The Summer Queen

TIAMAT: Carbuncle

“… And get another keg of the kelp beer while you’re back there, and hook that up too, all right, Pollux?” Tor Starhiker paused, turning away from the bar to look expectantly at the shining, semi-human body, the faceless face of her newly leased servo.

It nodded, the twin red lights of its visual sensors meeting her eyes with an unreadable stare. “Yes, Tor,” it said.

She sighed, indefinably disappointed. “You do know how to do that?”

“I do.”

“Then go do it.” She waved her hand and it started away, emotionless and inevitable. She watched it disappear through the doors into the storage area. “Shit,” she said, and sighed again.

“What’s the matter?” a voice asked behind her. She turned back to the bar, only mildly surprised to discover who it was that had spoken to her. He’d been a sometime regular since the beginning, and in here almost nightly for the past couple of weeks. He was from offworld; he had some foreign-sounding name she kept forgetting, although lately he had sat at the bar and talked to her every night. Niburu, that was it. Kedalion Niburu. “Call me Kedalion,” he’d said.

She shrugged, and pulled an elusive strap back onto her bare shoulder. “It’s not the same,” she said, glancing toward the doorway the servo had disappeared through. “I had one of those before the Departure. But this one’s not the same. It looks the same. It even has the same name. I thought it might be the same one. I thought … this probably sounds stupid, but I thought maybe it would remember me. We got … we got real attached to each other. It had a lot of personality, for a machine.”

Niburu laughed, but it wasn’t unkind laughter. “How can you tell that it doesn’t remember you?”

She leaned on the bar, watching his blue eyes crinkle at the corner with his smile. He had a nice smile, and when he was sitting at the bar it was easy to forget how short he was. She wasn’t tall herself, but he didn’t clear her shoulder. The first time she’d seen him in the club, she’d thought he was a child, and almost had him thrown out. “The usual?” she asked.

He nodded. “And one for my friend—” He gestured over his shoulder; she saw the young Ondinean who usually came in with him standing at one of the gaming tables

She poured out drinks, and pushed them toward him. The servo came back from the rear of the club, carrying an assortment of full kegs and containers as easily as if they were empty. She watched it begin to hook them up to the dispensers. “I know it’s not the one because it doesn’t get the joke.”

“What joke?” Niburu asked.

“The one I used to work with could do anything … gods, he—it, I mean, it was incredible. I used to let it pick out my clothes. But all it ever said, for years, no matter what I did to it, was ‘Whatever you say, Tor.’ It was making a joke; it was our little personal joke. … I only knew that for sure when it was leaving, and it finally admitted it.”

“I’ve heard they get like that.” Niburu sipped his drink. “I’ve never spent time around one, but I hear their programming’s so interactive they begin to evolve personalities of their own. That’s why they get overhauled and reprogrammed at the end of every contract, and have to start all over from zero.”

She felt her face pinch. “I know. He… it didn’t want to go. It didn’t want to forget. I think it was afraid, of disappearing…. But that’s impossible, isn’t it? That it could feel anything like that?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. I would think so. It’s only a machine, after all. The Kharemoughis like things that don’t talk back.”

“Well anyway, when I saw they had this model available, I thought … well, maybe what if it did remember? If it wanted to come back.” Her mouth pressed together.

He studied her fora long moment, with what looked like genuine understanding. He looked down again, at his drink. “It’s probably not even the same one, you know. The Pollux units make up a whole line of heavy-work servos, with several specialty modes “

“I know that,” she said, a little shortly. “I used to work on the docks. But it was the same one … the same model, anyway. Only it doesn’t remember anything. I sure as hell wouldn’t let it dress me. It’s just a machine.” The servo came up to her, stood motionless, waiting for further orders. “Mix drinks,” she said, gesturing at the patrons who had begun to line up along the bar while she had been talking. It did what she told it to, without comment.

“You just got it?” Niburu asked, watching.

She nodded. “Picked it up yesterday.”

“Well,” he smiled, “give yourself some time to get acquainted. Give it some time, too. You only just met.” -

She looked at him, and felt her own mouth curve upward in a reluctant grin. “Maybe you’ve got a point. I will.”

The Ondinean, whose name seemed to be Ananke, came up to the bar beside Niburu, and picked up the other drink.

“Here,” Tor said, pushing a bowl of toasted seeds across at him. “For the quoll “

“Thanks.” He nodded at her, with a shy grin. He rarely said more than two or three words to her, but he seemed like an all right sort, and she liked his pet. He lifted the quoll out of its sling and set it on the bar. It buried its nose in the seed dish, making chortling noises as it began to eat. The Ondinean helped himself to a handful of seeds, chewing contentedly.

Tor stroked the quoll’s back, and it purred more loudly. She’d had a few complaints from customers who didn’t like sharing a drink with something hairy; but this was her place, and she didn’t care. There were other gaming hells on the Street now, and always plenty of other customers. “Where’s the Mystery Man tonight?” Usually Niburu and Ananke came in with another offworlder named Kullervo. She knew they worked for him; and she knew who he worked for. She’d seen the brand they all wore on their palms often enough, seen it all the time, back before the Departure, when she had run Persipone’s Hell for the Source. The sight of the brand had almost made her sick, the first time she’d seen it on somebody again, here in her new place. But she’d realized that just because they’d come into her club, it didn’t mean the Source had any interest in her anymore—didn’t even mean he was actually here at all, in the flesh. Things were different now, the Source couldn’t use a Tiamatan to shield his business from the law; because the law had changed with everything else.

She didn’t know what Kullervo did for the Source here on Tiamat; she didn’t care, as long as he didn’t do it to her. Just because any of them worked for a criminal didn’t mean she had anything against them personally. She’d almost married a man once who worked for the Source.

All she’d ever seen Kullervo do was win at her tables—and win and win, at almost anything he chose to play, when he bothered to play. She would have minded that, except that he didn’t play much, and he gave all his table credit to his two men, who invariably lost it all again. And it gave her other customers a thrill.

“He said he’d meet us here.” Niburu shrugged, and smiled a little. “Why? You miss him?”

Tor laughed. “Not me. Ariele Dawntreader’s been asking.”

“There he is now.” Ananke poked a thumb over his shoulder.

Tor followed his motion, and saw Kullervo making his way in their direction through the surreal patterns of light and darkness. Tor’s eyes stayed on him a moment longer than she wanted them to, as they always did—partly because she liked to look at his face, and partly because he always unnerved her. There was something about his eyes that wasn’t entirely sane. Seeing him always sent an irrational frisson of terror and pity through her, even though he had never so much as raised his voice to her. His strangeness, more than anything he’d actually ever done, was why she thought of him as the Mystery Man.

She glanced away toward the table where Ariele Dawntreader was sitting with some of her friends, to see if the girl had noticed him coming in. She’d noticed, all right. She was on her feet already, about to intersect Kullervo’s course. Tor saw Elco Teel Graymount get to his feet beside her, catching her arm, saying something into her ear that she didn’t seem to like much. She shrugged him off, frowning, and came on across the crowded, noisy room. She caught up with Kullervo just before he reached the bar, and spoke his name.

Tor saw the look on her face as he stopped and turned toward her—the brightness of her eyes, the flush of her cheeks; saw the breathless anticipation singing through every millimeter of her body. Tor had never seen Ariele look that alive, not since she was a child. She knew what that look meant: Ariele was in love. She wondered if it was the mystery Ariele was infatuated with … that wildness, the danger she had sensed in the man. Tor sighed. She hoped not. Maybe it was just his face. Thirty years ago, a face like that would have been enough to turn her own senses inside out. She wondered whether the Queen knew about this.

She couldn’t see Kullervo’s expression as he and Ariele talked together; his back was turned. But she knew that lately he had been in here almost every night, and so had Ariele … and that almost every night they had ended up in one of her private rooms. Kullervo nodded once, and they started away together. But Tor noticed, surprised, that he didn’t touch the girl, and Ariele didn’t touch him, even once, before she lost sight of them.

She looked at Niburu and Ananke again, as they turned back from watching the same scene. She saw Niburu meet Ananke’s stare and shrug, shaking his head. “Go figure,” he muttered.

Tor leaned on the bar. “Listen,” she said, “is she safe with him?”

“Safe?” Niburu repeated blankly.

“She’s the Queen’s daughter. And more than that, I’ve known her since she was a baby. She matters a lot to me. I don’t know anything about your boss, except I’ve seen his tattoos. …” And I’ve seen his eyes.

Niburu nodded. “The tattoos aren’t what you think.” He hesitated. “And neither is Reede. She’s safe with him. He’s not like that … like what you mean. In fact—” he turned to Ananke, “you know, he’s been in kind of a good mood lately.”

“Yeah,” Ananke said ruefully. “He hasn’t called me a dumb shit in days.” He slurped his drink, and reached for another handful of seeds. The quoll nipped at him, muttering irritably. “Sorry,” he murmured.

“I’ve never seen Ariele look at anybody like that, before. The gods only know what the Queen’s going to think if she finds out her daughter’s getting personal with one of the Source’s brands.”

Niburu started visibly as she spoke the name. But he said, “Reede’s not just some thug,” sounding defensive.

“Oh? What is he then?”

Niburu frowned, but she could have sworn there was uncertainty in his eyes. “He’s a biochemist. He’s Jaakola’s Head of Research.”

She put her hands on her hips. “And I’m the Summer Queen. Come on, shorty, I know what that eye burned into his palm means. The Source doesn’t brand his chiefs.”

Niburu opened his mouth to answer her, but Ananke put a hand on his arm, with an urgent grimace. Niburu let his breath out in a sigh, and muttered, “Have it your way, Tor.” He shrugged and finished his drink in one swallow, wiping his mouth. A branded hireling of some underworld cartel wasn’t much better than a slave. She supposed her comments about Kullervo had hurt Niburu’s pride by association; he probably wanted her to think his boss was something better because that made him something better too. “The Queen doesn’t have to lose sleep over Reede, anyway. Because he’s not sleeping with her daughter.”

Tor stared at him. “Then what the hell are they doing in one of my private rooms almost every night?”

Niburu shrugged. “He says they talk.”

Tor made a rude noise.

“He says they talk about the mers. They share an interest. That’s all.”

“You believe that,” she said. Not a question.

He nodded. “She isn’t his type. His wife was Ondinean.”

“Wife?” she asked. “Was?” Thinking that Reede Kullervo hardly looked old I enough for that much history.

“She died… in an accident.” He looked down. “Since then I’ve only seen him with Ondinean women. Even here. And never with the same one twice.”

Tor felt herself frown again; with concern this time, because the longing look she had seen in Ariele’s eyes had nothing to do with a need for stimulating discussion. “Well,” she said at last, “I don’t know if that’s good news, or bad news… . But all I can say is, much as I care about that girl, I never thought of her as a spellbinding conversationalist.”

“It is kind of unusual, Kedalion,” Ananke said, glancing away into the room. “We’ve been in here practically every night for a couple of weeks straight, now. He’s never done anything like that before.”

“That’s true.…” Niburu nodded thoughtfully.

Ananke picked up the quoll, which had surfeited itself on seeds and begun to wander beyond reach. He tucked it back into the sling at his side. “You want to play the tables?”

“In a while.” Niburu waved a hand at the action. “You go ahead; I want to finish my drink.”

Tor glanced at his glass, which was empty. She saw Ananke glance at it too; a smile twitched the corners of his mouth as he looked up at her. He shrugged and started away, losing himself in the crowd.

Tor looked back at Niburu, and caught him looking down her cleavage. She straightened up, with a wry smile pulling at her own mouth, and casually ran her hands down the silken curves of her gown. Niburu raised his eyebrows, and she supposed she should be glad the light was dim, and that at her age she still had anything somebody wanted to look at. “Refill?” She gestured pointedly at Niburu’s empty glass.

“Yeah, thanks.” He grinned sheepishly.

“Pollux!” She stood back while the servo came, and watched it refill the drink. It moved away again without speaking, to take another order down the bar. “Well, it does the job, anyway. At least it’ll give me a break when I want to talk to the customers. Everybody wants to talk to the bartender. …” She took a drugstick out of the box below the counter and lit it, inhaling the spice-scented smoke that curled lazily from its tip.

“Yeah,” Niburu said again, still smiling. “I know.” He lifted his drink to her, and glanced away along the bar. “I hear you used to have a restaurant. … I like to cook,” he added, with a shrug.

“What kind of cooking?” She looked at him with genuine interest.

“Home-style. Plain but filling. A lot of spice—” He looked up again, into her eyes.

“My partner was the creative one. …” She smiled at what she saw in his gaze. “I just like to eat. But I got tired of his cooking; too complicated.” Her mouth quirked. “I find running a club more satisfying, these days.”

“I like your style,” Niburu said. “Yours is the only place in the Maze where a real person does anything personal. It’s a nice old-fashioned touch. Customers feel like maybe you enjoy their company as much as you like their credit.” He looked at her as if he hoped she’d tell him it was mutual.

“Thanks.” She rested her elbows on the counter again, letting him have another look down her cleavage as the drug smoke began to make her feel good. “Nice of you to notice.… I used to have a real bartender when I ran a place for the Source. It always seemed to work out.”

He looked surprised, as if he hadn’t believed that she’d known what she was talking about, when she’d named the Source before. “You really worked for Jaikola? Here?”

She nodded. “As a front, in the old days. Not now. Never again …” She glanced at his hands; she couldn’t see his brand. She looked at her own unmarked hands, feeling perspiration prickle her palms.

“It must be nice to have a choice,” Niburu muttered, and one of his hands made a fist.

“How’d you get to be a brand?” she asked, feeling a sudden empathy as she looked at him.

“It was a package deal. Me and Ananke, with Reede. We worked for him before he worked for the Source. I’m his ferryman,” he said, with a kind of stubborn pride.

She raised her silver-dusted eyebrows; knowing common brands didn’t have personal ferrymen, even if they worked for the Source. Only a chief rated that kind of service. She wondered if it was actually possible that Niburu had told her the truth, and hadn’t simply been trying to impress her with big talk. And she wondered what motive the Source could have had for mutilating one of his top men like a common vassal, humiliating him like that and still expecting loyal service from him. She shook her head, never doubting for a second that the Source was capable of any cruelty, whatever his reasons were for ordering it done. “Look, I don’t want anything to do with the Source anymore, you understand me?”

“Perfectly.” Niburu nodded. “Don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. … So anyway,” he said, taking a deep breath, shaking off the mood, “what are you doing after you close up for the night?”

Her mouth twitched; she straightened up again. “Sleeping.”

“Alone—?”

She looked at him. “Yeah, if that’s any of your business.”

He lifted his hands. “I wondered if maybe you might want some company.”

“Why me?” she asked suspiciously. There were plenty of other available men around, younger and prettier, amateurs and professionals.

“Because I only sleep with women I like.”

“I could be your mother. Almost.”

“You look nothing like my mother.”

“What about your wife?”

“I’m not married. Never been married.”

“Why not?”

“I travel too much. What about you?”

“I stay in one place too much,” she said, beginning to get impatient. “I called you ‘shorty’—”

“I’ve been called worse.” He shrugged. “Besides, where I come from that’s a

compliment.”

“Look,” she murmured, flattered in spite of herself, “you’re too short for me.”

He leaned back on his stool. “You mean you’re too old for me.”

She flushed. “I’m not old where it counts.”

“I’m not short where it counts.”

She grinned, in spite of herself, and knew the cause was lost. “All right,” she said. “Why the hell not? The place closes at three. If you’re still around here then, we’ll see what happens.…”

Tammis Dawntreader entered Starhiker’s alone; sleepless, aimless like the crowd around him. He scanned the faces he passed as he wove his way deeper into the labyrinth of hallucinatory illusion, illusory pleasure, where seduction and destruction coexisted in a delicate balance. He searched for anyone he knew; ready to escape again into anonymity before they could call his name.

To his relief he did not see his sister, or any of the usual Winter crowd. They generally started their nights here; they would have gone on to other clubs by now. He stayed away from the bar, where Tor was holding forth; not able to face her tonight, even though he knew he would not find anything in her eyes but sympathy. Sympathy was more than he deserved, and more than he could bear.

He didn’t feel like playing the games either; their futility and emptiness mirrored his own mood too accurately. He wandered like the damned through the crowds, watching strangers play the tables, playing with each other’s heads, in the disorienting shadowplay of random light. Blaring music and the cloying heaviness of perfumes and drugsmoke saturated his senses, until he could forget for a time that he was an individual human being, filled with grief, and love, and confusion; that he had any need to think at all.

He stopped moving after a span of time he could not judge, finding himself in the rear of the club, where the density of milling flesh was less. Across a momentarily empty space of floor, he saw someone sitting in a booth, alone like he was. He had seen that night-black offworlder face before, that slight, slim figure with hair like shining jet, and indigo eyes. The offworlder was Ondinean, he’d been told; not much older than he was, and always part of a striking triad. Its second member was the shortest man he’d ever seen, and the third was the one with the tattoos and the uncanny skill at the interactives, the young offworlder his sister was trying to add to her collection of trophies.

The Ondinean was leaning back into the corner of the booth with one foot up on the bench; the foot wore an open-toed leather glove instead of a boot. He was juggling berries one-handed, with a look of resignation on his face. Occasionally he let a berry fall—always intentionally, because there was always another that replaced it—and something the size of a cat that wasn’t a cat would scuttle forward on the table to eat it.

Tammis started toward him, dodging random bodies, drawn by curiosity and something stronger to stand before the booth, watching the Ondinean perform his solitary juggling act. At last the Ondinean glanced up, startled to find that he had an audience.

“You’re very good at that,” Tammis said; suddenly, equally selfconscious. “I wish I could do that.”

The Ondinean nodded, with a hesitant grin coming out on his face. “You’re a sibyl. I wish I could do that.” He caught the berries one by one, and dropped them into a bowl.

“You mind if I join you?” Tammis gestured at the room behind him, where there were no empty tables.

The Ondinean shrugged, as if it didn’t matter to him either way. But he watched intently as Tammis slid onto the bench across from him. The look was one that Tammis knew, and it was not indifferent.

“What kind of animal is that?” Tammis asked, as the creature on the tabletop between them rearranged itself to study him. It had eyes like the bright black buttons on a child’s toy.

“A quoll,” the Ondinean said, stroking it gently, still looking at him with uncertainty and speculation. The quoll burbled and chittered, sidling closer to its owner on nearly invisible legs.

“Did you bring it from Ondinee?”

The Ondinean nodded, and reached for another berry; the quoll scuttled forward eagerly. The berry slipped out of his fingers and dropped under the table. He glanced down, did something casually with his gloved foot. A moment later the foot appeared briefly on the bench beside him. He held the berry between his toes, so deftly that the fruit was not even bruised. He took the berry in his hand and fed it to the quoll, watching Tammis again, as if he were trying to see whether his lithe grace had made any impression. “That’s enough,” he murmured, when the quoll looked around for more. He ate one of the remaining berries in the bowl, in slow bites that revealed his even white teeth. He pushed the bowl across the table to Tammis, offering him the I one. Tammis took it, savoring its sweetness. “What’s its name?” Tammis asked, nodding at the quoll. The Ondinean shrugged. “It’s never told me.” Tammis smiled.

“I know you,” the Ondinean said slowly. “I’ve seen you in here a lot. You’re I Queen’s son, aren’t you? Her brother?”

Ariele’s. Of course he would know Ariele…. Tammis felt surprise stir in n, almost pleasure, as he realized that the Ondinean had noticed him. He nodded. PTammis.”

“Ananke,” the Ondinean said, suddenly selfconscious again. He turned his I palm up on the tabletop, staring at it. “You’re a sibyl too, like the Queen. Are i going to become king someday?” he asked softly.

Tammis saw the scar, like a strange eye, staring back at him. “No.”” He shook head, sensing Ananke’s unease, wanting to put it to rest. “My sister will be en, if she wants it. How did you get that—?” He risked the intimacy of pointing : the scar, livid against the paler skin of Ananke’s palm.

“It means I work for somebody called the Source.” His voice turned flat. Tammis blinked, and changed the subject. “Where are your friends tonignt?”

Ananke looked up at him, surprised or confused for a moment. “Kedalion’s over there-” he pointed toward the bar, “making time, I guess. He claims the owner’s ; to take him home later. Reede’s with your sister.” His voice was toneless, and he didn’t meet Tammis’s eyes.

“What about you?” Tammis asked.

Ananke shrugged. “I’m here. I’ve got to wait for Reede.”

“You’ve got to?”

His mouth quirked. “Taking care of Reede is what we do.” He glanced up, ; back his long, shining hair. The gesture was almost feline in its unconscious lity. “You worried about your sister?”

“No,” Tammis said.

Ananke looked at him a moment longer, and then shrugged again. “Then why are you here?”

Tammis met his eyes; eyes so deep a blue that they were almost black. “Because I didn’t feel like being alone tonight,” he said softly.

Ananke’s hand hesitated, in the act of reaching out to stroke the quoll. He continued the motion as if he had not meant to betray himself with that hesitation, as if the meaning of the words was lost on him. But he did not look away. “I guess nobody wants that,” he said. “I guess everyone gets tired of being alone.” He looked down, finally, with an odd spasm working his mouth.

Tammis put out his own hand, stroking the quoll’s back; letting his fingers stray until they made tentative contact with Ananke’s hand. “We could go somewhere … somewhere else.”

Ananke froze, staring at the interface of pale and dark fingertips. And then slowly, almost painfully, he took his hand away. He shook his head. “I can’t,” he murmured. “Got to stay here. Got to look out for Reede.” He shrugged, as if he were trying to shake something free from his back. “It’s what we do.”

Tammis hesitated, seeing depths of fear in Ananke’s eyes; but the eyes clung to his face with sudden, helpless longing.

Ananke shook his head, his midnight hair moving across his shoulders in a way that made Tammis ache with sudden need. He looked down. “I can’t.”

“Another time—?”

“I can’t.” His head came up again, to meet Tammis’s gaze. “I can’t, ever.” A tremor ran through him. His long, slender hands made fists, and he withdrew them below the tabletop.

Tammis stared at him a moment longer; certain all at once that for once he understood exactly what someone else was feeling. He took a deep breath, forcing the heat inside him to subside, until all that was left was the unexpected warmth of a different kind of contact. “That’s what I always tell myself …”he said at last. “But I never mean it. That’s why I’m here tonight, and not at home with my wife. Because I don’t know what I want.”

“Your wife—?” Ananke murmured.

Tammis looked down. “I can’t explain it to her—why I feel these things. I can’t explain it to anyone I care about. I can’t even explain it to myself.”

Ananke nodded. Understanding and amazement filling his eyes like dawn. “Yes,” he said softly. “It’s like that for me. No one ever understood. There’s no one that I can ever share it with. Kedalion and Reede … they’re all the family I’ve got. But if they ever found out, I’d lose them. … I hate the way things are, the ideas about men, and women, and what makes them different; what they can do and can’t do about it. I hated it on my home world, I thought if I could get away from there, there must be a place, somewhere, where it would be better for me. But I’m still afraid—of what would happen if anybody found out what I really am—”

“—or afraid you’d see they’re really right, and you’re wrong. Or that even if you could have what you thought you wanted, it wouldn’t make you happy, because it’s not the real problem … because there’s no real answer.” Ananke nodded slowly; his face reflecting the impossible sorrow that squeezed Tammis’s own heart. “And so you never…?”

Ananke shook his head, glancing down. He brought his hands back onto the tabletop, and locked them together in front of him, intertwining his fingers.

“Not even—?” With someone who understands … with me?

Ananke looked up again, his eyes gleaming too brightly, full of precarious grief. “No,” he whispered.

Tammis stared at him, watching him struggle to bring his emotions under control. “But why not?” he asked at last, gently.

“Because it’s not really the problem. …” Ananke leaned back against the hard, mirroring wall of the booth, hugging himself with mournful resignation. There was no brightness in his eyes at all, now; no tears, no hope.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Ananke shook his head. “It wouldn’t change anything,” he said.

Tammis nodded, numbly. “Then I guess there’s nothing else to say. I guess I’d better be going.” His hand rose to the sibyl sign hanging against his shirt.

Ananke nodded, and broke his gaze.

“I’m sorry. …” Tammis pushed to his feet, sorry that there was nothing he could do to ease anyone’s pain tonight … anyone’s at all.