A Passage of Stars

“‘It is a sacred duty for all of us, soldiers of the revolution, democrats of all continents, to unite our forces, to come to an understanding and to organize.’”

  “That’s very good, Kyosti. Are you helping Robbie write his speeches?”

  Kyosti smiled slightly, as if he would have laughed but did not have the energy for it. He gazed obliquely at Lily, caught in thoughts she could not guess at.

  “It’s funny,” she continued. “Robbie devotes his life to Jehane’s cause, but Jehane’s never been on Arcadia. He’s never spoken in front of angry crowds, with Security ready to come in at the slightest provocation, or risked getting arrested for setting up yet another underground news network. To the people on Arcadia, Pero is Jehanism. But I’d bet you that if Jehane ever succeeds, Robbie won’t get a hit of the glory. He won’t even ask for it.”

  Kyosti shrugged. “A megalomaniac like Jehane succeeds on the strength of his followers’ sincerity,” he said.

  “Is that another quote?” she asked.

  “Maybe I’ll come with you,” he said suddenly. “Bach can guard the home front, can’t you, old boy?”

  A single light winked on Bach’s surface, but the robot did not deign to turn away from the terminal or otherwise acknowledge Kyosti’s statement.

  “He’s addicted to that machine,” said Lily with disgust. “He’s on it constantly. I can’t understand why our electric bill isn’t higher, except I’m afraid Bach fixes it.”

  “We all have to be addicted to something.” Kyosti regarded her again with that unreadable look.

  “Not me,” said Lily, standing up as Robbie came out of his room. “Let’s go.”

  16 Pero Speaks

  OUTSIDE, A COLD WIND hit them, and Kyosti went back to get a heavier jacket. Lily and Robbie strolled into the community park that fronted their apartment block to wait for him.

  “How many do you expect to join the strike, Robbie?” she asked. “It’s hard to believe that tomorrow will be the first day of spring.” She bent to brush the grass with an open hand. That cold air alone might wither the green plants to brown she had never conceived of, nor the slow budding to life as the weather grew warmer. It was as if the air itself carried some virus, growing and dying.

  “What I expect and what I hope—it’s hard to separate the two, Lya. But first of all I need transport workers to strike, because then there will be inconvenience to Central, and the Senators will take notice of us.”

  “Haven’t they already?”

  He smiled. Against his dark skin, his teeth seemed very white. “As a nuisance, perhaps. But Security has not yet moved against Pero—the mythical Pero, who is no one man or woman, but all men and women. That is why Pero can never die.”

  Lily looked away, out over the pond. The wind had died away; the water lay like frosted glass in an unbroken surface, catching the distant reflection of treetops and apartment windows in its even surface. “I hope not,” she said. “Robbie. What deal did Heredes make with you?”

  “I thought it was all understood, Lily. I really did.”

  “I believe you. Of all people, I believe you, Robbie. But why am I always the last person to whom it’s all understood?”

  “I assume that is a rhetorical question. I thought Heredes told you.”

  “I know he got false ID, and that he wanted to work in Central to get information. And that to work in Central, and especially to gain employment in the kind of classified position he must need to get what he wants, that you also have to live in Central, and that your movements are closely watched. That’s what I know. I thought he just dropped me off at Wingtuck’s Academy until he was finished, and that you, in your vast kind-heartedness, took me in. But that’s not the case, is it?”

  Robbie moved onto the pebbled scree that bordered the park’s shallow pond and leaned against the waist-high fence built there, he had said, to keep people out of the water. Why anyone might want to go into it, filthy as it was, Lily could not imagine, nor how such a low fence could restrict access. “But you and your robot form a vital link, Lily. I thought—” He shrugged.

  “Bach and I?”

  “For several years,” he began again, as if a random thought had struck him, “I have attempted not only to break into Central’s computer system, which is difficult but not impossible, but also to get the information I obtained out of Central. That had proved impossible, so far. But I was assured that your guardian is a master of such techniques. He promised to feed information on Jehane and his movements, movements tracked on Central’s classified strategy computers, out through your robot and into my hands. And he has. This information gives me an incomparable advantage in working for Jehane’s cause here on Arcadia. For instance, the last transfer included a bulletin from Unruli, where Central evidently uncovered a large Jehanist nest and carted the entire group off to the nearest prison planet.”

  “Harsh. I already know someone there, the Ridani girl I met. And lost. But an entire group from Unruli! Hoy. I wonder if I knew them.”

  She subsided into silence. From a distance they must have seemed parting lovers, she with her hands crammed in her coat pockets against the cold, head bent under the seriousness of his mien, but eyes lifted to catch his words; he, still leaning against the fence, but almost as if it alone supported him, dark hands resting lightly on his blue-trousered thighs.

  “I hope you’re not disappointed in me, Lily,” said Robbie at last.

  “In you?” She smiled, rueful. “No. Maybe a little bit in Heredes. You’d think he’d trust me with more knowledge.”

  “In this line of work, Lya, knowledge can be dangerous.”

  “So can ignorance. Ignorance can kill.” Across the park, she watched as the door to their block opened and Kyosti emerged. “For instance,” she said.

  “This is none of my business,” said Robbie suddenly, hurriedly, “and I say it only out of concern for your well-being—” He faltered. Uncertainty was so unlikely an expression on his open face that Lily could only stare. “Do you love him?”

  “Love him?” Kyosti advanced toward them, the increasing wind tugging at his pale hair; his hands were hidden in his pockets. “I don’t know. How can you love someone who has never told you the truth?”

  “You love Heredes.”

  She smiled. “And it seems to you he has as many secrets as Kyosti?”

  “Doesn’t he?”

  “But Heredes has always told me the truth—not much of it, granted.” She brought her hands up to her face and blew on them. “I trust him, Robbie. I always have.”

  “Then is trust a necessary corollary for love?”

  “It must be.”

  He shook his head. “You’re speaking with your head. That’s your flaw—if I may presume enough to say so—”

  “You will anyway,” she said with a grin.

  “You don’t act enough from your heart.”

  “Don’t I? Maybe you act too much from yours.”

  “Perhaps. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been charged with that particular failing.”

  “Which failing is that?” asked Kyosti as he came up to them. He removed a hand from his pocket and closed it around Lily’s hands, drawing them down.

  “Perfection,” said Lily.

  Kyosti smiled, as genuine as it was possible for him to be. “I’m sorry, Robbie,” he said. “But I’m afraid that the only cure for perfection is death.”

  Robbie laughed. “Isn’t that the only cure there is? Shall we go?”

  The meeting was held in Elfin District. A stage had been constructed in a warehouse. From her vantage point at the back and to one side of the makeshift construction, Lily could look out over the crowd. Robbie sat next to her, his eyes closed, in perfect stillness. On her other side, Kyosti sat elbows on knees, examining the crowd.

  “I don’t like this,” he whispered. “It smells like a setup to me. Did Robbie arrange this, from the ground up? Or was he asked to speak here?”

  “I don’t know.” Lily glanc
ed at Robbie, but did not want to disturb his meditation.

  “Did you see the light switches as we came in?”

  “The ones just behind us?”

  “Yes.” Beyond, the crowd stirred restlessly, perhaps two thousand souls, as a dark woman spoke to them from the stage. Several other speakers, finished or yet to go on, loitered backstage or sat near Lily and Kyosti and Robbie. “We’ll split up,” continued Kyosti. He spoke in an undertone, so quiet that even Robbie, were he listening, might not have heard. “One to the lights, the other as close to the microphone as possible. If anything happens, we’ll have to act fast.”

  Lily leaned into him, lips brushing his ear as if she were nuzzling him affectionately. “You think Central Intelligence set this up? To bring one of Pero’s voices to light?”

  “I don’t think anything,” said Kyosti. He let a hand slide up her waist, caressing her. “But I know this line of work. Haven’t you heard the Boy Scout motto, ‘Be prepared’?”

  Lily giggled. “What’s a Boy Scout?”

  Kyosti pushed her away. Robbie had risen, gave them each an intent nod, and, to the accompaniment of fevered and in-unison applause, walked out onto the stage.

  “Comrades,” the woman proclaimed, her words merged with the crowd’s roar of approval, “I give you, the man who speaks for all of us. Pero.”

  “I’ll get the lights,” said Lily, her voice almost drowned by the cheers. Kyosti nodded and rose as well.

  “—Comrades! I am not Pero. All of us are Pero. All of us speak out against injustice, against—”

  Lily found the lights, stood by them, listening. “—we will show Central, we will show our Senators, we will show the Reft, our disapproval. They will attempt to make us fight. This is a peaceful strike. With peace, we will win. Do not fight. Do not resist. But do not retreat!”

  Over the thunderous applause and cheering that greeted this remark, the shot ricocheted like an echo of the crowd’s intensity. Robbie faltered, staggered, and fell. Lily started, shocked out of action, and only by reflex did she cut the lights.

  Darkness shuttered the hall, but triggered her thoughts. In the instant while the rest were still frozen, she was already running toward the stage. She elbowed past a group whose high voices revealed panic. A scream shattered the sudden muteness of the crowd.

  “Lily!” Kyosti’s voice, close by.

  “I’ve got you.” She shoved a person aside and came up next to him.

  “Lead.” Kyosti spoke in a low voice, but already shouts and cries filled the warehouse, covering his words. “I’ve got him. Let’s go.”

  Lily created a ruthless path through the crowd that was converging on the stage. “Where is he?” voices cried. Others swore. “Damn Central!!!” yelled others. “They ordered this!” “Kill Senator Isaiah—Senator Feng—Senator—” the names went on. Lily shut the door behind them just as the lights went back on. On the street, browned-out lamps lit dim circles of light across the sidewalks. Two trucks sat along the curb.

  “Gun in my pocket,” gasped Kyosti. Robbie lay in his arms. Blood spread through the cloth of his shirt, spreading a red stain over his abdomen. He was unconscious. “Hijack a truck.”

  But Lily was already at the door to the first truck. It opened, and the surprised driver was thrown unceremoniously from his seat onto the ground. “Get in,” she called to Kyosti, and she helped him pull Robbie onto the seat between them. She got the truck started just as the door from the warehouse opened and the first stream of people poured out. The vehicle jerked forward, and she floored the gas. She took the first corner at forty, the second at sixty, but deemed it prudent to slow down after that.

  “Hold on, Robbie. Damn you, hold on,” Kyosti was muttering next to her.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Roanoak. I can use the clinic.”

  “I don’t know how to get there.”

  “Don’t you read maps, Lily?” Suddenly he sounded amused. “Mother help us. I always study my ground.”

  “I don’t expect people to get assassinated. Damn it, where do I turn?”

  He laughed. “Ah, the good old days. Left here. Five blocks, then the Glacier Expressway for twenty miles.”

  “Will he live that long?” she cried. She could not take her eyes from the road to look.

  “I don’t lose patients,” said Kyosti in a hard voice. Cloth ripped, and a bloody rag fell at her feet. “Primitive,” he said. “Not even a laser. A damned slug. I’ll have to get it out. Yes, this right, my love.”

  Traffic on the expressway was light. After all, only transport and cargo vehicles used it, and the occasional private vehicle of a Senatorial family. “I hope every single transport worker on Arcadia strikes,” muttered Lily. “Bring the whole damn planet to a stop.” Signs she had never seen before flashed past her. She slowed to five kilometers over the speed limit, tried to drive between the white lines and raised dots. Kyosti worked in silence beside her. She heard Robbie’s breathing, as ragged as the bloody cloth draped over her shoes.

  “This exit,” said Kyosti suddenly. “And here. And—” They passed the white neon identifying Roanoak station.

  “I know from here,” interrupted Lily. Within minutes they pulled up before Roanoak clinic.

  It was dark. Kyosti followed her, Robbie in his arms, as she went up the steps. Lily had been here once before, had seen the Ridanis Kyosti cared for treat him with a trust astonishing for tattoos used to nothing but scorn and hatred from their unmarked brethren. Had heard it in their embarrassed thanks, seen it in the shy lift of their eyes to meet his.

  Their footsteps echoed along the empty corridor. Not even a janitor here to question them or to greet them. Malnutrition, eye and respiratory diseases, together with gynecological problems in the women—Kyosti had told her once that was what he treated, mostly. She thought of that, because she did not want to look at Robbie. She was afraid to look at Robbie. At all that blood, draining out of him. And she remembered what Kyosti had said, as they were leaving Zanta: “The only cure for perfection is death.”

  “Damn it,” she said, feeling sick with it, heavy with fear, “don’t die. Don’t die.”

  “Open that door for me.” Kyosti’s voice was perfectly level. “We’ll go into the back room.”

  They walked through the common room, where Kyosti examined most of his patients, through to the back, where he treated the delicate cases. He laid Robbie gently down on the examination table, began rummaging in a cabinet.

  “I need—” He paused. Robbie’s eyes fluttered, opened. One hand twitched limply. Lily grabbed it, squeezed.

  “Maitreyi,” Robbie whispered, like a gasp, or a prayer. His face was clear of pain, but his eyes were distant.

  “Keep him talking,” said Kyosti. “He’s in shock. I don’t want him going out again until I’ve got that bullet out.” He drew on gloves, pulled one onto Lily’s free hand, picked up instruments, lifted aside the makeshift bandage he had wrapped around Robbie’s abdomen.

  Lily gagged, forced herself to focus on Robbie’s face.

  “Hand me these when I ask for them, Lily.” Kyosti transferred several instruments into her gloved hand. He gave Robbie a shot, waited a few moments, and then began to ease tissue aside.

  “What’s Maitreyi?” asked Lily, bending down closer to Robbie’s face. The scent of blood sifted into the air, overpowering.

  Robbie sighed, caught his breath as if at Kyosti’s careful cutting. “Maitreyi,” he murmured.

  “‘Then what need have I of wealth?’” said Kyosti, almost wistful. “‘Please, my lord, tell me what you know about the way to immortality.’” And he laughed.

  Lily glared at him, tightened her hand around Robbie’s. “Who is Maitreyi?” she asked again.

  “As fair as the dawn.” Robbie’s voice seemed to come from a great distance. “My beloved.”

  “Give me the blue one,” demanded Kyosti, and she handed him an instrument. The one he set down was red, trailing red
onto the plastic sheet that covered the table.

  “I didn’t know you have a beloved, Robbie,” Lily said. “Where did you meet her?”

  Robbie’s eyes seemed to gain focus. “Veritas,” he breathed. “Where I grew up. The Finegal Revolt.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Lily. “You lost your whole family—” She faltered, cursed herself for bringing up death.

  “All but my sister Mathilda,” said Robbie. He gasped again, but the sound was stronger. “I would have died, too. Fallen-in, burning building. But she came. She pulled me out.”

  “Give me the—ah—the one with the yellow tag on it,” said Kyosti. “Ah, better and better. Almost there.”

  “Was Maitreyi one of the revolutionaries?” Lily asked.

  Robbie’s mouth twisted up into a smile both sweet and detached. “Troop,” he said. “Government trooper.” His eyes faded out of focus; Lily pressed his hand until he came back, a little way. “She came to the hospital, later—curious, I suppose, to see the burnt rebel she had saved. I loved her.”

  “Did she love you” Lily asked softly.

  “Who can tell?” He gasped, hard and pained. “I felt that.”

  “Good,” said Kyosti. “Keep talking.”

  He spoke between gasps. “We made plans—two comrades and—and I. To escape. It was a prison hospital, you know. She—she found out about it. Turned us in.”

  “But that’s terrible!” said Lily, forgetting her fear for him in righteous anger.

  “Is it? Each day the sun betrays us, going down to night. But do we blame it? She did her duty.”

  “Got it!” said Kyosti. “Nasty beast. Give me the—thank you. Don’t move, I’m sewing.”

  “But the night has stars,” said Lily, still caught in Robbie’s betrayal. “The night has its own beauty.”

  “Just so,” said Pero.

  “How poetic of you, my love,” said Kyosti.

  “But Robbie, what happened then?”

  “Life separated us.” Pero’s eyes, filling with pain now as he rose out of shock, focused clear and strong on Lily, and he smiled, out of hurt and out of a curious equanimity. “We have no weapons against that.”