Star Song and Other Stories

by Timothy Zahn

  "Yes," Suzenne murmured, dropping her eyes to the beadwork.

  I nodded toward the beads. "Working on a new customer, I see."

  "I beg your pardon," Rhonda said, mock-annoyed. "I am not working a new customer; I'm participating in a cultural exchange."

  "We don't have these here," Suzenne said, fingering one of the earrings.

  "I've never even seen anything like it, even in our archives."

  "I'm sure it's there," Rhonda said. "It's a pretty ancient art form, but its popularity does rise and fall."

  "Whatever its heritage, it's beautiful," Suzenne said. "I'm sure you'll be able to sell a lot of these pieces here if you want to. You could probably teach classes, too."

  "I doubt we'll be here long enough for that," I warned. "Where's everybody else, by the way?"

  "They're all outside looking around," Rhonda said. "Jimmy went to find where the music was coming from—"

  "Music?" I echoed, frowning.

  She nodded. "You can't hear it very well in here, but it's quite audible if you step outside. Beautiful, but very alien."

  "We write most of our own music here," Suzenne said. "We play it as a service to—" Her lips compressed briefly. "Well, we can talk about that later."

  "Bilko's out, too," Rhonda continued. "He said he was going to hunt down a card game."

  I made a face. "Well, good luck to him," I said. "I'll bet the Sergei Rock to his lucky deck he won't find a game that'll take Expansion neumarks."

  "No, we're still using the First Citizens' supply of Jovian dollars," Suzenne said. "But he took one of the credit slips with him, and he'll be able to exchange that for the coins."

  I felt my jaw drop a few millimeters. "One of the credit slips for our cargo?" demanded, looking at Rhonda. "And you let him?"

  She returned my glare evenly. "It was his share of the money," she pointed out.

  "Besides, he usually makes a profit on these games of his."

  "Usually antagonizing the local populace in the process," I pointed out darkly.

  "And this is one place you do not want to get run out of town."

  "I'm sure he'll be fine," Suzenne soothed me. "And just for the record, we don't run troublemakers out of town. We have a proper prison, though it's fortunately not used very much."

  "I see," I said, peering past her out the window. The room faced east, toward the end we'd come in from; and blamed if it didn't look like real mountains over there. "You know, this chamber looks pretty big, but if I remember the numbers you gave us there's still a lot of the asteroid unaccounted for. What do you do with the rest of it?"

  "All around the main chamber, beneath our feet, is the bulk of our recycling equipment," Suzenne said. "Of course, that takes up only a fraction of the kilometer or so of stone between us and the outside, so there's still plenty of structural strength and radiation protection. At the aft end of the asteroid are the fusion generators and ion-capture engines, along with the hydrogen-scooping equipment to fuel them. The designers also left a fair amount of space completely untouched for our future needs. We've dug into some of that to get materials for new buildings and to replace the inevitable losses in the recycling system."

  She smiled. "And since we had to dig anyway, we went ahead and fashioned the resulting holes into a series of caves. It provides a little recreation for our resident spelunkers."

  "You think of everything, don't you?" I said, shaking my head in admiration.

  "I wish the leaders of the Expansion were this competent."

  Suzenne shrugged. "We're flattered, of course, but you have to realize it's not a fair comparison. With a population still under half a million people, we're more like a small city than we are a nation, let alone an entire world.

  Government on this scale is nearly always more efficient."

  "You haven't asked about Kulasawa," Rhonda spoke up.

  I hadn't asked about Kulasawa because I frankly didn't care where she was.

  But there was something in Rhonda's expression... "Okay, I'll bite," I said.

  "What about Kulasawa?"

  Rhonda gestured to Suzenne. "Why don't you tell him?" she invited.

  "It's not all that mysterious," Suzenne shrugged. "She was up early asking permission to set up her recorders around the colony, that's all."

  I frowned. "Recorders?"

  "Those large flat panels," Suzenne amplified. "They were stacked together inside two of the crates we brought over from your transport."

  The equipment Kulasawa had told me was a set of sonic deep-probes. "Ah," I said.

  "And what did you tell her?" "Actually, we thought it was a good idea," Suzenne said. "We have a lot of unified records from the first few years of the voyage, but nothing very organized after that. She agreed to give us copies we could edit into a true-time documentary, and so we let her go."

  "They also lent her a driver and a couple of helpers," Rhonda put in. "She's been gone—how long?"

  "Not quite three hours," Suzenne said, consulting her watch. "I'm hoping she'll be done before your meeting with King Peter."

  "And when is that exactly?" I asked, suddenly aware of my grubby and unshowered state.

  "I've set it up for two hours from now," Suzenne said. "Will that give you enough time to prepare?"

  "Oh, sure," I said, digging an oddly shaped fork into a sculpted piece of melon.

  "I wonder if you could get my carrybag in from the Sergei Rock, though—this uniform is getting a little rank."

  "Our luggage has already been delivered," Rhonda told me. That odd look, I noted uneasily, was still on her face. "They're in the closet over there."

  "And I'd better get out of your way," Suzenne added, pushing her chair back and standing up. "If there's anything else you need, there's a phone on the table over there. Just punch the call button and give my name—Suzenne Enderly—and they'll connect us."

  "Thank you," I said.

  "I'll be back in a little under two hours to escort you to the Palace," she said, walking toward the door. "Until then, if you get ready early, feel free to look around the city. Just be sure to take the phone with you."

  She left, closing the door behind her. "An audience with a real king," I commented, stuffing a bite of chicken in my mouth. "Something I've wanted to do since I was a kid. Too bad his name couldn't have been Arthur."

  "Too bad," Rhonda agreed, her voice neutral, her expression gone from odd to flat-out accusing as she stared hard at me. "All right, Jake, let's hear it."

  "Let's hear what?"

  "The reason you didn't tell her that Kulasawa's gadgets aren't recorders," she said. "Or had you forgotten she told us they were sonic deep-probes?"

  "Who says they're not recorders, too?" I asked. "They could be both probes and recorders."

  "Or they could be something else entirely," she countered. "The point is that she's either lying to Suzenne or else she lied to us. And you didn't blow the whistle on her."

  "Neither did you," I shot back. "If you're so worried about it, why didn't you say something?"

  "Because I was waiting for your lead," she said. "And because I wanted to see just how strong a hold Kulasawa has on you."

  I jabbed my fork viciously into my fruit cup, splattering a few drops of juice onto the plate. "She hasn't got any hold on me," I insisted.

  "My mistake," Rhonda said. "It's not her, it's the seventy thousand neumarks."

  I glared at her, my hand squeezing the fork hard, wanting to tell her it was none of her damn business.

  But I couldn't. And she obviously could read that in my face. "This is me you're talking to, Jake," she said quietly. "We've been flying together for over three years now. If something's wrong, isn't it time you told me what it was?"

  I closed my eyes, exhaling my anger with a chest-aching sigh. "I'm in something of an awkward situation," I said, the words feeling like ground glass in my mouth. "Five years ago... well, let's just say it: I stole some money from the TransShipMint Corporation."


  Her eyes widened, just enough to make the admission hurt that much more.

  "You?" she asked disbelievingly.

  "Yes, me," I growled. "Why, is that so hard to believe?"

  "Frankly, yes," she said. "You're the one who's always so brass-butted about following the rules." She waved a hand as if to erase that. "Sorry—I didn't mean it that way."

  "Yes, you did," I said. "I don't suppose it ever occurred to you that there might be a reason why I was always so strict? Like a metric ton of guilt, maybe?"

  She grimaced. "I guess that never occurred to me," she conceded. "So what happened?"

  I shrugged uncomfortably. "Like I said, I stole some money. Oh, I rationalized it—told myself I need some new equipment for my transport, that if I invested it in this surefire deal I was being offered I could get what I wanted and still pay the company back out of my profits. But the bottom line is, I stole it."

  "How much?"

  "A lot," I told her. "Two hundred thousand neumarks."

  Her eyes went even wider this time. "Oh, Jake."

  "Oh Jake and a half," I agreed ruefully. "You can guess the rest: the sure-fire deal went sour and I lost the whole wad."

  She winced. "What did they do to you?"

  "Strangely enough, they didn't seem to notice the loss," I said. "Or maybe they did but couldn't figure out where it had gone. I thought maybe I'd gotten away with it, at least from a legal standpoint, though I knew I was going to have to pay them back."

  "All two hundred thousand?"

  "Every last pfennig," I said. "Why do you think you haven't gotten me to spring for new engines yet? Every half-neumark of profit I've made for the past five years has gone into a special account I've got stashed away on Earth. I figured I'd wait until the statute of limitations was up, just in case, and then send them the money along with an explanation and confession. Anonymous, of course."

  "So what went wrong?"

  I looked out the window at the distant pseudo-mountains. "About a month ago a TransShipMint agent contacted me," I said. "He said they'd figured it out, and were going to press charges unless I could pay back all the money by the end of the month."

  "My God," she breathed. "What did you do?"

  "Begged and pleaded another month out of them." I shook my head. "But everything else I've tried has come up dry."

  Rhonda sighed softly. "And then Scholar Kulasawa showed up on our gangplank and offered you seventy thousand neumarks."

  "I've got a hundred thirty already banked away," I said. "Kulasawa's seventy thousand would just cover it."

  "Yes, it would." Rhonda paused. "You told me earlier you were going to use the money in a way that would benefit all of us. You were planning to sell the Sergei Rock, weren't you?"

  "There was no other way," I said. "It would have cost all of you your jobs, but there was no other way. Until Kulasawa came along."

  I looked back at Rhonda. "But if you're right, and she's pulling some kind of scam on the people here—"

  "Wait a minute—I didn't say she was pulling any scams," she said quickly, holding up a hand.

  "But you implied it."

  "I implied she was stretching the truth," she insisted. "That's not the same."

  I folded my arms across my chest. "Look, Rhonda, I appreciate your attempts to salve my conscience. But I'm not going to trade one load of guilt for another."

  "And I'm not going to let you sacrifice your transport over my vague and unfounded suspicions," she countered. "Not to mention all our jobs."

  "You and Bilko won't have any problem finding new jobs," I told her. "And Jimmy'll be snapped up so quick it'll make your head spin."

  "Then let me put it another way," she said quietly. "I don't want to see the team broken up."

  I forced a smile. "Got seventy thousand neumarks on you?"

  Reaching across the table, she squeezed my hand reassuringly. "We'll figure something out," she said. "Thanks for telling me."

  She stood up. "I'd better get to the shower and then practice my curtsies.

  I'll see you later." Collecting her carrybag from the closet, she returned to her room.

  I turned back to my breakfast. On one level, it was something of a relief to have the dark secret out in the open at last, to have someone whose opinions I

  cared about still accept me despite it all.

  But neither the soul-cleansing nor Rhonda's compassion in any way changed the basic situation. And the food, delicious barely five minutes ago, now tasted like sand. The arched doorway facing us was far more impressive than the actual exterior of the Palace. And for a good reason: it was the entrance to King Peter's royal reception room, the place where he held public audiences and from which he did his broadcasts to the entire colony when such was deemed necessary.

  All this came from Suzenne, who had also assured us that the two uniformed guards flanking the archway would momentarily be getting the word from inside that the king was ready. At which point they would pull open the heavy wooden doors and admit us.

  Us consisting of Rhonda, Suzenne, and me.

  "Stop fidgeting," Rhonda murmured in my ear.

  "I am not fidgeting," I insisted, rubbing my fingertips restlessly against my leg and throwing baleful glances at the door we'd entered the anteroom though. Kulasawa was supposedly on her way; but Jimmy and Bilko had both disappeared somewhere into the city and no one knew where to find them. When this was all over, assuming King Peter didn't throw me in the dungeon for the impertinence of wasting his time with only half a crew, I was going to strangle both of them.

  "Scholar Kulasawa's just coming into the Palace," Suzenne said softly, her phone to her ear. "Oh, and we've found Jimmy—he was with one of our musicians.

  They're bringing him straight over."

  Which still left Bilko unaccounted for. Predictably. "Any chance Jimmy will actually be here before those doors open?"

  "Probably not," Suzenne said, smiling as she consulted her watch. "But don't worry about it. This is just an informal introductory meeting—anything formal we decide to do will happen this evening or tomorrow. He isn't going to be upset if you're not all here."

  She drifted away, turning her back to us as she spoke quietly into the phone.

  "Then why are you trying so hard to find him?" I muttered under my breath. I turned to Rhonda to detail what I intended to do to Bilko when he finally surfaced—

  And paused. Rhonda was staring at Suzenne's back, a suddenly tight look on her face. "Relax," I told her. "I'm the nervous one in this group, remember?"

  "Something's wrong here, Jake," she said slowly, her voice barely audible.

  "Something having to do with Jimmy."

  I felt my heart seize up. Jimmy was our musicmaster, a vital ingredient for getting the Sergei Rock back home. "You think he's in danger?"

  "I don't know," she said, her eyes focused on infinity. "It's something that's been nagging at me ever since last night."

  I looked over at the guards flanking the doorway. The way their uniforms were cut, I couldn't tell whether they were armed or not. "What time last night?

  After we got to the city?"

  "No, before that," Rhonda said, her forehead creasing a little harder. "It was on the flight over here; but it started before that..."

  Abruptly, she looked up at me. "It was when we first met Suzenne," she hissed.

  "When you introduced Jimmy as our musicmaster. She never asked what a musicmaster was."

  I played the whole scene back in my mind. Rhonda was right. "Could she have asked someone during the flight?"

  "No," Rhonda said, shaking her head microscopically. "I was sitting next to her, remember? Jake, they didn't have musicmasters until fifty years ago."

  "I know," I said, a sudden tightness in my stomach. "I think I even mentioned to Suzenne that it was hard to explain."

  "So why didn't she ask about it?" Rhonda persisted. "Either she's not very curious... or else she already knew."

  I looked over at
Suzenne, still on the phone. "But that's impossible," I murmured. "If someone else had found the Freedom's Peace, we'd have heard about it."

  Rhonda shivered. "Only," she said, "if they made it home again."

  I swallowed hard. "That new species of flapblacks Bilko spotted hanging around the asteroid. The InReds." "I was just wondering that," Rhonda murmured. "Suzenne and the others might not even realize the previous transport or transports hadn't made it back alive."

  "Maybe it's time for a few direct questions," I suggested.

  "You sure you want to hear the answers?"

  "No," I admitted. "But I'd better ask them anyway." Squaring my shoulders, I took a step toward Suzenne—

  And at that moment, the two guards suddenly came to life. Stepping to the center of the double doors, they each took one of the handles and pulled.

  Suzenne was beside us before the doors even started to open. "All right, here we go," she said. "Remember, don't be nervous. Ah—Scholar. Good; you made it."

  I turned my head to see Kulasawa step into line between Suzenne and Rhonda.

  Her outfit was a surprise: a flowing-line jacket-blouse of a rich-looking brocade over a contrasting flare skirt. It made our transport-crew uniforms look positively shabby, I thought with vague resentment, and I wondered briefly why in the worlds a scholar would bring such an outfit on a trip between Angorki and Parex. But then, unlike the rest of us, she'd known what the Sergei Rock's true destination was. "Where are the others?" she muttered to Suzenne.

  "Not here," Suzenne said. "Don't worry about it. Everyone; here we go."

  We walked forward in unison, crossing the rest of the foyer and stepping between the open doors.

  My first impression of the room was that its tone fit the outer building much more than it did the ornate doorway leading into it. More like an expansive office than the way I would have envisioned a throne room, it was dominated by a

  large desk near the back wall. A few meters to our right, a semicircular couch that could comfortably seat eight people was positioned around a low circular table on which was a carafe and several glasses. Scattered around the room were a few free-standing lamps and sculptures on pedestals; on the walls were some paintings and textureds, tastefully arranged and spaced. Off to the left, almost looking like an afterthought, was a high-backed throne that had apparently been carved out of a single block of pale, blue-green stone.