Hero! (40 page)

The lad nodded, shivering because he had nothing on,

“Take this one over there and bring me his, okay?”

His brother twisted a finger inside an ear for a moment while he thought about it. “Why?

“It’s a joke. Tell you about it in the morning.”

“Okay.” Taking Vaun’s white shirt, he set off, unwittingly revealing that he was Number 516. In a moment he came back with the black shirt, and put it on Vaun’s blanket. Then he scrambled quickly under his own. No one noticed what toddlers did.

“Thanks,” Vaun said, smiling conspiratorially. Comfortably tucked in, Number 516 demanded a goodnight hug and a kiss, too—he knew his rights. Then Vaun crawled under his own blanket and they smiled sleepily across at each other. The pillows could certainly use a wash.

He thought,
They were engaging in coitus
.

Crazy, crazy randoms!

He was asleep.

T
HE SUN SHINES all day, every day. The trees are bowed by the weight of blossom.

Surf rolls into the bay and seabirds wheel under a perfect sky. Warm waves lap the shining sands.

The Dreamer runs over the beach, hand in hand with his lover.

In the great empty ballroom music soars, and they dance naked under the glittering crystal of the chandeliers.

They make love—in bed, on the beach, on a couch under the glittering crystal of the chandeliers. In sunshine and under the stars.

Within the dark mystery of her hair glints red, and he kisses every freckle.

Sometimes they throw great parties, for kings and ministers and presidents. Gladly they send them on their way again, and are alone with each other.

Day follows day. She laughs almost fearfully. “How long can it last? How long can mortals be so happy?”

“Forever!” the Dreamer tells her. “The hero and heroine always live happily ever after. That is mandatory.”

Yet sometimes there are sad farewells, when the lovemaking becomes frenzied because the Dreamer must depart to suffer through endless, excruciating ceremonies in far countries: honors and speeches, banquets and empty ritual. Always he rushes back to his lover, and absence has made the loving even sweeter.

The hero’s return.

The hero’s welcome, in the arms of his love.

She laughs, her face flushed with happiness as she looks up at him from the pillow. “I wasn’t ever Roker’s mistress. I wasn’t hostess here for Roker. I never did this with Roker.”

“That’s good,” says the Dreamer. “I’m glad you’re telling me now so there won’t be any misunderstandings later.”

“And you don’t act like a great celebrity, or a spacer stud, or a social snob…”

Penetration, and she screams with joy.

Climax, and he gibbers in ecstasy.

The Dream changes. They are dancing.

“This is crazy!”

“You made me crazy! I am crazy in love.”

“Not that.”

“Then what?”

“Dancing with bare feet. I stick to the floor. We ought to wear socks, at least.”

“Socks are not romantic,” he says, and sweeps her naked body into his arms and carries her to the nearest couch. “I’ll show you romantic.”

The hero’s reward.

U
P, UP FROM a bottomless darkness…Effort…Struggle…

It was the hardest thing he had ever done.

His brain was sand, his body a rock. His eyelids were marble tombstones, but he forced them to open.

Above him, the roof of the tunnel was faintly visible in the light of glow lamps spaced well apart. Close on either hand, he heard quiet breathing.

Maeve’s daughter?
Pepods?

Oh shit!

He heaved himself up to a sitting position, and thought that his joints creaked like unoiled doors. His skull was full of mud. The tunnel was full of sleeping brethren. Healthy boys, hard workers, sleeping soundly.

He shivered, feeling the cold of the rock sunk deep in his being. The temptation to fall back and sleep again was a promise of Paradise…Cruel destiny, to have to leave that humble, worn rag of a blanket.

Arkady was very close to Hiport!

Hell!
He reached for his clothes.

Security here was as primitive as coal. The brethren trusted one another absolutely, and relied on secrecy to defend them against the outside world. Bishop might have thought to install a camera in the dormitory, but it was not likely. If he had, then the switching of shirts should have put it in the wrong place—inspecting faces for bruises would have been a big operation.

Vaun wondered if his bruises had faded much in the night.

Half a night.

One thing a boy learned in Doggoth was waking to order.

T
HE CORRIDORS WERE dim and almost deserted. A few sleepy boys wandered the corridors, but whatever business they were on had nothing to do with security or guard duty. They exchanged smiles and nods with their black-shirted brother, and went on without having really noticed him at all.

Finding the air plant was easy. It was hot and stunningly noisy, filled with a mind-numbing throb of archaic machinery, monstrous black shapes vibrating in the shadows of what had probably once been a shaft. Huge ducts and girders led off from it in various directions, vanishing into rock and overhead darkness. The place looked deserted, as if no one had visited it for years.

There was at least one camera somewhere, though.

Vaun could see only one other door. It was a plate steel antiquity, rusty and solid and unrevealing. He stood for a while in a corner to study it, struggling to make his sleep-sodden brain do its duty.

Duty? He was sorely tempted to say
The hell with it!
and just go back to bed. Any bed. There had been several empty pallets with no clothes on them and no dark-haired head on the pillow. Any of them was his for the taking. This was where he belonged. This was what he’d been born for…conceived for, designed for.

Shit.

Maeve’s daughter.

Pepods.

After a while he felt himself starting to wilt in the heat, and that roused him to move. He was mostly worried by the key hanging on a nail in plain sight by the jamb—it seemed too easy. The key could be a trap, booby-trapped somehow. The hinges were visible, and a ramshackle tool bench nearby was littered with implements and junk. He could hammer the pins out of the hinges—except they were well rusted in and he would make a lot of noise.

The hell with it. He went to the bench and selected a weighty ball-peen hammer…to disable the camera, he told himself, while suspecting he needed it more to satisfy some atavistic craving for a weapon. He marched over to the cell door and took down the key.

The lock squeaked. The hinges creaked alarmingly, a shrill scream of alarm rising over the basso background roar of the compressors. He opened the door just wide enough for him to peer inside, gagging at the musty stench that greeted him, the rot of centuries.

The room was very small, the floor filthy and littered. At the far side, a shapeless bundle of blankets was already starting to stir. If he were going to put a camera in here, he would put it right above the door, high up. He squeaked the door a little further and slipped inside.

Near the ceiling, above his head, a black limpet about the size of his thumb clung to the rock. It was unobtrusive, but newer than anything else, unmarked by the pervasive dirt. He swung the hammer up and crushed it, and was showered with dust. Unless the watchers had noticed the sudden brightness of the door opening, they would assume a malfunction—those must be commonplace in the archaic junk market. And it might operate only in the infrared anyway. He stared all around, looking for others.

“Admiral Vaun?” Blade asked softly. He was sitting up, and he did not seem to have any clothes on.

Feirn mumbled sleepily beside him, and groped for the blanket. She said, “
Eek!
” as her hand found Blade instead.

“Get dressed! And hurry!” Of course, Vaun could have gone around by the washroom and stolen some hive garments, but those would not disguise either the girl’s red hair nor the boy’s height. Somehow they must avoid being seen at all on the way out.

“Is this a rescue, sir?” Blade was not moving.

“Of course it’s a rescue! You think I came to kiss you goodnight?”

“Is this wise, sir?”

“What the hell do you mean, ‘Is this wise?’”

“Won’t they be sending you back, sir? I mean, don’t they expect you to resume your duties with the Patrol?”

“What of it?”

“Well, sir. If we try to escape and don’t succeed, then there will be no way to warn Hiport about this hive. Even if we do get away, they will guess that you helped us.”

“Idiot!” snarled the girl. She, at least, was scrabbling into her garments, but Blade was just sitting.

“You have a touching faith in my loyalty, Lieutenant!”

“Your presence here now would seem to vindicate my trust, sir.”

“God’s tits, boy! Get dressed! Now!”

“I still think the tactic is questionable, sir.”

“They’re threatening to throw you both to the pepods, you clatterbrain!”

“I am aware of that, sir. But our fate is not important compared to the fate of the planet. I think you should play along with them, sir. I really do!”

The girl was almost dressed. She said, “Blade!” furiously. “You can’t mean that! One minute you say you love me, and the next minute you want to feed me to pepods?”

The kid was absolutely, one hundred percent right, though. Vaun should not be here. Even if he believed that the hive no longer trusted him, he would have a much better chance of escaping on his own. He ought to slam the door, lock it again, and walk out by himself. Or go back to bed.

He hefted the hammer, fighting a fierce urge to throw it. “I have given you an order, Lieutenant!”

“Sir!” Blade spasmed into motion, but he still argued. “If they trust you, sir, then you could order a strike in force, and in proper order.” He was on his feet already, zipping his pants; speed dressing was a Doggoth specialty. “If you release us and come with us, and do manage to get away, then they will have time to evacuate at least some of—”

“You idiotic numskull! Spare me your woolly idealistic heroics!” Vaun slipped back out of the cell with relief, gasping some welcome fresh air.

The corridor beyond remained deserted; nothing had changed. The captives followed him, Blade still furiously buttoning. The girl had an arm around him.

“This is for real, isn’t it?” she demanded, glaring at Vaun as if she suspected he was about to turn into someone else. “Last night I really thought you’d gone over to their side!” She had transferred her hero worship to a new hero, obviously. Fine by him, but Maeve would not be pleased.

“So did I.”

“What!?”

They wouldn’t have me
. Still carrying the hammer, he led the way out into the tunnel.

What had the brethren decided after he left the hall? He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know, not now.

He walked as fast as he could, but this was one of the unimproved parts of the mine, with ancient rails on the floor and many overhead ducts and dangling cables. The lights were matted with webs, everything was deep with the megafilth of centuries. “I don’t suppose you noticed any com equipment around, did you?”

“None, sir.” The lieutenant was practically dancing as he tried to stay close to Vaun and also negotiate the rough terrain, while adjusting his long stride to that of the girl clinging to him, and not bang his head.

“Then listen,” Vaun said, “both of you. We may have to split up. Can you fly a torch, Feirn?”

“Not as well as Blade.”

“Few can. The torches may be locked. They may have disabled the Sheerfire. But if we get the chance, we should scatter, understand? They’ll follow and try to bring us down.”

“I won’t leave Blade!”

“You have your orders, Lieutenant.” Vaun stopped talking while he negotiated an ominous hole in the floor. “There’s at least one more hive somewhere, possibly at a place called Ralgrove. Got that?”

“Yes, sir. Ralgrove.” Blade scooped Feirn bodily over the ditch with him, using one arm and not braking stride. “I see why we need a com, sir. Do you think they even have them in their torches?”

“Probably not. Not even for emergencies.” The brethren would sooner die than imperil security.

“The nearest strip is at Fondport, sir. Twenty kilometers south.”

Vaun wondered if he should have promoted Blade to a higher rank than lieutenant. Of course, if they came out of this alive, the kid would be a commodore tomorrow. Their chances were about three in a billion. He signaled a halt as they reached the first crossing. He knelt and peered around the corner, both ways. There was no one coming. “Right,” he said, rising.

“Left, sir,” said Blade. “If we’re going back to the exit, that is.”

“Please yourself.” Vaun went left, and the other two followed. Probably either way would do, but the way the captives had been brought might be shorter. This was one of the improved tunnels, paved and clean, and it seemed to go on forever. The night lighting was dim, but anyone who stepped in from a crosstunnel was going to see well enough to notice two very odd brethren, even at a distance.

At the next intersection he stopped his companions and walked boldly ahead, glancing to right and left. Seeing no one, he beckoned for the others to come, and they dashed across to him, hand in hand.

He hurried onward. “Our main message, the one we must get through, is to neuron this place soonest. Ralgrove should be investigated. This one—
fry it
!” What of Number 516? He had kissed the child goodnight and now he wanted to melt every cell in his brain before he woke up. But even if he could save the innocents, they wouldn’t stay innocent. In fifteen years or so, Number 516 would have all the deadly potential Dice had had when Vaun first met him. Roker’s talk of an infection had been realistic. Every spore must die.

Think
Armageddon
instead!

And how to convince the Patrol? “Trouble is, I don’t know the codes.”

The day code would have changed since he left Valhal. The fences would open for most admirals, for they could be identified by voice or face, but Admiral Vaun was a special case. The systems had special procedures for him, and they would certainly talk back to a lieutenant, especially if this one was already posted AWOL.