The Snow Queen

by Joan D. Vinge

  Gundhalinu backed away again, his own forgotten stunner weighing like lead on his hip, under his coat. He leaned against the wall, coughed with grueling helplessness until his head swam. “Do you mind ... if I sit?” He slid down the wall without waiting for an answer, sat on the floor.

  “You ought to see a medic,” Herne said unsympathetically. “When a Tech sits on the floor he’s as good as dead.”

  “I can’t.” Gundhalinu pulled open his coat again, abruptly too hot. Not until this is finished.

  “You mean they’re hunting you too.” A statement, not a question. “All your old true-Blue buddies. You’re on the run with a proscribed Mother lover, you don’t have a friend in the world; you’ve thrown away your job and your position and dragged your highborn honor in the gutters. And all for love.”

  Gundhalinu looked up, his face burning, opened his mouth.

  “I can two and two add.” Herne grinned, dripping vitriol. “I’m a Kharemoughi.” He shook his head, leaning back on an elbow. “She’s really sticking it to you, boy ... What did she promise you? Her body?”

  “Nothing, mekru!”

  “Nothing?” Herne leered. “You’re a bigger ass than I thought.”

  “Anything that’s happened to me I’ve done to myself.” Gundhalinu sat up straighter, struggling against his fury, against the galling truth that roused it. “It was my decision; I accept the consequences of a rational act.”

  Herne burst out laughing. “Sure, she can make you believe that! That’s her power. She could make you believe you can breathe vacuum. It makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it, you rational brain wipe-You want her so much nothing else matters; you could have her under your thumb, a deportee. But instead you’re helping her find another lover! Gods, that’s Arienrhod down to the ground. And they want the same man; the only one she’ll ever want enough to make her hate herself. The ultimate incest. If that isn’t enough proof they’re the same ... if that isn’t the hell of it.” He sat forward, his fingers lacing in the mesh of his caged legs, his head down.

  Gundhalinu felt disgust rise in his throat. “That’s what I’d expect of you—that you’d drag everything down to your own level, and smear it with filth. You’re incapable of anything better; of even understanding what it is you degrade and destroy.”

  “How would you know?” Herne raised his head.

  Gundhalinu frowned. “Because you can’t see why I want to help Moon more than I want to help myself. Because you can’t feel what it is about her—” He closed his eyes, looking back. “Yes, she made me love her. But she didn’t mean to. She took by giving ... and that makes all the difference.”

  Herne held up the control box, a challenge. “Why do you think I’m giving her this?”

  “Revenge.”

  Herne looked down again, without an answer.

  “No clone ever made is a perfect image of the original. Even identical twins aren’t the same, and they’re not created by a middleman. The control in cloning isn’t nearly that precise, all you ever have is an imperfect recreation.”

  “A flawed copy,” Herne said harshly.

  “Yes.” Gundhalinu pressed his mouth together. “But why couldn’t it be better for the things that were changed—lost, or gained, inadvertently?”

  Herne seemed to consider the possibility. “Maybe ...” He scratched his jaw. “If you’re so sure Moon’s not the same, why don’t you tell her the truth?”

  Gundhalinu shook his head. “I tried to.” He looked down at his wrists, traced the scarring with unresponsive fingers. “How can I tell her a thing like that?”

  “Failed-suicide,” Herne whispered.

  Gundhalinu stiffened, pushed up onto his knees. But then he saw that Herne was not trying to bait him.

  “Did she drive you to that?” with bald curiosity, without rancor. Herne plucked at his braces like a harpist.

  “No.” Gundhalinu shook his head, sinking back again. “She made me see that there might be some reason to go on living.” It struck him as strange that it did not seem stranger to be telling this to an Unclassified, sitting on the floor in a brothel. “All my life I never imagined it was possible to survive without the armor of one’s honor intact. And yet, here I am—” not quite a laugh, “—naked to the universe. And it hurts like hell ... but maybe that’s only because now I feel everything more clearly.” And I don’t know yet whether I want it like this or not.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Herne said sourly. “You know, I never used to be able to figure that at all—how you Techs swallowed poison any time life gave you a kick in the butt. You’d be dead a hundred times over if you’d been through my life—a thousand tunes!”

  “You’re right.” Gundhalinu cringed at the idea of being trapped inside Herne’s mind. “Gods, that would be a fate worse than death.”

  Herne looked at him with bleak disgust, with the unrelenting hatred of half his world’s people, until he felt his brittle arrogance crumble, and his gaze broke. “Yes. “Death before dishonor’ is a rich man’s privilege. Just like the water of life ...” But nobody really owns Life, or Death.

  “I used to think there was nothing more important to me than my life, there was nothing that could ever make me understand weaklings like you who’d throw it away. Survival was all that was important, it didn’t matter how you survived—”

  “Was?” Gundhalinu rested his head against the wall, catching the past tense. His tongue absently explored the place where a tooth had been. He followed Herne’s glance down the exoskeleton that encased his lower body, realizing all that it implied the loss of—all that had made Herne a man in his own eyes, in the eyes of the world he belonged to. “You don’t have to stay here, you know. You could get that fixed on Kharemough.”

  “After five years?” Herne’s voice rose, ready with all the arguments, all the answers he must have gone over and over endlessly in his own mind. “Nobody has that kind of money. I sure as hell don’t I don’t even have enough to get off this goddamn spitball!”

  “Go to the authorities. They aren’t going to leave any off worlder behind who doesn’t want to stay.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Herne pulled a bottle out from under his bed, un stoppered it and drank without offering to share it. “You have any idea, Blue, of how many outstanding charges I got against me back home? And a lot of other places. If you think I’m going to sweat blood in some penal colony for the rest of my life, you’re crazy.” He drank again, deeply.

  “Then it doesn’t look like you’ve got much in the way of open options.” And you probably don’t deserve any. But he felt an unexpected prick of empathy. Sainted ancestors—what if I had been born in his body, and he in mine ... “I’m—sorry.”

  “Are you.” Herne wiped his mouth. “What about you, are you gonna go back, let them bust you off the force, throw you in prison for this? No. Hell, no, you’ll probably plead insanity: A crime of passion—you did it for love. Love—love is a disease!” His hand trembled around the bottle neck.

  Death to love a sibyl ... death not to. Gundhalinu let himself cough, postponing the need to answer. What am I going to do? I don’t know. The future opened like an infinite sea. “Ask me tomorrow..” He glanced toward the doorway as someone entered the room—Persiponë, and a second figure cloaked and hooded.

  Persiponë moved aside to let the other step forward, drew the hood carefully back from her face.

  “Moon?” Gundhalinu got to his knees, pulled himself up the wall, staring. Moon stood before him, her face subtly altered by cosmetic art—not painted with the tasteless gaud of Persiponë’s, but heightened to a luminous, mother-of-pearl beauty that blinded his memory of the plain-pale, open face of an outback native girl. Her up swept hair was caught in a net of silver braids interwoven with golden beads, convolutions his eyes couldn’t follow. Tor pulled the cloak from her shoulders, revealing a honey-hued gown that flowed along her body like a field of wind-rippled grasses, that clung to her everywhere without seeming to, falling away from
a bodice of ivory lace melting sensually against her skin. A collar of opalescent beadwork hid the secret sign at her throat.

  BZ stood speechless, watched her radiance shine as she absorbed his admiration.

  “BZ, I feel like a fool.” She shook her head; but she brightened still.

  “My lady—” Like a star lord of the Empire he took her hand, bent above it, touched it briefly to his forehead. And every centimeter a queen. “To thee would I gladly kneel.” Moon smiled freely, not understanding—her own smile, and not Arienrhod’s.

  “What do you think, Herne?” Persiponë beamed, carrying Moon’s nomad tunic under her arm. “Will she pass?”

  “Did you do that to her?” Herne asked.

  She twitched a shoulder modestly. “Well ... Pollux gave me a hand. He’s got good taste, for a machine.”

  “Arienrhod doesn’t like that color.” Herne set the bottle on the floor. “But she’ll pass ... Gods, yes—she’ll pass! Come here, Your Majesty.” He held out his hands.

  Gundhalinu frowned, kept his own hold on Moon’s hand, felt her grip tighten as she looked back at Herne. “Don’t call her that,” warning.

  “She’d better get used to it. I won’t hurt you, damn it! I won’t even touch you.” Herne let his hands drop. “Just let me look at you awhile.”

  Moon let go of Gundhalinu, went to stand before him. She turned slowly, uncertain of her skirts, but no longer uncertain under his gaze. He devoured her with his eyes, consumed her, but she stood with patient dignity, without censure; allowing, not enduring. Gundhalinu watched her watch Herne through the endless moment, his own feelings un analyzable He tensed as Herne pushed himself abruptly to his feet, swaying ... stayed where he was, as Herne dropped clumsily, jarringly, onto one knee before Moon. “Arienrhod .” He murmured something, inaudible to any ears but hers. Gundhalinu glanced at Persiponë; her flower-lidded eyes widened, answering his amazement with her own. She made a crazy-sign in the air, shook her head.

  “I know, Starbuck ...” Moon nodded, hiding pity. She helped Herne up onto the bed again with an unqueenly hoist.

  Herne glanced away from her, suddenly remembering that he had an audience; let his face harden over again. “Your mistake, Dawntreader ... when I was down you should have kicked me. Arienrhod hates losers.” He leaned on the rowel led word with masochistic pleasure. “Now listen good, while I tell you the rest.”

  “You still mean to help her try this?” Gundhalinu said, indignant.

  Herne smiled cryptically. ““The prey is safest at the hunter’s door.” You ought to know that, Blue.”

  Moon turned back, caught between expressions. Or is it just that you’re afraid to refuse her? Gundhalinu sighed; it hurt his chest. “Then it’ll be because I’m the doorkeeper.” Moon smiled, and was all that he could see.

  - 40 -

  “Oh, my aching back!” Tor stretched to her limits in the privacy of the casino’s storeroom. The words rebounded from the exposed walls; the room was almost empty of supplies, and the patrons were doing their best to finish the job. “Come on, Pollux, get this last container of tlaloc out front for me before their tongues turn black.” She yawned, hearing the crack of her jaw echo inside her head. Empty? “Lost my mind at last.”

  “Whatever you say, Tor.” Pollux moved stolidly across the room, following her point like a faithful hound.

  She giggled, giddy with exhaustion. “I swear you do that on purpose! Don’t you? You can tell me—”

  “Whatever you say, Tor.” Pollux connected with the crate.

  Her mouth fell, her emotions avalanched from the heights. “Oh, hell, Polly ... what am I going to do without you? I’m really going to miss you, you greasy hunk of junk.” She straightened her wig. “There’s only two things Oyarzabal can do for me that you can’t, and once I get off this rock it’ll be down to one—and I can get that from any man. No wonder he’s jealous.” She laughed glumly. Oyarzabal had told her that she would become his wife only if she agreed to get rid of Pollux first. She had agreed, and felt another link soldered onto the chain he was forging to turn her into his slave. He wants what I am ... so why does he try to change it? She pushed her wig crooked, straightened it again. “Damn it, who’s going to keep me neat, anyway? Hauling crates and turning Summer fish-eaters into queens—all in a day’s work for you, isn’t it? Don’t you ever wonder about yourself, Pollux? Can you really do all that and not ask yourself how, or why?” She trailed him back across the room. “Or whether the kid’s going to save her lover from the Queen, or whether she’s crazy to want a crud like Sparks Dawntreader at all?”

  His faceless head regarded her with imitation attention, but he said nothing.

  “Aagh—” She shook a hand at him. “I really must be sold out of brains. You don’t even know I’m here; how’re you going to give a damn when I’m not? So why should I worry?” She kicked an empty carton spitefully out of their path. “When you finish with this, come back and get the last barrel of that fermented sap, and hook it up for Herne.” For Starbuck. Old Starbuck, and New Starbuck; I know them both. And the Queen’s twin. Thank the gods I’m leaving Carbuncle soon—before I meet myself walking backwards.

  She reached the doorway, heard voices drifting out of the room across the hall, the one with a door that was unobtrusively as secure as the vault of the Bank of Newhaven; the one she had never seen unlocked before. But just—now its seals were green, it stood unguarded and ever so slightly ajar, and she recognized one of the voices from behind it as Oyarzabal’s. Pollux clanked away down the hall toward the casino, oblivious, but she crossed to the door impulsively and pushed it open.

  Half a dozen heads turned to look at her, all male, all off worlders Three she recognized immediately as the Source’s lieutenants; Oyarzabal came toward her, annoyance and subtle panic showing in every move.

  “I told you to secure that door!” one of the strangers said murderously.

  “It’s all right—she runs the place, she knows everything,” Oyarzabal called back. “What the hell are you doing here?” whispered.

  She threw her arms around his neck, smothered his protests under a wet kiss. “I’m hungry for my man, that’s all.” And if it’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a locked door.

  “Hell, Persiponë!” He pulled away. “Not now! We got a big job to take care of for the Source here in the city. Later I—”

  “Something for the Queen?”

  His hands brushed her bare upper arms. “How did you know that?”

  Wild guess. “Well, you just said I know everything.” She mugged a hidden face at him. “I don’t want to make a liar of you. I saw Starbuck come to see the Source today, and I figured the Queen must have sent him,” scoring another point.

  “You know who Starbuck is, too?”

  “Sure. I’m a Winter, aren’t I? And I do the Source’s business, just like you.” She looked him brazenly in the eye. “So what’s the rest of it, huh? What’s the Queen buying, one last surprise for her farewell party? You can tell me, I’m you’re wife, almost.” She stood higher on her platform shoes, peering over his shoulder at the knot of gesturing men around a sterile slab of table. Looking past them she realized that the place was a fully equipped laboratory. She had always wondered how the Source managed to keep such a variety of illegal pleasures stocked here, even when they couldn’t be gotten from the regular suppliers ... Glancing back, she saw on the flawless surface of their meeting table a single heavy metal carrying case. On the lid, on its sides, WARNING ... and the barbed trefoil of a sibyl. Her skin began to prickle.

  “Well, yeah, you could say she’s planning kind of a surprise for the Summers.” He grinned. “But you don’t need to worry your pretty head about it. You’ve had your shots; and you’re going off world with me, anyway. You don’t care what happens here after you’re gone, do you?”

  She twisted uncomfortably in his grasp. “What do you mean? ... Hey, why is there a sibyl sign on that box, huh? That means—” contamination. “Bio
logical contamination?”“ as the fine print suddenly slid into focus. “What’s in that—germs? Disease, poison?” her voice rose.

  “Hey, shut up, will you? Keep your voice down—” He shook her ungently.

  “What are going to do?” She struggled, her panic rising now. “You’re going to kill people! You’re going to kill my people!”

  “Just the Summers, goddamn it, Perse! Not the Winters, they’ll be safe; the Queen wants it this way.”

  “No, you’re lying! It’s going to kill Winters too, the Queen wouldn’t let you kill us! You’re crazy, Oyar, let me go! Pollux, help me, Pollux—” The other men were up from the table, coming toward her, and Oyarzabal’s heavy hands still held her prisoner. Desperately she brought up her knee; he doubled over with a howl and she was abruptly free to The stunner beam caught her from behind, and she fell against the door, knocking it shut as she slid helplessly down to the floor.

  - 41 -

  “You’d better wait for me here, BZ.” Moon stopped in the middle of the courtyard that formed a wellspring for the Street at the palace entrance. It was night again beyond the city storm walls, but even here there were revelers laughing and dancing, musicians playing. The people at this high end of the Street were more dazzling and ex—f otic, crusted with jewels, dusted with powder-of-gold; the imported ‘ splendors of half a dozen worlds clamored for her wonder. Her own imitation royalty seemed almost drab, and she kept it hidden, along with her face. BZ’s disreputable clothes were more and more grotesquely out of place, but he clung to his uniform coat with irrational stubbornness.

  “I’m not letting you go in there without me.” He shook his head, his breath rasping after their climb up the long spiral to Street’s-end. “The Queen—”

  “I am the Queen.” She looked at him with mock disdain. “You forget yourself, Inspector ... By’r Lady, what’s she going to do, chop off my head?” She grinned, trying for whimsy, but not getting any feedback. “BZ, how could I explain you, in there?” She glanced toward the guarded palace entrance, feeling her chest tighten.