George Martin - Starlady & Fast-Friend

The angel was swooping up and down the corridor, coming closer to Melissa each time, clearly fascinated by the fast-friend, but afraid to come too close. They both ignored her.

Brand was looking at Melissa, at the dim, far-off reflection of a girl who’d loved him once. He shook it away. She was just a fast-friend, and he’d get his stars from her.

“You can take me to the stars, Melissa, and other men after me. It’s time you fast-friends shared your universe with us poor humans.”

“A drive?” she asked.

“You might…”

But the angel interrupted him. “Oh, let me, Brand. Let me tell her. I know how. You told me. I remember. Let me talk to the fast-friend.” She’d stopped her wild circles, and was floating eager between them.

Brand grinned. “All right. Tell her.”

The angel spun in the air, smiling. Her wings beat quickly to underscore her words. “It’s like horses,” she told Melissa. “The darks are like horses, Brand said, and the fast-friends are like horses with riders. But he’s got the first chariot, and the fast-friends will pull him.” She giggled. “Brand showed me a picture of a chariot. And a horse too.”

“A star chariot,” Brand said. “I like the image. Oh, it’s a cartoon analogy, of course, but the math is sound. You can transport matter. Enough of you, locked into a dark screen, can transport a ship this size.”

Melissa floated, staring, shaking her head slowly back and forth. Her silver hair shimmered. “Stars,” she said softly. “Brand, the core… the songs. Freedom, Brand. Like we used to talk. Brand, they won’t… no running… they won’t let us go … can’t chain us.”

“I have.”

And the angel, emboldened by Melissa’s sudden stillness, flew up beside her. In a childish, tentative way, she reached out to touch, and found the phantom solid. Melissa, her eyes on Brand, put an arm around her. The angel smiled and sighed and moved closer.

Brand shook his head.

And the angel suddenly looked up, childish pique washing across her face. “You fooled me,” she said to Brand. “She’s not a horse. She’s a person.” Then, brightly, she smiled again. “And she’s so pretty .”

There was a long, long silence.

The bridge panel slid shut behind him. Robi was waiting. “Well?” she asked.

Wordlessly Brand kicked himself across the room, strapped down, and looked up at the viewscreen. Out in the darkness, in the screen-dimmed gloom, Melissa had rejoined the other fast-friends. They spoke with staccato bursts of color. Brand watched briefly, then reached up to the console and hit a button.

The stars flared cold and bright, and the flanks of Hades shone.

Before Robi had a chance to speak the fast-friends had vanished, spinning space around them, moving faster than the Chariot ever would. Only Melissa lingered, and only for a second. Then emptiness, and the derelicts around them.

“Brand!”

He smiled at her, and shrugged. “I couldn’t do it. We would never have been able to let them outside the screens. They’d be animals, draft animals, prisoners.” He looked sheepish. “I guess they’re not. Not people either, though, not anymore. Well, we always wanted to meet an alien race. How could we guess that we’d create one?”

“Brand,” Robi said. “Our investment. We have to go through with it. Maybe we can use darks?”

He shook his head. “No. We couldn’t get them to understand what we wanted. No. Fast-friends or… nothing, I guess.”

He paused, and looked at her. She was staring up at the viewscreen, with an expression that shrieked disgust and exasperation. “I’ll make it up to you,” Brand said. He took her hand, gently. “We’ll trap. We’re well equipped.”

Robi looked over. “Where’s the angel?” she asked, and her voice sounded a shade less angry.

Brand sighed. “In my cabin,” he said. “I gave her a necklace to play with.”