Joan Vinge - The Snow Queen

“Real power,” Moon lifted her hand to the sign at her throat, “is control. Knowing that you can do anything… and not doing it only because you can. Thousands of mers have died so that you could keep your power while the off worlders were here; and now thousands of human beings are going to die so that you can keep it when they’re gone. I’m not worth a thousand lives, a hundred, ten, two — and neither are you.” She shook her head, seeing the face before her, seeing herself. “If I have to believe that being what I am means I’d destroy Sparks, and destroy the people who gave me everything, then I should never have been born! But I don’t believe it, I don’t feel it,” fiercely. “I’m not what you are, or what you think I am, or what you want me to be. I don’t want your power… I have my own.” She touched her throat again.

Arienrhod frowned; Moon felt her anger like sleet. “So they were all imperfect, failures… even you. I always believed I could supply the thing you lacked… but no; no one can give you that. You’re a gutless weakling — thank the gods I don’t have to depend on you now to achieve my goals.”

Moon looked down at her hands, at white fists. “Then we really have nothing to say to each other, after all. You told me I could go.” She took a step toward the bridge, her heart leaping ahead.

“Wait, Moon!” Arienrhod caught up to her again, drawing her back and around. “Can you really leave me like this; so soon, so easily? Isn’t there some way for us to share something more than our stubborn pride? You above all should have been the one, the only one, who would understand the things no one else could ever reach in me, the things that I’ve never been able to give to anyone else.” Her voice, her touch, softened. “Give me time, and perhaps I can learn to reach what lies unreachable in you.”

Moon swayed: a fatherless, motherless child hearing her own voice crying a lifelong loneliness; reaching out to embrace her own strength, and redouble it, parent and child in one. But her inner eye showed her Sparks, scarred in body and mind, and what his final silence had sworn her to. “No. No, we can’t.” Her gaze fell. “There’s no time left.”

Arienrhod flushed; softness fell away from her face, left unforgiving iron. Her hand rose as if to strike Moon’s face; but it caught the beaded choker instead and jerked, breaking the threads. “You think you can stop me. Then leave, if you can. My nobles know that you’re a Summer sibyl.” She waved at the Winters still standing patiently beyond the bridge and behind them. “And they know that you came here disguised as me, to commit some treachery. If you can make them believe you’re not those things, then you deserve to go free — and to be a part of me.” She turned away abruptly, striding back toward the palace halls alone.

As she went toward them the waiting nobles advanced, bowing as they passed her, and ringed Moon in at the foot of the bridge. Moon watched Arienrhod go on, never turning back, until she lost sight of her beyond the shifting wall of vengeful faces.

“Well, Commander. I hope you enjoyed the Queen’s banquet.” Chief Inspector Mantagnes broke off his conversation with the sergeant, hoping nothing of the kind, as Jerusha entered the hollow quiet of headquarters from the clamoring streets. Virtually everyone on the force was out, either protecting the Prime Minister or patrolling the festivities. The two men made a desultory salute; she returned it perfunctorily. Mantagnes eyed her dress uniform enviously. She knew that he must have spent the evening brooding because he wasn’t at the reception in her place, strutting in front of his fellow Kharemoughis in the position that was rightfully his.

“I don’t enjoy wasting my time, when there’s still so much work to be done.” She looked pointedly at the two of them; pulled off her scarlet cloak, opening her collar. “You’re relieved as acting commander, Inspector.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He saluted again, his eyes reminding her that she wouldn’t be hearing that for much longer. Yes, you son of a bitch, you’ll have your turn. The Chief Justice’s damning, unfavorable report on her and Mantagnes’s own ambitious backbiting would ensure the record of her command here was painted as black as the void. Her career would be finished with this post, her seniority and rank swept under the carpet of official censure. She would never have a chance at a command again; she would be shipped off to some godforsaken outpost on the back side of nowhere acknowledging grimly that there were worse places than Carbuncle). And there she would rot for the rest of her natural life.

Gods, I’m sick of Kharemoughi arrogance! She bunched her cape between her hands as she started toward her office. I’ll have to see one more damned, supercilious Technocrat face… BZ Gundhalinu’s face came suddenly into her mind, slowing her. One more face. That face she would give anything to see, right now, right here. But he had never arrived with his prisoner. She should have known — but how the hell could she know that Gundhalinu of all men would run off with the girl instead? Because it was obvious! She had put into her report that he was ill, unaccountable for his actions; and the gods knew it was probably truer than she wanted to admit.

And tonight she had seen Sparks Dawntreader, openly flaunting his sanctuary there at the banquet, drinking himself into a stupor. And Arienrhod, serenely beautiful as always, serenely unconcerned about her upcoming fate as she moved among her subjects and her supposed masters — far too unconcerned. Damn it! What’s she planning?

“Damn it, what’s this doing here?” She stopped, glancing away at Mantagnes, and back at the pol rob standing as immobile as a tree in front of her office. “Why aren’t you on duty?” addressing it directly. It made no response, and she realized that its power was off.

“It’s malfunctioning,” Mantagnes said irritably. “Came in here a while ago with some garbled story about its Winter lessor being mugged by the Queen’s men. Probably just maudlin with lease-lapse syndrome. Needs a complete system wiping — letting ignorant natives do even partial maintenance on sophisticated hardware like that is absurd.”

“Even ‘ignorant natives’ would wonder, if they had to bring their brainless servomechs to the police for every loose screw.” She threw the power switch on the pol rob chest, more out of aggravation than interest, watched the light sensors brighten inside its steel and plastic skull. She glanced at its identification plate. “Unit “Pollux.” Who’s your lessor?”

“Thank you, Commander!”

She stepped back, startled.

“Please hear me, Commander. It is urgent, and I cannot—”

“Yeah, yeah — just answer the questions.” She would never get used to Their voices.

“My lessor is one Tor Starhiker Winter, Tiamatan female, titular owner of Persipone’s Hell.” It radiated impatience. “You said she was attacked by the Queen’s guard? That’s no business of ours.”

“No, Commander. By off worlders By her fiance1—” I. “A lover’s quarrel?” I

“—one Oyarzabal, a casino employee, and his companions. She ] called to me for help, and was stun-shot by them. I could not reach her because the door was locked. So I came here for help.”

“You know why they attacked her?” Jerusha felt her interest stir ring. ;:

“Not clear, Commander. Perhaps she interfered with an illegal activity.”

“Who controls that casino?”

“One Thanin Jaakola, male, native of Big Blue.”

“The Source?” She felt even Mantagnes begin to listen behind her.

“Yes, Commander.”

“Repeat everything you heard them say.”