Robert Heinlein - Variable Star

It took him that long to see Rennick’s drifting corpse and stop speaking. He must have been very tired. But he was still sharp, and quick. He didn’t bother asking what was wrong.

“All right,” he went on. “Everyone on board now . We will discuss this later.”

“Gran’ther, how can you?” Evelyn asked him with infinite sadness.

He did not seem to understand her question.

“The race made a small mistake,” Herb said. Alice’s head turned to track him. “We did finally make some progress at stamping out war. But maybe it would have been better to start with greed.”

“What’s going on?” Solomon asked mildly.

“Conman of Conman here,” I said, “was just about to depart, leaving behind a boatful of suckers who thought he’d be coming back to start a rescue shuttle.”

Solomon caught on at once, and turned to glare at Conrad. “Really?”

“He also forgot to mention to anybody that with a little work, Andy’s Magic Carpet drive will push anything you put it in, just as fast. Irrespective of its mass.”

Solomon’s face darkened even further. “I see. He had better things to do with it. Sure, he did.”

“Sol,” I said quickly. “It’s covered . Okay? Watch out for green mist.”

I saw him take my meaning. Stay out of the line of fire and await developments.

“Oh, for Covenant’s sake!” Conrad snarled. “Jinny, you understand. Evelyn, dear, history is being made. Right now, by us. We need to form and consolidate the Confederation of Human Stars, get it organized. Ferry telepaths around until rational communication can take place, and then get busy and avenge our star. For all we know, a second wave of attacks is just about to happen—there is no way we have time to waste rescuing a bunch of losers from their own incompetence. Please try to be rational. You’re a Conrad , for the—”

“I am a Johnston,” she told him.

He rolled his eyes. “Young love. Oh, I love being old! Fine. I don’t care what name you go by, as long as you get into that damned pressure suit and back aboard the ship, now .”

She looked him in the eye and slowly shook her head. “I will not.”

Conrad of Conrad sighed, irritated beyond endurance. “Alice.”

Alice Dahl reached for her right hip, and Time slowed to its lowest possible velocity.

“Alice!” I shouted.

She was very good, gave me less than half her attention at first despite my shout.

That changed fast when she saw my hand holding the weapon I’d been palming all this time, though.

She was so good that in the fraction of an instant it took me to draw a dead bead on her center of mass, she had her own gun out and pointed directly at my left eye.

“If you kill me,” she said calmly, “my hand will still kill you afterward.”

“Probably,” I agreed. Most of my attention was on my features, going for the best poker face of my life.

“Absolutely,” she corrected.

Time was going so slowly now, I could actually see her discern some tiny flaw in my poker face. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

“Hey, Butch!” Herb bellowed at the top of his lungs.

She was still good. She turned her head just enough to pick him up in her peripheral vision. She knew he was bluffing, because she knew he was smart enough to know he could not possibly beat her—and still she checked.

And found Herb aiming Dorothy’s tiny little weapon at her.

She identified it, must have realized it was much deadlier than the one I held. It didn’t worry her a bit. The right side of her mouth curled up in contempt.

Faster than the eye could follow, she spun on her axis. Beating Herb was no more difficult than beating me had been for her.

And as far as Alice Dahl knew, nobody important wanted Herb alive. She shot him in his left eye, perfectly confident that shock and denial would hold a civilian like me frozen for the split second that was all she would need.

I was not in shock. I was not in denial. She died halfway back around to me, when my shot caught her square in the heart.

It was a far less gaudy death than either of the others that had happened in that room—but it was definitive. Rennick’s weapon fired not a laser or projectiles, but something that relaxed muscles. All of them, completely. Her face went slack, her eyes became doll’s eyes, her body went limp and derelict, and sphincters let go just before Solomon crashed into her.

My own nearly did the same. I had been more than half expecting to die myself, doing this. But I barely noticed; I was already in transit to Herb, just in case, knowing it was futile but unable to help myself. Halfway there I knew I was wasting my time, and started to relax and begin mourning.

An unexpected noise behind me scared the living shit out of me.

I wrenched my body around and just had time to realize Jinny had launched herself after me, hands curled into claws—when Evelyn slammed into her so hard her vector won the argument. They both drifted away from me, but only Evelyn was still conscious.

I collided with Alice’s body myself, glanced off, and grabbed a handhold. Now my attention was fully on Andrew.

He couldn’t take his eyes off Jinny. He was staring at her as if she had just morphed into some loathsome insect, or perhaps a demon with fangs.

I felt truly bad for him. I knew exactly how he must feel. The same as I had, when I’d first learned she wasn’t who I’d thought she was at all. That she wasn’t who she had told me she was. That she was capable of enormities I could not have imagined, and would not have believed until forced to. Nobody that beautiful should be capable of that much guile: it was too unfair an advantage.

She was everything her grandfather had hoped for. And little else.

I decided he would probably live through it, too. He might even be able to deal with it, somehow, for all I knew. He was a supergenius. And a decent man down to his marrow. I would try and have a long talk with him, as soon as I could. A series of them.

Richard Conrad inevitably found his voice. “All right, now,” he began.

Andrew Jackson Conrad cut him off. “Grandfather,” he said, “shut the fuck up.”

Richard stared at him, more confounded by this than anything else that had occurred yet. He groped for words, found none at all.

“If you say one more word,” his grandson-in-law said to him, “I will come over there and shove it down your throat.”

“ Way too kind,” I heard Dorothy murmur.

I saw it wash over him, and if it hadn’t been so pathetic I’d have enjoyed it more. For the first time in his entire life, Conrad of Conrad found himself in a room full of people… not one of whom gave a damn what he did or did not want.

He had always been utterly alone—but had probably never even suspected it until now.

“Joel,” Andrew continued, “I assume this ship carries proctors?”

“Good ones,” I agreed.

“Will you summon one, please. This citizen requires restraint.”

“As a matter of fact,” I said, “he’ll be here any second. The ship calls him if it decides he’s needed. As soon as he gets here, I suggest we all adjourn back to my quarters, and start making some plans.”

“Good,” he said. “Will you help me get my wife to your Infirmary first?”

“Not to worry,” I assured him. “My place is much closer, more comfortable… and our Healer makes house calls. She is very good.”

He nodded. “Thank you very much.”

I told him he was welcome.

And then— finally —my obligations were over for the moment, and at long last I went to rejoin my Evelyn.