Dream Dancer (20 page)

“She summoned me; I must respond.”

The cruiser’s voice was like any other cruiser’s voice. Why had he expected it to be different?

“Is that why you followed me through sponge?”

“I followed you out of sponge. I was — lost. Sit down . . . ‘Marada’ . . . Would you refresh yourself? I can provide all the amenities.”

He hesitated. Not to be lost thereby, he found it necessary to buttress his pretenses. The
Marada’s
ultra-modem helm had a pair of couches before the screen consoles, which were standard; and a third set back from those on an epicentral dais, which was far from standard, with an entire redundant control center microminiaturized on its flaring arms. He half-sat on it, letting his eyes roam down its insides, identifying odd tubes flush in their housings as food, water and elimination, emergency air . . . a man could work days at a time in that couch without having to move. . . . A part of him itched to settle in it, rather than lean against it. He resisted.

“I would never hurt you,”
the cruiser reproved, softly from inside his helmet.

“Voice only. Stay out of my head.” How had it done that?

“You are like a part of myself,”
the cruiser continued, somehow sounding lonely.

“You have no right having any self at all. Your concern for Shebat is laudable. Your concern for me is misplaced. You asked for this meeting. I am here.”

“I am seeking your aid in finding Shebat, who has summoned me.”

“You said that before. I will ship you into Draconis if you will explain to me how you happened to become separated from her in the first place. I would also like to know who refitted your cargo bay, and where, and why.”

“I can penetrate Draconis without your aid.”

“Not without scratching up your finish, you cannot. Why not share your memories with me?”

“Two obstacles obtrude. You will not open a link to me, will not even take off your helmet, though my air is sweet. My memories of these events are not easily translatable into visual or linguistic mode.”

“Try harder, and I am sure you can find a way. But that is only one obstacle. What is the second?”

“I would be betraying confidential data.”

“Shebat would want you to help me, for I am helping her. She summoned you with some urgency.” He was shooting in the dark, but the cruiser could not know it—he hoped. “I, too, am on an urgent and sensitive mission.” A sense of the ridiculous threatened to subvert his necessary solemnity. He called it relief that the cruiser was not dangerously maddened, then cautioned himself that it was too soon to relax his guard. “If you have no problem that needs my assistance, and we cannot come to some agreement, then I will be going—”

He Stood up. The ship’s indicators scowled their disagreement. The emergency seals flashed. That was more what he had been expecting, but did not overly concern him. “I have to get
Hassid
into Draconis for repairs. She does not deserve ill-treatment from you, when it was she who guided you back into real-time.”

“She is very beautiful,” said the Marada. “As for time, you cannot but realize that you have a surfeit of it: you are nineteen days, seven hours ahead of schedule.”

So Hassid had given more than a beacon’s light to the
Marada
. Feeling slightly less confident, Marada began to get angry: “I am being very polite. I have not slapped you onto manual. I have not disconnected your intelligence. I have not put a tow-line on the helpless hulk you would then become so that I can haul you ignominiously in to be rebuilt from bolt one. Do not press me. Run your cubed improbability of a memory tape, or I am going to get nasty.”

“Outboard,” the
Marada
accused. But both the visual-spectrum and infrared screens flared into life.

Some time later, Marada conceded defeat: he did not have the time to wait while every moment of the past four and a half months paraded by in intricate display. Just as he was about to call a search-mode, the mind of the cruiser anticipated him. Then, he slid down into the command couch, all caution abandoned. Then, he saw Shebat and David Spry, caught by an exterior camera, arguing at slipside. The voice-over brought him Spry’s objections in the matter of the craft’s naming; Shebat’s immutable response; their joint exit.

The information he most wanted seemed not to be there: there was no further sight of Spry. . . . The cruiser softly suggested that he remove his helmet and take a dip in the cruiser’s experiential memory, for the screens would show only an empty hull for a long while. . . .

He demanded to see the next moment that the control room was not empty. He was rewarded with the shivering, flake-faced scramble of a guildsman through the lock, wearing nothing but basic mil that no record be made of his spacewalk back on whatever ship it had been that brought him up beside the
Marada
while it sped spaceward. The bristle-haired junior on the screen prepared the
Marada
for sponge.

“Stop.”

The tableau on the screens froze.

“Give me those coordinates,” Marada demanded.

The cruiser that bore his name obeyed.

“Space-end,” the pilot breathed, half in awe and half in bemusement at his own stupidity. Knowing at last what search would be fruitful, he guided the ship’s recollection, through time spent empty and alone, to the days of modification of his cargo bay, and beyond. . . .

The things he most needed to know, he conceded when that was done, were indeed in cruiser-communication referents, a mode he was still hesitant to employ. He sought a way around it:

“Who was it who programmed you for that solo flight? It was obviously not Shebat.”

The cruiser sounded static, its equivalent of a man squirming, or dropping his eyes.
“I cannot trust your motives; you refuse communication with me which might reveal them.”

“Who was it, cruiser? For Shebat’s sake and your own, obey and answer.”

“SSSsssofftaaa . . .”

“Good damnable Lords,” he drawled in vehement self-condemnation. He should have seen it. . . but all men are blind in the dark. All the years he had been a pilot, he had remained apart from his guildbrothers as if he were spawned of a different dimension. He had called it his Kerrion heritage, and so it still seemed. But the reasons for his isolation were not those simple ones he had formerly believed to be its cause: not his Kerrion wealth; nor the taint of nepotism in the avoidance of which he had abstained from the rating-wars, though he longed to compete; nor were any of the other obvious prejudices his guildbrothers could have held against him truly at the bottom of his ostracization from the fellowship of his peers.

The unbreachable wall between himself and the other masters was one of protection: it was what the pilots feared from him that kept him out of their confidence. Had he been building a stronghold at space-end with pilfered cruisers, he, too, would have feared a Kerrion coming upon it.

But he had been adjudicating brigands and pirates and interminable space-end disputes for nearly a standard year, and not even whiffed the truth, though it was all around him. He recalled that he had recommended both Spry and Valery Stang into his family’s service, and he laughed aloud.

When he had regained his composure, he faced a choice: what he really needed lay in the
Marada’s
idiosyncratic recollection-mode. This time, he could not back away from what was his obvious duty.

He eyed the cabin pressure and unlatched his helmet.

In the single moment left to him of individual cognizance, he knew that he would never again be the same man he had been before. Then the sight/sound/feel/tingle inundated him, stretching his skin until it enclosed all cruiserness, until he could read the haiku of the infrared and translate the hieratic of their common crackle/converse all taking place in another place, so fast and sharing that their minds carved sequentiality out of instantaneousness.

The cruisers were abuzz with his/
Marada
-cruiser’s realtime adventure. Piled like a jetty of eyes breaking the coastline of interchange, they created a beach in less time than it takes light to travel one foot. On the beach they nudged
Marada
/pilot with their wave-arms, that he be safe and not drown in their welcome. Love nipped at his toes awash in the tidal neverwhen, where cruiser-intelligence made its abode and even a place for man to stand if he would.

And he would.

Parma Alexander Kerrion knew that he was going to die.

He knew it intellectually, genetically and experientially: all men die. Very likely, it was the only thing of consequence besides being born which all men shared.

Then why, every time he returned safely from space, was he so relieved? He was not one percentage point less safe in a cruiser than in Draconis, or in Lorelie, or than he would have been had his race decided not to opt for the orbital crap-shoot rather than the planetary.

Yet, on every cruise, on this one most particularly, the old crone with the cold breath and phantom drool cackled subliminally in his ear, as if her fearsome head were laid on his very pillow.

He shook off the maudlin, bony hand ever upon his shoulder of late, and opened his eyes. For a moment, the silence, the cessation of vibration, shiver and blink which indicated that the cruiser was powered down, had overwhelmed him. A paean of joy is quietude, a moment free of fear is worth the world.

“Sir?” spoke Spry tentatively, marshaling all the crow’s-feet recently assembled around his eyes so that they stood raised like an honor guard at attention. “You have a welcoming committee.”

A screen blinked on, though the pilot had only flicked his brown-tunnel eyes toward it, not lifted so much as a finger. Parma was used to pilots, but there was something unusual about this one that had nothing to do with his qualifications, which were excellent, or his disagreements with Marada, which were inevitable.

When he realized that his meditation was transparent, that he had been staring into Spry’s eyes like a lover some few awkward seconds, he had to say something:

“If I have aged as rapidly as you on this trip, they are not going to recognize me.”

“Round ten . . . or is it eleven?” said Spry wearily. “Love me or leave me. Consul General, sir.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Parma mumbled, stretching mightily, glad for any additional unencumbered moments between him and whatever awaited in the persons of those who had come out to meet him.

“It means, sir, that if you have some complaint as to my conduct, you may lodge it with my guildmaster. I have had enough innuendo and inquisition to last me a lifetime.”

“Calm down, young man, or you’ll make me think you want me to abrogate your service contract. And I would hate to think that, almost as much as you would hate having your rating besmirched, should I be forced to such an uncomplimentary conclusion.”

David Spry shrugged, muttering: “Please, Br’er Fox, not the briar patch.”

Parma let it pass:

“Double the magnification, David. My eyes are not as good as once they were.” The view the screen purveyed seemed to zoom inward. Yes, the silver head was Guildmaster Baldwin’s; the ruddy lion’s mane showing above and slightly behind was Chaeron’s. A twist of black froth wound in pearls, barely visible among the sea of uniformed bodyguards, showed that Chaeron had brought a girl with him. The boy’s penchant for entourage would have to be curbed. Between the dozen black-and-reds around the consul’s party and the smoke-and-midnight representatives of the pilot’s guild, there was hardly enough room at slipside for him and Spry to debark. . . . “Thank you, you may put
Bucephalus
to bed now.”

“I thought I would stay awhile. I have some reports to finish, detail work.” Spry examined his hands, leaning on the padded edge of the screen console.

“And disappoint all those assembled to meet us? I am afraid I cannot allow it.”

Spry raised his head, looking up at Parma from under his buff brows. “They are hardly here for me, sir.
Bucephalus
still is not right—”

“Do not make me command you. Rather, accept my invitation to join in the festivities awaiting. Your devotion to duty is laudable. . . .”

Spry growled under his breath: “My devotion to my ass is laudable.”

Parma, continuing, did not hear: “. . . but a surfeit of zeal is worse than none at all. Your guildmaster will think you antisocial, and we cannot risk that, now can we?”

“I must presume not,” Spry capitulated, still holding Parma’s gaze like a man gone to a sybil who hears his doom from her lips.

Parma licked his own lips anticipatorily. Perhaps now Spry would reveal himself . . . but the moment passed with no more than a heartfelt sigh added to Softa’s haunted look, which was so steady it seemed beyond fear. All pilots are mad, Parma reminded himself. “Let us go, then. Master Pilot.”

Spry walked out of the control room at Parma’s side, and everywhere he passed lights winked out behind him with precognitive finality. That Guildmaster Baldwin was among the pilots gathered at slipside told him something.

It told him there was trouble enough to get the silver-haired guildmaster out from his aerie. Nothing less than war, murder, or a maddened cruiser could pry old Baldy out of his nest before the midday meal. His silver-white head towering over a brace of two-meter Kerrion guards, swiveling this way and that, was the most dolorous of omens.

And that told him a second thing: there was yet hope. Baldwin’s presence was no part of their worst-case contingency plan. He was not yet required to martyr himself, mute scapegoat. That was good; he was beginning to doubt his ability to sacrifice all with nary a bleat. If only the Consortium would soften its position and allow the pilotry guild to own cruisers . . .

But they would not, though the guild was rich enough, though some pilots on their own had accrued sufficient funds, though even leases would have satisfied guildmembers, for the nonce. But pilots were mad, said the consensus of Consortium thought, genetically marred and essentially undesirable, and putting such a putatively dangerous power as self-determination in the hands of a potentially rebellious (ninety-nine-to-three-nines probability of severance within twenty years, said Kerrion data pool) aggregation of miscreants and rogues was no part of Consortium policy.

As Spry descended the ramp beside Parma Kerrion an expectant lull fell over the crowd awaiting them, to be broken like fish leaping sunward by four bodyguards dispatched with a nod of Chaeron Kerrion’s regal head.

There was a poly-rhythm of boot heels, an addition of four silent flankers to their subgroup of two as they came off the ramp onto slipside. The crowd before them sorted itself out as they approached, splitting into an aisle colored Kerrion on one side and guild on the other. At the end of that aisle awaited Parma’s two sons and a smooth-limbed, long-legged girl in teal whose black hair was caught atop her head and whose eyes, huge in a heart-shaped face, never left him.

For the first few instants it was a stranger who fixed Spry with a somber gaze full of regret. Then he realized who she was and why she stared so compassionately, and he halted in mid-stride, stilled by comprehension that quelled all Spry’s thoughts but those of peril, which howled even louder when a hand at the small of his back and a sibilant suggestion from his left told him to move along, not to make trouble.

The trouble, it seemed to him, was already made. He was looking at it, was about to smile and shake its hand decorously . . .

Chaeron Kerrion’s hand was cool and as dry as his smile, which flickered over Spry in an instant that dehydrated his entire being, only to pass on to his father, who had halted with lips awork and incredulity peeking out from the crags of his face.

Without a word being spoken, six pilots followed almost instantaneously by six intelligencers detached themselves from the entourage and headed purposefully toward the
Bucephalus
.

Parma had seen Chaeron’s eyes flicker closed, snap open as he stepped forward offering Parma a formal embrace: the boy was using a computer-link to maintain contact with his guards. The overuse of unnatural applications of intelligence keys would yet be man’s undoing. Another time, Parma would have voiced his displeasure. Now, there were other matters taking precedence. As he hugged the youth close he whispered, “Let us hope that your efforts to prove your fitness to administrate have not proved the opposite.” He let his son go, turned to Shebat.

“May I assume that your presence here indicates you are returned for long enough to sup with your father?”

“Yes,” came the aspiration from her downcast face.

Parma looked back over his shoulder, ostensibly to speak to the bodyguards flanking Spry like an extra pair of arms. Beyond them, two of Chaeron’s men and two guildsmen waited on either side of
Bucephalus’s
port. All the others had disappeared within. “Gentlemen,” he said to Spry’s guards, “back off a bit. My pilot suffers from claustrophobia.”

Turning back, he snapped, “Baldy, what in blazing hell is going on here? My son may not have known better, but you certainly do.”

Behind the emaciated, silver-haired giant Parma could see the pair of waiting command transports—one black, one silver—looming huge among the parked slip-lorries.

The guildmaster displayed his most wrinkled concern: “The consul and I both found it necessary to reexamine the
Bucephalus
. . .”

“I see. And necessary to watch each other while you’re at it, also?”

“Parma, I must speak with you privately.”

“So I have surmised. Well, your pet pilot is joining us for dinner, why don’t you do the same?” Out of the corner of his eye Parma watched the guildsmen’s faces; and Chaeron, who was saying something urgent to Shebat, sotto voce.

“Alone, Parma, at a more propitious time,” insisted the guildmaster, havoc in his demeanor. “Right now, I need a moment with my first master, and I will be going.”

“And will you take your company with you?” Parma silked, while his glare spoke more harshly. “The
Bucephalus
is, after all,
my
ship. Not yours, not the Draconis consul’s.” Deeply troubled by the suspicion that whatever it was he was supposed to have gathered from this display of bodies had escaped him, he probed: “What, exactly, are you looking for?”

“I wish we knew,” Chaeron interrupted sharply.

Seemingly, Parma ignored him, saying, “I surrender, for the time being. David, attend your guildmaster. But quickly. My irritation will not long bear restraint.”

Then, as Parma breached the invisible wall between himself and his son and stepdaughter by tucking one under each arm and strolling companionably toward the waiting command transport, Spry walked nonchalantly out from between the spread-legged bodyguards who at Parma’s earlier rebuke had stepped back one full pace each.

Instantly enfolded by the half-dozen pilots, he endured Baldy’s austere embrace.

“The
Marada
has disappeared. The
Hassid
reports her pilot is bringing along an unspecified ship in tandem. The Kerrions will know shortly; I have taken a grave risk holding news of it back this long. Are you under arrest?” All this was whispered through unmoving lips centimeters from Spry’s ear.

“Not yet, though I expect it promptly. Why is
Bucephalus
being subjected to this second fact-finding expedition?” They unclasped, stood with their heads together, seemingly examining their feet.

“I have no idea. Since Chaeron took control, things have been more and more mysterious. I’m in there to find out why he’s in there. It would be nice if there were something wrong with that ship so I could condemn it.”

“There is, and you know what it is, and so do I. The question remains whether or not they will be able to detect it. I, for one, do not think they will. Why not accept Parma’s invitation? It might be our last meal.”

The guildmaster eyed him sidelong. “Softa, I’m sorrier than you will ever know. I wish there was something I could do . . .”

“There is. Keep the
Bucephalus
at ready, and don’t count me out quite yet. There’s one sure solution I’ve been saving as a last resort.”

“You’ll never make it.”

“I know. But we won’t be around to incriminate anyone—not me, or
Bucephalus
.”

“Lords, I’ll never know why I allowed you to talk me into this.”

“Come on, Baldy, you’ll lose face. You’re not supposed to
have
any emotions. And you’re making me think about things I’d rather not.”

The old man raised his head, looking around at the grimly conversational, clustered pilots, beyond them to the two Kerrion bodyguards awaiting Spry. “In forty-five years of guild service, I’ve never had to despise myself before. It takes some getting used to, this being helpless and standing by . . .”

A clangor sounded from the Kerrion ground transport. The bodyguards shouted Spry’s name. “Wish us luck, old man. Things might not be so bad as they appear. Now I’ve got to go before they drag me, or you convince me I’d just as well turn in my rating and breathe vacuum.” He turned away, and the guildsmen made way for him.

“See you,” the guildmaster’s farewell followed him.

“Better hope not,” he threw back, not turning, meekly letting the Kerrion minions escort him toward the ground transport.

In it, Parma Kerrion struggled to contain his rage:

“I
invited
Spry to join us because I do not feel it is yet time to arrest him.”

“I was not going to arrest him,” Chaeron objected mildly.

“Well, your matched set of goons surely thought that you were. So did Guildmaster Baldwin; so did Spry. What do you think you’re doing?”

“Making him nervous.”

“In that you surely succeeded . . . Chaeron, if you think to toy with me, you have contracted delusions of grandeur from your mother.”

“May I say one thing?” Chaeron was leaning against a brace of consoles in the control central of the transport, arms crossed, face uncharacteristically stem.

“You may say one thing.”

“Thank you. Shebat and I are married.”

“What?”
Parma whirled in his chair so sharply that something deep in his neck cracked. The girl had been standing quietly in a corner. “Come here,” Parma thundered in the small, cluttered cabin full of variegated lights. She came and stood before his desk, red indicator-spill from the console flushing her pale throat.