they come back to this
world again.

The dome resealed
far overhead, blotting out the stars.

Jerusha
looked down, across the glowing grid work of the field, down at herself
standing in this dark, empty hall, alone, like a castoff stick of furniture.
Oh, my gods
... She covered her face
with a hand, swaying.

“Jerusha.”
Miroe steadied her hesitantly. “I promise you, you won’t regret it.”

She nodded,
pressing her lips together. “I’m all right. Or I will be, when I catch my
breath.” She lowered her hand, tracing the seal of her jacket down. “Like any
other newborn.” She smiled at him, uncertainly; he fed her smile with his own
until it grew strong.

“You belong
here, on Tiamat. I knew it from the first time I met you. But I had to wait
until you knew it too .... I thought you’d never see.” He was suddenly embarrassed.

“Why didn’t
you say something, anything, to help me understand?” almost exasperation.

“I tried!
Gods, how I tried.” He shook his head. “But I was afraid to hear you tell me
no.”

“And I was
afraid I might say yes.” She looked out the window again. “But I’ve belonged to
this star port too. And so have you ...” She sighed, looking back. “Neither of
us belongs here now, Miroe. We’d better get out of here before they seal it up
like a tomb.”

He grinned,
easing. “That’s a step in the right direction. We’ll take the rest as it comes;
step by step.” He turned solemn again. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m as
ready as I’ll ever be, Miroe. For whatever comes.” She felt her excitement and
her courage coming back to her. “It’s going to be interesting.” She felt her
face warm as he touched her. “You know, Miroe—” she laughed suddenly, “among my
people, “May you live in interesting times’ is not exactly a benediction.”