The Snow Queen Part 4

"But the Hegemony stationed your unit here to serve me, Inspector." Arienrhod's voice startled her attention back. "I ask only the homage due any independent ruler," putting a slight emphasis on independent, "from the representatives of another."

"Ask and be d.a.m.ned!" Jerusha heard Gundhalinu breathe the words almost inaudibly behind her; saw the Queen's eyes flash to his face, marking him in her memory. Starbuck moved down one step from the throne, almost lazily, the gun still swinging from a black gloved hand. But the Queen lifted her own hand again and he stopped, waiting wordlessly.

Jerusha hesitated, too, feeling the stunner that weighed heavily at her side, and Gundhalinu's quivering indignation behind her. My duty is to keep the peace. She turned slightly, toward Starbuck, toward Gundhalinu. "All right, BZ," as softly as he had spoken; not softly enough. "We'll kneel. It's not such an unreasonable request."

Gundhalinu said something in a language she didn't know, his pupils blackening. On the dais Starbuck's fist went tight over his weapon.

Jerusha turned back to the Queen, felt the eyes of the onlookers, no longer indifferent now, pressing hard on her shoulders as she dropped to one knee and bowed her head. After a second there was a rustle and a creak of leather as Gundhalinu dropped down heavily behind her. "Your Majesty."

"You may rise, Inspector."

Jerusha pushed herself to her feet. "Not you!" The Queen's voice struck past her as Gundhalinu began to get up. "You kneel until I give you permission to rise, off worlder As she spoke, Starbuck moved like an extension of her will to his side, the heavy arm in fluid black closing over Gundhalinu's shoulder, forcing him back to his knees. Starbuck muttered something in the unknown language. Jerusha's hands fisted beneath her cloak, slowly opened again. She said brittlely, "Take your hands off him, Starbuck, before I run you in for a.s.saulting an officer."

Starbuck smiled a" she saw his eyes crinkle, insolently, the face alter beneath the smooth surface of his mask. He did not move until the Queen gestured him away.

"Get up, BZ," Jerusha said it gently, keeping her voice together with an effort. She put out her hand to help him to his feet, felt him trembling with fury. He didn't look at her; the freckles stood out blood red against the darkness of his skin.

"If he were my man, I would discipline him for such arrogance." Arienrhod watched them, expressionless now.

Punishment enough. Jerusha glanced away from his face, lifted her head. "He is a citizen of Kharemough, Your Majesty; he's n.o.body's man but his own." She looked pointedly at Starbuck still standing at her side.

The Queen smiled, and this time there was a trace of appreciation in it. "Maybe Commander LiouxSked sends you to me as more than just a token female, after all."

That proves you're not omniscient. Jerusha's mouth pulled into a tight half-smile of her own. "If I may ask your indulgence, then, I would like to make the point thata"" she moved suddenly, and with a hidden nerve-blocking pinch, took Starbuck's gun away from him, "these weapons are not toys." The blunt metal grip settled in her hand, the tube pointed like a cautionary finger as he started toward her; she heard the excited twitter of the onlookers. "An energy weapon should never be aimed at anything unless you're willing to see it blown apart." Starbuck froze in mid-motion, she saw his startled muscles tense and twitch. She lowered the gun. "A repeller field will fail under a direct hit one time in five. Your n.o.bles should keep that in mind." The Queen made an amused noise, and Starbuck's head twisted toward the throne, light dancing through the spines of his helmet.

"Thank you, Inspector." Arienrhod nodded, making a curious motion with her fingers. "But we're well aware of the limits and liabilities attached to your off world equipment."

Jerusha blinked her disbelief, held the gun out again silently, b.u.t.t first, to Starbuck.

"You'll regret this, b.i.t.c.h," for her ears only. He twisted the gun out of her hand, bruising her palm, and strode back to the dais.

She grimaced involuntarily. "Then ... with your permission, Your Majesty, I'll present the Commander's monthly report on the status of crime in the city."

Arienrhod nodded, leaning out to lay a possessive hand on Star buck's arm, as one might soothe a hackled dog. The n.o.bles began to drift away, backing out of the Queen's presence. Jerusha suppressed a smile of pained empathy. The report was no more significant than a hundred others before it, or any that would follow; she would sooner be elsewhere herself. She reached down and switched on the recorder at her belt, heard her commanding officer's voice reciting the statistics on the number of a.s.saults and robberies, arrests and convictions, off world or domestic crimes and victims. The words ran together into a meaningless singsong in her mind, raising all her familiar frustrations and regrets. Meaningless ... it was all meaningless.

The Hegemonic Police were a paramilitary force stationed on all Hegemony worlds, to protect its interests and its citizens ... which usually involved protecting the interests of the local on world power structures. Here on Tiamat, with its low technology and spa.r.s.e population (half of which barely even entered into the Hegemony's consideration) the police force was only a single regiment, confined to the star port and Carbuncle for the most part.

And its activities were confined, hamstrung, restricted: the breaking up of drunken fights, the arresting of petty thieves, an endless cycle of nose wiping and futile prosecutions, when right under their own noses some of the most blatant vice in the civilized galaxy went unchallenged, and some of the Hedge's most vicious abusers of humanity met openly in the pleasure h.e.l.ls where they were so much at home.

The Prime Minister might symbolize the Hegemony, but he no longer controlled it, if he ever had. Economics controlled it; the merchants and traders had always been its real roots, and their only real lord was Profit. But there were many kinds of trade, and many kinds of traders... Jerusha looked up at Starbuck, slouching arrogantly at the Queen's right: the living symbol of Arienrhod's peculiar covenant with the powers of darkness and light, and her manipulation of them. He was all that was rotten, venal, and corrupt about humanity, and Carbuncle.

Crime and punishment on Tiamat a" in effect, in Carbuncle a" as on other Hegemonic worlds, had been split into the jurisdictions of two courts, one presided over by a local official chosen by the Winters and acting under local laws, and one by an off world Chief Justice, who pa.s.sed judgment on off worlders under the laws of the Hegemony. The police provided the grist for both mills, and to Jerusha's mind the harvest should have been bountiful. But Arienrhod tolerated and even encouraged the presence of the Hedge's underworld, creating a kind of limbo, a neutral ground convenient to the Gates. And LiouxSked, that pompous, boot-licking imitation of a man and a commander, didn't have the guts to stand up against it. If she only had the rank, and half an opportunity' Do you have any comments to make about the report, Inspector?"

Jerusha started, feeling stupidly transparent. She switched off the recorder, an excuse to keep looking down. "None, Your Majesty." None that you'd want to hear. None that would make the slightest difference.

"Unofficially, Geia Jerusha?" The Queen's voice changed.

Jerusha looked up at Arienrhod's face, open and compelling, the face of a real woman and not the mask of a queen.

She could almost trust that face ... she could almost believe that there was a human being behind the ritual and deceit who could be reached ... almost. Jerusha glanced back at Starbuck standing at the Queen's side, her henchman, her lover.

Jerusha sighed. "I have no unofficial opinion, Your Majesty. I represent the Hegemony."

Starbuck said something in the unknown language; she translated the crudeness of the insult from his tone.

The Queen laughed: high, incongruously innocent laughter. She gestured. "Well, then, you're dismissed, Inspector. If I want to listen to a canned recitation of loyalty, I'll import a coppok. At least their plumage is more imaginative." The Elder Wayaways appeared, bowing, to lead them out of her presence.

Jerusha stood in the palace courtyard at last, staring fixedly at the patrol craft A starburst of exploded cracks rayed out from the slagged impact point on the ruined windshield. So it's come to this? "I'm sure there must be a lot of heavy remarks I could make about this." Her hand jerked out at the vandalism, dropped away to the door latch instead. "But I'm G.o.dd.a.m.ned if I'm going to put on a show here." She slid into the bobbing seat as Gundhalinu got in on the driver's side. "Besidesa"" she pulled down the door, "all I can think of to say is that I'm tired, and I feel like I've been spat on. Sometimes I wonder if we're really in charge of anything on this world." She dug into her pocket for the pack of iestas, tapped a couple into her palm. She put them into her mouth and bit down on the leathery-tough pods, felt the sour tang begin to ease her nerves. "Finally. Want some?" She held out the pack.

Gundhalinu sat rigidly behind the controls, staring out through the wild tendrils of destruction. He had been silent through their journey back, crossed the Hall of the Winds as though he were crossing an empty street. He began to punch in the ignition code, and didn't answer.

She put the pack away. "Are you capable of driving, Sergeant, or shall I take the controls?" The sudden goad of officiousness in her voice made him flinch.

"Yes, Inspector! I'm capable." He nodded, still looking straight ahead. She watched more words struggle in his throat; he swallowed hard, like an angry child. The craft began to nose slowly back and around, edging toward the city.

"What did Starbuck say just before the Queen sent us away?" She kept the tone impersonal. She could recognize some of the Kharemoughis' ideographic writing a" the operating instructions on most of their exported equipment a" but she had never bothered to learn spoken Sandhi. The force used the speech of the place where they were stationed as a linguistic common ground.

Gundhalinu cleared his throat, swallowed again. "Begging your pardon, ma'am, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d said ... *If you're what the Hegemony sends to represent itself, it must be short on b.a.l.l.s these days.'"

"Is that all?" Jerusha made a sound that was almost a laugh. "h.e.l.l, that's a compliment... I'm surprised the Queen thought it was funny. Wonder if she really understood. Or maybe she understood that it only reflected on us."

"Besides," Gundhalinu mumbled viciously, "she's got his."

She did laugh this time. "Yeah. And welcome to them. So Star buck is from Kharemough."

Another nod.

"What did he say to you?"

He shook his head.

"There's nothing you could possibly say that I haven't heard by now, BZ."

"I know, Inspector." He looked back at her finally, away again with his freckles reddening. "That is, I can't tell you. It wouldn't mean anything, unless you'd been raised on Kharemough. A matter of Honor."

"I see." She had heard him speak of Honor before, heard the capital H, the peculiar emphasis.

"I a" thank you for taking my part against Starbuck. I could not have responded on my own to his insults without further losing face." The ceremony of the words and the sudden grat.i.tude in his voice caught her by surprise.

She looked out at the n.o.bility and servants gaping back at them through the shattered windshield as they drifted past the mansions of the upper city. "There's no honor lost in being insulted by a man who never knew the meaning of the word."

"Thank you." He swerved upward to avoid a child floating golden hoops in their path. "But I brought it on myself; I know that. And I caused trouble for you, and embarra.s.sment to the force. If you want to dismiss me as your a.s.sistant, I'll understand."

She leaned back in the padded concavity of the seat, flexed the hand that Starbuck had bruised. "Maybe it would be just as well if you didn't go with me to pay any more calls on the Queen, BZ. Not because I really disapprove of what you did. Simply because Star buck has a weapon he can use against you now; and that will only make it hard on you, and harder on me by a.s.sociation, and harder to keep them from dragging the Hedge's good name in the mud. Other than that a" frankly, I like you, BZ, and I'd be d.a.m.ned disappointed if you were that eager to get away from me." Though you probably wouldn't be the first.

A feeble smile of relief stirred on his face. "No, ma'am. I'm content more than content. As for staying behind when you visit the Queen a" that's just cream." The smile spread, infectious.

She nodded. "If I could get away with sending you instead of going myself, don't think I wouldn't do it." She grinned; felt it pull down again. She unfastened her heavy cloak and shrugged it off, re moved her helmet, looking at the gold-painted eggsh.e.l.l curve. "Somebody ought to hang that on a tree. G.o.ds, I'm fed up with this! I'd give anything to be doing an honest job, somewhere where they want a real police force and not a laughingstock."

Gundhalinu glanced back, not smiling now. "Why don't you get a transfer?"

"Do you have any idea how long it takes to get a transfer?" She shook her head, resting the helmet across her knees as she loosened the high collar of her uniform jacket. She sighed. "Besides, I've tried. No luck. They 'need me here.'" The bitterness in her voice burned like acid.

"Why don't you quit?"

"Why don't you shut up?"

Gundhalinu looked back at the controls dutifully. They were in the Maze now, moving more slowly along the congested street. Evening stained the sky beyond the storm walls already. Jerusha watched the tatterdemalion alleyways, the garish h.e.l.ls along the street front, pa.s.s by like a mockery of her own dreams and ambitions. And would she really give anything to be doing a better job? Would she take the risk of losing the rank she knew LiouxSked had given to her simply to make her a respectable offering to the Queen? She pulled an auburn-black curl over her left ear. After all, in another five years it would all change anyway. The Hegemony would be leaving Tiamat, and it would send her somewhere better-anywhere was better. Patience, patience was all she needed. The G.o.ds knew it was hard enough for a woman to survive in a career as a Blue at all, even now a" let alone rise to a position of any authority.

She glanced down another alley as they pa.s.sed its entrance. This one was predominantly blue-violet a" painted walls, lights, banners: Indigo Alley... She'd been sent to Tiamat in the first place, she was almost sure, because she was a woman; and at first the idea had appealed to her. But it had soured soon enough. She was a Blue because she liked the job, and the job wasn't getting done...

Half-glimpsed movement set off an alarm in her unconscious. "BZ, back up! Hit the flasher, I saw something down that alley." She clapped on her helmet, jerking the strap under her chin as she hit the door open. "Follow me down." She was out, running, as the patrol craft jounced to a stop at the dim alley entrance. Cooking smells hung heavy in the air; the narrow cul-de-sac was lined with hole-in the-wall eateries, and dinnertime empty. The few bodies who were out in it seemed to melt into the walls at the sight of a red light and a dusty-blue uniform. Halfway, it had been just halfway... She slowed, reaching for the light b.u.t.ton on her helmet, angling toward the black crevices that pitted the three-story makeshift building face on her left. She switched on her headlamps; it showed her nothing in the first one but piled metal drums, nothing in the next. She was aware of Gundhalinu's footsteps coming after her down the pavement voices.

Her lamp flooded the next break in the wall, deeper than the others. It pinned three figures a" no, four a" five a" one squatting over a prostrate victim, something alive with its own light in his hand. "Freeze!" Her stunner was in her hands and pointing.

"Blues!" A confusion of movement, like insects dazzled in the light; one movement that struck her wrong.

She fired, saw a weapon fly free as the man went down. "I said freeze! Get up, you with the blade; switch it off and throw it out here. Now!" She felt Gundhalinu stop beside her, stunner out, all her own attention focusing on the fourth man as he obeyed her order. The light-pencil slid across the pavement and struck her boot. "Now flat on your bellies, sc.u.m, and spread-eagle. BZ, pull their teeth. I'll cover you."

Gundhalinu went forward quickly; she watched while he crouched down by one and then another and checked them for weapons. While she waited, her gaze wandered to their victim lying helpless to one side; she frowned, moved closer to look down at his face. "Uh oh ..." She caught a blurred image of youth and red hair in the harsh light; saw the terror whitening his eyes and heard the raw noise of his crippled breathing. She dropped to her knees beside him. Gundhalinu was searching the last of the slavers. "BZ, find the key for the cuffs they put on this boy. He took a bad jolt, I think he needs some antifreeze." She snapped open the aid kit at her belt, removed a pre filled syringe of stimulant. "I don't know if you can see my face, boy, but picture a big smile. It's going to be all right." Smiling, she pulled open the boy's shirt and injected the medication directly into the muscles of his chest. He gave a small grunt of pain or protest. She lifted his head, let it rest on her knees as Gundhalinu moved in with jingling keys to take the handcuffs off him. The boy's hands dropped limply at his sides.

"I know where I can put these to good use." Gundhalinu grinned, holding up the cuffs.

She nodded. "Good. Do it." She unhooked her own binders and pa.s.sed them across to him. "Here you go. Equal treatment under the law." Gundhalinu got up again. She watched him handcuff the three mobile slavers. A tremor ran through the boy's body; glancing down, she saw him begin to gulp air with desperate relief. The lids drooped closed over his wild, sea-colored eyes. She smoothed the wet tendrils of red hair back from his face. "Better radio in, BZ; we'll never get this crowd into the back seat. I think our young friend is coming out of it all right."

Gundhalinu bobbed his head. "Right, Inspector." The slaver he was straddling raised his face and then spat. "A woman! A f.u.c.king woman Blue. How the h.e.l.l do you like that! Busted by a woman." Gundhalinu nudged him ungently with a boot; he grunted.

Jerusha leaned back against the wall, propping her stunner on her knee. "And don't you ever forget it, you son of a b.i.t.c.h. Maybe we can't get at the heart of what's rotten in this city, but we can sure as h.e.l.l cut off a few fingers."

Gundhalinu stepped out into the alley and started back to the patrol craft If anyone else out there wondered what had happened, they weren't stopping to ask. She was certain that anyone with any real interest knew already. The boy made a tentative sound that was half a moan, and his hands came up onto his chest. He opened his eyes, squinted them shut again against the glare of her lamp. "Think you're ready to sit up?"

He nodded, put his hands out again to push as she shifted him back against the wall. Blood oozed from his nose and a sc.r.a.pe along his chin; his face and his shirt were smeared with oily stains. He fumbled among the strings of gaudy broken beads hanging around his neck. "h.e.l.l.

Oh, h.e.l.l ... I jus' bought these!" His eyes were gla.s.sy looking.

"Never mind the packaging, as long as the goods are in taca"" She broke off as she saw the tarnished medal of honor swinging among the beads. "Where did you get that?" She heard the unthinking demand in her voice.

His fist closed over it protectively. "It belongs to me!"

"n.o.body's saying it doesn't-Hold it!" Movement caught the corner of her eye; her gun came up. The slaver nearest the alley entrance swayed, halfway to his feet with his hands locked behind him. "Flatten, creep; or you'll do it the hard way, like the boy did." He flopped onto his stomach, glaring obscenities at her.

"He ..." the boy began, and pressed a hand against his mouth. "He was gonna a" cut me. They were gonna sell me! They said they I'd ..." He shivered; she watched him struggle to control it.

"Mutes tell no tales ... though where you were going they wouldn't have understood a word you said anyway. And they sure wouldn't have cared... No, it's not a pretty thought, is it?" She squeezed his thin arm gently. "But it happens all the time. Only these big-hearts won't be making it happen again. You're from ofiworld?"

His hand tightened over the medal again. "Yeah ... I mean, no. My mother wasn't. My father was." He squinted fiercely into the light.

She kept the surprise off of her own face. "And the medal belonged to him." She made it a statement of accepted fact, not caring where he'd gotten the medal, more interested now in the possibility of bigger crimes. "But you were raised here? You consider yourself a citizen of Tiamat?"

He rubbed his mouth again, blinking. "I guess so." A trace of hesitation, or suspicion.

Gundhalinu reappeared from the alley; the beam of his light overlapped her own to drive the shadows back. "They'll be here for a pickup any time, Inspector." She nodded. He stopped by the boy. "How you doing?"

The boy looked up at Gundhalinu's dark freckled face, almost staring, before he seemed to remember his manners. "All right, I guess. Thanks ... thanks." He turned back to Jerusha, met her eyes, looked down, away, back again. "I don't know how ... I just thanks."

"You want to pay us back?" She smiled; he nodded. "Be more careful where you walk. And be willing to swear in a monitored testimony that you're a citizen of Tiamat." She grinned at Gundhalinu. "Not only kidnapping and a.s.sault, but attempting to take a citizen of a proscribed planet off world She stood up. "I'm feeling better all the time."

Gundhalinu laughed. "And somebody else is feeling worse." He bent his head at the prisoners.

"What does that mean?" The boy climbed to his feet, leaning heavily on the wall. "Do you mean I can't ever go to another world, even if I want to?" Gundhalinu put out a hand, steadying him.

Jerusha glanced at her watch. "In your case, maybe you can. If your father was an off worlder that makes a difference a" if you can prove it. Of course, once you leave here you can never come back... You'd have to take it up with a lawyer."

"Why?" Gundhalinu asked. "Were you planning to ship off?"

The boy began to look hostile. "I might want to, some time. If you come here, why won't you let us leave?"

"Because your cultures haven't reached an adequate degree of maturity," Gundhalinu intoned.

The boy looked pointedly at the off world slavers, and back at Gundhalinu. Gundhalinu frowned.

Jerusha switched on her recorder. "If you don't mind, I'll just get a few facts for the record. Then we'll see about taking you down to the med center fora""

"I don't need it. I'm all right." The boy straightened up, pulling at his clothes.

"You're probably not the best judge of that, you know." She looked at him sharply, met embers in his gaze. "But that's up to you. Go home and get a good night's sleep instead, if you want. In any case we need to know where to reach you when we want you. Please state your name."

"Sparks Dawntreader Summer."

"Summer?" Belatedly she registered the burr in his speech. "How long have you been in the city, Sparks?"

He shrugged. "Not very long." He glanced away.

"Hm." Which explains a lot of things. "Why did you come to Carbuncle?"

"Is that against your laws too?" sarcasm dripping.

"Not as far as I know." She heard Gundhalinu's sniff of disapproval. "Are you employed, and if so, doing what?"

"Yes. Street musician." The boy's hand began to grope suddenly, searching his shirt, his belt, the air. "My flute ..."

Jerusha lit the corners of the darkness with a sweep of her helmet light. "Is that it?"

The boy dropped down on hands and knees beside one of the slavers, and picked up the pieces. "No a" no!" His face and his hands tightened with pain. The slaver laughed, and the boy's fist hit him in the mouth.

Jerusha moved forward, pulled the boy up and away. "That's enough, Summer... You've had a hard time of it here, because n.o.body's told you the rules. And n.o.body can, that's the problem. Go back to your quiet islands where time stands still, while you're still able to. Go home, Summer ... and wait another five years. You'll belong here after the Change."