Hero!

by Dave Duncan

  She smiles cryptically. “I’m official hostess at Valhal. You know what that means?”

  He has a rough idea, but he says, “No, ma’—Maeve, I mean.”

  “It means I am charming to guests, and see that they get whatever they want from Household, and I sleep with Roker.”

  Vaun puts on his poker face. “I see.”

  “And sometimes with the guests—if he tells me to, or I take the fancy.”

  He’s heard stories at Doggoth, of course. Aristocrats do not have the same standards of behavior as peasants. “Why are you telling me this?”

  She shows her teeth. Very pretty teeth. “Because I don’t approve of what’s going on.” The red highlights in her hair are fascinating.

  “No?” He doesn’t approve, either, of course, but he senses a trap. He knows he is on dangerous ground, having intimate chats with the admiral’s own girl. A washroom is not romantic, but it is a suspiciously private site for a meeting.

  “Your sickness, for example. You know what caused that?”

  “Overstrain, I expect. I was on an arduous cross-country—”

  “Shitty shoes, boy! Prior is a lot smarter than that.”

  “They gave me some shots before I left Doggoth,” Vaun says cautiously. “I expect I had a reaction to one of them.”

  “You were pumped full of attenuated virus vaccine. They’ve been trying to develop something that will infect the brethren and not the rest of us. Did you ever meet the one called Tong?”

  Vaun shakes his head.

  “They found a bug that would kill him. It wasn’t easy.”

  Vaun shudders, then reminds himself that this is war.

  “Obviously the vaccine needs a little more work, shall we say? But you lived, and they think you’re now immune. Trouble is, it’s about a hundred percent fatal to normals, too. I think they’ll forget about germ warfare from now on—you designer boys are tough.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I snoop.” Maeve turns to the mirror above the vanity, and examines her face. She can watch him from there, too, though. “Prior came here quite often.”

  “Yes?”

  “He’s very good.”

  “In bed?”

  “Usually in the bushes, but that’s what I meant. They’ve been spiking your booster. And really vicious doses, too, I think.”

  That explains things, then.

  His face must have given him away, because Maeve laughs, and moves her body suggestively. “When you’ve got your strength back, we’ll see. Listen, Ensign. I don’t like all this. Mind bleeding is barbaric, and I enjoyed Prior. Yes, I know there’s a war on, but I don’t like it. I just want you to know that you’ve got a lot of stroke in this affair.”

  “I do?” Vaun feels like the humblest pawn in the galaxy.

  Maeve swings around to face him. He cannot stop his eyes prowling around over her delectable body. He cannot help wondering what happens when the petals fall. And she knows that.

  “Yes, you do. They’re going to try to put you in Prior’s place, right? He planned to go up with the pilot boat to meet the Q ship, so you’re going to go instead, right?”

  “I don’t know.” But he assumes that is the plan.

  “And Prior must know some sort of password, right? That’s what the mind bleed is for, because they can’t trust him to tell them the real password. I’m told the usual drugs don’t seem to be working, and if they torture him, he could lie. You, though, they can trust.” The bountiful lips shape a crafty smile.

  “I’m loyal to the—”

  “Oh, don’t be a fool, boy! Roker isn’t, however much he likes to play the part. Why would they trust you? Give me just one good reason!”

  “Prior raped my mother.”

  “And Roker buried you alive in Doggoth. You know how it feels, now.”

  Roker has sent her to rind out Vaun’s loyalties. Perhaps when she discovers them, she will tell him, too, because he doesn’t know them himself. All he does know is that, after rive years in Doggoth, if he had both Prior and Roker in his sights and only one charge left in the magazine, Prior would live.

  The big girl leans forward a little as if to impart a secret, and her breasts move within the netting. “They’ll have to bribe you as well.”

  Of course they will! Why hasn’t he seen that?

  Maeve steps across to him and puts a hand under his chin and lifts his face up. She is so close he can feel the warmth of her, and smell her musky scent. Her eyes are dark and intense, and embers glow in her hair.

  “They’ll ask you what you want as a reward, Ensign.”

  “They will?”

  Maeve smiles grimly. “Don’t sell yourself too cheaply. I learned that a long time ago.”

  “What do you recommend as a reasonable price?”

  “Demand the frigging world. They’ll promise you anything at all—make sure you ask for it.”

  With a sudden shiver of excitement, Vaun knows there is one thing he wants that he has never wanted before. “Will they keep their promises?”

  “It may be possible to arrange things so they have to.” She studies him darkly for a moment. “There are many ways to trap ordinary people, but you are a lot different. That’s why they’ve been spiking your booster. Understand?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Soon they’ll start flaunting girls around you. Girls they trust. They want all the holds on you they can get. Follow?”

  He nods. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I want you to have a fighting chance in the bargaining. Because Prior made me feel important. Because I despise Roker.”

  That seems improbable. She sees his disbelief, and her tone grows more urgent. “When I sleep with him that’s all I do. Oh, he can fake it when he has to, but his taste runs to juvenile males.”

  Even after five years in Doggoth, this is beyond Vaun’s understanding, but then the whole copulation idea has always disgusted him. “Why doesn’t he use stiffener, then?”

  “Oh, he does. Then he runs to more juvenile males.”

  Vaun thinks about that with all the old distaste. “Was that why Commodore Tham was parading around in next to nothing?”

  Maeve shrugs cryptically. “It’s not his way, but he may have been told to see how you were leaning.”

  “No. Not me.” But the other thing seems a lot more understandable now.

  “Good. Now listen, ensign boy, if what I told you about Roker ever leaks out, then he’ll never get to be high admiral, and that’s what he’s after. If he learns I told you, he’ll probably feed us both to the raptors. Can I trust you not to betray me?”

  Vaun nods. He levers himself upright, and he is much steadier on his feet than he expected. She melts into his embrace, and their mouths meet.

  AFTER AN ABSENCE of years, Roker had returned to Valhal in triumph, accompanied by a verminous crew. The high admiral himself was a perfect turd, but some of his companions were worse. The shrewd advisers he had favored in the past, like Waggery and Malgrov, were long gone. Now he consorted with trash—Gargel, Legarf, Tawlet, Lepo—a collection of the most insufferable, incompetent sycophants in the Patrol, carefully selected for their ability to annoy Vaun, no doubt. And now they feasted and wassailed in the Great Hall like a victorious gang of Viscan raiders.

  Vaun picked listlessly at his food as each masterpiece was laid before him. Obviously whoever had selected the menu had spared him no expense: strealer caviar, iced firebird from Gangador, jellied dilforms’ tongues, arctic truffles…And he noted glumly that the most jealously guarded corner of his wine cellar had been looted also.

  Roker was enjoying himself hugely, booming out ribald stories that his cronies applauded with cannonades of fabricated mirth. In between times, the others splashed acidulous wit in Vaun’s direction and made poisonous asides that he was expected to hear.

  He had been carefully placed between two women he detested, Admirals Gargel and Boorior. Gargel was a deadly bore,
also a notorious flirt, and reputedly as dull in bed as she was at conversation. Making passes at Vaun would not be politic at the moment, so she chattered of nothing at great length, when she was not giggling and sniggering with her neighbor on the other side.

  The awful Admiral Boorior was worse, needling Vaun like a embroidery pattern for everyone else’s amusement. Boorior had a bony, angular figure and a hatchet face. He disapproved of her appearance, her politics, and her recreations. Only once had he ever accepted an invitation from her, and then she had clawed him half to death, forcing him to use his strength in ways he preferred not to.

  “All these crumbling antiques!” she proclaimed. “So dull and musty! I do think Valhal was much nicer in the old days.”

  Roker picked up on that. “When Maeve was running it, you mean?”

  “Well, it does take a girl’s touch to make a place a home.”

  “One girl?” Roker said, and smirked around so that the audience would know to laugh.

  “One girl at a time,” Boorior agreed. “Or at least for longer than a week.”

  The dessert came at last.

  “This is an excellent wine,” Boorior said poisonously. “A celebrated year. I had no idea that there was any of this left in existence.”

  “I agree, my dear,” Roker said heartily. “Let’s have a few more bottles brought up, shall we?”

  Vaun smiled thinly. “Why not? After all, we have only a few more weeks left to enjoy such trivia, haven’t we?”

  Roker scowled darkly. “Perhaps less than that, for some of us.”

  The audience laughed uneasily.

  “But let us not be morbid!” The high admiral’s face was flushed with drink and triumph. “This should be a joyful occasion.” He did not explain why, but then a high admiral never needed to explain. “Tawlet? Give us a song.”

  Vaun flinched. Tawlet was a small, darkish man. He had no special reputation as a singer, but he was a notorious bootlicker. He hiccuped, smiled out of focus, and finally launched into a vulgar ballad.

  Roker joined in, as a signal that everyone should.

  Vaun could take no more. He was halfway to the door by the time his chair fell over with a crash. He heard Roker bellow his name over the tumult, but he did not stop. Slamming the door behind him, he broke into a run. He needed to find a burrow and lick wounds.

  THE CLIFF HOUSE was the only place on the island where he could be certain of being unobserved, the one place where Security had no detectors. Even Roker could not be aware of it, because Vaun had discovered it himself while rock climbing, later tracing the access tunnel back to a bricked-up doorway in the cellars. With Maeve’s help, he had refurbished it from a pestilential ruin to a cozy bower for two, a hideaway overlooking the bay, fashioned ages ago from a natural cave, high on a steep face.

  After he had thrown out the traitor, Vaun had shunned it for years. Eventually he had taken to using it when he wanted solitude. He rarely even brought girls there, although that must have been its original purpose. It was a convenient refuge from the randoms’ endless twittering over power and sex; it was a handy studio for pursuits he preferred not to advertise, like painting and sculpture. The unknown geniuses who had designed his psyche had not neglected artistic talents, for which he had always been grateful.

  The household robots never came to the Cliff House. That afternoon it clearly demonstrated their value. Just comfortable informality, he told himself as he looked around; the detritus of books and sketches and garments that covered floor and furniture was a distinctive personal statement, an antidote to the perfection of the rest of Valhal. Pig’s nest, retorted his conscience; slovenly and disgusting. Dirty glasses, dried-out pots of clay…he rarely let it get this bad. The bed was still rumpled from a half-forgotten visit by the Archpontiff of Caslorn’s sprightly lady.

  Pouring himself a tumbler of the fine Gisthan brandy he had collected on his way through the cellars, Vaun slouched down in a soft chair, and wished that whoever had designed his liver had made it less efficient at metabolizing ethanol. Getting really drunk was almost impossible for him. There were other drugs, of course, but he would need his wits clear by sunset, when Roker unveiled his mysterious surprise.

  For some time, Vaun sat and tried to deduce what that surprise might be, but halfway down the tumbler he gave up the task as fruitless. When he reached for a refill, he realized that he had been brooding about Maeve instead, and that was even more unproductive…more than forty years since he had discovered her treachery and thrown her out…almost fifty since he had overcome the Brotherhood and returned to glory and a hero’s rewards…almost seventy since that addle-witted girl in Puthain had borne the freakish black-haired son she thought had been conceived by God to save the world.

  Pouring a second glass rather shakily, Vaun decided that saving worlds should be a onetime thing. Worlds ought to stay saved. Once was definitely enough.

  Small wonder he had not been recognized at Maeve’s party. In natural biological terms, he was getting old. He couldn’t recall what the natural human span was—and his might be different—but probably less than a hundred years, and a lot less if you discounted the final decrepitude. With good booster he would escape that altogether, and enjoy another virile century or more before that sudden disintegration he had seen so terribly in Tham.

  He thought he had earned that century. He was entitled to it! Girls. Parties. Strealers. Even painting…

  Then he realized for the first time that he had been unwittingly staring at the board on his easel, and for so long that if he closed his eyes now he saw it on the inside of his eyelids. It was an imaginative representation of a nude reclining on grass, decked in sunshine and flower petals. He’d dashed it off one blue afternoon weeks ago, and forgotten all about completing it. She had auburn hair, he noticed, hauling himself out of his chair. Too voluptuous, he decided, picking his way through the litter toward it. Not as pretty as Feirn, he mused, carrying it over to the balcony. Worthless waste of time, he concluded, hurling it far out into space. He watched it swoop and flutter off into the void like a wounded bird, following it with his eyes until it plunged into the surf.

  He wondered what the brethren painted, on Avalon, or Scyth. Themselves? Lying on grass surrounded by flower petals? There were no female units in the Brotherhood. Dice had explained that to him on the boat—the male form was more effective. The female body was physically weaker, subject to unwanted attentions from male randoms, and too much taken up by reproductive organs that technological species no longer required.

  Did they know what they were missing? he pondered, as he hurled his glass after the painting.

  There was a small com unit in the Cliff House, although Security had it registered as being located in one of the Bay Cabins. Vaun switched it on manually, and slumped back into his chair. He might reveal himself to Roker…worse, he might reveal the secret file to Roker…but in his present plight, risks were necessary.

  “Service!”

  The female sim imaged in at once, and lounged seductively against the easel, which would have toppled over at once had that been a real girl leaning on it.

  “What progress in deciphering the message we received this morning?”

  “None, Admiral!” It sighed. “We need the key. Sir, forty-two guests have arrived, and I understand that another two hundred are expected shortly. I need directions about accomm—”

  “Put them anywhere you want! Try decoding that file with ‘Ootharsis of Isquat’.”

  The sim vanished. So did that end of the room, with everything it contained, including the easel.

  “Machines are good at analyzing data,” Tham said from the far side of a goldwood desk, “but they are less adept at analyzing the absence of data.” He fidgeted with a book for a moment, and then smirked rather shamefacedly out of the simulation. “At any rate, that’s my excuse for recording a few hunches.”

  “Dammit, Tham! Why didn’t you warn me? Two years, boy, you kept it bottled up.”


  “Look at this,” the image said, and dissolved into a street scene, noises of voices and motors, people in strange clothes hurrying along a shadowy alley.

  “Save me the party tricks, Tham,” Vaun said grumpily. “It’s you I want to see. Your smile. Your—damnation—laugh!”

  “Did you notice?” Tham had returned, still smiling. “That was from Scyth, recording in 29,416, our time. Nothing unusual, except that it seems very peaceable for an obvious slum. No one very nervous.”

  “You always did like secrets and mysteries, you bastard. Why didn’t you confide in me? I could have helped, couldn’t I? Cheered you up?”

  “Did you notice the cops?”

  The scene returned momentarily, a still shot of two uniformed boys extracted from the rest of the crowd. They might have been Raj and Dice. Or Abbot and Prior. Or Vaun and Vaun. Brethren.

  The brandy fumes began to condense. Vaun sat up.

  “That’s just one example,” Tham said. “Now look at this. This was the one that tipped me off. It’s a newscast. The boy on the balcony is some big shot, making a speech. See there, behind him? An adviser, or a minister? A secretary, perhaps. Now this one—observe the spacer driving…”

  Five or six clips flashed in sequence, obscuring the easel and paint-spattered table and the shelves behind. Sunlight from the window was climbing the walls, now, but Vaun was intent on the picture show, no longer worrying about Roker.

  “So.” Tham was back again, looking a little smug in his self-deprecating way. “There’s the pattern. Never making the speeches or cutting the ribbons, but always in the background. That’s not what we saw on Avalon! They couldn’t have been secret, not so many of them, and did you notice the absence of visible repression? Back a century or so, right after the Great Plague, the surviving Scythan cultures—”

  A hinge creaked. “Discontinue! “Vaun barked as he lunged for the bed—for the gun below the pillow. He whirled as Tham vanished, and Ensign Blade stood in the doorway, staring into the deadly lens. Then he looked at Vaun and raised his eyebrows. Behind him was Feirn, hand over mouth.