Starlady & Fast-Friend

Another derelict, abandoned, joined the Jungle, floating in a crowded orbit with all the other hulks, the debris of other dreams.

Brand sold his dark again, to Changling Station. A month later, when Melissa returned, he told her. He’d expected tears, a storm, a fight. But she just looked at him, strangely unmoved. Then he asked her to come back to him.

“Maybe we can go back to Earth,” he said. “We’ll stay in orbit, and the scientists can look at you. They might be able to un-merge you, or something. They’ll certainly welcome the opportunity. Maybe you can tell them how to build ftl ships. But we’ll be together.” His words were a child’s hopeful gush.

“No,” Melissa had said, simply. “You don’t understand. I’d die first.”

“You said you loved me. Stay with me.”

“Oh, Brand. I did love you. But I won’t give up the stars. They’re my love now, my life, my everything. I’m a fast-friend, Brand, and you’re only a human. Things are different now. If you can’t merge, go back to Earth. That’s the place for men, for you. The stars belong to us now.”

“No!” He shouted it to keep from weeping. “I’ll stay out here then, and trap. I love you, Melissa. I’ll stay by you.”

Very briefly, she looked sad. “I’ll visit you, I guess,” she said. “When I have time, if you want me.”

And so she did. But as the years went by, the visits came less often. Brand, more and more, hardly knew her. Her gold-tan body turned pale, though it kept the shape of a twenty-year-old while he aged. Her streaming red- blonde hair became a silvered white, and her eyes grew distant. Often, when she was with him in orbit near the Jungle, she wasn’t there at all. She talked of things he could not understand, of fast-friends he did not know, of actions beyond his comprehension. And he bored her now, with his news of Earth and men.

Finally the talk stopped. There was nothing left but memories then, for Melissa did not come at all.

* * *

Robi rang him on the intercom, and Brand dressed quickly. “Now,” the angel said eagerly. “Can I come now?”

“Yes,” he told her, smiling again his fond, indulgent smile. “I’ll show you the fast-friends now, angel. And then I’ll take you to the stars!”

She flew behind him, through the panel, up the corridor, into the bridge.

Robi looked up as they entered. She did not look happy. “You don’t listen, do you? I don’t want your pet on the bridge, Brand. Can’t you keep your perversions in your cabin?”

The angel quailed at the displeasure in Robi’s voice. “She doesn’t like me,” she said to Brand, scared.

“Don’t worry, angel, I’m here,” he replied. Then, to Robi, “You’re scaring her. Keep quiet. I promised to show her the fast-friends.”

Robi glared at him, and hit the viewscreen stud. It flared back to life. “There, then,” she said savagely.

The Chariot was in the middle of the Jungle. Brand, counting quickly, saw a good dozen derelicts nearby. Changling Station was low in one corner of the screen, surrounded by trapper ships and screens. Near the center was a larger wheel, the spoked and spinning supply station Hades IV, with its bars and pleasure havens.

Floating close to Hades, a group of fast-friends were clustered, six at least, still small and white at this distance. There were others visible, but they were closest. They were talking, even in the hard vacuum of the solar fringe; with a simple act of will, the fast-friends could force their dark aura up in the range of the visible spectrum. Their language was one of lights.

Robi already had the Chariot headed toward them. Brand nodded toward the angel, and pointed. “Fast-friends,” he said.

The angel squealed and flew to the viewscreen, pressing her nose against it. “They’re so little,” she said as she hovered there, her wings beating rapidly.

“Increase the magnification,” Brand told Robi. When she ignored him, he strapped down beside her and did it himself. The cluster of fast-friends doubled in size, and the angel beamed.

“We’ll be right on top of them in five minutes,” Brand said. Robi pretended not to hear.

“I don’t know about you, Brand,” she said in a low serious voice, so the angel would not hear. “Most of the men who buy sex toys like that are sick, or crippled, or impotent. Why you? You seem normal enough. Why do you need an angel, Brand? What’s wrong with a woman?”

“Angels are easier to live with,” Brand snapped. “And they do what they’re told. Stop prying and get on the signal lights. I want to talk to our friends out there.”

Robi scowled. “Talk? Why? Let’s just scoop them up, there’s enough of them there….”

“No. I want to find one, a special one. Her name was Melissa.”

“Hmpf,” Robi said. “Angels and fast-friends. You ought to try having a relationship with a human being once in a while, Brand. Just for a change of pace, you understand.” But she readied the signal lights as she talked.

And Brand called, out across the void. One of the fast-friends responded. Then vanished. “She’ll come,” Brand said firmly, as they waited. “Even now, she’ll come.”

Meanwhile the angel was flitting excitedly around the bridge, touching everything she could reach. Normally she was not allowed up here.

“Calm down,” Brand told her. She flew down to him, happy, and curled up in his lap.

“What are the fast-friends doing?” she asked, with her arms around him. “Are they going to tell us their trick, Brand? Are we going to the stars yet?”

“Soon, angel,” he said patiently. “Soon.”

Then Melissa was there, caught in the viewscreen. Brand felt a chill go through him.

Her skin was milk-white now, her hair a halo of streaming silver. But otherwise she was the same. She had the firm curves of a twenty-year-old, and the face that Brand remembered.

He shooed the angel from his lap, and turned to the console. He hit some buttons.

Outside, the stars began to flicker. The bright dot of the distant sun dimmed. The hulks of the Jungle, the Hades wheel, Changling Station; all darkened slightly. Only Melissa and the other fast-friends were unchanged.

Caught within the globe.

Robi smiled, and started to speak. Brand silenced her with a look. His signal lights called Melissa. When she acknowledged, he cut the safe-screens to let her through.

He met her in the corridor after the airlock had cycled her in. Robi stayed up on the bridge.

They stood ten feet apart. They did not touch or smile.

“Brand,” Melissa said at last. She studied him with ice-blue eyes, from a cold and steady face, and her voice had a husky quality he had not remembered. “You… what are you doing? We are not… not darks. To be trapped.” Her speech stumbled and halted awkwardly.

“Have you forgotten how to talk, Melissa?” Brand said. As he spoke, the bridge panel slid open behind him. The angel flew out and hovered.

“Oh,” she said to Melissa. “You’re pretty.”

The fast-friend’s eyes flicked to her quickly, then dismissed her and went back to Brand. “Some, I’ve forgotten. Ten years, Brand. With stars, the stars. Not… I’m not a human now. I’m elder now, an elder fast-friend. My… my call comes soon.” She paused. “Why have you screened us?”

“A new kind of screen, Melissa,” Brand said, smiling. “Didn’t you notice? It’s dark. A refinement, just developed back on Earth. They’ve been doing a lot of screen research, and I’ve been following it. I had an idea, love, but the old screens were no good. This kind, well, it’s more sophisticated. And I’m the first one to realize the implications.”

“Sophisticated. Implications.” The words sounded odd, foreign, alien on Melissa’s tongue. Her face looked lost.

“We’re going to the stars together, Melissa.”

“Brand,” she replied. For a moment her voice had an almost-human tremor. “Give it up, Brand. Give up… me. And stars. They… they’re old dreams, and they’ve gone sour on you. See? Can’t you see?”

The angel was swooping up and down the corridor, coming closer to Melissa each time, clearly fascinated by the fast-friend, but afraid to come too close. They both ignored her.

Brand was looking at Melissa, at the dim, far-off reflection of a girl who’d loved him once. He shook it away. She was just a fast-friend, and he’d get his stars from her.