A Different Light (16 page)

Russell came out of his bunk, hand over hand down the monkey bars. "What's the matter with you?" he said.

Jimson could not say:
I'm afraid.
"I ache."

"We're all tense," Russell said. "Except the girl."

Ysao said, from his place on his work table, "She's tense, too. She's started picking it up from us."

"Poor baby," said Russell. He looked towards where Ast lay, curled up, not sleeping, eyes open and staring at nothing.

They had let Rahid's men carry his body from the temple. Ast had confronted Russell at the great entrance door. "Take me with you."

"We can't."

"If you do not, Athou will kill me. He is chief now. As Speaker, I spoke against him in his dispute with Rahid. But Rahid is dead, and one of the Masks has been lost to us. He will say I am to blame. He is thinking it now. I know his mind."

Leiko said: "We can't leave her to die."

"Where do we take her?" asked Russell. "Nexus?'

"I guess—she could go to my homeworld, Anzen. It has deserts
      
"

"She can go to Psi Center with me," said Ysao. "She's a telepath, remember. They'll know what to do with her there."

"If the Hype cops ever hear about it—you know it's kidnapping."

"Stealing, kidnapping, what's the difference?' Leiko had said. "We
can't
leave her."

The inside of the
Morgana
had intrigued but not frightened her. The take-off had not frightened her. But the Jump had, and the Hype terrified her. She ate and drank with Ysao standing over her, coaxing her. She would not use the bathroom at all. Ysao cleaned up after her, lifting her easily to another bunk, scolding her gently, as you would scold an infant, without heat.

"Is she going to be all right?" Jimson asked Ysao.

"If we all are," Ysao said. "She's still sane. She just doesn't like it here, and why should she? Even though she asked to come with us, she's terrified. Nothing here works the way it should. It's like nothing she knows. She's retreated into semi-dreams, waking daydreams, of Demea, of her tribe, her family.... But she knows where she is. She'll eat, if I suggest it. She's very gutsy."

"We'll be all right," Russell said. He crossed to stand behind Leiko.

"Want some distraction?" Ysao said to Jimson. "I found those schematics."

"Sure." Jimson sat on the workbench, careful to avoid Ysao's leg. Russell had done makeshift surgery on it, to dig out the arrowhead, and it was bandaged tight. "What am I looking at?"

"The Drive Core." Ysao laid the diagram between them. "Think about the Core." Jimson visualized the cramped bright space in the ceiling of the ship to which he and Ysao had climbed, the day before. "The control panel—you'll remember it, on the left-hand side of the access door as you come off the monkey bars—has one row of buttons and three dials." He laid a fat finger on the diagram. "Here, and here."

"Right."

"The buttons are color- and also heat-coded. The big red one which is quite warm, but not hot, to touch is the OFF button. Punch it, and the pilot's controls go off. The ship can't Jump until you punch the blue, cool one to the right of the red one. If you punch the buttons in hyperspace, they won't work."

"What if they did?"

"The ship would blow up."

"Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire."

Jimson stopped. "I can't remember the rest. Except he said that ice would work too."

"I expect it would," Ysao said dryly. "Are you interested in this at all?"

"Not much." It was hard to be interested in the Drive, when they might never get out of the Hype. The day before Russell had shown him the controls to direct the proxies, focus the vision screen, and fire the ship's weapons. "Sorry." He had liked playing with the proxies. And it gave them all something to do.

His leg was aching badly now. He went to the lowest rung of the monkey bars and started to climb it. When his body began to curve backwards he swung away from the wall, holding on only with his hands. Slowly he pulled himself hand over hand to his bunk, got his pills, stuck them in his pocket, took a few deep breaths, and started down again. Someday, he thought, I'll ask Russell to put us into free-fall. He imagined himself swinging weightless on the bars. That was, after all, what they had been designed for.

Alleca, face it. You don't have a someday.
Pretty soon he was not going to be able to hang from the bars. It made his hands ache too much. He was taking the pills now every six hours, instead of every twelve. He thought they did some good. He hoped they did. But even if they got out of the damned Maze—we'll get out. He grinned at the ceiling, glad that no one could see his face, for the grin felt more like a grimace. He would not believe that the luck would choose to kill him this way. The irony would be insupportable. He said it aloud. "We'll be all right."

"Russell." It was Leiko. Jimson dropped from the bars, a meter and a half of drop. One ankle twisted under him and he fell. He made himself stand. He rubbed the bruised knee and limped to the vision screen.

"What is it?" Russell said.

"I just saw something solid. What could be solid in the Hype?'

"Let's send proxies out. Jim, you do it." Jimson tapped out the code on the control keyboard. The proxies swarmed out of the
Morgana,
a cluster of mobile eyes. The picture on the vision screen jerked and changed.

"There!" Russell leaned over to cue the proxies. A shape filled the vision screen, drifting across it, outlined in red dust: a dark polygon. Ysao came up to stand behind them. Russell's face had suddenly gotten grim and tight. "It looks like a ship," he said. "A cargo ship."

Leiko said: "It can't be."

Ysao said, "I think it is."

"I'll try to reach her." Russell played with the keyboard. "Calling Cargo. Calling Cargo. Cargo, answer. This is the
Morgana,
out of Nexus Port. Calling Cargo. Cargo, answer." They watched the screen as Ship's Code signals went into the Hype. It remained bare. "Nothing," Russell said. His fingers hovered doubtfully over the keyboard.

"Try audio," said Ysao.

Russell spoke the message. "Calling Cargo. Calling Cargo. Cargo, answer...."

Laughter.

It came shrieking across the void and welled up inside the ship, insane, crowing and gleeful, whipping the nerves, till Jimson shivered under the lash. Leiko's knuckles were white on the stick. Suddenly it changed. "Russell? Russell O'Neill? Russell, are you here, too?" The voice was shrill and fierce.

Russell answered. "Yes, Shev. I'm here."

The laughter began again. Ysao said softly, "He's mad."

Russell shook his head. "Shev!" he called. "How many alive in your ship?"

"Just me, lover. The others tried to walk to find the stars. Ah—ha ha ha!"

Ysao said: "Hype madness, Pirate. The effect of entropic discontinuity on the brain cells—it's physiological. The early Hype explorers, remember? The pilot must have succumbed first. Without a pilot, they couldn't get out."

"Shev, follow us," Russell said urgently. "Hook your computer to ours. We're going to Nexus."

"No. Oh, no, no, no. I'm so tired. I'm so tired, Russell. The Hype—it pulls, you know. It pulls at the mind. It broke me months ago, when Barbara died. I can't follow you. I can't get out. I Jump, and I don't know where I am, and I Jump again and I'm here. My proxies burned out long ago; I can't even see you. How can I follow you?"

"Your computer...."

"They're all dead, Russell. Barbara and Dash and Pesha, all dead. Geryon's dead. 1 fed their bodies out into the Hype, it wanted them, you see. It wants me. It wants us dead. Make it happy, Russell, or you'll never get out, it'll never let go of you. Kill me. Blow up the
Emeraude.
Don't leave me here like this. Please kill me." Russell's hand on the switch cut off the terrible words. He turned his chair to stare at them. He looked more shaken then Jimson had ever seen him.

"I can't do it!"

Leiko said fiercely, "Russell, you'd better! Would you leave a friend like that?"

Russell's hands were shaking. He stilled them by clenching them. "A friend—we trained together! We were lovers. I
can't
."

Leiko glared at him. "If you can't, I can."

Russell stood up so fast the chair rocked. He caught Leiko by the upper arms. "Not if I don't order it," he whispered. His face was like death.

"Easy, Pirate," breathed Ysao.

Leiko nodded. "All right."

Russell let her go. "I'll talk to him." He turned the audio on again. "Shev! Let your computer be your pilot. Hook up to us—"

"I have no pilot. Barbara was my pilot, but Barbara's dead. Ah—haa!"

Leiko said quietly. "Russell, if I have to hear much of that,
I'll
go mad."

"I'll talk to him," Russell said again. He talked, whispering, arguing, yelling across the Hype, as the red dust made ouroubouroi around the two ships.

"Kill me. Kill me." There was no place in the
Morgana
to escape the plea. Even Ast heard it, and moaned in her shattered daydreams.

Jimson brought Russell water and a food bar. "Thanks." He reached a hand for the food without looking at it, put it to one side, and forgot it. He sipped the water. His voice was hoarse. "How long have I been—?"

Jimson said, "Six hours."

"Shev's been in the Maze over a year," Russell said. "He's lost all sense of time. I can't find out exactly when the others died but it was soon after they made the Jump. Barbara killed herself. Dash just curled up on his bunk and stopped eating. Shev thinks the computer is dead, too, because it won't talk to him when he turns it on. He's told it, he says, to destroy the ship, and it won't. And he laughs when I talk, laughs and laughs and says
Kill me.
Why in all hells did the luck bring us together, if it were not for him to stay alive?" His voice was tight with horror. Jimson touched his hair. It was wet with sweat.

"We were lovers," Russell said. "We met on Nexus. Shev is—not very tall. He's dark, too. He reminded me of you a little. When we stopped being lovers we stayed friends. When he contracted for that last run, I begged him not to go. I did." Jimson tried to imagine Russell begging for anything. "He teased me out of my fear, he swore nothing would go wrong. But I was right." He looked up at Jimson. There were tears in his eyes. "I sent you the visicube when he was lost. Like throwing out a lifeline—"

"I came," Jimson said.

Russell caught his breath. "Yes. You came. But what do I do now?" It was a boy's plea.

Jimson asked, "Can you do what he asks you to do?"

"No," said Russell. "No."

Jimson touched his hair again. Russell, he thought, you never could deal with death. Russell had left New Terrain for the Hype so that he would not have to watch a lover die. One day, soon, that may be me, begging for death. I wonder if you will be there. He rubbed his hands together, feeling the pain building in his bones.

I make a bargain with you, Russell O'Neill, he thought to himself. A compact—an oath. If you will stay with me to the end, I will do this for you now.

He worked out the codes in his mind.
The fourth button from the end unlocks the weapons panel, and the laser controls are on the far right.
He would only get one chance. Russell was speaking again: "Shev, we're going to get out of here. So can you. Your computer's still functional. You can follow us."

"Kill me," said Shev Allard.

Jimson let his fingers rest casually on the computer keyboard. Ysao was standing to his left. Jimson saw the telepath nod. Staring at the starship which drifted, like an abandoned soul, in the frame of the vision screen, Russell seemed tranced. He didn't notice the computer's automatic signal of acknowledgement. He didn't feel the minute discontinuity in the noise pattern of the ship, as the guns came out. A protective shield went up, jamming the link between the vision screen and the proxies. The screen blanked suddenly. The ship pointed itself at the
Emeraude.

Shev's voice cut off in midsentence. Russell stiffened. He sprang, sprawling across the console, for the manual override. Too late. Damn, Jimson thought, trivially, idiotically, the proxies will go, too. We can do without them now. They were for Demea.

Forgive me, he thought across the Hype to Shev Allard. Forgive me for not being Russell.

In the tranquil and deadly crimson of the Maze, a fireball flamed, flamed and was gone to dust. Russell cried out with grief and anger. Jimson had just enough time to get his chin down and wrap an arm around his eyes.

Chapter 15

"Relax."

Jimson forced the breath out of his lungs, and tried to keep his facial muscles still. Russ teased up a corner of the bandage and then ripped: the line of tape pulled off. It felt as if a hot brand had been trailed across his cheek. He bucked. Russell, straddling him, tightened the grip of his knees. "Now the other one."