Mindship v1 0, p.10
Mindship (v1.0), page 10
“He means well.”
“I’m not complaining,” she said. “I think it’s pleasant He’s nice. But he’d probably blush to death if he ever heard me say it.” She laughed. To Kilgarin, it was the same laugh he’d heard three years before. Something about it made him uncomfortable. “Do you mind all this? Do you think it’s terribly sentimental?”
“I don’t really see the purpose, no,” he said.
“Must I remind you that you dragged the three of us along with you? Not by force, naturally. But we’re here because you want us to be. That makes you a bit responsible for our well-being…don’t you think?”
“I suppose,” Kilgarin said. He didn’t like the direction the conversation was taking, and was about to change it when Hear arrived, tugging at the bulky folds of his ship tunic. The Centaurian slid in next to Kilgarin, grinning.
“Work down in the gardens, cleaning trays, washing tubes. Still stink. Tried fresher, but can’t get smell off.” He pulled at the ragged locks of his hair. “How. all the time? Others, I mean. Physicals, others—how?”
“How do we do it?” Marka took a cigarette from a sleeve pocket. “It’s a job, J’kar. We’ve been doing work like it all our lives. You’ve never been inside a hydroponics plant before; for you, it’s something different. Something ugly.” She shrugged, lit the cigarette. ’To the rest of us, it’s just life. You have any complaints…tell them to the Company.”
They sat in silence, waiting for Raymond. Finally Marka said, in annoyance, “Where is that boy? He’s been gone almost a half hour.”
“This isn’t your usual mess hour,” Kilgarin said. “Maybe he’s having trouble finding the right line.”
“I don’t doubt it,” she replied.
J’kar rose awkwardly to his feet. “Wait,” he said thickly, “Stay. I’ll go.” Kilgarin started to get up, hut Marka reached across the table and pressed him back. They watched him lumber off between the tables toward the mess lines at the far end of the room.
“He can take care of himself, Killy.”
“I wish I was as sure as you arc,” Kilgarin said. “Damn him.”
A shout from the center of the lounge brought Kilgarin's head around. He stared, cursed, and pushed to his feet. Marka followed beside him. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong, Kilgarin?”
“It’s J’kar,” he said. He jerked out of her grasp and ran down an aisle between two partly empty tables. Ahead a crowd was gathering, obscuring his view. He pushed into the crowd, slipped between an overweight Physical and a goggling Technician, elbowed past and out into a clearing. In the center of the clearing was J’kar.
Or rather, J’kar and Ty’ger.
The aura of the crowd was tense with emotion as the diners watched the two men grappling on the floor. Ty’ger had J’kar in a hammerlock and was trying to maneuver his knee into the base of the big man’s spine. Both of them were grunting. Ty’ger snarling something unintelligible, his words consumed in the roar of the crowd. J’kar managed to work his elbow against the other man’s chest, heaved and threw Ty’ger backward over the polished plastisteel. Kilgarin chose that moment to step forward. Someone caught him and drew him back, shouting in his ear, “It’s their fight, let them at it, Fellow,” Kilgarin fried to pull away, but the grip on his arms tightened, another pair of hands joining the first.
In the middle of the improvised arena, J’kar was trying to get to his feet. His bad arm was moving without coordination. When he saw Kilgarin, he widened his eyes, cried out, “Killy—” and was hit from behind by Ty’ger, borne down.
Kilgarin strained against the hands holding him. The grip was unbreakable. He closed his eyes, then—and pushed.
A surge of hatred swept into his mind. Kilgarin sagged mentally under the onslaught of Ty’ger’s emotions. With an effort he forced himself to face them, absorb them. There was no sense to the emotions swelling into Kilgarin’s mind—there was only the Centaurian’s hatred, a pressure that grew as Ty’ger snapped a choke on J’kar.
Ty’ger, no!
The Centaurian twisted back, his eyes rolling, hands falling from J’kar’s throat.
Kilgarin? Is that you? What are you doing to me?
1 want you to stop, Ty’ger. Now.
Ty’ger fell from J’kar’s limp form, striking the floor, his back arching into a bow, his hands clutching his face as he strained against an invisible force.
You’re hurting me, Killy—
Will you stop?
Yes. Yes, dammit!
Kilgarin relaxed. On the floor, Ty’ger ceased to writhe. His body slowly flattened to the plastisteel. Breath trailed out of his lips in a long sigh. Around the arena, the crowd began to mumble in disappointment.
Don’t ever do that again, Kilgarin.
The Cork ignored the thought, pushing Ty’ger presence out of his mind while he slipped out of the loosened hold of the men behind him. He crossed to J’kar. The Centaurian looked up at him. “Are you all right?” Kilgarin asked.
“Now, sure,” the other man said. He swallowed, frowned. “Who…?”
“He calls himself Ty’ger,” Kilgarin said. “He thinks you should know him.”
Comprehension darkened the large man’s heavy features. He tried to speak, but the words choked in his throat. Kilgarin laid a hand on the Centaurian’s shoulder, wondering, at the same time, how he could remove himself from the problem. “Take it easy, J’kar,” Kilgarin said. ‘•You’ll be OK. Don’t get excited.”
He looked around for Ty’ger, but the other Centaurian was already gone. The crowd was thinning, people breaking away to return to their tables and their interrupted meals. One Physical pushed through the crowd, his round face contorted with fear. It was Raymond. He was holding a large tray set with several plates and mugs.
“Where were you with the damned food?” Kilgarin asked.
“I—they wouldn’t let me through on the first line—”
“Forget it,” Kilgarin said. “Take J’kar back to the table. I’ve got something else I have to do.”
“Sit down, Kilgarin,” the Captain said. “You’ll have to give me a moment. I’m still tied in to the Set; I’ve been in touch with Barron, working out the details for our cargo transfer. That Communications agent, Ryork; she’s done a line job of keeping me patched in. We’ve been having trouble with a Singularity—excuse me—”
The Captain returned his attention to his Set, pushing buttons and keys on the console swung over his knees. Kilgarin watched without interest as the Captain spoke into the throat mike that connected him to the Set, which in turn brought him in contact with the psi field powering the ship. After a moment the Captain finished and unplugged from the console.
“Tailor, the man on Barron, tells me we’ll be hitting some trouble in the Outworlds. I asked him for details, but he didn’t have any.” Detaching the throat mike, the Captain rubbed his neck, thoughtfully. “Probably rumor. Quite a bit of it at most of the ports these days.” Finished with the microphone, he turned to Kilgarin and said briskly, “You mentioned one of the Physicals, didn’t you? Any problems?”
Kilgarin told him about the run-in between Ty’ger and J’kar. Toward the end of his explanation he realized that the Captain had stopped listening. The other man was on his feet, standing before the wide screen at the rear of the control room, his hands in the back pockets of his jump suit. Kilgarin stopped speaking. The Captain said nothing.
“Captain? Are you going to help J’kar?”
“There’s something you should know, Kilgarin. I’ve been with Ty’ger for three years. He’s a violent man; I know that, Kilgarin. He hates. More than any man I’ve ever encountered. But I also know what kind” of ship this is—it needs emotion, any kind of emotion, to power its drives. Love, hate: it doesn’t matter, so long as the emotion is strong. It needs a man whose emotions are deeper than normal or natural. It needs Ty’ger.”
“You’re saying you’ll do nothing?”
“That’s right, Kilgarin. You’re a Cork. You should understand the priorities here.”
“I understand them. Captain.”
“Good. We should reach Barron in another six or seven hours. You’ll be on duty around 0800. Don’t you think you should be getting some sleep?”
Smiling, Kilgarin unfolded from the bench that ran along the wall opposite the Set. Smiling, he bowed and said, “Yes, Captain.” Still smiling, he left.
The Charter touched Barron and remained a day’s rotation on the bleak gray world, unloading part of its cargo and taking on the supply of exotic fruits harvested by Barron’s small colonist population. Kilgarin spoke briefly with the Company agent at the main port. The agent, a muscular man sliding into middle age, offered to take Kilgarin out to see his fields nearby, but the Cork refused. He’d seen colony farms before. They were one of the main reasons behind his choosing a bordello on Endrim for his retirement.
Kilgarin asked the man what he knew about the Charter’s Captain, asking first if he’d ever been on Barron before.
“You’d know more about him that I do,” Tailor replied. “He’s your Captain. The last time I saw him”—he sniffed at his glass of absinthe, blinking—“was almost two years ago, and he was only a Mate then. You want some Roots?” he added. “Good chewing. Affects motor control, they tell me.” He offered Kilgarin a handful of gray leaves. The Cork refused.
“A Mate? How did he seem to you? Ambitious?”
“Never noticed it. Kept it hidden, if he was. The Captain before this one, he was a hard man. Not the sort you could get friendly with. Haven’t gotten friendly with this one either, mind you, but at least with him I feel I could.” He sipped at his glass. “This right from Endrim? Some other kind’s floating around these days, you know, from the Outworlds. Going to be some trouble when the Company finds out.”
“Have you told them?” Kilgarin asked, buckling his canteen back onto its shoulder strap.
“Tell them? Why? Other stuff's cheaper.” He drank, finished off his cup. “Not so good, of course—but definitely cheaper.”
Kilgarin returned to the ship. Twenty minutes later the Charter lifted for Rylon.
Marka approached him the evening before they entered the Rylon system. He was in Sensitive, standing near one of the wall-length screens that showed a view of the Back Region beyond the ship; he didn’t notice her until she put a hand on his arm, and then he felt her only dimly, like a voice speaking through the fog of a dream. “Are you going to stay with me when we reach Rylon?” she asked him.,
“I want to,” Kilgarin said. He continued to watch the maze of color winding on the screen. Marka stood with him a moment, her fingers clinging to the cuff of his jump suit. She wore a brightly colored dress-shift that curved diagonally around her body, concealing her left breast, her right hip, and all of her left leg. She’d dyed her hair a pale shade of gold and added makeup to her chin and under-jaw, in the current fashion. For several minutes she waited, her eyes holding on him. Finally she broke away.
“I’ll see you when we berth,” she said.
He nodded and said nothing.
It was late afternoon of the following day before the Charter’s crew had been processed by the Rylon port authorities. Kilgarin and Marka left the ship after most of the others, waiting to file their Contracts and have their blood ID’d, according to the regulations of the colony. Kilgarin saw J’kar and Raymond pass near them, but he gave no sign of noticing the two Physicals. J’kar seemed distracted; Raymond was speaking to him in a low voice and the Centaurian was nodding absently. Kilgarin watched them until they disappeared into the fourth of the gray and blue stalls provided for port clearance.
When they left the last of the stalls behind, Kilgarin took Marka by the hand and led her down corridors lit with glowing signs. He found a sign that told him what he wanted to know, and headed in the direction the sign indicated. Marka, reading the message over his shoulder, cried out in surprise. “A flier, Killy? On Rylon?”
“I like to get the feel of a world I’m going to spend some time on, Marka. I want to see a bit of it, get to know it.”
She stared at him a moment, then shrugged and allowed herself to be led.
The flier rental shop was on the roof of the port building, a vast structure that dominated the city. Several levels of the building were devoted to a business, the rest to pleasure: signs announced some of the various diversions available, broadcasting their messages in several languages, as well as on the Sensitive frequency. Kilgarin found it necessary to shut out the advertisements on several levels. Each sign was more intense than the last.
Taking a lift shaft they arrived on the roof and picked their way through a forest of antennae to a squat building tucked between two triangular neon signs. There were no people here; the crowds were all on the levels below. No one found it necessary to view the moons of Rylon in person—except, Marka reminded him peevishly, Kilgarin. He ignored the comment and rapped on the window of the squat building, knocking until a face appeared, followed by a man. “You from the Company?” the man asked.
Kilgarin said no. “I want to rent a flier for the evening.”
He and the proprietor of the flier agency dickered through the window about the size of the flier necessary and the fee Kilgarin was willing to pay. The other man seemed confused at first, as though he couldn’t believe someone wanted to leave the city. Eventually, however, the arrangements were completed and Kiigarin took possession of a waist-high skimmer, powered by an antimatter engine. The flier was large enough for both he and Marka to stretch out on. their shoulders and necks comfortably socketed by the skimmer’s formfitting backrest. The proprietor watched them lift off the rooftop and shoot into the darkening sky. Their last view of him showed his round face upturned, his expression blurred by the distance. Then he was gone, swallowed by the glare of neon far below.
“Where are we going?” Marka asked.
“I don’t know,” Kilgarin said. “We’re looking. That’s enough by itself, isn’t it?”
“I suppose.”
Below them the city of Rylon covered the land like a puddle of gold, portions of it glistening red for an instant, or blue, as though catching the dying light from the setting sun. Kilgarin guided the skimmer through the clouds moving in over the city from the north, and the air around them went from dry to moist, warm to cold, and then clear again as they left the clouds behind. The dome’s bubble came up around them, shielding them from the rarity of the upper altitudes. They went into a curve that brought them out over a rolling pasture that extended west as far as they could sec in the fading sunlight. Rylon was behind them, already sinking beyond the low horizon.
They flew west, dipping low now and then to skim hedges, rising to leap the crests of low hills, pushing forward through the night.
Kilgarin resisted the urge to probe Marka’s thoughts and discover what she felt about the world around them. He was afraid of what he might find. He wanted her to be the same—and yet not the same—as the woman he’d known three years before. It was a precarious balance, and one which he didn’t want to upset.
Silently they went west, through the alien dusk.
“I think I understand why you wanted to come here,” Marka said. She held herself against the chill. “It’s nice. It’s different, not like the city at all.”
They sat together on a rise before a shallow brook. The water bubbled and hissed at their feet, moving more slowly than seemed natural, over rocks that were just the wrong shade of red.
“Places like this remind me of Wellington,” Kilgarin said. “We had a farm there, trees, our own river. Not a natural river, we’d dug it ourselves, but it served. Nights like this we’d go down to the stream and sit under one of my father’s trees, and listen to the water. Marc and I. He was quiet, like my father. Neither of them talked much. My mother—I could listen to her for hours. Sometimes I did. But Marc was quiet, which was good sometimes.”
“It must have been very nice,” she said. “Do you miss it?”
“Yes and no. I like the cities.”
“That’s because they’re new to you. You haven’t lived in them all your life.” She lifted her head and tossed her hair back from her face. Kilgarin watched her profile as she gazed up past the trees, at the smoky night sky and the two melon-sized moons. “I was bom on earth, Kilgarin. I’ve told you that. Have you ever been there?”
“Two years ago, after I left you.”
“You probably went to Peking. Everyone does. Not many come to Europe anymore, and I don’t blame them. Most of the smaller cities have been abandoned, and the larger ones aren’t fit to live in. Even Old Rome—that’s in Italy, part of the South European Confederacy—even Old Rome is nothing but ruins and tourist traps. That’s where I was bom. In Old Rome.” Her voice was quiet as she finished speaking…
“What was it like?” Kilgarin asked. He glanced over his shoulder, the movement of a small animal near the skimmer bringing his head around. The creature blinked at him with luminous emerald eyes.
“It wasn’t very good,” Marka said. “I can tell you that much. My mother was on the dole, and when 1 came along, she didn’t have the credit to feed me. I was illegal, you see. An accident; my mother’s sterility shots didn’t take. She sent me north to Milan, to an aunt who was doing well off her dead husband’s pension—she’d never reported his death, she just continued to forge his name on the Company chits. My aunt and I disliked each other from the first. She sold me as soon as she found a buyer. My mother should have done it—eliminate the middleman, you see? The buyer wasn’t so bad. I was three when be got me. I was ten when I left. It’s truly amazing what you can learn from a man in seven years, Kilgarin.”
