Starship Winter (David Conway 03) (8 page)

I could not help but smile to myself, and cast a quick glance at Maddie. She grinned at me. In Matt, Dortmund was picking the wrong victim to bait: the artist might have been laid-back and mild-mannered, but his mind was as sharp as the hleth barb, a lethal combination when allied to his manifest dislike of the off-worlder.

“I was not,” Dortmund continued, “referring to artistic endeavour.” He pursed his lips around a large mouthful of whisky and glanced at each of us in turn. “As far as I’m concerned, artistic achievement is limited to the narrow range of human consciousness, circumscribed by the limited perceptions of the human mind.”

Matt gestured with his glass. “Limited it might be, but it’s all we have with which to make sense of the universe we inhabit. Which isn’t to say that science doesn’t fulfil the same purpose, but both are bound – as you say – by the limits of our perceptions.”

Dortmund smiled, like an alligator knowing it had snared prey. “And what would you say if I claimed that there are ways and means of transcending paltry human consciousness and attaining some measure of universal knowledge?”

Matt paused, staring at his beer. A fraught tension filled the air. I know that I, for one, feared that Matt had talked himself into a corner. I guessed where Dortmund was leading, and I didn’t like it a bit.

Matt’s reply though, when it came, was brilliant. “I don’t doubt for a minute that you think you have gained some superior powers of perception, Dortmund. But what facilitated that leap of perception did not in any essence originate within you – it was through the psionic processes granted you by your government: a machine-enhancement, if you like. Also,” he swept on, “a superior perception you might claim for yourself, but when all is said and done, what is an exalted perception if it doesn’t lead to some result, some breakthrough or insight, either artistic or scientific, which might be communicated to an audience who would thus be enlightened or educated by one’s insights?”

“Very clever, Sommers, very articulate. But your diagnosis pre-empts my eventual breakthrough.”

Matt laughed at this, mocking. “Dortmund, you sound just like your twenty-year-old self, always making great claims never to be substantiated.”

Dortmund finished his scotch in one gulp, reached out with an unsteady hand and poured himself another.

“If I could only have you apprehend what I have experienced”, he said, “and achieved…”

The Ambassador, either wishing to calm the waters, or ignorant of the tension in the air, asked, “And what are those achievements, Mr Dortmund?”

The off-worlder performed his imitation smile again. “For the past ten, twelve years I have travelled the Expansion”, he said, “and even beyond. I have communed with all manner of sentient life; I have striven to understand even the most alien, the most incomprehensible, to understand the effects which brought about their sentience and behaviour, and so gain some empathy with the consciousness of a hundred different extraterrestrial species.”

A silence greeted this megalomaniacal, and somewhat drunken, pronouncement.

I said, “And what would you say that has gained you, other than the gradual disenfranchisement from the understanding and sympathy of… of your fellow human beings?” I think I was a little drunk myself by then, drunk and vindictive, I admit.

Dortmund surprised me by laughing at that. “Well, it has brought about that, I admit, Conway. But it has also brought me many insights and… abilities,” he went on, taking a huge swallow of scotch.

The Ambassador wanted to know, “Abilities?”

Dortmund looked around. At last he pointed, surprising me. His unsteady forefinger indicated Kee, who stared at him wide-eyed.

“Girl! That… that barb, that hleth spike, as you call it. Here!”

Kee looked around like a child accused of cheating by a teacher. “What?”

Dortmund leaned forward, and spoke as if to an idiot. “Take the damned barb from your belt and lay it upon the table!”

Kee looked worried. She glanced across at Hawk, who nodded.

She slipped the barb from her belt and did as instructed. It sat upon the mahogany inlay of the coffee table, its curved length catching the glow of the fire.

We stared at the barb, and then at Dortmund.

“Now, watch!”

He leaned forward, staring intently at the barb. A minute passed, and nothing happened. We looked at each other, mentally shrugging; I wanted to laugh at the sight of the effort on Dortmund’s face, but restrained myself.

Matt broke the silence. “Just what”, he said, “are you trying to do?”

Without taking his eyes from the barb, Dortmund said, “You doubted my abilities. I’ll show you. I learned this from a race of sentient cetaceans on Acrab IV. Telekinesis – regarded impossible by human science… but watch!”

We watched. A minute became two, then three. We were getting fidgety when, without warning, the barb twitched slightly.

Matt said stifling a yawn, “Impressive, Dortmund.”

“But look!” Kee said, pointing.

Suddenly the barb flipped, flew through the air at incredible speed and embedded itself in the timber surround of the fireplace with a resounding thunk.

A silence, followed by, “I must admit that’s a very impressive party trick, Dortmund.” Matt concealed a smile behind his glass.

The off-worlder collapsed back into his armchair, glaring out at us. “Christ, how I despise you all!” he spat. “All of you. Sommers – with your self-satisfied air of the Expansion-renowned artist, a mere dabbler in the shallow and the trite, and the hangers-on you call your friends. You, Maddie Chamberlain, hiding your insecurities behind a puppy-like love for this charlatan, giving the world the impression of hard-won experience to cover the fear that you’ll be thought of as intellectually lacking, which you are.”

“That’s enough!” Matt said.

But Dortmund swept on, “And Hawk and Kee. What can I say about the most incompatible pair of losers on the planet? The failed pilot who killed his passengers and gained a fake redemption with the fortuitous intervention of the Yall… And Kee – you’re contemptible with your dependencies on Hawk the father figure to compensate for the rejection by your own people.”

He barked a laugh and turned his attention to me. Hannah reached out from her armchair, gripping my hand.

“David Conway,” Dortmund said, with a sadistic leer. “In many ways, you’re the saddest of all… Your running away from attempting to save your daughter set the psychological template for everything that followed: your running away from your wife, from Earth, from the responsibilities of relationships… which will inevitably founder on your guilt and a concomitant inability to commit.”

I balled a fist, ready to leap at him, but Hannah restrained me with a look.

Dortmund stared at Hannah, then, and went on, “And last, but not least, we come to Lieutenant Hannah van Harben who, on the face of it, appears so very sweet and innocent, Conway’s perfect lover, who despite whatever you’ve told Conway to lure him in is living a lie, a lie hiding… what? What are you hiding, Lieutenant?”

I stood up. “I’ve had enough of you cheap psychology, Dortmund.”

He turned away, staring without expression at the faux flames of the fireplace.

The Ambassador rose, gestured inexplicably and hurried from the room. Maddie moved to Matt, who hugged her and led her from the room, followed by Hawk and Kee. I took Hannah’s hand, drawing her to me. I kissed her and whispered, “Don’t cry. Come on…”

I led her from the room. Fhen hurried after us. “If you would still like to stay the night, I will show you to your respective bedrooms.”

Hawk said, “I’m too drunk to drive.”

Matt nodded. “Me too. Let’s stay, then get the hell out first thing.”

I nodded, watching them move off, subdued, up the sweeping staircase.

“David…” Hannah said, drawing me towards stairs.

“Give me a minute, Hannah, okay? I’m not going to let the bastard get away with…”

Before she could protest, I slipped back into the lounge, eased the door shut behind me and crossed to Dortmund in his armchair.

He became aware of me after a second and looked up drunkenly. “What do you want, Conway?”

I controlled my anger. I took a breath and said, “I just wanted to say that I hope you’re proud of yourself, Dortmund. That was very clever – using your ability to dissect us like that. Very clever, and very indicative of the man you are: egotistical, monomaniacal, and without a soul in the world who cares a damn about you.”

I looked at the barb protruding from the timber of the fireplace, gathering my thoughts. “And some of what you said might contain a grain of truth. But so what? No one is perfect. We live with our strengths, our weaknesses and imperfections – and we do our best with what fate has given us. It’s called being human – to try your best, and fail, and to go on despite everything… But perhaps you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be human, Dortmund.”

I stood over him, willing him to look at me, wanting to see in his gaze an admission that what I had said had penetrated to his heart, if he possessed a heart.

He looked up, his ice-blue eyes unremittingly cold, and his expression mocked every word I had spoken.

* * *

Our bedroom overlooked the front lawn.

The balcony doors were open, admitting a slight breeze. Hannah had slipped into bed and turned out the lights; the room was illuminated by the silver light from the Ring of Tharssos.

I stood by the balcony doors, staring out at the parabola of the Ring as it diminished over the sea’s horizon.

“Come to bed,” Hannah said sleepily.

I undressed and slipped under the cool sheets beside her. “Hannah…?” I began.

She pressed a finger to my lips. “Shhh,” she said. “Hold me, David.”

I held her, and she kissed me, and we made love, slowly. I swear it was the most intimate and meaningful of all the times we had made love up to then. I collapsed beside her, exhausted, tracing a finger across her chest and belly and considering my words.

“Hannah?” I said. She was silent, so I said again, “Hannah…”

The even sound of her respiration, the shallow rise and fall of her chest in the ring-light, told me she was sleeping.

I lay awake for a long time, considering Dortmund’s final tirade. I dismissed a lot of what he’d said as no more than vindictiveness: there might have been a kernel of truth in some of his insights, but they were exaggerated out of all recognition.

What he’d said about Hannah, however, made me wonder. It was almost as if he were unable to discern the workings of her mind, for some reason, and therefore accused her of concealment. Then I recalled what he’d said earlier about her gemstone…

I must have fallen asleep eventually, as I awoke some time later with a pressing

need to visit the loo. On the way back from the en suite bathroom, I moved to the open doors and looked out. The far-away straits were silvered with ring-light and the land was black with night; the scene resembled an old-fashioned photographic negative.

I was about to return to bed when I noticed movement down below. I stepped forward and peered. Hawk, fully dressed, crossed the patio and leaned against the stone balustrade, staring across the lawn.

I wondered if he, too, was finding sleep hard in the aftermath of Dortmund’s petty invective.

I stepped inside, locked the doors, returned to bed and eventually slept.

At some point I woke again, disturbed by Hannah as she rolled out of bed. Dawn light filled the room. I dozed in that realm between sleep and wakefulness when lucid dreams take on the fidelity of reality. I saw Hannah waving goodbye, tearfully, as she moved ever further away from me.

I woke up and reached out. The bed was empty.

When she returned, at last, I pulled her to me and hugged her like a needful child.

Later – and it must have been an hour or two at least, as full sunlight now exploded into the room – we were awoken by an insistent knocking on the door.

I came awake slowly, rolled out of bed and pulled on some clothes.

Maddie and Matt stood side by side in the passageway when I opened the door. They wore the blank, anaesthetised expressions of people in shock.

“What?” I said

“It’s Dortmund,” Maddie said at last.

“Dortmund?”

She nodded. “He’s dead.”

— SIX —

Hannah joined me and we made our way downstairs. Hawk and Kee were already there, standing beside the open door to the lounge. They were holding hands and staring silently into the room. The Ambassador, Heanor, was beside them, peering into the lounge.

I said, “What happened? Who found him?”

“I did, Mr Conway,” Heanor said. “I rose early, as is my custom. The door was open. When I looked in, I saw…”

I looked into the room.

Dortmund was slumped forward in his armchair, the front of his white suit stained black.

I led the way into the room. Hannah reached out to me. “Be careful. Don’t touch anything. Has anyone called the police?”

Maddie nodded. “As soon as Heanor woke us,” she said. “I contacted your people in Mackinley. They said they’d have a team up here in ten minutes.”

I stopped beside Dortmund’s chair, in exactly the same position as when I’d stood over him the night before.

From his chest projected the hleth barb. I looked up, staring around at the shocked expressions of my friends. “Who the hell could have done this?” I said.

Hawk held my gaze. “After what the bastard said last night,” he said, “any one of us.”

I found myself laughing, more with macabre fear than humour. “I must admit I felt like—”

Hannah said, “We all did, at some point. But I don’t think any of you would…” She stopped, then said, “Where’s Fhen?”

I looked at the Ambassador, as if he might know the whereabouts of his compatriot.

“He was not in his room when I went to find him,” Heanor said. He carved a gesture. “But you cannot be imputing…?” he said, staring at Hannah. “The taking of life, even alien life, is proscribed on my homeworld.”

“But we’re not on your homeworld,” I pointed out.