Joan Vinge - The Snow Queen

Moon bolted through the doorway, her mind a white blur like the brightly lit room beyond, then through another door into a dark alley.

“This way!” Cress materialized beside her, pointing left. “That’s a dead end. Elsie?”

“Here.” The door banged behind them. “Don’t talk about it, get to the LBf”

They ran; Moon caught the old woman’s hand, lending her strength and speed. Up ahead she saw the alien in a band of reddish gold starlight, disappearing into a bolt-hole of shadow; behind them she heard the door fly open and a shout of discovery. Her free hand went dead suddenly up to the wrist; panic gave her wings.

Cress slid to a halt where she had seen the alien disappear. She saw a night-gilded board fence, saw him duck through the space between two rotten planks. She followed him through, pulling Elsevier with her, and almost fell over a peninsula of piled driftwood on the other side. “Get to the LBf” Cress waved them on frantically. “I’ll plug the gap.”

“This way.” Elsevier pulled at her arm, started away through the stacks and mounds of salvage and flotsam. Moon went with her, looking back as Cress dragged the spiny-armed corpse of a tree shrub up against the gap. A limb caught in his parka as he turned away and jerked him back; she saw him struggle free before a pile of moldy sails cut off her view. Elsevier stumbled over some obstacle in the shadows beside her, and she put out a steadying arm. Before them now across the shadow and gold of the star-washed yard she saw a lens of battered metal lying in the midden. A hatch stood open in its side, and a ramp extended to the ground. “What is it?”

“Sanctuary,” Elsevier gasped. They reached the ramp and went up it together to find Silky waiting at the top. “Switched on?”

The alien grunted affirmation, gestured with a tentacle.

“Then strap in, we’re getting out of here.” Elsevier leaned against a bulkhead, a hand pressed against her heart. “Cress?” She looked toward the hatchway, but it showed them only junk and smoldering sky.

Moon turned back, leaned out to look down the ramp. Cress came running; but as she watched he tripped and fell, lay stunned on the ground for a space of heartbeats. When he pushed himself up at last and came on, she thought of a man running underwater, with every motion resisted. “Here he comes!”

He reached the foot of the ramp, stopped, and looked up it for a long moment with his arms wrapped across his stomach before he began to climb. Behind him she saw one of their pursuers round the heap of sails. “Cress, hurry!”

But even as she called to him he slowed, midway up the ramp, his eyes glazing with despair.

“Come on!”

He shook his head, swaying where he stood.

Across the lot she saw both police officers now, saw one of them taking aim at him, heard a voice shout “Hold it!”

Moon pushed out and down the ramp, grabbed the flapping sleeve of his parka and dragged him forward through the hatch. The ramp telescoped upward behind them, and the door hissed shut, hurting her ears with pressure-change. Cress clutched at the frame of the inner doorway as Moon found her balance, letting him go. Her hand was still crippled with a strange paralysis; she looked down at it and gave a small, disbelieving cry as she saw it smeared with blood.

“Cress, get up front and—” Elsevier stopped as Cress crumpled to the floor. Moon saw the vivid stain on his jacket and knew that the blood was not her own.

“Oh, my gods, Cress!”

“What happened?” Moon dropped to her knees beside him, reaching out.

He struck her reddened hand aside. “No!” She saw the hilt of her own scaling knife protruding from the pouch pocket at the center of the jacket’s spreading stain. “Don’t touch it… I’ll gush.” Moon pulled back, folded her hands against her sides. “Elsevier?” He looked past her.

“Cress, how did it happen?” Elsevier let herself down stiffly on his other side, laying her hand against his cheek. Silky appeared in the doorway behind her.

Cress laughed through white lips. “Should’ve let the young mistress keep her dagger… fell on the goddamn thing, running. Put me in the freezer, Elsie, I’m h-hurting…” He struggled to push himself up, groaned through clenched teeth as they hauled him to his feet.

“Silky, get to the controls.”

Silky moved ahead of them as they guided Cress through into the next chamber and let him down onto a level couch in the cramped space.

“Putting her knife in your pocket! Dear boy, that was incredibly stupid, you know.” Elsevier kissed her fingers and laid them lightly above his eyes.

“I’m an astrogator, not… not a hired killer. What do I… know about it?” He coughed; a trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth, ran down his cheek toward his ear.

Elsevier stepped back as a smoke-colored translucent cone lowered over the couch, shutting him away from their view. “Sleep well.” It had the sound of a benediction; but she shook her head, looking up into Moon’s unspoken question. “No. This will keep him alive until we can get him to help.” Her face changed. “If we can even get out of the atmosphere before those Blues call down heaven’s wrath. Strap in, dear, the acceleration may be unpleasant your first time.” She pushed past, settled into a padded, upright seat before a panel of controls. The alien was settled in a second seat, tentacles suspended above a board of lights. In front of them a wide, thickly glassed port showed her another view of the junkyard. Moon took the third upright couch and fastened the straps uncertainly. The alien made a guttural query.

“Well, what else am I going to do?” Elsevier said sharply. “We can’t leave her to the police; not a sibyl. Not after she fought to save me — you know what they’d do… Lift!”

Moon leaned forward, listening, was driven back into the seat by the crest of an unseen wave. She gasped in surprise, gasped again as the pressure went on increasing, squeezing the air out of her lungs. She fought against it like a dr owner with no more success; collapsed into the cushioning curves with a whimper of disbelief. Between the forward seats she could no longer see the junkyard or any ground at all, but only stars. As she watched, the moon fell like a stone past the window and disappeared. She shut her eyes, felt herself being sucked down into a whirlpool of nightmare, bottomless and black.

But among the tumbled waters of dark panic she found the memory of another blackness, more utter, more absolute than any she would ever know — the black heart of the Transfer. The Transfer . this was like the Transfer. She clung to that anchor, felt the solid weight of familiarity slow the spiraling of her fear. She centered her concentration on the disciplined rhythms of mind and body that kept the narrow thread of her awareness tied to reality . slowly she settled into enduring.

She opened her eyes again, saw that the stars were still outside; rolled her head to look over at the wall of blinking lights and dials beside her own seat. She did not try to touch them. She became aware of Elsevier’s voice, strained, almost inaudible, and the alien’s responses; one was as unintelligible to her as the other.

“…Checking. No tracking alerts going out yet. Hope that they hadn’t re layers… by the time they call it in we may clear… Are the shields green?”

Silky responded, in unintelligible alien speech.

“I hope it too… but stay ready to shift power.”

(Response.)

“Affirmative, we’re damped. They look for inbound runners, anyway . they don’t look behind them enough… I pray they don’t.”

(Response.)

A weak chuckle. “Of course… Time elapsed?”

Moon closed her eyes again, comforted, letting the words go on by. They were flying, somehow, in this metal-bound cabin; but it was nothing like her flight with Ngenet. She wondered why, and how, wondered dimly whether this was anything like being on an off worlder starship… Her eyes came open suddenly. “Elsevier!”