Joan Vinge - The Snow Queen

Tor looked back in surprise; the fallen Blue said, feelingly, “And you never will!” Tor shook her head and went on.

She led them through into the dim, gossamer-draped hallway where the prostitutes took their clients — the quietest, most private place she could think of offhand. Looking fruitlessly for an unoccupied room, she saw that Herne had still not come out of his own room and gone on duty at the bar. She pounded on his door with the flat of her hand. “Hey, beautiful, your fans are waiting for you! Let’s go!”

The door opened. Herne’s corroding pretty-boy face glared at her and past her with undifferentiated loathing. “Why don’t you take a—” His gaze landed on Moon; his expression changed and changed and changed again. “My gods!” The final change was pure fury. “What are you doing here? You bitch, you goddamn back-stabbing bitch! I knew you’d come someday — you couldn’t enjoy destroying me unless you saw it for yourself—”

“Herne!” Tor blocked him as he would have gone for the girl. “What the hell’s wrong with you, are you sky wheeling She’s a total stranger.”

“You think I don’t know Arienrhod when I see her? I know your Snow Queen, I slept with her for years! Didn’t I, you white whore?”

“I’m not the Queen,” Moon said feebly.

“She’s not, Herne!” Tor cut him off before he could start again. “Shut up and use your bloodshot eyes, you jerk. She’s only a Summer, come looking for her cousin. You never saw her before; and I bet my life you never saw the Queen, either, let alone laid her. She’s got better taste.”

“What do you know about it?” Herne said. “You don’t know a damn thing about her, or me!” He straightened up against the door frame, smoothed the wrinkles out of his garish over shirt trying to stand with some dignity. “I was Starbuck — until she sold me out for that weakling, Dawntreader.”

“Dawntreader!” Tor gaped at Herne. “I don’t believe it!” That punk extortionist — had he been bleeding information out of her for five years to stay in good with the Snow Queen? Was it possible? Was it possible Herne wasn’t lying about himself, either; had Dawntreader been using her just to use him? She rubbed her face, dislodging a sequin, smearing the tendrils painted on her cheek.

“Sparks Dawntreader is my cousin,” Moon said, ignoring Herne’s fierce scrutiny. “I know he’s become Starbuck; I want to find him before it’s too late.”

“Your cousin?” Herne frowned, ignoring the rest. “Yeah… there’s something about you: You disappeared…” He scratched his side, as if he could scratch the memory loose. The drugs he used for the boredom and pain were turning his brain soft. “And you’re like her.” His eyes held hungry demons. “Just like her.”

“Don’t waste your breath on that drug-soaked liar,” the renegade Blue said impatiently. “He’s insane. No Kharemoughi lowborn has enough talent to make himself Starbuck.”

Herne seemed to notice him for the first time, stared at him while an ugly grin spread wider. “I remember the day I taught you how to kneel to your betters at the Queen’s court, Blue.” The other man jerked with recognition. “You were too good for her, for me, then, weren’t you, Gundhalinu-meArw? And look at you now!” He waved a hand at the Blue’s disreputable clothing. “You must have been crawling on your belly, mekritto. You’re not fit to speak to me!”

The Blue struggled to keep the words in, but they got past him. “I’m still a better man than you’ll ever be, you dung heap bastard!”

“You’re still a bigger ass. Thank the gods for that!” Herne spat, just as the next door down the hall opened.

“Hey, watch it!” The prostitute led her aggrieved client past them quickly, glaring.

“Well, are you going to get to work, or not?” Tor put her hands on her hips, feeling them slide on the silky cloth of her body wrap adding her own withering stare.

“Not. Not till I hear more about this.” He bent his head at Moon. “Why Arienrhod’s double has come looking for Arienrhod’s lover.” He backed clumsily into his room, a travesty of gracious invitation. Tor followed with the others.

She had never seen the inside of his room before, and she had the feeling that she still wasn’t seeing it. The room held a bed and a storage cupboard, like any other room on this hall, and that was all. A few dirty clothes thrown into a corner, nothing more. No picture on the wall, no books or tapes, no radio or threedy It was a room for a night — worse, a prison cell. Herne collapsed onto the bed, his steel-wrapped legs protruding. No one made a move to join him there; Moon and Gundhalinu looked at his legs while trying not to. “So what do you want with Sparks Dawntreader after so long, pretty cousin?”

“We’re pledged.” Moon faced down the dark insinuation in his eyes. “I love him. I don’t want him to die.”

Herne laughed. “Oh, yeah. Arienrhod found his vows of faith fulness a real challenge; you ought to be proud. But she always gets what she wants in the end. How about you?”

Moon stiffened, clutching her belt. “I’ll get my way. But I have to find him first. Fate said maybe you’d know how—” She turned back to Tor.

Tor shrugged, apologetic. “You just missed him; he came to see the Source.” And I wondered why. Why would Starbuck come? Why would the Queen… ?

“Her plot gets thicker and thicker.” Herne grinned obscurely.

And he knew Sparks was Starbuck… Tor frowned inside her thoughts. What else does he know that he never told me?

“What do you mean, I just missed him?”

She refocused on Moon’s frustrated face. “He came from the palace with a message, about an hour ago.”

“And he left again with a couple of Blues on his tail,” Herne said smugly.

“What?” Tor raised her silver-dusted eyebrows.

“The Commander,” Gundhalinu said. “She must have put out an alert on him, now that she knows who he is.”

“What happened to him?” Moon’s fists twisted the painted belt leather. “Did they catch him?”

Herne grunted, amused. “Hah. Those suckers couldn’t catch cold,” for Gundhalinu. “He got away into the crowd. But if he’s a smart boy he’ll stick to the palace where Arienrhod can protect him from now until the Change.”

“He can’t! He can’t do that… Damn her!”

Tor saw the Blue try to comfort Moon, saw her twitch his arm off her shoulders, and the look on his face. Herne saw it, too, and smiled. Skeptical, Tor said, “Listen, if you were so devoted to him, kid, why did it take you five years to get around to this in the first place?”

“It hasn’t been years, just months!” Moon shut her eyes, head back. “Why couldn’t it have been the other way around? Why does it just keep getting harder?”

“Because you’re approaching Arienrhod,” Herne muttered, “and she’s the speed of light:”

“She was kidnapped off world by smugglers five years ago,” Gundhalinu ran over Herne’s words irritably. “She just got back.

She nearly died trying to get to Carbuncle to find him. Is that devoted enough for you?”

Tor quirked her mouth, softening against her will. “It seems to be good enough for you, off worlder You poor lovesick bleeder. “And good enough for Fate. But she’s going to have to go to the palace if she wants to find him now.”

“She can’t,” Gundhalinu said.

“Why not?” Moon looked at him. “I can slip into the palace and find him. If that’s what I have to do, I’ll do it.” Her eyes changed, grew dim and unseeing, as though she were having a seizure; when they cleared again resolution glittered. “It’s right — I will go there! I have to. I’m not afraid of Arienrhod.”