The Summer Queen

by Joan D. Vinge

  “Look into it,” BZ said.

  “Yes, BZ,” Vhanu murmured. “But I doubt there’s any truth to—”

  “Look into it immediately, Commander.”

  Vhanu’s eyes flickered. “Yes, sir,” he said. He turned away, abruptly colliding with the Queen. Moon made a small guttural sound, not of surprise, but pain.

  “Forgive me.… Did I hurt you, Lady?” Vhanu asked, with just enough solicitude, just enough surprise. He laid a hand on her arm, as if reaching out to support her. Jerusha saw her wince involuntarily. “Do you have an injury?”

  Moon moved away from his hand. “I strained my arm lifting crates, Commander Vhanu.”

  “Lifting crates?” he said incredulously.

  “I like to work alongside my own people sometimes, when I can, to remind myself of who I am and where I came from, Commander. And what their problems really are.” She touched her arm briefly with her good hand. “Perhaps you should try it some time.”

  His mouth pulled taut. “It sounds too dangerous for my taste.” He turned away again, without any kind of farewell, and left the room.

  Moon watched him go, and then moved quietly to close the door. She came back to the bed and settled carefully onto it, her good hand touching BZ’s face, his hair, with infinite tenderness. His own hand rose unsteadily to cover hers, as she leaned to kiss the hollows of his temples and murmured something that Jerusha couldn’t hear.

  Moon straightened up again, shrugging back her cloak with an awkward motion, her uninjured hand still closed inside his. “Now you know,” she said, looking at Jerusha.

  Jerusha nodded, seeing the same light, the same darkness in both their faces. Slowly she got to her feet, stood looking down at them with an odd longing. “And now I’ve forgotten it,” she said, with a fleeting smile. “Rest well, my friends.” She shook her head, looking away from them as they began to smile. She crossed the room, and went out without looking back.

  TIAMAT: Carbuncle

  Ariele Dawntreader stopped in the hallway, looking toward the hospital room door where uniformed offworlders stood guard; feeling herself pushed forward by anger, held back by doubt. At Police headquarters they had told her she would find Jerusha PalaThion here, with the Chief Justice, who had barely survived an assassination attempt. Some part of her mind tried to tell her that she wished Capella Goodventure had been successful. She found that the thought sickened her.

  She pushed it out of her mind, feeling guilty, as if the guards standing watch down the hall from her could hear her thoughts. The Chief Justice was alive; then let him listen to what she had come to say to Jerusha PalaThion. She started to walk again, seeing the Police turn their heads like twins to watch her approach. Their wariness decreased slightly as they recognized her.

  “I need to speak with Commander PalaThion,” she said.

  One of the guards murmured something half-audible, as if he were talking to himself. He hesitated a moment, and nodded at her. “You can go in.”

  She moved past them, trying to enter the room as though she were perfectly confident of what she would do next.

  Jerusha stood waiting for her in the middle of the room, in the stranger’s gray-blue uniform that Ariele had finally come to accept as a normal part of the other woman’s appearance. Behind her, sitting up in the hospital bed, was the Chief Justice. It was the first time she could remember that she had not seen him in uniform.

  She looked at him for a long moment, feeling as if she saw his face for the first time; seeing a human being, and not an arrogant Kharemoughi martinet. She thought of her brother suddenly, as she looked into his eyes; suddenly imagining the face of a much younger man, who was passionately in love with her mother, willing to give up his career, even his life, for her mother’s sake. She remembered the look he had given her once, meeting her in the Street, and how she had responded.

  “Ariele,” Jerusha said, and there was something in her voice that was both surprise and wariness. “What is it?”

  “I came to…” She broke off. “I came to wish the Chief Justice a swift recovery,” she said, glancing down.

  “Thank you, Ariele Dawntreader,” Gundhalinu said. “Please tell your mother that I’m doing well—”

  “My mother didn’t send me here, Justice,” she said sharply. “I haven’t even spoken to her in over a week. I moved out of the palace months ago.”

  “In that case, thank you for coming at all.” He smiled, uncertainly.

  “Actually,” she said, her hands rubbing the silken cloth of her shirtsleeves, “actually I came here because I wanted to talk to—Aunt Jerusha about something. But it has to do with you too, Justice. Your people. And … what happened to you.” She glanced up at him again, trying to read his reaction. “Do you blame the Summers for what happened?” she asked, baldly. “And … do you believe what Capella Goodventure said your hunters did?”

  “No, I don’t blame your people,” he said, and she was surprised to find that she believed him. “And no. I don’t believe what she said.”

  “Ariele,” Jerusha said, “she must have heard distorted rumors. There’s no evidence.”

  Ariele closed her mouth over the angry response lying ready on her tongue. “Capella Goodventure was right about what happened with the Summer ships. I saw it.” She had spent two days waiting for a summons, for the Blues to come after her, as Reede had sworn they would. But it hadn’t happened, until finally she had been forced to come here herself like this. And now, suddenly, she knew why.

  “You saw it?” Jerusha repeated. Her face changed. “How?”

  Ariele looked down again, watching the memory replay across the polished surface of the floor. “I was there. I tracked Silky up the coast—”

  “Silky?” Jerusha interrupted. “Is she all right?”

  Ariele nodded, seeing relief in the other woman’s eyes; seeing the woman she had always known, the woman she had loved once like her own kin, suddenly looking back at her. She told that woman everything, calling up every detail; but editing every word in her mind before she spoke it, to keep from mentioning Reede.

  “What was Silky doing, so far from the colony’s territory? Were any of the others with her?” Jerusha asked, half frowning.

  Ariele nodded. “There were hundreds of mers on the beach. It was as if they’re all gathering for something.”

  Jerusha shook her head, glancing at Gundhalinu. “What the hell could make them do that—after all the time Miroe and I spent trying to show them that they had to stay clear of humans. Was it all useless?”

  “I think maybe they’re coming to a kind of Festival—”

  Jerusha looked back at her, and for a moment she saw the other woman’s mind try to dismiss the idea. But then Jerusha’s face changed. She looked at Gundhalinu again. “What do you think, BZ? Would there be any record of something like this ever happening before?”

  He shrugged, his eyes thoughtful. “If it only happens during Summer, probably not, unless it was preserved somewhere in their folk tradition.”

  “Maybe it is…” Jerusha murmured. “Maybe that’s exactly what the Festival is.”

  “Then they’re coming to Carbuncle,” Gundhalinu said, and his voice was as sure as if he suddenly knew, the way that Reede seemed to know things about the mers.

  Jerusha looked at him oddly, but she did not question him either. “Ye gods, BZ—if that’s true, they’ll be sitting targets for the hunters.”

  “If it’s true, then the hunts will stop,” he said, and his hand made a fist on the bedding. “I want observation data on the mers’ movements.”

  Jerusha nodded, turning to Ariele. “And you saw the hunters attack the Summers who were trying to interfere?”

  Ariele nodded again. “We saw them ram two ships—”

  “We?” Jerusha asked.

  “Silky and I. I was with Silky.” She glanced down, cursing herself silently, but Jerusha did not ask her about it.

  “Did you see anyone go into the sea?”

>   She shook her head. “It was too far away. But they deliberately sank at least one.”

  “Capella Goodventure believed someone died,” Gundhalinu said, frowning, but not at her. “Enough to want to kill me in revenge. Something stinks, Jerusha.”

  “Smells like a cover-up to me,” she said.

  He swore softly; his body jerked with agitation under the blankets. “Start an investigation. See what you can find out, if all the evidence isn’t sunk already.”

  “Do you think Vhanu knows about this?” she asked.

  He looked up abruptly. “No. Of course not.” He leaned forward, holding himself in place with his arms locked around his knees. “Ariele, you say there were hundreds of mers on the beach … but according to the report I was given, the hunt was relatively poor. How did the mers get away? Did you warn them off?”

  She stiffened, uncertain; glanced at Jerusha, who nodded. She told them, carefully, the truth but not the whole truth. “They fired at me too—at my mother’s hovercraft. I had to get away before … before all the mers were off the beach.” Her face burned with remembered frustration and rage.

  “And you’re sure that Silky was gone?” Jerusha repeated, coming across the room.

  She nodded.

  Jerusha rested warm hands on her shoulders. “Thank you, Ari. Silky doesn’t belong to me anymore—any more than you belong to your mother. But the gods help anybody that ever hurt either one of you.” Her hands tightened gently, in a fond gesture that they had not made for many years, and then released her.

  Ariele smiled, hesitating, wanting suddenly to say more; to tell her everything. But she only turned away toward the door.

  “Ariele—” Gundhalinu called.

  She turned back, reluctantly, compelled by the fragility of his voice, and not the sudden command.

  “Who was there with you?” he asked quietly.

  She half frowned. “I told you—” She broke off, seeing the expression on his face. Certainty. He knew she’d been lying to them, as surely as if he had been reading her emotions from some offworlder machine. She looked at Jerusha, and saw the same certainty in her eyes; knew that it was their experience that had betrayed her, and her own inexperience. “I don’t have to tell you,” she said. “I didn’t even have to come here. Your own people are afraid to tell you what I was doing there, because they know I saw what they did.”

  “What’s this other person afraid of?” Gundhalinu asked.

  “You,” she answered. “The Police. He’s an offworlder. If the Police know he saw, and tried to stop it, he’s afraid they’ll deport him.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  She tossed her head. “He was with me. He works for my mother, studying the mers.”

  “Your mother doesn’t have any offworlders working for her, studying the mers,” Jerusha said.

  Ariele felt her frown deepen. “Yes, she does. She has Reede, and he’s brilliant. No one knows the mers like—”

  Gundhalinu’s face froze. “Reede?” he said. “Reede Kullervo?”

  She looked back at him. “Yes.”

  “I know him,” Gundhalinu murmured. “He is brilliant. But he doesn’t work for your mother.”

  Jerusha was staring at him. “That one?” she said softly.

  He nodded. His eyes, still on Ariele, were suddenly dark with understanding. “He isn’t what you think he is, Ariele.… But he can trust me. You tell him that. He wants to save the mers. We can do it, together. I can protect him, I can help him, if he’ll trust me. Will you tell him that?”

  She went on looking at him for a long moment, at the intentness and the desperate weariness in his face. She nodded, at last. “I’ll tell him,” she said.

  TIAMAT: Carbuncle

  “Reede Kullervo!” The voice that called his name seemed to come at him from everywhere at once, out of the shadowed doorways of the midnight-quiet alley. The streets of Carbuncle were never completely dark, but the nights grew shadows in places where none survived by day.

  Reede stopped in his tracks, his hand reaching for his gun as shadow-forms detached from the larger darkness of doorways and passageways.

  “Son of a bitch—” Niburu muttered in disbelief, reaching for his own weapon as Ananke spun around behind him. Suddenly they were surrounded by half a dozen Blues, in the middle of an alley that had gone from sparsely inhabited to a no-man’s-land in less than a heartbeat.

  “Drop the weapons,” the voice said, behind him now, and he saw that the Blues already had their own weapons out, trained on him. They wore the flash shields of their helmets down, making them all into faceless, unidentifiable clones. He let his gun drop, slowly and deliberately stripping himself of weapons, as his men did the same.

  “The knife in your boot too,” the voice directed mildly, and he realized they were being scanned. He tossed out the knife, and held his hands high. “What do you want with me?” he said, feeling more disbelief than fear. Vigilantism wasn’t the Blues’ style. “I haven’t done anything.” Gods, he hadn’t had his fix; he needed the water of death. What if they locked him up, how long would he last—? And suddenly he was afraid. He clenched his teeth.

  Beside him Niburu was muttering, “Holy hands of Edhu, holy hands of Edhu…” like an incantation. Ananke was as silent as a wall, staring at the shielded faces all around him. Two minutes ago the pair of them had been bitching about waiting at the bar in Starhiker’s for hours, because he didn’t show up on time. He figured he knew where they wished they were right now. He thought about where he’d been. Between a rock and a hard place. “Fuck—” he whispered; repeated it over and over under his breath, like Niburu, like an adhani.

  “You’re a stranger far from home, Kullervo,” somebody said. “Another stranger far from home wants to talk to you about old times.”

  “No—” he said, starting to turn around. But something brushed the back of his neck like a wet mouth, and then there was only blackness.

  * * *

  He came to again, what seemed to be a moment later, although it probably wasn’t. He sat up slowly, cautiously, on a perfectly ordinary couch in a neat, austerely furnished sitting room. It was not so different from his own, could almost have been his own. He shook what might have been a dream of somebody else’s life out of his head, like a dog shaking off water. He looked down at himself—recognized his own clothing, his tattooed arms … realized that the dream was reality, and felt a kind of hopeless fatalism settle over him.

  “Hello, Kullervo-eshkrad,” a familiar voice said.

  He jerked around, startled, to find BZ Gundhalinu, Chief Justice of Tiamat, leaning against the doorframe at the entrance to the room. “What are you doing here?” Reede said stupidly.

  “I live here,” Gundhalinu said. He wore a pair of hastily pulled-on pants and a loose robe hanging open, baring his chest and an expanse of bandageskin. His hair was rumpled. He looked like a man who had been rousted out of bed; as if he had not been expecting this meeting any more than Reede had himself. But the expression on Gundhalinu’s face said that he had been anticipating it for a long time.

  Reede leaned forward, with his hands tightening over his knees. “Where are my men?”

  “Niburu and Ananke?” Gundhalinu half smiled, almost as if he remembered them more fondly than he remembered the man who was his guest. “Waiting for you,” he said simply. But his eyes changed as he went on looking at Reede, and for a brief moment his smile was real. “It’s good to see you again,” he murmured, as if the truth surprised him. He looked down suddenly.

  Reede stared at him, remembering in abrupt, vivid detail the moment of their parting at Fire Lake. And yet he felt his disbelief become something truer and far more unsettling, as more memories began to rise. His hand rose to his mouth, touching his lips; dropped away again. He leaned back into the comforting embrace of the native-made couch and forced himself to relax. “What do you want, Gundhalinu?”

  Gundhalinu came on into the room, moving as though it hurt, a
nd settled heavily into a wooden chair. He glanced at the display on his house system, checking the time, and grimaced, before he looked at Reede again. “It’s about what I’m doing here, Kullervo—and what you’re doing here.”

  Reede’s mouth quirked; his grip on his knees eased. “Congratulations. How do you like being Chief Justice of Tiamat?”

  Gundhalinu shrugged, shaking his head. “It’s not my occupation of choice. It’s not like research. In politics there aren’t any right answers, so you never win.”

  “That’s because you have a conscience.” Reede smiled faintly. “Lose that, and you’ll start winning again.”

  Gundhalinu’s mouth turned up in an ironic echo of Reede’s own smile. He pulled his robe closer across his chest, covering the bandages, and fastened the seal. His hand stayed there, unobtrusively holding his wounded side. “If only life was that simple,” he murmured. He looked up again. “How do you like working for the Brotherhood?”

  Reede glanced away. “Same as always.”

  “Becoming the Source’s brand hasn’t changed anything for you?”

  Reede looked back at him abruptly.

  “Jaakola has a bad reputation, even for someone in his line of work. And what shows in the real world is barely the surface. He goes deep, doesn’t he?”

  Reede frowned. “Did you pick me up to bleed me about the Source? I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know.”

  “I know.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “You haven’t done anything illegal here on Tiamat, that I know of.” Gundhalinu reached into a shallow ceramic bowl sitting on the table beside him, picked up a piece of fruit, and put it back again.

  Reede laughed incredulously. “Then what the hell do you want from me?”

  “You’re on Tiamat to synthesize the water of life for the Source, aren’t you?”

  Reede didn’t answer.

  “Why did you set up that clue pointing it out to me, at the Survey Hall?”

  Reede shrugged, and shook his head, still frowning. “I don’t know.… Just for the hell of it. To see if you were still smart enough to get it.”