A Different Light (9 page)

There's nothing for you here. "Give me another drink," he said to Rin. "All I can do is draw."

Miri crossed the glittering floor and floated to the stool next to him. Rin served her. She smiled at Jimson. Blinked, like a cat. Her black eyes were outlined with dark shadow and gold glitter. He expected her to purr.

"Tell me about the
Sigurd
," he said.

"Tell me about New Terrain."

He wondered how she knew—but of course, he was famous. "It's a place."

"Hot? Cold? Wet or dry? Does it have stars?"

"Don't all places have stars?"

She smiled and shook her head.

"The Hype ships colonized it. From New Terra they went to New Terrain. It's earth-normal, but smaller than Terra. It has a moon. It has five moons, but four of the five are tiny, just captured rocks in orbit. The starships are on the fifth moon, Epsilon Moon. I lived in Las Flores. And before that on North Island. Russell and I met there. Your turn."

"I was born in Alexandria on Old Terra," she said, dreamily. "Before there were any Hype ships, before there were any starships at all. Just things they call spaceprobes. I was a child when the first pictures came back from Jupiter...."

"Jupiter?"

"Never mind. What do you want to know about the
Sigurd
? It takes four thousand people at one time to the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, and it looks like bubbles."

"Bubbles?"

"A long chain of bubbles."

Bubbles, like the bubbles in his glass. "Tell me about the Hype."

"The Hype. It used to drive people mad. The entropic discontinuities affected the brain. That's why we named it the Hype. Ilse Perse went to Verde to study the hyperdrive equations. Figured them out. Convinced the Terran government to build the Drive, to build the starships, to call for volunteers—some of them came back. They made the first mappings of the congruencies. I had a lover who didn't come back. No way to tell even where she went. There are places we still can't go, in the Hype."

"The Maze."

Miri raised her eyebrows. "Where did you hear about the Maze? Yes. Leiko must have told you. Most pilots won't go there."

"Does it still drive people crazy?"

"The Hype?" Miri smiled. "We're all a little crazy. It could. That's why we take the telepathic examinations. They like us to start out sane."

"How old are you really?" he asked, against all custom.

Miri smiled a cat smile, bent at the corners. "I was a student of Ilse Perse's the day the first Verdian ship landed on Terra. We went together to look at it."

"That was three hundred years ago!"

She nodded and glided away from him. Jimson thought, I think I believe her. Stars, am I drunk.

He knew that a combination of organ transplants and antiagathic drugs could bestow, upon those able to buy them, a quasi-immortality. The treatments were expensive. He had heard, too, that the treatments sometimes resulted in dangerous side effects. He grinned into his drink. You could get paranoid, living so long. Mean and paranoid. Miri wasn't mean. Miri talked to him when he was lonely; Miri was nice.

"What's the matter with you?" asked a voice at his elbow. It was Kay the loader, come from the other end of the bar to sit with him and keep him company. That was kind, too.

"Have you ever noticed—" he started to say. But the thought tangled in his sodden head. Time is a cheat. For some people it moves too slow, and for others it moves too fast to bear. Miri Akt lives three hundred years, more than her share. I get a fraction of that in which to do my work. Why is that fair?

It isn't fair, Alleca. It's just the luck.
"I want another drink," he said to Rin.

Kay said, "What's eating you?"

"Everything." That was hardly explicit. He couldn't seem to talk. His tongue had gotten thick. "Leiko." That would do to start.

"She gone yet?'

"No. Two days. Day after to-tomorrow."

"I know she was looking for a ship."

"She found one. She and Ysao. S' Russell's ship." Rin put the drink in front of him. He tossed it back. By now he was too numb to taste it.

Kay grinned at him. "You're really tying one on tonight. Maybe I shouldn't talk to you."

"I don't mind."

"Where's Leiko going?"

Jimson frowned. The word—the name—sat on the tip of his numb tongue. "Dunno," he said finally.

"Who's Russell?"

"Russell O'Neill." He couldn't quite get his tongue around all the "1" sounds. Kay looked puzzled. "We were kids together."

"What's he look like?"

"Red hair," said Jimson promptly. He gazed around the room, trying to find something red as Russell's hair, so that he could show his new friend what his old friend looked like. "Like—"
There
was a man with red hair. Jimson pointed to him. Suddenly the redhead was standing in front of him. It was Russell. "Thisishim," Jimson said.

"Damn right this is me," said Russell. He looked at Kay. "I know you. Kay. Were you doing a little prying? If so, you'd better not have learned anything. Or I'll hang your guts from the lamps."

Kay said, "He didn't tell me anything, Starcaptain."

"Was he talking to anyone besides you?"

"I doubt it. To Rin, could be."

"That's all right. Rin knows everything." Jimson felt fingers dig into his shoulder. "Come on, Jim. You're leaving."

"Don't do that," Jimson requested. He tried to push the hand from his shoulder. It moved not an iota. He was half-pulled, half-lifted from the stool, and pushed across the room. Hands guided him through the door, and then he was slammed roughly up against the wall. It hurt, and the pain cleared his head. Russell was standing in front of him, swaying—no, it was he, Jimson, who was swaying—and there was green rage in his eyes. It was dark, and cold. Jimson shivered.

"Wait here," said Russell. "Don't move. You understand?" He disappeared, and Jimson leaned unsteadily against the wall. The rush was gone. He was cold. Russell was angry at him. What had he done?

"Jim, look at me."

With effort, Jimson focused on Russell. The redhead was holding a glass. His other hand swooped at Jimson's face and held a capsule in front of his eyes. "I want you to take this," Russell said. "Can you manage?"

"I-if you help me with the glass." Jimson shoved the pill at his mouth. Like a hard pebble it lodged at the back of his throat, and he gulped water until it went down. "What is it?"

"Neutralizer," said Russell. "It'll get you half-sober, at least. Come on, we'll get you home."

"No." Jimson stiffened his legs like a baulking animal, and stopped in the center of a city square. "Not home."

A hand like iron closed round his upper arm and jerked him off his feet. "You'll go home."

"I don't want to go home."

He felt Russell's grip relent. "All right, not home. I know a place—are you getting sober?"

Jimson squinted, trying to gather his drunken senses. They were walking a checkerboard pattern, through the city squares, which you couldn't do during the day. But the squares were less crowded at night. Most of the stores were closed, though the bars were open. Above the squares hung the bubble cables. Like falling stars, the bubbles dived by overhead, bouncing red or orange or indigo light off the pavement. It was getting easier to walk. "I'm getting sober. But I can't stop shaking."

"That's the pill," said Russell. "It's not much farther now." Jimson tried to remain steady. But on the stairs his legs collapsed with tremors, and Russell had to carry him through a doorway, into a warm room. "Here. Lie on the bed."

Once on the bed, the shaking eased off.

"I'm making us both some coffee."

"Good."

Russell sat on the edge of the bed, his face in shadow. "Do you remember talking to Kay tonight?"

"K-Kay?"

"Kay, at Rin's."

Jimson did remember. He nodded. It astounded him that he could nod. He was very tired.

"What did you say to him?"

It was hard to be precise. "Told him—told him that Leiko had found a ship. Ysao, too."

"Did you tell him the name of the ship?"

"No."

"Did you tell him where the ship was going?"

"Why don't you ask Kay?" he said, irritated. And, too late, put up a hand to stop the palm that slapped him.

The whole right side of his face hurt.

Russell caught his chin and turned his head around, positioning him for another blow. "Because I don't have time to beat the lies out of him," he said. "Did you tell him where the ship was going?"

"No."

"Did you mention the Crystal Masks?"

"No."

"Did you mention De Vala?"

"No."

"Did you tell him my name?"

"I-I told him we were old friends. He knows you're a Starcaptain."

"Did you tell him my
name
?"

"Yes."

"Did you tell him when the ship was leaving?"

Jimson swallowed. He kept his eyes on Russell's face and not on his hand. "I said two days. Day after tomorrow."

"Anything else? At all?"

Jimson shook his head. He could smell the coffee. "Nothing else," he said. "I was very drunk, Russ."

Russell sighed. "I know. I'll get you that coffee."

He came back with two mugs, and settled himself on the bed again. Jimson sipped the coffee. It was hot and very strong, the way he liked it. No sugar. Russell took sugar. We remembered that about each other, after all these years. He relaxed into the pillow. His shakes were almost gone. "Russell?"

"Yes."

"Will it ruin the job for you that I talked with Kay?"

Russell said, "I don't know. Kay's a snoop, but he keeps his mouth shut. I've never heard it said that he sold to the cops. But I'm in an uneasy business. I don't like people knowing where I'm going, or with whom, or when. So I think we won't wait that extra day. We'll leave tomorrow."

Jimson closed his eyes. "You're a dream," he said. "You're just a dream. You never came to Nexus. I never saw you. I'll go to sleep, and wake up, and you'll be gone." He could not keep the bitterness out of his voice. He opened his eyes. Russell was looking at him.

"No. Not a dream. I'm real." He got off the bed.

Suddenly he bent, caught Jimson's chin and kissed him, quick and hard, like a slap. "Don't drop the cup." He took it and walked out. The taste of his lips lingered on Jimson's mouth.

Jimson worked his way off the bed. He was still unsteady. He weaved out of the room. There was light. He struggled towards it. It was coming from a closetlike kitchen. Russell was putting the coffee cups away. He swung around. "What are you doing out of bed?"

"I don't want to be alone," Jimson said.

Russell produced a chair. "Sit on this," he said. Jimson sat. He studied Russell's face, trying to find in it the boy he had known. Sometimes he thought he saw him, and sometimes he was wholly absent. His heartbeat counted out a minute. Another.

"Russ, let me go with you." The words just happened. He listened with astonishment to his own voice saying them.

Russell said, "What?"

Carefully Jimson repeated it. "Let me go with you to Demea."

"I think you're still drunk."

"No," Jimson said. "I'm not drunk."

Russell leaned over him. "No."

"Why not?" Jimson leaned back so that he could see Russell's face full on.

The Starcaptain looked away from him and then back again. "Why do you think I left New Terrain, and never sent a 'gram, and never came back?"

"I don't know," Jimson said. "You tell me."

"Do you remember the night you told me you had cancer, and that it was not curable?"

"I remember," Jimson said. "You cried."

Russell said, "The thought of you dying was more than I could bear. It hasn't gotten any easier to face. I stayed away because—if I couldn't see it happening I could pretend it wasn't happening. When I realized you'd come into the Hype I thought you'd been cured. I came to find you. But now that I know you're still—" he stopped. "I'm not taking you into the Hype with me to watch you die."

"It might not happen."

"You told me the other night that it always happens."

The
Polish Rider
, with eyes cold as a grave, stared down at Jimson from the wall in his imagination.
Death riding.
Jimson said, "Russ, I want to see Demea. I want to see the Maze. I want to see the Masks. Always I've been the one to stay behind when others leave. I don't want to stay behind any more. I can't."

Russell's lips were pressed tight with denial and pain.

"Please take me with you."

Russell asked, "If I say no, what will you do?"

"I don't know," said Jimson. "Get drunk? Buy a tourist ticket to nowhere and go anyway? Don't say no, Russ, please." There were tears on his cheeks. He hadn't realized he was crying. He lifted up his hands and wiped his eyes.