Starliner(108)

But then, no organism that survives to pass on its genes will be wholly peaceful.

"A place you'd like to live?" Wanda asked.

Ran looked out over the Mirza. Couples were rowing there. It must be possible to rent boats somewhere.

"No," he said softly. "I wouldn't belong here."

He faced Wanda. She was watching him, and he couldn't read her expression. "I don't belong anywhere, Wanda," he said. "Not even on Bifrost, not after I went through the library Dad brought back from—from Hobilo."

Ran smiled, and though he had to force it, the impulse was real enough. He was better off than most people. It was just that he knew where he was, while not many other folks seemed to. Maybe they were happier not to know, but ignorance hadn't been something Chick Colville held forth as a virtue to his son.

"I'm . . ." Ran continued. "Everybody's—out of place, you know, on a starliner. I'm happy there, I'm where I ought to be."

They skirted a shop selling hologram projectors and other electronics, much of it locally made. Tblisi had considerable industry, though grain and fisheries were its main exports, and out-system trade traveled on foreign bottoms. The Empress of Earth docked in a three-meter news projection, while a newsreader's voice gave a garbled account of the attempted hijacking.

"I've got my job," Ran continued, "and I'm good at it. And most of my duties . . ."

He glanced back at the hologram of the starliner. He imagined the sullen splendor of sponge space wrapping the vessel and those on her hull, dissolving their souls and filling the psychic cavities with Cold.

Wanda squeezed his hand.

"Most of my duties," Ran said, "I like a lot."

At the cafe ahead of them, waiters were beginning to serve plates of fish and pasta as well as drinks. It was late morning in Bogomil, several hours behind ship's time.

"I wouldn't mind some lun—"Wanda began. The rest of her sentence was drowned by excited shouts from those watching the news in the electronics store.

The Trident officers turned, their faces pale and sickly in Tblisi's orange-touched sunlight They strode back toward the holograms.

For a moment, Ran thought the Empress was the starliner filling half the huge projection while the newsreader spoke from the other side of the display. The vessel was deep in an atmosphere, but her landing outriggers were not deployed.

"No, it's the Brasil," Wanda said, correcting her own similar misapprehension aloud.

"What's happening?" Ran demanded of an old man wearing a horizontally-striped shirt and a straw hat squeezed shapeless by long use. The fellow had been watching the news when Ran and Wanda passed the first time.

"The Grantholm-Nevasa war's over!" the local said. "It was going to be terrible for trade, just terrible. I'm in shipping, and I know that."

The old man's eyes were bright with memories of the time when he had a life that required more than watching the news in a public place. That must have been years past.

"Lin Van Thiet, formerly the Minister of Culture and now Interim President of Nevasa," the newsreader said, "urges all Nevasan citizens to cease hostilities and actions which might be seen as hostile by the government of Grantholm. The situation on Nevasa is difficult. Attempts to prolong the conflict can only lead to untold suffering for the survivors."

"The Minister of Culture is running the planet?" Wanda murmured. "What on earth . . . ?"

The image of the Brasil was blurred. That had the effect of making the picture more real to those watching. This was real data from a vessel accompanying the starliner, not a computer simulation.

"Tblisi received a communications torpedo with the news," Ran said. "From Nevasa, it must be. Lin must be really serious about ending the war if he's sent direct messages to colonies this distant."

"It's Nevasa, that's for sure," Wanda said. "Look at the sky."

The Nevasan atmosphere fluoresced in dazzling sheets to swaddle the plunging starliner. The lenses recording the scene couldn't penetrate the fog of light, except to record the yellow-white glow of the Brasil’s dense hull.

"Casualty figures are still being assembled," the newsreader said in the tones of someone who can't really believe what he's seeing, "but it appears that damage to Nevasa City and the region around it has been extensive."

"Christ!" said Ran Colville. "If she hit Nevasa City at orbital velocity, there isn't any fucking Nevasa City any more!"

"Grantholm hijacked the Brasil and used her as a missile," Wanda said. She gripped her companion's left hand and squeezed till blood started from where her fingernails cut into the skin. "Ran, they killed—tens of thousands of people. Hundreds of thousands of people!"