How Dark the World Becomes

by Frank Chadwick

  I didn’t remember the end of the gunfight on the ship. I mean, I remembered the very end where I killed Kolya, but how had he shot me to start with? And Barraki. I didn’t remember him getting shot, just him lying there dead.

  Barraki!

  “This neuro stuff—did you put Barraki back together with it, too?”

  The doc and Marr exchanged a look, and then he shook his head.

  “No, the trauma was too massive for a drug to repair. There wouldn’t have been enough intact structure to work with. Besides, neurocine is a Human-specific drug. We haven’t developed anything that effective for Varoki nerve tissue.”

  Poor little Barraki. Well, I’d never remember the shot that killed him, and that was fine with me. I started crying, though. Poor little weasel boy.

  * * *

  I could tell Marr was pretty worn out. It didn’t look as if she’d slept much since the fight on the shuttle, but she must have, since it turns out that had been ten weeks ago. Long time to lie here with tubes and shit stuck in me. Well, four or five of those weeks I’d been frozen, but still.

  Marr had gotten Tweezaa to her family—what there was of it—on Akaampta. She was safe now, and word was the provosts were getting ready to make some arrests, maybe already had—news travels slow between worlds, especially with a war going on.

  Marr had gotten me to Earth. I guess Tweezaa’s family helped with the long priority jump from Akaampta to Earth, high-burn express shuttles at both ends, and the hospital, too. Serious buckage, Bernie the Rat would say. I wasn’t crazy about where all that money came from, but thinking it was kind of Tweezaa’s made it seem less . . . dirty. Maybe that was just my damaged brain not working right. I don’t know.

  One thing was sure: there had been no need to kill Barraki or Tweezaa, except maybe to make a point. Sarro e-Traak’s dream had died with him. No one guy owns a whole family’s fortune. He’d been the principal heir, but he was still in a minority position. He’d spent that last year of his life persuading seven other family members to sign over their proxies to him—personally. That gave him the votes necessary to push through his reorganization—to make his revolution. Once he was dead, the proxies meant nothing, and it didn’t look as if those particular stars would line up that way ever again.

  Three of the seven proxy signers were already dead: one suicide, one professional silencing, and one murder by the signer’s own son when he found out what his mother had done. There was a mental competency hearing pending against another, and all of them were being vilified in the press—the Varoki press, anyway. If they’d had any dreams of being remembered as benefactors, those dreams had been shattered. Instead, they were the monsters—either evil or mad—who had decided to sell out their race to the Humans. Nobody was going to go down that road again.

  And there had been anti-Human riots on Peezgtaan because, after all, it was our fault. Now there were anti-Varoki riots here on Earth, since the ugly business about the K’Tok and Peezgtaan eco-forms had come out. People were waiting for things to calm back down again—I wasn’t so sure they were going to.

  While I was recovering, I got a formal letter of thanks from the United States Navy for helping to save the ground personnel on K’Tok. It was a handsome thing, signed by the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations. My first instinct was to wonder whose head Gasiri had held a pistol against to get this pushed through, but then it occurred to me that keeping the Cottohazz happy just might not have been as high a priority these days as it had been before.

  Too bad. Not about the letter, about the riots—about everything. Sarro e-Traak had figured out a way to get us from yesterday to tomorrow, and it was a pretty good way—for everyone. Call it a “soft landing.” But they killed the goose to keep all the golden eggs, and as I lay there in my bed day after day, my brain slowly healing, the pieces coming back together, I knew they had made a terrible mistake.

  Tomorrow was still coming, but now it wouldn’t come like a lamb.

  * * *

  After a week, I was up out of the bed and doing physical therapy. Marr was looking healthier, too. My right arm was in really bad shape, with a synthetic bone replacing the original, and the muscles didn’t feel like they were grabbing hold of it right, but the docs said I just had to keep working on it. It hurt like hell, but sometimes pain can be good—like atonement. The truth is, I wasn’t doing all that well with Barraki’s death. Then I got a couple of visitors.

  My first visitor was that cutthroat Arrie. I hardly recognized him without the rose-tinted glasses, or tee-shirt, or Nehru jacket, or some other ridiculous outfit. In black and red, with the three jingling gold chest gorgets of a Co-Gozhak provost major, he looked like a completely different guy, which I guess he was.

  He still had that same sly little shit-eating lizard grin, though.

  “Sasha, my friend,” he said without preamble, “you have no idea how much trouble you have caused. In fact, I am not certain even I know where this will all end, and I know a great deal.”

  “I’ll bet,” I said. “How’d you get here?”

  “When a senior official of the Provost Corps expresses a desire to travel somewhere quickly, the major passenger lines are very cooperative. It is most gratifying.”

  “Yeah. So, you here to read me my rights?”

  He just laughed that creepy, honking lizard laugh.

  “Rights?” he repeated. “Oh, Sasha! What quaint ideas you have.”

  My brain was starting to work a little better these days, and a couple more pieces fell into place.

  “It was always about Kolya, wasn’t it? Until this thing with the kids came along, I mean. But that’s how you found out that Kolya had mined my comms. You’d already mined his, hadn’t you?”

  He smiled and nodded.

  “Correct.”

  But then I remembered some other pieces, and I started getting angry.

  “What the hell were you thinking, Arrie? You had them! Barraki and Tweezaa were in your hands, safe and sound, and you put them out there as targets for . . . for what, Arrie? What was so goddamned important you’d put those kids in front of a dozen guns, and nobody to keep them alive but me?”

  He wasn’t smiling anymore, but he wasn’t looking tough, like I figured a cop was supposed to, either.

  “I am sorry, Sasha, but I had no choice. The bodyguard—Mr. Jones—came to me thinking I was a criminal. His employer had certain . . . tastes, which could not be satisfied through legal channels, and so I had developed a business relationship with him, through Mr. Jones.”

  “Laugh?” I asked, but he shook his head.

  “Nineteenth Era French impressionists—the famous ones, the ones which are not normally for sale. So Mr. Jones came to me precisely because he thought I was not the authorities, and although he was wrong in that belief, his logic was quite sound. With the two killers carrying provost credentials, I could not trust anyone in my own agency. It would take time to find out if the agency really had been compromised, and if so, how high up the poison went. But I did not have time, so I sent them to the only person I could count on—you.”

  “Yeah? Well, if the only guy you could count on was some two-bit crook like me, then that’s a pretty sad commentary on the people you work with, isn’t it? So, was there a problem in your shop?”

  His eyes got a distant look, and a little of his smile came back.

  “If I told you that, then I would have to kill you. And you know how much that would distress me, Sasha.”

  “Yeah, blow it out your ass, Arrie. And the so-called brotherhood you said you reported to—was that a cover, or was it your own personal Double-Secret Order of the Purple Honking Ivory Back Scratchers?”

  He frowned a bit then, maybe in surprise, and tilted his head to the side.

  “Again, to tell you would necessitate dire and unfortunate acts.”

  “Uh-huh. So, are you going to cuff me and make me do the perp walk?”

  He actually giggled with delight,
ears fanned out wide to the sides.

  “I love the way you talk, Sasha! I really do. I am tempted to do exactly that, just so that years from now I can tell people that I once made Sasha Naradnyo ‘do the perp walk.’ But instead, I would settle for you signing this paper.”

  He took a paper out of his tunic’s side pocket, along with a narrow blue piece of official-looking plastic. He handed me the paper and a stylus.

  “Is your arm up to signing?” he asked.

  “Maybe. What’s this I’m supposed to sign?”

  “It is a receipt for this bank draft,” he answered, and waved the blue plastic.

  “A bribe, Arrie? To shut me up? Here’s an idea. Why don’t you just go fuck yourself instead?”

  He laughed and shook his head.

  “I love the way you talk! No, it is not a bribe. I cannot imagine shutting you up with any amount of money, Sasha, and certainly not this pathetic sum.” He looked at the draft and shook his head in disgust. “It really is appalling how little we pay our undercover operatives, considering the risks they take.”

  “What’s the deal, Arrie? I’m no spook; I’m a crook. A drug dealer at that.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Sasha, but you are not really a drug dealer, at least not so far as I know. None of the merchandise you sold me ever reached the streets.”

  “Well, at least that’s good news. I never liked that stuff.”

  “I know, Sasha,” he said, and he was serious for a moment. “Believe me, if you had, this conversation would be entirely different. Even as it is . . . well, you did a great service saving Tweezaa, and I do not forget that sort of thing.”

  “I didn’t do it for you, Arrie, and I sure didn’t do it for a paycheck, so let’s just forget about it, okay?”

  “No. If I do not pay you, then you were not really working for me when we conducted our . . . business. Sooner or later, some bureaucrat will notice that, and then you will receive a very different sort of visit, from someone much less congenial than I. So please sign the paper, deposit the bank draft, and send it to your clinic if you like. Take some enjoyment in the irony of the Co-Gozhak Provost Corps financing your charity work.”

  Well, that made sense, so I signed.

  “But just so we understand each other,” I said as I handed the receipt back to him, “I didn’t do it because they were rich, or important to you guys; I did it because they were just two kids in trouble.”

  “Just so we understand each other,” Arrie answered, looking me in the eye, “that is exactly how I felt, also.”

  Okay. Fair enough.

  “That trick with the travel covers—you do that, too?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course. I learned your covers from my data mine on Mr. Markov’s communications. Since Markov and his friends already knew the truth, I sent a burst transmission to K’Pook with an updated set of travel covers—yours. It gave your enemies no additional information, and I hoped it would ease your path.”

  It damned near got us killed, but that wasn’t his fault. Now there was something I needed from him.

  “Henry Washington . . . he’s taken over my operation back in the Crack.”

  “Yes, I am aware.”

  “He didn’t like dealing Laugh, either. And now that Kolya’s gone . . .”

  He nodded.

  “I understand. I will see what I can do.”

  “Thanks, pal,” I said. “For that, I’ll owe you.”

  He smiled.

  “You know, Arrie,” I said, “I like you—a lot. But I got this feeling that the times they are a-changing, and that uniform of yours . . . well, just don’t get too comfortable with us being on the same side. You know what I’m saying?”

  He looked down at the insignia on the cuff of his tunic and nodded, the smile gone.

  “I know,” he said softly, but then he looked up and smiled again, ears erect. “I suspect the day really will come when it would have been wonderful to have been able to tell people that I once made Sasha Naradnyo ‘do the perp walk.’”

  * * *

  “Someone else would like to see you,” Marr said, smiling from the doorway. She stepped aside, and Tweezaa peeked in, looking around at all the monitors, ears turning and twitching like little radar antennae. Actually, there wasn’t that much stuff around anymore. A week earlier and she’d probably have been pretty frightened by all the mad scientist crap they had me hooked up to.

  She came in, walked over to where I was sitting in my chair, and held out her hand. I took it, and she looked at my hand for a moment. She said something in aGavoosh, and Marr translated.

  “She says, ‘I always remembered you are real.’”

  “Oh, Tweezaa . . . I’m so sorry about Barraki.”

  I started crying again, but she crawled up on my lap and put her arms around my neck, just like she did the last time she saw me, back on the shuttle. We held each other for a long time, then she patted my head, as if to make me well, and she slid down.

  She turned and looked at me, and said in what was probably carefully practiced English, “Sasha get well, so take care of me. Please.”

  “You bet, Sweetheart,” I said, and nodded, not really able to say anything else.

  * * *

  Later I asked Marr what she’d meant, about me taking care of her.

  “You’re going to be the head of her personal security detachment—provided you accept the job.”

  “That’s a lousy joke,” I said, “considering what a bang-up job I did protecting her brother.”

  “You died for them,” she said. Well, not much I could say to that.

  “Whose idea was this?” I asked.

  “Her court-appointed guardian thought it would be an excellent choice, because of your proven loyalty, the bond that’s developed between you and Tweezaa, and your credentials.”

  “What credentials? Numbers and loan-sharking?”

  “You have no actual criminal record, Sasha, since your one arrest was expunged after your military service. In fact, your official recommendations are quite impressive. There’s the letter of thanks from the United States Navy, and don’t forget what Major Arrakatlak said—you were an elite covert operative of the Co-Gozhak, not to mention a decorated combat veteran of the Nishtaaka campaign.”

  “What decoration?”

  “I believe a Meritorious Service Citation.”

  “Yeah, a perfect-attendance award!”

  “You don’t really understand resumés, do you?” she asked.

  All this was happening pretty fast, and I was worn down from the physical-therapy session, so all of a sudden I felt dizzy. I sat back down in the chair by my bed and leaned back, and I felt the sweat break out on my face and upper body. Marr sat down next to me.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m going. But things are going to start happening, Marr—and when they do, I don’t know that Tweezaa’s security detachment is where I belong.”

  “I think it is,” she said softly, her hand on my shoulder. “See, there’s this guy I’ve fallen in love with, and you know why? Because he’s going to change the world, but not over the bodies of children. You know, in a few years, Tweezaa’s going to have to decide what she’s going to do with her share of this fortune.”

  “You think I should try to brainwash her?”

  “No, her brain’s just fine. But she lost her father and her brother. She needs a male in her life—even if he is Human—that she can look to for an example. Someone who’s not . . . just . . . worthless. Like the rest of the useless parasites in her family. Believe me, I’ve seen them. Just be there for her, Sasha. She’ll figure out the rest.”

  I thought about that for a while, and it made some sense, except for one problem.

  “What about you and me . . . where does that leave us?” I asked.

  She smiled.

  “The Varoki have some really odd customs and laws. I knew some of them, but
the proceedings of the uBakai Guardian Court on Akaampta make for interesting reading. The three judges were really unimpressed with the rest of the e-Traak family, especially the fact that everyone seemed more interested in being named Tweezaa’s fiduciary guardian than really taking care of her.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said, “rich assholes are rich assholes, wherever you find ’em, and they always seem to get all the justice they can afford. What’s so unusual about that?”

  “Nothing. But the uBakai seem to take the idea of an independent judiciary a lot more seriously than we do—at least in their guardian court system. I think they were really impressed with what Tweezaa had to say as well. That’s not something many Human courts would have given as much weight to. And afterwards, they did something I can’t imagine that any Earth court would have done, especially with a family that influential.”

  “What?” I asked. What was the big deal? She looked at me for a moment and smiled that soft, lopsided smile of hers.

  “Sasha, I’m her court-appointed guardian. I’m offering you the job. So, what do you say, sailor?”

  I took a deep breath.

  “You know how I’ve lost a bunch of memories?” I asked her. She was surprised by the question, but she nodded.

  “I’ve been trying to figure out which ones I’ve lost. Mostly they don’t matter, but there’s one . . . there’s one that’s breaking my heart, Marr. You remember that night on the transport, when we had dinner in the ship’s mess, just the two of us?”

  She nodded.

  “That night was the first time we made love, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded again.

  “I wish . . . I really wish I could remember that first night.”

  “Oh, Baby,” she said softly.

  Then we kissed, and I guess I’ll remember that.

  * * *

  Later, as I drifted off to sleep, Marr sat in the chair by my bed.

  “This thing between you and me,” I said sleepily, “you know it’s a hundred-to-one shot.”

  “I know,” she said, and she patted my shoulder and smiled.

  “You’re the perfect cigar, gonna ruin me for everything else in life.”