by John Varley
I dropped Gretel. For the first time, she cried out. I probably did, too, as fingers like grappling hooks bit into my shoulder. He pulled his fist back for a punch that would have taken my head off.
That’s when Sherlock came flying through the air like a guided missile and bit down on his forearm, hard. I could hear bones crack. At that moment other loud sounds began to be heard. It was a series of explosions, distant, but getting louder with each big bang. I realized it was the sound of the Heinlein being blasted free of all its encrustations.
But I had an even more immediate problem, which was to somehow keep the warrior from tearing my shoulder from its socket. And an even bigger problem was to keep the son of a bitch from killing Sherlock.
It’s a good thing he was concussed. He reached toward me with his free hand, then realized it wasn’t free, that there was a rather large dog clinging to that arm. So he turned his attention to Sherlock, and I did my best to use my only useful thumb to put out his other eye. Blinded, he went after me in a rage, grunting like a pig. And Sherlock was there again, not letting go except to get a better grip.
We only had minutes. Maybe even less than a minute. The explosions were very loud now. They were set to explode in a series, and each one was closer to us. There was the loudest bang of all, and with a screech of tortured metal, the ship began to come free. The warrior and I both looked up, and I could see the side of the ship coming free of all the things that had been attached to it. Walls tore open. Things spilled out. A gap began to grow. And a high wind began to howl. Clouds of condensation formed and swirled like some awful fog from Hell.
The air was going. With it went small objects, sucked right up and out through the gap. Eventually, we would all be lifted. Me, Sherlock, the Charonese, and the Dalmatian.
The Dalmatian? Where had he come from?
Injured as he was, he managed to get into the fight, grabbing the killer by the ankle and pulling. The killer tumbled to the ground, taking me with him. And then there were even more dogs on him. For a moment I couldn’t even see him for the snarling, twisting, tearing mass of dogs.
Pieces were coming off the Charonese. Mostly it was bits of his clothes and equipment belt, but some of it was chunks of flesh. I hoped they would strip him to the bone.
I realized that the hard object under me was the gun he had dropped. On his belt I saw a full clip of bullets. I managed to get it without getting my hand ripped off by the dogs. And now my addiction to violent movies from the past came in handy.
I knew how to release the empty clip. I knew how to jam the full clip into the butt. I knew how to jack a round into the chamber. I jammed the pistol against his lips. He cried out, giving me just enough room to slip the muzzle inside his mouth.
I pulled the trigger, sending a bullet through the soft, unprotected roof of his mouth. The metal cranium was tough. The bullet did not go through it. I could only imagine the bullet bouncing around in there. Smoke came out of his mouth, nose, and ears. He went instantly and totally limp.
I got to my feet. The wind was really shrieking now. I could feel it, a steady blast against my back, blowing toward the ship.
I saw the air lock begin to crank closed.
“Sherlock, let go!” I shouted. “Come on, boy!”
I actually had to kick him. He let go and looked at me in shock.
“To the ship!” I yelled. He began to bark, but he trotted along beside me as I picked up Gretel and staggered toward the ship.
The dogs were faster. All but the Dalmatian ran past me. Sherlock lingered with me.
People were still getting through the closing air lock. The gap between the ship and where I stood was five feet, and getting wider. Guards were looking at us all suspiciously. They didn’t want strangers, like me, to get inside. The wind wasn’t whistling quite as loudly now. The air was very thin. I would soon pass out. But I was still able to shout.
“This is Gretel, you guys!”
I must have been heard because when I jumped the gap, they let me in. I worried that they would not admit Sherlock, but they did. Already inside were about a dozen other dogs, all of them with blood around their mouths. I think the guards had seen them take down the Charonese.
The lock clanked closed behind us, and I heard the welcome air hissing into the lock.
* * *
—
I kept waiting for the ship to blow up. But it didn’t. Whatever driving power “Mr. Smith” had invented was getting us up and away quite smartly.
Naturally it was chaotic for a while there in the lock and the spaces beyond. Gretel was not the only one badly injured. There were several dead people, and at least one who died right there in the lock before help could get to him. Gretel was recognized and whisked away, and soon the other casualties were either being treated or taken to medical facilities.
I didn’t have much to do but sit there and try to catch my breath. There were several big screens on the walls, and I watched numbly as a hundred cameras both from the surface and aboard ship relayed the pictures to us. I saw the massive ship rising from the sea of trash like some iron whale breaching . . . but this whale never splashed back down. I saw the view looking down on the huge hole where Irontown had been. Debris was spewing into the vacuum, strewing itself over the ancient Lunar plain.
Many people died that day, but no one from beyond Irontown. The Heinleiners had been scrupulous in shutting the air locks that led to the city.
Sherlock rested his head in my lap. Someone had borne away the Dalmatian. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive. The other dogs stuck close to me. I wondered what that was about.
Sherlock and I were pretty far down the triage list, but eventually a medic got to us. He saw to my wounds and gave me something for the pain. He even called in a vet for Sherlock.
In time someone asked me where I was to be billeted, and I told her I didn’t know, that I wasn’t on the passenger manifest. She gave me a cabin number, and I found my way to it in the massive maze of the ship. It turned out to be a barracks very much like the one where I had been held captive for all that time. I was too bone weary to laugh at that.
I threw myself down on the nearest bunk and slept like the dead.
epilog
I wasn’t shanghaied into a trip to the stars. In the end, I went voluntarily.
There were several opportunities to get off if I had still wanted to. The captain didn’t give the Heinlein full power at the very start. We cruised into a fast orbit for Mars, but before that we lingered in the area as three much smaller ships docked with us, carrying people who had actually booked passage but happened to be elsewhere when the hammer fell. Two of those ships were quickly attached to the hull of the Heinlein. They would be modified into atmosphere landers if we . . . when we found an Earth-like planet. The other ship was made available to anyone who had been unintentionally stranded aboard the ship, or who had gotten cold feet about setting off into the interstellar void. I thought about it . . .
. . . but what did I have to go back to in Luna? My mother would barely miss me, and I had no other family. I’d send her a postcard now and then until we got a few light-years out.
My job? Don’t make me laugh. Somewhere along the line when I was being shot at by Charonese gangsters, I admitted to myself that being a private eye was really little more than a hobby. I could continue the hobby on my way to the stars.
There was also the fact that I was being shot at. I had been dubious about Gretel’s claims of a continuation of the Big Glitch. Now I wasn’t so sure. If things were going to get worse with the CC, I had no great desire to stick around and see it.
Come to think of it, I would write Mom and tell her she had better get herself to Mars or Mercury or some other place not ruled by the CC. Would she believe me? Possibly. Would she leave her precious breeding stock? Doubtful.
Were Mars and Mercury and points outwa
rd really going to be safe havens? Not even Gretel could say with any certainty.
* * *
—
We rendezvoused with ships from Mars, then from Ceres. Both had smaller colonies of Heinleiners. The ships carried those Martians and Cereans who wanted to go, and a lot of last-minute supplies.
As Gretel had said, there had been those who were extremely dubious of her desire to take me, an ex-Invader, on the ship. Most of those dissenters were won over by my “heroics” in rescuing Gretel. I even had several come up to me and admit that they had been against me, then give me a hearty slap on the back to show they had changed their minds.
* * *
—
As for the Charonese . . . no one doubted that they would have shot us out of the sky if they could. No one knew for sure just what sort of nastiness they could send after us in the way of guided missiles. There just wasn’t much information about that. But no one would have been surprised if they had some quite sophisticated space weapons, probably involving nuclear warheads.
But it was academic. Pluto and Charon were on the other side of the solar system from our path to the Goldilocks Star, which is what we were calling it rather than its astronomical catalog number. There was no way they could have reached us.
* * *
—
Then there is the matter of Sherlock. I don’t think I’ve ever been so frustrated.
On the one hand, if I hadn’t been one of the weirdos who didn’t have any cyber implants, it is certain that I would have been found and killed. Only my being off the grid saved my life. It was all pure bull-headedness on my part, and yet it turned out to be one of the wisest decisions I had ever made.
On the other hand, by not being cyber-ready, I missed all those years of a closer relationship with my dog.
My dog? No, I’ll never look at him that way again. I now have implants that hook me into the ultramonitored, ultrasecure shipboard cyber-system. I was reluctant to do that, as my fear of having something in my head was still there, but I got over it.
And the first thing that happened was I was able to tune in to Sherlock’s thoughts and emotions. Not all at once. You have to train for that; no one is born to be a dog whisperer. But I’m working at it. Right now I can only feel his biggest, most surface thoughts, and they don’t express themselves in words. But I have learned much already.
I knew we were close, I knew I loved him and he loved me, but I had no idea of the depth of his love. To feel even a little of it is stunning.
I had no idea, Sherlock. I had no idea. I knew I was the “master,” but I didn’t have any grasp of the concept of being his alpha. Now I know what an honor it is to be an alpha. It is also a great responsibility. I must always live up to his expectations. I will try.
One thing I have picked up from him is his feeling that humans can be pretty dumb. I think he tries to conceal it from me, but he can’t. And, my friend, he won’t get any argument from me. I’m looking forward to years of getting to know him better.
It seems that I have inherited a pack. The Heinleiners have brought dogs along, and they are all CECs. What would be the point of a new world, a fresh start, if we didn’t have dogs with us? I understand that Mr. Heinlein himself was a cat person. I can forgive him for that, and I’ve seen a few cats around. Sherlock gives them the stink eye, but he knows better than to make any trouble.
So . . . my pack?
The Dalmatian—who I now know is named Spike—was the alpha of his pack of free canines. When they had patched him up, he approached me cautiously, sniffed my hand, then rolled over on his back so I could scratch his belly. This meant he accepted me as the new alpha. A good thing, too. I’d have hated to have had to fight him for it. I saw how fierce he could be. How fierce all of them could be, working together. It is no mystery to me how wild wolves were able to bring down a caribou ten times their weight.
A bit of my hero status has rubbed off on the pack. People saw how they attacked the warrior, protecting me, and incidentally, Gretel. There is always a scoop of ice cream waiting for any of them at Hazel’s new parlor, and so many handouts at the restaurants aboard that they are all in danger of getting fat.
* * *
—
What is an ex-peeper to do in this new world, on its way to another new world? Nobody deadheads on the Heinlein, believe me. I would cheerfully have worked in the warehouses, swept up the corridors, or gathered the garbage, but I didn’t have to.
I wear two hats now. One is really just a continuation of my old hobby. I have registered Sherlock and myself as a small business, the only private-detective agency within seventy billion miles. I don’t figure we’ll get much work, but then we never did. It’s important to Sherlock, so I did it. We expect our first case any day now. If you need a dame tailed, just give us a jingle on the blower. We will shadow her to the ends of the ship. If you want any Maltese Falcons located, we’re your guys. We are also available for recovering crown jewels, finding secret Nazi bases in space, and tracking giant hounds across the moors. As a sideline we do birthday celebrations, bachelor and hen parties, bat and bar mitzvahs.
My second hat is no surprise, either. I’m a cop again.
Heinleiners like to think of themselves as special in all ways. This is an exaggeration. They are special in some ways . . . but they are just like the rest of us in most ways. Some people steal. We need cops to catch them. Some won’t wash. Can’t have them stinking up the ship. We will be bringing felonies and misdemeanors and violations to Goldilocks along with all our virtues.
If anything, these people are maybe a little more prone to violent crime than your average citizen. Most of them are armed, for one thing. Some of them could do a lot better at impulse control. There have been, and there will be, arguments, and some will degenerate into violence. Fistfights the Heinlein Police Department will mostly tolerate. Gunfights, not so much. We have courts, and a jail. And there’s always the air lock for extreme cases. Heinleiners do believe in capital punishment for the worst of the worst. I’m with them there.
One of the unwritten tenets of the Heinleiners is “An armed society is a polite society.” This is bullshit. Maybe in ten thousand years, when all the hotheads and assholes have killed each other and brought up no offspring in their wild antisocialism, but I doubt it. “An armed society is a society where a lot of people are going to be killed by guns.” It hasn’t happened so far, but it will. It will.
One of the advantages of being a cop in the Heinlein is that there is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The ship is huge, but completely mapped, and covered by CCTV so complete you don’t dare pick your nose. There are no hideouts. Like a legendary police force from a frozen northern country back on Old Earth, the officers of the HPD are always going to get our man.
Oh, and Sherlock is an officer, too. Our department is small, only eleven people to run three shifts covering many thousands of passengers. Sherlock is the entire K-9 Division, though he has on call his Barker Street Irregulars if more dog-power is needed.
* * *
—
I don’t have the faintest notion of how Mr. Smith’s “hyperdrive” works. I doubt if more than three people do, and two of them might be faking it. Whatever it is, it gets us moving along quite smartly. At the midpoint of our trip, our speed will be frightening. I don’t know how fast, and I don’t really want to know. Apparently our clocks will slow down. I don’t understand that any more than Sherlock would.
The hyperdrive doesn’t seem to use much in the way of fuel. There are no big tanks anywhere on the ship, but it keeps thrusting away, twenty-four/seven. It also seems to involve some way of generating artificial gravity, as everyone is always well grounded. And though the ship was designed and built to provide spin “gravity,” it doesn’t spin. The view from the observation lounges is as steady as the stars seen from Luna. Steadier, as those stars also move as Luna rotate
s, just a wee bit too slowly to be seen.
We are now many billions of miles from the sun. All realistic previous proposals for starships have involved trips measured in centuries. Not this one. The trip will take about thirty-five years. I expect to be alive to see landfall.
The only painful thing is to realize that Sherlock probably won’t. But even there, there is hope. I’ve spoken to some of the biologists aboard, and they are intrigued at the possibility of extending human life spans to dogs. There’s no guarantee, but it could happen.
Meantime, I am going to enjoy the time I have with him.
In fact, I think I’ll take him down to the nearest park right now and throw some balls for him.
* * *
—
(I promised Sherlock that he could have the last word.
(Yes, it is I, Penelope Cornflower, C.C.A.T., faithful transcriber. Though I never lived in Irontown, my mother was a Heinleiner and booked passage for me when I was very young. That was when getting the Heinlein off the ground was a completely blue-sky idea, and one that most people thought would never happen. Sadly, my mother died in the Big Glitch.
(I have met Christopher Bach at last, and am now spending a lot of time with him, teaching him to communicate with Sherlock. He is coming along well though I don’t expect him to ever equal my 97 percent adept rating.
(He is cute, in a rough-edged way. Strong arms, a manly chin, a tight little ass, always a plus in my eyes. I’ll bet he could bench-press me all day long.
(Romance? Too early to tell, though I have insisted on taking him to one of the small beaches for whispering lessons, and have been sure to remove all my clothes and put my not-inconsiderable charms on display. No tugs on the line yet. I know that first I would have to lure him away from that Gretel, not an easy chore. I have to decide if he’s worth the work.