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 Unicorn to invest in this scheme of yours. A bounty or two would be nice, in case the gimmick doesn’t work, you know. And we’re going out to the Changling Jungle anyway, so we might as well bring a dark or two with us, if we can trap some. That swarm is right on top of us, nearly. A couple darks have got to be nearby. So what’s the harm?”
“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 Chariot was two weeks out from the orbital docks on Triton, where she’d been overhauled. A few short hours ahead, out toward the dark, the Changling Jungle swung around the distant sun, a man-made trojan to Pluto.
“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.
Yes, it was a common dream.
But they were most uncommon dreamers.
And they were lucky. They were born at the right time. They were still children when the Hades Expedition, bound for Pluto, came upon the blinkies. Then the darks came upon the Hades Expedition.
Twelve men had died, but Brand felt only a child’s thrill, a delicious shiver.
Three years later, he and Melissa had followed the news avidly when the Second Hades Expedition, the lucky one, the one with the first primitive energy screens, made its astonishing discoveries. And a crewman named Chet Adams became immortal.
He remembered a night. They’d walked hand in hand, up a winding outside staircase atop one of the city’s tallest towers. The lights, the glaring ceaseless lights, were mostly below. They could see the stars, sort of. Brand, a younger, smooth-faced Brand with long curling hair, wrapped his arm around Melissa and gestured.
Up. At the sky.
“You know what this means?” he said. The news had just come back from Hades II; dreamers were everywhere. “We can have the stars now. All of them. We won’t have to die on a starship, or settle down on Mars. We’re not trapped.”
Melissa, whose hair was reddish gold, laughed and kissed him.
“You think they’ll find out how it’s done? How the darks go ftl?”
Brand just hugged her and kissed her back. “Who cares? I suppose ftl ships would be nice. But hell, we can have more now. We can be like him, like Adams, and the stars can all be ours.”
Melissa nodded. “Why fly an airplane, right? If you could be a bird?”
For five long years they loved, and dreamed of stars. While the Changling Jungle swelled, and the fast-friends sailed the void.
Robi returned to the bridge just as Brand activated the main viewscreen. Surprise flashed across her face. She looked at him and smiled. Above, the picture was alive with a million tiny lights, pinpoints of sparkling green and crimson and blue and yellow and a dozen other colors. Not stars, no; they shifted and danced mindlessly, constantly, blinking on and off like fireflies and making the scanners ping whenever they touched the ship.
She floated herself to her chair, strapped down. “You kept my course,” she said, pleased. “I’m sorry I got so angry.” She put a hand on his arm.
Brand shook it off. “Don’t give me any credit. We’re dead on. The blinkies came to us.”
“Oh,” she said. “I might have known.”