Mindship (v1.0), page 18
“We’d better get out of here,” the Cook said.
Kilgarin swore. “I’ve been trying.”
Ty’ger called to them. Not far away, the Sensitive was under siege by two youngish Physicals in the mottled jump suits of the hydroponics attendants. “Head this way,” the Centaurian shouted. “Exit’s here, under the mural.”
Near Ty’ger’s table the girl Luanne swung her fists in blows that seemed more mechanical than human. She was under Ty’ger’s direction; Kilgarin could tell. It was there in her movements, graceful yet unnatural. More graceful than the situation deserved, Kilgarin thought. He grabbed the Cook’s arm and pulled him out of a circle of Sensitives and Physicals already locked in combat.
“Ty’ger’s holding a way out for us,” Kilgarin told the Cook, dragging him past men and women who slipped forward and back, bodies blocking the full view of the battle that had sprung up. Kilgarin sensed the hatred about him. Spontaneous, it came from a variety of sources, not all of them rooted in the class rivalry between Physical and Sensitive. It was that rivalry that had provided the tinder, but it was the combination of Ryork’s death and the incident on Elysson that had provided the spark. Now the ship was afire—and Kilgarin couldn’t find the strength or concentration to dowse the flames.
Ahead, Ty’ger was waving. Kilgarin waved back.
“Move, Cook,” Kilgarin called. “Outside, maybe we can—”
He saw it happen and he tried to stop it as it happened, but already it was too late. The girl was dead.
There was a gracefulness to her death, as there’d been a gracefulness to her fight Arms lifted over her head she seemed to writhe as though on fire, making the silver jutting from her rib cage move in a slow figure eight. At the center of the figure eight a circle of red spread out until it touched the underside of her left breast and extended a curving tail across her stomach. Her mouth worked and her eyes pinched shut, and at the end of her arms her hands spasmed into fists as she writhed, more slowly now. Gradually her arms relaxed and her hands came down, hovering for a moment around the handle of the knife protruding from her chest. Then her hands fell, and the girl was dead. Slumping to the floor, she was dead. Luanne’s was dead.
The Physical who’d killed her danced back from her body clumsily.
Ty’ger screamed and turned, and sprang in the same motion.
Kilgarin watched. Consciously this time, he did nothing.
When it was over, Kilgarin caught Ty’ger’s neck and pulled the Centaurian to his feet. Ty’ger’s hands were stiff; he held his fingers splayed as though his hands were unclean. He stared at them dumbly as Kilgarin shook him, said, “We’ve got to go, Ty’ger. Come on.”
Ty’ger glanced up. His eyes were unfocused. Kilgarin knew what the Centaurian was seeing: the inside of Luanne’s mind, frozen at the instant of her death.
“We have to go.” the Cork said quietly. Ty’ger rose.
Outside the lounge Kilgarin and the Cook shut and locked the door behind them. The Cook worked the complicated punch-and-spin mechanism. His hands trembled as he fumbled at the controls. From within the sounds of struggle continued without abatement.
“There’s nothing you can do for him,” Kilgarin told the Cook. “You don’t understand what he feels, what’s happened to him.”
“Maybe I do, a bit,” the Cook said. He ran a hand through what remained of bis hair, blinking at the display screen set over their booth, shifted his gaze to take in the rest of the recreation room. Ty’ger sat on a chair with padded armrests and back support; he lolled in it, unconscious. The Cook sighed, looking at the Centaurian. “Will you be OK with him here? I want to have a talk with the Captain.”
“Why?” Kilgarin asked. “Things are quieter now. I’ve seen to that, now that I’ve had a chance to think.”
“You can’t keep Corking this ship alone, Kilgarin. You shouldn’t have needed time to concentrate; you should have been ready to Cork immediately. The strain’s telling on you, Killy. I’m going to ask the Captain to find another Cork to work with you when we reach Maylind.”
“Don’t do it, Cook,” Kilgarin said evenly. “I don’t need any help.”
“The hell yon don’t.”
“I said I don’t need any help.” The Cork’s voice went very soft. “Is that clear? 1 can handle this. I can handle it myself.”
Mind-drive:
Kilgarin stands apart from the ship, in the Back Region. Here and there in the structure of the psi field he can see ripples of discontent. The emotions that destroy, the frustrations that will betray first the other members of the crew, and then ultimately, the self. There are madmen aboard the Charter, and their madness is visible in the lines of the mindship net. There are angry men aboard the Charter, and their anger, too, is visible.
Gently, Kilgarin touches. Mental fingers soothe, remove anger, relieve—for a moment—madness.
In a chamber near the Engineer’s room a woman cries hysterically. Kilgarin reaches into her mind and sees the anguish that has grown from concern: she’d feared for her lover’s life, now lost in an argument with another member of the crew. He sees also how the anguish is mixed with self-loathing: she’d seduced the other crew member; she’d been bored with her lover. In her mind the two were connected, though in reality they are not. He removes the self-loathing and leaves the anguish. The woman cries, but no longer does she think of hanging herself from the bulkhead. She stops twisting the rope in her hands.
He finds a group of Physicals leaving the lounge, stumbling in a daze. The force of their combined will is weaker than it should be, and Kilgarin sees why: when he touched them before, immediately after the fight in the mess hall, he’d been more brutal than necessary—he’d cut through their souls. Now they are empty, their emotions drained, and they themselves like husks. Gently he works to correct this. A push there; here, a guiding pressure. At first slowly, and then more quickly, he moves among them, returning lost motivation. He keeps the tension light, however, not allowing it to build anew. It does not take long.
Finished, he turns to other souls within the ship.
For many minutes he works, Corking the minds of the mindship field. He avoids the mind closest to him for as long as possible; it is not a task he relishes. Finally all else that can be done now is done, and he turns at last to Ty’ger.
Ty’ger’s mental beacon is the strongest among the lights of the mind-drive, yet now the beacon is off shift, directed inward rather than out. Kilgarin digs deeply into the Centaurian’s soul. He sees the Sensitive’s despair. He sees the love—flawed, it is true, but love nonetheless—Ty’ger had felt for the girl Luanne. He sees the involvement of the Centaurian with the young Physical’s life. The moments of intimacy shared, the thoughts held in common. He sees in it his own involvement with Lucille, and this realization upsets him. Kilgarin withdraws from the Centaurian’s mind and readjusts the thin man’s emotions from without. It is more difficult and the product is imperfect, but Kilgarin feels no desire to go further.
Leaving Ty’ger, he continues through the mind-field netting the ship. The evening lengthens before him.
He’d seen this kind of game before, but was unfamiliar with the Charter’s version of it, and so he remained in the recreation room after Ty’ger left, and sat in front of a console that connected with two display screens set equidistant on either side of the central console board.
On the left screen green mingled with blue. On the right, red with yellow. By adjusting tabs on the console, Kilgarin found he could direct the colors from one screen to seep into the other. If the adjustments were delicate enough, an optical effect would be created that would seem to bring a third set of colors into being directly before him. The third set of colors was an illusion, and its effectiveness depended on the deftness of the hands operating the controls. Kilgarin enjoyed the calming pastels he created in the center “display.” Images came and went, sounds faded to a background whisper, and everything around him vanished—except the screen.
He came to abruptly when a hand brushed his shoulder. He was halfway off the console stool before he recognized the man above him. He sank back wearily. “You still don’t understand Sensitives, do you, Raymond?” Kilgarin said. “When I’m Corking, I’m on the edge of my life. Don’t ever cut into that, not if you want me to say sane.”
“I’m sorry, Kilgarin. I just wanted to…well, apologize.”
“Apologize for what?” the Cork asked.
“The way I behaved the other day,” Raymond said uneasily. “I keep forgetting you’ve been under a strain, with your brother and…you see, I’ve got brothers and sisters too, and I know how I’d be if one of them died like Marc did. We’re not so different, you and I. At first I thought we were, and it made me feel important knowing you—but I guess I expected too much. I’m sorry.” He shrugged. “I know better now.”
“How do you know better?” Kilgarin asked. He swung around, putting his back to the display screens.
“What you said about keeping to yourself. That’s the way I’ve always been, only with me it’s because no one would bother to pay Raymond Velacorte any attention. You, you’re from one of the colony worlds, and I know what the colonies can do to people. I know what they almost did to me, but I bad a reason to stop it from happening: nobody wanted to need me. so I had to make them need me, somehow. You never had that to worry about; you’re the sort of person a fellow thinks he can depend on. J’kar, Marka, me…we thought you could take care of us. Especially J’kar. He even gave you his Contract.”
Kilgarin waited. Raymond cleared bis throat before continuing.
“We were wrong, of course. You didn’t want that, any more than any colonist does. It’s the way we’re bred. Independence first, last, and always.” Raymond laughed without humor. “The pioneer spirit.”
“Which means?”
“You don’t want us on your back. OK. we’ll keep our distance. But Kilgarin, will you help us with one thing? It’s important, and you may be the only man on this ship who can do something. No exaggeration. You know the facts as well as I do.”
“J’kar.”
“That’s right,” said Raymond. “Ever since Ryork was killed J’kar has been sick with fear. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s afraid to ask you for help, after the last rebuke you gave him—the gentle letdown. But he needs you, Killy. Ty’ger might listen to you; you’re both Sensitives, and from what the Cook’s told me. you’ve locked, so you must be able to reach him somehow.” He let out a sigh, injured eyes focusing on Kilgarin. “He’ll kill J’kar if you don’t stop him. He will, or the strain will. Please help us, Killy. Please?”
Kilgarin looked down at his hands. “You’ve said one thing that’s come close to being true, Raymond. Ty’ger and I are both Sensitives, and we’ve locked. I’ve seen the inside of his soul and he’s seen mine. Perhaps be isn’t all a man should be, but he’s closer to what I think is right than you can ever be. He doesn’t ask anything of me; he goes his own way. We’ve had fights, but he hasn’t pushed them. We’re friends, but he doesn’t infringe on our friendship. You do.”
Kilgarin reached into his tunic and pulled out something that flickered in the display screen light. It was a Contract disk. He held it out to Raymond.
“Thanks for reminding me about J'kar’s Contract,” he said. “Here’s the disk I had made for him. I never asked for it. He can have it, or you can hold it for him. As far as I’m concerned that tears it.”
“You’re killing him, you know,” Raymond said tightly.
“I don’t think so,” Kilgarin answered. “Are you going to take this or not?”
Raymond plucked the disk from Kilgarin’s hand and dropped it in his pocket. His mouth opened and he almost began to speak; then he stopped; his eyes became hard; he turned and left.
Expressionless, Kilgarin returned his gaze to the game. Fingers pressed tabs, and an image formed slowly in the air before his eyes.
It was red. The warm color of blood.
Passing the custom stalls on Maylind after receiving his clearance, Kilgarin almost ran into several other people from the Charter crew. He stepped back under the awning of an open bar and watched Marka and Raymond walk by in a group of Physicals, and felt relieved when neither of his two former companions noticed him. J’kar, he saw, was still having his disk checked; the Centaurian stood with his arms folded nervously, his back to Kilgarin as he answered the port official’s probing questions. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Kilgarin went around the stalls and through a push door, into the terminal proper.
Walking the length of the terminal, through a crowd of short, stubby people he decided were Maylindian colonists, Kilgarin passed merchant shops offering clothes in the air-rent Outworld style: severe jackets cut at the waist, loose pants without pockets and blouses that looked as though they’d fit like a second skin. The colors were dark, not a red or an orange visible. The only concession to brightness Kilgarin saw was a white blouse in the display screen of a store that, unlike the other merchants, who advertised in the port but had their shops elsewhere, boasted a retail outlet on the main floor of the terminal. On impulse Kilgarin stopped and picked out one of the white shirts in the largest size the shopkeeper could find. He also bought a pair of slacks and a jacket—the former in the smallest size available. He tried the outfit on in the shop fresher. The pants were still loose, but the shirt fit nicely, showing a handsome bit of cloth at the wrists and neck. The shopkeeper clucked bis disapproval when Kilgarin reappeared.
“It’s your credit,” the man said, “but I think you look awful. Sensitive?” he asked, indicating the blue uniform Kilgarin was stuffing in the disposal unit. Kilgarin grunted assent. “Staying long?” the shopkeeper asked.
“And if I am?”
“Not much work for Sensitives on Maylind.” the shopkeeper said. “We’ve been having a bit of trouble with non-Physicals looking for port jobs. Company won’t hire them. Factories have their own crews from Out-system, and farmers won’t touch a Sensitive with a pole. So it’s either your pension or the dole. Too many people without work; people in the city have begun thinking…you know?”
“Thanks for the advice,” Kilgarin said. He paid and left.
In contrast to most colonial worlds, the central city of Maylind, Farway, was a subtle mixing of architectural styles. Normally the first independent government of a colony chose the style in which the capital would be built, as the Independence government had chosen Spanish Colonial on Endrim. Some ports were baroque, some Gothic, others Greek Modem; many had developed their own styles, differing from those imported from earth. The Maylindian port of Farway, however, had settled on a blending of several milieus. The streets were narrow and winding in the earth European manner, but the buildings rose to several dozen stories, creating a dense effect Kilgarin found disturbing. The buildings themselves were a peculiar combination of Romanesque and twentieth-century modern: slabs of stone and steel rising monolithically into the yellow afternoon sky. Few windows broke the walls of the towers, which Kilgarin supposed was due to either a lack of industry or resources—it had developed that on some planets, silica and limestone were extremely rare and difficult to obtain, thus limiting the availability of glass. Kilgarin found the blank effect of the unrelieved tower wals oppressive. He wondered how the absence of windows would affect the people who were forced to live and work in those buildings; even a starship had viewports and display screens. Kilgarin supposed the buildings of Farway had similar screens to provide a view of either the city or, more likely, the surrounding countryside. Though he realized the irony of the emotion in a spacer, Kilgarin thought it was an unsatisfactory way to live.
The streets were active, more or less. Children ran in and out of alleys, an occasional animal looked up out of the gutter, men and women bustled on mysterious errands. Kilgarin weaved through the light crowd with relative ease and soon found his way to a park located near the north gate of the city. Buying a bottle of local wine from a park vendor, he strolled along the grass-lined paths, looking for a spot to sit and drink. He found a place on a knoll overlooking a blue lake. Few pedestrians came near the lake, though an infrequent flier would cross its surface as a shortcut from one end of the park to another. Kilgarin settled down and watched the ripples which accompanied the passage of each flier. He wanted a few moments to think and decide what next to do.
One thing was clear. To date his efforts to leam the Captain’s motive in killing Marc Kilgarin had been in vain. Wells had been a blind alley; unfortunately, Kilgarin could sense no other alleys to follow. He knew no more now than he did when he first met the man.
No—that wasn’t true. Certain things were now obvious: the Captain’s competence in a crisis situation and his corresponding incompetence in handling interpersonal affairs, such as the pressures on a mindship crew. In some way, Kilgarin knew this inability of the Captain tied in to the man s treatment of the Cork’s brother, but until he was able to probe the Captain’s mind, Kilgarin was helpless to discover how.
The question remained: what to do next? Kilgarin disliked the thought of a direct confrontation with the Captain. He’d avoided it because he felt the possible benefits were outweighed by the definite danger of permanently alienating the Captain. Now he wondered if he had any other choice.
He hadn’t heard the Maylindian approaching and was startled when the squat man lowered himself and asked, “You going to hold that or drink it, buck?”
Kilgarin jerked around. “What?”
“I asked if you were going to drink it, that bottle you got. If not. “I’ll be glad to take it off your hands.”
The Cork flustered. “I’m drinking it,” he said. The Maylindian frowned with thick black eyebrows, scratched at a dangling moustache, and said nothing. Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, Kilgarin said, “Do you want a drink? Is that it?”
