Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille
Page 24
“What? Brockingham’s home world? But Charity’s been Reduced, and—oh. Of course.”
“Yes. A spy on the Committee, and move the home world to easy striking distance of their enemy, then convince everyone the world was Reduced. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“But how can they move the entire population?” said Carla.
“You’ll understand when I give you all the details. The short version is this: The enemy cannot have a stable and large society. If he ever does, he will stop being the enemy. He has a culture based on paranoia, and it requires that he destroy major sections of his own population if there’s no one else to destroy.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either, fully. But you’ll have to take my word for it. Their entire culture is built on violence caused by fear of infection. The fear that leads to senseless violence is based on ignorance, which in turn leads to more senseless violence. I am certain that they have spent the last few hundred years building up societies and then leveling them, with a chosen few escaping every time. Keep alert for missiles, and attack their home world, and we can either force them to some sort of reasonable terms or destroy them. To be completely frank, I don’t give a damn which it is.”
Carla stared at me solemnly. “It was very difficult for you, wasn’t it, Rich—Billy?”
There was a hard lump in my throat, but I managed to say, “Please, Carla. Charity around Biscane.”
“Yes,” she said. “We can have a fleet there in a matter of hours. We will decide what to do while the fleet is en route.”
“And Brockingham?”
“I will deal with Lois.”
“Good.”
“Are you going to introduce me to your friends?”
“Perhaps later, Carla. Right now, these children have been taken from a world that is no more, and they need help. And I have bad news about Old Earth, by the way, but that can wait. Also, this is Eve. She needs help. Take them with you. Shut the door on your way out.”
Her eyes widened, but she complied.
I cried.
Libby came and put her arms around me, and we held each other. Tom and Carrie had their arms around each other. I badly wanted things to work for them, but I certainly wouldn’t make any bets one way or the other. Christian rubbed Libby’s neck.
After a moment, I whispered, “I can’t believe they’re gone.”
“I know,” she said. “Neither can I. Any of them.”
“Look.” I held out the derringer that Rose had almost used to shoot down Iverness, the day Fred had died. Pearl-handled, dragon’s head inlaid in ebony. “I’m going to keep it,” I said. “I’ve always been the sentimental type.”
“I know,” said Libby. “But you did the job, anyway.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I Did The Job.”
Tom cleared his throat. “Well, what now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I still have my banjo. You and Christian want to put together a trio?”
“What about me?” said Libby.
“You can be our manager.”
Christian shrugged, and half smiled, but wouldn’t commit himself to anything. Maybe he knew that there would be a ghost guitarist and a ghost fiddler in any such trio, and maybe that bothered him. Whatever, things would go as they went. Shit happens. I still had my banjo, so how bad could things get?
“Say, Libby?”
“Yeah.”
“If I decide to keep the restaurant open, will you tend bar?”
She looked at Christian, who shrugged. She said, “Sure. You’re easy to work for, for a pinhead.”
“Maybe I’ll do that, then. We’ll see.”
Tom and Carrie still held each other, oblivious. I sat in my favorite booth, and wished there was a band tuning up. Someday, there would be again.
Souci.
Ghosts from the past came to me the night the machine that looked like a bar and grille reappeared on Cicero around Marko, while the others slept. I thought about returning to Sestus, but I was in no hurry. Cicero was fine, and transportation was easy here and now. I badly needed perspective.
I looked back on the events since my arrival upon the soil of mankind’s birthplace, and the voice of Rich, my first recruit and the first to die, came to me, soft and ironic, and biting and gentle, I laughed, I cried, I fell down, it changed my life….
Yeah, Rich. All of that. It changed my life, but didn’t end it, and maybe I’d learned some useful skills. Whatever becomes of me now, I am richer, poorer, and carry a sorrow that I will never leave behind.
Souci.
We have the technology in my world to make you go away, or at least the sting of you, but I won’t do that. I owe you this much, at least. In my own way, ghost that I love, I lay you to rest and bid you farewell. Maybe I’d write my memoirs, maybe I’d just play banjo.
I went back into the kitchen and, following my own recipe, made a batch of matzo ball soup.
It was good.
The End
Books by Steven Brust
To Reign in Hell
Brokedown Palace
The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars
Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grille
The Gypsy (with Megan Lindholm)
Agyar
Freedom and Necessity (with Emma Bull)
The Vlad Taltos Novels
Jhereg
Yendi
Teckla
Taltos
Phoenix
Athyra
Orca
Dragon
Issola
The Khaavren Romances
The Phoenix Guards
Five Hundred Years After
The Paths of the Dead
Acknowledgments
My sincere thanks to Emma Bull, Kara Dalkey, Pamela Dean, Will Shetterly, and Terri Windling, who helped with the manuscript in its various stages.
My thanks also to David Dyer-Bennet for assistance with firearm information, and to Beth Friedman and Betsy Pucci for medical information.
Finally, for the music, a few of those to whom I am indebted are: Bedlam Rose, Boiled In Lead, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, Gallowglass, Fred Haskell, Raven’s Tir, Mark Soderstrom, Dave Van Ronk, and The Weavers.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
COWBOY FENG’S SPACE BAR AND GRILLE
Copyright © 1990 by Steven Brust
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
An Orb Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brust, Steven, 1955-
Cowboy Feng’s space bar and grille / Steven Brust.—1st Orb ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN: 978-0-7653-0664-7
1. Bars (Drinking establishments)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.R84 C69 2003
813'.54—dc21
2002042547
Previously published by Ace Books: January 1990