Fast-Friend
BRAND woke in darkness, trembling, and called out. His angel came to him.
She floated above him, smiling, on wings of soft gauze gold. Her face was all innocence, the face of a lovely girl-child, softness and light and wide amber eyes and honeyed hair that moved sinuously in free-fall. But her body was a woman’s, smooth and slim and perfect; a toy woman fashioned on a smaller scale.
“Brand,” she said, as she hovered above his sleep-web. “Will you show me the fast-friends today?”
He smiled up at her, his dreams fading. “Yes, angel,” he said. “Yes, today, I’m sure of it. Now come to me.”
But she moved back when he reached for her, coy, teasing. Her blush was a creeping tide of gold, and her hair danced in silken swirls. “Oh, Brand,” she said. Then, as he cursed and reached to unsnap his web, she giggled at him and pouted. “You can’t have me,” she said, in her child’s voice. “I’m too little.”
Brand laughed, grabbed a nearby handbar to pull himself free of the web, then whipped himself around it toward the angel. He was good in free-fall, Brand; he’d had ten years of practice. But the angel had wings.
They flowed and rippled as she darted to one side, just beyond his reach. He twisted around in midair, so he hit the wall with his legs. Then, immediately, he kicked off again. The angel giggled and brushed him with her wings as he flew by. Brand hit the ceiling with a thump and groaned.
“Ooo,” she said. “Brand, are you hurt?” And she was at his side, her wings beating quickly.
He grinned and put his arms around her. “No,” he said, “but I’ve got you. Since when is my angel a tease, eh?”
“Oh, Brand,” she said. “I’m sorry. I was only playing. I was gonna come to you.” She was trying to look hurt, but despite her best efforts, a tiny smile escaped the corner of her mouth.
He pulled her to him, hard, and pressed her strange coolness against his own heat. This time there was no reluctance. Her delicate hands went behind him, to hold him tight while he kissed her.
Floating, nude, they joined, and Brand felt the soft caress of wings.
When they were finished, Brand went to his locker to dress. The angel hovered nearby, her wings barely moving, her small breasts still flushed with gold.
“You’re so
“A human thing, angel,” he said, hardly listening to her chatter. He’d heard it all before. His boots made a metallic click as they pulled him to the floor.
“You’re beautiful, Brand,” the angel murmured, but he only nodded at her. Only angels said that of him. Brand was close to thirty, but he looked older; lines on a wide forehead, thin lips set in a too-characteristic frown, dark eyes under heavy eyebrows, and hair that curled tight against his scalp in sculptured ringlets.
When he was dressed, he paused briefly, then opened a lockbox welded to the locker wall. Inside was his pendant. He took it out and stared. The disc filled his hand, a coolness of polished black crystal with a myriad of tiny silver flakes locked within. The pale silver chain it hung from curled up and away, and floated in the air like a metal snake.
He remembered then how it had been, in the old days, under gravity. The chain was heavy then, and the crystal stone had a solid heft to it. Yet he’d worn it always, as Melissa had worn its twin. And he wanted to wear it now, but it was such a nuisance in free-fall. Without weight, it refused to hang neatly around his neck; instead it bobbed about constantly.
Finally, sighing, he slipped the chain over his head, pulled the crystal tight against his neck, then twisted the chain and doubled it over again and again. When he was finished the stone was secure, now more a choker than a pendant. It was uncomfortable. But it was the best he could do.
The angel watched him in silence, trembling a little. She’d seen him handle the black crystal before. Sometimes he’d sit in his sleep-web for hours, the stone floating above him. He’d stare into its depths, at the frozen dance of the silver flecks, and his face would grow dark, his manner curt. She avoided him then, lest he scold her.
But now he was wearing it.
“Brand,” the angel said as he went toward the door panel. “Brand, can I come with you?”
He hesitated. “Later, angel,” he said. “When the fast-friends come, I’ll call you, as I promised. Right now you stay down here and rest, all right?” He forced a smile.
She pouted. “All right,” she said.
Outside was a short corridor of gray metal, brightly lit; the sealed airlock to the engine compartment capped one end, the bridge door the other. A few other closed panels broke the spartan bleakness: cargo holds, screen generators, Robi’s room, Brand ignored them, and proceeded straight to the bridge.
Robi was strapped in before the main console, studying the banks of viewscreens and scanners with a bored expression. She was a short, round woman, with high cheekbones and green eyes and brown hair cut space short. Long hair was just trouble in free-fall. The angel had long hair, of course, but she was just an angel.
Robi favored him with a wary smile as he entered. Brand did not return it. He was a solo by nature; only circumstances had forced him to take on a partner, so he could complete the conversion of his ship. Her funds had paid for the new screens he’d installed.
He moved to the second control chair and strapped himself down, his expression businesslike. “I’ll take over,” he said. Then he paused, and blinked. “The course has been altered,” he stated. He looked at her.
“A swarm of blinkies,” Robi said, trying her smile again. “I changed the program. They’re not far out of our way. A half-hour standard, maybe.”
Brand sighed. “Look, Robi,” he said, “this isn’t a trap run.” His hands moved over the controls, putting new patterns on most of the scanners. “We’re not bounty hunting, remember? We’re going to the stars, and coming back. No detours.”
Robi looked annoyed. “Brand, I sold my
“No,” Brand said, as he wiped off the program she’d fed into the ship’s computer. “We’re too close to fool around.” He checked the console, reprograming, compensating for the swerve she’d fed in. The newly christened
“You’re being stubborn and unreasonable,” Robi told him. “What do you have against money, anyway?”
Brand didn’t look up. “Nothing. The idea will work. I’ll have all the money I need then. So will you. Why don’t you just go back to your room, and dream about how rich you’re going to be.”
She snorted, spun her chair around, unstrapped, and kicked off savagely. If it had been possible to slam a sliding panel door, she would have done that too.
Brand, alone, finished his reprogramming. He hardly thought twice about the argument. Robi and he had been arguing since they’d left Triton; about bounties, about the angel, about him. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, nothing but his idea, the Jungle ahead, and stars.
A few hours, that was all. They’d find fast-friends near the Jungle. Always there were fast-friends near the Jungle. And somehow, Brand knew he’d find Melissa.
Unconsciously, his hand had gone to his neck. Slowly, slowly, he stroked the cool dark crystal.
Once they’d dreamed of stars together.
It was a common dream. Earth was teeming, civilized, dull; time and technology had homogenized it. What romance there was left was all in space. Thousands lived under the domes of Luna now. On Mars, terraforming projects were in full swing, and new immigrants flooded Lowelltown and Bradbury and Burroughs City every day. There was a lab on Mercury, toehold colonies on Ceres, Ganymede, Titan. And out at the Komarov Wheel, the third starship was a-building. The first was twenty years gone, with a crew who knew they’d die on board so their children could walk another world.
