The Dark Beyond the Stars : A Novel (32 page)

I ventured in, still amazed by his artistry, and too late sensed not only the shadow screen closing behind me but the hatch as well. Somewhere in front of me—or perhaps to the side or above me—was Thrush. I couldn’t see him. Unlike every other compartment falsie, this one had not been designed around its meager furnishings. It had been designed to hide them as well as its occupant. I felt for my mask,then realized I didn’t have it with me. And Thrush, who was undoubtedly wearing his, could see that I didn’t have mine.

I took a few steps and promptly banged into the hammock. There was no indication it was there. I would have to feel my way through the compartment, ignoring all the visual clues to my surroundings.

“I’m surprised you had the courage”—Thrush laughed—“though I can’t say much for your judgment.”

“Where are you?” I asked, ignoring the skip my heart had taken when he questioned my judgment.

“Not yet, Sparrow.Soon enough.”

I tried to blank out the vegetation and orient myself in the compartment. I edged over to what had to be a bulkhead on my left and flattened against it, momentarily feeling safer. I fumbled for the thin strip of metal I had hidden in my waist-cloth and palmed it.

“The crew doesn’t like me, Sparrow.” Thrush’s voice had suddenly turned sour and flat. “They like you better—but not much. Heron tried to kill you once, but you keep forgetting that you tried to kill me and came closer to succeeding than Heron ever did to murdering you. Nobody’s forgotten that and you’re a fool if you think they’ve forgiven.”

A streak of excitement filtered into his voice.

“Didn’t you stop to think, Sparrow?
You’ve
come to see
me,
it’s not the other way around. And my guess is that you’re carrying some kind of weapon. Have you got a blade, Sparrow? You’re holding it right now, right?With your back against the bulkhead so I can’t take you by surprise. Except I think I could. And if I killed you, Sparrow, I could plead self-defense and almost everybody would believe it.”

I was sweating, the drops stinging as they crept into the corners of my eyes. My breathing was shallow and my ears strained to distinguish the sound of Thrush’s movements from the rustle of the small things in the jungle around me.

“Are you afraid, Sparrow? I know you can’t see me and I assure you that you won’t hear me. Not in time.”

I cursed myself again for being a fool. I started to slip around to my right, feeling for the hatchway, and bumped into an unexpected shelf. The sound seemed loud even among the shrieks and noises of the jungle. I tensed and swung the blade through the vegetation in front of me. Thrush’s voice filled with menace.

“Are you frightened, Sparrow? If you admit it, it might save your life.”

He fell silent and I swore I heard a slight movement. He was right: By the time I knew where he was, it would be much too late. And he was right again when he said the Captain’s case would be against me, not against him.

“I have to know, Sparrow.”

His voice was savage and I guessed he was close by. I sensed my own emotions in his, remembered when I had held a strip of metal to his throat and would have cut it, hesitating only when I felt his tremor of fear. Now he wanted the same admission from me.

I shook my head and the sweat flew off in droplets. I wasn’t going to win this time.

“So I’m afraid,” I finally admitted.

The rain forest abruptly vanished. I was spread-eagled against the bulkhead, wriggling my blade foolishly in front of me, while a smug-looking Thrush floated behind the familiar ledge we all used as a desk. He took his hand off the terminal pad and showed large white teeth in a pale smile. On the hangar deck, I had spared his life only after he had shown fear. I had been the alpha primate then. Now he had spared mine, without ever leaving his position behind the desk.The possible fight, and winning or losing it, had all been in my imagination.

“That makes us even,” he smirked.

“More than even,” I muttered.

He clasped his hands behind his head, not afraid of me even though I still held the blade in my hand. He knew that he could reach the terminal pad before I could reach him and that I would never find him in the jungle he had programmed. He also knew I had a reason for coming to see him.

“We’re the only two people on board who can play like this,” he said smugly. “No, I take that back—a few could probably come close, Banquo for one.But very few of the others. We’re not like them, Sparrow.”

He waslumping me in the same category with himself; I was repelled, while apprehensive at the same time. Did he know I was aware of my own history? For a brief moment, I was sweaty with anxiety,then realized that while he might play with Sparrow, he wouldn’t dare if he thought he was dealing with Hamlet.

“I think we’re very different, Thrush—I would never have done to Heron what you did.”

He sneered.

“Easy enough to say when you’ve never been in a position where it was his life or yours. He won’t be missed by the ship—and though you don’t want to agree, I would be.”

“He idolized you,” I said.

He shrugged.“Why not? Did anybody else take the trouble to befriend him? In the end, I treated him badly, but circumstances left me no choice. And if you recall, there was a time when you thought highly of me as well.”

I bit back the hot reply that came to mind. On the hangar deck, when we had been so close I could feel his sudden surge of fear, I had asked him why he had wanted to kill me and was told he thought he was the better man. I had puzzled about that ever since. In the months that I had been “Sparrow,” I had imagined the
Astron
was split into two parts—the Captain and his men against the rest of the crew. The Captain had a mission and was willing to go to any lengths to carry it out. But a large fraction of the crew wanted to seize the
Astron
and return home.

It had been a simple theory, but Thrush didn’t fit into it. I knew what the Captain wanted. I knew what most of the crew wanted. But I didn’t know what Thrush wanted.

Then I had one of the few inspirations of my short life.

“Do you agree with the Captain, Thrush? That there’s life out there?”

“None of us will know for sure until we find it, will we, Sparrow?” He grinned. “If the Captain asked me, I might give him a different answer.As you did at the trials.”

Were we that much alike? I wondered. Then I was curious what Hamlet had thought of Thrush, how Hamlet had handled him.Or if he had bothered.

“Now I’ve got one for you, Sparrow.” Thrush’s smile faded. “Why did you come to see me?The truth, please.”

He was very much in control, very self-confident. Apparently we were mortal enemies; but right then, I would never have known it. If he had ever played a role in one of Snipe’s historicals , he must have been very good.

“I need your help.”

“I didn’t think you could surprise me,” he murmured. “I was wrong.”

“I want to convince the Captain to save their lives.” He knew who I meant. His face became a pale mask.

“I was never that fond ofNoah, and Tybalt’s easily replaced. And you overestimate my friendship with Heron.”

“You were never friends with Heron,” I said, “He was friends with
you
.”

A shrug.“I stand corrected.”

Time was running out. I had spent half an hour with Ophelia and Huldah but I could easily spend half a time period with Thrush trying to coax him to do something he saw no profit in doing, only risk.

“I can prove you plotted with Heron on the hangar deck,” I said. “There were other witnesses.” It was too simple a lie and I cursed Huldah for urging me to even try talking to Thrush. Thrush raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.

“A threat, Sparrow?Against me?”He smiled bleakly. “What is it you want me to do? Go to the Captain and plead for their lives?” Once again there was something in the back of his eyes that I couldn’t read. “It would be more effective if you did that, Sparrow. He might believe pleading if it came from you; you’re too innocent to have ulterior motives.”

He drifted out from behind the desk. I stared at him in the light from the glow tubes and tried to hide my stare at the same time. I had been an idiot, I should have known. Why hadn’t Huldah told me?

I had eyes but I had to learn to use them—and Huldah taught by example. She was intensely interested in the fate of those stranded below, but she had also wanted me to look at Thrush in circumstances under which I could see him for what he really was.

Thrush opened the hatch and waited for me to leave.

“Do whatever you want, Sparrow, say anything you want. I can’t go to the Captain and plead for them. Nobody can. All three of them endangered the
Astron
and there’s no reprieve from that—nobody can be allowed to endanger the
Astron,
not even the Captain.”

I paused in the corridor outside, just before he flicked on the shadow screen.

“If you were Captain,” I said thoughtfully, “would you take the
Astron
into the Dark?”

It wasn’t my question. It had come from somewhere in the back of my mind, perhaps from Hamlet, perhaps from Aaron. It surprised me as much as it surprised Thrush.

“I might.”

“You wouldn’t make it,” I said.

He shrugged and turned back to the desk ledge and his terminal pad.

“The ship would, the crew might not. Not all of them.”

The jungle and all of its noises suddenly reappeared, to vanish a moment later as the shadow screen flowed back in place.

I had the information I needed, but I had a good deal more than that as well and all of it totally unexpected. Thrush had been as badly gashed as I during our fight on the hangar deck. But now he was completely healed. I remembered Abel’s look of surprise when he had inspected us three weeks earlier. Ophelia had been wrong about the Captain’s sterility. The skin color was a different shade, undoubtedly due to a recessive gene. But the sense of command was the same and sowas the ruthlessness and the innate ability to manipulate people. So also was the attitude of one of those who was alone in life, stranded among the mayflies.

Thrush had once bragged that the Captain had taken a special interest in him. It had surprised me then but it didn’t now.

Thrush, Thrush…

The Captain’s son.

The Captain was not alone. Banquo guarded the hatchway to his cabin and I could see Escalus at his accustomed post inside, barring entrance to the Captain’s private quarters. I even caught a glimpse of the Captain himself, shouting and gesturing angrily at somebody out of sight. There was nothing I wanted more than to return to my compartment and the comforting arms of Snipe, whom I would comfort in turn. Tybalt had “taken an interest” in her long ago and she would be mourning him for a long time to come.

I dodged past Banquo , bursting in on a startled Captain, who had been arguing with a sweating Abel. For a moment, before Banquo grabbed me from behind, everybody froze. The Captain, interrupted in mid-sentence, glared at me, not quite believing that anybody would enter without first asking permission. Abel, who looked anguished, didn’t take his eyes from the Captain’s face; I had caught him at the end of an argument he had just lost. Escalus , frowning, had buried his hand in his waistcloth. I guessed he was clutching at some weapon he had hidden there.

I had forgotten the one Senior I might have gone to who would have pleaded for the condemned three. But apparently Abel had gone of his own accord to beg for Noah’s life—and failed. Then Banquo wrapped an arm around my waist and another around my neck, his sweaty forearm slippery against my windpipe.

“I have to see the Captain!” I squeaked. “Let me go—”

Banquotightened his arm and my words were choked back into my throat. The Captain motioned and I was free to breathe and find my voice.

“You’re late,” he said sarcastically. He gestured at Abel. “I expected you before
him
.” His voice was thick with contempt.

Abel paled. I took a momentary delight in his humiliation,then felt ashamed, realizing how much courage it had taken and how much it must have cost him in influence with the Captain. Noah had been his friend and, Captain’s man or not, Abel had been willing to risk all.

The Captain nodded to Abel. “You can go. But perhaps we should talk again.” The threat was unmistakable.

Abel fled, all dignity abandoned, and the dislike I had felt for him for so long vanished in a wave of pity.

“There’s something on your mind, Sparrow?”

The Captain’s voice was without its usual cloak of friendship. Both Banquo and Escalus were staring at me with half smiles and I realized that all three were waiting for me to repeat whatever pleas Abel had made. I stalled for time, stammering with embarrassment at entering the Captain’s cabin without permission. I wondered furiously what Abel might have said.

Would he have pleaded for the return of the three to the ship and then begged for their lives? If so, what would have been the basis of his pleas? That they were innocent? That Heron was now harmless? That Noah was an old man with little influence among the crew? That the facts in Tybalt’s case had been misinterpreted?

Abel had failed. But without even thinking, Thrush had given me the only approach that might work. Nor would I have to deny my ties of friendship with both Noah and Tybalt . The Captain held up his hand to interrupt my torrent of apologies for intruding. “You’re forgiven, Sparrow—in the future, follow procedure.”

He relaxed in his hammock and waved Banquo outside to resume his guard in the passageway. He let some friendship seep back into his voice but the dark eyes were bleak and calculating. I suspected I had played this scene many times before and I was merely repeating Hamlet or Aaron or God only knew who.

“You came here for some reason, Sparrow. What is it?”

I had trouble keeping my voice from shaking.

“Inventories, sir.”

He frowned.“Inventories? Ship’s business can wait—”

I shook my head.

“I don’t think so, sir.”

He knew why I was really there and had probably been wondering what approach I might take. I was sure he had assumed my pleas would be based on friendship or humanity. But I had surprised him and now he was curious.