Catspaw

by Joan D. Vinge

  “He’s not going to like it if you don’t ship me out tonight. You might lose your job.”

  Braedee shook his head. If Daric taMing or Lady Elnear died, he could lose his job. He flicked the logo on his sleeve, and shrugged. “If his son is in danger, I think I can make him see my point of view again. If not.… Charon taMing may head the Centauri board, but he isn’t Centauri Transport. No matter how much he likes to think so.”

  “Good.…” I flexed my hand just enough to remember how much it had hurt; feeling something ugly and alien squirm in my brain as I thought about Charon hearing the news—about how much he’d squirm when he found out the truth.

  Braedee glanced at me, and I felt him frown. “Tell me,” he said. “Did you actually sleep with his daughter, too?”

  “No!” I glared at him.

  He didn’t say anything more.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, finally. We were coming down over the glowing night mountains of N’Yuk.

  “I’m dropping you off in the city. You are no longer welcome on any taMing property. But I expect you can find whatever you need here; you seem to have a knack for that. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

  I got out of the mod as it settled in a public lot. I turned back, looking at him. “You ought to be glad,” I said, “that I’m really sure you didn’t tell Charon about me and Lazuli.”

  “That sounds like a threat.” He cocked his head. “Are you still trying to play this game … one-handed?” He gestured at my hurt hand like it was some kind of pointless joke.

  I reached out and pressed my hand against the window beside his face, painting the bloody handprint there for him to look at all the way home. He grimaced, and the door hissed down between us, shutting me out of his world.

  I stood and watched the mod until it disappeared, not even sure why I did, except that suddenly I couldn’t make myself move. But I had to move, and so finally I left the field, and found a phone with a security screen. I tried to call Elnear, but I couldn’t get through to her. I wondered if Charon had already killed my private access code. I tried Mikah again, but there was still no answer. So I walked. I took the first transit that came along, changed to another, and another. I walked some more, drifting down through the echoing, hologramrainbowed levels of the city. Sometimes a surveillance scanner stopped me, asking about the blood. I always said I was on the way to a med walk-in, and they let me go on. I didn’t find one, because I didn’t really want to.

  Nobody else acknowledged me, even though I was never quite alone. The nightlife of a city, even one like this, was almost dead in the hours before dawn, but there were always a few people out, floating through their own bright-and-dark fantasies. They looked at me and through me, and none of their stares were friendly. I followed them with my mind as they passed, seeing in their minds the images of where they were going, where they’d been.… Always half-afraid that someone was there because they were watching me, that maybe they were following me. I told myself I didn’t care if they were … but it didn’t make me feel any better when they weren’t. I was the only one without a destination in my mind, or any answers at all.

  Maybe that was why I found myself on the steps of Purgatory, just as the line between sea and sky was turning visible with day far up over my head.

  Argentyne opened the door and peered out at me, squinting, her eyes fogged with sleep. “Go home.” She started to close the door again.

  “Don’t have one,” I said.

  The door stopped, leaving a crack just wide enough for her curiosity. “Daric?”

  I shook my head. “Charon.”

  “Why?” she asked, grudgingly.

  I tried to answer. “I need … to talk,” was all that came out.

  “You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve,” she said. But the door opened a little wider. She looked out at me with both eyes. “Is that blood?”

  I nodded.

  “Whose?” Imagining for a second that it might be Daric’s.

  I held up my hand.

  “Jeezu,” she muttered, and waved me inside.

  Aspen sealed the wound back together, doing it mostly in his sleep. “I told you before to get a treatment,” he mumbled. Music spilled out of him as he stumbled up from the littered table in the middle of the empty club. “I’m telling you again.… Told you before … tell you again…” The words began to fall into a rhythm, reordering themselves, turning into music as a song started to form inside his head. I listened to his mind, following the act of creation into the distance as he wandered back to bed.

  “Hey.” Argentyne snapped her fingers in front of my eyes. “Where are you?”

  “Uh … listening,” I murmured, not saying to what. I refocused, feeling like I’d been caught looking through a keyhole.

  “What made you come here, anyway?” she said, and there was a tension in the words that wasn’t really anger. “You had a whole fucking city, and you’re not zeroed—”

  I shrugged, staring at a dish full of skagweed cuds like it held the secret of the universe. Now that I was finally sitting down, my body was buzzing like a half-dead insect, struggling to get back on its feet. “I dunno,” I mumbled. “Guess it was an accident.” I started to get up.

  Her mind changed suddenly. Her hand caught my sweater sleeve and pulled me down into the pillows again. “Talk to me, you jerkoff, since that’s what you said you wanted.” She peeled a used stim patch off the surface of the table and stuck it to her forehead above her eyes, something to get her awake and alert.

  I half smiled. “That’s the nicest goddamn thing anybody’s said to me all day,” I murmured, surprised and grateful, knowing normally she wouldn’t have touched that patch.

  She stretched and shook her head as the stimulant went to work. “What made Charon want to do that to you? Did you tell him about Daric?” Her voice took on an edge again.

  I shook my head. “I slept with his wife.”

  “Jeezu!” She smacked her forehead with her hand. “You really must hate the taMings.”

  I looked up, frowning. “No. It wasn’t like that.”

  She studied me for a long minute, shrugged. “And you didn’t tell him about Daric?”

  I shook my head again.

  “Are you going to?”

  I didn’t answer, because I didn’t know what I was going to do about anything. My mind was full of static, and I didn’t know where it was coming from; I couldn’t pull my thoughts together enough to care.

  “Why not?” she asked, as if I’d said something.

  “I think he’d kill me.”

  She laughed once. “Which one?”

  “Both.” My mouth twitched.

  She picked up a platter full of crumbs and dumped it. The drone circling her feet sucked up the crumbs as she set the plate down again. “I thought maybe you felt sorry for him.”

  “Which one?”

  She hesitated. “Both.”

  I touched my hand. “Why should I?” My body was still buzzing, even though it was so heavy with exhaustion that just the thought of having to move made me feel paralyzed.

  “Because Charon already lost one of his children.” She pushed her hair back from her face. “Because Daric’s suffered enough.”

  “Because they were freaks, him and Jule—?” I grimaced as I made a fist of my wounded hand. I shook my head. “Charon sent Lazuli and Talitha away. He kept Jiro here, just to hurt Lazuli more.”

  “Ah—” she said. “Shit. Poor baby.” She knew how much Jiro hated his stepfather. “What about you? He threw you out too?”

  “He tried. But Braedee won’t let me off his hook. Braedee wants me to keep working for Centauri, whether Charon likes it or not.”

  “Because you saved Elnear?”

  “Because I found out she was safe all along.”

  Argentyne looked blank. I explained, watching her expression fill back in. “Daric?” she repeated. “The Lack Market wants Daric dead? Why?”

  I shrugged. “That’s
what I’m supposed to find out.”

  “Is he all right—?” She pressed forward against the table edge.

  “He’s safe enough, if that’s all you mean; for now, anyway.”

  Her stare started to turn into a frown.

  “He came to see me, like you told him to. I told him everything. So if that’s what you mean—no, he’s not all right.”

  “Does he think I hate him?” Her voice got small.

  “Don’t you?” I said. “Don’t worry about it. He knows if he tries to hurt either one of us, it’s the last thing he’ll ever do as a Gentleman.”

  She did frown, now. “Damn it, that’s not—”

  “You miss him that much?” Feeling how empty it left her just to think about him. “That human disease? You ought to be relieved you took the cure.”

  “I don’t know … oh, fuck. Fuck you.” She rubbed her face, smearing unexpected wetness.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I thought I was trying to help.”

  She made a face. “You made me feel shittier than he ever did. You act like it’s supposed to make sense, like it’s simple. You use your head-games to cut my life in half, and then you come back in here and want to tell me how bad you hurt. If it’s all so easy, then why couldn’t you keep your pants on around Lazuli taMing? How goddamn simple does your life feel tonight, you prick?”

  I lurched up from the table. (I’m sorry—) I thought, laying it gently into her mind as I looked at her; because I couldn’t trust myself to say the words … because words could mean anything but the truth, or nothing at all.

  She put her hands up to her head, her eyes shadowed. I walked away as fast as I could without stumbling. The dance floor seemed endless, now that it was empty, and so did the silence behind me. The hallway showing me out was as black as my mood by the time I hit the door. I kicked it open and climbed up into the gray light of dawn, one step at a time. Even this street was empty.

  “Cat—” Argentyne’s voice stopped me halfway along it.

  I turned back.

  “Where you going? You got anyplace to stay?”

  I shrugged. “I’ll hire a box.” Not caring; wondering why she cared.

  She pressed her lips together. “You can stay here, if you want.”

  I stared at her. “Why?”

  She let out a high thin laugh that echoed through the empty morning. “Misery loves company.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  “SO,” MIKAH SAID, resting metalloid elbows on the tabletop at the club. It was early the next afternoon, and he’d come in like a black cloud, making the bouncers edgy. I hadn’t bothered to ask what he’d been doing. I told him as much of what I’d been doing as he needed to know. “You’re telling me Deadeye claims Daric taMing is the prime number. That Lady Elnear’s not even listed.” His head moved from side to side like something on a spring. “That’s a real bite in the ass.” He snorted.

  “Yeah. My ass.” I watched the fingers of my good hand hit the tabletop, coming down one at a time, over and over; counting them with some spare part of my brain. I made a fist and forced it down into my lap. “Centauri won’t take its teeth out of me until I tell them more about who wants to null him, and why. I got some credit data for you. Can you pin ID’s on them?”

  “Probably. Gimme the list. Let’s see what pops.”

  I gave him the list. I had a hard time remembering all the numbers, even though I knew they should have been lasered into my brain.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he asked, frowning a little as he plugged his recorder back into a stash on his arm. “You look like a piece of dog shit.”

  “You’d look like shit too on two hours of sleep,” I said, annoyed. My body had come awake, answering its own alarm, when it was time to go to work for the Lady. Memory wouldn’t let me go back down.

  He shrugged. “Your lover still keeping you up nights? You better tell her—”

  “Not any more,” I said.

  He broke off. “Uh-huh.” He nodded his head, looking almost relieved. “Thought maybe it was the drugs,” he said, when I frowned. “What happened? She dump you when your five minutes were up?”

  There hadn’t been anything about last night on the Morning Report this time. The taMings were keeping it hushed up. I wondered what they’d told Elnear. I looked away from Mikah’s naked curiosity. “Her husband found out.”

  He let out a laugh. “And he cared—?”

  Argentyne sauntered up behind him, coming back into the club from somewhere, and saved me from having to think of an answer. She was dressed now, looking like what she wanted the world to see. “It makes you laugh, that some people actually care about each other?” she said, to the back of Mikah’s head. The words dropped on him like rocks and her gaze flicked past him to me.

  He winced as he recognized her voice, and turned to look up at her.

  “You’re making my security paranoid,” she said to him. She looked back at me, raising her eyebrows like she expected an explanation.

  “He’s an old friend,” I said, and made intros. They clenched thumbs in a handshake.

  She glanced at the ring in the side of his nose, back at me. Her thumb and first finger made a circle; the middle finger of her other hand pushed through it. Asking him, “How friendly are you?” in handsign, half surprised and half curious.

  “Not that friendly.” Mikah shook his head, fingering the ring in his nose. “I’m a fan of your work. You ever have need of any arm, just let me know.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Argentyne half smiled, said to me, “I’m relieved to see you hanging around with a better class of people.”

  I laughed, “Yeah,” and looked back at Mikah. “You can do it for me?”

  He glanced at Argentyne, raised his eyebrows. I nodded. He said, “If I get the answer for you, what happens then? You feed Centauri?” I felt the tension level inside him surge. That kind of information crossfeed didn’t fit his codes much better than it fit Braedee’s. He’d sworn over his life to me, and suddenly he was starting to regret it.

  I thought about what I really wanted. It wasn’t to get him killed … or to make a happy man out of Braedee. I shook my head. “I’m not out for trouble. I just need to understand for myself what’s really happening.”

  He twitched his shoulders; light glanced across the shining blackness of his powered armor. “I’ll see what I can do.” He pushed to his feet and made a quick, gallant, almost-embarrassed pass of compliments to Argentyne. It surprised her as much as it surprised me. Then he turned and stalked out of the club.

  “‘An old friend’?” Argentyne said, watching him go.

  “We dug ore together in the Federation Mines, out on Cinder.”

  She glanced back at me, and I felt her remember the scars. “How old are you?” she said.

  I shrugged. “Twenty, maybe. How old are you?”

  She laughed, and didn’t answer. She was twenty-eight. “What was that about?”

  “Daric.”

  Her face froze, as she realized suddenly that what happened to him was really in the hands of people like Mikah … like me.

  “It’s his own fault,” I repeated, for what seemed like the hundredth time.

  She looked back at me, her eyes hard. “What are you going to do?”

  “That depends … on a lot of things,” I said, because I didn’t know; or maybe because I didn’t want to know. My mind began to back up with choices and mistakes and memories; the flood of uncontrolled images hit me like a drug rush.

  “Like what?” Her hands tightened.

  I had a hard time seeing her face for a minute. “Like what I’m going to do about myself.…” I rubbed my head, brushed the torn, empty hole in my ear where the emerald earring had been. Feeling the sudden gaping hole in my mind as something punctured my memory, and everything emptied out.… “I got to talk to Elnear.” I got up and left the club, only remembering when I was far away that I hadn’t even said goodbye.

  At least my wor
k clearances were still functioning. I made my way back to and through the Federation plex like I was following a programmed track. I felt like a blind man, outside, inside.

  Until someone spoke my name. I only stopped then and looked up because I couldn’t get any farther, because someone’s body was blocking my way.

  Stryger’s body. I stared at him, feeling like somehow I’d conjured him up out of the blackness of my own thoughts. “What are you doing here?” I said, stupidly. He was coming out of Elnear’s office, surrounded by a bodyguard of worshippers.

  “I was going to ask you that.” He was even more surprised than I was. “I was just told that you were no longer working for the Lady … that in fact you were no longer on planet.” He was staring now, seeing me right there in front of him, so real he could reach out and touch me.… A flush began to spread over his perfect face, lighting it up like fireglow.

  “I guess you heard it wrong,” I said. I was starting to admire him, the way he looked.… I made myself stop. Reaction crawled up my spine like bugs.

  “They said it was ‘family problems.’” His eyes looked me over like they had a life of their own—taking in the planes of my face, my borrowed clothes, the bandage on my hand. Curiosity and suspicion oozed out of him. He couldn’t wait to ask Daric about this. “I admit I was surprised to hear it. I know that you have no family.”

  It took a second for the words to register; and then, suddenly, the memory of the girl he’d beaten filled my mind. That was the way they liked it—the hunters, the sick ones: No protection. Nobody waiting up, searching the streets, calling your name.… Suddenly I was half a galaxy away, and half as old, with no one to help me, not even a memory—“You heard wrong.” I pushed forward, forcing him to back up. I elbowed a couple of true believers who tried to object to my lack of reverence.

  I strode on into Elnear’s offices like I still belonged there, not looking back as I felt the fist of his anger hit me uselessly from behind. “You piece of shit,” I said out loud, to keep from sending it straight into his brain.

  The people I’d worked with for weeks looked up at me and didn’t know what to think; but then, they’d always looked at me like that. I spotted a new face in the room, someone I’d never met before. “I need to see her,” I said to Geza.