A Passage of Stars Read online

  “I’ll be up in ten minutes, Lily,” he said over the crackle of in-house static. “I have a visitor with me.”

  They were dressed in five. The door lock chimed and Heredes entered.

  “Well, Lily,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “I’ve brought Mr. Pero.” He turned and beckoned.

  Quite the darkest man Lily had ever seen came into the room. Bach retreated into the washing cubicle. Pero was neither handsome nor plain; he had a face she would have called good-humored except for the intensity that, scoring it, gave it an added dimension. He smiled, very warm and very encompassing, and put out his hand to shake hers.

  “Lily Heredes?” He had a deep, musical voice. “Your guardian mentioned an arrangement that might be beneficial to both of us.”

  Lily blushed.

  “Actually, my name is Robert Malcolm,” continued Pero, “but you must call me Robbie. All my friends do. Pero is not my real name, just my pen name, after all.”

  “Pero,” said Kyosti acidly from his reclining position on the bed, where he was examining Pero in minute and unimpressed detail. “How original.”

  “In fact,” replied Robert Malcolm with cheerful sincerity, “it’s not original at all. I stole it from an obscure history tape. But I’m afraid—” He paused, glancing at Lily.

  “This is Kyosti Maisrei Accipiter,” she said hastily. “He’s a medical technologist.”

  “Indeed!” Pero put out his hand. “And where do you work?”

  Kyosti rose with bored cordiality and shook the proffered hand with extreme reserve. “I hope,” he said in his most languorous tones, “to be working soon in one of the Ridani districts.”

  “That’s marvelous!” Pero seemed, remarkably, to be entirely free from artifice. “And I should add, min Accipiter,” he continued, with a shrewd look at Kyosti’s aloof expression, “that since my sister has recently vacated the second bedroom in my apartment out in the Zanta District, it would be convenient for all of us, if Lily and I do indeed reach an agreement, that you and Lily might then share that room. Now, Lily,” and he quickly turned his attention to her, “shall the four of us go walk in Teapot Park and discuss this business further?”

  Lily of course agreed with alacrity. Kyosti was too astonished to refuse.

  15 Robert Malcolm

  “HOY,” SAID LILY, HANDING a wet plate to Robbie to dry, “if you’re going to call a general strike, I’d better assign myself as your bodyguard.”

  Pero laughed. He had an easy laugh, quiet and good-natured, and was more likely to laugh at himself than at others. “Sometimes I think you think I can’t take care of myself,” he said.

  “After living with you for almost six months, Robbie, I know you can’t take care of yourself.” But she smiled, taking any sting from the words. “I can’t decide whether you live on luck or on good intentions.”

  “I live on Jehane’s cause,” he said, serious now. “And as long as I am needed for his work, I shall live.”

  Lily, returning his open gaze, wondered for the hundredth time what it was he had seen in Jehane, in the same Jehane who had terrified her, to make him cast his devotion, his energy, his life so absolutely at Jehane’s feet. At first she had assumed that Jehane had merely hypnotized Robbie into his service as he had, in some sense, attempted to hypnotize her, but she had long since given up that theory as too simplistic. She shrugged and washed another plate. “It amazes me Central hasn’t arrested you yet,” she said finally, “especially after all those protests you engineered last autumn because of the tax increase. Not to mention the riots in the Ridani districts.

  “I am not responsible for riot, Lily.”

  “Not yet, and not on purpose. Central did bring that one on themselves, considering they canceled the entire range of pregnancy credits for Ridani women. What could they expect? Poor Kyosti, stuck at the clinic for sixteen days, what with all the injuries and the curfew.”

  “Certainly I blame Central.” Even in private conversation he declaimed, as if some secret audience only he knew about were always watching, or as if Bach, humming now at his usual place plugged into the apartment terminal, were recording him. “For inaugurating pregnancy credits in the first place two hundred and fifty years ago. Without any provision for ending them once the population rose high enough, of course we would reach a point of dangerous overcrowding, having institutionalized the very reward system that brought us to this pass.” He finished with that flourish of righteous dismay that she had come to recognize in his delivery.

  “But, Robbie, there had to be some way for the colonists to push the population up—there were so few of them.”

  “My dear Lya.” He pronounced this Lie-ah. It was a liberty she would have let no other person take. “Nature long since provided a way to increase the population. You enjoy it with your physician.” He paused. “And yet remain childless.”

  Lily threw up her hands, spraying water drops across the counter. “You win! You win! I should know better than to argue politics with you. How do you know Kyosti’s really a physician, anyway? He’s been at such pains to present himself as a mere technologist.”

  “I’m afraid he only told me as a sop to his pride. I hope I don’t offend you, Lya.”

  She considered. “No, I don’t think you do, actually. I don’t understand Kyosti at all, not really.”

  “I wonder if he is difficult to understand, or whether he doesn’t want to be understood,” he replied, and regarded her expectantly.

  Lily thrust her hands back into the cooling water. “Let’s not talk about Kyosti right now. I’ve been mad at him all evening.” Robbie’s expectant gaze did not waver, except for one eyebrow that quirked up, Lily smiled, a little one-sided. “I guess I asked for that. Maybe I’ll feel less guilty if I tell you. We went out for a drink after classes, at the Academy—me and four of the other instructors. Did you ever meet—? Anyway, one of them is good-looking, uncomplicated, about my age, and we’ve been flirting on and off ever since I started there, and—” Now she paused. Robbie smiled. Lily blushed. “It didn’t go that far,” she said, “a little kissing, I mean—and I don’t see what business Kyosti has dictating what I do with my own body. It’s not like we’re bonded.”

  Robbie began to laugh.

  “You’re laughing at me!”

  “You are feeling guilty, aren’t you?” he said.

  “And so I’m all hot and bothered and then he isn’t even here when I get home!”

  “Thoughtless of him.”

  Lily laughed. “Especially considering the long hours he works. You know, Robbie, I think you’re the most nonjudgmental person I’ve ever met.”

  “I judge injustice,” said Robbie, “not humanity.”

  “Finished.” Lily put the last plate on the counter. “What else can I do before the neatest person I’ve ever met arrives and yells at us for being so messy?”

  But it was a mistake to ask Robbie lighthearted questions when his mind was on revolution. “I have two courier runs you could do for me,” he said. “One needs to be in Byssina by tomorrow evening. It’s a diskette, and they’re setting up a new underground net to broadcast. It’s got the codes they need.”

  “Is this to replace the one the Immortals destroyed last month?”

  Robbie looked stern. “Murdered three citizens. This kind of thing cannot, will not, be allowed to continue.” For a moment he stared into the distance of a vision Lily could not see.

  “And the other one?” Lily asked, reminding him that she was still here.

  “Yes. The other one. I need someone to meet with the district organizer from Roanoak. This is a bit more difficult, since you need to pass documents both ways.”

  “From Roanoak? That’s the district Kyosti works in. Is he a Ridani?”

  “Yes, and that makes it doubly difficult. But the rendezvous has been set at a three-di bar, where one might be expected to find a few Ridanis outside of their own districts.”

  “Gambling? Oh, well, I used to wa
tch the three-di tournaments on the nets, so I may as well see them in person. I see the strangest places working for you.”

  “Not for me.” Robbie looked almost embarrassed, as at an honor he felt he was not worthy of. “For Jehane.”

  “I don’t do this for Jehane,” she said. “Don’t ever make that mistake, Robbie. I do it for you.”

  “You only say that because you haven’t met him.”

  Lily hesitated. She had avoided the topic of Jehane whenever it had come up previously, but now—she had, after all, known Pero for almost half a year now. “I have met him.”

  “Then there can be no question. You found him inspiring.”

  “I don’t think that’s the word I would use. I found him—” Words failed her. Pero’s face, so free from guile, bore its usual intent, expectant expression as he watched her. Bach, she whistled suddenly. How did I find Jehane?

  Across the room, she saw lights stir on Bach’s gleaming surface. He retracted a plug from the computer terminal and rotated to face Lily and Robbie. Pero’s desk, a couch, and three chairs separated them. “Patroness,” he said in Paisley’s voice, “it is my belief that thou foundest him forgiving.”

  “Therefore,” stated Robbie. He dried the last dish with a final flourish.

  But Lily was chuckling quietly to herself. “I’ll help you, Robbie. If for no other reason than the favor you did me by agreeing to the bond.”

  “It was hardly a favor, Lily,” he said.

  “What do you mean, it was—” She stopped. Walked to the couch and sat down. And experienced so sudden a rush of illumination that she wondered how she could have gone so many months without realizing. Because of the initial exhaustion of her work at Wingtuck’s Academy? Because of Kyosti, who drew her more and more into his strange sense of expectation that she and he had the bond, and not she and Pero? Because of Pero himself, whose unfailing affability might mislead one to think he was also completely altruistic? Bach floated up next to her, banked lights. “Hoy. He traded me for something. And I don’t mean credit. He made a deal with you, didn’t he? Robbie!” She stood up. “Do you know where he is?”

  “In Central.”

  “I know that. I mean, are you in contact with him? Can I talk to him? Robbie! He just disappeared one week after we got here, told me to stay quiet and wait patiently, and just disappeared. He didn’t even tell me what he was going to do.”

  The door brushed aside and Kyosti entered.

  “Kyosti!” said Lily. “Where is Heredes?”

  He halted. “‘To darkness are they doomed who devote themselves only to life in the world.’ Frankly, Lily, I neither know nor care where Joshua is.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Kiss me before you make such a pronouncement.”

  “I don’t know how you can work for twelve hours in that clinic and come home in such a good mood,” she said in disgust, but she went to him.

  For an instant he returned her kiss with his usual enthusiasm. Then he caught himself, as if from a blow, and recoiled violently away from her.

  A sense of anticipatory stillness fell suddenly over the room. Pero took one step back. Lily froze.

  Kyosti grabbed the back of the nearest chair, lifted it in a single swing up over his head, and brought it down full force to the floor. The sound shuddered through the apartment.

  “Don’t do this to me!” he cried. And he went for the computer.

  Bach, in a brilliance of lights, placed himself in front of the terminal. Lily leapt forward and pinned Kyosti’s arms to his side. He began to twist from side to side, trying to throw her off as if he was entirely unaware of who she was, and she felt her hold slipping.

  Then Robbie was there. They pushed him toward the couch, but their hold was tenuous. Kyosti struggled against them, wild, as if rage were his only sentience. He was very strong.

  Bach sang out suddenly and bumped up against Pero where he fought to press Kyosti into the couch. An appendage snaked out from Bach’s surface.

  “Let go of him,” said Lily abruptly, and jumped back. Robbie did so just in time to miss the flash of light.

  Kyosti slumped down onto the floor, still conscious but stunned.

  “Into the bedroom,” ordered Lily, and she and Robbie half-carried, half-shoved Kyosti into the room and shut and coded the door locked.

  For a moment, they simply stared at each other, panting. Bach hummed in possessive agitation before the terminal. Finally Robbie walked over to the chair. The force of the blow had scored scars into the floor, and the plastine supports had fractured. One had shattered.

  “Good thing he didn’t get to the terminal.” He had to use two hands to right the chair. “I had no idea he was that strong.” He picked up the shattered remains of the support and stared at it pensively.

  From the bedroom door came a slight sound. Bach stopped humming.

  “Lily.” It was so subdued they barely heard it. “Lily. Forgive me.”

  She went to the door, laid a hand on it. Bach sang a question; she shook her head.

  “Lily. You can’t touch other men, Lily, not in that way. You have to understand that. Please, Lily.”

  She touched the first half of the unlocking code into the panel.

  Robbie set the plastine support onto the shattered chair. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “No. But better to find out now than when I’m not prepared.” She opened the door.

  But Kyosti merely pulled her into his arms and began to kiss her as if he meant to imprint himself indelibly on her, to the exclusion of all others. After a few moments of this, Lily felt it prudent to shut the door behind them.

  Pero regarded Bach with a look remarkably like a conspirator’s. “Can you get a message to Heredes?” he asked.

  Bach winked, speaking again in Paisley’s voice. “Affirmative. It is my experience, however, that the timespan necessary to achieve contact without exposing the master’s masquerade, if one is desireth of interfacing with him directly rather than through the masking channels he and I have devised for exchange of our usual flow of information, will be of a rather longer duration than you are perhaps hoping for.” Two more lights blinked. “Given the circumstances.”

  “Let him know,” said Pero. “But don’t jeopardize his cover. The information he’s sending us is too valuable.”

  “Affirmative. It is my belief, if I may be allowed to express one, that my patroness will prove herself perfectly able to defuse the current situation.”

  “It isn’t the current one I’m worried about.” Pero went to his desk and picked up the notes he had been scrawling before dinner. “It’s the future ones.”

  Bach sang something incomprehensible, halted abruptly.

  “But,” said Pero, “I have a speech to write. Can you take it?”

  Bach settled into a chair with a melodic phrase that sounded remarkably like pleased anticipation. “Affirmative,” he said.

  Pero stood silent for a long moment, glancing once through his notes.

  “Workers of Arcadia. Our rights as citizens have been disregarded too often. Central has imposed taxes on us that are not in force in Central itself. Central has cut power to our homes. Central has drafted our young men and women into their own military expansion—against what enemy, I ask you, but the very workers who feed them? Central has spilled our blood when we have protested legally against the measures they enact to prevent us from exercising our right to vote. It is time we act directly against these measures, and all the others like them. We are two billion souls, citizens. We are strong. We are righteous—”

  “—we will not let the threat of Central’s troops, let the threat of the Immortals, deter us. We will work without violence to bring Jehane’s revolution to Arcadia. To bring his reforms, his hope, to the Reft. Jehane will come. He will bring justice. But, comrades, it is up to us to prepare the ground on which he will stand. Join me, on the first day of spring. Join me, in sending a message to the Senators,
to the Immortals, to the government in Central. Join me. Strike.”

  Pero’s voice echoed out from the terminal, deep and passionate, touched by the barest of accents, a suggestion of a musical lilt.

  Kyosti, reclined on the couch, smiled with a slight mocking glint in his eye. “That’s very good, Robbie,” he said. “Although I always preferred mine with fire and brimstone.”

  “Fear is only used against your enemies, not your comrades,” said Robbie. “I will not make a mockery of the workers who risk their lives in this cause.”

  “Is that coming out of the underground link at Byssina?” Lily asked quickly. “The one I ran the codes to two weeks ago?”

  “It is,” said Robbie. “You did a difficult job well, Lily. I know that Security had been watching for that transfer, but you avoided them.”

  “She must take after Joshua.” Kyosti turned his head to regard her. His ashen hair, cut shorter since the riots, drifted along her shoulder. “Frightening thought.”

  “It could be worse, I could take after you,” retorted Lily. Kyosti smiled. “What time do we have to leave, Robbie?” she asked.

  “You don’t have to come with me,” he said, for perhaps the fifth time.

  “I want to.”

  “I dislike seeing you miss so much time at the Academy, Lya.”

  “It’s true sensei Jones has been lenient.” Lily shrugged. “Frankly, as much as I’m learning in my work there, there’s something missing, some element—I’m not sure. I like helping you, Robbie.”

  “Of course you like it,” said Kyosti in a quiet voice. “You’re Joshua’s daughter.”

  Pero frowned.

  “And furthermore, Robbie,” continued Lily briskly, “you don’t make a public speech very often, Security’s got to be out looking for you. Even if they do think you’re a committee of ten writing all those broadcasts and news sheets, they still must want someone they can hang as ‘Pero.’ You need a bodyguard.”

  “Very well,” he acceded. “Let me change.” He went into his bedroom.