Hero! (8 page)

Business…he forced his mind back to business, and why he had come. If Tham had been failing for two years, then Vaun’s suspicions were unfounded. The ComCom’s withdrawal at this time was just a horrible, ironic coincidence. But the rest of the world had a right to life.

“I need to talk to Tham, Zozo. There’s a Q ship on impact trajectory. It’s not just him and you that are going to die. It’s everyone. The whole planet.”

He saw the suspicion leap up again in her eyes. She remembered her gun, and raised it slightly.

“Why did you think that Roker had sent me?” he demanded sharply. And why the insane missile defenses, if they were real and not just a bluff?

The folds of skin tightened around her eyes. “It’s Tham. He’s having…not delusions…but he has a crazy notion that Roker may come here to get him.”

Get him? Why would anyone go after a dying boy? Then Vaun understood, even as Zozo put it into words.

“He says Roker’s threatening to do a mind bleed on him.”

E
VEN AT DOGGOTH, Vaun has rarely ever seen a human medic before, but this one is undoubtedly human—unusually dark skin, but quite human. Her snowy-white coat bulges over hip and breast. The whites of her eyes are tinged with yellow, her head and hands coal black. So is her thick, woolly hair. Recalling anthropology classes, he decides she must be an almost-pure example of one of the rarer Elgith stocks. He supposes the other boys would find her attractive. Not a machine, for sure.

He has no clothes on, but he stands at attention because of those metal tags on her shiny white shoulders. She is taller than he is.

She is studying a handcom she holds, and ignoring his nudity. That sort of thing never worries him anyway. All he can think about is that he is leaving Doggoth. The austere little room is damned chilly for bare ass, though.

“Interesting,” she says. Then she turns her black-on-yellow gaze on him. “You are a very remarkable specimen, Crewboy. Medically remarkable, I mean.”

With that complexion she couldn’t blush, and he wasn’t going to. If that was what she meant, she was wasting her time. It wasn’t too likely she meant it that way, anyway.

“Ma’am.”

She shrugs. “You are scheduled to participate in a mind bleed. Do you understand what is involved?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He means he has a rough idea, and he suspects it’s nasty, but he will do anything to leave Doggoth. Anything.

“I am required to certify that you are acting from free choice, that you understand that this procedure is not within standing orders, and that you may refuse to proceed without any prejudice to your record.”

When an admiral wants it? Ha!

“I understand, ma’am.”

She looks him over doubtfully, and her fleshy lips move into a hint of a smile. “I think you’re lying your head off, Crewboy, but you’re on record now.”

“Ma’am,” he says automatically, and wishes they would get on with whatever it is.

“It won’t hurt, but it will be unpleasant. We shave your head, you understand? And we drill holes in your skull.”

Vaun says, “Ma’am!” a little less certainly.

Now she is certainly amused. “Very small holes. Hair size. They’ll heal in a couple of days, and no harm done. Seven or eight of them. There will be another boy involved, and what happens to him is a great deal more unpleasant, but you will not be damaged.”

She pauses, so he repeats his mantra again, “Ma’am!”

She glances down at her handcom again, and rolls her eyes. “You are a cool one! All right, you can put your pants on.”

She doesn’t move, so he doesn’t. She regards him again, hesitantly. “Crewboy…The worst part of this is what happens to the donor. You have to be close, so you’ll have to watch. It’s not nice at all. Just remember that nothing like that is happening to you.”

This time he merely nods.

She shrugs and turns as if about to go, then stops. She thumbs something on her handcom.

“Crewboy…You know about booster, of course?”

This big black girl is starting to irk him, leaving him dangling in a cold room like this. He is under an admiral’s orders now, well out of reach of any pry-finger medico’s powers, so for the first time in his whole life he can afford to be a little bit uppity. “‘Booster is the common name for the dietary supplement necessary for human metabolism on an alien planet, containing essential amino acids, vitamins, and trace elements, plus various therapeutic or preventative medications including antihistamine antidegrad—’”

“Quite!” she snaps, shutting him off. The jet eyes flash. “You may need a few more shots, Crewboy, and I can really lean on a needle.”

“Ma’am!” he says apprehensively.

She chuckles. “You are about to receive your commission, I believe?”

“Ma’am.” And leave Doggoth!

“One of the privileges of being a spacer officer is that you get to adjust your own mix, you know. Except when on duty.”

“Ma’am.”

She nods thoughtfully, studying the information he cannot see, and he is suddenly curious. She holds all of him there, in that coal-black hand of hers. Everything human science can know about him is right there on her palm, and he wonders what it says that she finds so interesting.

“You likely won’t ever need mood adjusters. Off the record, Crewboy…this is a very personal question, and you needn’t answer if you don’t want to. Have you ever had a woman?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Now he thinks he is blushing. Krantz!

“But not often? Not often for a healthy boy of twenty-two? An unusually powerful, intelligent, and reasonably good-looking boy?”

“Maybe not, ma’am.”
Did it once, ma’am. On a bet, ma’am. The others said I couldn’t, ma’am. Showed them I could, ma’am. Fuck your own minding business, ma’am
.

She looks down at her com and says, “Boys, ever? Voluntarily, I mean—I know what happens to recruits in Doggoth.”

“No, ma’am.” That would be even more disgusting.

She nods to the machine, and he is surprised to realize that she is embarrassed, and doesn’t want this conversation any more than he does.

“That’s what the numbers say. That you’re physically capable if it, but your id…your drive is almost non…is low. You know about ‘stiffener’?”

“Yes, ma’am.” After lights-out, the talk is almost all about what the recruits will do with stiffener when they get back to the real world. The girls’ version is called “loosener.” He’s heard of little else for five years.

“I’m going to give you some advice, Crewboy,” she tells her hands, “as I don’t suppose anyone else ever will, and a machine medic won’t volunteer information. Most spacers add about three units a day to their booster. The machines know what you want if you ask for stiffener. Four or even five units for parties—maybe. Despite any stories you may have heard, almost no one takes more than that. Six or seven make a boy a human goat—he’ll go after everyone and everything, including the canary. Someone usually shoots him in self-defense. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Vaun is certain he is blushing all the way down to his groin. Blushing, after five years in Doggoth!

“For you I would prescribe an initial dose of ten.”

“
Ma’am?
”

“You can experiment, but my guess is that seven will put you at about civilian standard and you’ll need ten or so to be a normal, obnoxiously raunchy spacer. Twelve for parties.”

He nods, wondering why he feels insulted and angry.

She gives him a real smile, and very white teeth flash in her very black face. “It adds to life, Crewboy. Believe me, you’ll like it.”

She slides the handcom into her pocket and turns away. “Prior did it,” she says over her shoulder as she goes to the door. “It was the only way he could pass. Put your pants on and come out here.”

T
HERE WAS NO stiffener available in Forhil. There was no booster of any kind. The medical stood silent and dark, and nothing Vaun tried would activate it.

Well, he wouldn’t be staying long, and one day without booster wouldn’t hurt. His metabolism was vastly superior to most, and he wouldn’t lose much of his edge in one day. It would soon return. A day without stiffener might even be advisable, as he hadn’t replaced Lann yet, but he knew that girls would soon start eyeing him oddly and the boys would catch on a day or two later. A spacer not on the make was not normal.

There would be dreams, too.

He had showered and shaved, and donned fresh clothes delivered by Zozo herself. Then he had gone to the medical, intending to have a full checkup, because of the battering he had endured in ejecting from the torch. Staring in baffled anger at the mass of useless, shiny junk, he resigned himself to bearing his bruises until he got back to Valhal.

But of course the bruises were not his real concern. In truth, he had been rattled by seeing Zozo’s disintegration. He found that insight distasteful. How did a boy feel when at last he heard the warning—that inevitable warning—about increasing his daily dose of preservative?

How old was Tham?

How old was he?

Ruefully he recalled Maeve’s shrewish comment the previous night about his not being recognized at the party. What she had been hinting was that Admiral Vaun, famous hero, was ancient history now. Probably none of the boys and girls present around that firepool had even been born when he’d boarded
Unity
and faced down the Brotherhood. That was a medicine more bitter than booster.

It was not the sort of medicine a boy wanted, though.

Well, if he could do nothing about black eyes, he should be able to cure hunger. Turning to go in search of the kitchens, he discovered Zozo standing in the doorway with the damned gun still dangling in one limp hand. Spying? He hid his anger in a bland look of inquiry and asked politely, “Can I see him now?”

She peered at him with a vagueness that only came from neverminds, the unmistakable appearance of being somewhere else. So, now she had chosen to meet her voluntary disintegration in a drugged daze, but that was her business. Tham had no choice, if his body was rejecting the booster, but she had gone into withdrawal voluntarily. Vaun didn’t think he could ever do that, not for anyone.

Eventually she nodded. “He says so.”

“Lead the way, then.”

Zozo thought about that, then nodded. She turned and shuffled out the door. Vaun followed. He caught up with her in a couple of long strides and made a fast snatch for her wrist, twisting the gun away from her.

She made no attempt to resist. “Why didn’t you just ask?” she asked bitterly, rubbing her fingers.

“Why didn’t you just offer?” he snapped back. Surprisingly, the weapon was a spacer’s bullet-throwing pistol. Unless Zozo had skills he was unaware of, she would not have been able to hit the planet from the ground floor with a thing like that, but he felt much happier with it safely tucked in his belt.

Long ago, he had shot Abbot with one of those…

Hunched and awkward, she led the way back along the corridor, and out into the lofty central hall. Again Vaun sensed the paltry neglect that he had felt in the gardens. Pale dust dulled tables and banisters, and the beams of sunlight from the high windows were alive with sparkling motes. Forhil was already in mourning for the boy who had owned it for…how many years?

He had hoped Zozo would lead him to the dining room, or at least the kitchens, but she headed for the library, and he realized that he was dreading the coming encounter.

He knew the comcom as an attractive, trim boy with oversize freckles decorating a snub nose, and curly brown hair above a notable widow’s peak, a boy who smiled a lot and said very little. Either Tham preferred to run his mix very fast, or he was just naturally full of energy. He rarely sat down for two minutes at a time. He was a daunting companion in any sort of physical activity. At gill fishing he could swim even Vaun to a standstill, and then innocently suggest a half-hour run back up to the house just for the sheer enjoyment of it.

And now…

Now Tham was a shabby dressing gown full of bones, stretched out in a huge, heavily upholstered, brown chair. His eyes were closed; his breathing rattled. If that was what age looked like, then he must be as old as the galaxy. Most of his hair had fallen out, leaving only a taut stretch of skin to hide his skull, and yet his face hung in loose sags, frosty with stubble. His bare shanks were blotched and thin as sticks.

Vaun had never dreamed it would be this bad. No wonder people withdrew from the world when it started! He had known domestic animals grow old, of course. Favored pets were given their own booster, but when their bodies likewise rejected the preservatives, then pouncers and horses could be mercifully shot.

“He was awake a minute ago,” Zozo said fretfully. “I told him you’d come.”

The room was silent except for an ironic, cheerful crackling from the big stone fireplace. A dog howled somewhere in the distance.

Vaun stared miserably at the pathetic relic in the big chair. “Roker truly threatened him with a mind bleed?” he asked softly.

“So he says. They had a screaming row.”

“About what?”

“About Roker forcing a com call through to a boy who’d gone into withdrawal.”

So how would Vaun’s behavior rank? “What has he been holding back, Zozo? What secrets has he kept from Planetary Command?”

She blinked vaguely. “None.” They were both whispering. “Or so he says. He swears that every signal ever received has been fed to Archives as required. But Roker’s a crafty devil. He trusts no one.”

Roker was having delusions if he thought he could run a mind bleed on Tham now. Even the preliminary trephination would kill him. But the talk of mind bleeding might be Tham’s own delusion, if his brain was rotting as fast as his body.

Oh Tham, Tham! Few indeed were the admirals or commodores who would accept invitations to Valhal, or invite the upstart Vaun to visit their own abodes. Many would turn off their party beacons if they detected the signature beam from his torch. Stuck-up aristocratic prigs, all of them, while Tham, whose family was older than any…

Suddenly the folds of skin twitched like blinds, and Tham’s eyes were open, staring up at Vaun. They were bleary and yellow, but they were most horribly and certainly Tham’s eyes, peering out of that decaying monstrosity of a body in which he was imprisoned.