“No, Tor. That means my contract is expiring.”

Surprise smacked her. “Oh. I know… I mean, I know it runs out tonight. But I… just thought maybe nobody’d notice. She gulped down the last of the drunken-cakes, crumpled the sack spitefully and threw it away. The trash precipitate of the Festival littered the Street for as far as she could see. “Do you want to go now?”

“No, Tor.” Pollux looked at her expressionlessly. “But if I am not at police headquarters soon I will stop functioning and be paralyzed.”

“Oh,” again. “I didn’t know that. Maybe we better get started, then.” She took his thick, angular arm as they moved back into the street, to keep their trajectories on the same course uphill. She looked back as they went; until it made her too dizzy, and she had to look ahead again. “What’s gonna happen to you now, Polly? Where you gonna go next?”

“I do not know where I will be sent, Tor. But I will be reprogrammed first with new information. I will forget everything that happened here.”

“What?” She pulled him to a stop, digging in her heels. “You mean you’re gonna forget all about Carbuncle? All about me?”

“Yes. Tor. Everything nonessential. Everything. Everything.” He turned toward her. “Do you like me, Tor?”

She blinked. “Well, sure. How’d I ever have got along without you all these years?” But it wasn’t enough, and somehow she could see that as she looked at him, although there was nothing of his face to see. “I mean… I really like you. Like a real friend. Like a real person. In fact, if you weren’t just a machine, y’know, maybe I could even’ve…” She laughed self-consciously. “You know.”

“Thank you, Tor.” He made a movement that was almost a nod, and they started on again.

When they had nearly reached Blue Alley they passed a small crowd of masked revelers going downhill as they climbed, trailing music and laughter. “Look, Polly, there’s the Summer Queen! There’s the future passin’ us by.” Among the menagerie of masks, she glimpsed one face that wasn’t hidden, a strangely familiar face under a crown of fiery hair… Sparks Dawntreader? She tried for a clearer look at the face, but it was hidden again in the crowd going away. No… She shook her head, refusing to believe it. Couldn’t be. Couldn’t.

Pollux slowed, and turned them toward the entrance to Blue Alley.

53

Jerusha sighed, leaning back in her chair at the night-duty desk, as her eyes wandered the nearly deserted room. Virtually all of the force were out patrolling the last night of the Festival; their final, most enervating duty on this world. Having nothing she wanted to celebrate, she had no heart for watching the rest of the world celebrate without her, and so she had stayed at headquarters. There had been few major problems: She had been surprised at how excruciatingly long and empty the night had been. Empty… that’s the word for it. She sighed again, turning the radio up a little louder to drown out the future. Gods, was it worse not knowing what was going to happen to me, or knowing it for certain?

Tor Starhiker stirred and rubbed her eyes, on the lonely bench along the wall where she had fallen asleep a couple of hours ago. Passed out, more likely. Jerusha could smell her clear across the room when she had brought the Pollux unit in… or it had brought her in, reeking and full of slurred, sloppy sentiment. The pol rob stood motionless at the end of the bench, looking for all the world as though it were watching over her. Jerusha found it hard to believe that anyone could feel that maudlin about a robot, drunk or not. But who knows? She’s lost more than a robot in the past few days, I suppose. If she wanted to spend these last hours holding its mechanical hand — or drugged to oblivion — that was her business.

Jerusha took out a pack of iestas, the strongest thing shed had the nerve to touch in five years. She was sending a message to LiouxSked’s family back on Newhaven, telling them what shed learned, at last… May it do them more good than it’s done me.

“What—?” Tor started and sat up abruptly, yawning. “Ohhh.” Her hands pressed her head and her stomach indiscriminately. “I may not even live till Summer gets here.”

Jerusha smiled faintly, leaning across the computer console. “If you’re going to throw up, use the facilities; don’t do it out here.”

“Sure.” Tor propped her head on her hands. “What time’s it, anyway?”

Jerusha glanced at her watch. “Nearly time for me to start down toward the docks.” She typed a summons on the comm frequency, to bring back a few more men to watch the station while she was gone, and to accompany her to her final duty on this world.

“You mean, for the — sacrifice?” Tor looked up. Jerusha nodded. “Hm. Well, you know, I just want to say… thanks for letting me keep Polly here until the end of his contract. I mean, I know you knew I heard — you know.” She shrugged.

“Don’t remind me.” Jerusha pushed herself to her feet, stretching. Lax, PalaThion, you were lax, taking a spiteful pleasure in acknowledging it.

“Well, still, Polly an’ I—” Tor broke off, turning toward Pollux as someone else entered the station: a tall man, an off worlder

Jerusha caught at the corner of the duty desk. “Miroe!”

He stopped across from Tor in the middle of the room. “Jerusha.” His voice sounded as stupified as her own. “I didn’t think I’d find you here… but I didn’t know where else to look.” He looked as though he hadn’t known what he would say to her when he did find her. He was dressed like any Winter sailor, and showing a stubble of beard.

“Yes, still on the job, Miroe. Until the New Millennium,” bitterly inane.

“I was afraid I wasn’t going to reach Carbuncle in time; the weather was bad down the coast.” She realized that he looked very tired. “One more day and I would have been too late; you’d all have been gone.”

She shook her head, keeping her face and her voice even. “No. Tomorrow we cease to exist here technically; but it takes a few days to make sure nothing critical gets left behind. What are you doing here, Miroe? Your people said — they said they didn’t even know where you’d gone.”

“It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.” His eyes searched the empty corners of the room. “I didn’t plan on making this trip. The gods know I couldn’t afford the time. There’s too much — preparation left to do, showing my people how to do things in new ways, new old ways.” Jerusha had the feeling that she was hearing more than she understood; perhaps more than she wanted to know.

“You going off world,” Tor said with sudden interest. Ngenet glanced at her as though he had only just noticed there was someone else in the station. “Looking for a wife, handsome?”

Ngenet looked only mildly incredulous. “Maybe. But not one who wants to leave Tiamat. Because I’m not leaving Tiamat.” He glanced at Jerusha again and came on across the room.

“Oh.” The word was full of disbelief more than disappointment. “Thanks for warning me. Who wants to marry a loony. Right, Pollux?” She nudged him.

“Whatever you say, Tor.”

She laughed loudly, for no obvious reason.

Jerusha leaned against the desk. “So you’re really staying here for the rest of your life, then. Forever.” The disappointment was all hers, although it had no right to be. “You didn’t come here to be taken off.”

“No. Tiamat is my home, Jerusha. Nothing has changed my feelings about that. And I don’t expect anything has changed your feelings about leaving Tiamat either,” as though it were a foregone conclusion.

“No.” She heard the weakness, the moment of hesitation that should have been certainty. But he was expecting what he heard, and did not. He nodded, resigned; not taking it any further, simply accepting her decision without question — the way he had done before, at their last meeting. As though it didn’t matter. “Then why did you come?” with a little too much force. “You said that you didn’t want to see this Festival.”