Hero!

by Dave Duncan

  Holy Joshua! “He is…willing?”

  “Oh, yes! Quite eager, I think, actually.”

  Utterly insane! But typical of the way wild stock got their whole lives entangled in their messy reproductive affairs.

  “Feirn, Blade is a spacer officer. He has access…I mean, there is a preparation for girls called ‘loosener,’ and a spacer officer—”

  “He won’t. He says it would not be honorable.”

  “Honorable? Not honorable? If you ask him?”

  She sniggered again, and wiped her cheek with a slim finger. “Blade has very strong ideas about honor.”

  “Persuade him.” Now Vaun was catching the insanity. Whose case was he arguing here?

  “I’m not certain I could. Blade is awesomely well-disciplined. And it wouldn’t be fair. He would hate himself afterward.”

  “I’m sure he would survive…And where do I come in? Why me?” he asked, while every cell in his body now was screaming Why not? Why did he have to get mixed up in the problems of this giddy little random?

  “Well, I was told…I think you…You seem…”

  “Who said?” he demanded, suspicion rising again.

  “A friend told me you were the finest lover she had ever known, and if I explained that I was nervous, you would be gentle and helpful, and…Oh, shit. I wish you’d just…You could have done it by now, couldn’t you?”

  “Maeve?”

  She turned and stared at him with dismay, and then nodded.

  Maeve! Always Maeve! He had blundered into her web like a blind bug the previous night, and he was still entangled. “This is some sort of elaborate joke, I suppose? What exactly is there between you and Maeve?”

  Now the child was close to tears. “Oh, I’ve made a mess of this…”

  “Tell me! What am I missing?”

  “She’s my mother.”

  With no memory of moving, Vaun had gone right by her, had reached the window, and was staring out of it.

  “And she sent you to me?” Pimping her own daughter?

  He heard a sniff. “No. It was all my idea.”

  “Why?” Another spy, of course. Was there no end to their foul suspicions, their prying…

  “I told you.”

  “I don’t believe a word of it!”

  “Well, it’s true!” Feirn snapped, and he turned to stare at her. He could see the resemblance now. Maeve’s hair was darker, but it was certainly reddish. She had freckles, too, although not such a glorious abundance.

  “And you want to be hostess at Valhal. That’s the payoff?”

  “Yes. I mean no!”

  “There’s a word for that, Citizen Feirn. It’s called whoring!”

  White-faced, she sat down on the couch and stared at him. He stared back.

  “I know you’re not really like this, you know,” she said sharply.

  “Like what?”

  “Rude and arrogant, and all those things. I know that what happened between you and Mother made you twisted and bitter, and that before that you didn’t hide your real self under that hard shell. I know you’ve had hundreds of girls here at Valhal, always hunting desperately to find a replacement for the one you really loved, but that’s not the true Vaun at all, and basically you’re a very loving, considerate—”

  “Oh, for Krantz’s sake! I suppose your dizzy mother put that crap into your pretty little head?”

  Feirn was on her feet now, and yelling shrilly. “I thought you wanted to! I wouldn’t force my body on anyone. I’m sorry if you find my request insulting, or demeaning, or think I’m too skinny. Maeve said she thought you were looking for a hostess, and I knew I could do that job all right because I’ve watched her running Arkady, and as for the sex part, well, she’s always said you were the finest lover she’s ever known, so I didn’t think you’d mind teaching me…I didn’t think it was such a great favor I was asking—you looked like you wanted to eat me! Spacer officers are always chasing after girls. Or boys. I mean the girl officers chase boys. I thought a spacer—”

  “Don’t call me that!” he shouted. “I’m not one of them!”

  “What? But…”

  Krantz in a jug! What was he saying?

  “Well, I am, of course.” He had graduated from Doggoth. He was the Patrol’s great hero. Of course he was a spacer. “It’s just that…well, you made me think of that band of horrors that Roker has with him…”

  Wild stock. Lust-crazed. But he’d never met anything quite like this mixed-up child before. And as for that ensign…“Does Blade know why you came here, or did he believe the interview story?”

  Her anger faded into sad resignation. “Oh, he guessed right away. He said it would be good for me, and he didn’t mind waiting if you wanted me to be hostess here for a year or two. He’s very reliable, Blade, even if he is a little bit humorless. And I do wish I hadn’t messed all this up.”

  She stooped to pick up Vaun’s shirt and walked over to the door and pushed it at him in silence. For a moment he just stared at her, the shirt still clutched between them, fingers touching. He could see no guile in her jewel-bright eyes, blue and glistening. He discovered that he was inclined to believe her.

  No spy, just crazy, and he felt that strange protective urge again.

  “You didn’t mess it up, Feirn,” he said softly. “It was Roker did that.”

  She smiled with relief like a child forgiven. “Tonight, then? Not hostessing…but tonight, Vaun, please will you make love to me?”

  God in Heaven! “Yes, if you want.”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  She had an innocence that was totally alien to him. Mixed-up, yes. Not especially smart, no. Sweet, but yet determined in her way. Ruthless, even, for she had no idea how cruelly she was torturing Blade. Maeve should have told…but Maeve did not like Blade.

  Tonight,…he had better go back to the medic.

  The sound of boots interrupted Vaun’s thoughts—as if sum moned by those thoughts, Ensign Blade was marching across the terrace toward him.

  He was back in uniform. Or still in uniform—still flawless, looking ready to go on parade, valedictorian for Admirals’ Day. He stamped to a halt, and his saluting hand rose, wavered, and hesitantly removed his cap instead. He tucked it smartly under his arm…his hair was unruffled, of course. His eyes avoided Vaun’s bare chest and the rumpled shirt. He nodded politely to Feirn and spoke earnestly to Vaun.

  “Admiral, I want to thank you for the strealer fishing. It was a very memorable and exciting experience.”

  The boy looked and sounded about as excited as a patch of lichen. He had no visible sprains or bruises. He was bluffing, obviously. He hadn’t been out of those knife-edged pants.

  “Catch anything?” Vaun asked innocently.

  “Three, sir…I mean Admiral.”

  “Oh, that’s very good,” Vaun said with a straight face. “And you weren’t gone long at all.” In all his years at Valhal, only once had Vaun ever caught three strealers in one day, and no one rode a gaspon successfully on a first attempt. Some boys had tried for years and never succeeded even in bridling the slippery things.

  The pale mauve eyes twitched just enough to show that Ensign Blade knew he was being called a liar, but he sounded completely sincere as he said, “Thank you, sir. It was mostly luck, of course.”

  Give him the benefit of the doubt—possibly he’d speared some bluetooths, or throilers, and didn’t know any better.

  “Big ones, were they?” Vaun asked.

  “The sim tells me the largest is a house record for male strealers, Admiral.”

  God the Mother!

  Feirn stepped forward and kissed his cheek. He blushed then.

  How unexpectedly human of him.

  “Congratulations!” Vaun felt shaken. “That’s incredible. We’ll have it mounted for you, of course.”

  “Oh, that would be very kind of you, sir…Admiral.”

  Vaun sighed. “As a special reward, I will even allow you to call me ‘sir’.�
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  The mauve eyes flickered again. “Thank you, sir. It does feel more appropriate.”

  Finally, though, a hint of satisfaction was showing on Blade’s fresh-minted face. Yes, ice mining in the Oort Cloud, an extended posting…

  Then he glanced past Vaun, somehow stiffened even more than usual, and shot his cap back on his head. He saluted. Vaun twirled around.

  “There you are, Admiral,” Roker said heartily. “All finished what you were doing, mm?”

  Vaun’s fists clenched the wad he had made of his shirt. “I am at your service…sir.”

  The high admiral was enjoying himself immensely. “That’s true. Professor Quild has arrived, so we can start as soon as the sun sets.” He leered, gesturing expansively with an irreplaceable seven-hundred-year-old Palofi crystal goblet. “We are about to dine. Your other guests are starting to arrive, too, and I thought you might like to assign them appropriate rooms.”

  “Other guests?”

  Roker nodded, curling his lips away from his teeth. “All those people at that party last night. Special powers under the state of emergency, you understand? You released an imperial secret, and we’re trying to contain the damage. We have to put them somewhere, so why not here?”

  “You mean you’re rounding up everyone who heard what I—”

  “Everyone who was at Arkady.” Roker gloated as he watched Vaun gauge the thrust. Then he clapped him on the shoulder. “Say, lad, why not give Maeve her old quarters in the Pearlfish Suite…just for old times’ sake?”

  Maeve? Coming back to Valhal? And nothing Vaun could do about it.

  LIFE IS IRONIC.

  A torch outfitted in astonishing comfort lifts the brand-new Ensign Vaun from the harsh, mean life of the barracks at Doggoth and whirls him away into the night sky, one lonely passenger in civilian clothes, forbidden to talk with the crew. As dawn breaks the ensign arrives at the giddy opulence of Valhal and is conducted to a suite of rooms that would have shamed the most profligate empress of the Jolian Dynasty. This is not the main house, he is informed, merely outlying guest quarters, rarely used, but here he may enjoy himself. Respectful sims will answer all his questions, deliver any service, procure any dish or delicacy he requires. Robots will rush to do his bidding. He has only to ask…but the ensign is so weary that he just pulls off his clothes and falls into the silken sheets, asleep before his eyes close.

  He awakens a few hours later with a raging fever and a headache so murderous that he cannot even see straight. He struggles out of bed to visit the John, and falls fainting to the floor.

  The new Ensign Vaun likes to think he is tough. He likes to think that the genetic wizards of the Brotherhood on Avalon have crafted him a body superior to any male random on Ult. As a child he was never touched by the summer sicknesses that plagued the delta villages. He has been immune to the Bludraktor Trot and every other infection that has passed through Doggoth in the last five years. He has always done better than anyone else at enduring the physical stress so callously inflicted on recruits—mainly exhaustion and sleep deprivation, but also hunger, heatstroke, hypothermia, motion sickness, and an imaginative selection of others. He has come out of Doggoth alive and sane after five years, and that in itself is a stunning tribute to his toughness.

  For the first time in his life he can experience luxury and comfort.

  And he only wants to die.

  FIERCELY CLUTCHING THE carved ivory banister, Ensign Vaun picks his way gingerly down a staircase wide enough to march a platoon abreast. He sinks to the ankles in rug, and everywhere he looks he sees glitter—crystal and marble, gilded carvings and gold-framed art. He feels unworthy and unclean in such opulence. After all, he is only a peasant, and nothing he has learned at Doggoth will help him here.

  He has endured three days of harrowing fever and two days of jelly-limbed weakness after it, and today he is going to go out and explore Valhal if it kills him.

  The house seems to be deserted, apart from him. However, as his quavering legs bring him at last down to the safety of the hall, he sees a boy reclining on a padded sofa and watching his progress with a sardonic grin. He wears only skimpy red swim trunks and is wriggling bare toes in the rug. His curly hair grows to a point on his forehead. It is the comcom, seeming unusually relaxed for someone who is normally so fidgety, and who is so obviously out of place amid such finery.

  Vaun himself is dressed in shorts and a singlet, as those were all he could find in his rooms, but he straightens up and…

  “For God’s sake come and sit down,” Tham says, laughing. “You try to stand at attention, you’ll fall over! We don’t go for that bullshit here, anyway.” He watches as Vaun totters toward him across the wide carpet. “Kowtow to Roker, maybe, but none of us lesser mortals.”

  To a lowly ensign, even a commodore barely ranks as mortal.

  Sweating and panting with exertion, Vaun collapses on the seat beside him. His weakness is degrading; he feels as if he has run all the way from Doggoth.

  Tham looks him over appraisingly. “Medical said you might be able to stand up tomorrow, and take a few steps the day after.”

  “I’ll manage…sir.”

  Again Tham laughs, although not unkindly. “Ever been really sick before?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Thought not.”

  Vaun gives him a studied stare. “Embarrassing for me, sir. Right after getting my commission, I mean. And being needed, now, to help against the Brotherhood.”

  “Yes.” Tham nods faintly, but his eyes confirm what Vaun suspects. Tham is a decent boy. He obeys orders, but he has a conscience and he doesn’t approve of what’s happening. “You’ll be all right from now on, I’m sure.”

  Vaun decides to trust that reassurance, and is relieved. He has been wondering what they might try next.

  “Your indisposition hasn’t caused any problems, though,” Tham says. “We’re going to do the mind bleed here, at Valhal—too many sharp eyes and loose tongues at Hiport. But it’s taking time to get the equipment set up, and there’ve been some complications.”

  “What sort of complications, sir?”

  “Oh…political stuff. Also, Roker’s been clearing the place of outsiders. There’s always dozens of guests around Valhal—admirals do a lot of political work at home, you know, wining and dining. But it takes time to get rid of them. I mean, you can’t just turn a president or a prime minster out on his ass! So we’d have had to keep you under wraps, anyway. They’re all gone now.” He smiles reassuringly. “Nothing will happen for a few days yet. You’ll have time to recuperate. So enjoy yourself—but do take it easy, okay? You’re as weak as soap bubbles, and you won’t help matters if you fall down and break an arm.”

  “No, sir.” Vaun measures the continent-wide plain between him and the front door and wonders if he can cross it without a rest in the middle.

  “I’ll leave you, then. Going to go hunt stingbats. When you’ve got your strength back, maybe I can give you a lesson. Terrific sport!” Tham gives Vaim’s shoulder a friendly squeeze, and jumps to his feet. “Remember—take it easy!”

  He goes striding along the Great Hall and disappears out the door. Vaun sets his teeth, heaves himself upright, and staggers after him.

  He has achieved about eight steps when a girl comes out of a side door. She has obviously been listening.

  Vaun stops and watches her approach. She is as tall as he, and very well built, and her brief garment is made of silver net and flower petals. None of the girls at Doggoth ever looked quite so striking. Of course, they were all scrawny from overwork and abuse and worry, with weather-beaten faces and hair cropped short. This one’s hair is thick and shiny and a dark reddish shade. Her skin is deeply tanned all over, yet she has traces of freckles across her nose.

  There is wonder in her smile.

  “I’m Maeve, and I know who you are. Here, let me help you.”

  He opens his mouth to protest, but she puts an arm around him and he leans on her. It ought
to be humiliating, but he discovers the physical contact is strangely enjoyable. He has never felt anything quite like the texture of her skin.

  “I’d heard you looked just like Prior,” she says, “but I wouldn’t have believed…No, this way.”

  “I want—” He wants to go outside. She is leading him to yet another door, and he is too weak to struggle.

  “I know,” she says softly. “But come in here a moment.”

  He finds himself in a tiny cloakroom, with a toilet and vanity.

  “Sit,” Maeve says, closing the door. Bewildered, he sinks down gratefully on the toilet seat. He is sweating again, as if he has been running.

  She leans against the towel rail, folds her arms, and grins at him. “There are very few places in Valhal that aren’t monitored, and this just happens to be one of them.”

  Vaun says, “Oh!” suspiciously. Tham has just been hinting that there were people around earlier who should not meet the Prior replica, but that they have now departed. But Tham did not give Vaun specific permission to talk freely with anyone he meets.

  The girl seems to read his thoughts, for her smile grows broader. ’I’m not trying to worm information out of you, Ensign. I just want to tell you a few things.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Maeve. Call me anything else and I’ll kick you in the crotch.”

  “Maeve, then. Certainly, Maeve. Anything you want.”

  She laughs and pulls an arch expression. “Anything? You’re in no state to promise that!”

  “Probably not.” Vaun remembers what the med officer told him back at Doggoth about adding stiffener to his daily booster. Suddenly he thinks he might like to try that. The girls at Doggoth never interested him, even when they were running around doe-naked in the showers and the other boys were harassing them and visibly lusting after them. A body is a body…but this heavy-breasted girl in her flower petals is exceptional. He’d quite enjoyed touching her skin.