The Snow Queen

by Joan D. Vinge

  “Somebody’s been harassing Starbuck and the Hounds when they go mer hunting, and I gather they’ve been having too much success. The mer population must be pretty well depleted by now; it must be cutting into the Queen’s profits ... and her measure of control over us. The interference involves some sophisticated jamming devices and comm gear, and there’s only one place that it could be coming from.”

  “Hmm. So if we arrest any smugglers, we might get a lead on who’s doing the harassing?” He shifted restlessly again.

  “Maybe. I’m not holding my breath. This whole trip is a waste of energy, as far as I can see.” And that’s just what LiouxSked intended it to be. “Frankly, I hope we don’t find anything. Does it shock you, BZ?” She grinned briefly at his expression. “You know, I hate to admit it, but sometimes I have trouble convincing myself these tech runners are doing anything wrong. Or that anybody who objects to cutting one species’ life short so that another species can stretch out its own abnormally is in the wrong, either. Sometimes I think that everything that disgusts me about Carbuncle is tied to the water of life. That the city draws rottenness and corruption because its survival depends on a corrupt act.”

  “Would you still feel that way if you could afford immortality, Inspector?”

  She looked up, hesitated. “I’d like to think I wouldn’t feel any different. But I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

  Gundhalinu nodded, and shrugged. “I don’t suppose either one of us will ever get to find out.” He changed position again, glanced down at the chronometer.

  “What’s the matter, BZ?”

  “Nothing, ma’am.” He gazed out at the sea with stoic Kharemoughi propriety. “Something I should have done before we left the city.” He sighed, and picked up his book.

  - 11 -

  “You travel awfully light. You sure you’re going to get all the way to Carbuncle from here, with nothing but the clothes on your back?” Ngenet pressed a long finger into the lock on the hovercraft’s door while Moon stood looking out over the harbor. They had covered the distance from Neith in hours instead of days. Her knees were weak with the unbelievable fact of her presence in this distant place.

  “What? ... Oh, I’ll be all right. I’ll crew with some trader from here—there must be a hundred ships in this bay!” Shotover Bay would have swallowed the harbor at Neith, and the village, and half of the island, with no trouble. The setting suns broke through clouds, scattered chips of ruby across the water surface; ships of all sizes rode high on the tide’s flow. Some had an alien ness of form that she couldn’t put a name to. Some were mast less she wondered whether they had been caught in a storm.

  “A lot of Winter ships use engines, you know. A lot of them don’t even use sail at all. Will they take you on?” Ngenet’s brusque questioning tapped her on the shoulder again, as she suddenly understood why there were no masts. During their arrow’s flight across the sea she had not learned much about him except that he didn’t like to talk about himself; but his curt inquiries about her journey told her more than he knew.

  “I’m not afraid of engines. And the work will be the same; there’s only so much you can do on a ship.” She smiled, hoping it was true. She ran her hand along the hovercraft’s chill metal skin, struggling against the fresh awareness that it could have taken her to Sparks in less than a day ... Her smile faded.

  “Well, you just make sure you find yourself a ship run by females. Some of the Winter men have picked up bad habits from the star port scum.”

  “I don’t—Oh.” She nodded, remembering why her grandmother had told her to stay off the traders’ ships. “I’ll do that.” Even though she was certain that Ngenet was an off worlder he spoke as if his people meant no more to him than Summers or Winters seemed to. She hadn’t asked him why; she was no longer afraid of his surliness, but she wasn’t ready to impose on it. “And I want to thank—”

  He frowned across the harbor at the sunset. “No time for that. I’m half a day late for this meeting as it is. So you just—”

  “Hey, honey cake ditch that old man an’ let us show you a good time!” One of the two Winter males who had been weaving toward them along the quay angled closer, grinning appreciatively, arms out. But as she reached for a biting reply Moon saw his expression change. He pulled his companion into a precarious veer away, muttered something close to the other’s ear. They hurried on, looking back.

  “H-how did they know?” Moon’s hands pressed against her slicker front.

  “Know what?” The frown was still on Ngenet’s face, etching deeper, as he watched them go.

  “That I’m a sibyl.” She reached down inside and brought the trefoil out on its chain.

  “You’re a what?” He turned back to her, actually took the trefoil into his hands as if he had to prove its reality. He dropped it again, hastily. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “Well, I didn’t ... I mean, I—”

  “That settles it.” He wasn’t listening. “You’re not staying here alone overnight. You can come with me; Elsie’ll understand.” His hand closed around her upper arm; he pulled her after him across the expanse of paving toward the quay’s town side

  “Where are we going? Wait!” Moon stumbled after him with impotent anger as he strode toward the nearest street entrance. She saw light blossom at the top of a slender pole, and then another and another ahead of them, immense flame less candles. “I don’t understand.” She dropped her voice, “Do you believe in the Lady?”

  “No, but I believe in you.” He guided them onto a sidewalk.

  “You’re an off worlder

  “That’s right, I am.”

  “But, I thought—”

  “Don’t ask, just walk. There’s nothing strange about it.” He let go of her arm; she kept up with him.

  “Aren’t you afraid of me, then?”

  He shook his head. “Just don’t fall down and skin your knee, or I might worry some.” She looked at him blankly.

  Behind them another hovercraft, with the markings of the Hegemonic Police, drifted down toward a landing on the quay. But he did not look back, and so he did not see it settle beside his own.

  “Where are we going?” Moon maneuvered around a cluster of laughing sailors.

  “To meet a friend.”

  “A woman friend? Won’t she mind—”

  “It’s business, not pleasure. Just mind your own when we get there.”

  Moon shrugged, and pushed her numbing hands into the pockets of her pants. She could see their breath now, as the temperature followed the sun down. She peered curiously into the assortment of one—and two-story building fronts, more buildings than she had ever seen in one place, but stolidly familiar in form. Mortared stone and wood planking leaned on each other for support, and among them she saw an occasional wall made of something that was not really dried mud. Multiple layers of exotic noise reached out to catch at her ears as they passed by one tavern after another. “How did they know what I was, if you didn’t, Ngenet?”

  “Call me Miroe. I don’t think they did. I think they probably just noticed that I was a lot bigger and a hell of a lot more sober than either one of them.”

  “Hm.” Moon fingered the scaling knife at her belt thoughtfully; she felt the knots go out of her back muscles as she realized that the eyes of everyone passing were not staying on her too often and too long.

  Ngenet turned down a narrow side street; they stopped at last before a small, isolated tavern. Light rainbowed out onto the cobbles through colored glass; the peeling painted sign above the door read The Black Deeds Inn. He grunted. “Elsie always did have a peculiar sense of humor.” Moon noticed a second sign that read Closed, but Ngenet pulled on the latch; the door opened, and they went inside.

  “Hey, we’re closed!” An immense balloon of woman pouring beer into a mug for no one glowered at them from the bar.

  “I’m looking for Elsevier.” Ngenet moved into the light.

  “Oh, yeah?” The woman put the
mug down and squinted at him. “I guess you are at that. What took you so long?”

  “Engine trouble. Did she wait?”

  “She’s still in town, if that’s what you mean. But she’s out looking into—other arrangements, in case you decided not to show.” The woman’s buried eyes found Moon; she frowned.

  Ngenet swore. “Damn her, she knows I’m dependable!”

  “But she didn’t know if maybe you’d been permanently delayed, if you take my meaning. Who’s that?”

  “A hitchhiker.” Moon felt Ngenet’s hand on her arm again, moved forward at his urging, reluctantly. “She won’t make any trouble,” cutting off the woman’s indignation. “Will you?”

  Moon looked up into his expression. “Me?” She shook her head, caught a whisper of a smile.

  “I’m going out again to look for my friend. You can wait here until I get back.” He pointed with his chin toward the room full of tables. “Then maybe we’ll talk about Carbuncle.”

  “All right.” She chose a table near the fireplace, went to it and sat down. Ngenet turned back toward the door.

  “You know where to look?” the fat woman called. “Ask around the Club.”

  “I’ll do that.” He went out.

  Moon sat in uncomfortable silence under the innkeeper’s dour gaze, running her fingers along the scars in the wooden tabletop. But at last the woman shrugged, wiping her own hands on her apron, picked up the glass of beer and brought it to the table. Moon flinched slightly as it came down in front of her, froth spilling out onto the ring-marked wood. The woman billowed away again without speaking, did something to a featureless black box behind the bar. Someone began to sing abruptly, in the middle of a song, the middle of a word, with pieces of the same rhythmic stridency Moon had heard in the streets as accompaniment.

  Moon started, glanced back over her shoulder to find the room as empty as before. Emptier—she watched the innkeeper disappear up the stairs, taking another mug of beer with her. Moon’s eyes came back to the black box. She had a sudden smiling image of it stuffed full of sound, like a keg or a sack of meal. She took a swallow of her beer, grimaced: kelp beer, sour and badly brewed. Setting down the mug, she pulled off her slicker. In the fireplace a solitary chunk of metal glowed red hot like a bar of iron in a smithy’s forge. She twisted in her seat, her fingers exploring the animal faces capping the chair back while she absorbed the heat and the music. Her foot began to tap time as a kind of pleasant compulsion moved her body. The harmonies were complicated, the sound was loud and throbbing, the voice trilled meaningless noise. The effect was nothing like the music that Sparks made with his flute ... but something in it was compelling, distantly akin to the secret song of the choosing place.

  Moon closed her eyes, sipping beer; let her mind separate out the memory of all that had gone wrong from all that was right between herself and Sparks, as she listened to the music that he had always heard with a different ear. They would talk about Carbuncle, Ngenet had said. Would he take her there, then? Or would he only try to change her mind? No one would change her mind ... but she thought she could change his. She could use his concern about her to make him take her there, she was sure of it. She could be there tomorrow.. She began to smile.

  But was it right? Some part of her mind stirred uneasily. How was it wrong? Ngenet wanted to help her; she knew he did. And she didn’t even know why Sparks needed her: She imagined him sick or hungry, moneyless, friendless, starving. A day, an hour, could make a difference ... Lady, every minute that she could spare him any sorrow or pain was important, more important than anything else.

  A noise at the back of the room made her open her eyes. She looked toward the doorway at the rear of the room, felt her eyes widen, and widen again, as her mind refused to accept the information they took in. It was alive, and moving. It stood on two legs like a human being, but it’s feet were broad and webbed, its motion was the fluid shifting of sea grass in the underwater swell. The gray green, sexless body, glistening with an oily film, was naked except for a woven belt hung with unidentifiable shapes; the thing’s arms split into half a dozen whiplike tendrils. Nacreous, pupil less eyes fixed on her like the eyes of a sea spirit.

  Moon stood up, her mouth too dry for the sounds she was trying to make; she put the chair between herself and the nightmare thing as she reached for her knife. But at her motion the creature gave a guttural cough and darted back through the doorway, disappearing from her sight before she could really believe that it had ever been there.

  Standing in its place was a man she had never seen before, half again her own age, with a stiff crest of blond hair falling over one eye. He was wearing a fisherman’s parka, but his pants were a lurid green in the flame less brightness of the room. “Don’t go for it, young mistress, I’ve got you marked.” He stretched out his arm, she saw something unidentifiable in his hand. “Toss it out onto the floor, now, gently does it.”

  She finished drawing her knife, uncertain about the threat. He moved his hand impatiently, and she tossed the curved blade out. He came forward far enough to pick it up.

  “What do you want?” The shrillness of it told her just how afraid she really was.

  “Come on out, Silky.” The man glanced toward the doorway, in stead. Unintelligible hissing sounds were the response; the man smiled humorlessly. “Yes, precisely as delighted to meet you as you were to find her here. Come out and give her a better look.”

  The creature came cautiously through into the room again; Moon’s hands tightened over the animal heads on the chair back. The thing made her think suddenly of a family crest come to life. “I—I don’t have any money.”

  The man looked at her blankly, laughed. “Oh, I see. Then we’re all in the same boat, at the moment. But not for the same reason. So just stay calm, and you won’t get hurt.”

  “Cress! What in the world is going on here?” A third stranger entered the room behind him, human again, but just as unexpected. Moon saw the small plump woman with blue-black skin and silvery hair stop, hands clasping in surprise. “My dear, you’ll never get a date by holding the girl at gunpoint,” not quite smiling as she studied Moon back.

  The blond man didn’t laugh this time. “I don’t know what she knows, but she shouldn’t be here, Elsie.”

  “Obviously. Who are you, girl? What are you doing here?” The words asked her to answer as a simple courtesy, but the voice was steel.

  “Friend—I’m a friend of Ngenet Miroe. Are you Elsevier, are you the one he came to see?” Moon took the initiative as she saw the answers start to register. “He went to look for you. I can go find him-” She glanced toward the door.

  “That won’t be necessary.” The woman waved her hand; the man lowered his weapon, pushed it into the pocket where her knife had gone. Both their faces eased a little. “We’ll wait with you.” The spirit-thing hissed an almost human-sounding question. “Silky would like to know what kept him.”

  “Engine trouble,” Moon repeated mechanically, shifted her weight, still keeping the chair between them.

  “Ah. That explains it.” But she thought something in the old woman’s voice was still not entirely satisfied. “Well, no need for us to stand up while we wait, is there? My old bones creak at the thought. Sit down, dear, we’ll all just sit by the fire and get acquainted until he comes back. Cress, bring us some beers too, won’t you?”

  Moon watched in dismay as the woman and the nightmare came toward the table. But the creature crouched on the hearth just out of kicking range, looking down, its body glistening in the heater’s radiance. Its flat tentacles traced the patterns of the hearthstones with rhythmic, hypnotic motions; some of the tentacles were maimed, distorted by old scars. The woman pulled out a chair and sat down beside her with a smile of seeming encouragement. She unfastened a slicker several sizes too large, revealing a plain one-piece garment, its orange color as vivid as the green of the man’s pants. “You’ll have to excuse Silky if he doesn’t join us at the table; he’s not very f
ond of strangers, I’m afraid.”

  Moon moved slowly around her own chair and sat down. The man came back with three mugs of beer and set one down on the hearth. Moon watched the tracing tentacles of the sea-demon caress the mug, wrap it, and lift it to drink. She picked up her own mug and drank, in long gulps. The man sat down on the other side of her, grinned. “You sure put away the brew, young mistress.”

  The old woman clucked disapprovingly, sipping at her own mug. “Never mind. Tell us about yourself, dear. I don’t think you’ve told us your name. I am Elsevier, of course, and this is Cress. And that is Silky, my late husband’s—business partner. Silky is not his real name, obviously. We simply can’t say his real name. He is a dillyp, from Tsieh-pun; from another world, as we are,” with quiet reassurance. “Are you one of Miroe’s—colleagues?”

  “I’m Moon. I ...” She hesitated, aware of their hesitations; still not sure of them, not sure whether a lie or the truth would be a worse choice. “I just met him. He gave me a ride.”

  “And then he brought you here?” Cress leaned forward, frowning. “Just like that. What did he tell you?”

  “Nothing.” Moon drew away from him, toward the old woman. “And I don’t care, really. I’m just going to Carbuncle. He—said that you’d understand.” She turned to Elsevier, met the astringent indigo eyes set in a web of age lines.

  “Understand what?”

  Moon took a deep breath, pulled the sibyl sign out of her sweater. “This.”

  Elsevier started visibly; Cress sat back in his chair. The thing on the hearth hissed a question, and Cress said, “She’s a sibyl!”

  “Well ... I” Almost a sigh. “We are honored.” Elsevier glanced at the others, Cress nodded. “I understand that this half of Tiamat is not the best place for a sibyl. That would be like Miroe, to go getting involved.” She smiled suddenly, deeply, but with great weariness. “No, it’s nothing—simply that seeing you who are so young and so wise makes me feel old and foolish.”