Catspaw

by Joan D. Vinge

  I stuck the camph into my mouth and bit down on the end of it, feeling it deaden my tongue with ice and spice as I sucked on it; letting it calm my nerves. I sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed, because it was the only place left in the room where you could sit. It felt so good I could have gone to sleep right there, sitting up, if my body hadn’t felt so bad. My hand throbbed and burned; so did my side, now. I pulled back the leather jacket, pulled up the blood-splattered shirt under it. Beneath the fresh burn holes in both of them was the burn on my side where the hole had just missed going through me too. “Shit.…” I said, not sure if it was because of what had happened, or what hadn’t.

  “Jeezu,” Argentyne murmured. “What did you do to get your stuff, commit armed robbery?” She sat down beside me with a firstaid box.

  I laughed once, shook my head. “Daric’s dealerman tried to kill me. I think I got in the way of something more than a gun. You know anything you didn’t tell me?”

  She half frowned, shaking her own head. “No. But with Daric, you never know everything.…” She looked tired suddenly. “I’m sorry. Take your coat off. I’ll plaster that one too.” She popped the kit open.

  “It’s clean, it’ll heal over by itself.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” She helped me get out of the jacket without moving too much.

  “Sorry I ruined the clothes. I’ll pay you for them.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said again. She pulled my shirt up. Her hand froze suddenly; she was staring at old scars. She let the shirt drop, covering them up again. She looked at me. “Do you like pain?”

  I grimaced, startled. “I try like hell to keep away from it.” I shrugged. “Sometimes you just can’t.…”

  She looked down again, as if she was embarrassed. She took the can of sudoskin out of the box and sprayed it on my side. Then she was unwrapping the cloth around my hand, biting hard on her own camph to steady her nerves. She looked at the wound, looked away again, her face twisting. My hand was still bleeding. I looked away too.

  “I can’t deal with that,” she said, shaking her head. “Let me get Aspen—he’d better do it for you. He used to be a med student, until he found out he didn’t like sick people.” She stood up.

  “I can go to the meds.”

  She looked back at me. “And what are you going to tell them when they ask how you got that way—?”

  I half smiled. “I could tell them the same thing I told Braedee, when he asked me how I got that way last night.”

  She made a rude noise, and went out of the room. I fumbled for the leather jacket to get out the sheet of drugs. It slid off onto the floor. I kneeled down to pick it up; glanced into the low, flat cave underneath the bedframe.

  Sometimes having better sight than anyone else isn’t something you’re glad of. Someone else probably would never have noticed what I saw lying there in the darkness. But I saw it, and knew what it was. And then I saw something else, and something else: things that had never been intended to do anything but inflict pain.

  I pushed to my feet, holding the jacket; turned toward the door, feeling like I just wanted to get the hell out of there. But Argentyne was already back, with one of the players who had a shining touch-board for a chest trailing behind her.

  She looked at me strangely, because she thought I was looking at her strangely. I sat down again, and held out my hand. Aspen took it, turned it, flexed the fingers, very carefully. “Tried to shake hands with a mugger, huh? Can you use it at all?”

  “Not right now,” I said irritably, thinking that much ought to be obvious.

  “Hm.” He frowned, suddenly turning professional; not easy when he looked like a floor lamp. “Let me get my own kit; I’ve got to suture this.” He drifted out of the room again, humming faintly, accompanied by synth sounds. One half of his brain was reviewing a medical procedure, while the other half was composing music.

  “Why did you look at me like that?” Argentyne asked, as soon as he was out of earshot.

  I hesitated. “I saw what’s under the bed.” Her face didn’t redden through the silver of her skin, but I could feel the surge of heat behind it.

  “Daric,” I said. “Daric—?” Not even sure what the emotion was that closed around my stomach like a fist. “You let that bastard do that to you?”

  “No!” She swore. “No,” looking down suddenly, “I do it to him.”

  “Why—?” I said, but before it was even out of my mouth, I saw the answer. “Because you love him.” The words were so hard to say they were barely audible.

  She raised her head.

  “You said it to Jiro last night, didn’t you? ‘It’s better if you get it from someone who cares about you.’ .…” If I tried hard enough, I could almost make myself believe that.

  She turned away to the dresser, pulled another camph out of the pack. She glanced up, staring at my reflection in the mirror, so that she didn’t have to face me. And then she looked down again. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I mean … he hates himself so much, and I don’t know why. Sometimes he scares me. I do it because if I didn’t, God knows where he’d go to get it, or what would happen to him then.…” She slammed her hands down on the dressertop, making trays of body paint and makeup jump, hurting herself.

  “Everything okay?” Aspen asked, coming back through the doorway carrying a portable surgery.

  “Your timing is just perfect,” Argentyne said wearily, turning to look at us again.

  “Hey, thanks.” He sat down on the bed, thumbing the case open. “I’ve really been working on it.” He patted his glowing chest; notes floated up like bubbles.

  Argentyne cleaned up colors, or pretended to, while he went to work on my hand, his attention suddenly sharp and focused again. He pressed a patch of painkiller down on my wrist; my whole hand dropped off the nerve map in my mind. I sighed with relief. He put on a strange-looking set of lenses and stared at the wound; seeing into it, looking for structural damage. “Hm,” he said again, and took them off. “You were lucky. Nothing vital severed. I’ll seal it up.” He picked something else out of the case. It looked soft and moist, a little like a big slug. He wrapped it around my hand, covering the cut. Something happened that I could feel even through the anesthetic, like a kind of heavy suction. “Hold still,” he said, catching hold of my arm. “Okay—” as the slug suddenly changed color. He peeled it off and dropped it back into the case. I looked at the ugly red mouth of the wound. It was closed. “That’s the best I can do.” He sprayed it with sudoskin. “I don’t have a lamp; if you want it to heal fast, you’ll have to get a regeneration treatment someplace else.”

  I nodded. “Thanks.” I moved my fingers experimentally. They all worked, at least, even though I couldn’t feel them.

  “No problem.” He got up and drifted out of the room, waved at us over his shoulder as an afterthought.

  “Thanks,” I said, to Argentyne this time.

  She shrugged. “Your things are in the closet over there. I’ve got to get ready for the evening.” She started toward the door, avoiding my eyes.

  I almost called her name; didn’t. I found my clothes and changed into them as fast as I could. Then I went downstairs, glad enough to go on my way without any more conversation.

  “Argentyne! Argentyne!” A voice that could have raised echoes in deep space was bellowing her name. I stopped, looking down the hallway in the direction of the noise. A turn blocked my view, but I could feel half a dozen minds clustered around the corner.

  “Hey, Cusp.…”

  “Come on—”

  “Argentyne!” Banging noises.

  I went down the hall, stopped, looking around the corner. One of the club’s bouncers was beating on the door of Argentyne’s dressing room with a pincer-arm, shouting her name over and over, while players from the symb buzzed around him like flies, with about as much effect.

  “Argentyne—!”

  Someone made the mistake of grabbing his arm; he shrugged, and three bodies went flying h
alfway down the hall.

  Suddenly the door opened. He backed off a little as Argentyne stepped out into the hall, wrapped in her faded bathrobe. “Cusp!” she said, doing a damn good job of hiding how small and intimidated she suddenly felt. “What is this shit?” She waved a hand at the pile of bodies slowly untangling. He gargled something unintelligible. Her biggest fan. Literally. “Thanks, but no thanks.… Come on,” she said, almost gently, “get back out front and do your job. I have to get ready, you know?” She managed to smile as she tried to get him turned around and out of there.

  But the armored claw closed over her wrist, jerking her forward, and began to drag her away down the hall.

  “Hey!” she squawked. I felt the flash of her pain and surprise, the stupefied fear of the helpless players backing away. I froze, trying to think of something to do.

  And then suddenly somebody was standing in the doorway of her dressing room, looking out. Daric. “Argentyne—?” he called, staring, uncertain.

  She looked back at him in wordless panic, stumbling as Cusp pulled her forward again.

  “Let her go,” Daric said, starting after them down the hall. If Cusp heard, he didn’t pay any attention.

  Daric began to run, catching up with them. I watched, feeling like I must be dreaming. Daric caught Argentyne’s arm; her hand came free at his touch, as if Cusp’s grip on her was no stronger than a child’s. Cusp stopped, turning back in slow motion, the way a mountain would turn; raising his armored claws—

  Then he crashed over backwards, with a thud that made my teeth hurt.

  The players stood gaping. Argentyne turned slowly inside Daric’s arms, her eyes wide and glassy as she faced him. “Okay?” he murmured, stroking her hair, pulling her to him in a sudden, protective embrace. Cusp was making a high keening whine, lying like a gassed beetle on the floor. Argentyne looked at him lying there, and shook her head, her mouth quivering, close to tears or hysterical laughter.

  “Hey, Daric,” Aspen said, “how’d you do that, man?”

  Daric glanced at him, twitching. “I didn’t do anything,” he snapped. “He’s just drunk.” Lying. “Get him the hell out of here. Call Security.”

  I stayed back out of sight as he turned and walked Argentyne to her dressing room again. The players gathered around Cusp like pallbearers to drag his helpless body away.

  I pressed against the wall, staring at nothing, wondering how I could have been so blind. Because now it was so obvious … Daric was the one. The teek I’d been sensing. A psion, just like his sister.

  I don’t remember leaving the club. I don’t really remember how I got to the Assembly plex; to Elnear waiting, weary and relieved, for me to come back. She didn’t mention what I’d said before I left; she hoped I wouldn’t mention it again, either. Ever. Instead, looking at my bruised face, she asked what had happened, if anything was wrong. I don’t remember what I told her, hut she didn’t ask again.

  We took a mod back to the taMing estates. She fell asleep before we were out of sight of the city, leaving me the privacy to go on thinking about Daric. Daric, Daric … all I could think about, ever since I’d realized the truth. I wondered how it had happened. How could there have been two of them—two psions, brother and sister, born in the same generation into a family where there had never been one before, ever? How could Daric have hidden his psi all those years, from everyone.…

  But I thought more about why, because that was so much easier to understand. He’d hidden it because he knew what happened to freaks. He’d seen how his family treated Jule, and what they’d done to his mother just because Jule was born a psion. His life must have been a living hell, when one slip would mean discovery—would mean that he’d lose everything: his position, his power, his wealth, maybe even his life … the love and protection of his family; the approval and the security everybody secretly craved. All of it torn away in a second if anyone even suspected. He’d still be the same person they’d always known—but in the eyes of everyone who mattered to him he would have turned from a golden child into an outcast, a subhuman … a freak.

  No wonder he baited them with little teek torments nobody would ever be able to catch him at. No wonder he flaunted Argentyne—hinting, daring somebody to look deeper, even while he worked at being more like everybody else than they were themselves.…

  My guts twisted just thinking about the kind of pressures at work inside him, distorting everything he thought and did. I’d been a psion all my life, but I’d been lucky. I hadn’t known it. Maybe I’d never wanted to know, because my life in Oldcity had been so close to the edge all the time. Having to face that too could have been the thing that finally broke me. It was easier, safer, just to find a hiding place in some dark hole in the streets, inside some drugged fantasy world, inside my mind. Coming out hadn’t been easy. I never would have done it alone. I knew how a secret like that could eat somebody’s insides out: The fear, the loneliness, the hatred that had nowhere to turn but inward. No wonder he needed what only Argentyne would give him.…

  It was easy to feel sorry for him. But it was easier to remember what his secret had done to everyone who crossed his path. Jule, and Jiro, and Elnear; even Argentyne … Easier to remember how he’d treated me: like a freak. And then the pity knotting my gut would turn back into disgust again.

  I had to wake up Elnear when we reached the estate. She looked confused, and then concerned, looking back at me. I tried to wipe the grim tension off my face until she looked away again.

  “I’m going directly to my room,” she said, her voice quavering more than usual as she tried to control it. “I’m going to sleep until I want to wake up. You should do the same.”

  I nodded, and followed her inside.

  Lazuli was waiting for us on the porch, even though there was a sharp bite to the evening air that I hadn’t felt before. Her eyes found mine and her thoughts collided with me, and suddenly I couldn’t feel the chill any more. She murmured something to Elnear as she passed, touched her shoulder briefly.

  She let me pass too, but her mind reached out for me, opening its arms in the darkness, searching helplessly. I hesitated at the foot of the stairs, looking back; looked at her, and followed her down the hall instead.

  She led me into Elnear’s study and closed the doors. I hadn’t really seen it when I’d been here before. It was high-ceilinged, like all the rooms, and its walls were lined with dark wooden shelves, the shelves lined with antique books sealed behind glass. I wondered whether anyone had looked at them in centuries. There was a fire burning inside a stone fireplace. The rich, heavy smell of the smoke made my mouth water. I thought I could feel its heat even where I stood; but maybe it was something else. “Why do you have a fire?” I asked, trying to think of something besides her. It didn’t work. “You don’t need one.” This house might be old, but it was state-of-the-art on comfort.

  In front of the fireplace was the long mahogany-wood table that was the one thing I remembered seeing in the room before. Its surface was inlaid with gold in patterns of stars, a map of the night sky. Lazuli leaned against it, turning to look back at me. “No, of course not,” she said softly. “But a fire warms the soul, somehow.” She held her hands out to the flames. She was wearing a loose velvet tunic the color of red wine, its random hem brushing her calves, brushing her knees. I crossed the room to be close to her. I touched her mind, very gently; touched her shoulder. The feel of velvet made gooseflesh start up my arm.

  “Are you all right?” she turned toward me, suddenly uncertain. She saw the sude on my hand and the bruise on my face, was suddenly afraid that Charon had had something to do with them. Her eyes went to the emerald earring I was still wearing.

  “Yeah. I’m fine now,” I said, and smiled. The snap of flames, the rustle of whirled sparks, was loud in the silence between us. “Are you?”

  She looked up at me, with a tiny smile starting on her own lips, and what lay behind her eyes washed over me like a wave of heat.

  “How’s�
�how’s Jiro?”

  She glanced away again. “He felt much better this morning. The children are up at the Crystal Palace. Charon … demanded that we attend dinner with the family.”

  “What about you?”

  “I wanted to see you, first. Because I won’t be back tonight.” She brushed at a loose strand of night-colored hair. “Charon wants me to spend more time with him.…” Spend the night with him. She looked down, knowing that I must know what she was thinking, and how she felt. “I’ll join them in a while … I said that I was sick.” Sick at the thought of him touching her. Her eyes came back to me. (Sick with longing,) they said to me.

  “Lazuli…” I shook my head, looking down. Last night we’d burned away our loneliness together in the dark. It shouldn’t have happened even once. It couldn’t happen again, ever. I couldn’t afford to let it. I reached up, started to unfasten the earring.

  She lifted her hand, stopping me. Her body was as taut as a bow, pressed against the hard edge of the star-covered table, straining against impulse. (I want you,) it said. (Touch me again,) said her mind. She pulled my hands away, pulled them to her, ran them down over her velvet dress.

  My burning body took the last step across the space that separated us. I kissed her then, hard and deep and hungry, because that was how she wanted to be kissed. My hands slid down the velvet again, this time without any urging, and into the soft curves of her body. They circled her hips, pulling her against me until there was no space at all left between us. I felt the heat of the fire against my back, the heat of her; the heat of my own need, even hotter. I couldn’t stop now, didn’t want to. Because I knew that I was really good, that I could give her everything she wanted, and more. That I could make this beautiful, unapproachable woman need me so much that nothing else mattered to her, nothing at all. And all because of the Gift that wouldn’t be mine to use much longer.…

  I laid her down across the starry table and made love to her right there, hard and deep and hungry … while she called me deeper into her mind, called me her only real lover, called me the fire.…