Joan Vinge - The Snow Queen

Gundhalinu lay down again, uncomfortably silent. “Carbuncle does that to people. But if it’s true, at least he had enough humanity left to spare your life. Now you can forget about him; forget about . one problem, at least.” He sighed, staring up into shadows.

“No.” She pushed herself to her feet, moving in a stiff circle be side the cot. “I want to get to Carbuncle more than ever. There has to be a reason for what he’s done; if he’s changed, there’s a way to change him back.” Win him back. I won’t lose… not after I’ve come so far! “I love him, Gundhalinu. No matter what he’s done, no matter how he’s changed, I can’t just stop loving him.” Or needing him, or wanting him back. He’s mine, he’s always been mine! I won’t give him up — no matter whose he is, or what she’s made him into… appalled by the truth, made helpless by it. “We pledged our lives to each other; and if he doesn’t want that any more, he’s going to have to prove it to me.” One hand made a fist, the other clung to it.

“I see.” He smiled, but there was uncertainty behind it. “And I always thought you natives led dull, uncomplicated lives,” unwitting condescension crept back, making him comfortable. “At least on Kharemough love has the courtesy to know its place, and not tear our hearts out of us.”

“Then you’ve never been in love,” resentfully. She crouched down by the pile of bright-and-dark cloth Blodwed had left them; picked up a piece distractedly. It was a tunic, sewn with wide bands of woven braid.

“If you mean all-consuming, sense-clouding, lightning-struck love — no. I’ve read about it…” His voice softened at the edges. “But I’ve never seen it. I don’t think it exists in the real universe.”

“Kharemoughis don’t exist in the real universe.” She took off her parka, pulled open the seal of her dry suit and climbed out of it, rubbing her skin-sore, abraded arms, scratching her back. Letting him watch, aware that he tried not to; taking perverse pleasure in his discomfiture. She pulled the soft, heavy tunic on over her skimpy un dersuit, struggled into the leggings and fur-lined boots, buckled the wide painted-leather belt around her hips. She touched the hand woven braid that ran down the tunic front, along the hem — all the colors of sunset against the night-blue wool. “This is beautiful…” Astonishment pushed up through her darker preoccupation. She realized suddenly that the braid, the garment, were very old.

“Yes.” Gundhalinu’s expression was not the one she had expected. But she saw the embarrassment lying below it, and felt a pinprick shame at his shame.

“Gundhalinu—”

“Make it BZ.” He shrugged away his self-consciousness. “We’re all on a first-name basis here.” He gestured at the animals.

She nodded. “BZ. We’ve got to find—” She broke off again, hearing someone enter the passageway. The lock rattled and the gate swung back. Blodwed came through it, trailed by a small, rosy cheeked child and carrying a box. She pulled the gate shut with her foot. The animals stirred and peered out at her all along the walls; tension made their movements furtive. The toddler wandered toward the cages, sat down unexpectedly on the floor in front of one. Blodwed ignored him, coming on across the room.

Moon glanced at Gundhalinu, saw the life go out of his eyes and the animation out of his face, leaving bleak resignation. But Blodwed beamed as she dropped the box, stood before him, inspecting him like an inquisitor. “I don’t believe it, he’s all right! See—” She caught his sleeve, tugged on his arm. “I got a real sibyl just to keep you alive, Blue-boy.” He pulled free, sitting up. “Now you can finish reading to me.”

“Leave me alone.” He put his feet over the cot’s edge, propped his head on his hands. He began to cough, sullenly.

Blodwed shrugged; looked back at Moon, scratching her beaky nose. “You okay too? I thought you were both dead this morning.” A bare hint of deference crept into her voice.

Moon nodded, controlling her own voice, picking the words cautiously. “I’m all right… Thank you for bringing me clothes to wear.” She touched the front of the tunic. “This is very beautiful.” She couldn’t keep the incredulity out of it.

Blodwed’s sky-blue eyes were full of pride for an instant; she glanced down. “They’re just old stuff. They belonged to my great grandmother. Nobody wears those things any more; nobody here even knows how to make them.” She tugged at the hem of her dirty white parka, as though she really preferred it. She rummaged in the carton, pulled out a fist-sized cube of plastic. Unintelligible noise filled the air like ram. Blodwed began to hum a tune, and Moon realized that she was picking it out of the radio static. “Reception really stinks back in this cave. Of course it didn’t help that old Blue boy here tried to take this apart and make a transmitter.” She made a face at him. “Here’s your dinner,” tossing a can onto the cot. A sudden shriek behind them jerked Moon around. The toddler stood wailing, waving his hands by the cages. “Well, don’t stick your fingers in there, damn it! Here’s yours.”

Moon caught the can as it arced into her hands, sat down and pulled the lid up. It vaguely resembled stew. She watched Gundhalinu open his own can, with a twinge of relief. “Is… he your brother?” to Blodwed.

“No.” Blodwed moved away, carrying handfuls of meat and a box with an animal’s picture on it. She made the circuit from tethered creature to caged one, giving them each their evening meal. Moon watched them nutter up or cringe away from her rough movements, slink forward again after she passed.

Blodwed came back, scowling, sat down with her own can. The little boy appeared beside her, pulling at her jacket and whining. “Not now!” She pushed a spoonful of stew into his mouth. “You know anything about animals?” She glanced at Moon, looked back over her shoulder at the cages.

“Not these.” Moon looked away from the boy, whose face was as perfectly pink and white as a porcelain figurine.

“Then you’re going to do what you did yesterday again — only this time tell me about the animals.” She glared, expecting a refusal. “I think some of them are sick too. I — I don’t know how to take care of them either.” Her gaze broke. “I want to know how.”

Moon nodded, swallowing the last of her stew, and got slowly to her feet. “Where did you get all these animals?”

“Stole them from the spaceport. Or got them from traders, or out trapping… the elf fox and the gray birds there, and the conics. But I don’t even know the names of the rest.”

Moon felt Gundhalinu’s eyes trail her with dark accusation, ignored it as she walked toward the closest of the animals, the hardest one to face — the shivering pouch of wrinkles that squatted on a nest of dried grass. It blubbered obscenely, showing her a wide sucker mouth as she opened the cage door. Biting back her disgust, she crouched before it, offered it a handful of food pellets at arm’s length, holding very still.

Its burbling hysteria gradually died away, and after another endless moment it floundered forward, inch by inch, to touch her hand tentatively with its mouth. She shuddered; it scuttled back, worked its way forward again. It took the pellets one by one from her palm with great delicacy. She dared to stroke it with her free hand; its brain like convolutions were smooth and cool to her touch, like the surface of a smocked satin pillow. It settled contentedly under her hand, making a sound like bubbles popping.

She left it slowly, went on to the pair of lithe, pacing carnivores in the next cage. Their ears flattened, their tusks showed white against the black-on-black patterning of their fur. There was something feline about them, and so she began to whistle softly, creating the overtones that had made cats come purring into her lap at home. The long, tufted ears flicked, swiveled, tuned like radar… the animals came toward her almost reluctantly, drawn by the sound. She offered them her fingers to sniff, felt a thrill of pleasure when an ebony cheek brushed her hand in a gesture of acceptance. The cat creatures sidled along the bars, demanding her touch with guttural cries.