Charles Sheffield - Starfire

“One more victim. Are you threatenin’ me, Doc?”

“I would not dream of it.”

“Or tryin’ to blackmail me?”

“Never.”

Seth grinned. Far from being intimidated, he seemed amused. “So we both know where we stand. Question is, what do we do?”

“If you are referring to the reward for the apprehension of the Sky City murderer, I neither need nor want it.”

“That’s good. I need it, an’ I want it, ’cause with Gordy gone I don’t have a job. But the reward ain’t the problem. How do we work the other stuff?”

I had no immediate answer. Regrettably, he was right. I was far more vulnerable than he. Eighteen young girls are not easy to hide. With them to protect and nurture, I would need a permanent and safe base of operations for many more years. A single male like Seth, on the other hand, could vanish with ease or wander the world as he chose.

Should I seek to kill him now, this very minute, while he sat drinking my whiskey? He was undeniably accessible, but I felt a reluctance even to consider that prospect. I ascribed it to a worry that my darlings might somehow become aware of such a bloody deed. There was also, of course, a more practical consideration: Seth Parsigian’s whole history proved that he was no easy man to kill.

Before I could decide on action or inaction, another complication reared its head. My darlings appeared again; not, this time, in the form of the previous four. All eighteen came trooping into the study and stood in an orderly line, oldest to youngest, along the wall opposite the fireplace.

“Paula.” In spite of her short stature I addressed her as the most senior and the usual ringleader. “I told you once to go away. What do you think you are doing here?”

When Paula spoke it was not to me but to Seth. “We wanted to meet you,” she said in her deep, husky voice. “And we wanted you to meet us. We thought it was important.”

This time he did not try to dismiss her. He studied the girls, carefully and one by one, his tawny eyes moving steadily along the line. “Important how?” he said. “We never met. You don’t know me.”

“You came to our home on one previous occasion. You are Seth Parsigian.”

Seth jerked around sharply in my direction. His face was more surprised than I had ever seen it. I shook my head. “Not from me, Seth. I swear on my nonexistent soul, that did not come from me.”

He turned angrily back to Paula. “So you know who I am. Clever girl. Do you also know who-”

He caught himself, but she had followed his eyes.

“Who he is? Yes. He is our father, Kevin Baxter. Not our biological father, of course. But he raised us, and so far as we are concerned he is our true and only father.”

Seth looked at me, but he did not speak. My eyes told him that he was on very dangerous ground. To protect my darlings, I would do anything. But Paula was not finished.

She added, “He is our father. And he is also Dr. Oliver Guest, who in the year 2021 was sentenced to six centuries of judicial sleep for the murder of fifteen teenage girls. That number was later, through his own confession, increased to eighteen.”

If Seth was surprised by that announcement, I was stunned. I made a faint sound in my throat. I think I was trying to offer a denial, stupid as that sounds, but no words came out.

“And,” said Paula, “we know who we are.” She took a step forward out of the line. “I am Paula Baxter. I was once Paula Searle. I was raised in Norfolk and in the Atlanta Scantlingtown. I never knew my father, but my mother was a druggie and a whore, and I was mostly a nuisance to her until I became old enough to go on the game.”

While I gaped-how did she know any of that? There was to my knowledge no written record-she stepped quietly back in line and made a little hand gesture. Amity, standing next to her, moved forward.

“I am Amity Baxter. I was once Amity Carlisle. I was born in San Antonio. My mother was only fourteen, so I was sent to El Paso to live with an aunt and uncle whom I had never met. She beat me most days and when I was ten years old he raped me. I ran away when I was eleven. I lived along the transport strips. Money was short, but I always knew I could get some from older men if I did the right things to them.”

Amity, my magical, innocent Amity who insisted that she believed in fairies and danced with joy when she saw a rainbow. Not even I knew all of what she had said. But she was back in line, and Rose was stepping forward.

“I am Rose Baxter. I was once Rosa Gonzales. I was born in Coral Gables. When I was little we had plenty of money, but my father was ruined in the economic collapse after the Turnabout riots, and he killed himself. Mother had to work, and so she left me home alone . . .”

I knew what was coming, the slow descent and degradation until she sat hopeless by the roadside and I drove past. But Seth did not. It was news to him, the whole tawdry parade, from Paula’s beginning until little Victoria had had her turn. The cavalcade of events that they offered was appalling and bizarre, yet I was oddly proud of them. Each of my darlings spoke so clearly, so confidently, and so calmly.

Finally Paula again stepped forward.

“As you see, Mr. Parsigian, we do indeed know who you are. We also know who our father is, and who we are. It took a great deal of research, and lots of time. But we did it.”

He shot me an accusing glance. “You son of a bitch. You smartened ’em. You never told me that.”

“Minimally. They were intelligent already, every one.”

Paula went on, as though Seth and I had said not a word. “Mr. Parsigian, each of us may seem to you to be helpless and naive. Perhaps we are, considered singly. But a person who seeks to harm any one of us — including our father-will face not just one of the Baxter family. He will have to defend himself against our combined resources. I hope I make myself clear.”

Seth again said, “Son of a bitch.” This time it was addressed to nobody. His eyes went once more along the line. “Son of a bitch.”

“Actually, that’s not much of an answer, Seth,” I said.

“Never intended as one.” His eyes were alight. He was looking not at me but at the serried rank of my darlings, and I believe that in his own way he was enjoying himself. “Young ladies, permit me to assure you of just one thing, and I will leave it at that.” His manner, for Seth, became curiously formal. “I do harm only to those who seek to harm me. Dr. Oliver Guest, or if you prefer it, Mr. Kevin Baxter, will never be troubled by the authorities because of any information revealed to them by me, unless he first seeks to do me injury. I rely upon all of you to make sure that the latter event does not occur. Is that good enough to satisfy?”

He turned his head toward me, but he was watching them from the corner of his eye. “Not only that, with you ladies backing him I wouldn’t dare try any-thin’. Me an’ him have needed each other real bad in the past. The way the world goes, chances are we’ll need each other again.”

“Girls,” I said, “it is time for my guest and me to enjoy a drink in peace. So if you would not mind . . .”

My darlings all looked to Paula, who after a moment’s hesitation nodded. They began to troop out.

“Manners!” I called. They halted and chorused, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Parsigian.”

“Nice to meet you too, ladies.” Seth watched almost all of them leave before he turned back to the low table. He picked up the decanter and did not see Victoria stick her tongue out at him. I would reprimand her later for that unconscionable rudeness.

Seth poured, as usual disdaining water, and hovered the decanter over a second glass. He raised an eyebrow at me.