Joan Vinge - The Snow Queen

On board they were led to tiers of seats above a central floor screen that showed her a view of the planet’s surface, misty with blue and khaki; she tried to concentrate on the solid immensity of it, and not to remember that it was unspeakably far below them. No one drifted weightless out of a seat even here on board the shuttle; the Kharemoughis claimed, with unsubtle pride, that getting rid of gravity was the hard part; they could produce it whenever they wanted to.

The exits sealed, the shuttle broke free from the station’s grasp and began its drop into the tube of force. Moon sat oblivious to the muted conversations, mostly incomprehensible, around her-oblivious to everything but the vision of the planet’s surface rising up to meet them in mid fall An amorphorous, cloud-swirled plate widened into ever clearer detail, while Elsevier’s hushed voice pointed out the burnished blue seas, and the green-ochre of this world’s islands, so huge that they shouldered aside the sea itself. The island centrally below grew until it was all she could see, dividing and redividing into murals of mountain, forest, farmland, all rolling inexorably into morning… and then, before she quite realized it, a slender ring of twilit city laid out in ripples concentric around an immense, shining, treeless plain.

“…landing field,” Elsevier said.

At the final moment she had the feeling that another giant’s invisible hand plucked them out of the air, before they impacted on the glowing grid lines of the field. It swept them aside, into one of the stolid warehouse buildings that peri metered the landing area, and at last set them down.

The crowd of passengers left the warm-colored interior of the passenger terminal. Moon felt her feet tingle as she walked at the pressure of an alien world… or else they tingled with bad circulation. The artificial gravity of the space city was less than she was used to, and this was more; her feet came down like ballast no matter how carefully she moved.

It was barely dawn here on the planet surface, the air was still cool; Elsevier rubbed her arms inside her sleeves. Moon slipped on her own wine-red robe and belted it without protest. The Kharemoughis were a modest people, and Elsevier had warned her that the free ways of the Thieves’ Market did not extend down to the ground. Sunrise opened like a flower in the east, the sky overhead would still be black and starless… Looking up, her breath caught in her throat at the sight of the sky. Overhead the darkness was curtained with light, banner folds of green rose yellow gold icy blue; sighing bands of rainbow, rays of scintillating whiteness crowning an enchanted dreamland.

“Look at that, Silky.” Elsevier lapsed into Sandhi as her gaze followed Moon’s up; the words were not praise. “It’s disgraceful.”

“You can say that again, citizen.” Three fellow shuttle passengers, dark, slender native Kharemoughis, stood beside them waiting for a taxi; one of them nodded his helmeted head in disgust. “Pollution-you’d think there no tomorrow was. Ye gods, the sheer tonnage of cast-off junk floating up there. I don’t know how they expect us our job to do. It’s not traffic control any more, it’s a demolition derby.”

“SN—” The second of the three was a woman; she laughed lightly, tapped him not quite playfully on his uniformed shoulder. “These citizens aren’t from around here,” a significant lifting of the eyebrows. “They don’t need by our petty complaints to be bored, do they?”

“Yes, old man.” The third helmet bobbed. “You really do need this vacation. You’re like a bio purist sounding.”

The first man pushed his hands into his belt, looking annoyed.

“What’s wrong with the sky?” Moon pulled her gaze down, reluctantly. “It’s full of light.” The way it should be. “It’s beautiful.”

The first man glanced at her with a frown starting, ended up smiling in spite of himself. He shook his head, more in sorrow than in anger. “Ignorance is bliss, citizen. Be glad you’re not a Kharemoughi.” A hovercraft slowed in front of them, and they climbed in.

“Welcome to Kharemough,” Cress said pointedly in Tiamatan, “where the gods speak Sandhi.” He grinned at her.

Elsevier claimed the next taxi; the Kharemoughi Nontech at the controls gave them a group stare of mild astonishment when she asked for the estate of KR Aspundh. She held up a graceful hand, showing him the ruby signet she wore on her thumb. He turned back to the controls without comment and began a long arc around the perimeter of the field.

“What’s wrong with the sky, anyway?” Moon peered out through the taxi dome; the sky was brightening, the aurora faded before the light of day.

“Industrial pollution,” Elsevier said quietly. ‘“Are we forever doomed to repeat the errors of our ancestors? Is history hereditary, or environmental?”“

“Nicely put,” Cress said, glancing back from his seat beside the pilot.

“TJ’s words.” Elsevier brushed the compliment aside like a gnat. “Kharemough was fairly well-off even after the Old Empire fell apart, Moon. They still had some industrial base — though hardship was great here, like everywhere, after they were cut off from the interstellar trade that had supported them. They learned to do things for themselves, but in ways that were cruder and infinitely more wasteful. They suffered the consequences of pollution and overpopulation; they almost destroyed their world over a millennium ago, before they got clean hydrogen fusion and moved most of their industry into space. But now they’ve exchanged their old problems for new ones — not such serious ones, at present, but who knows what they’ll mean to future generations? Cause and effect; there’s no escape from them.”

Moon touched the tattoo hidden under the enameled sunburst collar, looked past Silky at the sea of green foliage beneath them. She leaned away from him as she looked down; knowing he was afraid of her touch, and still secretly repelled by his glistening alien ness They had drifted up and across the narrow band of city — mostly, from what she could see, warehouses and shops of every imaginable kind, not yet stirring to the day; but not many apartments or houses. Now they were rising over open woodland, broken by small park like clearings holding private homes. “I thought you said there were still too many people here, Elsie. They aren’t even as crowded as islanders.”

“There are, my dear — but with so many of them and so much of their manufacturing out in space, the surface dwellers have all the room they want, and can afford. They gather around hubs like the one we just left, that distribute everything they need. The wealthier you are, the farther out you live. KR lives quite a way out.”

“Is he rich, then?”

“Rich?” Elsevier chuckled. “Oh, filthy rich… It all should have been TJ’s, he was the oldest; but he was censured and stripped of his rank for his scandalous behavior. I’m sure he did it on purpose, he loathed the whole caste system. But not KR; he was always a supporter of the status quo. He and TJ didn’t even speak.”

“Then why would he want to see us?” Moon moved uneasily.

“He’ll see us, have no fear.” The enigmatic smile touched her face again. “Don’t let me make you think badly of him; he’s a very good man, he simply lives by a different set of values.”

“All Kharemoughis are intolerant,” Cress said. “Only they’re intolerant about different things.”

“KR came to TJ’s funeral; and he told me that he knew he owed everything he had, and was, to TJ, who had given it all up. He said that if I ever needed anything, I had only to ask.”

“How did TJ die?” hesitantly.

“It was his heart. Passing through the Black Gates puts a strain on the human body, on the heart. And disappointment puts a strain on the heart.” She glanced away, out and down, at the greens and the dusky reds of the rolling forest land. Immense knobs of gray rock pushed up through the trees now, like thick, stubby fingers; houses clung precariously to the tips and sides. “It was very sudden. I hope that I, too, may be taken by surprise.”