Hero!

by Dave Duncan

  The bitch was loving it, of course. But eventually she eased him away from the admirers, off to an isolated stone bench under more of the smelly crimple trees. Girls seemed to like the crimple odor, but it always made him think of armpits. Maeve had filled Valhal with crimples, and he’d turfed them all out right after he’d turfed her out.

  The night was warm for late fall, and was about to become warmer, for Angel was just rising. Already its spooky blue light was softening the darkness. Must be about midnight.

  Maeve hadn’t changed. The auburn gleams in her dark hair caught the starlight, and her body could still stun a boy at fifty elwies. She was wearing a slinky thing that seemed to consist only of silver ribbons—it looked simple and had probably cost an honest politician’s annual income. Very few girls could have worn such a thing and gotten away with it. Never mind! If there was one human female in the galaxy he could resist, it was this one. Never again! How long had it been? He didn’t want to think how long.

  It was hard not to think of it. She had the fair skin and sensuous lips of Scythan ancestry, one of the three planetary stocks that had populated Ult. Moreover, she had the innate arrogance of royal blood, from the Island Kingdoms somewhere, back a century or two. Self-satisfied whore! Always had been. Throwing her out had been the smartest thing he’d ever done.

  Behind a screen of bushes, down a level, a half-decent orchestra was playing a fiery jig tune. Couples were dancing. Laughing. This was quite a place she’d landed in here. Not Valhal, but quite a place. He wondered whom she was hostessing for. Some government type, likely. He’d heard that she was dabbling in Commonwealth politics.

  “Just coincidence?” she murmured. “Pure fate that you dropped in like this, so unexpectedly?”

  Bitch.

  “It certainly wasn’t deliberate.”

  “What’s really surprising is that we’ve never run into each other at someone else’s party. You do query the beacons, usually? Obviously. And come late,” she added.

  “After your usual bedtime, I expect.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re jealous? Or that you’re sleeping alone. Who’s hostess at Valhal these days? Anyone I know?”

  “No.” Bleeding, stinking bitch!

  Maeve chuckled throatily. The sound brought back memories. “Not like you to travel alone, Vaun. Another girl walked out on you? How many does that make?”

  “Hundreds,” he said between his teeth. “Some walk out. Others get thrown out.” The spies. The traitors.

  “Don’t be childish. It’s too long to bear a grudge, far too long. Odd how no one recognized you tonight, wasn’t it?”

  He’d never let any other girl needle him as she did. “I was trying not to be recognized!”

  And that was true—he’d hung around in the shadows, avoiding the groups, wanting to make his choice before he got mobbed. Besides, he’d noticed a couple of high-ranking spacers he disliked intensely, and he’d been avoiding them, too. The dislike was mutual, of course.

  Maeve straightened and turned to study his face, laying an arm along the back of the bench. She had chosen her spot carefully. Behind her, Angel was growing brighter, striking in under the trees, turning the night sky a metallic, mysterious blue, running silvery highlights on her shoulders and the swell of her breasts under—and between—the ribbons. She was wasting her time. He was immune now.

  “Yes, I marked your bashful approach.” She shook her head, and the long hair flickered sultry auburn signals. “Is the celebrity thing finally getting boring? My, how times change! But I meant later. You did expect to be recognized when you took down that smart-ass navigator—and you weren’t! You trapped him, Vaun!”

  “Pompous spacer prig! He deserved it.”

  She sighed. “It was all part of the hunt, of course. The redhead, wasn’t it?”

  Oh yes, the little redhead! He thought of the slim arms and the pale skin and the cool touch of the girl’s hand when they’d been introduced. He thought of the wide eyes, the tremor in her voice. He knew hero worship when he saw it. She’d been wetting her pants just looking at him. His desire surged, chokingly. “What red-head?”

  “Feirn, of course. All that grandstanding was just to dispose of the boy, wasn’t it? Unscrupulous as ever.”

  “What boy?”

  “Oh, Vaun! The ensign.”

  “Oh, that one? He looked too good to be true.”

  “He is too good to be true. His name’s Blade.”

  “You’re joking!”

  “No. Ensign Blade. Exercises five times a day, cleans his boots every fifteen minutes, reads textbooks in bed…and no, I don’t know that from experience. I’m extrapolating.”

  Vaun was intrigued. Could Maeve have descended to making passes at lanky, pipsqueak ensigns? Been refused, maybe?

  “Why your interest in him?” he demanded.

  She shrugged, suddenly defensive. “Nothing. I just don’t like the type. He must have other names. If he turns up again, why don’t you pull some more rank on him and order him to use another one?”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know. He must have several. I preferred Ephiana when I was young.”

  “Before we met.”

  “Indeed!” she snapped. “And just why do you think nobody recognized you, back there at the fire?”

  He ignored that, and moved as if to rise.

  She sighed. “Never mind. Let’s talk business. What’s all this about a Q ship?”

  “Just grandstanding.”

  “Oh, no! You meant it.” Her manner hardened. “The Cabinet hasn’t heard anything about a runaway Q ship.”

  “The Patrol isn’t about to start a panic by telling every tinpot government on the planet. But it’s common knowledge. Anyone with a com can work out that stuff I was spouting.”

  “But only a spacer would think to do so? Is there really danger?”

  “At three hundred millies? If it hits anything at all coming through the system, it’ll fry us with a burst of hard gamma and high-energy bosons. Even a civilian ought to know that.”

  “You mean the out stations, or the planet, too?”

  “If it’s close enough, the atmosphere may not shield us enough.”

  “What if it hits the planet itself?”

  “Space is very big, Maeve.”

  “You’re being evasive, Vaun. Could it?”

  Heshrugged. “Itmight. It’s coming in coplanar with the ecliptic, tangential to Ult’s orbit, so in theory it could.”

  “That sounds like a missile trajectory!” Maeve was no spacer, but she had brains and was not afraid to use them.

  “It could be.” It was. The velocity was three hundred and forty millicees, near enough—almost exactly one-third light speed. Nothing else was needed but timing, and timing was easy with a Q drive. The timing looked very nasty at the moment.

  “Vaun! How much damage would a starship do if it hit Ult?”

  “Would depend how big it was. Ships come in all sizes, and I don’t know how big this one is.”

  But he did know it had left Scyth twenty-one years ago. Nobody made long hops like that in bathtubs. It would be big.

  “Vaun, darling, you’re starting to play the Patrol’s game.”

  The darling made him want to puke. “Am I? All right. It’s holding a standard cruising speed, roughly nine thousand times Ult’s escape velocity. Say four thousand times as fast as an average meteorite.”

  Maeve said, “Shitty shoes!”

  He’d forgotten that stupid, juvenile expression. He felt an odd pang at hearing it again after so long. “And kinetic energy goes up as the square of the velocity.”

  “But four thousand squared is…sixteen million!”

  “Usually. So one ton of Q ship counts as twenty million tons of meteor strike, near enough. Any more questions?”

  “You’re saying that if it’s any size at all, it will wipe us out totally.”

  “I’m saying it will wipe us out if it’s the size of a racing bicy
cle. If it’s the size I think it is, it’ll sterilize the planet.”

  She drew a hard breath. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”

  “Because the crew’s dead and the mechanicals have failed, maybe.”

  Revenge was another possibility, but he didn’t feel like mentioning it and Maeve wouldn’t think of it. Her head did not contain such horrors. She pondered for a moment, absently playing with one of the ribbons on her thigh.

  The torrid dance tune on the lower level died away into a sound of applause. Vaun thought about taking that redhead in his arms for a dance, or better. Feirn.

  Maeve’s throaty voice broke his dream. “So what’s the Patrol doing about it, the ship?”

  “The Patrol’s chasing its ass like a puppy, of course.”

  She regarded him thoughtfully. “You know that, or just guessing?”

  “I know it.” Too late he remembered that he’d never had much luck lying to Maeve.

  “You mean Roker trusts you now?”

  “At the moment he hasn’t got much choice, has he?”

  Maeve hesitated, then chuckled and seemed to dismiss the matter with a flutter of silver starlight. “I expect not. But that’s what Roker gets paid for, isn’t it? That’s why we have the Patrol?”

  “How did you know about the Cabinet not knowing?”

  She sighed. “I’m the Commonwealth’s Minister of Resources. Oh, Vaun! You really didn’t know?” She sounded more upset by that realization than she was by the Q ship problem. Why should she care what he knew or did not know? What sort of a girl would put her personal vanity ahead of the fate of a planet?

  “I hadn’t even realized I was over Commonwealth territory. I don’t come this way much.” This was close to Hiport—normally he would stop in there whenever he happened to be going by.

  Again she sighed. “No.”

  Silence…Angrily, he found his gaze was sliding easily over starlit silver pathways, following familiar lines and curves, dipping into interesting places that he had once known better than anyone. Probably common knowledge now. Published maps…

  Suddenly a voice broke into song down where the band had been playing. In a moment a chorus of male voices broke in.

  Vaun was on his feet before he knew it.

  Maeve made a vexed sound. “Wait! Don’t leave yet. I’ll have them stop it.”

  “Time to go,” he said. “The longer I stay, the more we’ll claw. Nice place. I like it. You’ve done well—Minister.”

  Traitors always did well in politics; it was their natural element.

  “Thank you, Vaun.”

  Nice place, but if the Q ship was a missile, then she had only eleven weeks left to enjoy it.

  She rose also, and for a moment he thought she was going to try and kiss him. Fortunately, discretion prevailed, but her laugh sounded brittle.

  “I don’t suppose I’d recognize Valhal now, would I? Lots of changes?”

  She wasn’t going to get the chance. Think spying. Think betrayal. “No, you wouldn’t. Good-bye, Maeve.”

  The damnable singing was getting louder, twisting his nerves like hot wires. He’d turned and taken two steps when she spoke.

  “Vaun?”

  He stopped, and waited.

  “What are you looking for?”

  He swung around. “What the hell does that mean—what am I looking for?”

  She recoiled slightly at his anger, then took a step forward. “Just…curious. You always seem to be hunting something. I just wondered what.”

  “Girls! Girls, girls, and more girls. Blondes, brunettes—”

  “Oh, don’t talk crap! There’s more to life than screwing, and you know that. You know that better than anyone. No, you’re ruthless. Hunting, always hunting! I knew it even back when…when you owned me body and soul…”

  “Ha! Body, maybe, but it was Roker who—”

  “Even then! You’ve got everything, Vaun, everything any boy could ever ask for, yet you’re still hunting for something, and I never did know what, and now, tonight…I meet you again and I see you’re still hunting, and I want to know what for?”

  The singing was making him sweat. He needed to scream.

  “So now we’re into mind probing?” he shouted. “Well, I assure you that I have everything I want from life. And that includes changing the girl when I change the sheets. I just like it that way.”

  Maeve’s expression was shadowed. “You want me to locate the redhead for you?” she asked softly.

  Why did she have to bring that up? He wanted out fast; and he wasn’t going to take any favors from Maeve. “Taken up pimping as a sideline?” he snapped.

  He saw her wince as he spun on his heel and strode away into the darkness.

  AS SOON AS he was out of earshot, Vaun began to run. The path was bright in the Angellight, and there were small glow lamps wherever the tree cover was heavy. It wasn’t just the singing. He desperately wanted to be away from Maeve, although he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t want to know why.

  A sim imaged in at his side, a girl in simple livery running with him. “You wish transportation, sir?” It wasn’t panting like him. Sims didn’t sweat, either.

  He told it to bugger off, and it vanished. He went on alone, climbing steadily, listening to his feet pad on the pathway and the steady, strong beat of his heart. The sounds of merrymaking dwindled mercifully away.

  The grade was gentle. He moved easily, enjoying the exertion in the hot fall night, thinking about the Q ship. Maeve assumed that the Patrol would deal with the problem. That was what the Patrol was for, wasn’t it?

  Everyone thought that way about the Patrol.

  He could remember when he’d thought that way, too.

  MEMORY…BACK IN Doggoth, a skinny recruit stands in a stuffy classroom with forty other skinny recruits, packed tight together, all shifting minutely from foot to foot and trying not to fidget in their unfamiliar uniforms. Collars cut at necks, boots pinch toes—and that particular recruit has never worn boots before. Somewhere machinery hums, rubbing on auditory nerves like sand. Everyone smells of soap, all scrubbed to the quick, and the boys’ faces have been depilated raw. On a platform up front, a flat-voiced officer pontificates with well-rehearsed sincerity as he delivers the official welcoming lecture.

  He tells the Legend, and calls it History, and Recruit Vaun listens and believes with the others. Humanity evolves and grows to knowledge, trapped on a single world! Humanity discovers that not all quasars are distant galaxies, that some of them have proper motion among the stars and must be artifacts! Humanity reinvents the Q drive! Humanity strikes outward from ancestral Earth to inquire what beasties already voyage among the stars…

  Not aliens. Not sentients. We of the Space Patrol call them beasties. And don’t you forget it.

  There are no beasties near Ult.

  Except politicians, of course.

  You laugh when an officer makes a joke.

  Louder!

  That’s better.

  Behind the explorers come the settlers, and the Empire of Mankind spreads outward through the galaxy.

  But Q ships are potentially deadly, and they fly blind. Someone will have to control the traffic, for ancestral Earth has just as many petty, potty governments as Ult, or Bethyt, or any other of the million worlds. And so…And so the Space Patrol is formed, an organization dedicated to running the Q ships and keeping open the spaceways, an organization above planetary politics, servant of all humanity, owing allegiance only to High Command, back at the Center.

  This is the Legend, but the officer calls it History, and the forty-one believe him. Recruit Vaun is part of thirty centuries of tradition! Recruit Vaun feels his bony chest swell with pride. His pulse beats in march time. Recruit Vaun swears sacred oaths to himself that he will be worthy…

  SURE. HOW EASY it had seemed then!

  Civilians still believed all that crap. Many spacers believed it still. That gawky Ensign Blade with his squeaky-pressed uniform and iced-over ey
es would certainly believe it. Even that underwitted, overmuscled, overboosted lieutenant likely believed it, with his glib talk of the Empire.

  Panting hard, Vaun came to a crossing. The path went on, but a narrower, steeper track transected it. That was obviously meant for service vehicles, and it must lead up to the parking lot. Even without glow lamps, it would be a faster road. He accepted the challenge and took off up the service track.

  As soon as he reached his torch, he would be long gone away from Maeve and her crimple-stinking Arkady. He wondered who hosted for her. She certainly would not lack for volunteers to share an estate so grand and a bed so generous.

  There had never been an Empire.

  Only the Patrol itself.

  Thirty thousand years of tyranny disguised as service. Rape in the name of love.

  Now the simple people of Ult would expect the Patrol to defend them from the runaway Q ship. Even Maeve, a minister in one of the larger governments, had not questioned the Patrol’s intent, nor its ability.

  Except that there wasn’t any way to stop a Q ship. Not in these circumstances. Coming in on the ecliptic was blatant aiming. Even to lay a simple trajectory for a target planet was a breach of space law. The accepted procedure was a flight path that needed end-course correction, just so that there couldn’t be unfortunate accidents if things went wrong on the long voyage. There was no question that this brute was hostile.

  And there was damned little the Patrol or anyone else could do about it now. If they threw up a missile or diverted an asteroid, it would just impact with the fireball. An asteroid vanishing to nothing in a singularity would emit enough hard radiation to cook the whole system, and the ship would be left unscathed. The intruder was only a third of an elwy away, and the time for throwing asteroids had passed. If death was their purpose, the bastards had won already…

  Dark as a sewer…He raised his arms before him and slowed his pace to a trot.

  They could have been stopped a year ago, maybe, but a year ago there had been insufficient evidence. Q ships still came to Ult from worlds farther in—rarely, of course, far fewer than in ancient times, when Ult itself had been part of the frontier—but there were still adventurers, exiles, and jittery refugees fleeing the Silence. After a journey of years, most voyagers had had enough, and even if they hadn’t, the local Patrol might evict them and replace them with its own people. There was no way to avoid planetfall, because the ships themselves needed attention. Heated by their own radiation almost to melting point, stressed between their singularities, Q ships, tended to stretch with time.