His hands brushed her bare upper arms. “How did you know that?”

Wild guess. “Well, you just said I know everything.” She mugged a hidden face at him. “I don’t want to make a liar of you. I saw Starbuck come to see the Source today, and I figured the Queen must have sent him,” scoring another point.

“You know who Starbuck is, too?”

“Sure. I’m a Winter, aren’t I? And I do the Source’s business, just like you.” She looked him brazenly in the eye. “So what’s the rest of it, huh? What’s the Queen buying, one last surprise for her farewell party? You can tell me, I’m you’re wife, almost.” She stood higher on her platform shoes, peering over his shoulder at the knot of gesturing men around a sterile slab of table. Looking past them she realized that the place was a fully equipped laboratory. She had always wondered how the Source managed to keep such a variety of illegal pleasures stocked here, even when they couldn’t be gotten from the regular suppliers… Glancing back, she saw on the flawless surface of their meeting table a single heavy metal carrying case. On the lid, on its sides, WARNING… and the barbed trefoil of a sibyl. Her skin began to prickle.

“Well, yeah, you could say she’s planning kind of a surprise for the Summers.” He grinned. “But you don’t need to worry your pretty head about it. You’ve had your shots; and you’re going off world with me, anyway. You don’t care what happens here after you’re gone, do you?”

She twisted uncomfortably in his grasp. “What do you mean?… Hey, why is there a sibyl sign on that box, huh? That means—” contamination. “

“Biological contamination?”“ as the fine print suddenly slid into focus. “What’s in that — germs? Disease, poison?” her voice rose.

“Hey, shut up, will you? Keep your voice down—” He shook her ungently.

“What are going to do?” She struggled, her panic rising now. “You’re going to kill people! You’re going to kill my people!”

“Just the Summers, goddamn it, Perse! Not the Winters, they’ll be safe; the Queen wants it this way.”

“No, you’re lying! It’s going to kill Winters too, the Queen wouldn’t let you kill us! You’re crazy, Oyar, let me go! Pollux, help me, Pollux—” The other men were up from the table, coming toward her, and Oyarzabal’s heavy hands still held her prisoner. Desperately she brought up her knee; he doubled over with a howl and she was abruptly free to The stunner beam caught her from behind, and she fell against the door, knocking it shut as she slid helplessly down to the floor.

41

“You’d better wait for me here, BZ.” Moon stopped in the middle of the courtyard that formed a wellspring for the Street at the palace entrance. It was night again beyond the city storm walls, but even here there were revelers laughing and dancing, musicians playing. The people at this high end of the Street were more dazzling and ex — f otic, crusted with jewels, dusted with powder-of-gold; the imported ‘ splendors of half a dozen worlds clamored for her wonder. Her own imitation royalty seemed almost drab, and she kept it hidden, along with her face. BZ’s disreputable clothes were more and more grotesquely out of place, but he clung to his uniform coat with irrational stubbornness.

“I’m not letting you go in there without me.” He shook his head, his breath rasping after their climb up the long spiral to Street’s-end. “The Queen—”

“I am the Queen.” She looked at him with mock disdain. “You forget yourself, Inspector… By’r Lady, what’s she going to do, chop off my head?” She grinned, trying for whimsy, but not getting any feedback. “BZ, how could I explain you, in there?” She glanced toward the guarded palace entrance, feeling her chest tighten.

“I’ve got these.” He held out his identification and his stunner. “They make me look considerably more regulation.” He sealed the open collar of his coat.

“No.” She felt the tightness turn to pain. “I’m going in there to find Sparks, BZ.” She forced his shadowed brown eyes to keep hers when they tried to slip away. “However it turns out, I have to do that alone. I can’t do it…” in front of another lover. Her mouth quivered.

“I know that.” He did look away now. “And I — I couldn’t watch it happen. Moon, I want the best for you, believe me; I want whatever happens to be what will make you happy. But damn it, that doesn’t make it any — easier.”

“Harder.” She nodded. “It makes it harder.”

“The entrance… let me take you that far. The guards would ask questions if you didn’t have some kind of escort. And I’ll stay here at Street’s-end until you come out of there — or I’ll learn the reason why.”

She nodded again, not trying for words. They waded the whirlpool of the circle-dance; she felt her hopes and her regrets sucked down into a vortex of agonizing anticipation… You are the Queen; be the Queen, stop shaking! She held her breath as the guards at the massive doors focused on their approach. The guards wore stunners, as Gundhalinu had predicted. Oh, Lady, do you hear me? remembering that it was not a goddess who would guide her now, but only a machine; a machine that had told her she must come.

At the moment she was certain the guards would challenge her she threw back her hood, keeping her head high, trying to believe strongly enough to make them believe.

“Your Majesty! How did you—” The man on the left remembered himself, brought his hand up to his chest, bowing his head. The woman on the right joined him, their off worlder-style helmets gleaming whitely. The immense, age-darkened doors began to open.

Moon turned quickly as her face began to fall apart, to Gundhalinu’s face taut with dutiful respect… with a frustrated loss that only she could see. “Thank you for your — cooperation, Inspector Gundhalinu.”

He bent his head stiffly. “My pleasure… Your Majesty. If you need me again, call me,” emphasizing each word. His hands twitched uncertainly in front of him; he saluted, and turned away to lose himself in the crowd.

BZ! She almost called after him; didn’t, as she looked back toward the open doors, the darkly shining hallway beyond, beckoning her on to journey’s end. The guards glanced surreptitiously past her at Gundhalinu’s seedy, retreating back. Wrapping her cloak close around her, Moon entered the palace.

She moved like a ghost along the empty hall, her soft shoes’ passage belying her substantiality. She put blinders on her senses, afraid of stopping, of losing herself in the crystalline hypnotic wilderness of purple-black peaks and snow-burdened valleys, Winter’s domain that mural led the endless walls of the corridor. And ahead of her, gradually, her straining senses caught the murmur of the Hall of the Winds. Her hand gripped the control box Herne had given her; her palm was moist and cold.

Herne had broken out in a sweat and his own hands had shaken while he told her what she would find there — the captive wind, the billowing cloud forms the single vaulting strand of walkway above the Pit. The Pit that he had almost made the grave of Sparks, his challenger; the Pit that had destroyed him instead — because of Arienrhod. Arienrhod had defied her own laws to intervene, to save Sparks, and left Herne a prisoner in a broken body, while pitiless love-hatred ate away his soul.

Moon reached the end of the hall where it opened out on the air — vast, moaning reaches of restless air above her, pale cloud-wraiths swelling and shuddering under the caress of an unearthly lover. She felt herself dwindle and diminish as the frigid back flow of the outer air discovered her solitary intrusion, swept hungrily around her, pulling at her cloak. Beyond the breached walls the thousand thousand stars lay white hot on the ruddy forge of night; but there was no warmth here, no light except the haunted green glow of the gaping service shaft below her… no mercy.