CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 3
CHESHIRE lifted his duffel from Schreibman’s car and proceeded down the block. Consulting his infocomp, he decided to see where Lim used to live, a vigorous walk away. The light gravity added a spring to his step that he did not feel. The primary sun, Alpha, blinked through chinks in the iron clouds, but shed little warmth.
The door to Lim’s building was propped open, as was the door to his apartment. A willowy woman, her back to the entrance, hummed as she danced a slow sway. Her thick chestnut hair, long at the back but cut short at the sides in a belter’s crest, rippled highlights in the dappled light from the window.
He knocked, two tentative taps. “Hello?”
She froze and glowered at him over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“I’m a friend of Lim’s.” After his morning he felt abashed, expecting the worst.
“Isn’t everyone?” She swung round and drew her arms akimbo. “What do you want?”
“Lim sent for me. From Sol. Maybe he told you about me?” He stepped into the apartment. “I’m Martin Cheshire.”
She narrowed her eyes for a moment then, smile radiant, reached for his hand. She moved with the economic grace of a rock-jack from the asteroid belt. “Of course, Mr. Cheshire. Lim told me so much about you. Welcome! Welcome!”
She pulled him from the door and guided him to a chair, which he accepted with relief. The apartment, though one room, was enormous and tall ceilinged. Dark cherry trim with elaborate carvings offset the smooth cream walls and the warm oak floors. Areas of the apartment—sitting, kitchen, bed—were tastefully screened from the central living area. Floor-to-ceiling windows, framed with sumptuous curtains, looked out on the strasse below.
“Quite a place.”
“Lim loved his luxuries.” Her confident smile relaxed him—a welcome change in this bitch of a day.
“‘If it’s not worth buying, it’s not worth having.’”
Her smile faded. “Perhaps. But with Lim, some things bought weren’t worth having.”
“I don’t follow . . .” Again uncertain, he gripped the chair arms. Did everyone on this planet hate Lim?
“Oh, never mind.” She frowned at him. “I’m afraid I have some bad news, Mr. Cheshire.”
“Yes, I know.” He blinked, willing himself not to tear. “I was at the funeral.”
She started. “My apologies. I’m afraid I was hardly in a frame of mind to notice anything.”
“That was you, wearing the veil?”
“Lim and I were lovers.”
He felt the ancient, jealous twinge—the old wish to have Lim all to himself. He sighed and suppressed the feeling. Yet again.
She watched her hands, quiet in her lap, then looked up and smiled. She was radiant in the late morning light. “You knew him well?”
“We grew up together.”
“Tell me about him.” She seemed eager, a passion to know more.
Cheshire understood that passion and gazed at the distant ceiling in warm remembrance. “He was always the guy everyone was hungry to know. I felt lucky to be his friend. He could walk into a room—a party, say—and know everyone by name by the end of the evening. And he used that—boy, did he use that. I remember once, at university, he fell in with a records’ clerk in the academic office. ‘Well, old friend,’ he said to me. ‘No more studying this semester. It’s all in the bag.’ And damn if he wasn’t right—straight A’s for him without a lick of work. Good thing none of the professors got wind, but Lim was always lucky like that.”
“That poor woman. She must have felt quite used.”
“Man. But it turned out okay. Lim sent him in my direction, and we got along like a habitat on fire.” Cheshire grew pensive. “He seemed to do that a lot—Lim, I mean. He sent his former flames my way. Ah, but who am I to complain? Always the best for Lim, so being his friend had its benefits.”
“Like picking up his leftovers?”
Her tone brought him up sharp. “What is it with people around here? A man’s dead, and all folks can do is bad-mouth him.”
She demurred, dropping her gaze to her lap. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cheshire. The occupation was hard on us. It taught us to be hard on each other . . . and on ourselves.”
“I’m sorry.” He passed a hand across his face. “I can’t imagine what it was like to live under the kzin, much less grow up with them.”
“I was lucky I suppose. I grew up in the Swarm where we had a bit more freedom.”
“The Swarm? You mean the Serpent Swarm? Like Sol’s asteroid belt?”
“Exactly. Spread among the rocks, we were a bit harder for the pussies to control.”
“What brought you to Munchen?” He asked to be polite, but suddenly realized he wished to know more about her. About Lim’s lover.
She drew a controlled breath. “Have you ever heard of the UNSN Yamamoto?”
“Earth’s counterattack against the kzin here on Wunderland?”
“What an . . . antiseptic way to put it. About two years ago the Yamamoto entered our system traveling at near the speed of light. It dropped iron shots at ‘strategic assets’ in the Swarm and on the planet. The shots weren’t bombs—they didn’t have to be. Traveling at .99c they had megatons of kinetic energy and vaporized whatever they hit.”
He saw her pain. “Your family?”
She nodded. “They were on Bessemer, a processing asteroid. I was on Tiamat, trying to secure supplies.”
“I’m sorry.” A planet of sadness and loss.
“Thank you, Mr. Cheshire, but there’s more. You see, at the time of the attack, Munchen was packed with refugees from the hinterlands—forced labor for the kzin factories. When the shots hit, they threw dust and smoke high into the atmosphere, cutting sunlight for months. It killed crops planet-wide. And even before the food shortages, medical care and sanitation were barbaric—pre-twenty-second-century standards.”
Her liquid brandy eyes tracked motes of dust in the weak sunlight. “When the crowds pressed together to celebrate liberation, no one foresaw the pandemic—‘Kzin Flu,’ they called it. Some say it was a bioweapon set by the kzinti in retaliation, but I don’t believe it. For six months the carts carrying the dead outnumbered all the others. Remember, we didn’t have autodocs—we hardly had any medicine at all. And I can’t say I understand it, but I heard that our dependence on autodocs had weakened the population’s immune system—our blood and guts just didn’t have the old immunities built up.”
She sat forward and locked eyes. “It killed thousands. Slowly. It would have been more merciful if the Yamamoto had dropped a shot directly center city.”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled and looked away. After a moment he glanced back. She stared, watching the parades of the dead.
He thought to touch a gentle finger to her knee, but rejected it as too forward. Instead, he said, “You still haven’t explained how you ended up here. Or with Lim.”
The parades dissolved. She snapped her fingers and bounced out of the chair. “I’ve been a neglectful host, Mr. Cheshire. Can I offer you something—Tea? Beer? I can set the water boiling while I tell you the grand story of Lim and Maddie.”
“I’ll try a beer and . . . what did you say? ‘Maddie’?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She grasped his hand with a warm grace. “I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Maddelena Valli. My friends call me Maddie, the rest call me Mad!”