Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille (20 page)

I found I was staring at the Chinese cowboy with the big, drooping mustache and the stupid grin.

I hate your guts, you know
, I told it just before everything went dark.

What can I say?

Two boys ripped from their homes, traumatized, but saved from the flames. They may never believe what happened, will almost certainly never understand, but at least they are alive. That was important to me. If you cannot understand this, I’m sorry.

I stood up amid the dust of the restaurant and looked around at those who were looking around at me and at each other. Libby in particular was watching me closely as she picked herself up. She had good reason. There was a thing called wonder in the air.

My memories seemed sharp and clear, and there was no fuzziness of my senses, after the first seconds of wakefulness. It might have been because we’d arrived at the Unit’s home base, which might be significant to whoever wanted to study time travel. Not me. I wanted nothing to do with it, ever again. Jamie, my brother, Rose, my sister, dead now, forever gone, not even dust, not even—

“Anyone hurt?” I said.

No one was. I stepped over to a window, looked out, nodded. I walked back and noticed the broken picture. I ground it into the floor because I felt like it. I went into the bathroom, pulled the d-cleaner out of my wallet, and rubbed it on my face. The rest would wait, but I wanted my face back. When the pink was out, I took the skin-stick off and let my cheeks, eyes, and forehead resume their natural shape. That was enough for now.

When I came out of the bathroom, Libby was sitting at a table drinking from a bottle of Dom Perignon that she’d saved from the Earth. She said, “Would you like a glass, Feng?”

“Call me Billy,” I said. “And no, thanks. I don’t feel like celebrating just yet.”

Tom, Carrie, and Christian stared at me. Libby said, “I thought they were going to figure it out there, when Jamie walked in while you were telling me to get the guns.”

I nodded. “Me, too. You did a good job handling those questions about time travel and stuff, although you slipped once.”

“I did? When?”

“They were asking about nexus points and you looked at me.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “One slip in that length of time is nothing. I’m sorry about Fred.”

She looked away. “Yeah. Me too.”

I studied the floor. Presently she said, “How did you know Rudd would go for that bluff, and that he was telling the truth?”

“It dawned on me that he was my counterpart—that is, he’d been sent from the future to stop me. Well, in my future—here—we’ve licked Hags disease with carbon-based nano machines which, um, skip it. If they were doing this because they were afraid of Hags disease, then they didn’t know much about the disease, so I figured I could fake it. Besides, I’d bluffed him once before. And I knew because I recognized the name of the planet, and that made sense, too.”

She nodded and returned to her champagne. “Sissy water,” Rich had called it. But Rich was gone, along with Fred, and Rose, and Jamie, who had probably gone the way he would have wanted to, both guns blazing in a last stand.

What a crock.

Eve looked beyond stunned. I think she was. Christian was beyond interest. Carrie was confused. Tom’s mouth still hadn’t closed, but I didn’t feel like starting any explanations just then.

Libby said, “Was it hard, keeping everyone in the dark about who you were?”

It came to me that she was keeping me talking so I wouldn’t dwell on Rose and Jamie. That was like her. I said, “No, I had to.”

Tom’s mouth finally closed. Then he said, “You mean all this time—”

“I recruited Rich, Libby, Fred, and Eve before the war, then spent all the time in London reading newspapers to find the cause for the thing. After we got here, which was our first breather since London, I gave up and set Eve to the job.”

“But what did
you
do?”

“Directed the work, tried to keep us alive while Fred tracked down the saboteurs and Eve and Rich tried to guess who was doing what, and why. It wasn’t until something Jamie said that I realized our enemy was likely to be whoever was behind the wars. That was really the first clue. I wish Jamie could know—” I stopped, shook my head, and looked away until I was under control.

“Wow,” said Tom.

I laughed.

A few of them lived. Some may regret it now, some later, but they lived.

All of the universe, it seemed, had conspired to beat me into the ground, and yet I lived, and with me were five friends, plus two living reminders of New Quebec. And I had what the Committee wanted, needed. Tragedy is more real than the life that gives it birth, but I laugh in its face because there are two children from New Quebec who will hate me forever.

The door of Feng’s opened, and I breathed the sharp, tangy air of Cicero once more. It was at this moment that I felt the sharpest, real sense of loss for New Quebec.

“Welcome back, Richard,” said Carla.

“Thanks. Call me Billy.”

“Did you—”

“The enemy,” I said, “has one home world. It’s Charity. Hit them there and it’s all over.”

“What? Brockingham’s home world? But Charity’s been Reduced, and—oh. Of course.”

“Yes. A spy on the Committee, and move the home world to easy striking distance of their enemy, then convince everyone the world was Reduced. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“But how can they move the entire population?” said Carla.

“You’ll understand when I give you all the details. The short version is this: The enemy cannot have a stable and large society. If he ever does, he will stop being the enemy. He has a culture based on paranoia, and it requires that he destroy major sections of his own population if there’s no one else to destroy.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either, fully. But you’ll have to take my word for it. Their entire culture is built on violence caused by fear of infection. The fear that leads to senseless violence is based on ignorance, which in turn leads to more senseless violence. I am certain that they have spent the last few hundred years building up societies and then leveling them, with a chosen few escaping every time. Keep alert for missiles, and attack their home world, and we can either force them to some sort of reasonable terms or destroy them. To be completely frank, I don’t give a damn which it is.”

Carla stared at me solemnly. “It was very difficult for you, wasn’t it, Rich—Billy?”

There was a hard lump in my throat, but I managed to say, “Please, Carla. Charity around Biscane.”

“Yes,” she said. “We can have a fleet there in a matter of hours. We will decide what to do while the fleet is en route.”

“And Brockingham?”

“I will deal with Lois.”

“Good.”

“Are you going to introduce me to your friends?”

“Perhaps later, Carla. Right now, these children have been taken from a world that is no more, and they need help. And I have bad news about Old Earth, by the way, but that can wait. Also, this is Eve. She needs help. Take them with you. Shut the door on your way out.”

Her eyes widened, but she complied.

I cried.

Libby came and put her arms around me, and we held each other. Tom and Carrie had their arms around each other. I badly wanted things to work for them, but I certainly wouldn’t make any bets one way or the other. Christian rubbed Libby’s neck.

After a moment, I whispered, “I can’t believe they’re gone.”

“I know,” she said. “Neither can I. Any of them.”

“Look.” I held out the derringer that Rose had almost used to shoot down Iverness, the day Fred had died. Pearl-handled, dragon’s head inlaid in ebony. “I’m going to keep it,” I said. “I’ve always been the sentimental type.”

“I know,” said Libby. “But you did the job, anyway.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I Did The Job.”

Tom cleared his throat. “Well, what now?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I still have my banjo. You and Christian want to put together a trio?”

“What about me?” said Libby.

“You can be our manager.”

Christian shrugged, and half smiled, but wouldn’t commit himself to anything. Maybe he knew that there would be a ghost guitarist and a ghost fiddler in any such trio, and maybe that bothered him. Whatever, things would go as they went. Shit happens. I still had my banjo, so how bad could things get?

“Say, Libby?”

“Yeah.”

“If I decide to keep the restaurant open, will you tend bar?”

She looked at Christian, who shrugged. She said, “Sure. You’re easy to work for, for a pinhead.”

“Maybe I’ll do that, then. We’ll see.”

Tom and Carrie still held each other, oblivious. I sat in my favorite booth, and wished there was a band tuning up. Someday, there would be again.

Souci
.

Ghosts from the past came to me the night the machine that looked like a bar and grille reappeared on Cicero around Marko, while the others slept. I thought about returning to Sestus, but I was in no hurry. Cicero was fine, and transportation was easy here and now. I badly needed perspective.

I looked back on the events since my arrival upon the soil of mankind’s birthplace, and the voice of Rich, my first recruit and the first to die, came to me, soft and ironic, and biting and gentle,
I laughed, I cried, I fell down, it changed my life….

Yeah, Rich. All of that. It changed my life, but didn’t end it, and maybe I’d learned some useful skills. Whatever becomes of me now, I am richer, poorer, and carry a sorrow that I will never leave behind.

Souci
.

We have the technology in my world to make you go away, or at least the sting of you, but I won’t do that. I owe you this much, at least. In my own way, ghost that I love, I lay you to rest and bid you farewell. Maybe I’d write my memoirs, maybe I’d just play banjo.

I went back into the kitchen and, following my own recipe, made a batch of matzo ball soup.

It was good.

The End

My sincere thanks to Emma Bull, Kara Dalkey, Pamela Dean, Will Shetterly, and Terri Windling, who helped with the manuscript in its various stages.

My thanks also to David Dyer-Bennet for assistance with firearm information, and to Beth Friedman and Betsy Pucci for medical information.

Finally, for the music, a few of those to whom I am indebted are: Bedlam Rose, Boiled In Lead, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, Gallowglass, Fred Haskell, Raven’s Tir, Mark Soderstrom, Dave Van Ronk, and The Weavers.