Catspaw

by Joan D. Vinge

  “Because that’s not how life works. Because Charon will stop you, no matter what you do. Because your mother doesn’t really want to give up being a taMing. Because you don’t really want to throw away everything you’ve got and live like me.… Because I’ve only started living, and I’m not ready to lose it all to a brainwipe.”

  “But I—”

  “No. Go home, Jiro.”

  He half-rose from the bed, his fist coming up to take a swing at me. I blocked the move, held his hand away. It began to tremble; he collapsed onto the bed again.

  I reached out, trying to be gentle as I touched his bruised face with my fingers. He flinched. “You’re lucky that’s all you got. How many guys did it take to do that to you?”

  He looked down, his face getting red again. “Only one.”

  “You’re still lucky.”

  “I tried to use my tychee training, but it didn’t work very well.”

  “Didn’t you wear a bodyguard?”

  “I forgot to turn it on.”

  I shook my head. “How far do you figure you’re going to get on your own in the galaxy if you can’t even make it to Argentyne’s without getting the crap knocked out of you, and everything you own stolen?”

  “I’ve got my own credit line—” He held his wrist up. It was bare. He stared at it like his hand was missing; I heard him suck in a gulp of disbelief. He made a noise like a stepped-on puppy, and lowered his arm. “Oh, no—” His hands went into his pockets, his tunic, searching frantically for something else. “It was in my jacket, he took my jacket, it’s gone!” A handmade tapestry pouch Elnear had given him, with a holo of him and his parents inside it. He could see it so clearly in his mind that I could see it too. He sagged forward, his shoulders hunching, his fists pressed into the space between his knees. His nose began to run as he fought back tears. “Shit. Shit. Shit!”

  I sat down beside him on the bed and put my arm around him. “Jiro—” I broke off, waiting until he was ready to listen. “Jiro,” I said again, at last; I barely touched the bruise on his face. “This’s what it means to be on your own, and just a kid. I’ve been on my own as long as I can remember. When I was a kid it never got much better.”

  “It couldn’t get any worse,” he said sullenly.

  “Sometimes it got a whole lot worse.” He raised his head; I looked away from the questions in his eyes.

  “But I hate Charon! You don’t know what he’s like—”

  I looked down at my bandaged hand. “Yeah, I do.” I sighed. “Nobody said you’re not hurting, or that you don’t have any reason to. Nobody said you don’t feel lonelier than you thought anybody knew how to. Charon’s a bastard, and he’s done things to both of us that we’re not going to forget.” I saw his mother’s face in both our memories. “But you’re still a taMing, Jiro. And you’re still young. That means you’ll probably get everything you want, sooner or later. Your mother’s not dead, and neither is your sister. Charon will get over what happened; you’ll all be together again, someday. And someday you’ll be an adult, a member of the board yourself; maybe even an Assembly member. Charon won’t run your life any more. And then you can make him pay for this, if that’s still what you need.”

  “But that’ll take years and years—” He pulled away from my shoulder, stiffening upright, full of desperation. “How am I going to stand it, for years and years?”

  “Just like I did,” I said. “One day at a time.”

  “You’re not me! That’s stupid! That’s not a good enough answer—” His face and his mind got blind-stubborn again.

  “Neither is running away!” I rubbed my itching face, my arms. What do you want from me? If I had all the answers, do you think I’d be sitting here like this—? But I only said, “Look … your mother said you’re away at school most of the time, anyhow, right?” He nodded slowly. “So you’re not going to spend that much time around Charon. You can live with it. You’ll have friends at school, people there that you can respect and learn from. Use that—” He stared at me, but he didn’t say anything. “Everybody’s got to take over their own life sooner or later, or they might as well be dead. You’ll just have to do it sooner. You have to figure out for yourself what’s important to you, because you won’t have a family you can trust to guide you. Except your aunt … you can trust your Aunt Elnear.” He nodded again, solemn and listening now. Suddenly I thought of something else. “What about the baby?”

  “The baby?” he asked, looking confused.

  “You mother said there was going to be a baby soon. Hers and Charon’s. Your brother.…”

  He blinked, remembering.

  “He’s going to need you,” I said. “To help him understand.”

  He glanced away, staring at the windows; I felt his mind begin to open up again, at last.

  I stood up. “Come on. You’d better be getting home before Charon figures out you’re gone.” I gestured toward the door.

  “Cat…?”

  “What?”

  His mouth struggled to make the words. “Did you ever get scared … when you were just a kid … and you didn’t have anybody to take care of you?”

  I looked down at the faded colors of the rug. “Yeah. I was scared all the time. Sometimes I still am.”

  He got up; glanced at his wrist, as if he still couldn’t believe it was naked. Shock humiliation fury grief glanced through his brain again, with the realization that there was nothing left to take home with him out of all the things he’d brought.

  “You worried what Charon’s going to do when he learns you lost the deebee?”

  “The what?” he said.

  “Your databand.”

  He nodded. “He’ll—” He made a face. “I don’t care. Let him. It’s only money, we’ve got plenty.…” The defiance fell away. “But I lost my picture … my picture, it’s the only one I had.…” His hands rose, helplessly, dropped to his sides. He sniveled.

  The holo in the tapestry bag that was gone with his jacket. “Where’d you get robbed?”

  “Right outside the trans station.”

  “Let’s go for a walk,” I said.

  “But—”

  “Don’t worry. You’re safe now. You’ve got nothing left to steal.”

  He didn’t like it, but he led me to the place where he’d been robbed. I looked up and down the street, seeing overflowing bins of garbage, only some of it plastic-sealed, waiting for a pickup. “Which way did he run after he knocked you down?” Jiro pointed straight ahead. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s check the dumpsters.”

  “Dumpsters?”

  “Garbage bins,” I said. “Not everybody has a home recycler. A slip’ll dump anything he can’t use, usually real close by.”

  He stared down the street. “You look for it. I don’t want to touch garbage.”

  Rich kids—“Fuckin’ ass, you will.” I gave him a shove. “You’re the one who knows what you lost. If you want it back so bad, you’ll help me look for it.”

  He glared at me. I stared him down, waiting while his anger fell apart. He shrugged his shoulders, embarrassed, and nodded. As we began to walk I felt his self-consciousness and fear begin to fade; he looked into every heap and bin, more carefully as he went along.

  “There—!” he shouted suddenly, running forward. Something bright stood out from the garbage colors in the shadow of a stairwell. He picked up an expensive-looking orange jacket—his jacket—shook it out, felt in the pockets. They were empty, which figured. He waded back into the trash pile, picking up a carryall and a couple of other things he seemed to recognize; dropping them again. “Here it is!” His voice shot up an octave. He laughed, waving the holo, triumphant. “I found it! We found it—!” He stumbled back to my side, tripping over cans, his eyes wide. “We really did. I don’t believe it—” He laughed again. “Wow. Thanks. Thanks.…” He pushed the holo down inside his tunic, close to his heart. “How’d you know that, Cat? How’d you know it would be there? Because you’re a psion?”
/>
  I half-smiled, turning around. “Because when I was a slip, that’s what I always used to do.” I started back toward the transit station, letting him catch up when he could.

  He came up beside me again, panting, dragging his jacket. He looked at it while he walked, and frowned, wrinkling his nose. He tossed it at another trash heap as we passed.

  I reached out, caught it before it landed. Further down the street I handed it to a drab-looking girl in a Fedworks uniform, who wasn’t much bigger, or older, than he was. She gaped, grinned, and ran on down the street, clutching it in her fists; afraid we’d change our minds.

  “It was dirty—” Jiro said, watching her go.

  “So are you.” I hit the stain on the front of his tunic with my hand, a little harder than I needed to. He winced and didn’t say anything more as we headed into the station.

  When the transit came, he started looking for words to tell me goodbye. I only shook my head, and got on board with him. “I’m coming back to the estates with you.”

  He frowned, worry and sudden fear filling his mind again. “But Charon said—”

  “I’ve got to see Daric. Charon’ll have to live with it.” I slumped down in the seat, suddenly remembering how tired I still was, and hoping this wasn’t a mistake.… I realized I was tracing the molded cube design on the plastic seat in front of me, and tried to stop.

  “Cat?” Jiro said, as the trans started to pick up speed.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry.” About the garbage. About the coat.

  I sighed.

  THIRTY

  NEITHER OF US was wearing a valid clearance any more, but Jiro managed to convince the estate security systems that we were cleared to land. He had plenty of beginner’s bioware netted into his brain.

  Charon himself was waiting for us on the terrace when the mod landed, standing with his hands clenched behind his back.

  “Where the hell have you been? What the hell are you doing here?” he said, one question for each of us. “What happened to your clearance?” Another one for Jiro.

  “I got robbed,” Jiro mumbled, looking at the ground.

  “What? Speak up, for God’s sake—”

  “I got robbed!” Jiro lifted his chin. Now Charon could see the bruise on his face, his stained clothes, the stubborn set of his jaw.

  Charon’s face changed: worry, fear, anger. He looked back at me like I’d done it.

  “He’s all right,” I said, ignoring the look. “He came down to see me at Purgatory. He lost his databand to a slip, that’s all.”

  Charon’s relief was so strong I almost choked on it. He stood looking at Jiro, his hands tightening at his sides, fighting something inside himself. I realized it wasn’t anger or wanting to hurt the boy … it was the urge to get down on his knees and hold him, and thank God that he was all right. Jiro stood frozen, reading it as rage, watching those hands with barely-controlled panic.

  But Charon didn’t move. His hands loosened. “Don’t ever do anything that stupid again,” he said. “You could have been killed.”

  “I won’t,” Jiro said dully.

  I felt Charon do something with the hardware in his head—sending out a signal to kill Jiro’s lost databand. I hoped it was too late, that some freedrop had already cleaned out his account. “Go inside,” he ordered, gesturing toward the Crystal Palace waiting behind him.

  Jiro hesitated, looking at me. He smiled, uncertainly. “Thank you.” He patted his shirt, the holo hidden inside it.

  I nodded.

  “See you—?”

  “Maybe,” I said, not wanting to make him a promise I couldn’t keep. I watched him go on, small and alone, into the shining house.

  Charon stood watching Jiro, watching me as I watched. I felt his awareness of me, an ache like a knife-wound. He couldn’t believe I was still here: the thing he hated most, still infesting his life, perverting his family. I was like some kind of curse on him, a living, breathing, punishment.… A psion … Lazuli and Jiro … Daric … Jule … Did you sleep with my daughter too? Wondering what he would never dare to ask me. “Get out of here,” he said suddenly, thickly, jerking his head. He turned away, starting toward the house. And he was trying not to think about it—about the thing he’d done … Jule … Daric … psions.…

  “I have to see Daric,” I said, too loudly, but he didn’t notice. What thing? My body stood motionless, left running on autopilot while a part of my mind went after him, trying not to lose that sudden, secret thought. I followed it back through the hot-and-cold maze of his mind. How many secrets like the one about Elnear did he have hidden inside him?

  He turned back suddenly, glaring at me. “Daric?” he said. “Why?” He hated psions. But both his children were psions. And nobody really knew why.

  “About the trouble he’s in,” I said. “About how to get himself out of it.” Distracting him as I probed deeper, getting closer, until I could almost feel it—He didn’t know Daric’s secret. But I was sure now that somewhere inside him lived the reason for it.…

  “Not until you tell me everything.” The same mangled rush of emotions that had hit him when he saw Jiro come home hit him again, twice as hard, worry, fear, anger—even something he might have called love, but I wouldn’t have … for Daric, who was perfectly normal, in spite of everything, and yet gave him nothing but grief.…

  “No, sir.” I shook my head. “I can’t do that. Ask your Security Chief. He’ll explain it to you.” In spite of everything, I could almost feel sorry for him.… In spite of everything … everything that had been done to make them something more.…

  He opened his mouth to tell me to go to hell—broke off, seeing something in my eyes that made him afraid.

  “If you want to keep Daric alive, you’ll let me see him now. No conditions,” I said, hitting him in the face with the words, blinding his thoughts.

  He stared at me a second longer, his mind leaping and dropping between levels, and fears. “All right,” he murmured. “See him, then. And then get out.” He turned his back on me and went into the house.

  And then I saw the answer; I knew what he’d done.

  I got back into the mod again like a sleepwalker, and it took me to Daric.

  * * *

  “Daric!” I called, at the sealed entrance of his house. He was inside, I could feel him in there. I knew he had to be watching, listening through his house system. But there was no answer. “Come on, talk to me!” This was one thing I hadn’t counted on—that he would refuse to see me. “You want to save your life—?” Still no answer. I looked around. The house was like no building I’d seen before, here on the estates, or anywhere. It was made of untreated wood, the lines of it stark and clean. There were no windows looking out anywhere, no other entrance but this one. My mind had him pinpointed behind that barrier; I slipped in through his useless defenses, and thought, (Do you want to know why you’re a freak like me—like your sister?)

  This time the door opened.

  I went inside, down a long empty hallway of polished golden wood. At its end was a rectangular courtyard, open to the sky, dazzled with light. The center of the courtyard was a sort of garden; small, precise green-needled shrubs were set in a sea of sand and smooth black stones. The sand had been raked into lines like the ripples on a sea; every black stone had been set exactly where it was to create a calculated effect. It reminded me of standing on the Monument.… For just a minute standing here seemed as unreal as the memory of standing there suddenly did.

  “That was very clever.” Daric’s voice came ahead of him out of the shadows. He pushed aside a door/wall and came into the courtyard, wearing a long, patterned black robe that seemed to suit a place like this, and an expression that didn’t. The mocking arrogance was a false face, but it was all he could find to cover the naked fear, curiosity, anger, resentment inside him as he saw me. He looked pale and sick. “That was a lie, wasn’t it? What you put into my head, about knowing why I’m a psion? You just said that to
make me let you in, didn’t you?”

  “No,” I said, “it was true.” I didn’t say anything more.

  “Well? Are you going to tell me?”

  “That depends on how good a listener you are.”

  He bent his head, the twisted smile spreading wider across his face. “Ah. So you’ve finally decided what you want from me. I knew you would.” Blackmail, for keeping his secret.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “You might say that.”

  “Sit down.” He pointed toward the low wooden benches waiting at the center of the courtyard. The mindless gesture made me think of some vip inviting the opposition to open a round of negotiations. I realized that was what he was doing, whether he knew it or not. He sat down first, waiting.

  I stepped out into the sunlight, blinking for a second until my eyes adjusted. I sat down, wary, but no warier than he was, this time.

  “How much do you want?” he asked.

  “It’s not that easy,” I said. “Have you talked to Braedee lately?”

  His frown was all the answer I needed; and all I got. He knew why I was still on Earth. He knew that the human bomb had been meant for him. He wasn’t sure whether he cared.… I probed deeper into his mind, until I found the solid, stubborn core of him that wanted to survive at any cost; that had kept him alive, living with his secret all these years.

  “I found out who wants to kill you,” I said.

  He sat watching me, not saying anything, with his hands clenched quietly at his sides, tightening and tightening. I felt the pain growing like a flower inside him as his nails dug into his palms. I’d never noticed how long his nails were, how sharp.

  “It’s the Lack Market,” I said.

  “The Lack Market?” he murmured finally, with more disbelief than anything.

  “They think you’re two-timing them.”

  He still looked blank. He kept the two sides of his life so separate in his mind that he couldn’t even imagine why.

  “It’s about drugs.” I felt him start. “They say you made some promises to them, about doing them some favors in return for getting all you can use. They feel you haven’t been keeping the promises.”