The Snow Queen

by Joan D. Vinge

  “The Prime Minister? Is it the Prime Minister?” Moon’s words came to him muffled by her protective face mask, and her upraised hand.

  He swallowed, and swallowed again, unable to answer.

  “They’re ships!” She went on answering her own questions. “They’re only ships. How can they be real, and be so beautiful?”

  “They’re Kharemoughi.” He might have said “the Empire”; he might have said “gods.” He did not say that they were only coin ships wrapped in cloaks of hologrammic projection to astound a subject world. He looked back at her, glory blind, and took her smile at face value.

  “Are they?” She touched his cheek, turned back to the sky as the formation split apart again, the flames died away and embers fell to earth ... behind the hills, scarcely two ridges away. “Look!” She shook off her wonder. “That must be the star port BZ, we’re almost there. We could reach it tonight.” Frost clouds feathered around her cheeks. “We’re on time!”

  “Yes.” He took a deep breath. “Plenty of time. Thank the gods.” He watched the last of the ships snuff out behind the snowy hills. Tonight ... “There’s no need to push on tonight. One more day won’t matter. Tomorrow is soon enough.”

  She glanced at him, surprised. “It’s only a couple of hours. It’s as easy as if I set up camp.”

  He shrugged, still looking into the distance. “Maybe so.” He began to cough, smothered it behind his hand.

  She put a mitten to his forehead, as though she were feeling for a fever. “The sooner you see a healer—a medic—the better,” firmly.

  “Yes, Nanny.”

  She poked him. He grinned, eagerness coming back into him, as she started the power unit. The snow skimmer slipped quietly over the ridge and into the valley, blotting out even the afterglow of the ships’ landing. Hours ... only hours, until he would rejoin the living, regain the life he had almost lost forever, the only life worth living. Gods, yes, he wanted to reach the star port tonight!

  Then why had he said “tomorrow” to her? Tomorrow is soon enough. He moved his hands under the blankets, shifting Blodwed’s caged pets that shared the warmth of his body—only two of them now. The green bird had died, three or four nights ago. In the morning they had made a small grave in the crusted snow. There but for you go I .... He had spoken those words aloud to her, kneeling in the snow beneath the silent witness of heaven.

  And he had spoken them with his eyes at every new dawn’s light, when he woke to find himself a free man, and see her beside him in the bubble tent—close enough to touch, but never touching, since that one night. He had watched her unguarded sleep, the dreams that moved across her face ... the fair face and the snowy tumbled hair, the wild, unnatural paleness of her, more familiar to him now than his own darkness, suddenly grown beautiful and right. In his mind he had held her again, kissed her lips to wake her to the day ... and in this timeless wilderness he was free in a way that he had never been free, from his past and his future, the rigid codes that defined his existence. Here he drifted formlessly, an embryo, and he felt no shame at his yearning for a barbarian girl with eyes like mist and agate.

  And he had seen her wake from troubled dreams to his imaginary kiss, lie looking back at him with a drowsy smile. He had seen the awareness fill her eyes, knew the hesitant answering desire that filled her, too. But only his eyes had asked, and only her eyes had answered him. And now there would never be one more morning ...

  They crested a final hill, cold and aching, and the star port muted dawn-glow opened out before them like a midnight sun rising. The low dome of the subterranean complex was a vast bruise on the seaward plain, almost a city in its own right; unearthly light suffused its curving surface. There was no sign now of the starships’ landing: the dome’s impervious surface was unbroken by any opening. Away on the sea’s horizon he saw the winking shell-form of unsleeping Carbuncle.

  Gundhalinu sighed, easing the painful tightness in his chest. Moon sat silently behind the controls; he wondered whether awe at the sight of the first star port she had ever seen had put her into stasis-until he remembered that it was not her first star port Her hand reached out suddenly and pressed his shoulder, in a gesture that asked reassurance more than offered it. He lifted his own hand to cover hers; found that it would not close. He dropped it again. “Don’t worry,” woodenly, inadequately. “We’d better angle left, make the approach toward the main entrance. Security will be upped a mag for the state visit—I don’t want to be a casualty to caution.”

  She obeyed, still without answering him. Caught in his own sudden inability to reach her, to reassure her or even himself, he watched the dome grow ahead.

  They were still a hundred meters out from the maIN surface entrance when light flooded around them and a disembodied voice ordered them to a halt. Four men wearing the blue uniform he’d almost forgotten the look of approached cautiously; he knew that more were observing the snow skimmer from inside. The face shields on their helmets were down; he couldn’t recognize any of them. But the knowledge that they were his own people did not comfort or reassure him. Instead he sat frozen with guilty unease, as though he had been a criminal and not a victim.

  “You’re trespassing in a restricted area.” He recognized a sergeant’s insignia, but not the voice. “Clear out, Mother lovers, and if you brought more of your thieving clan along, take ‘em with you, before we use you for target practice.”

  Gundhalinu stiffened. “Who the hell taught you procedure, Sergeant?”

  The sergeant drew back in mock surprise. “Who the hell wants to know?” He gestured with his hand. Two of his men closed in around Moon, the third dragged Gundhalinu up from his place on the sledge. His legs gave way and he sat down unceremoniously in the snow.

  “Leave him alone, damn you!”

  “Get your hands off her!” His own angry protest overran Moon’s as she started toward him and the two men jerked her back. He pushed down his hood, peeled off the scratchy weather mask that disguised his face. He spoke deliberately in Klostan, the primary language of Newhaven: “I tell you ‘who wants to know,” Sergeant. Police Inspector Gundhalinu wants to know.”

  The sergeant pushed back his helmet shield, staring. “Ye gods—”

  “Gundhalinu’s dead!” The third patrolman looked down into his face. “Millennium come, it is him!”

  Moon pulled free, came forward and helped him up. Gundhalinu brushed off his leggings, straightened with slow dignity. “The reports of my death were premature.” He put his arm around her, leaning heavily on her shoulder.

  “Inspector.” The sergeant jerked to attention. Gundhalinu put a name to his face, TessraBarde. “We thought the bandits got you, sir. Give him a hand there—”

  “I’m fine.” Gundhalinu shook his head as Moon’s grip lightened protectively, defensively, refusing to separate herself from him. “I’m just fine now,” suddenly oblivious to cold and fatigue, warm and strong with relief.

  “Welcome back, Inspector! You made it just in time.” One of the men gripped his hand, peered curiously at Moon: Gundhalinu felt implications forming. “Who’s your Mother loving friend?”

  “It’s good to be back; you can’t imagine how good.” He glanced at Moon’s unmasked face, saw the frightened question on it, and understood at last that a part of her silent uncertainty had centered on him. He smiled a promise, felt her grip on him ease. “My companion was a prisoner along with me. And before I say anything more about either of us—” postponing the moment when he knew he would have to lie, “we could use a hot meal and a chance to sit down.” He coughed rac kingly making his point.

  “Inspector, as you know, sir—” he heard TessraBarde’s emphasis, “the, uh, locals aren’t permitted in the complex.”

  “By all the gods, Sergeant.”“ He had no patience left. “If Winter bandits weren’t getting into the goddamn complex I wouldn’t be standing here half-dead! And if it wasn’t for this woman I wouldn’t be standing here at all.” He started toward the tunnel
entrance, Moon supporting him. “Bring our sledge.”

  There were no more objections.

  Jerusha rubbed her eyes, stifled a yawn with a quick shifting of her hand. The drone of half a hundred conversations rolled over and around her, rose to the ceiling and were deflected back in a numbing assault. She had been awake for twenty hours already today, after another night of broken sleep; even this position of honor, seated at the head table in the hall among the demigods of the Hegemonic Assembly, had turned into just one more test of endurance. By the shipboard time of the Prime Minister and the Assembly, this was the middle of the day and not the middle of the night; and so it became for everyone delegated to welcome them as well.

  She had shaken hands with Prime Minister Ashwini himself tonight, wearing the dress uniform of a Commander of Police, weighted down by enough glorious braid and brass to give the sun competition. Or so she had thought, until she had seen his own state garments, gem-brocaded, exquisitely tailored to show every line of his still-youthful body .... How old was he, in real time? Four hundred? Five hundred? Even Arienrhod must feel a jealous twinge at the sight of all he represented. (It filled her with secret pleasure that Arienrhod was not permitted to attend this banquet.) Prime Minister for life, he had succeeded his father as a Hegemonic showpiece in the centuries after Kharemough’s dreams of dominating its fellow worlds had been laid low by the ultimate indifference of galactic space-time. He had greeted her with polite gallantry, in which she had read his private incredulity at finding her to be a woman. Chief Justice Hovanesse was seated beside him now, but she was almost indifferent to the sort of reports he was hearing about her.

  A servo eased in beside her, deftly removed the sixth or seventh untouched course of her meal and put down another in front of her. She sipped at her tea, watching the oils eddy on its steaming reddish-black surface. It had steeped until the spoon must be ready to dissolve, and she hoped that it would be enough to keep her awake.

  “Be we keeping you from an honest night’s sleep, Commander?”

  Jerusha turned guiltily to look at the man on her right, the First Secretary, Temmon Ashwini Sirus, a natural son of the Prime Minister. He was a handsome man, fair skinned and large boned for a Kharemoughi, and just about entering middle age. The latter surprised her, because the Prime Minister himself looked younger. But it was hardly as surprising as finding a halfbreed among the members of the Assembly, that ultimate repository of Kharemoughi arrogance. Apparently he had earned considerable fame as a warrior statesman on his homeworld, and that had moved the Prime Minister to break with tradition and “elect” him to a vacant Assembly post. She had made banal conversation with him for the first hour or so, and with the royally dressed Speaker on her left, whose heavy cologne had started her sneezing. But the talk had died a self-conscious death, and she had been grateful when they let their attention be drawn elsewhere. “No, of course not, Secretary Sirus,” remembering her manners at last. She ran a finger along under the braid rough edge of her high collar.

  “You hardly touch your meal. And after all the trouble your finest chefs go to to please us. This canawba rind be excellent.” He spoke Klostan easily; an accomplished linguist, like most Kharemoughi Techs. But what else has he got to do with his time?

  She smiled insipidly. Gods, get me out of here—” I not eat many twelve-course dinners in my line of work.” Her own language felt more foreign on her tongue than Tiamatan, after so many years. “I guess I not be up to the challenge.” Any challenge, any more.

  “Try the melon, Commander.” He nodded as she picked up her serrated spoon obediently. “To enjoy good food be the only way to survive the excruciating boredom of these state affairs, I say. And to drink good liquors—”

  So that’s what loosened your tongue. She ate another spoonful of melon, suddenly realizing that against her will she had enjoyed it. Oh, what the hell—live in a dream world for an hour; it'll have to last you a lifetime. Pretend that it’s all turned out the way you wanted it to, that it won’t all end with the final departure. She looked out across the windowed hall, into the awesome, red-gold pit of the landing field, where the ships of the Assembly had come to rest like dim cinders, like a thousand other battered coin ships, after the fiery splendor of their descent. The energized grids of the field and its peripheral bays were crusted with light, like the congealing surface of a lava flow. And for a moment she felt a surge of pride and pleasure at the sight of humanity’s most incredible accomplishments, at her presence among its first citizens, at the ever more glorious future that lay ahead ... the siren promise that had lured her away from her homeworld. And for what ... ? She looked back again along the tree-form of the banquet tables, the faces like animate leaves shifting in a wind, to Sirus’s face, thinking suddenly, painfully, BZ ... this moment should have belonged to you, not me.

  “Tell me, Commander, how happened you to—”

  “Excuse me, Commander.” The sergeant of the guard intruded on their space with apologetic effrontery. “Excuse me, sir,” to the First Secretary.

  “What is it, TessraBarde?” Jerusha couldn’t recognize the peculiar urgency in his tone.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt you, ma’am, but I thought you’d want to know—we just got Inspector Gundhalinu back.”

  Jerusha’s spoon clattered on the petals of her flower-form dish. “He’s dead.”

  “No, ma’am, I saw him myself. Some native woman brought him in. We’ve got a medic checking him over now, down in the hospital—”

  “Where is he?” Jerusha threw the question at the nearest technician as she entered the examining room from the hall of the hospital whig. She had left TessraBarde to make an explanation to the First Secretary, hoping but not really caring if her apologies had been sufficient. “Inspector Gundhalinu—”

  “In there, Commander.” The woman pointed with her chin, hands full of equipment.

  Jerusha went on through the second doorway without stopping, still only half believing that the room would not be empty. “Gundhalinu!” It was not empty, and his name burst out of her with more feeling than she had intended.

  He turned to look at her from where he sat, feet hanging over the edge of the examining table, stripped to the waist while a blue-clad med tech ran a diagnosticator down his chest. She counted each and every rib standing out like staves along his side. She saw his face, felt disbelief as it registered: gaunt, unshaven, gap toothed. She saw him grope for a shirt that wasn’t there as she came to a stop before him. He waved the medic away, moved his hands in the air, and finally folded them across his chest like an embarrassed little boy. “Commander—”

  Yes, by all the gods; it is you, BZ ... She controlled the urge to ruin his dignity and her own completely by embracing him like a mother. “If you aren’t a sight for sore eyes, Gundhalinu,” grinning until she thought she couldn’t stand it.

  “Gods! Excuse me, Commander; I didn’t mean to see you looking like this ... that is, I meant, presentably—”

  “BZ, all I give a damn about is whether that body’s the real thing. If it is, then this celebration upstairs isn’t pointless after all.”

  His face fumbled with a smile. “As real as they come.” He slouched forward, putting up a hand to catch an ugly cough.

  “Are you all right? What’s wrong with him, medic?” Jerusha turned to the technician, realized for the first time that there was a fourth person in the room, sitting quietly in the corner.

  The medic shrugged. “Exhaustion. Walking pneumo—”

  “Nothing a couple of antibiotic lozenges can’t take care of,” Gundhalinu said abruptly, cutting him off. “And a hot meal for my friend and me.” He glanced at the silent fourth party with a quick smile, focused official disapproval on the medic like a gun.

  “I’ll see what I can do, Inspector.” The technician left the room, his face utterly expressionless. Jerusha wondered whether he was hiding irritation or simply laughter.

  “If I’d known, I would have brought you my leftov
ers. The first half of my state dinner would have fed the starving masses of a planet.” Curiosity pulled her around even as she spoke, looking past sinks and shelves filled with medical obscurities, to study their silent observer. A fair-skinned girl draped in a white parka, with a yellowing bruise on her face; a native? Jerusha frowned. The girl looked back at her, not with the cowed timidity she had expected, but with a measuring stare. And there was something familiar-

  Gundhalinu followed her gaze, said almost too quickly, “Commander, this is the Summer woman who saved my life, who got me back in time for the final departure. Moon, come and meet Commander PalaThion; if there’s anyone on this planet who can help you reach your cousin, she can.” He looked back. “I was taken prisoner by bandits, ma’am, and so was she. But she—”

  Jerusha let his words roll over her unheeded. Moon ... Summer ... Moon Dawntreader Summer! The kidnapped innocent, Ngenet’s murdered guest, the Queen’s lost clone ... the Queen’s clone. Yes, she knew that face now, now that she saw it clearly at last. A cold tremor fell through her: What is she doing here? How can she be here, how can she be the one who brought him back? Not her- The girl came to stand beside Gundhalinu; his hand closed over hers protectively. Doesn’t he know she’s proscribed; doesn’t he remember her? “Commander PalaThion?” Moon smiled with subtle anxiety.

  “What are you doing—”

  “Commander, I take responsibility for bringing her—” Gundhalinu broke off as a crowd of voices filled the outer room. Jeusha saw his face light up, and then flash panic, as he realized what language they spoke. “Sainted—! Commander ... Moon,” jerking the parka off her back, “I need your coat.”

  Moon let him take it, even helped him struggle into the sleeves as though she somehow understood his embarrassment. He slid to his feet alongside the table, sealing the jacket up the front as the First Secretary and the Speaker entered, trailing an exquisite wake of half a dozen banquet guests and their companions. Jerusha saluted them, saw Gundhalinu salute in a rictus of pride.