Joan Vinge - The Summer Queen

“I am surprised to see that you brought it yourself, Commander,” Moon said, raising her eyebrows, hearing the coldness in her voice answer the coldness of his eyes.

He made a brief bow in return. “Your offer was—sufficiently unusual, Lady, that I wanted to know for myself what lay behind it. And see for myself that you could keep your part of the bargain.”

“I, for my part, never make promises I do not intend to honor,” she said. She felt Jerusha glance at her.

Vhanu moved forward slowly, flanking her, until he stood beside her at the rim of the Pit. He stayed within the glow of her light but beyond her easy reach. Slowly again, he removed a small, silver-metal vial from his clothing. “I have what you want.” He held it out—suspended over the edge of the well. “Now tell me why you want it.”

Moon’s breath caught; she saw the faint gleam of satisfaction come into his eyes. His glance took in her drab native clothing with a flicker of disgust. She realized that she had forgotten even to change, that she still wore what she had worn into the Pit, that her clothes were wet and stained and reeking of Reede’s sickness.

She felt her sudden fear catalyze into anger at the touch of his eyes. “What I want to do with it is not your concern, Commander,” she said.

“Your constables took a prisoner away from my Police yesterday: the man this drug belongs to. What you intend to do with it—and him—very much concerns me.”

Moon took a deep breath. “He is an addict. So is my daughter. They need that drug to stay alive.”

He glanced at the vial. “There isn’t that much of it.” He looked back at her without compassion, and her brief impulse to ask him for help in synthesizing it died unspoken.

“That is my problem to solve, Commander,” she said, perversely glad that he had given her a reason not to beg him. “Your problem is getting the city’s power back. 1 can do that for you, if you give me what I want.”

He arched his neck in an odd, craning gesture, as if he were trying to look behind her words somehow, and see if they were true. “What about the Smith?” he asked warily.

“Who?” she said, before she could realize who he meant. “You mean Reede Kullervo.”

He nodded, half frowning. “I want him back.”

“He addicted my daughter. He caused my husband’s death,” she said flatly. “He—he drowned my son. He’s mine to deal with.” She felt Jerusha’s eyes on her again, their uncertainty unchanged.

Vhanu’s frown deepened, but this time a fleeting, reluctant comprehension showed in his gaze. Finally he lowered the hand that held the vial out over the Pit. “I want him back,” he said, “and I want him back alive. He’s too important to us—” He broke off. “His apprehension is important to the Hegemony.” To Survey . She felt the hidden reach, the relentless hold of the secret order he served more faithfully than he served his government. She saw Reede, who had been the pawn of the Brotherhood, becoming the pawn of the Golden Mean; knew they must want possession of him, want to exploit his brilliant, stolen mind, as much as their rivals had.

“You can keep him until the tribunal arrives, Lady.” Vhanu’s expression altered subtly. “Punish him in whatever way you choose. Just see that he lives. …” Barbarian , his eyes said, filled with contempt. “Will that satisfy you?” He held the vial out again, toward her this time, but still beyond her reach. “Bearing in mind that we could come and take him any time we wanted to, if we chose. So far I have tried to respect your sovereignty to the extent you allow me to—since I expect to be named the new Chief Justice soon.” His mouth imitated a smile.

She folded her arms, clutching her elbows with her hands until the pressure was greater than that of the anger inside her. “I would be ungrateful to refuse your offer, since you show such consideration of our traditions,” she said, her voice toneless. “I will keep him, until there is a new Chief Justice. And then—” She shrugged.

A fleeting unease touched him. He shook it off. “Restore the city’s power, Lady. Then you get this.” He gestured with the vial.

She hesitated, seeing how close he stood to the rim of the Pit. She shook her head. “Give it to me first.” She held out her hand, saw him stiffen with refusal. “Give it to me. Or you get nothing.” Her hand fisted.

His own hand tightened around the vial; his eyes were as black as obsidian. She held his gaze, unmoving, unyielding.

He looked toward the Pit. After an endless moment he looked back at her, and nodded. But his expression held something more unexpected, and more disturbing, than simple capitulation. “All right, then,” he murmured. “But I want to watch; I want to see you do it.”

She nodded slowly, surprised and uncertain. She held out her hand again, and he put the vial into it. She closed her hand and turned her back on him, stepping out onto the bridge. She moved without hesitation now, with no space left inside her for grief or doubt. Turning back to face him, suspended above what to him was darkness but to her was light, she saw his skepticism and barely concealed scorn … his dark, obsessive fascination. She closed her eyes, murmuring, “ Input .” And although the only request was spoken inside her own silence, she felt the sibyl mind stir in answer, as she had left it waiting to do. For a moment she glimpsed infinity rolling like an endless sea….

She fell back into the present, swaying, catching her breath. She looked down, into the Pit; saw far below in the darkness a rising pattern of light—real light, not the secret radiance that she had moved through. The swell of energy spiraled upward like a licking flame, bringing the machinery alive, until it reached the rim and overflowed, filling the dark hall with incandescent light.

She moved forward toward the illuminated faces, the motionless forms of the two people waiting in the sudden, unnatural day before her. “I have kept my part of the bargain, Commander Vhanu.”

He backed away as she approached, staring at her, his pupils still dilated even though he was looking into the light. A tremor ran through him. She read disbelief in his eyes now, and fear. How ? they asked. How —? She did not answer him, holding his gaze as steadily as if she could actually have told him the answer.

He shook himself out of his gaping trance; looked at the vial still in her keeping. He forced all expression from his voice, but there was an electric tension in his movements, a drawn tightness to his face, as he murmured, “And I have kept mine.”

She tightened her fist over the vial, feeling an electric ripple of triumph.

“By the way,” he said, his voice strained, “I have been told that the mers are being sighted again, in the waters around the city. Nothing else has changed. If the power goes out this time, I’ll know who to blame. And tell your people to keep out of our way, or they will suffer the consequences. Lady—” He bowed stiffly again, gave a brusque nod to Jerusha, and went quickly from the Hall.

Moon bit her lips, looking down at the vial in her hands. She raised her head, called out to his retreating back, “It will come back on you threefold!”

He spun around to stare at her, and she saw his expression clearly before he went on his way.

Jerusha watched him go, making no effort to see him out. She turned back to Moon, her eyes troubled. “How?” she said. “You said you had nothing to do with the power outage.”

“That was true,” Moon murmured, still seeing Vhanu’s haunted face inside her mind’s eye.

“But you brought it back.”

She shrugged, drained of strength and thought; searching for a way to explain honestly without telling the truth.