Songs From the Stars (13 page)

"Okay, you win, lady. You're going to get what you came for."

Whatever it was, he had done it to her again. She sat up beside him and studied those big green eyes. There was amusement there that seemed of a loverly kind, but there was also the cool clear unfathomableness of the perfect master. It seemed that the game wasn't over after all.

"Are you playing another game with me after all we've meant to each other?" she said archly.

"Same game we've been playing all along," he said. "It's called the seeking of justice. And now I see how it can be found. I'm going to give you your heart's desire. I'm going to let you choose justice for yourself."

"What?"

"Isn't that what you were after all along?" Lou said slyly. "Isn't that why you seduced me?"

"I seduced you?"

He laughed boyishly. "Well, you tried," he said. "And you certainly succeeded in wrapping the giver of justice up in your karma. I can't kid myself into believing I'm a detached observer. So you've won the right to speak justice on yourself."

"Hey, this isn't funny," Sue said. "I'm beginning to think you mean it."

"I do."

"But after the scene I made at the Court of Justice, everyone will think you're a fraud if I come out too clean."

Lou nodded. He smiled at her sardonically. 'That's part of your karma now too," he said. "You can't say you didn't ask for it."

Oh no! Sue thought. I can't make you look like a fraud now. And you know it. Because you're not a fraud. And you know that too, you son of a bitch!

"You really are a perfect master, aren't you?" she said.

"I try," he said dryly. "But now it's your turn. Tell me what to do with you."

"You know what to do with me," Sue said archly, throwing herself into his arms. But it didn't work. He gently pried her loose. "This is real," he Said with deadly seriousness. "Justice must speak through you. Don't blame me, lady, that's the way you set it up yourself."

And damn it, he was right, lighter than he even knew. All her life she had taken her own destiny in her hands. She had been karmically arrogant enough to act on the conviction that the dream she followed was a higher good than any of which her fellow beings were aware. Indeed, she had been willing to take the evolution of the human spirit into her own hands, and she had been pretty ruthless about it. This was her Way, and it had brought her to this moment.

And here she was, having willingly sold her soul to black science, being told to judge herself, and being unable to avoid agreeing with the justice of that sentence. Harsh would have been the justice she gave on herself in her heart of hearts were it not for one thing—her destiny still tasted sweet to her in the face of all logic and Lou had shown her that he thought so, too.

"Ah, you don't know how deep that cuts," she sighed.

"Don't I?"

No you don't! she thought. You may be a master, but you're not perfect. She longed to tell him everything, especially that which she didn't understand herself. But there was more at stake here than her own feelings.

"Lou, do you think my soul is black?" she asked tentatively.

"I think your soul is many colors."

Ah, what a perfect Clear Blue answer! But he was also deliberately evading the heart of the matter, or rather not allowing her to put off any of what she was feeling on him. All right, she decided, you asked for it.

"Hear my justice on the Sunshine Tribe!" she declared with mock pomposity. 'Neither I noir any of my tribe knew we were buying black radios. The Sunshine Tribe has done nothing to stain its karma beyond the usual standards of La Mirage. As giver of justice, I therefore declare the Sunshine Tribe white as the driven snow and hold it blameless of all wrongdoing."

"And you?" Lou asked solemnly.

"Me?" Sue sighed. "You have no idea what I've done. What I'm doing right now. What I believe must be done."

"But you do," Lou said. "That's why you must speak justice for yourself."

"I can't, Lou. I honestly don't know how."

Lou studied her narrowly. "Are you asking me to do it, then?" he said. "You want to tell me about it and accept my justice with an open heart?"

Sue studied him back. Great gods, was this a trap all along? She sighed. If so, it was a perfect one. Is there anything else I can do? Once I'm forced to admit that I can't judge myself, is there anyone else I can turn to?

She sighed again. She gritted her teeth. "Everyone knows that the Spacers set me up," she said fatalistically. "What no one knows is why."

"And you do?"

Sue nodded. "The only thing the Spacers want out of this is you," she said.

"Me?" Lou exclaimed, and Sue knew that she had reached territory where even his Clear Blue vision would probably be clouded.

"You, love," she said softly. "I've met the sorcerer behind all this. The whole situation was set up so you'd be my giver of justice and we'd make love and I'd convince you to meet with sorcerers, and I think I'm going to do just that."

"WHAT?"

"Things don't look so Clear Blue anymore, do they?" she said sadly. "And it's even worse than that. They want you to aid them in a kind of sorcery. And I want you to do it too."

Lou managed an ironic intake of breath. "Uh, I'd be interested in knowing what the hell you're talking about," he said.

"The Spacers are weirder than anyone knows," Sue told him. "I got off with one, and I don't even know if I had any choice in the matter. I probably didn't even have any choice not to do what I'm doing right now. I don't like them, and I'm doing what they want me to do, but I've got to convince you to do what they want anyway."

"And what might that be?"

Sue took a deep breath. She looked into his eyes. Incredible as it was, he seemed to be withholding judgment even in the face of this. He had spoken truly when he said she would give justice for herself. What clarity it took for him not to hate her now! But how far could he really walk with her? How sure was her own step?

"Black science is building a spaceship," she said. "They want you to help them let it fly. And so do I."

Lou just goggled at her, speechless. Oh Lou, how can I make you understand?

"They're building a spaceship," she repeated. "I don't understand why they think they're doing it, but I know why I want it to fly. Badly enough to risk doing what I've done to help them. Badly enough to try to persuade you to help us, even though it convinces you I'm the blackest person you've ever met."

"Do you realize what you're talking about?" Lou said incredulously.

"I know exactly what I'm talking about," Sue said testily.

"A spaceship? Like the rockets that destroyed the pre-Smash world? Burning thousands of tons of carcinogenic filth? Black science polluting the very heavens with their evil? Stirring up a holy war against themselves for the twisted pleasure of slaughtering a children's crusade? Do you realize what you're saying?"

"I'm afraid I do," Sue said. "And I'm afraid I still believe it's worth it."

"What could be worth that...?" Lou said. But there was as much fascinated curiosity in his voice as anger or dubious disbelief. Oh Lou, she thought, maybe you will understand.

And if you don't? she thought. If you find my dream black at its heart, might not I stand convicted of sorcery in my own eyes? But either way, she would at least be released from the paradox in her own heart as she shared it with the only person she could trust. The person she had no choice but to trust.

"I'm going to try to tell you," she said. "For better or worse, I'm going to tell you who Sunshine Sue really is, and what I believe, and just how far I'm willing to go. Then you tell me whether I'm white or black, Lou, because I'm not sure I even care anymore."

The longer he listened, the more Lou understood about Sunshine Sue, but the more he understood, the more complex the problem of justice became. Truth be told, he had been close to the final vision even before he met her—the Lightnings to be disbanded, the Eagle Tribe slapped on the wrist, the Sunshine Tribe to be allowed to continue to function after all its equipment had been recertified righteously white. Only the question of justice for Sunshine Sue herself had hung in abeyance pending the tasting of her soul.

And now that he had tasted her and found her sweet, it seemed that on the ultimate level, her spirit had to be the same shade as his. If we taste good to each other, we must be the same flavor.

But what flavor was that?

It was certain that the dream that burned inside her would be called sorcery by anyone outside the ambiguous reality of La Mirage. Hidden lore from a Rememberers' hut. An "electronic village." Linking human consciousness electronically to recreate the higher unity of pre-Smash man. It all stank of sorcery. After all, the "mass consciousness" she was trying to recreate had slaughtered billions and poisoned the Earth.

Yet you could point to nothing about it that seemed to violate the law of muscle, sun, wind and water. This "software science" of "media" seemed neither white nor black. An art purely of the spirit, "independent of the hardware," or so she claimed.

On the other hand, Lou could see that such a "radio network" as Sunshine Sue dreamed of creating could become an instrument of mindfucking on a scale beyond anything the blackest heart lusted after if put to the wrong use.

But what Sue seemed to sincerely find in this dark art was exactly the opposite, a new Way, a path to greater clarity that all the peoples of the Earth might walk together hand in hand. "Extended electronic senses" to bring anything that happened anywhere into the consciousness of everyone all at once. Surely that could only bring the vision of all closer to the Way and form a commonwealth of consciousness and a brotherhood of man.

He loved her for this vision and through that love tasted the whiteness of her soul and the sweet karma that seemed to be the pot of gold at the end of her rainbow. The perfect master, the giver of justice, and the natural man all longed to take her hand and be her companion along this Way.

But it could not be denied that those who had walked this Way before had been monsters of evil, black scientists who had destroyed their world. And the Spacers had proven that they were worthy karmic successors to these evil sorcerers of old. They had threatened the stability of Aquaria, halted commerce, and had been readily willing to wreck lives just to bring the two of them together in this configuration of destiny.

And yet...

And yet they found each other sweet. And yet Lou believed that Sunshine Sue's heart was good even though she believed in this dream with a burning intensity. More, he found that sweet too; logic could not deny the reality which he felt.

If she's tainted black, then so must be I, in my heart of hearts, he thought perplexedly.

"And so that's why I'm willing to deal with the Spacers," Sue said, openly pleading for understanding. "Once they get to their space station, their karma is no longer mine. The World Satellite Broadcasting Network will be as white as the sun that powers it. Where's the black science in using it to bring the scattered tribes of our ruined world back together again? You can see that, can't you, Lou? You'll help me do it, won't you?"

And he could. And he wanted to. But what would be the cost? How much evil had to be done before her electronic village could be built? Would not the bad karma of the means poison the result? Was this not how black science had once before seduced a world to its doom?

"I want to believe you, really I do," he said. "But this ship they're building must burn millions of gallons of petroleum to get into space. And what about the energy units to build it? I don't see how you can send a spaceship into outer space without black science, and lots of it."

Sue looked downward at her breasts. "I didn't say they weren't sorcerers," she said softly.

"And you didn't say you wouldn't be willing to overlook sorcery to get your world radio network either," Lou said, wincing as the force of truth pulled the words from his lips.

Sue hesitated, then looked up at him, her eyes suddenly burning with defiance. "No I didn't!" she said. "Maybe we do have to taint our souls with a little sorcery to lift what's left of the human race out of the dust! Fuck it! So be it! Tell me, Lou, what's really more important, the pristine purity of your own soul or the destiny of the world? Neither of us are karmic virgins! If sorcery is what it takes to get a world radio network, then you can paint me black—and proud of the guts it takes to admit it, oh perfect master!"

A surge of lust poured up Lou's spine as she shamed him with her bravery. Willing to commit her own spirit to a cause that seemed beyond good and evil and willing, too, to accept what karma that would bring her. In her, he saw something that must have gone out of the world long ago, to be rekindled by chance or destiny in a young girl in a Rememberers' hut deep in a darkening forest.

That in itself smelled of sorcery, and the pride of her courage to brave regions beyond the law wrapped the cloak of dark arts around her like a banner. He knew this, he felt this too, and yet it made him throb with dark desire.

He touched her on the shoulder and felt electricity shoot through him. Her posture was defiant, her nipples pointed upward in pride. Oh gods, Lou thought, if this creature is evil, then I am lost!