Joan Vinge - The Snow Queen

“It’s true.” She nodded. “I’m staying here.”

“Why? Your reassignment? I heard about that, too.” His voice turned flat with anger. “Nobody likes it, Commander.”

I can think of one or two who were overjoyed. “Only partly because of that.” She frowned through him at the idea of the force chewing gossip about her resignation like old men in the town square. Having decided that it would be useless to complain, she had kept her anger in; but there was no way she could keep the fact of her humiliation from the others. And she had refused to discuss her decision or her resignation with anyone — whether out of fear that they would try to change her mind, or fear that they wouldn’t, she wasn’t sure.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Her frown faded. “Ye gods, BZ. You’ve had trouble enough without me giving you another load.”

“Only half the trouble I’d have had if you hadn’t covered for me, Commander.” The point of his jaw sharpened with feeling. “I know if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t still have the right to wear this uniform. I know how much it’s always meant to you… a lot more than it ever meant to me, until now; because I never had to fight for it. And now you’re giving it up.” He looked down. “If I could, I’d do my damnedest to help you get this assignment changed. But I—” He was looking at his hands. “I’m not my father’s son, any more. ‘Inspector Gundhalinu’ is all I have left. I’m ten times as grateful to you that I still have that much.” He looked up at her again. “But all I can do in return is ask you, Why here? Why Tiamat? I don’t blame you for resigning — but hell, any world in the Hegemony is better than this one, if you want to make a new life for yourself. At least if you don’t like it you can leave it.”

She shook her head, with a small, resolute smile. “I’m not a quitter, BZ. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t have something better I was going to. And I think I’ve found it here, unlikely as that sounds.” She glanced up and away, toward the line of high windows overlooking the field — the empty hall where Ngenet Miroe kept unseen watch on the Hegemony’s departure, waiting for the moment when she would become wholly and irrevocably a part of this world at last.

Gundhalinu followed the line of her glance, puzzled. “You always hated this world, even more than I did. What in the name of ten thousand gods could you have found—?”

“I’ll be swearing by just one, now.” She shook her head. “And working for Her too, I suppose.”

He looked blank. Comprehension came back into his eyes: “You mean… the Summer Queen? You mean Moon… you, and Moon?”

“That’s right.” She nodded. “How did you know, BZ? That she’d won.”

“She came to me, in the hospital; she told me.” The color faded from his voice. “I saw the mask of the Summer Queen. It was like a dream.” His hands moved in the air, touching something out of memory; his eyes closed. “She had Sparks with her.”

“BZ, are you going to be all right?”

“She asked me that, too.” He opened his eyes. “A man without armor is a defenseless man, Commander.” He smiled, bravely, barely. “But maybe he’s a freer man for it. This world… this world would have broken me. But Moon showed me that even I could bend. There’s more to me, more to the universe, than I suspected. Room for all the dreams I ever had, and all the nightmares: heroes in the gutters and in the mirror; saints in the frozen wasteland; fools and liars on the throne of wisdom, and hands reaching out in hunger that will never be filled… Anything becomes possible, after you find the courage to admit that nothing is certain.” His smile twitched self-consciously. Jerusha listened in silent disbelief.

“Life used to look like cut crystal to me, Commander — sharp and clear and perfect. My fantasies stayed in my pockets where they belonged. But now…” He shrugged. “Those clean hard edges break up the light into rainbows, and everything gets soft and hazy. I don’t know if I’ll ever see straight again.” A forlorn note crept back into his voice.

But you’ll be a better Blue for it. Jerusha saw his eyes search the vastness of the sunken field, settle on the nearest exit, as though he expected that somehow his new vision would grant him one last glimpse of Moon. “No, BZ. She isn’t here. The star port is forbidden ground to her.”

His gaze sharpened and cleared abruptly. “Yes, ma’am. I know the law.” But it told her he understood now that even the laws of nature were imperfect; that the laws of men were no less flawed than the men who made them; that even he could realize what Moon was and what she, Jerusha, intended to help her do… and look the other way. “Maybe it’s for the best.” Not even believing that.

“I’ll do my best to take care of her for you, BZ.”

He laughed shyly, the echo of a caress. “I know, Commander. But what force in the galaxy is stronger than she is?”

“Indifference.” Jerusha surprised herself with the answer. “Indifference, Gundhalinu, is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don’t stand a chance against it. It lets neglect and decay and monstrous injustice go unchecked. It doesn’t act, it allows. And that’s what gives it so much power.”

He nodded slowly. “And maybe that’s why people want to trust Moon. Because things matter to her, and they do; and when she touches them they know they matter to themselves.” He held his hands up in front of him, stared at the scars still waiting to be erased. “She made my scars invisible…”

“You could stay, BZ.”

He shook his head, let his hands drop. “There was a time… but not now. It wasn’t just my life that was changed. I don’t belong here now. No,” he sighed, “there are two worlds I don’t ever expect to see again, barring the Millennium. This one, and my own.”

“Kharemough?”

He sat down unsteadily on the stack of crates. “My own people will see my scars forever, even when they’re gone. But what the hell, that still leaves six to choose from. And who knows what I’ll find where I’m going?” But his gaze returned to the empty exit, searching for the thing he would never find again.

“A distinguished career.” She flicked a switch at her throat as her communicator began to buzz again.

Gundhalinu sat on the crates, patiently watching while the final cargo was loaded, the final report given to her, the confirmation relayed to the heart of the looming ship. They stood together as the last of her men saluted her for the last time and self-consciously wished her well before heading back to the cargo lift.

Gundhalinu nodded after them. “Aren’t you coming aboard to give your final report?”

She shook her head, feeling her heart suddenly squeezed by a relentless hand, the moment of schism. “No. I can’t face that. If I set foot on that ship now, I don’t think I’d be able to leave it again, no matter how sure I was that this is right.” She handed him the computer remote. “You can give them the all clear for me, Inspector Gundhalinu. And take these.” She reached up to her collar again, unfastened her Commander’s insignia. She handed them to him. “Don’t lose them. You’ll need them someday.”

“Thank you, Commander.” His freckles crimsoned, making her smile. His good hand closed over the pieces of metal like rare treasure. “I hope I wear them with as much honor as you did.” He held up his twisted hand in an instinctive Kharemoughi gesture; she pressed her own against it in farewell.

“Good-bye, BZ. The gods smile on you, wherever you go.”

“And on you, Commander. May your many-times-great grandchildren venerate your memory.”