Paradise Drift

by Sherwood Smith

  Tokugawa waved a hand, his mouth tightening in distaste.

  “And when she’s good and humble, she will be very, very eager to cooperate. I’ll find out what she knows. Maybe we can salvage some of the data,” Pimiko said.

  Tokugawa glanced just once at Alphyra, who stood, trembling, wild-eyed, obviously searching for something, anything, to rescue herself from utter disaster.

  He shook his head as he slid into his chair. “She knows nothing,” he said. “Nothing.”

  They shifted into the Slipstream, and vanished.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  And straight was a path of gold for them

  And the need of a world for me.

  —FROM THE “BALLAD OF THE NEW COMMONWEALTH,”

  ERYN BEYONDSTARS, WANDERING BARD, CY 10092

  With the Nietzscheans gone, the Andromeda was able to approach within a short distance, which probably saved the lives of Seamus Harper and Cynda Shendo.

  Trance retired with them to the sickbay, to begin the treatments that Rommie had begun setting up. Everything was ready.

  Back on the Drift, Beka and Ujio sat in a small restaurant. They had chosen by mutual, yet unspoken, agreement the spacers’ level. Around them spacers caroused, singing with the raucous music, drinking, one dancing in a null-grav bubble to the hoots and laughter of the others. If they’d known anything at all that had gone on during the past hours, there was no sign of it.

  Which was just what the two wanted.

  “… and so that is it,” Beka said, sitting back. “Everything I know about my brother, right down to his taste in old Earth CDs. And don’t underestimate their effectiveness as bribes, by the way.”

  Ujio smiled. “I will not.” He hesitated, then said, “I don’t suppose I can interest you in the cause.”

  Beka laughed. “Beka Valentine does not do causes. Especially causes that might involve another Valentine—for whatever motives.” They finished their beer, and rose, strolling out onto the concourse, past a fountain with bees streaming in complicated arcs. “Not that I mean to disparage, but frankly I find it difficult to square bounty hunter—especially one who turns out to be Nietzschean—with causes.”

  Ujio looked over his shoulder at the steady stream of arcing bees. Then he swung back to Beka, and smiled.

  She felt a strong, distinct tug of attraction, wondering what it was about very tall men in her life—and choked the thought.

  “I guess, despite my own words, I don’t really think in terms of causes. In the sense of higher morals. I have to leave that question to other minds. What I can do is make the decision right in front of me, to built or to destroy, when I am equally capable of both. One decision, a dozen, a hundred, a hundred dozen…is that the way a civilization is built—or destroyed?”

  “You sound like Dylan,” Beka said.

  Ujio laughed. “Maybe your High Guard captain and I have more in common than one would think. But he has his cause, and I have mine. And actually, meeting you so long ago was one of the changes in my vector, you might say: you were the last job I took, did you know that?”

  Memory—mirror image—the sliding door closing between the two of them. He could have shot her, but he stood. She knew he could have shot her, but he did not move, and she ran, and ran, and kept running….

  Beka let out her breath in a whoosh. “No. All I remembered was that horrible chase, and how, at the very end, by some miracle, I escaped caped. Actually, you changed my life right about then, as well. When I got away, and looked back to see you standing there, I swore I would never rely on others again, I’d learn to defend myself. Look out for myself. I’d always been good at looking pretty and wheedling my way—after that, I would know how to fight if I had to.”

  Ujio said, “And I watched you run, realizing that I had been about to kill you just because you’d made a fool look like a fool. A rich fool, who would still be a fool even after your death. It was then I decided that I would find a better life than serving fools.”

  Beka grimaced. “Who was it, anyway?”

  “A Nightsider—”

  “Oh, I know who. And why. And when,” she said. “One thing about Nightsiders, they never have causes either. Except of course themselves.”

  Ujio paused by the main lift tube. “But you do have a cause. It is your Captain Hunt.”

  Beka laughed. “That, I am afraid, is more of a way of life.” She stuck out her hand. “Good luck. Tell Rafe his sister is watching him. Maybe he’ll behave.”

  “I shall. Let us meet again, Beka Valentine,” Ujio said, hefting his gear over his shoulder. “We have met at crucial junctures of our lives. Why not another?”

  He smiled, and she felt that tug of attraction again, sharp and strong. But she stepped back and waved, saying, “Let’s!” and he vanished into the lift-tube.

  Time to find my way of life.

  Dylan faced Vandat across the table. “Did you know that that Roman arena of yours was not just theater, that people really died?”

  Vandat lifted his forefingers, stroking his bony chin. At either side the two Than sat, silent, listening. “Yes,” he said finally. Reluctantly, and he knew he would not have said the same thing if the Than had not been there. “But only of late was I suspicious…and there were other issues at hand…and then that is one of our most popular—” He abandoned that line of thought.

  “It was easier to look away,” Dylan said.

  He was clean now, dressed in his High Guard formal uniform, but the bruises on his face were testament to his experience.

  Vandat avoided that straight gaze, but once the silence had protracted, he braced himself and faced Captain Hunt. “Has this become an issue over which we cannot agree, then?”

  Dylan said, “There can be no more looking away. Even if it’s convenient. Even if it brings in money. If we’re going to restore civilization—and after three hundred years, I think more people of whatever race or species or kind are ready for it than not—then that means no more looking away.”

  Vandat thought of Alphyra Kodos, and nodded sharply. “Yes. You are right. And I know that I will be explaining myself to my own colleagues.”

  The Than burred in agreement.

  Dylan laid his hands on the table. “Then I think we are finished here. The details can be worked out—the main thing is, we are in agreement over the bigger issues.”

  Vandat turned to the Than, who nodded.

  He turned to Delta Kodos, who nodded.

  “Perseids, Than, humans are in agreement,” he said formally, hands together.

  Dylan smiled. They all rose, and once again there was chatter and exchange of compliments (many of them with an eye to what would be reported elsewhere) and food and drink.

  Rommie avatar, there at her post, found her way to Delta’s side. “I’m glad you agreed to take your sister’s place.”

  Delta looked across the room at the bobbing heads, listened to the plummy tones of diplomatic speech, meant for reportage. Much of it was false, many of those people were absurd, but right now, this moment, they did seem to mean well.

  And meaning well gave meaning. Delta said softly, “I have you to thank for helping me to redefine my place in the universe.”

  “I think we’re all doing that, one crisis at a time,” Rommie said. “You’ve done well.”

  A clasp of hands, and they parted.

  Dylan, catching Rommie’s eye, led the way to the lift. “One more,” he said. “One more.”

  When Cyn woke up, there were three faces smiling down at her.

  Two she did not immediately recognize—beautiful women both, one pale haired, vivid coloring, the other with large eyes, whose coloring was golden—

  The third face, that one she knew.

  “Seamus.”

  “Don’t talk,” he said. “Even I can’t talk much yet. And you know how much I hate that.”

  As he spoke he slipped away, and sank down onto a nearby chair.

  Cyn turned her head. She did not recogni
ze the place she was in, but now the women were familiar.

  “Beka?” she asked weakly. “And…Trance?”

  “You’re going to be all right,” Trance said softly. “You just need rest. And strength.”

  “Harper?” Cyn whispered. “He’s…”

  “Going to be fine.” Harper flourished a can of Sparky. “Not that I want any reruns, but has your memory taken a vacation? Poison?”

  Yes. Poison. Memory crashed down with all the weight of guilt. Cyn winced.

  Trance said softly, “It’s all right. As I said. You’re fine. Harper is fine. One good thing about a warship is that its databanks contain all kinds of arcane data, including on poisons.”

  Cyn sighed. “I think I feel okay. But I’m afraid to move.”

  “Lie there and rest. You’ll feel more energetic after you eat something,” Trance said. “You’ve been on intravenous liquids for a while now.” She turned away, then came back with a cup of something milky looking. “Drink this.”

  Cyn took the cup, winced at the look of the chalky stuff inside, but figured she had no right to complain. She tipped up the cup, smelled something fresh and faintly acerbic, faintly minty, and drank it all down.

  Warmth, energy, coursed through her. “Oh!”

  Harper said, “Yeah. They just gave me one of those. I was askin’ why they couldn’t waken you first, so I could open my eyes and see three babes, instead of two. But as usual, no one listens.” He flourished his cola. “Anyway, this tastes better.”

  Cyn sat up, and discovered she felt fine. Weak, but the itch, the pain, were all gone. She felt light and free as air.

  “Oh, that’s so much better,” she said. Then winced again. “Look, Seamus, I don’t know where to begin to apologize.”

  Harper waved a hand. “I won’t say it was fun, because it wasn’t. Or, at least, the end. But you’ve been through enough—and you’re minus one ship. Though I understand Dylan wants to talk to you about that.”

  Cyn shook her head. “No. I won’t take a loan that I might never pay back. Just get me back to the Drift. I’ll find someone who needs crew—all those stranded spacers who worked on the other ships that were destroyed will be searching too—and I will work my way back to Earth. Give me time to think.”

  Beka had had misgivings about this scar-faced young woman, barely out of girlhood. But that statement earned her respect.

  Cyn looked around at them one at a time. “I’ve already begun. I do remember that much, now. You two—all of you.” She included Trance as well as Beka. “Leaders because you have to be, not by choice. Or force. Your captain Dylan chose it, you just do it. I think—I think I need to find a way to go back to Earth, and, well, just do it. All of us. Not just me.” Her gaze strayed toward Seamus, his glinting blond hair, the long, sensitive mouth. Two realizations: She loved him. But had misjudged him.

  Harper cracked his knuckles, then grinned at her. “So no more Harper the Betrayer, I hope?”

  Cyn shook her head. “I wish you would come. To Earth. I think you’d be great as a leader. But who knows? Maybe you wouldn’t. Anyway, we have to do it ourselves. And we will,” she added.

  Trance gave her a transcendent smile. “Oh, I believe in you, Cynda Shendo. I think you will find your way.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sherwood Smith, in addition to Paradise Drift, is the author of many novels, including the Crown and Court Duel fantasy series and the Wren young adult novels. She has collaborated with Dave Trowbridge and Andre Norton, among others. She is also the author of Augurs Teacher, a novel based on Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict. She currently resides in California.