Silverfleet and Claypool

“And this one’s for Fiona,” said Silverfleet as she tipped back her flask and passed it on to Del Cloutier. Silverfleet, Cloutier, Claypool, Klee and Conna Marais, and the cat Helga, sat around in an apartment in the microgravity of a small moon in the New Home system. It was mostly pale ice, so it was no Black Rock, but it had a lovely view of the system’s biggest, most colorful gas giant.

“Sure,” said Cloutier, taking a long sip, then passing it to Elan Klee. “One for Fiona, then another one for Cera, then back to Fiona again.”

“Don’t forget Parrott and Blake,” said Klee, “even if they were late joiners.”

“Myrrh Melville,” said Silverfleet. “And Stelling and—! But we’re forgetting. Talis lost millions. Millions. At least we got Jana Crown out of there—and she saved my life, before they blew up her fighter. So even if she didn’t die, we have to drink to her. Where is she, anyway?”

“That damn commander of hers,” Cloutier said, “insisted on having someone out on patrol at all times, or else she’d be here.”

“A lot of people died,” said Conna Marais, “but a lot of people didn’t die.” She looked at the cat lying up against her leg. “You didn’t die, for one, old girl.” She ruffled the cat’s ample belly. Helga replied by softly growling, rolling to expose more belly and eying Conna lovingly.

“No,” said Claypool. She took a swig, then held the flask aloft. “This one’s for the Great Silverfleet, who saved humanity.” She took another drink and handed it to Silverfleet.

“I refuse to toast myself,” said Silverfleet. “I didn’t save humanity. Or if I did, then so did you. Goddess, it was such a mess back there. I forgot everything, when I thought those bastards had blown up Conna. It was such a mess.” She shook her head, then laughed. “But somehow we won! Let’s drink to Fiona again.”

“It ate her, and regretted it,” said Cloutier.

“If it was capable of regret, it would have regretted that,” Silverfleet agreed. “The armored worms. I don’t remember anyone suggesting they were internal parasites.”

“What do you think,” asked Klee, “was it going on to Central to lay more eggs, or was Alcen enough for it?”

“We’ll never know. I would guess it was going to drop a few here, a few there. But then it wasn’t so careful what it ate, and it contracted a bad case of armored-worm-itis.”

“Another great beast felled by blood worms,” said Klee. “Alcen said they were in the oceans now. There must have been millions of them—in the right environment they sure do reproduce.”

“The same can’t be said for fighter pilots,” said Claypool.

“Good fighter pilots die, Fiona’s words,” said Cloutier. “And she was as good as they get, aside from you two.”

“And you,” said Silverfleet. “You had a kill on her. She was good. She belongs with us. Because you guys? You’re the best.”

“Not to change the subject,” said Elan Klee, “but when are Tilla and Ginger due in? Do they even know where to look for us?”

“I’d guess it’ll be another couple weeks,” said Silverfleet. “I think they were going to stay a week with Paula at Three Star, kind of get Mom acclimated to life alone. I expect Paula to come back with them for a visit—she said once every couple of months, right? We’ll see them on their way in—maybe we can go meet them at the village. There’s sure to be a feast.”

“It’ll beat even the feast they had for us,” said Klee, as they gazed out in the direction of the speck of rock and water that was New Home–4. “Is it my imagination, or was their ale better even than last year?”

“It was damn good,” Cloutier judged. “But yeah, they’ll save the really good stuff for when New Home’s Hometown Girl Hero Comes Home.”

“I can’t wait to show them this place,” said Claypool, taking the flask. “We’ve really done a good job, if I may say.”

“Oh, you may say. That big window’s worth the trip out here by itself. It was tempting to put our hideaway on that redirected asteroid, just for the poetic effect, but this really is better. We have the big planet to look at, for one thing.”

“It’s quite the view,” Cloutier agreed. “Rivals the view from that café on Taraadya, doesn’t it?” The five women spent a minute gazing through their new-made window, twenty meters tall, out of their cave in the side of one of the towering peaks on this moon of blue ice, gazed upon the ringed gas giant, its belts of latitude filigreed with storms. Beyond, the sky opened up into that vista of distant spirals.

“It’s better, I think,” said Silverfleet. She looked across the other three women, lying around in their vac suits on cushions and blankets in the well-sealed cave. Between Claypool and Conna lay Helga, in a big fuzzy wad. “Although I have to say I do find those galaxies a bit more menacing than I used to.”

“Hey,” said Klee, “none of those things are coming here. We got armored worms.”

“Yes, that’s it,” said Silverfleet, lofting the flask. “Here’s to the armored worms.” They all cheered and passed the flask several more times. Then Cloutier was passing her pipe, and Silverfleet put an arm around Claypool and toasted each other. They were five little women and a cat, in a cave on an icy spire on a modest moon of the largest planet of a middle-class yellow star at the edge of an arm of a galaxy of four hundred billion stars, with a field before them as full of galaxies as a mountain meadow on Bela might be full of summer flowers.

“I hope the galaxy will be all right,” said Klee.

“Julie and Carin are in command of starfleets,” replied Cloutier. “What could go wrong? You think they’ll get in a tiff and Midday will make war on Alcen?”

“Not with the NT flying cargos of this stuff around,” said Silverfleet. “I can’t believe Bell didn’t want to go back to fighter service. At least Meena and Ro are out in space defending that old hippie. Bell’s in there firing his guns. If you know what I mean.”

“Fighter fighting wasn’t all that good to her,” Cloutier replied. “I think she finds a gun station kind of relaxing. I’m not surprised she didn’t go back. As for her attention to Arn Vandenbrug, well, there’s no accounting for taste.”

“They’ve got a good market situation,” said Conna. “They’ll be hauling organics until someone gets around to re-terraforming Midday. I don’t suppose they’ll bother with Marelon.”

“Oh,” said Silverfleet, “they’ll get around to it. It’s still a colony, it still has a little life, it still has plenty of minerals to mine. It’s on the all-important trade route to Colfax.”

“Needless to say, it’ll never be the same,” added Klee. “That’s why you’re staying here.”

“Yes, I am,” said Conna. “Do you think they’ll, uh, bother with Talis?”

“No,” said Claypool, “Talis will never be remade. There is justice. They were already killing each other off down in those mineshafts even as the Beast was eating the planet. Not like Midday.” She laughed. “To think that’s the only place where the White Hand survived.”

“The Council survived,” Silverfleet corrected her. “They’re not White Hand anymore, not really. White Hand doesn’t mean anything, if alien beasts can wander in and slaughter a hundred plus million people and barely be stopped from taking out humanity’s second biggest planet. Midday survived because they stopped being the White Hand. They ceased to be the minute they started agreeing with us.”

“I hope things work out for them,” said Claypool. “And for everyone else who’s trying to rebuild without the White Hand.”

“What about Alcen? Central?” asked Cloutier. “Have you resolved your issues enough to wish them well? What’s going to happen?”

“What happens will happen whether I’ve gotten over the way those bastards chased me around the zone or not. But yeah, I hope everything’s okay on Alcen. I think it will be. There was a resistance, an underground, even if they were totally suppressed. I don’t know about Central. I guess Vya joined in that commission or whatever that was going to demilitarize the planet. I hope they do.”

“Well,” said Cloutier, “Central isn’t Central anymore. I think Alcen’s the center of the universe now—Ol’ Earth’s rusting away. Maybe they’ll make it a park. What do you think, Halyn?”

“They’ll have a lot of problems,” agreed Silverfleet. “Starfleet Command tried to rule the place, but the few remaining ships they had were all from other colonies. I heard about that commission—people from away deciding what to do with the place. Starfleet’s cooked. And all those religious nuts who led their followers up mountains to meet God, they’re all cooked too. I bet the fighting doesn’t die down there for twenty years.”

“Yeah, and they deserve it,” said Cloutier. “They deserve everything they get. And since the Beastie ate what, seventy or eighty percent of all the starships in existence, it seems a good bet no one’s going to be rebuilding the White Hand’s colonial empire anytime soon either.”

“Yeah. But history repeats itself.” Silverfleet sighed and took a swig of whiskey. “Well, that’s no business of ours, as long as they don’t come here.” The other three nodded. The flask went around again.

“Why didn’t you go back, Suzane? To Alcen?” asked Klee.

“Oh.” There was a silence. “Oh. No reason. A million reasons. I mean, I didn’t even want to see the old place. Is that enough?”

“Bad memories, then?”

“Ghosts.”

“But we did it, Suz,” said Silverfleet. “Think of the ghosts there could have been. Eighteen billion dead, and Alcen and Central airless deserts, and the Thing would have spawned and the whole galaxy would have been at risk. Think about it! There might have been only two planets left with life on them—and one of those would be Colfax.”

“There is a Goddess,” said Cloutier.

“But why Colfax? Why New Home?” asked Klee.

“The worms, of course, haven’t you been paying attention?”

“But why were they there?” Klee persisted. “On those two planets, forty-five light years apart?”

“Simple, really,” Silverfleet explained. “I mean, I have no idea how that thing got all the way here from, from wherever. But the first two that came were sick. Maybe that’s why they came—looking for a place to rest, to recuperate, a nice planet to munch on, like chicken soup when you have the flu. Or, you know, when some great beast gets a brain worm it wanders off to die. But they brought the disease with them, and when it impaired their ability to stay up and they crashed, the worms ended up in the oceans. Along with some stuff that must’ve been part of their blood. Now harmlessly eating each other in the waters of New Home and Colfax. And Alcen.”

“But this one wasn’t sick,” Cloutier reminded her. “You know what that means? It came foraging. Wherever they come from, they must be running out of food. Maybe they’ve already eaten a whole galaxy, and they’re hungry. There’ll be more.”

“And that,” said Claypool, lazily caressing Helga’s fur, “is exactly why we have to stay here and keep an eye out for them.”

“Mrrrah,” said Helga.

“And if they never come?” asked Cloutier.

“Then we’ll have a nice boring life,” replied Halyn Silverfleet, lying back on her cushions. They fell silent, the flask and the bowl lying forgotten on the sealed ice floor. The cat grunted softly and adjusted herself. In a few minutes only the soft breathing of well-earned sleep could be heard in all that cold world.

The end