Flesh and Silver

by Stephen L. Burns

  “Fare you well, my friend,” Jon yelled over the uproar. He winked. “It’s still not too late to change your mind!”

  Marchey ducked his head, an inarticulate yes and no all at once. Jon released his hand, and he hauled himself up the sagging guideline into his ship with one arm, the bottle clutched to his chest in the other.

  Once inside he banged on the lock’s close bar with desperate haste. The doors hissed shut, silencing the cheers and farewells. He crossed the main compartment at a stumbling half run. When he reached the control board he tucked the bottle under his arm and slapped the pad that brought up the message:

  DEPARTURE SEQUENCE INITIATED

  The ship rumbled into life around him like a steel beast preparing to digest what had fallen into its belly. He stood there, silver hands locked on to the edge of the board like vises, eyes blindly fixed on the orange abort pad.

  The battered panels covering the docking area ground back to reveal the starry void. There was a slight jolt as the clamps were released, then the ship started to fall slowly toward the waiting emptiness.

  A minute later it emerged from the uncovered blister on Ananke’s stony, pockmarked surface into pale warmthless sunlight. The craft sideslipped, angling away, electronic senses casting for the next destination.

  The abort pad still glowed as the time to change his mind ticked away. He closed his eyes, putting temptation out of sight.

  The acceleration warning sounded. Ten seconds later the ship’s primary drive flared. Weight settled over Marchey, pressing him down as the ship flung him away from Ananke, gathering speed with every passing second.

  At last he opened his eyes, and stood there watching the barren gray moon dwindle to a smeary dot on the screen.

  Such a small, pitiful place. Ugly inside and out. Barely 20 km in diameter, scarcely enough gravity to attract dust.

  Yet he could feel it pulling at him, raising a tide in his blood. The stupendous gravity of Jupiter was a weak force beside it. That could only captivate the body.

  “Doctor,” he muttered tonelessly, “I diagnose a serious need for medication to help you recover from your time in near free fall.” He turned his back on the screen and lurched toward the galley nook.

  A pad combination he knew by heart got him a cup of synthetic vodka from the dispenser. As always, the ship was ready to provide him with what he needed. All forms of escape at his fingertips.

  He tossed it back, shuddering as it went down. When his eyes quit watering enough to see the pad clearly he called for another.

  This one he raised in mock salute. “Well, I made it. I’m safe now.”

  He laughed, but it had a hollow, mocking sound, and the expression on his face was not that of a man who has slipped free of a trap and regained his freedom.

  —

  Angel watched the shining blue mote centered in the star-flecked darkness of her bedroom screen dwindle and dim. When she could no longer differentiate it from the other glowing points, she turned the unit off.

  The screen blanked, the light fading with it.

  Her angel eye automatically shifted fo a combination of light amplification and infrared, allowing her to see in the gloom. But there was nothing it could do to help her find her way through the blackness that had descended inside her. Only one light could do that, and now it was gone.

  She hung her head, admitting defeat.

  There were so many things she had wanted to tell him.

  But she hadn’t even said good-bye.

  Angel heaved herself to her feet with a sigh. There was work to be done. Work at least was something she was good at. Good for.

  Maybe if she filled all her hours with it, she could keep her mind off the endless, comfortless night that was the future.

  —

  Marchey managed to pry his eyelids open, even though they seemed to weigh several kilos each. Bright light crashed into his bloodshot eyes like broken glass fired from a shotgun. He squeezed them shut again to keep from getting holes in his brain.

  He lay there for several seconds, steeling himself for another attempt. Groaning at the effort it took to lift his head, he squinted blearily around to get his bearings. Little by little his brain ground into action like a gearbox full of sand, rocks, and tar.

  He licked his lips. “Yurk.” His mouth felt like a dog with mange had slept in it.

  He found out that he’d passed out at the galley table, which explained why one side of his face felt flat and numb. Clear memories of his first and second helpings of vodka remained. He recalled using the table’s touchpad to check on his passenger, and remembered the drink he’d gotten himself as a reward for remembering to do so. After that things got kind of fuzzy.

  A glance at the clock told him that twelve hours had passed since his last grip on reality. Wincing at the thunderous clang of his fingers against the auto-kitchen’s touchpads, he punched in an order for coffee spiked with brandy. He gulped it down greedily, scalding the fur from his tongue.

  That fortified him enough to get his feet under him and totter off to take a shower. The ship’s real-water shower was more than a luxury; it was a lifesaver at times like this. In his delicate condition a sonic shower would probably have killed him.

  Fifteen minutes later he returned to the galley, looking and feeling like he might be able to pass for human. He had changed into soft, baggy black trousers and embroidered slippers. Ignoring the water dripping from the hair at the back of his head, he pulled on a loose red-and-black tyon shirt.

  He punched up a second coffee, straight this time, and forced himself to eat some sort of tasteless, nutritionally balanced breakfast cake that was gone before he quite figured out what it was supposed to be besides good for him.

  When his cup was empty he considered a third, spiked again, but decided he’d better not. At least not yet.

  There was something he had to do before he could talk himself out of it. Something best done when he had all his wits about him. Another drink or two of liquid courage might make him feel braver, but would only make the task more dangerous.

  He had left the compartment housing the inship clinic brightly lit, as if its occupant were some sort of nocturnal monster the harsh glare could keep contained. Had such things been available, he might have even hung up a shitload of garlic and a gross of crucifixes just for safety’s sake.

  He hesitated in the doorway, reconsidering his decision to eschew another drink. Surely just one more would be more help than hurt.

  Right. Then one more after that. He stuck to his plan and made himself go on inside.

  A deepening chill that had nothing to do with the temperature made him shiver as he approached the unibed. The unit’s sleek black sides had been folded up into patient transport mode, giving it a coffinlike appearance.

  He went to the control side of the ’bed and gazed down at the skeletal figure of the man who called himself Brother Fist.

  The old man lay there still as death, looking more like something recently exhumed than anything alive. Naked but for a blanket covering him up to his chest, the wrinkled parchment skin slackly draped over the bones of his emaciated body looked too gray and bloodless to be the skin of anything other than a cadaver. His eyes were closed and deeply sunken into their sockets. The liverish slash of his mouth hung slightly open. Only the faint rise and fall of his thin chest betrayed his tenacious hold on life.

  Marchey knew that by all rights he should have been dead. Little better than death warmed over because of Form V cancer when he’d had Marchey kidnapped to cure him, his overthrow had been the beginning of the end. The Form V had immediately gone into its wildfire terminal stage.

  The average interval between the beginning of terminal stage and death was a week. Anyone else would have been dead from it by now. But not Fist. Somehow he kept his decaying body and putrescent soul together by force of will alone.

  Marchey laid one silver hand on the flat touchpad on the unibed’s side, the circuits in his prosthetic dir
ectly interfacing with its complex systems. Data whispered into his mind, soft as music from another room: Respiration slow and shallow [7/31], but consistent with patient’s condition. Pulse slow and thready [14], blood pressure low and steady [40s/28d], but CWPC. Blood gasses—

  The data whispered on, Marchey interrupting every so often to tweak an adjustment in the life-support parameters. The ’bed’s neural fields were in Pain Suppression, Patient Immobilization, and Deep Sleep modes.

  The old monster was fine just the way he was. Still alive, but dead to the world. A sleeping dragon, its fires banked and its hunger held in check. Although weighing barely over forty kilos and only days away from death, he was still almost as dangerous as he had ever been. As long as his mind functioned he would remain so.

  Back on Ananke, Marchey had kept him locked in a storage room and buried under a sleepfield. The locks weren’t to keep Fist in, the sleepfield would see to that, but to keep his former subjects out. There was no way he could guarantee Fist’s safety, but he felt that he had a duty to do what he could to insure it.

  The lock had seemed like a logical precaution. After all, his former subjects had ample reason to want at him. Most people would have been rabidly trying to get their hands on him, first to torture his secrets out of him, then lynch what was left after the interrogation.

  But not the Kindred. They had learned their lesson and learned it well. To have any dealings with Fist was to flirt with destruction. He had enslaved them, tormented and murdered the ones they loved, perverted their faith, and stolen everything of value they had: the fruits of their labor, their freedom, their dignity, and their future. Fist would have seen to it that vengeance cost them all they had regained, and they knew it. They avoided him like the plague he was. After a few days Marchey quit locking the door.

  Shortly after he had been given orders to go back on the circuit again he’d offered to take Fist with him and turn him over to whatever authorities would have him. It stood to reason that the people of Ananke would have a better chance of recovering from what had happened if the source of the infection were removed.

  The offer had been made to the community as a whole through Jon Halen, who had already emerged as something of a leader. Or at least a spokesman for the consensus. The Kindred had never been much for leaders before Fist, and it was doubtful they would want any others after him. Unsurprisingly enough, Jon returned saying they would gladly be rid of him.

  Since then Marchey had toyed with the idea of trying to get Fist to reveal what he had done with the spoils from Ananke. Standing in the shower with the water beating down on his aching head, feeling a tidal pull from behind and faced with the empty hours and days ahead, the idea had taken on a new attraction.

  It would help divert his thoughts from… other matters.

  “Sleepfield off,” he said, the unibed chiming in response to his command. 4‘Bring the patient around. Keep immobile and anesthetized.”

  Wake the dragon. Up to now he had only let Fist rise up to a semiconscious state, first when repairing his broken arm and lacerated throat, then afterward during his daily check on him.

  Marchey was perfectly willing to admit that Fist scared the living hell out of him. Anyone with half a brain would feel the same way. His heart beating faster in trepidation, he gripped the side of the bed as if to keep himself from running away. Playing with Fist was a dangerous diversion. Shaving his face with a hundred gigawatt mining laser would be far safer.

  Fist’s crepey eyelids fluttered as he began to come around.

  Marchey could not shut out the memories of Fist’s endless unapologetic cruelties. His utter delight in the suffering of others. The way he had nearly ruined his life. That brought him the tempting notion of shutting off the painfield as well.

  The idea had its own dark magnetism, but he let it slide. Not only because it would be contrary to his Oath and all his principles, but also because he knew Fist would only sieze on it and use it against him. He had no doubt that the old man could surmount his own pain, then use it to cause someone else to suffer.

  The frail draped birdcage of Fist’s chest rose higher with each indrawn breath. His bony hands twitched weakly.

  Marchey resisted the temptation to step back. Not only was the old man’s breath unspeakably foul, reeking with death and disease, but he knew that the doors to a human chamber of horrors were about to open.

  Fist’s rheumy, pus-colored eyes opened slowly, blinked. If he was confused, it didn’t show. The warped animus lurking behind those eyes stared out at what was around it with a cold, inhuman calculation empty of surprise or expectation or ungoverned emotion.

  When Marchey was still in college he had visited Earth for the first and only time, and in a stone temple in a country named India seen a real live crocodile the monks kept there. It was said to be almost a hundred years old, one of the last natural-born specimens alive. The huge, cold-blooded creature had lain there half-submerged in its pool, regarding the world around it with that same fearless, carnivorous dispassion. Its soulless gaze assayed you as either meat or threat, and if you were lucky, it dismissed you as neither.

  Fist turned his head to look up at Marchey, exposing the jagged scars Scylla’s talons had carved into his thin neck. He stared up at him for several long, unpleasant seconds before speaking.

  “You’ve taken me… off Ananke.” Fist’s voice was a papery whisper, sibilant and reptilian. The disease in his lungs had gone into full-blown terminal stage. There wasn’t much more than a handful of functioning tissue left. All else was dark carcinomic growth, nightshade blooms spreading in the warm darkness.

  “That’s right,” Marchey answered, reminding himself to choose his every word carefully. “You had pretty much worn out your welcome.”

  Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Fist’s laughter was a bubbling ophidian hiss that raised the hackles at the back of Marchey’s neck.

  “I suppose… I did at that.” The ghost of a shrug. “You took me away… so they could not kill… the poor old man… who has done… so much for them?”

  Marchey shook his head, almost smiling because he had a chance to score a hit on the old man’s ego. “Not one of them raised so much as a hand against you. I guess you didn’t corrupt them as much as you thought.” Of course keeping him buried under a sleepfield the whole time hadn’t hurt. Fist could drive a saint to homicide.

  “Or I taught them… better than they know.” His hand twitched dismissively. “No matter. What of… my Scylla?”

  “Her name is Angel,” Marchey returned coldly, the pleasure he’d felt a moment before clabbering at the mention of her name and the memories it conjured. “Scylla was the name of the thing you tried to turn her into. But that didn’t work out so well after all, did it? Remember how she very nearly took your goddamn head off? She’s not Scylla anymore, and she’s not yours.”

  Those cruel yellow eyes bored into Marchey’s face, commanding his full attention. “If she is… my toy no longer… she must have… become yours. You subverted her… supplanted me. That makes her… yours.”

  Fist’s smile was a horrific thing. Again it reminded Marchey of laughing, scythe-wielding Plague in medieval art. “Isn’t she… a delightful possession?” He licked his thin black lips with a long gray tongue. “Young. Beautiful. Innocent. So eager… to please.”

  “She’s nobody’s possession,” Marchey responded heavily. “She’s not a pet or a puppet. She’s her own person now. Nobody owns her—least of all me. Now that you’re no longer pulling her strings she has a chance at a life of her own.”

  Fist’s baleful, unblinking stare held all the warmth of a breath of space. Under it confidence withered like an orchid blasted by frost. “You… abandoned her?” he asked, an ominous note of accusation sharpening his tone.

  Marchey kept himself from looking away, feeling like he was pinned to a board under a microscope, being examined to see if he was fit for dissection. Besides, he wasn’t sure he could if he wanted to.

  �
�Yes.” He hadn’t really abandoned her, but he knew better than to try to argue the point. In a war of words he’d be the first and only casuality.

  “Then you have… doomed her,” Fist pronounced, looking pleased by the prospect.

  “I set her free.” He couldn’t keep the defensive note out of his voice. “I gave her a chance to make something of herself.”

  “You have… doomed her,” Fist repeated with a steely certainty that made Marchey’s blood turn to neocaine. He told himself that Fist was just trying to bait him. Angel’s life or death had meaning to Fist only as something he could use to his advantage.

  Try as he might, Marchey still couldn’t resist the bait. He had to ask Fist what he meant, even though he was almost certainly playing into the old man’s hands.

  “Explain what you mean by that.” It came out more of an appeal than the demand he had intended.

  Fist ignored his question. He examined what small part of his surroundings were visible from inside the unibed, then turned his attention back to Marchey. “Where are you… taking me?”

  Marchey shook his head, unable to let the other matter drop. “First tell me what you meant by saying I’ve doomed Angel.”

  The bundle of paper-covered sticks that was Fist’s hand twitched in a gesture that said the matter was of no real consequence. “Nothing.” That rictus sardonicus of a smile again. “If she is… as you said… her own person… then her fate… is of her own making… and no concern… of yours.” He peered at Marchey expectantly. “Is that… not so?”

  Marchey opened his mouth to answer, closed it. His crash course in dealing with Fist had taught him that anything he said would only sink him deeper in the morass. So he reluctantly left the matter unresolved and answered Fist’s question.

  “We’re headed for a place called Botha Station.”

  He saw something flicker across Fist’s masklike face. It was there and gone too quickly to be identified for certain. He didn’t think it had been fear, but it might have been… dismay?