The Snow Queen Part 10

"Are you ... ?" He tried to imagine what relation they could be, who were so alike in every feature. "Moon's aunt? Her father'sa""

She shook her head; a creamy strand of hair came loose and uncoiled along her neck. "Moon has no father ... any more. And we don't have her any more, you and I. I never even had the chance to meet her, but she was as important, as precious to me as she was to you. Perhaps even more so. I had hoped, in time, that we could have her with us here in the city." Her eyes left him, moving restlessly over the ornate, cluttered table along the wall.

"She wouldn't have come." His voice went flat. "Not after she was a sibyl."

"You think not? Not even for you?" The hand still rested sympathetically on his arm.

He sighed. "I wasn't ever as important to her as being a sibyl was. But why didn't you tell me about a" her, and you, and a" and us?" Somehow he was no longer speaking to the Queen, but to the one person who understood his own loss.

"I would have told you. I am telling you now. But I wanted to know what sort of lover my ... kinswoman would choose over all the rest. I wanted to know you for myself first. And I approve of her choice, very much." The hand squeezed lightly, left his arm again; she brushed irritably at the loose strand of her hair, only setting more free. He had never seen her like this, weary and distraught and disappointed. So very human, so much like he was ... so much like Moon.

"I'll never know Moon now, Sparks. I only have you to tell me about her, to remind me of her. Tell me what you remember most clearly, and feel the most deeply about her. What things did she love a" what things about her did you love more than all the rest? Tell me how much you loved her..."

The night of firelight and wind came back to him, overlaid by a thousand more images of Moon: the child whirling with arms outflung on the s.h.i.+ning beach; the m.u.f.fled girl hauling in a netful of coppery fish beside him on an icy deck; and again the lover, whispering soft words, warm against his heart. "I can't. I can't tell you about her ..." His voice fell apart. "Not if she's gone."

"She is gone, Sparks." Arienrhod pulled the diadem from her hair, shook it free like a fall of water, down over her shoulders and her back, over the muted cloud-colors of her simple robe. "But you haven't lost her. Not if you don't want to." She leaned forward. "We are very alike, aren't we a" she and I?"

He stared at her, at the fall of ivory hair, the slender girlish body and the soft stuff of the robe drawn tight across her small, high b.r.e.a.s.t.s ... the lips, the moss-agate eyes that asked the question, her face that was the answer: "Yes."

"Then let me be Moon for you." Her fingertips lifted a strand of his own hair in a hauntingly familiar gesture; he felt the pulse begin to beat in his temple. Inside his head he heard the voice of the Sea; but whether it blessed him or cursed him he did not know, or care, any more. He was on fire, and not even the Sea could quench the flame of his need. He reached out, touching her for the first time, let his hand fall along her bared shoulder down the cool, curving surfaces of her arm.

She leaned eagerly into his caress, drew him down onto the bed beside her, guiding his hands. "Show me how much you loved her..."

Sparks lay with his eyes closed, absorbing the messages that reached him through his other senses a" senses heightened by the grateful heaviness of his weary body. He inhaled the warm, musky scent of Arienrhod's presence beside him, felt the soft pressure of her body contoured against his own. There was no smell of the sea about her, but instead a fragrance of imported perfumes. And yet he felt the Sea's presence in her: she who was the Lady incarnate, robed in foam, seabirds flying from her hair, with lips like sunrise, like blood ... who had lain waiting for him for centuries. He listened to the rhythm of her quiet breathing, opened his eyes to look over at her face. Her own eyes were closed; smiling in half-sleep as she lay beside him, she could even be the one he had named her at the moment when he lost control...

Amazement touched him with a tingling hand as he realized again that he lay beside the Queen of Winter. But a profound tenderness filled him, he ached to give her the love, the loyalty, the life that he had pledged to her lost other ness "Arienhrod ..." He breathed the unfamiliar name against her ear. "Arienrhod. I want to be the only one with you."

She opened her eyes then, regarded him with gentle censure. "No. No, my love."

"Why not?" His arms closed her in, possessively. "I was the only one for Moon. Let me be the only one with you. I'm not just another fish in the net; I don't want to share you with a hundred others."

"But you must share me, Sparks. I am the Queen, the power. No one puts limits on me, no one commands me a" I won't allow it, because it weakens my control. There will never be an only one, man or woman. Because I am the Only One. But there will never be an other one like you..." She kissed him softly on the forehead, her fingers closing over the off world medal resting on his chest. "My star child He s.h.i.+vered.

"What's wrong?"

"She used to call me that." He pushed up onto an elbow, looking down at her as she lay back smiling, caught outside of time. "If I can't be the only one, then I want to be the only one who counts." He saw in his mind the mocking figure dressed in black who stood always at the Queen's right hand, who baited him and bullied him at every private opportunity, with an evil enjoyment rooted in bitter jealousy. "I want to challenge Starbuck."

"Starbuck?" Arienrhod blinked at him with honest surprise, before she began to laugh. "My love, you're too new here to realize what you're saying a" and you're far too young and alive to throw away everything. Because that is what you'd be doing, if you challenged Starbuck. I'm flattered by the gesture, but I forbid it. Believe me when I tell you that he counts for nothing in my heart. Since the first Festival night, when I put on the mask of the Winter Queen so long ago ..." her eyes changed, and she was no longer seeing him, "there has been no one in my bed, or in my life, who made me long for the time when I was only Arienrhod, and lived in a world that was ignorant but free; when wishes and dreams meant something, because they weren't always realized. You make me dream of lost innocence ... you make me dream. There is no need for you to do, or be, anything more to make me love you-and want to keep you from harm. Starbuck could kill you with any weapon you could choose, including bare hands. And besides, Starbuck must be an off worlder he must have have the knowledge and the contacts among his own kind to help me keep them at bay."

"I'm enough of an off worlder. He held out the medal, let it spin on its chain in the air above her. "And enough a part of this world to hate them like you do. I've listened and watched; I've learned a lot about the court, and the city too, how the off worlders use it. Anything I didn't know you could teach me..." He smiled, a smile that Moon would not have understood. "And I know the one thing I really need to know, even if you don't believe it a" how I can challenge Starbuck and win." He stopped smiling.

Arienrhod studied him silently; he felt her measure and weigh with her eyes. He thought a shadow pa.s.sed across her face, before she nodded. "Challenge him, then. But if you do, and fail, I'll call you a vain little braggart and make love to him on your grave." She caught the winking pendant and drew him down on top of her.

"I won't fail." He found her lips again, hungrily. "And if I can't be your only lover, I'll be the best."

Chapter 15.

This was the morning of the day. Starbuck prepared himself slowly, deliberately, in the innermost room of his private suite; rea.s.suring himself with each precise movement and small decision that his control was absolute. He wore the utilitarian coveralls of his hunting clothes instead of the funereal foppery of his court clothing, for comfort and ease of movement. He pushed the black leather gloves down over each finger, settled the hooded helmet onto his head. It entered his mind that this might be the last time he would wear the mask, or perform this ritual, and his muscles tightened. He brushed the thought aside disdainfully a" the way he would brush aside Sparks Dawntreader.

So that wet-eared Mother lover thought he could be Starbuck, had even gotten up the nerve to issue a challenge a" and Arienrhod had accepted it. It would have smarted that shed done this to him, except that the contest was such an absurd mismatch he couldn't believe she took it seriously. She wouldn't let an ignorant punk from the outback with a p.a.w.nshop medal claim to be an off worlder unless she knew there was no chance in h.e.l.l of his winning the contest.

No, she just wanted amus.e.m.e.nt; it was like her to come up with this. She hadn't been the same since shed gotten the news about Dawntreader's cousin: moody and spiteful, even harder to live with than usual. He wouldn't have believed there was anything on this world that could pierce the armor of her supreme egotism or shake her unshakable arrogance. What had the girl been to her, that Arienrhod had had her watched all those years? He'd give a lot to know what made Arienrhod vulnerable...

He knew already what the boy had been to her a" that shed finally gotten the elusive quarry bedded, after the longest pursuit he'd ever known her to need. The kid was either crazy or he'd played the reluctant innocent on purpose: It could have been either one, and either way it had worked too well. Arienrhod's face when she watched the boy had driven him to private fury, with a jealousy he'd never known toward any of her lovers in the past.

But none of that mattered now. It had been a waste of time to sweat over it; she was already bored with him. Once the excitement of the chase was gone and the unattainable object was just another lousy lay, it figured that shed decide to get rid of this one like all the rest. That made sense. That fitted the Arienrhod he had always known. She would be his again, she would come back to him as she had always done; because he knew what she wanted, in everything, and he could give it to her.

And it was going to be a pleasure to take care of this next piece of business for her, by killing that troublesome little son of a b.i.t.c.h. Arienrhod had granted the boy choice of weapons; that didn't bother him either, because he was good with any weapon, and the kid was a flute-playing sissy. It was almost beneath his dignity ... but he planned to enjoy it anyway.

Starbuck studied himself in the long mirror and was pleased with the effect. He strapped on his weapons belt and left his chambers, heading for the Hall of the Winds, where Arienrhod had ordered them to meet. That had surprised him, but he hadn't questioned it. The n.o.bility and servants he pa.s.sed in the halls gave him a wide berth, stealing fleeting, nervous glances. (Even the n.o.bility always treated him respectfully, to his face, pampered highborn weaklings that they were.) They all knew that there had been a challenge, and that this was the day, although none would ever know who the challenger was ... or the outcome, although everyone would guess.

What weapon would the kid try? he wondered. An electric eagerness tingled in his hands; he flexed them. The challenges were the kind of thing no respectable Winter liked to admit still existed anywhere in their half of the world: something left over from the dim dark times before the Hegemony had brought enlightenment back to this lost world; a time when the Queen was the actual Sea Mother in her people's eyes, and men fought for her divine favors just as they did now. The fact that it was a vestige of an uncivilized age did not bother him. He enjoyed testing himself against other men, proving to the world a" to Arienrhod, to himself a" every time he won that he was a better man than the ones who tried to bring him down. Not just the strongest, but the smartest, too. That was why he'd always won, and why he always would. Even if he had been born Uncla.s.sified on Kharemough, with the whole world on his back making him eat s.h.i.+t, he'd fought his way out of that sewer, and into a position of power the best-educated technocrat on Kharemough could not match. He had everything they had, and more a" he had the water of life. How many of them squandered their lives' fortunes to erase a day from every week, or month, that they aged? He drank from the fountain of youth every day a" it came with the job. As long as he gave Arienrhod what she wanted, he would have everything he wanted, and he would never have to grow old. And as long as he stayed in his prime no challenger would ever take that away from him.

He reached the audience hall. It was empty now, vast and still, as though it held its breath. He started across it, and his pa.s.sage did nothing to disturb the stillness. He wondered what it would be like to hold power for one hundred and fifty years, as Arienrhod had. What would it be like just to be alive for that long; to have seen the return of the off worlders and the rebirth of Winter a" to watch civilization reborn, and to have your pick of its pleasures? He would like to know how a man a" or a woman a" would feel after all that; and he wondered whether if he'd lived that long he might have begun to understand the involutions of Arienhrod's mind.

He'd lost count long ago of the women he'd known, from highborn tech to slave; he'd hated some of them and used most of them and respected one or two, but he'd never loved even one of them. Nothing had given him any evidence that love was anything but a four-letter word. Only weaklings and losers believed in love or G.o.ds...

But he had never experienced anything like Arienrhod. She was not so much a woman as an elemental; her magnetism was created of all the things he found desirable. She had made him an unwilling believer in his own vulnerability; and that had made him half-willing to believe in the power of strange G.o.ds, too ... or strange G.o.ddesses. And he wouldn't have one hundred and fifty years of youth and pleasure, one hundred and fifty years to work at unraveling her mysteries, even if he wanted to. He had only five years before he would have to leave this world forever a" or die. In five years it would all end at the Change, and Arienrhod would die ... and he would die with her, unless he cleared out in time. He loved her, and he had never loved anyone except himself in all his life. But he didn't think he loved her more than life.

She stood waiting for him on the platform as he entered the Hall of the Winds; the pit groaned and sighed its eager greeting at her back. Stray tendrils of wind lifted her milk-white hair, let it fall free over the enfolding whiteness of her ceremonial cape. The cape was made from the down of arctic birds, flecked with silver, the softness of clouds ... he remembered the feel of it against his skin. She had worn it six times, at each of his previous challenges; she had worn it the first time, when he had been the challenger.

The Hounds stood off to the left, their skins glistening, their inner eyelids lying across their nacreous, expressionless eyes. They were here to pledge service to the winner a" and to dispose silently of the loser's corpse. In ten years he had never fathomed their endless droning dialogues, or cared that he hadn't. He didn't know whether they had any s.e.x lives, or even any s.e.x. Their intelligence was supposed to be subhuman, but how the h.e.l.l could you judge an alien mind? They were used on some worlds as slaves; but so were human beings. He wondered briefly what they were thinking as they turned to watch him; wondered if they ever thought about anything a man could relate to, besides killing.

He made his formal bows, to Arienrhod, to the boy. "I've come. Name your weapon." It was the first time that the naming had not been his to say. Arienrhod's eyes touched him as he spoke the ritual words; but there was no rea.s.surance in her glance, only a reaffirmation of the coldness that had grown in her since the boy's arrival. Then was she really still infatuated with that Summer b.a.s.t.a.r.d? Did she really believe that he had a chance?

Starbuck kneaded one fist inside the other, suddenly thrown off balance. d.a.m.n her, she wasn't going to get away with it! He was going to kill that kid, and then shed have him back in her bed again whether she wanted him or not! He struggled to force his rising, murderous anger into a straitjacket of concentration. "Well, what's your choice?"

"The wind." Sparks Dawntreader smiled tightly, and swept his hand around, pointing. "We stand on the bridge there a" and whoever controls the winds better will still be there when it's finished." He took his flute slowly from his belt pouch, and held it out.

Starbuck's voice caught on a single barb of startled laughter. So the kid had imagination to match his gall ... and his stupidity. The n.o.bles with their whistles could hold a quiet s.p.a.ce of air around themselves while they crossed over the pit, but they couldn't manipulate two s.p.a.ces at once. With his own control box, he could produce the chords and overtones that would keep him protected and still attack. If the kid thought that he was better equipped than a n.o.ble, with that sh.e.l.l flute of his, then he was in for the biggest surprise of his life a" and the last.

Arienrhod moved back, her cape billowing like mist, like the translucent wind panels above the bridge, left the two of them alone facing one another. "May the best man win." Her voice was expressionless.

Without waiting for Sparks to move first, Starbuck walked past him and onto the bridge. He crossed it almost carelessly, his fingers pressing the singing sequence of b.u.t.tons at his belt. Once the wind licked him and his breath caught, but he was sure no one had noticed. He stopped at last, more than halfway along the span, and turned; stood waiting with one hand on his hip and the other at his belt. He had never stood still above the abyss before; the groaning entrails of the city machinery seemed infinite beneath him, and the span on which he stood far too frail. He pressed the piercing tone b.u.t.tons automatically, ma.s.saged by the fluctuations of the pressure cell around him, very carefully not looking down.

Sparks lifted his flute to his lips and stepped out onto the bridge; the fluid purity of the notes reached Starbuck clearly. He saw with some surprise that it actually worked a" the music wrapped the kid like a spell, he moved in quiet air, the blaze of his hair and the green silk of his s.h.i.+rt unruffled. He must have spent a lot of time a.n.a.lyzing this place. Not that it was going to do him any good.

Starbuck pressed a second b.u.t.ton when the boy was barely out past the brink. The bellying translucent panels s.h.i.+fted in the air; wind swept up from an unexpected quarter and struck like a snake at the boy's back. He staggered and went down on one knee at the lipless edge of the walkway; but his fingers never released the flute, and he countered the cross draft deftly, throwing himself back onto his feet in the center of the path. He came on, sudden ruthless anger in his face; a rush of shrill notes danced ahead of him, guarding his advance, blurring the sounds of Starbuck's own feint and parry.

Starbuck stumbled, barely managing to keep his feet as the wind struck him hard across the face. His eyes watered; he blinked frantically, trying to see when he should have been listening. The wind caught him from behind and knocked him down. On hands and knees he found the controls again, stabilized his s.p.a.ce of air with desperate skill as he climbed to his feet. The wind panels cracked and rattled as Sparks attacked again, grinning now with mirthless concentration. It staggered him, but he managed to counter, notes clas.h.i.+ng in the air; realizing at last that the contest was not going to be one-sided ... at least not in the way he had imagined. He had never paid enough attention to the boy's music to realize his virtuosity with that d.a.m.ned piece of sh.e.l.l. He could produce overtones with it, and his fingers were so quick that the notes came close to being chords a" close enough. And the boy was playing this game as though he had prepared for the match with all the skill of his musician's ear and his would-be technician's mind.

But it was a game of death, and out of all the skills he, Starbuck, had that the boy could have chosen, manipulating the winds was the least exercised. He began to sweat; for the first time in longer than he could remember, he began to feel afraid for his own life. The wind batted him again when he thought he was safe. He struck back viciously, sending the wind in from three different quarters, heard the boy's shout of surprise as one arm of it caught him unawares and sent him reeling forward. But he stayed on the bridge and recovered his equilibrium before another sweep could finish him.

Starbuck swore under his breath. There were too many options, there was no way to predict what effect the mixing of their separate tone commands would have, even if they could outguess each other. He crouched low, started back toward Sparks across the bridge; concentrating grimly on keeping himself protected instead of on attacking. The closer they were to one another, the less the kid could afford to threaten his own stability by s.h.i.+fting the winds around them. If he could just get his hands on that flute and crush it, then he could still finish thisA clout of cold force knocked him flat; he sprawled sideways, flailing desperately as his feet went off one edge and head and shoulders slid out over the other. For an endless moment he looked straight down into the black-walled pit, where the dim spirals of machine lights glittered like the endless lost fire of a Black Gate's heart; and the smell of the sea and the moaning dirge were strong inside his head. In that moment he lay still, waiting, hands clutching at the narrow edge of the arcing span, hypnotized by the immediacy of death.

But the final formless blow did not fall, or rise, to tumble him over the edge; the paralysis released him and he raised his head, saw Sparks Dawntreader standing frozen like himself, unable to make the kill.

He levered himself back onto the meter-wide solidity of the span, reacting instinctively now; flung himself up and into a protective hole in the air. He ran forward, almost in reach before the boy finally reacted, las.h.i.+ng out at him with a double buffet of wind. He countered it easily, and at the same time brought his booted foot up with all his strength to kick the boy in the groin.

Sparks collapsed with an animal cry of agony. The flute stayed in his fist, but it was no use to him now, no danger to his rival... Starbuck backed slowly away, savoring his triumph, sorry only that the kid hurt too much to care about what was going to happen to him next. Starbuck lifted his head to look at Arienrhod, still standing on the brink, far away, like some unattainable dream. In another moment the road to her would be clear again. His hand moved at the controls on his belt; Arienrhod moved slightly where she stood.

Two discordant notes collided in the air. Astounded, he felt his own feet go out from under him as the wind struck him down. Not the boy, not the boy a" himself! Falling'Arienrhod!" He screamed her name, a curse, a prayer, an accusation, as he fell; and it followed him down into darkness.

Chapter 16.

The Black Gate filled the s.h.i.+elded viewscreen that filled the center of the wall, a flaming whorl against the amber blackness of the distant starfield. In the heart of this stellar cl.u.s.ter there had once been a glut of cosmic flotsam to feed a black hole's hunger; through eons it had been mostly consumed, and the deadly excrement of the hole's gravitational radiation had dimmed. But it had also captured the star the Tiamatans called the Summer Star; held it prisoner on a narrow tether, siphoning away its chromosphere. The minutiae of dust and molecules blazed up, giving off their potential energy, as they were sucked down to destruction, as this s.h.i.+p was being sucked down...

Elsevier felt the hunger of the Gate lick out at her, felt the first tingling of physical sensation, the slow, compulsive movement of her weightless body toward the image on the wall ... felt it too in the depths of her mind, where it probed her secret terror of dismemberment. The firmly yielding cus.h.i.+on of the transparent coc.o.o.n that wrapped her held her back with gentle rea.s.surance.

She glanced down past her drifting feet toward the s.h.i.+p's center of ma.s.s, where the girl Moon hung in another light-catching chrysalis. Moon s.h.i.+fted restlessly, like a fire moth impatient for birth; her luridly pink flightsuit caught reflections from the console suspended around her. A crown of silver mesh hung useless in the air above her silver-gilt hair a" the crown that Cress should have worn, the symb helmet of an astrogator. Moon looked up to find Elsevier looking down, and Elsevier saw the emotions struggle on her face.

"Moon, are you ready?"

"No..."

Elsevier stiffened, afraid of what an outburst of rebellion from the girl could do to them. She thought she had convinced Moon that this trip was no more than a brief detour in her journey to find her cousin. But if she refused to begin a Transfer now'I don't know what to do. I don't understand anything, I don't understand howa""

Elsevier felt a feeble smile form as she realized that it was only doubt on Moon's face, and not refusal. She had only read her own guilty conscience there. "You don't need to, Moon. Leave that to me. Trust me, I'm not ready to meet the Render yet. Just input all the data the way I showed you."

Moon looked back at the screen wordlessly, her awe tempered by a half-formed comprehension of the Gate's terrible power. They were above its pole of rotation, already trapped in the undertow of its black gravitational heart: that force so inexorable that light itself could not break free of it. This hole, at twenty thousand solar ma.s.ses, was large enough that a specially designed s.h.i.+p fell through the event horizon before it could be ripped apart by the tidal forces working on its ma.s.s. But only an astrogator trained in singularity physics, and in symbiotic linkup with the s.h.i.+p's computers, could maintain the critical balance of its stabilizers. Only an astrogator could make certain they entered the Gate at the precise point that would put them in the pipeline for their chosen destination. Only an astrogator a" or an ignorant girl from a backward planet whose mind was already in symbiosis with the greatest data bank in known s.p.a.ce and time. "Do you want me to begin Transfer? Elsevier a" ?" Moon looked up at her again, face set in a s.h.i.+eld of determination.

Elsevier took a deep breath, postponing the inevitable moment. But the inevitable moment had already pa.s.sed, and now she must say it. "Yes, Moon. Keep your eyes on the viewscreen and begin Transfer." And the G.o.ds forgive me, as they protect you, child. Because you'll never see your home again. Moon's eyes closed for a brief moment, as if in a prayer to her own G.o.ddess, and then she focused on the s.h.i.+ning vortex before them. "Input." Elsevier pressed a b.u.t.ton on the remote at her belt as the girl's slim body quivered into a trance state; the data concerning their entrance flashed across the image on the screen, and was gone again. If she was right a" and she couldn't afford to be wrong a" that should be enough to start the necessary information feeding back into the s.h.i.+p's guidance system. Without an astrogator's implants no human could make full use of the s.h.i.+p's computer symb circuits, but the sibyl Transfer would supply the information the computers could not.

"It done." Silky's voice, speaking broken Sandhi, reached her in a sibilant whisper across the control room's silence. "Is girl hurting?"

"How do I know?" sharp with the stab of her doubt. She frowned down across the open s.p.a.ce at him. His amphibian body shone through its own coc.o.o.n, silken with the oils that kept him from dehydrating. He sounded strangely unsettled; it struck her that he must feel an empathy for this helpless innocent torn loose from the world she knew, at the mercy of betraying strangers.

"Could she die?"

"Silky, d.a.m.n it!" Elsevier bit her lip and looked back at the spreading malignancy of the Gate. "You know I can't answer that but you know I wouldn't have done it if I believed that she would. You know that, Silky... But what choice did any of us have, except to try? I told her it would be a long trance; she accepted that."

"She too young. She not know. You lie to her," as close to reproach as she bad ever heard him come.

Elsevier closed her eyes. "I'll make it up to her. I'll see that she has everything she needs to be happy on Kharemough." She opened them again, looking down on Moon. The girl's pink-suited body was limp now, pressed softly against the walls of the coc.o.o.n. Was it barely four days tau since they had made that fate-cursed landing on Tiamat, fled back to the s.h.i.+p with nothing to show for it but Cress barely on this side of death, and a dazed stranger in his place?

And with time running out: The police would be searching Tiamat s.p.a.ce for them, and they couldn't afford to be caught with a kidnapped citizen of the planet on board. The girl had wanted to go home ... but there was no way to send her back. Cress needed a hospital ... and the only ones that could save him were on Kharemough, beyond the Gate.

But only Cress could take them through.

And then she had remembered: Moon was a sibyl, and once TJ had told her of seeing a sibyl go into a trance and operate a field polarizer to save five people during an industrial accident. That sibyl hadn't been trained on sophisticated machinery; it shouldn't matter that this one barely knew what machinery was. She was only a vessel, just as she had said; and it was her duty to serve all who needed her a" she could take them through the Gate to safety.

But when she had tried to explain it to Moon, she had run into a barrier as impa.s.sible as the Gate itself. Moon sat firmly strapped into her seat on the LB, refusing to set foot inside the greater s.h.i.+p. "Take me back. I have to go to Carbuncle!" Her face was like a clenched fist, and she had answered every imaginable argument with the same two sentences, immovable and unmoved.

"But Moon, the off worlders will never let you go back if they find you with us. Your world is proscribed. They'll sentence us all to the cinder camps on Big Blue, and believe me, my dear, you'd be better off dead."

"It doesn't matter, if I can't go back. Nothing matters without him."

Oh, child, how lucky you are to believe it's that simple ... and how naive. And yet a part of her said it was true; that since TJ's death she had only lived half a life... "I know, truly. I know it seems that way to you now. But if you won't think of yourself, then think of Cress." Her hand had moved along the cool, translucent sh.e.l.l beside her that breathed on the fragile embers of his life. "He'll die, Moon. Unless we reach Kharemough, he will die. You're a sibyl; it's your duty."

"I can't do what you ask!" Moon shook her head, her braids drifting with the motion. "I can't, I don't know how to do that. I can't fly a stars.h.i.+pa"" Her voice rose, "And I can't leave Sparks!"

"It's only for a few weeks!" The words had burst out of Elsevier in exasperation; but before she could take them back she saw the girl's head come up, the eyes fix on her quizzically.

"H-how long?"

"About a month, one way." s.h.i.+p's time. And more than two years would have pa.s.sed on Tiamat in the meantime. But Elsevier did not say that; inspiration took root in her need. "Only a month each way. Moon, if you'd taken a trader's s.h.i.+p from Shotover Bay to Carbuncle it would take you as long. Help us get through the Gate, help Cress ... and if you still want to come back when we reach Kharemough, I'll bring you back. I promise it."

"But how can I? I can't fly a stars.h.i.+p."

"You can do anything, be anything, answer any question except one. You are a sibyl, and it's time that you learned what it means, my dear. Trust me."

The words had choked her as she reached out to release the straps that kept Moon in her seat.

A loud clack echoed through the s.h.i.+p, jerking Elsevier back into the present. "Silky! What was that? Something's loosea"" The protective counterbalances of the coc.o.o.n had immobilized her. She could not pull a finger free, or s.h.i.+ft her head a fraction of an inch; there was nothing to do but gaze straight ahead toward the s.h.i.+ning cancer that spread across the screen before them.

"Wrist.w.a.tch."

She gave a small sigh of vexation and relief, seeing it stuck to a double star in the lower half of the screen. The images of the stars drained inward toward the center of the screen; the black hole wore a starry crown, symbol of its power over light itself... Careless! Something larger than her watch left unsecured might have torn a hole through the hull in its urge to suicide. "I just got that watch! I've endured this trip too many times; I don't carry the years lightly, alone. TJ was my strength, Silky ... and he's gone." She sensed a faint tremor through the fiber of the s.h.i.+p; looking up again she saw no starfield before them now, but only the film of reddening h.e.l.l s.h.i.+ne lighting their way to doom. "She's controlling the field stabilizers, Silky, or we'd be turning somersaults by now. I knew she could hold us!"

But what if it destroys her mind? If anything happened to the girl because of this, she would never forgive herself. Never. In the bare few days the girl had spent with them she had reaffirmed by her sun pie presence the things TJ had always believed. Flexible and independent, she had begun to recover from the shock of her abrupt transplanting, begun reaching out to the possibilities they offered in propitiation. In a cheerful, eye-stimulating jump suit instead of drab handmade clothing, there was no way a stranger could have known her for a second-cla.s.s citizen of the Hegemony, one judged undeserving of a full share of its knowledge. And the sibyl-machinery of a civilization far more knowledgeable than their own had judged her and found her worthy.

TJ's dream had always been that all intelligent beings would someday have an equal chance to fulfill their potential. That was why he had begun running contraband s.h.i.+pments to Tiamat, against her own futile protests that he was becoming a common smuggler. "There are smugglers and smugglers, my heart," he had said, grinning; and by then she knew that no human protest could shout down the inner voice that drove him ... not even hers.

The Hegemony held Tiamat back from developing a technological base of its own by restrictions and embargoes (she still remembered how his lectures rang through their cramped apartment); kept the inhabitants at a level where they were only pampered children, given selected toys their parent-masters could later render harmless. And all for the sake of that precious obscenity, the water of life, that seduced the Hegemony's privileged and powerful with the hope of eternal youth.

If Tiamat developed a technologically-based world society of its own, if it were left to mature untended during the century that it was cut off from the Hegemony, who knew what they would find when they returned? A world able to stand up to them, one which no longer craved their technological toys because it could make its own a" a world which had decided that it preferred to keep immortality to itself, and was tired of exploitation? Or a world which had decided that its own exploitation of mers was immoral ... worse yet, one which had turned itself into a radioactive cinder the way Caedw had done. Tiamat had something that no other world could offer, and what it had was more of a curse than a blessing.

It was a situation that TJ had found intolerable. Knowing she couldn't stop him, she had gone with him again, as she had always gone with him, always been unable to refuse him any desire. And as always, she had been caught up in his pa.s.sion in the end ... and after his death, she and Silky had carried on his crusade, the only thing in her life that had seemed to have any purpose after he was gone.

And now chance had swept the girl Moon into her life, as if to prove that it had all been worthwhile a" the image of the child that she and TJ had never had. He would have been proud. It would be no burden to be guardian to Moon's new life; it would be a privilege. .

Elsevier felt a sickening vertigo as the irresistible force of the tidal stress sucked at her immobile body. Even with the protective fields functioning, the s.h.i.+p could not protect them entirely. She looked toward the glowing heart of blackness once again. Oh, heaven, I'm not ready; it happens too fast, and lasts too long. At least Moon was free of the heat and pain, with her mind held captive somewhere halfway across the galaxy... 7 wouldn't have done it, except for Cress... It wouldn't have happened, except for Cress... Oh, G.o.ds, let him be all right. He still lay in the emergency prism; they hadn't dared to move him to a safer spot. But the whole of the s.h.i.+p and all its equipment had been designed to survive this pa.s.sage; surely he would survive, too a" if any of them did...

She felt the sockets of her bones loosen and s.h.i.+ft again, felt the less acute but growing discomfort as the temperature inside the s.h.i.+p rose. She imagined the outer hull incandescent now with stress as it plummeted toward the black hole's horizon, a part of the flaming distress call endlessly broadcasting as the d.a.m.ned were gathered in to then: final reckoning. The s.h.i.+p was constructed of the strongest, most resilient materials known to man, and equipped with counter fields to protect and stabilize its descent into the maelstrom.

It was as small in size as possible, and shaped like a coin; the stabilizers kept its flat broad face always aligned with the gravitational gradients as it fell. Because the walls of the black hole's gravity well in s.p.a.ce were so steep, if the s.h.i.+p ever lost its stability and began to tumble it would be ripped apart in seconds by tidal stresses. Death would come to them all in an instant's blazing agony, and their death scream would echo in that well forever. Pa.s.sage through the Black Gate taxed human and mechanical endurance, and the limits of Kharemough's technology. Only the symbiosis of a computer and the astrogator's human brain could hold them together and guide them down to the precise point of entry at the horizon.