by Dave Duncan
The roar was deafening. Bishop grinned sideways at Vaun, who blinked to ease the prickling under his eyelids.
“We need to hear his news, and we need to talk about pepods. Qualified?”
“Qualified,” said Gray quickly at Vaun’s other elbow.
“Mm,” Bishop said doubtfully. “All right. Listen close, Little Expert. Tell us, Brother.” He turned the mike slightly.
Vaun gathered his fading wits. “It was Roker’s doing. He’d dug up a man who claimed to be able to talk to the beasties.”
“Quild?” asked Gray quickly.
“Yes, Quild.”
“I’ve read his stuff. It’s crap.”
“You may find yourself more familiar with crap if you keep interrupting,” Bishop remarked gently. “Shoveling it. Carry on, White.”
Not Vaun! Not Admiral! White!
It felt good to be just “White.”
“He thought that pepods somewhere might know where Dice and Cessine had been hiding all these years and could tell the network.”
Gray snorted disbelievingly, but Bishop’s face lit up.
“They don’t suspect we have a hive?”
“Not a clue. I’m certain.”
The hall rustled excitedly at the good news. All around Vaun, faces were smiling, with one exception—Dice. Vaun caught a glimpse of something odd on that unit’s face, something he resented. Perhaps it was only satisfaction at having so deceived a whole planet, and perhaps fatigue was making Vaun testy, but something prompted him to add, “I’ve always believed, of course, and I knew you’d get in touch with me when the tune came.”
“Of course,” Bishop agreed.
Now why had Vaun said that? He was still playing silly random games. He had picked up the randoms’ bad habits, and lied to his brethren. He was groggy from lack of sleep. Why not just admit that Abbot and Dice had totally fooled him as well as everyone else? Nobody cared here about status, or scoring points. The generous thing would be to apologize right away and confess.
Not easy for an admiral, a famous hero, to shed the habits of a lifetime. His audience was waiting.
“So Roker organized a meeting…” He related how the pepod seance had gone wrong, and how he had used the records to identify Kohab as the source of the disturbance. He did not mention Feirn’s part in that. “Obviously someone else was messing around with the beasties, and at a very remote location. Having just learned that I was immune to pepods, I could guess who that someone was. The only way I could think of to warn you, was to come in person—and I couldn’t resist a chance to visit the hive at last.”
That was another lie, or a repeat of the first one. He’d expected to find two brothers, not hundreds.
He caught himself in an enormous yawn, and mumbled an apology. “So,” he concluded, “I bring sad news. Sooner or later someone will make the same discovery as I did, even if it’s only counsel for the defense.”
“Not if you block them!” Bishop said, grinning. “The sooner we get you back in position the better, Brother! Lock up the data, delay the inquiry…That’s exactly the sort of help you’ll be able to give us between now and Armageddon. Invaluable!”
Vaun did not want to be sent back. He wanted to stay, and yet obviously he could be far more valuable to the Brotherhood as a traitor working within the Patrol than he could be changing diapers at Kohab. His personal feelings would carry no weight in the matter. He would shock the whole hive if he even admitted to having any.
Bishop squirmed a hand loose and scratched his head. He smiled at young Gray. “All right, Pepodist? Got all that?”
As the lad nodded, a voice called out, “Prior, pepodists. Got a question for Brother Vaun.”
“Go ahead, Prior,” said Bishop.
“We’ve managed to increase the pepods’ privacy radius by twenty-four percent in the last five years. Not just here—the effect shows as far away as Ralgrove. Has that been noticed?”
“I haven’t any idea,” Vaun told the mike. “No one mentioned it.” Was Ralgrove another hive? And how had the radius been increased? And measured? Quild had used felons for his research. Judged on ruthlessness, there wasn’t much to choose between sides in this war.
“Any more questions for our newcomer? “Bishop demanded. The hall stayed silent. “Then back to the trough, all of you. We’ll have a formal ruckus in the morning.” He slipped the mike back in his pocket.
Eating resumed, and the youngsters on the tables dropped out of sight.
“These two randoms you brought, Brother,” Bishop said. “They’re a breeding pair?”
“I think they’re at the courtship stage, why?”
“Just curious. They’ve been engaging in coitus.”
“They’ve been what?”
“We have a camera on them, of course. I found a gaggle of small fry gathered around the monitor, having fits at the show they were putting on. I think it’s coitus—no clothes on, bouncing around on top of each other?”
“That sounds right,” Vaun muttered. He wondered whose idea that had been. Feirn had found her hero at last? Conscious of a hundred questioning eyes on him, he added uneasily, “It’s more fun than it looks, actually.”
“It made me feel sick, so I didn’t watch. Can you explain away their disappearance when you get back?”
“If I go soon. Nobody knows they came with me.” Vaun considered the prospect of a return to lonely Valhal. He wondered if he could ask for a few brethren to keep him company…but that would be an unthinkable breach of security.
He thought glumly of that shadowy reconciliation he and Maeve had sketched in the night. He would not dare follow up on that now. Maeve was shrewd, and he had never had much success at deceiving her.
“I need some sleep, and then I’d best leave. Tell me about Armageddon.”
“Did not Abbot explain, Brother?” Dice asked softly.
Bishop had opened his mouth to speak; he shut it in silence. Of course, Dice was not hive-bred like all the rest. Dice had lived in the randoms’ world, the jungle. Now Dice was suspicious. He did not trust the new brother, and that realization seemed to settle over the audience like a cold dew. Fifty identical faces registered identical shock.
Tremors of danger jangled Vaun’s antennae. He took a deep breath to clear his head, and pushed away his half-eaten meal.
“Of course he didn’t! Would you? I wouldn’t have told me the truth! Frisde’s goons were as suspicious as…as I don’t know what. Do you think they greeted me with open arms? Abbot knew I would be put through the grinder when I got back. He told me only enough so I would know what to do. The rest I worked out later. Much later.”
About three hours ago…He wondered if Lieutenant Blade understood that, and why he wondered that.
There was a pause, and Bishop left the questioning to Dice.
“What did you work out, Brother?” The smile and the voice were gentle. The steady, dark stare was not.
“That there was a fifth plan. I…Roker…the Patrol had worked out four possible strategies the Brotherhood might use. There was a fifth. Eventually I realized that the moment Unity had turned off her fireballs, she’d received a tight-beam message. I’d guess that it originated right here, in Kohab, since you’d opened your marine lab or whatever it was in ’99, the year after we met. This is where you and Cessine were hiding.”
“Full marks so far,” Dice said softly.
Vaun began to relax, very slightly. “Roker was determined that the Q ship would launch no shuttles, ferry down no illegal immigrants. But he couldn’t monitor a billion meteors, all moving at high velocity. The self-destruct was a blind to cover a homing probe. One small, automated, untraceable probe among all that flying crap.”
“They died that we might live,” Bishop said, as if that was a familiar liturgy.
“Agreed!” rumbled the surrounding brethren.
“That probe brought you all the know-how and supplies you needed in order to found the hive,” Vaun concluded, “a do-it-yoursel
f baby factory. So Abbot won. The Patrol lost.” He yawned again. “It must have amused you to see me being hailed as a conquering hero, feted and honored?”
“I’m not sure that ’amused’ is the word.” Dice smiled bitterly. “I mostly wished you were here to do your share of the diapers and nose wiping.”
That was a capitulation, at least a partial capitulation.
“If you’d ever asked me, I’d have done anything to help,” Vaun said.
He would have done so, of course.
“Couldn’t risk it,” Dice said with another dark, ambiguous stare.
“I suppose not.”
Bishop grinned…very friendly…“So when did you work it out, Brother?” Bishop had specialized in intrigue. Most likely he had been designed for it, in the discretionary five percent of his genes. For the first time in his life, Vaun was up against someone smarter than himself.
“I don’t remember exactly.”
“Long time ago?” He wanted to know how long Vaun had guarded the great secret.
And the answer was that Vaun never had.
He would have done so, of course.
“Probably. Excuse my yawning like this. I haven’t slept in weeks. Why? What matters is that I’m going to have to scamper back to Valhal before anyone wonders where I got to. And I couldn’t fly a paper dart right now…” Vaun stretched sleepily, and went on the offensive. “Abbot did something else, too. Right at the end, he must have reported back. He radioed to Scyth. There were no Q ships blocking Scyth at that time, nor Avalon…so why Scyth?”
“I suppose he wasn’t sure what the Brotherhood’s situation was on Avalon.” Bishop had been pushed forward hard against the table by the crush; he was supporting one cheek with a hand, twisted around to regard Vaun with an unwinking, dark stare. He looked uncomfortable and totally unaware of the fact. “Do you know—now?”
“Avalonian Command claims to have wiped…us…out.”
“Interpatrol report?”
“Yes.”
“Could be crap.”
“Yes. So Scyth waited…Let’s see…The message would have taken seven years to get there, so Scyth waited twenty-five years or so, and then dispatched this next Q ship. Tell me about Armageddon.”
“It’s a blind, is all. It’ll make a very close pass, but it’ll miss.” Bishop was speaking just a little too loudly. “How much do you know about Scyth?”
“I know that the Brotherhood took advantage of the chaos caused by the Great Plague. They infiltrated all the governments after that.”
Bishop frowned thoughtfully. “The Patrol here knows that much?”
It hadn’t. It did now. Tham had made the discovery, but he hadn’t seen the importance of the information until Vaun had told him of the coming Q ship. Then he had understood. Distrusting Vaun, the dying commodore had sent him the Ootharsis of Isquat file in cipher, knowing that nothing would draw Roker’s attention to it more surely than that. And, of course, Tham’s security had recorded the conversation, and thus the password.
Roker had died also—but then Vaun himself had sent Tham’s file to Acting High Admiral Weald…Damnation!
“I think the Patrol knows,” he muttered, aware of the many sharp eyes watching him.
Bishop nodded. “We’ll turn the public panic to our advantage. You’ll have a big part to play then. We can talk about it in the morning.” He glanced around the audience.
Bishop was lying.
And Scyth gone silent. Was that when the Brotherhood made its move to take absolute control? Better not ask too many questions.
Vaun rubbed his eyes groggily. He could smell the suspicion now. Dice had passed the baton and Bishop had accepted it. By telling a known untruth, he’d just sent out a signal to everyone within earshot.
He struggled to his feet, aching in every joint. “It’s great to be here,” he said. “But I’m bushed. Would some kind brother show me some place I can fall over and not get stepped on for about twelve hours?”
In a clamor of treble voices, about twenty of the youngsters underfoot volunteered. None of the adult boys did; they were going to stay for the resumption of the meeting.
“One last question, Brother White.”
“Yes, Your Holiness?”
“Those two randoms you brought?”
Vaun stared down angrily at the so-familiar face. Did his own ever look so dangerous? “I know—you want to feed ’em to pepods. Do what the fuck you like with them.”
“It’s just that dawn’s the best time,” Bishop said.
Roker’s question…Whose side are you on?
Prior with no top to his head. Raj and Prosy tortured to death. Tong poisoned with a virus. Olmin’s little peepee experiments. Doggoth. Pepods. Abbot and Unity—they died that we might live.
Maeve the traitor.
Vaun said, “Sure. To hell with randoms! I don’t care if you fry ’em for breakfast. Now will you excuse me?”
“Of course. If you’re sure you don’t want to hang around for the singsong?”
Vaun shivers. “Maybe another night.” He lets one of his smallest brothers take his hand and lead him off to bed.
THE DORMITORY TUNNELS were dim and low, a vague labyrinth of mysterious silence. Straw-filled pallets lay along both sides, many already occupied. Some boys were reading, their faces gleaming spectrally in the light of their books, and they did not look up. Others were already asleep, mostly small fry. No sound of snoring echoed along those rocky walls. Snoring would be a design fault.
Krantz! He was tired. Sleep for a week. He came to an empty place that looked no better or worse than any other.
“Thanks,” he whispered to his diminutive guide. “I can manage now.” He hauled off his shirt. When he looked down, he saw that the lad was grinning gap-toothed at him, and tugging at his own buttons. He pointed a stubby finger at his feet.
“You undo my thoolatheth?”
Admiral Vaun knelt down and undressed his nameless little brother.
“And tuck me in?”
“Certainly. But see that black shirt?”
The lad nodded, shivering because he had nothing on,
“Take this one over there and bring me his, okay?”
His brother twisted a finger inside an ear for a moment while he thought about it. “Why?
“It’s a joke. Tell you about it in the morning.”
“Okay.” Taking Vaun’s white shirt, he set off, unwittingly revealing that he was Number 516. In a moment he came back with the black shirt, and put it on Vaun’s blanket. Then he scrambled quickly under his own. No one noticed what toddlers did.
“Thanks,” Vaun said, smiling conspiratorially. Comfortably tucked in, Number 516 demanded a goodnight hug and a kiss, too—he knew his rights. Then Vaun crawled under his own blanket and they smiled sleepily across at each other. The pillows could certainly use a wash.
He thought, They were engaging in coitus.
Crazy, crazy randoms!
He was asleep.
THE SUN SHINES all day, every day. The trees are bowed by the weight of blossom.
Surf rolls into the bay and seabirds wheel under a perfect sky. Warm waves lap the shining sands.
The Dreamer runs over the beach, hand in hand with his lover.
In the great empty ballroom music soars, and they dance naked under the glittering crystal of the chandeliers.
They make love—in bed, on the beach, on a couch under the glittering crystal of the chandeliers. In sunshine and under the stars.
Within the dark mystery of her hair glints red, and he kisses every freckle.
Sometimes they throw great parties, for kings and ministers and presidents. Gladly they send them on their way again, and are alone with each other.
Day follows day. She laughs almost fearfully. “How long can it last? How long can mortals be so happy?”
“Forever!” the Dreamer tells her. “The hero and heroine always live happily ever after. That is mandatory.”
Yet someti
mes there are sad farewells, when the lovemaking becomes frenzied because the Dreamer must depart to suffer through endless, excruciating ceremonies in far countries: honors and speeches, banquets and empty ritual. Always he rushes back to his lover, and absence has made the loving even sweeter.
The hero’s return.
The hero’s welcome, in the arms of his love.
She laughs, her face flushed with happiness as she looks up at him from the pillow. “I wasn’t ever Roker’s mistress. I wasn’t hostess here for Roker. I never did this with Roker.”
“That’s good,” says the Dreamer. “I’m glad you’re telling me now so there won’t be any misunderstandings later.”
“And you don’t act like a great celebrity, or a spacer stud, or a social snob…”
Penetration, and she screams with joy.
Climax, and he gibbers in ecstasy.
The Dream changes. They are dancing.
“This is crazy!”
“You made me crazy! I am crazy in love.”
“Not that.”
“Then what?”
“Dancing with bare feet. I stick to the floor. We ought to wear socks, at least.”
“Socks are not romantic,” he says, and sweeps her naked body into his arms and carries her to the nearest couch. “I’ll show you romantic.”
The hero’s reward.
UP, UP FROM a bottomless darkness…Effort…Struggle…
It was the hardest thing he had ever done.
His brain was sand, his body a rock. His eyelids were marble tombstones, but he forced them to open.
Above him, the roof of the tunnel was faintly visible in the light of glow lamps spaced well apart. Close on either hand, he heard quiet breathing.
Maeve’s daughter? Pepods?
Oh shit!
He heaved himself up to a sitting position, and thought that his joints creaked like unoiled doors. His skull was full of mud. The tunnel was full of sleeping brethren. Healthy boys, hard workers, sleeping soundly.
He shivered, feeling the cold of the rock sunk deep in his being. The temptation to fall back and sleep again was a promise of Paradise…Cruel destiny, to have to leave that humble, worn rag of a blanket.