But this dark had just sheared her off above the waist. Her legs spun wildly after the explosion of violent depressurization. Her blood flash-froze.
It was only there for a second, less than a heartbeat, a pause between breaths. Then another flash, and emptiness. Just Melissa again, her smile suddenly gone, still waiting.
“Too bad,” the government man had said. “She did well on the tests. You’re next.”
Brand was looking across at Melissa, and the stars behind her. But his vision was gone. Instead he saw Canada.
“No,” he’d said. For the first time ever, the fear was on him.
Afterwards he went down into the Station and threw up. When he dreamt, he woke up trembling.
* * *
Brand left Robi with her dark, and sought the comfort of his angel.
She was waiting for him, as always, smiling and eager for his company, a soft-winged woman-child. She was playing in the sleep-web when he entered, singing to herself. She flew to him at once.
He kissed her, hard, and she wrapped her wings around him, and they tumbled laughing through the cabin. In her embrace, his fears all faded. She made him feel strong, confident, conquering. She worshiped him, and she was passionate, more passionate even then Melissa.
And she fit. Like the fast-friends, she was a creature of the void. Under gravity, her wings could never function, and she’d die within a month. Even in free-fall, angels were short-lived. She was his third, bred by the bio-engineers of the Jungle who knew what a trapper would pay for company. It didn’t matter.
They were clones, and all alike, more than twins in their delicate sexy inhuman angelic simplicity.
Death was not a threat to their love. Nor fights. Nor desertion. When Brand relaxed within her arms, he knew she’d always be there.
Afterwards, they lay nude and lazy in the sleep-web. The angel nibbled at his ear, and giggled, and stroked him with soft hands and softer wings. “What are you thinking, Brand?” she asked.
“Nothing, angel. Don’t worry yourself.”
“Oh, Brand.” She looked very cross.
He couldn’t help smiling. “All right then. I was thinking that we’re still alive, which means Robi left the dark alone.”
The angel shivered and hugged him. “Ooo. You’re scaring me, Brand. Don’t talk of dying.”
He played with her hair, still smiling. “I told you not to worry. I wouldn’t let you die, angel. I promised to show you the fast-friends, remember? And stars, too. We’re going to the stars today, just like the fast-friends do.”
The angel giggled, happy again. She was easy to please. “Tell me about the fast-friends,” she said.
“I’ve told you before.”
“I know. I like to hear you talk, Brand. And they sound so pretty.”
“They are, in a way. They’re cold, and they’re not human anymore, but they are pretty sometimes. They move fast. Somehow they can punch through to another kind of space, where the laws of nature are different, a fifth dimension or hyperspace or what-you-will, and…”
But the angel’s face showed no comprehension. Brand laughed, and paused. “No, you wouldn’t understand those terms, of course. Well, call it a fairyland, angel. The fast-friends have a lot of power in them, like the darks do, and they use this power, this magic, for a trick they have, so they can go faster than light. Now, there’s no way we can go faster than light without this trick, you see.”
“Why?” she asked. She smiled an innocent smile.
“Hmmm. Well, that’s a long story. There was a man named Einstein who said we couldn’t, angel, and he was a very smart man, and…”
She hugged him. “I bet you could go faster than light, Brand, if you wanted.” Her wings beat, and the web rocked gently.
“Well, I want to,” he said. “And that’s just what we’re going to try to do now, angel. You must be smarter than you look.”
She hit him. “I’m awful smart,” she said, pouting.
“Yes,” he laughed. “I didn’t mean it. I thought you wanted to hear about the fast-friends?”
Suddenly she was apologetic again. “Yes.”
“All right. Remember, they have this trick, like I said. Now we know they can move matter—that’s, well, solid stuff, angel, like the ship and me and you, but it’s also gas and water, you see. Energy is different. The darks are mostly energy, with only little flakes of matter. But the fast-friends are more balanced. A lot of smart men think that if they could examine a dark they could figure out this trick, and then we could build ships that went fast too. But nobody has been able to figure how to examine a dark, since it is nearly all energy and nearly impossible to hold in one place, you see?”
“Yes,” the angel lied, looking very solemn.
“Anyway, the fast-friends not only move energy and little flakes of matter, they also move what once were the bodies of the human members of the symbiosis. You don’t understand that, do you? Hell, this is… ah, well, just listen. The fast-friends can only move themselves, and whatever else they can fit inside their energy sphere, or aura. Think of it as a baggy cloak, angel. If they can’t stuff it under their cloak, they can’t take it with them.”
She giggled, the idea of a baggy cloak evidently appealing to her.
Brand sighed. “So, the fast-friends are sort of our messengers. They fly out to the stars for us, real fast, and they tell us which suns have planets, and where we can find worlds that are good to live on. And they’ve found ships out there, too, in other systems, from other kinds of beings who aren’t men and aren’t fast-friends either, and they carry messages so that we can learn from each other. And they keep us in touch with our starships, too, by running back and forth. Our ships are still real slow, angel. We’ve launched at least twenty by now, but even the first one hasn’t gotten where it’s going yet.”
“The fast-friends caught it, didn’t they?” the angel interrupted. “You told me. I remember.”
“Yes, angel,” he said. “I don’t have to tell you how surprised those people were. A lot of them were the sons and daughters of people who’d left Earth, and when their parents left there were no fast-friends, and they hadn’t even found out about the blinkies yet, or the darks. But now the fast-friends keep all the ships in touch by running back and forth with messages and even small packages and such. Once we have colonies, they’ll link them too.”
“But they’re crippled,” angel prompted.
“For all their speed,” Brand continued, smiling, “the fast-friends are strangely crippled. They can’t land on any of the planets they sail by; the gravity wells are deadly to them. And they don’t even like to go in much further than the orbit of Saturn, or its equivalent, because of the sun. The darks and the blinkies never do, and the fast-friends have to force themselves. So that’s one drawback.
“Also, frankly, a lot of men want to travel faster than light themselves. They want to build ships and start colonies. So whoever finds a way to do what the fast-friends do, so that regular men can do it without having to merge and maybe die, well, they’ll make a lot of money. And be famous. And have stars.”
“You’ll do it, Brand,” the angel said.
“Yes,” he said. His voice was suddenly serious. “That, angel, is why we’re here.”
* * *
“No.”
The word had haunted him, its echoes rolling through his dreams. He’d thrown away his stars, and his Melissa.
He couldn’t force himself to go back to Earth. Melissa was gone, off to the stars on her first commission, but he loved her still. And the dream still gripped him tightly. Yet he would not get another chance. There were more candidates than darks, and he’d failed his final test.
He worked in Changling Station for a while, then signed on a supply run from Triton to the Jungle and learned to run a ship. In two years, he saved a substantial amount. He borrowed the rest, outfitted a derelict drifting in the Jungle, and became a trapper.
The plan was clear then. The gover
nment wouldn’t give him another chance, but he could make his own. He’d prowl until he found a dark, then trap it. Then he’d go outside and merge. And he’d join Melissa after all. Brand, fast-friend. Yes, he would have his stars.
A good trapper could support himself in fine style on four catches a year. On six he gets rich. Brand was not yet a good trapper, and there were months of fruitless, lonely search. The blackness was brightened only by the far-off lights of distant blinkie swarms, and the firmness of his vision, and Melissa.
She used to come to him, in the early days, when she wasn’t out among the stars. He’d be on his tedious prowl when suddenly his scanners would flash red, and she’d be there, floating outside the ship, smiling at him from the main viewscreen. And he’d open the airlock and cycle her in.
But even in the best days after, the very early ones, it wasn’t the same. She couldn’t drink with him, or eat. She didn’t need to; she was a fast-friend now, and she lived on stardust and blinkies and junk, converting them to energy even as a dark did.
She could survive in an atmosphere, and talk and function, but she didn’t like it. It was unpleasant. The ship was cramped, and it was a strain to keep her aura in check, to keep from converting the molecules of the air that pressed on her from every side.
The first time, when she’d come to him in Changling Station, Brand had pulled her lithe body hard against him and kissed her. She had not resisted. But her flesh was cold, her tongue a spear of ice when it touched his. Later, stubborn, he’d tried to make love to her. And failed.
Soon they gave up trying. When she came to his ship in those months of hunt, he only held her hard, slick hand, and talked to her.
“It’s just as well, Brand,” she told him once, in those early days. “I wanted to make love to you, yes, for your sake. I’m changed, Brand. You have to understand. Sex is like food, you know. It’s a human thing. I’m not really interested in that now. You’ll see, after you merge. But don’t worry. There are other things out there, things that make it all worthwhile. The stars, love. You should see the stars. I fly between them, and, and… oh, Brand, it’s glorious! How could I tell you? You have to feel it. When I fly, when I punch through, everything changes. Space isn’t black anymore, it’s a sea of color, swirling all around me, splashing against me, and I’m streaking right through it. And the feeling! It’s like… like an orgasm, Brand, but it goes on and on and on, and your whole body sings and feels it, not just one little part of you. You’re alive! And there are things out there, things only the fast-friends know. What we tell the humans, that’s only a little bit, the bit they can understand. There’s so much more. There’s music out there, Brand, only it isn’t music. And sometimes you can hear something calling, far away, from the core stars. I think the call gets stronger the more you fly. That’s where the first-merged went, you know, Adams or whatever his human name was. That’s why the older fast-friends sometimes vanish. They say it’s wearying after a while, playing messenger for the humans. Then the fast-friends go away, to the core stars. Oh, Brand, I wish you were with me. It would be the way we dreamed. Hurry, love, catch your dark for me.”
And Brand, though strange chills went through him, nodded and said he would.
And finally he did.
For the second time the fear came. Brand watched his scanners as they shrieked of dark proximity. Five times his finger paused over the button that would kill his safe-screens. Five times it moved back. He kept seeing Canada again, her legs a-spin. And he thought of the Hades I.
Finally, his mind on Melissa, he forced the button down. The dark came slowly. No need to hurry, after all. This was no light-fast blinkie swarm; just dead metal creeping through the void.
Brand, relieved, trapped it. But as he put on his spacesuit, the fear hit again.
He fought it. Oh, he fought it. For an hour he stood in the airlock, trembling, trying to put on his helmet and failing. His hands were shaking, and he threw up twice. Finally, slumped and beaten in the fouled lock, he knew the truth. He would never merge.
He took his catch back to the Changling Jungle for a bounty. The Station offered its standard fee, but there was another bidder, a middle-aged man who’d run an old supply ship out here on his own. As dozens did each year. Brand sold the dark to him, to this hopeful, unqualified, test-failing visionary. And Brand watched him die.
Another derelict, abandoned, joined the Jungle, floating in a crowded orbit with all the other hulks, the debris of other dreams.
Brand sold his dark again, to Changling Station. A month later, when Melissa returned, he told her. He’d expected tears, a storm, a fight. But she just looked at him, strangely unmoved. Then he asked her to come back to him.
“Maybe we can go back to Earth,” he said. “We’ll stay in orbit, and the scientists can look at you. They might be able to un-merge you, or something. They’ll certainly welcome the opportunity. Maybe you can tell them how to build ftl ships. But we’ll be together.” His words were a child’s hopeful gush.
“No,” Melissa had said, simply. “You don’t understand. I’d die first.”
“You said you loved me. Stay with me.”
“Oh, Brand. I did love you. But I won’t give up the stars. They’re my love now, my life, my everything. I’m a fast-friend, Brand, and you’re only a human. Things are different now. If you can’t merge, go back to Earth. That’s the place for men, for you. The stars belong to us now.”
“No!” He shouted it to keep from weeping. “I’ll stay out here then, and trap. I love you, Melissa. I’ll stay by you.”
Very briefly, she looked sad. “I’ll visit you, I guess,” she said. “When I have time, if you want me.”
And so she did. But as the years went by, the visits came less often. Brand, more and more, hardly knew her. Her gold-tan body turned pale, though it kept the shape of a twenty-year-old while he aged. Her streaming red-blonde hair became a silvered white, and her eyes grew distant. Often, when she was with him in orbit near the Jungle, she wasn’t there at all. She talked of things he could not understand, of fast-friends he did not know, of actions beyond his comprehension. And he bored her now, with his news of Earth and men.
Finally the talk stopped. There was nothing left but memories then, for Melissa did not come at all.
* * *
Robi rang him on the intercom, and Brand dressed quickly. “Now,” the angel said eagerly. “Can I come now?”
“Yes,” he told her, smiling again his fond, indulgent smile. “I’ll show you the fast-friends now, angel. And then I’ll take you to the stars!”
She flew behind him, through the panel, up the corridor, into the bridge.
Robi looked up as they entered. She did not look happy. “You don’t listen, do you? I don’t want your pet on the bridge, Brand. Can’t you keep your perversions in your cabin?”
The angel quailed at the displeasure in Robi’s voice. “She doesn’t like me,” she said to Brand, scared.
“Don’t worry, angel, I’m here,” he replied. Then, to Robi, “You’re scaring her. Keep quiet. I promised to show her the fast-friends.”
Robi glared at him, and hit the viewscreen stud. It flared back to life. “There, then,” she said savagely.
The Chariot was in the middle of the Jungle. Brand, counting quickly, saw a good dozen derelicts nearby. Changling Station was low in one corner of the screen, surrounded by trapper ships and screens. Near the center was a larger wheel, the spoked and spinning supply station Hades IV, with its bars and pleasure havens.
Floating close to Hades, a group of fast-friends were clustered, six at least, still small and white at this distance. There were others visible, but they were closest. They were talking, even in the hard vacuum of the solar fringe; with a simple act of will, the fast-friends could force their dark aura up in the range of the visible spectrum. Their language was one of lights.
Robi already had the Chariot headed toward them. Brand nodded toward the angel, and pointed. “Fast-friends,” h
e said.
The angel squealed and flew to the viewscreen, pressing her nose against it. “They’re so little,” she said as she hovered there, her wings beating rapidly.
“Increase the magnification,” Brand told Robi. When she ignored him, he strapped down beside her and did it himself. The cluster of fast-friends doubled in size, and the angel beamed.
“We’ll be right on top of them in five minutes,” Brand said. Robi pretended not to hear.
“I don’t know about you, Brand,” she said in a low serious voice, so the angel would not hear. “Most of the men who buy sex toys like that are sick, or crippled, or impotent. Why you? You seem normal enough. Why do you need an angel, Brand? What’s wrong with a woman?”
“Angels are easier to live with,” Brand snapped. “And they do what they’re told. Stop prying and get on the signal lights. I want to talk to our friends out there.”
Robi scowled. “Talk? Why? Let’s just scoop them up, there’s enough of them there….”
“No. I want to find one, a special one. Her name was Melissa.”
“Hmpf,” Robi said. “Angels and fast-friends. You ought to try having a relationship with a human being once in a while, Brand. Just for a change of pace, you understand.” But she readied the signal lights as she talked.
And Brand called, out across the void. One of the fast-friends responded. Then vanished. “She’ll come,” Brand said firmly, as they waited. “Even now, she’ll come.”
Meanwhile the angel was flitting excitedly around the bridge, touching everything she could reach. Normally she was not allowed up here.
“Calm down,” Brand told her. She flew down to him, happy, and curled up in his lap.
“What are the fast-friends doing?” she asked, with her arms around him. “Are they going to tell us their trick, Brand? Are we going to the stars yet?”
Starlady & Fast-Friend Page 5