The Snow Queen (46 page)

She nodded.
“All right, Miroe. Let’s go find her.”

He
hesitated. “I—don’t know how to ask you for this kind of favor; I have no right
to ask you. But—”

“It’s all
right. It’s my duty to help.”

“No. I’m
trying to ask you to be—off duty, when you do this. To-forget that you ever met
whoever you meet.” He smiled, or grimaced. “You see. I trust you far too much,
too.” He began to rub his arms; she realized he had come after her without a
coat.

And she
remembered his unease at her arrival, and understood it, at last. “She isn’t a
mass murderer or anything?”

He laughed.
“Far from it.”

“Then I’ve
got a terrible memory. Come on, let’s go before you freeze. You can fill me in
on the conspiracy charges on the way.”

They went
on down the hill, into the wind’s teeth. Jerusha took them up in the patroller,
heading north along the sere ribbon of the coast. “All right. I guess I can let
myself put the parts together now. You did have something to do with that tech
runner they zapped out here a fortnight or so ago. Your guest is a smuggler.”
She slid back with a kind of relief into familiar patterns, familiar habits,
their old uncomplicated relationship.

“Half-right.”

“Half?” She
glanced at him. “Then explain.”

“You
remember the—circumstances of our first meeting.”

“Yes,” with
a sudden image of Gundhalinu’s face, full of righteous indignation. “He really
had you nailed.”

“Your
sergeant.” She felt him smile, and then remember. “I’m sorry about—what
happened. For your sake.”

“At least
it was quick.”
And that’s all the mercy
we can hope for in this life
. “The girl—?” with a growing prescience.

“Is the
Summer girl who broke your arm; the one who went off world with the smugglers.”

“She’s
back? How?”

“They
brought her back with them.”

Jerusha
felt the patrol craft buck and swoop in a strong downdraft, reset the controls.
“Which means she’s an illegal returnee.”
And
maybe a whole lot more
. “Where’s she been in the meantime?”

“Kharemough.”

She
grunted. “Wouldn’t you know. Tell me, Miroe—are you sure her being taken off
world was an accident?”

His brows
tightened. “One hundred percent. What do you mean?”

“Hasn’t it
ever struck you that Moon Dawntreader Summer bears a remarkable resemblance to
the Snow Queen?”

“No.” Utter
blankness. “I haven’t even seen the Snow Queen in years.”

“What would
you say if I told you the Queen knew who she was—was furious over her
disappearance? If I told you all my troubles started because I let her get
away. What would you say if I told you that Moon Dawntreader is the Queen’s
clone?”

He stared.
“You have proof?”

“No, I
don’t have proof! But I know it; I know Arienrhod had plans for that girl ...
plans for making her other self the Summer Queen. And if she finds out that
Moon is back—”

“They
aren’t the same person. They can’t be.” Miroe frowned out at the sea. “You’ve
forgotten something about Moon.”

“What?”

“She’s a
sibyl.”

Jerusha
started, as memory doubled the words. “So she is .... But that still doesn’t
mean I’m wrong. Or that she isn’t a danger to the Hegemony.”

“What are you
going to do about it?” Miroe twisted in his seat until he was facing her.

She shook
her head. “I don’t know. I won’t know until I get there.”

“Get those
hides stripped off, there. Hurry up ... a white one coming ... shelter by dark
...” Dogs barking.

Moon felt
the words ebb and flow, like the cold tongue of the tide licking her feet, her
ankles, her legs. She opened her eyes, to the memory that she did not want to
open her eyes and see-But all she saw was the sky, meaningless cloud flotsam
drifting. She did not move, afraid to.

“This one’s
dead.”

“... is
luck, praise the Mother! ... never found so many hides ...”

“Praise the
Snow Queen.” Laughter.

“This one’s
not.” A face blotted out the sky, shrouded in white. It knelt, dragged her up
to sitting.

“Black.”
Moon heard her own voice mumbling like a madwoman’s. “In black. Where ...
where?” She reached out; dug her fingers into the thick white shoulder for
support, as she saw the body that lay beside her own—”Silky!”

The figure
in white shoved her away, getting to its feet. “One of those mer-loving
bleeders, I guess. Must’ve killed the Hound. Hounds left the job half done on
her.” The voice was male, young.

“Silky ...
Silky ...” Moon stretched to reach the ends of inert tentacles.

“Finish
it.” A harsh, timeworn voice.

Moon
struggled back onto her side as the youth squatted, picking up a rock. She
clawed at the fastening of her suit, jerked it open halfway down her stomach as
the rock arced over her head. “Sibyl!” She threw the word up like a shield.

The boy dropped
the stone from twitching fingers, pushed back his hood. She saw his face lose
its inhumanity, saw his confusion follow the track of dried blood upward to her
wounded throat.

“Sibyl ...”
She pointed at the tattoo, praying that it was clear enough, and that he would
understand.

“Ma!” The
boy sat back on his heels, shouted over his shoulder. “Look at this!”

Other
ghost-white figures materialized around her like a spirit tribunal, doubling
and shining in her uncertain focus.

“A sibyl,
Ma!” A slight female figure danced with eagerness beside her. “We can’t kill
her.”

“I’m not
afraid of sibyls’ blood!” Moon identified the crone’s voice among the glaring
whites as the old woman struck herself on the chest. “I’m holy. I’m going to
live forever.”

“Oh, the
hell you are.” The girl shoved her brother aside, bending over to peer down at
Moon’s throat. She giggled nervously, straightening up again. “Can you talk?”

“Yes.” Moon
sat up, put a hand to her throat, one against her swollen face, hoarse with
trying not to swallow. She looked across Silky’s sprawled body, saw beyond it
more white figures using their skinning knives, mutilating the bodies of the
dead mers. She swayed forward, clutching her knees, hiding from the sight of
them.
I didn’t see him. I didn’t. It was someone
else!
She moaned; her voice was the desolate mourning of a lone met song.

“Then I
want her.” The girl turned back to the old woman. “I want her for my zoo. She
can answer any question!”

“No!” The
old woman slapped at her; she ducked her head. “Sibyls are diseased, the off
worlders say they’re diseased. They’re all deceivers. No more pets, Blodwed!
You stink the place up with them already. I’m getting rid of those—”

“You just
try!” Blodwed kicked her viciously. The old woman howled and stumbled back.
“You just try! You want to live forever, you old drooler, you better leave my
pets alone!”

“All right,
all right ...” the crone whined. “Don’t talk to your mother like that, you
ungrateful brat. Don’t I let you have anything you want?”

“That’s
more like it.” Blodwed put her hands on her hips, looked down at Moon’s huddled
grief again, grinning. “I think you’re going to be just what I need.”

“Gods! Oh,
my gods,” more a curse than a prayer.

Jerusha stood
silently beside Miroe on the lifeless beach, listened to the far, high
skreeling of the displaced scavenger birds. Her eyes swept the death-littered
field of stones restlessly, not wanting to settle anywhere, register any detail
of the scene, but unable to look back at Miroe ashen-faced beside her. Unable
to speak a word or even touch him, ashamed to intrude further on a grief past
comprehending. This was the Hunt, the mer sacrifice—this stinking abattoir on
the barren shore. This was the thing she had resented in principle, without
ever trying to approach its reality. But this man had hated the reality.

Miroe moved
away from the patrol craft began a path through the mutilated corpses of the
mers, inspecting each hide-stripped, bloody form with masochistic thoroughness.
Jerusha followed him, keeping her distance; felt her jaws tightening until she
wondered whether she would ever be able to open her mouth again. She saw him
stop and kneel down by one of the bodies. Moving closer, she saw that it was not
a mer. And not human. “A—a dead Hound?”

“A dead
friend.” He picked the dillyp’s limp body up like a sleeping child, she saw the
dark stain that it left behind on the beach. She watched uncomprehendingly as
he carried the body to the edge of the water, entered it without hesitation,
wading further and further out until the frigid sea lapped his chest. And then
he let the exile go quietly home.

As he came
out of the water again Jerusha took off her coat and threw it around his
shoulders. He nodded absently; she almost thought that the cold did not reach
him. She remembered suddenly that one of the tech runners five years ago had
been a dillyp.

“She must
be dead, too.” His voice was like steel. She realized that there was no sign of
Moon Dawntreader. “Starbuck, the Hounds, did this.” He gestured; the word was a
curse. “The last Hunt. On my land.” His hands coiled into fists. “And leaving
them like this, mutilating them, this—flaunting. Why?”

“Arienrhod
ordered it.” The simple statement seared her like a beam of light, as she saw
the only conceivable reason that Arienrhod might have for lashing out at an off
worlder a total stranger. Because of me? No, no ... not because of me!

Miroe
turned as though her guilt shone out like a beacon. “This is a crime against a
citizen of the Hegemony, on his granted land.” His voice accused her without
needing to say the words. “You’ve seen it with your own eyes, you have the
jurisdiction. Do you have the control to charge Starbuck with
murder—Commander?”

She
stiffened. “I don’t know. I don’t know any more, Miroe ...” touching the badges
on her coat collar. She took a deep breath. “But I swear to you, before your
gods and mine, that I will do anything in my power to make it happen.”
(
seeing
the ruined
bodies)
“She destroys everything she touches, goddamn her—”
(BZ’s life gone up in a ball of flame)
“—and I’ll make her pay, if I have to die to do it! She won’t get away with
it—”
(LiouxSked’s life ruined)
“—she
thinks she’s untouchable, she thinks she’ll be Queen forever; but she won’t get
away with it—”
(her own life ruined)
“—if I have to drown her myself!”

“I believe
you, Jerusha,” Miroe said, unsmiling; she heard the cold accusation fade from
his voice. “But there isn’t much time.”

“I know.”
She looked away, deliberately imprinting her mind with the gaping ruin of a
creature whose only crime was life. “I’ve never seen a mer—” She pressed her
lips together.

“You
haven’t seen one here, either.” His voice was unsteady.

“Not those
mounds of dead flesh—those are nothing at all. You haven’t seen the mers until
you’ve seen them dance on the water, or heard their song ... You haven’t
understood the real crime until you know the truth about what they are. They’re
not just animals, Jerusha.”

“What?” She
turned back. “What are you saying?”
No, don’t
tell me this; I don’t want to know.

“They’re
intelligent beings. There weren’t two murders on this beach today, there were
half a hundred. And over the last millennium—”

She swayed,
shaken by the wind. “No ... Miroe, they’re not. They can’t be!”

“They’re a
synthetic life form; the Old Empire gave them intelligence as well as
immortality. Moon Dawntreader told me the truth about them.”

“But why?
Why would they be intelligent? And how could the Hedge not know ... ?” Her
voice faded.

“I don’t
know why. But I know the Hegemony has to have known the truth, for a
millennium. I told Moon when I heard it that I didn’t know whether to laugh or
cry.” Muscles twitched in his face. “I do now.” He turned his back on her.

Jerusha
stood without words, without motion, waiting for the brittle bowl of the sky to
crack open and fall, waiting for the weight of injustice to crush this eggshell
world of lies and bring it crashing down on her ... But there was no change in
the sea, in the air, no difference in the profile of the cliffs or the
suffocating awareness of death, waste, mourning. “Miroe ... come back to the
patroller. You’ll—you’ll catch your death.”

He nodded.
“Yes. The survivors will return, in time. I have to leave them to—to their own.
I can’t help them, I can’t help my own, any more.” He looked toward the small
outrigger beached at the water’s edge, its sail flapping mournfully. “She gave
me the most important gift anyone could have given me, Jerusha: the truth ...
She said she was told to come back here; shed had a sibyl’s sending. I don’t
understand, I can’t believe it was meant to end like this for her. What does it
all mean?”