Fool's Run (v1.1)

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  “It’s beautiful,” the Magician breathed. “Enormous, beautiful, intelligent and—”

  “What?” Jase said, though he knew the Magician wouldn’t hear.

  “Feeling. That’s part of its information patterns. It’s amazed at its life, it’s content in the steam, it’s lonely, it’s aware of itself, it’s awed by the sun and in need of it, like a child; it’s capable of loving and being deluded…” His voice broke suddenly, hoarse with strain and with his own emotions. “About the only thing it isn’t is hungry.” He gave a faint laugh, half in awe, half at himself. “It fed itself down in that fire… It’s fueled and ready to fly.”

  Jase’s blood ran cold with wonder. A ship? he thought numbly. A living ship? Star-charts in its brain, wings like solar sails… “God,” he whispered almost reverently. Beside him, Aaron was motionless again; he gazed out the starscreen at the red glow that was the Flying Wail, and all the burning worlds beyond.

  “The need is to fly,” Terra said. She saw nothing around her; her eyes were full of the great, delicately winged creature conceived under crystal sand, born of fire and water, who was gathering into its wings the light of an alien sun. A tear slid down her cheek.

  She’s waited long enough for this, Jase thought. Will it end here? Or will she fly with it, inside its brain, as it roams the universe? And who is inside whose brain? Is she telling the story to the Magician? If she is, it’ll go on and on, because there’s nothing here for her to come back for. She invented this thing and she’s making us feel it, and she’ll stay with it until she dies. It’s the only escape from the Dark Ring.

  “Sir,” Hero pleaded. “What’s going on?”

  “Just wait,” Jase said quietly. “Follow your orders.”

  The wings, spanning their full length, stiffened. The enormous single eye tested its capabilities: infrared, X-ray, ultraviolet, visible light. Intense heat made the sand run liquid, scarred the cracked face of the cliff. The water roiled with steam. The wings, at the last moment, curled again, tucked close. There was a blur of light.

  Silence…

  Far away in the dark between worlds, it opened its wings again, soared on the solar winds, delicate, immensely powerful, and, for the moment, absolutely free.

  Jase became aware, slowly, of internal noises: cross chatter from the Underworld and the pursuit fleet, a creak from Aaron’s chair, a soft warning tone that the Hub-craft’s fuel was nearly half expended. He reached toward the com, then paused, gazing at his hand, wondering for a second where it had come from and what it was for. What an amazing creation, he thought. It feeds you, it’s useful in making love, it fixes a leaky pipe, it plays music… The Magician. He blinked, awakened, and met Aaron’s eyes. His face was bone-white; his eyes, in some strange mingling of surroundings and emotion, were the same color as Terra’s.

  Terra.

  They both turned. She could see again; she was watching them, taking slow, weary breaths through her mouth. As they looked at her, her head tilted back, came to rest against the cabin wall, as if it were too heavy for her to carry any longer. She closed her eyes, stopped breathing a moment. When she opened them again, she looked completely unfamiliar.

  Jase swallowed dryly, motionless in his chair. One woman had entered the Hub-craft; a total stranger had taken over her body. Her eyes, he thought. That’s what changed. The thoughts in her head changed the expression in her eyes. She glanced around the Hub-craft, then at Aaron. Her eyes were filmy with exhaustion, but they were no longer focused with such terrible intensity on private, invisible events. She looked relieved of some great stress, aware of her surroundings, watchful but not frightened. She looked—Normal, Jase thought, feeling the skin tighten on his face. My God, she just went sane.

  “It’s over.” The voice was the same, fragile and tired. Then she looked at Aaron.

  She nearly dropped the rifle, picking it up; Jase saw her arms trembling. She stepped across the cabin, slowly as if she moved underwater, or against some dark rushing wind. Her head swayed; her face, in the cabin lights, was so pale it seemed blue-white. Aaron seemed spellbound under her gaze; he made no move to stop her, even when she came close enough to touch him. She let the rifle slide into his arms.

  “Forgive me.”

  She seemed to Jase to fall for a long time before he caught her. He reached for the com.

  Aaron, moving finally, hit the light first. “Michele,” he said. His voice grew ragged, insistent, sending the name like a heartbeat across the void. “Michele. Michele. Michele…”

  EIGHT

  The return to the Underworld was, Jase thought, the quietest journey through space he’d ever had in his life. The Magician had turned back without a word; the Flying Wail, surrounded by the pursuit fleet, followed the Hub-craft slowly and in a funereal silence. Aaron gave up trying to speak to Michele. He spoke to Maindock in monosyllables; he spoke to Jase only once.

  “What are you going to—”

  “Later,” Jase said succinctly, and Aaron let it go. They pulled aside near the Maindock to watch the Flying Wail enter the Underworld again. The challenges the Magician played sounded over the UF with a delicate, eerie beauty. Maindock opened, swallowed the Flying Wail. The pursuit fleet headed back to the moon, and Aaron dropped the Hub-craft neatly into the Hub-dock.

  There were guards, doctors, morgue attendants waiting for them. Jase got out stiffly, without a backward glance at the body lying on the cabin floor. Dr. Fiori caught his arm.

  “What happened? Did you shoot her?” He reddened at Jase’s expression. “I’m sorry. I should have said: Were you forced to shoot her?”

  “I wasn’t armed,” Jase said icily. “Neither was Mr. Fisher. She just died.”

  “Of what?”

  “You’re the doctor.” He took a step toward the ladder, then relented. “Take a look at her. When you’re finished, come to my office. Aaron—”

  “I’d like to speak to you,” Aaron said.

  “Not now. Go talk to Michele.”

  Aaron lingered, looking bleak. He swallowed. “I don’t know if—”

  “You just spent seven years looking for her! You could at least explain to her what happened to her sister.”

  Aaron stared at him, a little color coming at last into his face. He was wordless a moment; Jase waited. “You tell me,” Aaron said finally, explosively. “What did happen?”

  Jase was silent, hearing the unspoken challenge. Fifty-six, he thought wearily. For nine years, Chief of the Underworld. A somber but respectable career, by the book, without ambiguities. And now I get this.

  “Go,” he said softly, inarguably. Aaron went.

  Nils handed Jase a cold beer when he finally reached his office. He downed most of it before he spoke. He leaned back in the air-chair as far as it would go and sighed.

  “Pleasant trip?” Nils asked genially.

  Jase stared at the carpet. “It’s blue.”

  “Supplies was out of grey. So what killed Terra Viridian?”

  “She stopped breathing.” He was silent a moment, picking at the label on the beer bottle.

  Nils sat down on the edge of his desk.

  “That’s it? Visiting musicians help prisoner escape, Chief recovers prisoners and felons without a shot fired, prisoner drops dead, everyone else goes to jail. End?”

  Jase rubbed his eyes. “Sounds easy, doesn’t it?”

  “Simple.” He paused, watching Jase. “So what’s the problem?”

  Jase dropped his hand. Dr. Fiori stood in the doorway. “Chief Klyos?”

  “Come in.” He straightened.

  “Chief Klyos, I’m sorry I jumped at you with a question like that, I just—”

  “Never mind. Dr. Fiori, I’d like to run through the tapes you have in the Dream Machine of Terra’s—Terra’s vision.”

  The doctor made a soft, bitter noise. “She destroyed them.”

  “Who did? Terra?”

  “When she fought her way out. There’s nothing salvageable of the tapes or
the computer.”

  Jase muttered something. “Pardon me?”

  “I said it figures.”

  Dr. Fiori took a step closer, studying him. “Why? Did she do—did she say something, or do something while she was with you, that you thought significant? Important?”

  “You might say.” He leaned back in the chair again, wearily. “I think she—became sane, just before she died. She came to the end of her vision, and became—normal.” He added to Nils, who was looking vaguely pained at the nebulous language, “It’s on the Hub-craft log-tape.”

  “What did she do?” Dr. Fiori breathed.

  “She handed Mr. Fisher her rifle and asked him to forgive her. She’d killed his wife in Desert Sector, seven years ago. That was the last thing she said. She simply stopped living.”

  Nils whistled. “We brought Fisher up here to go through that?”

  “Nils, don’t even start thinking about it.”

  “But why?” Dr. Fiori demanded. “Why did she do it? She acknowledged her crime, she accepted guilt, responsibility for another person’s grief—the woman I studied here could never have done that. Why did she change? Chief Klyos, what happened out there? Something happened.”

  Jase eyed him. “What would you say might have happened to cause her to do that?”

  “She realized her sister Michele was imperiled by her escape, she saw through her own imagery of guilt, accepted responsibility for her actions. She stopped running, turned to face what she had done, and—I don’t know—maybe decided she didn’t want to live with it.”

  Jase grunted. “That sounds plausible.”

  “Is that what happened?”

  “Close.” Nils glanced at him sharply, then rose and wandered to his own desk, his back to Jase. Dr. Fiori gazed at Jase puzzledly, chewing his lower lip.

  “She came to the end of her vision,” he repeated. “You said that, Chief Klyos. You used her language.”

  “So I did,” Jase said, surprised.

  “What did happen?”

  “Dr. Fiori, when I figure it out, you’ll know. I promise you that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few decisions to make.”

  Dr. Fiori turned to go. He paused at the door. “Chief Klyos, if that’s all it was—if it was all this simple—then what possessed the musician?”

  “That’s a good question,” Jase said, and didn’t answer. He asked Nils’ back, when Dr. Fiori had gone, “Is Sidney Halleck still on his way?”

  “No. I had the Earth-cruiser head back home again when you said the Magician was returning. It didn’t seem necessary to bring him too.” He turned to face Jase finally, asked curiously, “What did happen to Terra? What happened to you?”

  The Magician, under heavy guard, was taping three fragments of Bach for Maindock on the Flying Wail’s keyboard when Aaron wandered aboard. Guards stood outside the open hatch; their eyes followed Aaron up the ramp, but they didn’t stop him. Two more guards, carrying rifles, were inside.

  “I’ll watch him,” Aaron said. They eyed one another; he added, “I brought him back, didn’t I? In one piece so you can get your cruisers out? Give me ten minutes.”

  “Five minutes, Mr. Fisher,” one of them said finally. “But let him finish the tape first.”

  Aaron leaned against a wall, not feeling much like sitting. He closed his eyes; for a moment he rearranged past and future. He was back on the dock in Suncoast Sector; the Magician, morning sunlight on his back, was playing music; for a moment there was still a future. He opened his eyes, hearing the com crackle.

  “I think we’ve got it. Stay there until we’re sure. Replaying it.”

  The Magician sat still, listening. The challenges were repeated, note-perfect, from the Maindock tape. He nodded.

  “That’s it.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Restak. We hope you enjoy the rest of your long stay in this idyllic spot full of recycled air, artificial light and coffin-sized accommodations. Say good-bye to your keyboard.”

  The Magician gazed down at it. His shoulders jerked slightly as at a cold touch. Aaron realized suddenly that the Magician had not even heard him come in.

  His throat closed, aching, but he forced himself to speak. “Magic-Man.”

  The Magician stood up. One hand hovered over the keys, pressed them gently, making no sound. Then he replaced the panel over it neatly, cast a glance around the cruiser, and finally looked at Aaron.

  “Fly it home for me, will you?”

  Aaron, slumping against the wall, was mute again. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  The Magician regarded him, or the situation, dispassionately. “Don’t sell it yet.” His eyes were wide, as if he were still seeing visions; his face was very pale.

  “There’s no way Klyos can put you away. I’m a witness. There’s the Hub-craft log—even the pursuit fleet heard the end—” The Magician shook his head slightly and Aaron stopped.

  “I can’t think yet,” he pleaded. “When she—when Terra died—”

  “You felt it?” Aaron breathed.

  “I’ve never died before.”

  “Most people—most people don’t. Die before they—” He gave up with a gesture. “Klyos—”

  “There is no way that Klyos can stand up in court and talk about an alien on another planet and still remain Chief of the Underworld.”

  “I’ll make him. I’ll badger him. We’re talking about truth, justice, law—”

  “We’re talking about an alien,” the Magician said patiently, “and no matter how we say it, we’ll still sound exactly like Terra. This was in the vision. This was not in the vision. The vision is ended.”

  “Is this something you’re guessing at?” Aaron asked recklessly. “Or is it something you see will happen?”

  The Magician looked at him silently. “I’m making an educated guess,” he said wearily. “I’m too tired for more visions. The rest of the band is probably safe. That’s all I care about at the moment. It’s me they want.” He glanced toward the hatch at the sound of footsteps. Aaron did not move, refusing, for a moment longer, to yield all the Magician’s past to the Underworld.

  “No.”

  Something broke through the unfamiliar darkness in the Magician’s eyes. He touched Aaron lightly, looking almost human again. “Have you talked to Michele?”

  “No.” He frowned down at the floor, sensing the Magician’s surprise. “I’m scared to,” he admitted baldly. The guards stepped back into the cruiser. They motioned silently, peremptorily. “Where are you taking him?” Aaron asked, watching the Magician descend the ramp. He blinked a little, midway, as if he had walked suddenly into light.

  “LR Security, level B.”

  “Is that where the rest of the band is?”

  “They’re back in VIP quarters,” the guard said over his shoulder. “Under guard.”

  Aaron lingered at the hatch until the Magician, flanked by six guards, crossed the dock and disappeared. He did not look back. A strange emptiness yawned behind Aaron: the Flying Wail, stripped of all its magic and music, just another old, rather tired cruiser. He moved, impelled by overwhelming need.

  He felt the light, cold sweat on his face as he stood outside the VIP quarters. The guards, recognizing him by his Sector uniform, unlocked the door. He caught Quasar midpace, swallowing smoke, the Scholar slumped glumly in a chair, the Nebraskan breaking off a gentle, melancholy wailing from a small rectangular instrument at his mouth. Michele, curled in a corner of the couch, raised her head, sliding the long hair back from her eyes.

  All the words vanished from Aaron’s head. He met her eyes, helpless, inarticulate, incapable of moving. He could not see the expression on her face; it had blurred a little under his gaze.

  “I looked—I looked for you for seven years,” he heard himself say finally. “I don’t know why walking the last six feet to you is so terrifying. I guess there’s something I need to say. The last thing Terra—Terra said to me.” He heard her voice faintly, in the distance, a quest
ion.

  “Forgive me.”

  Then he could walk blindly toward her, hoping that she would be there to meet him where his past ended and his future began.

  Jase sat in his office, scowling at words on his console screen.

  Conspiracy…

  Assault…

  Destruction…

  Failure…

  Death…

  All applicable. None false. Yet somehow, none precise.

  Nils, handling reports, trying to maneuver available cruisers where they were needed while Maindock was still inaccessible, worked quietly at his own desk. He seemed oblivious to Jase, and yet when Jase cleared his screen to start again for the fourth time in an hour, Nils commented, “It usually doesn’t take you this long to make a report. You usually do it once, speaking.”

  “I’m tired,” Jase snapped. Nils’ head came up, his expression carefully neutral.

  “Just say it,” he suggested. “Just say what happened. You’ve got evidence enough to lock the Magician away for most of his life.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s true.”

  “I know.”

  “Aaron Fisher—”

  “Aaron,” Jase repeated softly. Nils took a breath or two, quelling confusion, or, Jase thought, anger at something that wasn’t performing flawlessly, that had betrayed a bewildering weakness. He knows, Jase thought. He hates knowing, but he knows. That the language I need for this report is nowhere in the books.

  “Aaron Fisher was at your side the whole time. He’ll make his report; he’ll back you. Everything is clear, right down the line.”

  Jase leaned back, feeling his own temper rise. “God damn it, Nils, the one thing that’s clear in this whole business is that if I tell the truth I’ll lose my job.”

  Nils stared at him. His face flushed deep red. “No,” he said. “You can’t tell me that. You can’t even suggest that. That this—this vision business—that Terra was—wasn’t—”

  “I may not say it,” Jase said, holding his eyes, “but my guess is Aaron will.”