Darkship Renegades (21 page)

“You’re not the only one whose father had holos lying around, and I’ve been in charge of my father’s affairs a very long time, Thena. You know I’ve always been good with faces. It’s not that hard, if you change the eyes and make his hair red, to see it’s the same person, really.”

“Second, you’re not the kind to come to Earth on a jaunt, and certainly not to come with people who are risking themselves, as your redheaded friend—is she one of us? No, don’t answer that. You wouldn’t have a right to break her privacy even if you wanted to—and the elderly gentleman I presume because your…because Jarl’s clone called him Doc Bartolomeu, is Bartolomeu Dias, one of Jarl’s inseparable friends, in a remarkable state of preservation for his age.” He let go of me and waved me away from trying to mop up the juice with a tissue. “Leave it. My servants need to feel useful every once in a while, or they start wondering why I pay them. The thing is, Thena, that you didn’t come here just because it seemed to you a jolly good idea to get Jarl’s notes.” He looked at me, very seriously. “You’re in a bind, and I want to help you.”

I realized that I wasn’t going to get out of this easily. Simon knew me much too well to be fobbed off with a casual lie or even two. So I sat on the bed, crossed my robe closed and told him the whole thing, from our landing in Eden onward. I omitted only things that weren’t mine to tell, though if he, with his ability to recognize faces—a legacy of his ancestor’s specialization?—didn’t figure out who Zen was, I wasn’t going to try to help him. He did stop me when I mentioned Zen and said, “She’s a widow? No children?” which might or might not mean he’d inferred her nature.

I explained how important it was that we get Eden back to what it was, where people were free. Even if they seemed to me almost bewilderingly free, it worked, and it was better than a society where individual will counted for nothing compared to the will of the one ruler. “It’s not just that Castaneda is making people uncomfortable,” I said. “Or arranging the occasional accidental death, even though it’s clear he is doing that too. But the attack on Kit was unprecedented for Eden. It was very well hidden and we couldn’t find out who did it, thereby precluding revenge of blood geld. Anyone who might have talked, wouldn’t, because they were afraid of what Castaneda could do to their power. We knew he was behind the attack, but we couldn’t prove it. And we couldn’t stop it. If we can’t arrest his march to absolute power, no one will dare rebel. As small as Eden is, and as devoid of laws, it will devolve into an absolute tyranny, with Castaneda and whoever succeeds him in charge, forever, and everyone else little more than slaves. It will be much worse than anywhere on Earth.”

When I was done, Simon was standing by the bed, very close to me. He pulled me into his arms. Strangely it was both very comforting and completely non-sexual. Strangely, because even two years ago this would have been sexual. “Thena,” he said, “listen. I was joking, or…not joking but being gallant about…wanting to marry you.”

I sniffled “I know,” which is when I realized that I’d been crying into the shoulder of his red shirt.

“And I don’t know what I can do to help you in this, except, of course, make all facilities the doctor might need available to him, which I will do tomorrow morning early. However…” He pulled away from me and used the back of his fingers to wipe at my tears. “However, I want you to know this…If all else fails and you need…refuge with someone who understands you, I’ll be here. I can’t pretend we are or ever were each other’s dream of love, but we’re good friends, yes? And if you want that I’m here for you for as long as you want.”

“Thank you,” I said, and this time hugged him to me, tightly. We were locked in embrace, with me still in my robe, when I saw, over Simon’s shoulder, the door open.

Jarl came in. Or perhaps it was Kit. Whichever it was, was not amused. And what he said was, “What is the meaning of this?”

TO HAVE AND TO HOLD

I think when being caught in a compromising position with a male, a married woman is supposed to feel some sort of panic. But I was never one to do the expected, and besides, for most of my life, most of my friends had been male and I’d never felt compromised by any of them.

I sniffed, and let Simon offer me a handkerchief, into which I blew my nose noisily. And then I said the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be, “I’m not up on comparative semiotics, but I think I was crying on a friend’s shoulder.”

Jarl stalked into the room, and I was now sure it was Jarl. No, I could never fully describe the difference, except that, as with the violin playing, Jarl walked with more discipline than grace. It occurred to me quickly and irrelevantly that it was perhaps the memory of his body being older and frailer, and having to move cautiously in order not to hurt himself.

Simon turned to face him, with lazy grace, and they stared at each other for a moment, and then Jarl stalked around to the left, while Simon turned that way. They looked like nothing so much as barnyard animals, roosters, engaged in a territorial confrontation. I did not have the time for this.

One of the funniest things in Eden was reading twentieth-century literature, back in the time when they still had faith in the eternal progress—mental, physical, emotional—of mankind, and when they were lousy with philosophies that told them they would eventually become perfect and live in a perfect society. It is funny in a bitter way, because they tended to believe man would become wholly rational and leave behind his animal nature.

I’d like to bring one of those twentieth-century writers face-to-face with the two men in my room—two men who were both created by scientific processes, might I add.

The sad thing was that Simon didn’t even want me, and I wasn’t sure about Jarl. But I was female and I nominally was married to one of them, or at least to his body. They were going to fight over me at the drop of a hat.

I’d better make sure the hat didn’t drop. In fact, I’d better make sure I got their minds away from the possibility of a hat existing, let alone dropping. Knowing Jarl and his lack of control, the last thing I needed was for his old hatred of Simon’s…original to come to the fore. There are many many ways to get killed on Earth. Killing a Good Man might be one of the fastest and most painful. And that was before taking in account that Simon might be a bastard, but I liked him. And I was fairly sure his alleged heart was in the right place.

I jumped from the bed. “Right,” I said, standing in front of Jarl. “Would you mind telling me the terms of my captivity?”

“What?”

I could genuinely say I’d taken him by surprise. His eyes flickered from Simon to me. Mentally, I said,
Kit, rein in the troglodyte.

Should I?
To my relief, my husband, or what remained of him sounded more teasing than worried.
What were you doing with the oh-so-suave Simon? What did you tell him that caused him to take you in his arms?
Kit paused, possibly realizing what he’d given away.
Yes, he brought a portable viewer, and yes, the bug, whatever it is, follows Simon. I have no idea how that was done, and he won’t tell me.

But you couldn’t hear us?

No. Simon must have some kind of circumventing mechanism in place. It’s part of what’s driving Jarl insane.

“You’re not a captive,” Jarl said, and tightened his lips.

“No? Then why are you here asking me about a visitor to my room? What business is it of yours? In Eden, it would be enough to challenge you to a duel.”

“A duel! Thena, we’re married.”

“We are not, Jarl Ingemar.”

This caught him out of step. He opened his mouth and said, “But—”

Before he could finish his thought I said, “And even if we were, I would challenge you to a duel for doubting my word. When I married Kit I presumed fidelity was implied. If he didn’t trust my word, why marry me?”

Hey! I trust your word. And I don’t remember a promise of fidelity.

I said implied.

He gave an artistic mental sigh.
Yeah, I suppose it was, by the laws of your people and all…It’s sad, I’ll have to give up my plans to have a harem. And I’d already picked out ages and body types.

I stomped on the temptation to tell him he wouldn’t have that chance if he were a figment of Jarl’s mind, and instead turned to Jarl and gave him my best slow
I’m a patrician of Earth and I’ve scraped better looking stuff off my soles
look. “As for you, Mr.…or should I call you Patrician, since you’re our equal? Patrician Ingemar, I didn’t marry you. Ever. I don’t think I would marry you while compos mentis. I don’t like the way you jump to conclusions.”

He looked puzzled. Men aren’t very hard to puzzle. The old-style feminists, the ones who complained forever about male oppression, must have been the worst verbal sparrers in the history of mankind.

Something science has shown us is that men aren’t at home with words. Oh, sure, there are exceptions. I’m almost sure Shakespeare was a little sharper than the rest. But on average, most men are less verbal than most women. Heck, most of them get confused with more than ten words together and if possible would ban them on the principle of illegal assembly and conspiracy to confuse. The fact that women have always been better with words is probably a compensation for the fact men have the muscles, the size, and the spatial reasoning. If you ask me, men got the short end of the stick.

“But you married Christopher.”

“You are not Kit,” I said.

He frowned and came up with a clinching argument which only emphasizes why most men should not get in arguments with most women, “But I have his body.”

“I didn’t marry him for his body, pleasant though it is.”

“But…he’s not dead.”

“No, but neither is he in control of that body. In fact, he might not be able to take control again.”

It would take a lot of effort. Thena, we must—

I know.

“And until he does, that body is not married to me. I’m sure that possession by a different entity renders our contract invalid or at least in abeyance.” And then I did the dismount and level. “At any rate all this is nonsensical, because all I was doing was telling Simon about Castaneda and the situation in Eden, and why I need access to Jarl’s notes so we can go back as soon as possible. There was nothing romantic going on!” And, without giving him time to answer, I went on. “I see that you’re dressed. You’re probably all dressed. I’m not, because I’ve had interlopers in my room the whole time. Out. Both of you.”

I could see Jarl shape his lips to say “But—” and I gave them no time, physically putting my hands on each of their shoulders and shoving them in the direction of the door.

Then I made sure the door was closed behind them and locked it firmly from the inside. And then I dropped on the bed and let myself have a good cry.

You don’t need to tell me tears don’t solve anything. All I can tell you is that they’re a pressure release valve built into the body for good and sufficient reason. And right then I needed to release pressure.

Once I was done crying, I washed my face and I got dressed.

One of the things I missed about being a Patrician of Earth was the clothes. Yeah, I know Eden has the same kind of freedom in dress as it has in anything else. People dress in whatever pleases their fancy or nothing at all. This was good of course. It was also bad.

It was also bad, because it meant someone designing a new look couldn’t reap the benefits of it when the vogue caught on. Most fashions in Eden caught on in a very limited way, anyway.

Since there was no money in it, the best designing minds ignored it completely. On Earth, with fortunes riding on coming up with the next big thing, there were some really good minds working on it. Which allowed me to pick a dress whose top seemed to have been designed by Machiavelli. Or at least, it made my natural endowment seem large and firm enough to be feared. And loved, given men’s interest in women’s breasts. I didn’t have it, but I’d spent most of my life since the age of fourteen or so dressing for those who did. I’d learned how they thought.

The dress was white, the skirt was floaty, and the whole looked pure and innocent. Except that it seemed to add two inches to my height and sculpt my curves into what most men think of when they think of women. It wasn’t a bad job. I wondered if I could buy ten in different colors to take back with me to Eden. Kit would like them. They’d be perfect for those nights at the music center. Every man would want me, every woman would hate me, and Kit and I would enjoy ourselves immensely. And not just with the music.

And that’s when I realized that not only did I intend to get Kit back, I intended to get Eden back. I intended to get back to Eden and make damn sure that Eden’s freedoms were back to their proper position, even if I had to kill Castaneda and his accomplices, cut them into itty bits and feed them to the hogs.

Correction, I’d
prefer
to kill Castaneda and his accomplices, cut them into itty bits and feed them to the hogs. Even if that meant flying all the way back to Earth to find some hogs.

Yeah, yeah, the situation looked hopeless.

I’d been in impossible situations before. What was I facing now? Jarl taking over my husband’s body. The Good Men of Earth, most of whom weren’t as compliant as Simon and who, doubtless, would also love to get their hands on Jarl or his clone. And Castaneda back in Eden who would take over if he didn’t return.

Bah. I took a deep breath. There was still one of me. I had them surrounded.

HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE

My mood didn’t last. It couldn’t because the problems I faced were real and serious and not simply a matter of looking at them differently.

Some things went better than I expected that day. Simon cleared a lab in Liberte for Doctor Bartolomeu’s use, and Jarl didn’t ask why we wanted the lab or what was being done there. I presumed he knew.

He also made no movement to stop his friend, which made me suspect that he knew we wouldn’t succeed; else, why allow it? Unless he’d gone altruistic and I strongly doubted that.

Zen, too, seemed to have unwound some and no longer looked at Simon as though she expected him to grow a second head. She still frowned at him, and occasionally looked puzzled by him, but she didn’t seem threatened. She told me in a passing conversation that my friend Simon talked a great deal of nonsense. Which I knew was true. I just didn’t know what she meant by it.

The problem remained Jarl. He snarled at Simon across the lunch table, interrogated him about the circumstances of his inheriting, then asked him why “you haven’t killed the bastard, yet.”

To Simon’s startled laughing and saying that medical science hadn’t ruled out that his father might suddenly wake and recover, and that killing him would be murder, Jarl had mumbled that he’d forgotten about the rules on Earth. I suspected it was rather that they’d never really applied to Mules. At least not since they’d stopped being bureaucrat-servants of the system and taken charge.

In despair, unable to keep peace if Jarl and Simon stayed together any longer, I dragged Jarl out for a walk on the terrace. And there he changed again. Oh, I didn’t get Kit. I suspected I couldn’t get Kit, though he was still there, and periodically mind-spoke me. But Kit didn’t seem to have the ability to control the body, at least not if Jarl wasn’t willing to relinquish him.

But suddenly, Jarl became once more what I thought of as Kit’s brother—someone I could admit must be related to Kit, with much of the same inclinations, attitude and sense of humor.

He walked to the edge of the terrace. It was surrounded by a wall, into which benches were built at intervals. He stood on one of the benches and looked out onto the setting sun and took a deep breath. “Beautiful,” he said. “I’d forgotten how heartbreakingly beautiful Earth can be. I don’t think holos do her justice. You know, I was surprised once or twice in Eden by realizing that people born and raised there, even well-educated ones, thought that the ocean was sort of a very large bathtub.”

“I know,” I said. “Kit got plunged into the sea when I rescued him, when we were on Earth before. I thought he’d gone catatonic. Then he asked me if I knew how rich we could be if we could sell that water in Eden.”

Jarl smiled at me, an odd smile. “I don’t want to kill Christopher,” he said. “I don’t want to take over his mind and brain…I…” he opened his hands out, palms displayed, in the ancient gesture of non-aggression. “In other circumstances, I think I would enjoy and…I think he’d be a son to me.” A tilted smile. “Not sure Zen would be a daughter, mind. She is…feisty. But I think Christopher and I could have got along. In other circumstances, of course, he’d never have existed. I don’t know what to do or say. I’m not sure…” He shrugged. “Perhaps my idea was monstrous as Irena said, because if it had worked, Christopher would never have existed, but I am quite sure this idea is no better. And yet, you can’t ask me to commit suicide by helping you reverse it, can you?”

I looked at him, then said, “Yes, I can ask it of you. I want to ask it of you. I want my husband back. But I have no way of compelling you to obey.”

We walked around the terrace some more, then went inside, but all the while I was thinking: was there a way of compelling him to obey? It almost seemed to me as though he was saying that he didn’t want to commit suicide, but he wouldn’t fight too hard. Was that true? I wondered if it would be possible to give the nessies to Jean-Batiste St. Cyr. After all, he was brain dead. Who would care? Then I recoiled. I liked Jarl, true, but did I want him to have power over Simon’s future? Could we trust him when he would never trust Simon? Ideally we’d take Jarl back with us to Eden, but would he agree? Once that was done, he would be Jean-Batiste, with all the powers and rights of the Good Man of Liberte.

When we went inside, Doc and Zen had gone to bed, and I suspected Simon had too. There were servants around, but they were acting as Daddy Dearest’s servants acted at this time of night—slinking about, trying to make as little noise as possible and acknowledging your presence only if you called them over.

I didn’t call them over. Instead I went to my room, took off my beautiful dress, took another bath because water on Liberte was unlimited, which it certainly wasn’t on Eden, then put on soft, flowing pajamas in what felt like black silk. And then I tried to go to bed.

“Tried to” being the operative term. If Jarl knew how to reverse the process, how could I get him to confess? The idea of trying by the world’s oldest means presented itself and was dismissed. Then came the idea of trying by force. But what would I threaten him with? Not killing him. He knew I’d never risk killing Kit. And besides, did I want to get into a fight with a man who had demonstrated little to no self-control? And who was built with close to Cat speed and was stronger than I? I had never managed to best Kit in a fight. How could I best Jarl?

I’d turned in bed a dozen times, flipped my pillow over another dozen, and was considering getting up and going for a walk on the beach, which might not be wholly safe in Liberte but was close enough to it, and besides, if some idiot tried to mug me and I got to break his arm it might work off some of the tension bedeviling me. Only the fact that Simon might be upset if I endangered myself like that prevented my doing it. That and the fact that Kit was still somehow aware of what I did and he would be more than upset.

However, after a few more turns the bed became an odious place, where there was no comfortable position and I couldn’t manage to rest. I’d just sat up, when I heard the door to Jarl’s room close softly.

There are a thousand good reasons for anyone to leave his room in the middle of the night, aren’t there? Going for a glass of water. Or going to the bathroom. Or taking a walk because one has too much nervous energy.

But the rooms were equipped with refrigerated trays with all kinds of drinks, including water. The suites each included a bathroom. And if Jarl was going for a walk to use up his nervous energy, he might do something far worse than break a mugger’s arm.

No, there was no reasonable explanation for Jarl leaving his room in the middle of the night. Or at least no reasonable explanation I was prepared to accept.

I got off the bed. I gathered the burner I had brought all the way from the
Hopper
. Being without a burner is like being naked in front of strangers: something you should only do if you feel terribly safe. And also more than a little stupid. Slipping it in the pocket of my silk pajamas, I turned off the light in my room, then opened the door. The corridor beyond was not pitch dark, but a stab of light in the semi-darkness would still have been visible. Turning off the light first allowed me to open the door without Jarl noticing.

It would have been visible, that is, if he were turned the way of my room. He wasn’t. When I emerged from the door, he was down the hallway, walking past Doc’s door. I picked the darkest area of the corridor, and, walking as silently as I could, tried to look like I had every right to be there. I hoped—though it was unlikely—that even if he looked my way, he’d not realize I wasn’t one of the servants milling around.

I followed him all the way to the end of the corridor, where—warned by no more than a feeling—I had the impression he would turn around. Fortunately all these houses had both staircases and antigrav wells. Normally the wells were used by family or those in a hurry. I bet that Jarl would use the staircase, simply because antigrav wells were not common in his day, and weren’t the usual thing in Eden, either. So…I would take the antigrav well.

Fortunately there was no question where he was headed—the corridor ended in the stairs, with a slight alcove to the side hiding the antigrav well—and he could only go down, as we were on the uppermost floor.

So I hurried and before he got to the stairs, I got right beside him and, knitting myself with the shadows near the wall, climbed over the little grating preventing accidentally stepping in the well, and stepped over.

As I got to the lower floor, I spread my legs outward, and hit with the tips of my toes, the little lip of floor on the edge of the well. This prevented my falling further and allowed me to stay in the shadows of the alcove, as Jarl got all the way down that flight of stairs and started on the next.

I bit my lip, as I realized he had a burner in his hand and a determined expression in his set face.

Down we went, via antigrav well, all the way to the basement of Simon’s mansion. And at that point I started getting a really bad feeling. We’d talked about it at dinner. Simon had casually mentioned his father was in a fully automated room in the basement of the mansion. Doctors checked on him several times a day, of course, but most of the time, he was tended by smart machinery. His needs were, after all, routine and repetitive. Was Jarl going to kill the comatose Good Man St. Cyr?

Why else would Jarl come to the basement with a burner in hand? And why had Simon told him? Had Simon…or was Simon…I didn’t want to think about it, but I delayed jumping into the last well just a little.

By the time I hit the basement floor, Jarl was down the hallway. As I dove out into the hallway, he was entering a room at the end. I ran full-tilt after him.

I’d just got the door open when I heard a hiss from within and smelled the peculiar scent of burning hair and flesh I’d last smelled when Kit was hit.

I slammed the door open. “Jarl!”

He turned around. His face was impassive, maybe smiling a little. “Yes?”

I glanced over at a state of the art automated bed, surrounded by machines that hissed softly and one that pinged in a forlorn tone. A glance was all that needed. On the bed lay…well, he had to be Simon’s father, because Simon was not that old, nor did he have the peculiar puffy appearance of an invalid who’d been on life support for many years. The life support was redundant now, because someone had burned a neat hole into his left temple. There wasn’t as much blood as you’d expect. Someone had set the burner at full power and cauterizing. There probably was an exit wound on the other temple.

I couldn’t speak. I was shaking. I looked back at Jarl. He was putting his burner back in his body suit. “You shot a defenseless man,” I said. “While he lay unconscious.”

“Only because I thought he might someday wake up,” he said, and gave me a feral smile.

“You shot a defenseless man. It’s murder.”

“Centuries ago,” Jarl said, and suddenly his voice sounded raspy, as though his throat were scratched, “he was responsible for the death of thousands.”

“Years ago!” I said. “He might have repented.”

He just looked at me. “I talked to people today,” he said. “I asked around. Jean-Batiste remained himself till the unfortunate flyer accident rendered him comatose. Or perhaps the fortunate flyer accident…Fortunate for others.”

I couldn’t follow what he was saying. I couldn’t take my mind away from the dead man on the bed. “It is murder. Even in Eden it would be murder.”

“Do you think his…Simon will want blood geld?”

“No. Listen. You killed a defenseless man. You don’t kill someone who can’t fight back, someone who isn’t even aware! You…”

“Of course you do kill someone who can’t fight back. Far less messy.” From somewhere within him, Kit’s mind-voice came,
Thena, you have to stop him.

How? And why? Yes it was murder. Yes I’m shocked, but Simon’s father…

No. You don’t understand. It was anger. He was angry at Simon and at you. He…redirected it. But he might not always be able to. He is losing control.
But I’m not gaining it. Thena, you must stop him.

Jarl walked past me, seemingly unaware of the voice in his mind, communicating with mine. I plastered myself against the open door as he walked by, not wanting him to touch me.

I’m not squeamish about murder. I not only killed my own father, but I handed my late friend Max’s father—and murderer—over to Max’s lover, Nat, to be killed. When I handed Good Man Keeva over to Nat I knew it would be murder, and that the death would be neither pleasant nor quick.

On the other hand, I also knew that Max’s father had killed Max and taken over Max’s body by having his brain transplanted into it. And that killing the murderer might be the only solace Nat would ever get. And I liked Nat.

Still, I knew in handing Good Man Keeva over to Nat, that he was going to be murdered and would have no chance to defend himself. Not unless Nat was in a playful mood and had some failsafe system. However, a failsafe system would mean it was still murder. So…

I walked up the stairs, slowly, aware of Jarl’s bulk ahead of me, stepping with that carefulness that was definitely not Kit. I didn’t think I had the room to throw stones, not even a small hail of pebbles.

Thena!

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how long I would be able to communicate with my husband, but I knew that I didn’t want to argue with him, in case this was the last time.

Thena, listen. He doesn’t like Zen, and if Doc comes up with a system to…to take him out of my mind, he might…I mean, self-defense, right?

It didn’t worry you before,
I said.
You said you liked him. I think he likes you too, for what it’s worth.

The pause was so long I thought I wasn’t going to get an answer.
I do like him
, he said at last.
But I am in his mind. I might be part of his mind. I don’t even know how long he will not hear me when I talk to you. And I know that—

That?

The more control he acquires of the body, the less control he has over his reactions. And knowing he’s losing control is making him nervous, which makes it worse. Thena, that was cold-blooded murder. I don’t want to be part of it.