Joan Vinge - The Snow Queen

Fate began to push her trays aside, clearing a path to the door. “I’ll show him where. I didn’t know you were a friend of Sparks ’s, Tor.”

“She isn’t.” Sparks stood up and stood aside as Pollux moved unconcernedly toward the step, towing the floating platform of containers. He watched Fate disappear inside, moving easily into familiar surroundings, and Pollux after her. But he blocked Tor as she tried to follow, with an arm across the doorway. “Uh-uh.” He backed her around and up against the building wall. “Let’s talk.

About what you did to me at the starlbaiting. About what you did with everything I owned, after you cleaned me out.”

Tor pressed back against the peeling paint, her eyes looking everywhere but at his face. “Listen, Sparks , I’m really sorry about that, you know? I really hated sticking you like that, I mean, you were so trusting… and so stupid… But I owed my life to Hardknot over at the Sea and Stars; I lost part of the casino’s daily take I was delivering up the line. If I didn’t pay it back shed’ve had it taken out of my hide, you know what I mean? It was either you or me, rfrankly. And I figured it’d teach you a lesson you needed, anyway.” She shrugged, beginning to recover her nerve.

“What did you do with my stuff?”

“Pawned it, what do you think?”

He laughed once. “How much did you get for it?” almost casualy.

“Birdseed, what do you th—” Her voice choked off as his arm came up and across her throat, pinning her against the wall again. “Ye gods!” She squirmed, trying to look away from something in his eyes. “What’s gotten into you, kid?”

“I learned your lesson.” He put more pressure against the arm, enjoying the expression on her face. “And now you owe me, Tor, and I coulu take it out of your hide right now.”

“You — you wouldn’t do that?” He felt her swallow in sudden fright; her hands came up, tightened over his arm. “What are you—”

“ Sparks , what are you doing!” Fate’s astonished voice.

He blinked as the haze of his wounded pride cleared, and let Tor go. “You aren’t worth the trouble.”

Tor sighed noisily, feeling her throat with her hands. “Just — just a misunderstanding, Fate. I’ll get you the money, kid. I mean, come payday—”

“Forget it.” He turned away, feeling his face hot with anger and embarrassment, wondering how much of it Fate could see. But something Tor had blurted in the diarrhea of her excuses caught in his mind, at the root of his bad humor, and he turned back again with calculated vengeance showing. “On the other hand — no, don’t forget about it. You owe me. and I’m going to tell you how you can pay me back. And there might even be something in it for you, if you play it right.” He pulled out his credit card, and held it up to her face.

Tor looked at it blankly, “Huh?” She reached for it, hesitant; he pulled it away.

“You’re a runner for the Sea and Stars, you said. You must know plenty about who controls what here in the Maze, you must hear a lot of interesting gossip around… ?”

“Oh, no — I don’t know anything, kid. I keep my ears closed.” She shook her head, shutting her eyes against temptation. “I just run a few errands on the side, for a little extra credit at the tables, that’s all.”

“Don’t give me that.” He frowned. “But maybe you don’t know enough to find out the things I want to know.” Inspiration struck him, blinding. “I know somebody who does, so it doesn’t matter! You can get the information out of him. and I can’t. You’re going to take care of it for me, take care of him. understand?”

“No.” She shook her head cguin. “What the hell have you gotten into, anyway? What’re you trying to get me into?”

“I work for somebody too. somebody — up the line. Somebody who wants to know what the opposition’s doing. And there’s a man named Herne who knows it all. only he’s down on his luck. You’re going to pick him up and help him oat; and he’s going to be so grateful he’s going to tell you anything you want to know.”

“Ha! I know a Herne, a big spender, and if he’s down on his luck now he can rot. Him and some of his buddies were drug ugly, and he tried to—” The word wouldn’t come out; her hands tightened over the seal of her coveralls. “I had bruises in places I wouldn’t show my own mother before Pollux pulled him of! me and changed his mind.” She glanced past Fate’s silent witnessing at the phlegmatic metal being in the doorway. “He may be a dumb machine, but he’s a damn sight more of a man than the ones who program him.”

Sparks grinned at the borrowed vision of Herne ’s discomfiture. “He really must have been drugged out of his mind to pick on a—”

Tor’s face reddened, her fists came up. “Listen. Summer, you don’t joke about a thing like that with a Winter woman!”

His grin fell away abruptly. “By “r — by the gods, that’s not what I meant! If it’s the same Herne . you’ve got nothing to worry about. He won’t give you any trouble this time. You’ll find him near the Parallax View. I’ll pay the expenses, and make it worth your while; just make sure that he never knows why you’re doing it. Don’t ever mention me.” He lowered his voice, turning away from Fate. “If I don’t get what I want, you’ll regret it, and even Pollux won’t be enough to keep you safe.”

Tor’s pallid face turned paler; he felt a brief surprise as he realized that she believed him. “Meet me back here at the same time in — one week.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said weakly, and oozed out from behind the barricade of his body. “Come on, Pollux, let’s go.”

“Whatever you say, Tor.” He stepped down off the porch and followed her away. She hit him spitefully on the chest, went on down the alley rubbing her hand.

“Shut up, you damn junk pile; I’m going to trade you in on a dog’

Fate was sitting again, decorating the naked, gaping mask form as though it were the only reality in the universe. She did not speak to him, or look up with any of her eyes.

Sparks felt his elation implode as he saw her withdrawing from him — as though she too were setting herself apart from him; or as though he had done it for her.

“You said I’d find a way to solve the problem. And I’ve done it.”

“Yes. I suppose you have.” She picked up a piece of satin cloth.

“I thought you didn’t make moral judgments.”

“I try not to. We all choose our own paths to hell. But some of the choices are easier to watch than others… I don’t like to watch my friends being hurt.”

“I just said that. I wouldn’t hurt her.” But he knew that just for a moment he had been inches from it. And that was the moment that Fate had seen.

“ ‘Today’s word is tomorrow’s deed,’ ” she quoted softly. “And I consider you my friend, too.”

“Still?”

“Yes, still.” She looked up at him, but without smiling. “Take care. Sparks. Life isn’t woven from a single thread, you know.”

“All right.” He shrugged, not really understanding. “I’ll see you again, Fate.”

She smiled at last, but it wasn’t the smile he had been waiting for. “

“In one week, at this same time.”

“Scuse me, buddy, have you seen a guy called H-Herne?” Tor broke off as the derelict’s face looked up at her, glaring with the use less hatred of a chained animal, and she realized that she had seen it before. Gaunt and bearded, it was still the same face: a dark off worlder face, a too-handsome face with eyes that were long lashed and beautiful and as cold as death. She stood for a moment staring down, pinched between the vise-fingers of the present and the past. This was Herne, the same Herne , whose eyes looking at her once had not seen a human being but a thing.