Doc Sidhe

by Aaron Allston

  It was the last thing Harris heard before sleep claimed him.

  He awoke feeling no different.

  He climbed out of his bunk. Joseph, still sitting, looked at him. There was no censure in his expression.

  But then, Joseph didn't have a whole lot of cause to be judgmental. Harris ignored him and went forward.

  There was no one in the lounge. It was dark outside. He continued through the forward sleeping compartment and to the door into Jean-Pierre's cabin. He walked in and closed the door behind him, shutting the world away.

  He found the sofa by touch and settled into it. Ahead, through the bubble of a window, there were stars above, gray nothingness beneath. The stars looked far too optimistic; he decided that the nothingness was right.

  Someone settled onto the couch beside him. He jumped about a foot.

  "It is I." Noriko's voice.

  "Oh, Jesus. You scared me." He took a couple of deep breaths. "I'm sorry, Noriko. I didn't know you were in here."

  "I was not asleep. You have not disturbed me."

  "I came in here . . . I don't know. I kind of half expected him to be here. Maybe his ghost. Pouring whiskey for everybody and smart-assing as usual." He looked into the void of the sea. "Noriko, I killed him."

  "Angus Powrie killed him."

  "Yeah, but I could have stopped him. I just couldn't figure out how in time."

  She leaned against him, resting her head against his shoulder. He was surprised by the closeness. He put his arm around her.

  Her voice, when it came, was quiet, barely audible over the engines. "Jean-Pierre hunted Angus Powrie since he was a youth. He spent a fortune on investigators, on newsmen. They hounded Powrie all over the world. Powrie had to stay in hiding because of Jean-Pierre. When they found each other, one of them had to die. Harris, Jean-Pierre killed himself. He broke cover, he leaped upon his enemy instead of shooting him. He forgot in his anger that Powrie always incapacitates his victim with a blow to the groin. Powrie is expert at that attack; it is his favorite. Nothing you did could have saved Jean-Pierre. Nothing.

  "But I will not lie to you. You did fail, in a way. You failed to make the best of Jean-Pierre's death by avenging him. Perhaps he will not be too angry with you."

  "I hope not. I'd hate to have him chewing me out through eternity."

  She chuckled.

  "How well did you know him?"

  "He was my husband."

  "What?"

  "We were married three years ago." He heard her sigh. "It was not a good idea. He had lost the fiancée his father had picked for him. She was frail and prone to fits of despondency as pureblood princesses tend to be, and she leaped from a high cliff, though Jean-Pierre tried to catch her. He and I had been friends, sometimes lovers, and he turned to me in his grief . . . and stayed with me in his passion.

  "But afterward, nothing changed. He chose not to make plans for the future. Not of life, nor home, nor children. After a year we decided to look different ways. But he would not let me divorce him yet."

  "Why not?"

  "His father did not favor me as a match for the prince. Jean-Pierre took offense. He told me that one day they would pay me an immense bribe to cast him aside. He insisted that I accept. That way, he said, the insult would be avenged, and yet everyone would have what he wanted."

  "That sounds like Jean-Pierre."

  They rode on in silence for a while.

  He asked, "Do you know if he liked me?"

  "You did not know? Yes. He did. He liked the way you could talk to everyone. Ignoring rank. Ignoring concerns of light and dark and dusky. He liked it that you taught me."

  "I wish I could go back and just tell him, JayPee, I'm glad you're my friend. And good-bye."

  "I, too. Harris?"

  "Yes?"

  "You should worry less about whether people like you."

  "Maybe."

  "Not maybe. Yes." She sighed. "Promise me you will remember what I have asked."

  "Okay."

  Doc heard three clangs, the notes of a hammer on an anvil. They trailed off into the distance. He opened his eyes.

  Joseph sat a few feet away, studying him. His face was as grave as ever, but there was some deeper sorrow in his eyes.

  "Tell me," Doc said.

  Joseph told him. When he was done, Doc was silent a long moment. "Joseph, when you said that death followed in my wake, you were right."

  "I am sorry I ever said that."

  "Why?"

  "Because it was wrong. Death does not follow you. It is ahead of you, Doc, like a line of enemies. Ahead of you because you aim yourself at it. You and your allies hurl yourselves at it to keep it at bay. You pass through it. Inevitably, one of you is caught. But I hate to think what things would be like if no one hurled himself at that line."

  Gaby woke feeling rested but, for once, not grateful for it. She'd prefer to sleep until the heaviness inside her went away.

  She dressed in her new jeans—a little baggy, in the fashion of fair world men's clothes, but a reasonable fit—and went back to the lounge. No one else was there. The sky outside the windows was just lightening with dawn; the eastern faces of high clouds were striped with orange sunlight.

  She sat in her usual place and stared at the talk-box.

  Time to stop relying on other people for everything. She closed her eyes. She tried to reach out for that familiar loneliness she'd felt twice before.

  Slowly, the engines' roar dwindled to nothingness. She felt a pressure grow behind her eyes and heard a static in her ears.

  The static became voices. They blended and blurred into a mass of words. "Can't authorize the when it sets sail not before the equinox operator help so there we were married your sister instead and came out soaking wet set aside some forest lands cost you eighty libs mi espada se rompio forty is the best you can when will you come . . . " The pressure in her head grew greater but did not quite hurt.

  She opened her eyes.

  Her room. Walls of irregular stone, dark with age, no door or window allowing exit. An ornate rug, handwoven, on the floor. Her four-poster bed of dark wood with curtains of transparent silk in pastel blue. Her table. Her doll. The silvery mirror the height of a man on the far wall. The dress she wore, heavy but somehow not hot, not cumbersome. All hers.

  Gabrielle's.

  But she remembered Gaby, too. There was no conflict; the memories fit together like lovers' fingers intertwining. She smiled in sudden delight. She'd found her missing sister at last.

  She listened for certain names, for specific voices. Eventually she found them.

  "Goodsir Blackletter, we were attacked . . . -plete success. Goodsir Powrie has been to see a . . . left Siluston in that flying boat . . . dead, but Roundcap still lives . . . the storm cloud?"

  She tried to make an eye open where she heard the voice, but there was no eye. They were speaking over a voice-only set. She could not hear any reply. She could not clear up the transmission; words went missing despite her best effort, and the pressure in her head increased. It distracted her, annoyed her.

  "Gabrielle." Doc's voice. That eye she could open, and did. She saw the mirror brighten, her own reflection fade. Then, through it, she saw herself, dressed as Gaby; her eyes were closed. Doc was beside her, concern on his face.

  "Gabrielle, you need to come out. I think you're hurting yourself."

  "You can call me Gaby. I remember everything."

  "Gaby, just come out now."

  "I don't want to. I'm just getting it right."

  "Do it."

  "Not yet!" Anger flashed through her.

  She heard a shattering noise. Doc disappeared.

  She couldn't open that eye again. Uh-oh. She sighed, closed her eyes, and relaxed her hold on her surroundings. She felt them slip away. The floor rocked and she felt the sofa appear beneath her.

  And the odd pressure inside her head resolved itself into pain, a solid steel spike of hurt driven deep into her brain. She cried out, cl
utched her head, tried to curl up into a ball. The pain wouldn't let go.

  She felt Doc hold her and heard him speak her name, softly, insistently. Finally the spike of pain began to withdraw. "I'm all right, I'm all right," she said.

  "You are not. You've dangerously extended yourself. I want you to promise me that you won't do that again unless I'm around."

  She straightened in spite of the hurt. She looked him in the eye. "No."

  His face registered surprise. "Well. Will you at least take it under advisement?"

  In spite of the pain, she grinned. "That much I'll do."

  Then she saw the talk-box.

  It was ruined. The glass of the tube was scattered in tiny pieces on the floor before it; Gaby found pieces on her legs and in her lap. The electronic elements behind were blackened and melted. "What the hell happened to that?"

  "I think you did."

  Chapter Twenty-One

  They sighted Neckerdam after dawn the following day. Alastair reported that friends of the Sidhe Foundation had visited Omphalia in Panelassion, the second of Caster's three sites; Harris remembered Panelassion being the fair world's Greece. The Sidhe Foundation men found the same sort of Cabinet-henge arrangement there, abandoned; the ceremony was completed, the second link to the grim world cut.

  Harris decided not to return to the forward cabin for the Neckerdam landing. The shade of Jean-Pierre might be waiting there for him. He stayed in the lounge and, through its windows, watched the landing, then the refueling and reprovisioning that followed.

  Workmen of the Sidhe Foundation came with a coffin for Jean-Pierre. Harris saw Doc go outside and issue them orders. They brought the casket aboard. A few minutes later they left with it, carrying it like pallbearers.

  The last of Jean-Pierre. Harris waved good-bye from behind a small round window.

  Other men brought new stores, more weapons, additional ammunition, books requested by Doc and Caster Roundcap. Harris asked for a welding torch; Alastair told him the lab was already fitted with one.

  Harris checked the map in the lab cabin and found their destination: the nation of Aluxia. Alastair had pronounced it "Alushia." It sprawled across what on the grim world would have been Yucatan, Guatemala, and Belize.

  Doc came back aboard with a man and woman. He introduced Harris to Ladislas and Welthow, pilots employed by the Foundation—"Aboard," Doc said, "so Noriko and the rest of the pilots can get some rest instead of being bound to the cockpit."

  The new pilots both wore battered leather bomber-style jackets—his black, hers red.

  Ladislas, whom Doc said was from faraway Dacisperia, was a head shorter than Harris but had a firm grip. His dark hair, pale complexion, and the point to his ears gave him a sinister aspect. He obviously enjoyed it, and cultivated a smile full of both charm and menace. He spoke with a heavy accent full of rolling R's: "I understand some of you are learning to fly. Perhaps we will find out if the Frog Prince is capable of an outside loop."

  Alastair said, "Perhaps we will find out if you can pass through spinning propellers without being hurt."

  Welthow, nicknamed Welthy, was a head shorter than Ladislas. Her hair was blond, twined into a waist-length braid. She had muscles like a cat and a grin that suggested she'd just been at the cream. Harris decided that she looked like pure sex in a compact frame. He was surprised that he felt like noticing. "Ignore Ladislas," she said. "He's crashed in every outside loop he's tried. Won't rest until he gets it right."

  Doc got them and their gear squared away.

  Through the windows, Harris saw the mechanics shake their heads over the engines, but by midmorning the Frog Prince was airborne.

  When the others came back to the lounge or the bunks after seeing the takeoff show, Harris waved Joseph over. "Do you know how to use a welder?"

  "I do."

  "Would you help me put something together? I have a kind of a sick toy in mind. Something that will give one of Duncan's men fits."

  "With such a goal, I would be happy to help."

  Gaby sat with Doc in front of the replacement talk-box and learned everything she could about talk-boxes.

  There were four types. Singles could only receive sound. Doubles could send and receive sound. Triples could receive sound and pictures. Quadruples, like most of the ones scattered through Doc's headquarters, could send and receive sound and pictures. Most of the triples and quadruples in existence, and most of the broadcasts for them, were black-and-white, but color was available—just very expensive.

  Each talk-box could receive signals two ways, from the Ether or the Grid.

  The Grid was a network of cables stretching to many parts of the world. It was used mostly for two-way communications, like the telephone system she was used to. But most parts of the Grid could handle full sound and picture transmissions. Two people with quadruples set up on the Grid could talk to one another's TV images.

  The Ether seemed to be radio/TV broadcast transmissions. It was made up mostly of entertainment and news programming, but certain portions were set aside for communications between talk-boxes not set up on the Grid. These included the devices installed in the cockpit of the Frog Prince and the bridges of liftships—what the fairworlders called zeppelins and blimps—and ships at sea.

  There was still a third arrangement, enjoyed by the talk-box in the lounge of the Frog Prince. That talk-box was set up to send and receive through the Ether, but could also broadcast to and receive from special relay stations attached to the Grid. Doc said he paid a fortune for the service. "But at critical times, the ability to call into the Grid from the plane can save your life."

  "Pretty good, Doc." Gaby smiled and decided not to tell him that the grimworlders had such things in their cars.

  Homes that could afford it tended to have one quadruple for entertainment and one double to act as a telephone. But if the double broke down, the owner could plug the quadruple into the Grid and use it for ordinary communications. Gaby found the arrangement handy.

  "You," Doc said, "seem to have an affinity for the Grid. You say you've never seen any entertainment broadcasts as Gabrielle."

  "Can't remember any, no."

  "So the Grid may act as some enormous antenna for your Gift. Even across the gulf between worlds. I wonder if you could tap into the Grid of the grim world, too."

  "That would be something. But I don't think I ever have."

  "We'll try another time. For now, we'll try a couple of tests. I want you to see if you can find and talk to a central Grid operator in Neckerdam. And then—well, I had Brian Banwite deliver a handful of talk-boxes for this craft, because I want you to try to blow some of them up."

  "Oh, good."

  "It wouldn't bother me at all if some of the pieces broke off and stuck on impact," Harris said.

  Joseph nodded. "That simplifies matters. Instead of welding, we will solder."

  They started with a smallish bronze bowl. They assembled small pieces of iron or steel, each from one-half to one inch in length, and sharpened each one to a razory point or edge. Harris thought about sacrificing his lockback hunting knife from the grim world, letting Joseph cut it into shards, but decided that they had enough raw material from the bits of ferrous metal in the lab's scrap drawer.

  Joseph meticulously soldered all those blades to the convex surface of the bowl. The sharp edges pointed up; some were angled. When it was done, Harris decided that it looked like a cheese grater designed by a serial killer.

  Joseph looked at it. "This will hurt someone very badly."

  "That bothers you, doesn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "But you made it anyway."

  The giant was slow in answering. "All I want is for the world to leave me alone, and never again to hear bones cracking under my hands. But if the world must drag me back into its affairs, if it insists that I hurt anyone, I will hurt those who seem to find such joy in inflicting pain. Men like Duncan and those who serve him."

  With a hammer and ream,
Harris punched three holes at regular intervals around the bowl's rim and used a file to sand them smooth. He tied a long cord to each hole, then spent a while tying the whole arrangement on over his clothes.

  He'd have to practice while wearing the thing. Otherwise he might carve himself when doing kicks.

  Joseph looked at him. "You were right," he said. "That is the product of a disturbed mind."

  Harris beamed at him. "Just the effect I was looking for."

  Gaby scowled at Doc's face in the mirror of Gabrielle's room. "Are you ready?"

  "A moment." She saw him pull on a pair of aviator-style goggles. "Now I am. Are you angry?"

  "No, but I'll force it." She put all the heat and anger she could into her words: "I think you suck!"

  Doc winked out. Gaby looked at her own, or rather Gabrielle's, surprised expression.

  She relaxed and came to in her own body, seated beside the talk-box. The device's electronic guts, smashed and smoking, lay all over the lounge floor. "Cool."

  Doc pulled his goggles off. "Headache?"

  "A little one. Not as bad as last time. But then, I wasn't in as long." She rubbed her temples. "How was it?"

  "More violent than before. I think you're improving. What is it that I suck?"

  "Uhhh . . . "

  In the hours it took to make the toy, Harris took the occasional trip to the galley for food, to the water closet forward, and to the lounge to take a look out the windows.

  The terrain graduated to low, mist-covered mountains, dramatic and beautiful as the Appalachians of his own world; much later, the land grew flatter and covered with the lush springtime growth of the southeastern United States.

  He saw cities, but the land wasn't crowded with them, and the infrequent roads looked like roads rather than a tight webwork of scars. There was wilderness down there, not crowded out by farmlands, and Harris abruptly wished he were in the heart of it, sitting with his back to an aromatic evergreen and wondering what sort of fair folk lived among the trees.