Joan Vinge - The Snow Queen

“Doctor C’sunh, as I live and breathe!” Tor saw the Commander of Police herself materialize out of the amorphous wall of blue tunics. “You’ve been in our files for as long as I can remember — it’s a real pleasure to finally meet you in the flesh.” She grinned with the pleasure of it, and clamped binders on him. Her men were doing the same for Oyarzabal and the rest. She leaned over, searching Tor’s face, glancing aside at the fallen syringe. She smiled again. “Well, Tor Starhiker. You look like you’ve got something you just can’t wait to tell us. And I can’t wait to hear it. Hey, Woldantuz! Get over here and give this woman a shot. The right kind.” She winked reassurance as one of the patrolmen appeared at her side and kneeled down.

Tor barely registered the burn of the antidote as the Commander’s space was filled by an even more unexpected face. “Pollux!” The word didn’t quite form, but control was coming back to her; she felt it climb through the levels in her mind like a drug rush.

“Tor. Are you all right?”

“What… what… did you… say?” She gulped and gasped.

“Tor. Are you all right?” he repeated, as tonelessly as before. He bent forward, offering her his arm as she tried to get her feet under her. She took the arm gratefully, hauling herself up.

“Whoo.” She put a hand to her head, dizzy with relief, leaning heavily against him. Her fingers sank into the soft frizz of her skewed wig; she pushed at it absently… hearing again the last words the Source had spoken to her. She closed her hand, jerked the wig off her head and threw it down. “Since when have you had a vocabulary, you can of bolts?” She leaned back, staring into Pollux’s inscrutable non face felt a grin of triumph spread across her own. “Hellfire… I was right about you. You old fraud! Why didn’t you ever talk to me before, damn it?”

“Just a little joke, Tor.” Deadpan.

“Hah. That’s the kind of laughs you’d expect from a machine. How long’ve you been able to talk like that?”

“Since I was programmed at the police academy on Kharemough.”

“The what?”

“Cancel that, Pollux.” The Commander reappeared on his other side, frowning. “You really do need work… You can thank Pollux for your timely rescue, Starhiker. And I think I can thank him for a lot more — if you’ll tell me I’m right in what I figure was going on here.” She pointed a thumb at the lab and the captives behind her.

“Thanks, Pollux.” Tor burnished his chest softly with her hand. “They were going to start a plague,” she felt her legs weave under her again, “and kill all the Summers with it.”

PalaThion nodded as if it was what shed expected to hear. “Who put them up to it?”

Tor looked down.

“The Snow Queen?”

Startled, she nodded, feeling inexplicable shame at admitting it to an off worlder “That’s what they said.”

“That’s what I thought.” PalaThion smiled coldbloodedly no longer seeing her. “I’ve beaten her at last! Unless…” She shook her head, glancing away as another Blue entered the room, an inspector this time. “Mantagnes?” she said eagerly.

But the inspector shook his head grimly. “We missed him, Commander.”

“Jaakola? How the hell could you possibly—”

“I don’t know!” He met her anger with his own. “When we broke into his office, he was gone. We searched everywhere — a fly couldn’t have hidden in there! They’re still searching… but he had a way out, and we haven’t traced it yet.”

“He won’t get off-planet.” PalaThion pulled at the empire sign on her belt buckle. “We’ll get him.”

“Don’t bet on it.” Mantagnes studied his feet, disgusted.

“Then let him try finding a hiding place from charges of attempted genocide.” She waved a hand. “Woldantuz, let’s put these other beautiful people in the bottle where they belong. At least we’ve got all the evidence. And a witness. Starhiker, I’ll need your testimony.”

“Count on it, Blue.” Tor nodded, feeling her urge for revenge blaze up as C’sunh was led past her. Two of the others followed him before she saw Oyarzabal.

“Persipone?” He pulled his guard to a stop. “I guess I won’t be takin’ you with me after all. Not where I’m bound now.”

“You wanted to make me into a vegetable, you lousy bastard! That’s all you ever wanted!” She pushed past PalaThion to stand in front of him. “I hope you stay there until you rot. I hope you never even see another woman—” She remembered suddenly that he had tried to stop it at the last; and that the few seconds he had won her had made all the difference.

“I didn’t want you dead, that’s all! Even havin’ you like that was better than havin’ you dead.” He leaned toward her; the Blue held him back.

“Speak for yourself.” She folded her arms. “Since you’re the only one you seem to think about.”

He looked away, at PalaThion. “If you want what I know about this, just ask. I’ll tell you anything.” PalaThion nodded, and one of the other men swore under his breath. Tor realized that Oyarzabal’s life wouldn’t be worth a drunkard’s damn from now on, no matter where they sent him.

And there would be no getting off this world for her now, no matter what she did. Oh, gods, why can’t I ever do anything right? She hugged herself tightly, because there was no one else left to hold her, or to hold. She felt PalaThion look at her, found an unexpected sympathy in the woman’s eyes. PalaThion’s head moved imperceptibly, until she was looking at Oyarzabal, and past him.

Tor stepped forward, still holding onto herself, protecting herself, as she closed with Oyarzabal. She kissed him briefly on the mouth. She stepped back again, and they wouldn’t let him follow. “So long, Oyar.”

He didn’t answer her. The Blues led him out of the room. Tor moved back to stand beside Pollux. Why is it? Why is it? That you never want what you’ve got till you’ve thrown it away?

Jerusha leaned forward across the duty desk, craning her neck to follow the sight of Dr. C’sunh and his fellow would-be genocides being led away into the detention wing. Oh, sweet revenge! There was nothing sweet in her smile. She had broken Arienrhod’s plot at the last possible moment; and even though she couldn’t touch Arienrhod herself, she had set the Summers on her, and they would keep her safe until the day of her execution. Maybe there is some justice in the universe, after all. “Starhiker!”

Tor Starhiker glanced through the thinning screen of self congratulatory blue uniforms; she sat drinking strong tea under the watchful ga/e of Pollux. She got up from the bench, came striding through the patrolmen toward the desk. Jerusha watched her come with bemused interest. Her clinging body wrap left considerably more of her chunky body uncovered than it covered; she walked like a dockhand, oblivious to the casual ogling of the men she passed. A plain, pragmatic face was emerging through the smeared makeup, and her lank mouse-colored hair was chopped off bluntly at ear length. Ye gods, there’s a human being in there. Jerusha remembered abruptly that one of the men she had just sent away seemed to be in love with that human being. Damn it, why can’t right be right and wrong be wrong… why can’t it be simple, just once? I’m sick of gray. She shook it off as the woman stood before her. “How are you doing?”

Tor shrugged, lost a drape of cloth and pulled it back onto her shoulder. “All right, I guess. I mean, considering…” She looked i away at the doorway to the detention block.

“Well enough for a monitored testimony?”

“Sure.” Tor sighed. “I guess I don’t get to appear at the trial, huh?” She rested her hands on her hips.