George Martin: Starlady & Fast-Friend

THISstory has no hero in it. It’s got Hairy Hal in it, and Golden Boy, and Janey Small and Mayliss, and some other people who lived on Thisrock. Plus Crawney and Stumblecat and the Marquis, who’ll do well enough as villains. But it hasn’t got a hero… well, unless you count Hairy Hal.

On the day it all began, he was out late, wandering far from the Plaza in the dock section near the Upend of the Concourse. It was night-cycle, the big overhead light-panels had faded to black, and here the wall-lights were few and dim. Elsewhere, just down the Concourse, the Silver Plaza was alive with music; multi-colored strobes were Hashing, and joy-smoke was belching from the air ducts. But Hal walked in darkness, through silent halls full of deserted loading trucks, past shadowed stacks of freight. Here, near the docks, Thisrock was much as the Imperials had known it. The corridors near the Plaza were all shops and disfigured plastic; the walls of the Concourse were covered with boasts and slogans and obscenities. But here, here, the only markings on the shining duralloy were the corridor numbers that the men of the Federal Empire had left. Hairy Hal knew the business was elsewhere. But he’d given up on business that night, and he was here.

Which was why he heard the whimper.

Why he followed it is something else again. The starslums were full of whimpers, plus screams and shouts and pleading. Hairy Hal was a child of the starslums, and he knew the rules. But that night he broke them.

In the black of a cross-corridor, up against some crates, he found Crawney and his men, with their victims. One victim was a youth. He stood in shadow, but Hal could make out a slender, graceful body, and his eyes. His eyes were immense. With him was a young woman, or maybe just a girl. She was backed up against the wall, under a yellow wall-light. Her face was pale, scared. And dark hair fell past her shoulders, so clearly she was off-world.

Crawney confronted them, a short slim man with black and red skull stripes and a mouth full of teeth that stuck out too far. He dressed in soft plastic, and he worked for the Marquis. Hal knew him, of course.

Crawney was unarmed. But the pair with him, the silent giants with the heads painted black, each of them carried a dark baton, and they waved them gracefully in front of them. Stingsticks. They kept the victims cornered.

So Hairy Hal, unnoticed, knelt in darkness and watched it all. It was a bleak episode, but one he’d seen before. There were soft threats from Crawney, delivered in a mild slurring voice. There were pleadings from the woman. There was a lightning pass from a stingstick, and a scream from the boy. Then whimpers, as he lay crumpled on the floor. Then another stingstick pass, a touch to the head, and the whimpering stopped.

Finally there were two rapes; Crawney, amused, just watched. Afterwards they took everything, and left her there crying beside the boy.

Hairy Hal waited until they were long gone, until even the echoes of their passage had faded from the corridor. Then he rose and went to the woman. She was naked and vulnerable. When she saw him, she gave a small cry and struggled to get up.

So he smiled at her. That was another of Hal’s trademarks; his smile. “Hey now, starlady,” he said. “Easy. Hal won’t hurt you. Your friend might need help.”

Then, while she watched through wide eyes, he knelt down near the boy and rolled him under the wall-light with one hand. The youth was blacked out from pain, but otherwise unhurt. But Hal didn’t notice that much. He was staring.

The youth was golden.

He was like no boy Hal had ever seen. His skin was soft cream gold; his hair was a shimmery silver-white. The ears were an elf’s, pointed and delicate, the nose small and chiseled, the eyes huge. Human? Hal didn’t know. But he knew it didn’t matter. Beauty was all that mattered, beauty and glowing innocence. Hairy Hal had found his Golden Boy.

The woman had dressed, in what Crawney had left of her clothing. Now she stood. “What can you do?” she said. “I’m Janey Small, from Rhiannon. Our ship….”

Hal looked up at her. “No, starlady,” he said. “No ship no more. Crawney got the name tabs, the Marquis’ll sell. Some insider will be Janey Small, from Rhiannon. See? Happens, well, every day. Starlady should have stayed on the Concourse.”

“But,” the woman started. “We have to go to someone. I mean the man with the striped head, he said he’d show us the good stuff. He hired the other two for us, as bodyguards. Can you take us to the police?” Her voice was even, quiet, and the teartracks on her face were dry now. She recovered fast. Hal admired her.

“Starlady landed on Thisrock,” he said. “No police here. Nothing. Should’ve hired a real bodyguard. Crew would give you a steer as usual. Crawney hit, instead. Starlady wasn’t Promethean, wasn’t insider, wasn’t protected, probly four-class passage, right?” He paused, she nodded. “So, right. Crawney wanted tabs, starlady was stupid, easy hit.” Hal glanced down at Golden Boy, then up at the woman again. “With you?” he asked.

“Yes. No.” She shook her head. “Not precisely. He was on the ship. No one could understand him, and no one seemed to know him, or where he was from. He started following me around. I don’t know much about him, but he’s good, kind. What’s going to happen to us now?”

Hal shrugged. “Help get Golden Boy over Hal’s shoulder. Come with, to home.”

Hairy Hal’s home; a four-room compartment on a cross-corridor near the Concourse, just off the Silver Plaza. It was good for trade. The door was heavy duralloy. Inside was a large square chamber, with a low couch along one wall and opposite a built-in kitchen. Above the couch were racks of books and tapes; for a starslummmer, Hal was an intellectual. A big plastic table filled most of the room and closed doors led off to the bedrooms and the waste cube. A glowing globe sat in the center of the table, sending pink reflections scuttling across the walls as it pulsed.

Hairy Hal dumped Golden Boy, still out, on the couch, then sat down at the table. He pointed to a second chair, and Janey sat too. And then, before either of them could say anything, a bedroom door opened and Mayliss entered.

Mayliss was very tall, very regal; sleek legs and big breasts and a hard, hard face with small green eyes. She painted her head bright red to let people know what she was. What she was was one of Hal’s girls. At the moment, she was his only girl.

She stopped in the door to her bedroom, studied Janey and Golden Boy, then looked at Hal. “Spin,” she said.

So Hairy Hal spun it. “Starlady got hit,” he told her. “Crawney did a bodyguard grabtab, threw in rip an’ rape.” He shrugged.

Her face grew harder. “Hairy Hal scoped it all, right? Did nothing?” She sighed. “So?”

“Seal it, Mayliss,” Hal told her. He turned back to Janey Small, smiled his smile. “Starlady know what comes now?” he asked.

Janey wet her lip, hesitated. Finally she spoke. “If there really are no police, I guess we’re stuck here for a while.”

Hal shook his head. “For good. Better face that, or you’ll get hurt. Easy to get hurt on Thisrock, starlady, not like Rhiannon. Look.” With that, his left hand reached across his body, grabbed a corner of his heavy green cape, and flipped it back over his shoulder. Then he took his right arm by the wrist, and lifted it onto the table.

Janey Small did not gasp; she was a tough woman, Janey Small. She just looked. Hairy Hal’s right arm wasn’t really much of an arm. It bent and twisted in a half-dozen places where an arm ought not to bend, and it was matchstick-thin. The skin was a reddish black, the hand a shriveled claw. Hal clenched his fist as it lay there, and the arm trembled violently.