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If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may
have been stolen property and reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the
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payment for this "stripped book."
WARNER BOOKS EDITION
Copyright © 1992 by C. J. Cherryh All rights reserved.
Questar* is a registered trademark of Warner Books, Inc.
Cover design by Don Puckey Cover illustration by Don Maitz Hand lettering by
Richard Nebiolo
Warner Books, Inc.
1271 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
IA Time Warner Company Printed in the United States of America
Originally published in hardcover by Warner Books. First Printed in Paperback:
June, 1993
10 98765432 I
CHAPTER
1
STOCKHOLM Is a city of islands and gardens, a stunningly eclectic architectural
mix, from the Wgsdagshus to the 23rd century Cariberg Museum, from the
restored Riddarsholm Kyrka to the Academy gardens...
Founded in the mid 13th century, the dry of Stockholm holds abundant evidence
of a thousand years of Baltic seafaring tradition, plus a lively nightllfe centered in
modem Gustavsholm—
Ben indexed through the motile pictures and the text, the statistics about rainfall
and mean average temperature which the Guide cautioned a visitor did not in any
sense mean a constant temperature. Useless statistic—unless one contemplated
Antarctica, where a mean temperature of -57° C and an average hours of sunlight
only slightly better than Sol Station core meant Ben Pollard had no interest in
McMurdo Base. Ben Pollard had seen a good deal of cold and dark and rock in his
life. Old rock. This 13th century business
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(cid:127) CJ. CHBWH
amazed him. The whole damn human race dated itself in eighteenths of Jupiter's
passes about the sun, to the astonishingly recent number of about 10k such
fractions, if you took the oldest cities. ASTEX R2 out in the Belt had been a skuz
old place and a friend of his had sworn it had seen better days just in his lifetime,
but when Ben Pollard thought old, he thought in millions. The rock he'd handled
out there was old. Humankind was a real junior on those terms.
He sipped real orange juice, imported up from the blue, cloud-swirled globe you
could see at any hour on channel 55, along with the weather reports anywhere in
die motherweH.
Weather—was a novelty. Real weather. You got weather in a station core when
they were blowing cold rock down the chute. You got condensation in your
spacecraft and you swore like hell and wiped and dried and tried to find the
source of it. But in the motherweH condensation fell out of the sky in frozen balls
or slow flakes or liquid drops depending on the low level atmospheric
temperatures, and k-wide clouds threw out electrical discharges that made it a
very bad notion to stand (the Guide said) at the highest point of the landscape.
Daunting thought.
The Guide said 70% of the Earth was water.
The Guide said water in the oceans was 10k meters deep in places, and because it
wasn't frozen, Luna's gravity pulled it up in a hump of a wave that rolled around
the globe and washed af every shore it met, enough to grind up rock into beaches.
AH that unfrozen water. Gaseous nitrogen and liquid water mat made all mat
sparkle when the sun hit the wrinkles on it mat the Guide said were waves.
He planned to stand on a beach and get a good close look at that unfrozen water.
On a clear day, when there were no lightnings. You could do it from the station.
You could be there while you were here, but VR was a cheat, you could be a whole
lot of places that weren't real. He wanted to
H ELIBURN E
stand at the edge of the ocean and watch the real sun disappear behind the real
world, at which point he figured he would really believe he was standing on a
negative curvature.
The Guide said some spacers got dizzy, with the horizon going the wrong
direction. There were prescriptions for vertigo. There were preparatory
programs. But hell, he'd monkeyed around the core at R2, and stared straight at
the rotation interface. That had to be worse.
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The clock on the screen said: 0843 June 14, 2324. And there was plenty of time
this morning for coffee. Dress maybe by 0930h. Exams were done, the last score
was going up today, but, hell, that was Interactive Reality Sampling and he had
that one in his pocket, no question, no sweat. Probably set the curve: him or
Meeker, one or the other: just let the UDC get that score, and Stockholm was in
his pocket for sure, motherweH assignment in the safest, softest spot in the
service except Orlando. Stockholm was where Ben Pollard was headed, yeah!
soon as the interviewers could get up to station.
Hell and away from the Belt, he was. Here you didn't jam two guys into a fifteen
by six, hell, no, Sol Station and Admin? You got a whole effm' fifteen by six .9 g
apartment by yourself, with a terminal that could be vid or VR whenever you
opted. If you qualified into the Programming track in the UDC Technical
Institute, you got an Allotment that afforded you 2c/d Personals per effin' seven-
day week, which meant oj mat was real, coffee that was real, red meat that was
real, if you had the stomach for it, which Ben personally didn't—you lived like an
effin1 Company exec and had a clearer conscience. And if you could get that on
world posting, your tech/2 graduation rating equaled a full UDC lieu-tenancy in
the motherweH, with an Army first lieutenant's pay to start, full grade technical/1
promotion guaranteed in a year, and access with a capital A to all the services
that pay could buy. You knew there was a war out in the Beyond, but it wasn't
going to get to Earth, that was
CJ CHBWH
HELLDUKNER
what they were building that Fleet out there to stop—and even if it did nobody
was going to hit the motherwell, humans just didn't do that. You were safe down
there. You'd be safe DO matter what.
He'd got his graduation With Honors, he was certain of it; he'd sweated his
Security verifications, but they'd come through months ago, and nobody had
come up with an objection; he'd sailed through the Administrative Service exams
four weeks ago, and the only complication in his way now was the formal
interview, as soon as the personnel reps from the various agencies could get seats
on a shuttle up here—funding time and some legislative hearing in Admin had
had the shuttle up-slots jammed with senators and brass and aides for the last
three days; but that was thinning out, thank God. The agency interviewers might
turn up by the end of the week, after which time—
After which he could book himself a seat for Earth on whatever assignment shook
out—maybe even take his pick: Weiter had dropped him a conspiratorial word
mat he had three different computer divisions fighting over him, including
strategic supply modeling and intelligence, and the prestigious A! lab in Geneva
(which was for his personal ambitions a little too scientific and academic—give
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him something with a direct line to politics, God, yes. There was money in that,
and a protected paycheck).
Money. A nice apartment down where you navigated a perceptually planar
surface at a 300kph crawl, when be was used to thinking in kps and nanosecond
intersects. Life on Earth went so much slower and death came so much later for a
man who had money, brains, and position.
He'd had a partner back in the Belt, Morrie Bird, who had used to talk to him
about Colorado, and cities and sunsets and Shakespeare. Bird had set a lot of
personal store by Shakespeare. Bird had thought Shakespeare was important to
understand. So when it had turned out of all things that he was going to the inner
system, he had made it a certain point to see this Shakespeare guy—translated
tapes.
of course. V-vids, where you could wander around and watch the body language.
And Bird had been a hundred percent right: Shakespeare really helped you figure
Earthers. Blue-skyers. People who had never felt null-g, never seen (he stars all
the way to forever—different people, with numbers hard to figure; people who
thought they had a natural right to orange juice and gravity, people who (the
Guide maintained) felt the moon tides in their blood.
Getting the right numbers in a new situation absolutely mattered. On Earth air
was free and ship routes and energy were what the old Earthers had fought
bloody wars over. Sincerely skewed values—but you had to think about that two-
dee surface constantly, and it was limited mat way. Finite. Finite resources.
Shakespeare helped you see that— helped you see how certain old Earthers in
control of those resources had thought they could run your life, the same as
Company execs. And how these king-types always talked about God and their
rights, like the preachers on R2's helldeck, who snagged you with tracts and
talked to you about free-shares in their particular afterlife and argued whether
the aliens at Pell had souls. Only these old kings had been the preachers and the
law and the bank.
Long way to come, from the Belt, from Company brat in a Company school
learning nothing but Company numbers— to figuring Shakespeare and human
history. But there it was, the motherlode of all living stuff and the home of
humankind back when humans had been as backward as the Downers at Pell—
Earth was full of museums, full of artifacts, pots and tombs and old walls
graffitied with stuff that was supposed to make you live forever. The Guide said
so.
Most of all, it was the motherlode of information, data, old and new. And the
right numbers and enough data on the systems that ran the Earth Company and
the United Defense Command could make him rich; rich made a man safe, and
got him most everything Ben Pollard could put a name to.
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CJ CHERRYH
Visitors to Stockholm may be impressed with the Maritime Museum or the
Zoological Garden in Haga Pork....
A planet that wasn't a radiation hell was a novelty. Earth with its completely
outsized moon was a novelty. And life thriving at the bottom of a gravity well was
a radically upside down way of thinking. Life that made good wine and food that
wasn't synth, a surface where plants grew and cycled the O2 and the CO2 on
sunlight and dark; the habitats where animals lived. Fascinating concept, non-
human things walking around where they decided to walk and looking at you
with unguessable thoughts going on behind their eyes. People searched the stars
for life, and there was all this life on Earth, that blue-skyers took for granted, and
ate, if it didn't look too much like people.
He wanted to see a zoo. He wanted to look at a cow or a dog and be looked back
at, when he'd never expect to see any real thing more exotic than miners on R&R
and bugs under a lab scope.
Humans had existed such a scarily short time. With this war going on in the
Beyond they seemed scarily fragile.
He wished he could talk to Bird about that. Bird had had a peculiar perspective
about things. He wished he could really figure out what Bird had been, or recall
half that Bird had said over the years. There was so much blue-sky attitude he
still couldn't get the straight of. Baroque, was the word. Curves all over their
thinking, like gold angels on the old buildings, that didn't have a damn thing to
do with useful—
The message dot flashed on the corner of the screen.
God, it could be the interview notice. His fingers were on the Mod and the 1 to
Accept Mail and the Dv and the 3 to Print faster than he could think about the
motion.
It said:
HELLBURNER
TECH/2 Benjamin J. Pollard CTVSS/UDC 28 DAT 2 0652JUN14/24 SN P-235-
9676/MLR Report to F5O-HQ, 0900h/ref/Simons
Fleet Strategic Operations? Fleet Ops?
What in bloody hell?
MRL. Automatic log. No way to pretend he hadn't gotten the message. No way to
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query the CO. Weiter would tell him it was a report-to, he didn't have the answer,
and he'd effin' better answer it and find out what the Fleet wanted with a UDC
lad, hadn't he?
It wasn't an interview. God, no. Fleet Strategic Operations didn't need a UDC
programmer tech/2 with a Priority 10 for economic/ and strategic/supply
modeling. Did they?
Shit, no—the damn tight-fisted legislature insisted on trying to interface the UDC
EIDAT with the Heel's Staatentek system through the EC security screen, that
was what. The Fleet Staatentek system tried to phone the UDCs EIDAT 4005 to
ask for available assignees, and the 4005, behind (he EC's security cloak, spat up
a UDC Priority One assignee for a Fleet data entry post—
But you couldn't ignore it. You didn't want to face the interviews with an
interservice screw-up or a Disciplinary in your record. Damn the thing!
No second cup of coffee. He drank the half he had left while his fingers tapped up
the station map and asked it where in hell FSO-HQ was on the trans system from
his apartment in TI 12 for a 0930h appointment.
9:15 2 green to 14, blue to 5-99: pass required for entry.
Hell and gone from TI, and it was already 9 o'clock. Ten effin' minutes to shave,
dress and find his copy of his rating, which clearly said UDC Priority Technical/2,
before the
CJ CHEIWH
HELLBURNER
Fleet grabbed him and stuck him at Mars Base doing data entry in Supply.
He burned the beard off, pulled on his dress blues: never wear fatigues to an
interservice glitch-up. He had to talk to officers, no question, before this one was
straightened out, maybe all the way up the effin' C/O/C in the UDC and the Fleet.
It could be a long day.
Envelope from UDC Technical at Geneva in the briefcase, where it belonged. He
put it in his breast pocket.
Never a friggin' situation without a last friggin' minute complication. God, he
didn't know why things like this happened to him. His interview appointment
could come through at any hour, he didn't want Meeker to grab the first slot—
first effin' thing he was going to do if they gave him Geneva was put the shove on
that damned EC Software.
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He checked his watch. 0908. Five minutes to walk to the trans. Orders in his
pocket. Yes. And out the door.
Trans was packed. A whole wide-eyed batch of shiny new C-l's with their entry
tags and their hand-baggage occupied all the seats, and Ben clung with an elbow
about a pole and punched buttons on the hand reader, running down the
applicable rules on interservice transfer apps.
Wasn't any reason to sweat it. Couldn't be. Weiter'd shoved him through three
levels in a year.... He was Weiter's fair-haired baby, best Weiter had ever had in
the department. Him and Meeker, neck and neck all the way. No way Weiter
wouldn't go up the chain for him.
Green 14. He made the transfer and lost the C-l's—thank God. He got a seat, sat
down and read.
Right of appeal. Ref: Administrative Appeal, Sec. 14.... Through chain of
command in service of origin.
In service of origin. Which meant the United Defense Command, which wasn't,
never mind Fleet Captain Conrad
Mazian's performance at the UN, going to let the Fleet get its hands on whatever
it wanted.
Blue line now. Institution blue. The walls outside the spex in me doors grew
skuzzier and skuzzier and the air that sucked in when the doors opened was cold
and smelled of oil.
Descent into hell, Ben thought. Like R2 all over again. He sat in his dress uniform
and watched the scenery, dark tunnel and grim flashes of gray-blue panels and
white station numbers as the trans shot past stops without a call punched.
Thump of the section seals. He could almost smell helldeck, all but hear the clash
of metal and the hard raucous beat of the music echoing down the deck. He
smelled the peculiar taint of cold machinery and kept having this most damnable
feeling of—
—belonging in the dark side, living on the cheap, getting by, scamming the
Company cops and knowing he could always slip through the system, knowing far
more about the company computers and access numbers than the Company
thought he'd learned. Him and Bud. —And Sal Aboujib.
Damn.
Helldeck wasn't a place you'd miss. He was someone else now. Spiff uniform and
a tech/2's collar phi. Clean fingers—in all senses. He didn't do a thing illegitimate
with the computers he worked with. He didn't know anybody who did, no, sir,
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didn't even dream about that h-word near the Defense Command computers.
He'd got away with it. Was still getting away with it. He'd dumped the card on R2,
and it had never surfaced; he'd gotten his security clearance. He'd gotten his
rank. Nobody was going to screw that up. Nobody could have found anything to
screw him now...
5-99. The sign outside the doors said: SECURITY AREA.
RESTRICTED. SHOW PASS.
He got up and got out in a beige, plain hallway, warmer here, thank God, it wasn't
going to freeze his ass off or have him shaking when he was talking to the desk.
He straight-
10
CJ CHERRYH
HELLBURNER
ened his coat, clipped his fancy-tech reader onto his belt and walked up to the
only door available, under a security array that was probably reading his
respiration rate and taking notes.
He put his card in the slot: the door clicked and opened. Reel Security occupied
the solitary desk in the foyer; beyond it was a potted silk palm, an abstract
picture, and another beige windowless door.
"Pollard," the officer said, with no attention to the protocols in the rulebook. Or
his face. Just the readout on his screen. "Benjamin J. You're carrying electronics."
"Reader."
The officer held out his hand. Ben surrendered it and watched the officer turn it
on and punch buttons.
"Fancy."
Break his effin' neck getting here and this cop-type stalled him playing games
with a piece of expensive and delicate equipment. He said, "I've got an
appointment at 0930."
The guard said, "HQ," and motioned with the back of his hand. "Lieutenant
Jackson."
Jackson, was it? Fleet Lieutenant. Which, in the much-argued and protested
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Equivalencies, was a rank just under Maj. Weiter's; and one over his. Ben drew
himself up with a breath, thinking, with part of his brain: Son of a bitch deep-
spacer Attitude, and minded for half that breath to make an issue of interservice
protocols; but the rest of his brain was still wondering if the Fleet could have any
legitimate interest in him and hoping all he had was a pocket full of EIDAT-
screwed orders. So he saluted, got a flip of the hand and walked to the inner door,
that clicked open on a long bar of a desk and a sober-faced clerk who said
(efficiency, at least) "Lt. Pollard?"
"Yes." Manners. Finally. He took the offered escort to a side office. Jackson took
the salute, offered him a seat. Young guy. Pleasant, serious face.
Better, he thought.
"Thank you, sir."
Jackson folded his hands on the desk, "Lt. Pollard, —I'm sorry to be the bearer of
bad news: a friend of yours has been involved in an accident."
"Friend of mine?" That was a complete mental shift. He honestly couldn't think if
he had a friend. Not lately. Bird was dead. Sal?
"Name of Dekker," Jackson said and Ben all but said, Shit! before he remembered
he wasn't in the Belt and swallowed it.
"Fatal?"
"Serious. He's asking for you."
"For me?" He was vastly relieved it wasn't Sal. Distressed if Dekker'd gotten in
trouble. He didn't hate Dekker. Not really. Dekker had enlisted with him, gone off
into some secret pilot training program... real hot piece of equipment, Dekker
had said.
Jackson said, "His doctors fee! it might be some help, a familiar face...."
He thought. Oh, God, I don't want to do this. I don't want to see the guy again—I
hate hospitals... I don't like blood—
But there it was, the brass had made a humanitarian move, no way to explain all
the old business between them—it could drag up too much he didn't want on
record; if Dekker had killed himself in some top-secret operation he was sincerely
sorry, and if he was all Dekker could dredge up for a request—well, hell, the guy
had saved his neck, sort of, back in the Belt—
And cost Bird's life, damn him, however indirectly.
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"Sorry to drop this on you," Jackson said.
"Not a problem. Truth is, we weren't friends. —But I guess I owe him to drop over
there."
"I've got a travel voucher for you."
"Travel voucher."
"B dock."
"Oh, now, God, wait a minute—" B dock wasn't on Sol One, it was on an auxiliary
station three and more days out,
12
CJ CHBWH
on Sol Two. Ben reached for his pocket, right then. "I can't do that. I'm sorry. This
is a priority rating. There's an agency officer coming for an interview this week. I
can't leave."
Jackson laid an envelope on top of his. "There's a B dock shuttle leaving at 1205.
That's your travel voucher and your leave. It's already signed and cleared."
"Sir, —that's six days even if I get a same day turnaround," He gingerly eased his
letter from underneath and laid it gingerly to the side, in Jackson's view, where
the United Defense Command logo showed. "This is from HQ Geneva. It says I'm
a military priority."
"This one's from Captain Keu, in this office. On a classified priority. You're
going."
"Dekker isn't a friend of mine!"
"He's listed you as next-of-kin."
"We're not related! God, —he's got a mother right here on the station, Astrid,
Ingrid, something like that. Talk to her!"
"He's in a classified program. Only certain people are approved for contact in a
next-of-kin emergency. You're it. You're not to call anyone. You're not to talk to
anyone. Your CO will be advised simply that you're on humanitarian leave—"
"I'm UDC essential personnel!"
"Show me an assignment."
