Joan Vinge - The Snow Queen

Then what was she doing with a criminal asleep in her guest room? She sighed. By the Bastard Boatman, the girl was no more a criminal than she was. And no more Arienrhod than she was. Who cared if Moon had seditious thoughts about the Hegemony? Gundhalinu was right — what could she do about them, once the off worlders were gone? And although she wanted to deny it even to herself, the memory of the mers and what the girl had said about punishment and guilt still gnawed at her like an ulcer. Because it was true — it was, and she would never be able to deny that again, or deny the hypocrisy of the government she served. Well, damn it, what government was ever perfect? She had stopped Arienrhod, and she could tell herself that looking the other way about Moon was her payment of conscience to Tiamat’s future. She could even let it go for Sparks, let him be Moon’s grief, if he delivered the testimony she wanted. And if she let him go, her conscience damn well ought to be clear forever… But she knew it wouldn’t be. She had seen too many things she should never have seen here, and had too many people she had tried to categorize slip out of her psychological shackles and overcome her resistance. Some of my best friends are felons.

She smiled painfully, pinched by sudden regret. Miroe… good… bye, Miroe. She had not heard from him since that last death-cursed day they stood together on the bloody beach… But that’s no good-bye. Not remembering that scene. She sat up on the couch, shaking out cobwebs. No — I can tell him that I’ve found Moon, that she’s all right, and that Arienrhod is going to pay. Yes, she should call him now, while she had the time, before they cut communications, before it was too late. Call him, Jerusha, and tell him goodbye.

She got up, moved stiffly across the room to the phone, unexpected flutterings in the pit of her stomach, as though she had swallowed moths. She punched in the code, cursing the adolescent attack of nerves under her breath as she waited for the call to go through.

“Hello? Ngenet Plantation here.” The voice was absolutely clear, for the first time she could ever remember. It was a woman’s voice; Jerusha heard the coldness come into her own:

“This is Commander PalaThion calling. Let me speak to Ngenet.”

“I’m sorry, Commander, he’s gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?” Damn it, he can’t be smuggling now!

“He didn’t say, Commander.” The woman sounded more embarrassed than conspiratorial. “He’s had a lot on his mind lately — we’ve all been getting ready for the Change here. He went on board his boat a few days ago and left. He didn’t tell anyone why.”

“I see.” Jerusha exhaled gradually.

“Is there any message?”

“Yes. Three things: Moon is safe. Arienrhod will pay. And tell him I — tell him I said goodbye.”

The woman repeated the message carefully. “I’ll tell him. A good voyage to you, Commander.”

Jerusha glanced down, glad that her face didn’t show. “Thank you. And good fortune to all of you.” She switched off the speaker and turned away from it — seeing the shell on the shrine table by the door, still sitting where it always had, its broken spines a mute testimony to what had been, and was not to be. It’s better this way… better that he was gone. But her eyes were hot and brimming suddenly; she did not blink until the reservoir of tears subsided, so that none escaped her control.

She turned back to the phone, changing the subject with an effort of will. Gundhalinu… should she call again about him? But she had already called the city medical center twice, and they had told her the same thing: He was delirious, she couldn’t talk to him. They didn’t know how he’d managed to stay on his feet, the shape he was in, as sick as he was; but they didn’t expect it would kill him. Reassuring. She grimaced, leaning against the wall. Well, maybe by the time she got back from the meeting with the Chief Justice… Yes, shed have everything to tell him, then. And in the meantime she’d better wash up and get back to headquarters again before it was time for her audience.

She pulled a pack of iestas out of her pocket, went into the bathroom to wash up and change. Moon slept on, restlessly, exhaustion setting her free from her fears about whether Sirus would get her cousin out of the palace. Jerusha still could not really believe that the First Secretary of the Hegemonic Assembly had ever agreed to attempt such a thing, even if Sparks Dawntreader was his son — a son he had never seen, and could hardly be sure was even his. But he had come willingly to meet with Moon, and he had gone away willing to try.

More inexplicable to her was how Moon had gotten the crippled Kharemoughi bartender from Persipone’s to agree to take Sparks’s place. Gods, the girl had barely been in the city two days! If she really believed Moon’s personal magnetism was enough to make men willing to die for her, she’d lock that kid up so fast her head would spin — But there had been undercurrents in the conversation between the girl and the two men that told her there was more to Herne’s going than just the way he looked at Moon… and one glance at his legs gave her a good reason. In her own private judgment Herne looked like a man the Hegemony would be better off without; and in any case, she had asked no questions, for fear of getting an answer she couldn’t ignore.

Jerusha heard someone stirring in the next room, looked out the refinished the doorway to see Moon stumble foggily into the hall. “You might as well go back to bed, sibyl. Time passes faster when you aren’t watching it. For better or worse, Sirus won’t be back for a while yet.”

“I know.” Moon rubbed her sleep-blurred face, shook her head. “But I have to get ready if I’m going to run in the race.” Her head came up, and her eyes were not soft with sleep.

Jerusha blinked. “The Summer Queen’s race? You?”

Moon nodded, daring her to try to stop it. “I have to. I came here to win the race.”

Jerusha felt someone step on her grave. “I thought you came for your cousin Sparks.”

“So did I.” Moon looked down. “It lied to me. It never meant for me to save him; it only used him, to make me follow its plan. But it can’t keep me from trying to save him anyway… And I can’t I keep it from making me Queen.”

Millennium come. Jerusha breathed unspoken relief, felt her pity stir. Gods, it’s true — sibyls are a little crazy. No wonder Arienrhod didn’t want her after all. “I appreciate your being honest about it with me.” She pulled a fresh tunic on over her damp skin, and sealed it up the front. “I won’t stop you if you want to try.” But if you win, don’t tell me; I don’t want to know.

Moon would not have believed it was possible to clear a space as long as her arm and keep it clear for even a moment in the quicksand shifting of the Festival mobs. But somehow order had been created out of chaos; somewhere in the seemingly formless super entity that was the Festival an underlying structure existed. A course had been cleared along the Street’s upper reaches for a mile below the palace, and eager spectators lined the way like the elegant townhouse walls at their backs. Most who had a viewing place had been holding it for hours, and the Blues who patrolled casually up and down before them had little trouble keeping them there. They had come to watch the beginning of the end, the first of the ancient ceremonies of the Change: the footrace that would thin the numbers of the women who had come to compete for the mask of the Summer Queen.

Moon had come out into the Street as soon as the nucleus of Summer women began to form around an elder of the Goodventure family, who carried in her the blood of Tiamat’s last line of Summer Queens. Members of that family were forbidden to become Queen at this Change, but instead bore the honored responsibility of seeing that its rituals were faithfully preserved and carried out. She had pulled a colored ribbon from one of their sacks to tie around her head — the ribbon that would give her a place at the front, middle, or back of the starting mass. The band she drew was grew, the sea: the color that put her in the front, ahead of brown for the land, blue for the sky. She tied the ribbon across her forehead, her face paley expressionless against the triumph and the disappointment around her. Of course it had been green… how could it not be? But a tension born of certainty wrapped her, tightening like tentacles; she pushed toward the front of the forming field of runners to escape it.