Joan Vinge - The Summer Queen

They went down the stairs side by side, entering the sea of bodies and faces, their arrival barely making a ripple. Most of the people around him looked completely unfamiliar; here and there among them he saw someone he had met before. He saw Merovy Bluestone; their eyes locked, before he could look away again. He had lost track of Gundhalinu and the Queen as he reached the level of the ballroom.

Ariele brought him to an open space where people were dancing now in a way that was as spontaneous as the music was. She pulled him into the motion of the dance, making him dance with her. The steps were simple and he obeyed; feeling clumsy and frustrated, because he still had not completely accepted that his body was no longer the perfect machine the water of death had made of it. He kept on, gamely, and he began to discover that his body liked to dance—had always liked to dance, he realized, although he could not clearly remember ever having done it. They danced together, not simply with each other but within the embracing motion of all the other dancers, to music that was alternately lively and plangent, until Ariele’s face was flushed and laughing, like his own.

But his once-tireless body forced them to the sidelines, to eat pickled fish and drink strangely flavored wine until his senses began to buzz. “I remember this …” he murmured, with unsteady laughter, as the wine went to his head.

Ariele looked up at him. “What?” she asked.

Someone calling his name saved him from having to answer. He looked away through the crowd, seeing three figures moving toward them, in an unexpected juxtaposition of forms: The Tiamatan woman who ran Starhiker’s, and with her his pilot and crew.

“Hey, boss,” Niburu said, and his sudden grin told Reede that he’d probably been drinking too much too.

“Gods,” Reede said, looking from one of them to the other, feeling his face doing odd things. “Where the hell have you been?”

They had been in jail, until PalaThion had finally been named Police Commander and set them free. Since then he had scarcely seen them; something which, he could only admit now, drunk with wine and fatigue, had bothered him considerably.

Niburu looked at him, with a wry glance past his shoulder at Ariele. “Around the city, helping clean up the storm wreckage,” he said. He put an arm familiarly around Tor Starhiker’s waist. Her own arm snaked across his shoulders, rubbing his chest.

Reede raised his eyebrows. “I guess virtue has its rewards.”

Niburu shrugged, and grinned. “She likes my cooking.”

Tor smiled. “It’s plain,” she said, “but it’s very filling… .” Niburu turned red. Ananke stood behind them, wearing the quoll in its sling, smiling and silent; always the cryptic shadow. “You haven’t had much need for a ferryman lately,” Niburu said.

“That’s true,” Reede murmured, glancing at Ariele. “Guess not.” His hand touched hers.

“So,” Niburu said, finally, “what do we do now?”

Reede looked back at him. “Eat. Dance. Have a good time,” he said.

Niburu shook his head. “I mean, after that. Tomorrow. Next week. A couple months from now?”

Reede hesitated, staring at the three of them, at the variety of expressions on their faces, that were somehow all the same expression. “We—Ariele and I,” he glanced down, “are going down south, along the coast. We’re going to try …”He broke off. To find forgiveness . “To find … something we lost.”

Niburu nodded—as if he was satisfied, Reede thought. “Then you still won’t be needing a pilot,” he said.

“Guess not,” Reede repeated, looking away again. “You like boats?” He looked back.

“I don’t like boats,” Niburu said. “They sink. I didn’t like them on Samathe. I still don’t like them. He doesn’t like them either.” He gestured to Ananke.

Reede looked at them oddly. “You want to go,” he said. “You’re leaving.”

“You’ve got somebody to take care of you now, boss.” Niburu smiled. “You don’t need us anymore.” He hesitated. “It’s been a long time. Maybe we all miss something.”

Tor looked down at him. “You sound like you’re never coming back,” she said.

“Well, love, I didn’t say that.” He looked up at her, with his faint smile widening. “I never say never. If I learned one thing from him—” he gestured at Reede, and his smile turned sweet-sour, “it’s never say ‘never.’ …” She kissed the top of his head. He kissed her exposed navel. Ananke rolled his eyes.

And Reede felt a sourceless pain strike his gut. He put his drink down on the table behind him, blaming it. “So when are you leaving?” he asked, without looking up again.

Niburu didn’t answer, for a moment; as if he were waiting for something else, or had expected a different response. “Soon as I can get our cargo set. A few days.”

“A few nights?” Tor asked, running her fingers through his hair.

“That too,” he said, glancing up. “Well,” he murmured, as Reede finally faced him again. “I guess we’ll stop off before we go, and say goodbye… .”

“I hate long goodbyes,” Reede said, blinking. “Don’t do that.” He realized that his nose was running, and wiped it on his sleeve. “Got a cold,” he muttered, and coughed.

“Better take care of that,” Niburu said, his eyes filled with both disbelief and a kind of wonder.

“Take care of yourselves.” Reede offered his hand, and Niburu took it, covering the identical brands on their palms.

Niburu’s smile spread to his mouth again. “That’ll be easy, now that we don’t work for you.”

Reede laughed. “Thanks …”he muttered, and knew that Niburu understood what he was really being thanked for. He reached past Niburu to Ananke; touched the quoll where it lay, contented as usual in its sling. He stroked it for the first time since the day he had fished it out of the well, back on Ondinee. The quoll burbled in congenial surprise, watching him with a black, bead-bright eye. “Take care of that thing, too. You saved its life, you’re responsible for its life, forever; you know the rules.”

Ananke looked up at nun, stroking the quoll, so that their fingers touched briefly. “I know, boss,” he said, his voice soft but strained. “Goodbye,” he said, and there was something in his face that Reede might have taken for longing, except that that wouldn’t have made any sense.

The music changed again, making them all look up. Another song was beginning, and floating above the blend of native and offworld instruments was a new sound, high and haunting, unlike anything he had heard before, but reminding him suddenly, achingly, of the mersong.

He turned, looking for Ariele as he realized that she was no longer standing beside him.

Tor touched his arm, pointing toward the music. He lifted his head, following her gesture, to find Ariele among the musicians; realized then that it was the sound of her father’s flute he heard. He had known she had a gift for music and mimicry, but he had not known that she played.

The music, and his own surprise, held him captive for a long moment. When he turned back, he found the others were already drifting away, out of his reach, across the dance floor. Ananke lifted a hand in farewell, looking back, and then they were gone.

Reede started on through the crowd, trying to make his way closer to the place where Ariele and the musicians were playing. He saw Merovy Bluestone again, standing beside the Queen. Moon’s arm was around her; the two women were motionless, listening, with the same astonishment and grief filling their faces. He remembered that Tanunis had carried a flute; that probably he had played it, just as his sister had … just as Sparks Dawntreader had. He considered the strange patterns woven by heredity and environment, by love and grief; and he wished that he were drunker, or not so much so.