The Snow Queen

52

“Well, this sure’s hell’s not how I imagined spendin’ Mask Night.” Tor interrupted herself to fill her mouth with another sugary, alcohol soaked drunken-cake from the sack in her hand, doing her best to deaden body and mind against the coming end of the world. She pulled her mask back into place, hanging onto Pollux’s stalwart bulk, an island of comfort in the thinning Festival crowd. “Not with nothin’ but a hunk of cold metal to cozy up to, and a future of cleaning fish. Hell, I get seasick in the bathtub. And I hate fish, goddamn it!” Shouting it.

“You’re not the only one, sister!” A masked figure waved mutual disgust, disappeared after its chosen through a battered warehouse door, searching for a little privacy. Tor looked after them enviously; Pollux stared noncommittally down the Street. Nearly everyone who was going to had paired off for the night by now.

“I’m sorry things turned out badly for you, Tor,” Pollux said unexpectedly. “If you want to spend your time with a person, I do not mind.”

Tor glanced back at him, with the slightly irrational conviction that he would mind very much. “Nah. I can do that any night… but this’s the last night I’ll see you.” He didn’t answer.

They had made a sentimental journey down to the docks and warehouses of the lower city, because she had decided that she would rather spend the last night of her world in the places of her childhood, her origins: remembering her youth, reliving the days when she had never even aspired to the things she had ultimately become. Hoping that if she could remember when they didn’t exist, they might not matter so much when they were gone.

She wondered who was running the casino tonight — Who’s left?-or whether anyone was. Even Herne had disappeared, by Moon Dawntreader’s strange magic. The hell with it. She had gone back just long enough to collect the few things she wanted to hold on to from her time as Persipone, and left them at her half-brother’s. She hadn’t seen her brother in a long time, and she hadn’t seen him tonight either — he’d already gone out on the town. But they’d never been exactly close, anyway.

“You’re the closest thing to a friend I’ve got tonight, Polly.” She sighed. “Maybe you always were.” She sat down on an abandoned crate, in a pile of departure rubbish, comfortable in her old coveralls and her old surroundings. “You never bitched, no matter how hard I worked you, or how much crap I gave you… “Course, I guess you can’t complain, anyhow, so what does that prove?” She ate another cake. Pollux sat patiently on his tripod before her. She saw a red light begin to blink on his chest; the information short-circuited in her mind, and went unacknowledged. “Don’t your feelings ever get hurt, really, down inside someplace? Didn’t I ever insult you, or offend you, or something? Ye gods, I hope I never offended you, when you’ve been nothin’ but good to me…” She snuffled maudlinly.

“You could never offend me, Tor.”

She looked up at his inscrutable face, trying to interpret the meaning of the toneless words. “You mean that? I mean, do you mean that? You mean you — like me?”

“I mean ‘I like you,’ Tor. Yes, I do.” The faceless face looked at her.

“Well, what do you know?” She smiled. “I thought you weren’t supposed to. I thought you couldn’t. Feel anything, I mean. I always thought you were — uh, dumb. No offense,” hastily.

“I contain a sophisticated computer, Tor. I am programmed not to judge, except for legalities. But not to judge is hard at my level of complexity. I need constant readjustment.”

“Oh.” She nodded. “I guess I always knew you were more than jus’ a loadin’ device. I mean, where would a loadin’ device learn how to fix my hair? Or…” She faded, as she remembered. “Or squeal to the Blues about every wrong word somebody says on the Street.” She shrugged. “Or save my life; huh, Polly… ?” reaching out to pat him on the chest. “Oh, hell — we had some good times, didn’ we? You remember when old Stormprince assigned you to me? Gods, I was proud of myself! I thought being’ in charge of you was gonna be the high point of my life, you know? Who’d’ve figured… But in a way, maybe it was. I didn’t have any regrets, then. I dunno.” She ran a hand freely through her own limp hair. “I think it’s gonna take me a long time to figure out what being’ Perispone was.” She looked at her hands, which had not had a trace of callus for a long time now. “What’s that light flashing on you for? Did I forget to do something’ for you?” She stood up unsteadily.

“No, Tor. That means my contract is expiring.”

Surprise smacked her. “Oh. I know… I mean, I know it runs out tonight. But I… just thought maybe nobody’d notice. She gulped down the last of the drunken-cakes, crumpled the sack spitefully and threw it away. The trash precipitate of the Festival littered the Street for as far as she could see. “Do you want to go now?”

“No, Tor.” Pollux looked at her expressionlessly. “But if I am not at police headquarters soon I will stop functioning and be paralyzed.”

“Oh,” again. “I didn’t know that. Maybe we better get started, then.” She took his thick, angular arm as they moved back into the street, to keep their trajectories on the same course uphill. She looked back as they went; until it made her too dizzy, and she had to look ahead again. “What’s gonna happen to you now, Polly? Where you gonna go next?”

“I do not know where I will be sent, Tor. But I will be reprogrammed first with new information. I will forget everything that happened here.”

“What?” She pulled him to a stop, digging in her heels. “You mean you’re gonna forget all about Carbuncle? All about me?”

“Yes. Tor. Everything nonessential. Everything. Everything.” He turned toward her. “Do you like me, Tor?”

She blinked. “Well, sure. How’d I ever have got along without you all these years?” But it wasn’t enough, and somehow she could see that as she looked at him, although there was nothing of his face to see. “I mean… I really like you. Like a real friend. Like a real person. In fact, if you weren’t just a machine, y’know, maybe I could even’ve…” She laughed self-consciously. “You know.”

“Thank you, Tor.” He made a movement that was almost a nod, and they started on again.

When they had nearly reached Blue Alley they passed a small crowd of masked revelers going downhill as they climbed, trailing music and laughter. “Look, Polly, there’s the Summer Queen! There’s the future passin’ us by.” Among the menagerie of masks, she glimpsed one face that wasn’t hidden, a strangely familiar face under a crown of fiery hair… Sparks Dawntreader? She tried for a clearer look at the face, but it was hidden again in the crowd going away. No… She shook her head, refusing to believe it. Couldn’t be. Couldn’t.

Pollux slowed, and turned them toward the entrance to Blue Alley.