Pollack - Golden Vanity

Rachel Pollack

A 3S digital back-up edition v1.0

Contents

Openers

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Closing Acts

GIRL AGAINST THE UNIVERSE

Hump slapped the off button. Screw the teev. Im sick of space. And you act so goddamn superior! I ought to turn you in.

But Vanitys mind was already a million miles away. The signs were too clear. Soon the Space Authority would request nonreturnable samples from the local population, and

There was only one way out. Hump. she whispered. Howd you like to learn to work a spaceship?

Rachel Pollack

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

Berkley edition / July 1980

All rights reserved. Copyright 1980 by Rachel

Pollack.

Cover illustration by Dan Long.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: Berkley Publishing

Corporation,

200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

ISBN: 0-425-04483-1

A BERKLEY BOOK TM 757,375

TO MY MOTHER

There was a lofty ship

and it sailed upon the sea,

And the name of that ship

It was the Golden Vanity

And it was set upon by a Spanish enemy,

As it sailed upon the lowland, lowland, low,

Sailed upon the lowland sea.

Then up spake the cabin boy

Of the age of twelve and three,

And he said to the captain,

What will you give to me,

If I swim alongside of your Spanish enemy,

And sink her in the lowland, lowland, low

Sink her in the lowland sea.

I will give you silver,

And gold, and much money,

And the hand of my daughter,

So very dear to me

If you will swim alongside of the Spanish enemy,And sink her in the lowland, lowland, low,

Sink her in the lowland sea.

English Folk Song

Golden Vanity

Openers

Creaser yawned. He scratched his belly, his cheeks, and his teeth, then glowered around at the dingy cabin of his ship. You would think, he thought, that a Worker important enough to run one-man space missions directly for his chairman deserved a live-zone with a little elegance. His eyes flickered across the bare yellow floor, the

bed formed from blue Halian jelly, the control bank, grimy from years of sweaty fingers, the tall narrow cabinet jammed with souvenirs and junk from a hundred worlds (and also with a certain platinum box, but it was better not to think about that particular temptation, not with a job ahead), the holo console and the meager pile of tapeshe wished he could stuff it all through the dumphole. All but the cargo. The huge pilot squinted at the light-density box, sitting in all its impenetrable black glory in the middle of the floor. What was in there, anyway? Jewels? It looked small enough, about four hands square. Nonsense. The chairman owned enough jewels to melt them into a river flooding half of Center. Some sort of documents, maybe, evidence against one of the other companies. Whatever it was, the chairman wanted it enough to smuggle it off Ktaners Planet in a very illegal three ship convoy, Creaser and two escorts, a Nirudian, and a Clickie. Creaser didnt know their names; he didnt care.

Creaser snickered. Maybe he should open the box and peek inside. Many years ago Creaser had killed a gobble-mouthed Grufan who had laughed a little too loud at the BLajjilites folds of flesh. When Creaser had rifled the dead Workers kit hed foundand quickly hidthat rarest of contraband, a light key, a white disc that could open any LD box. How the Grufan had gotten it Creaser couldnt imagine, but hed hid the thing ever since, vaguely hoping it would somehow finance a retirement more endurable than the misery most Workers received when they couldnt push their ships any longer. Hed never used the key though hed freighted LD boxes three or four times before. He wouldnt use it now. Suppose theyd rigged up an alarm or a mind print recorder? A Worker was better off not knowing his chairmans secrets.

This filthy hangovers twisting my head, he said out loud. Again his mind skittered to the little platinum box and its yellow pills. He belched and pushed himself up from his air couch. Time to work, not play. I want to sleep, he bellowed.

He should have told them to find someone else. Sure, and wind up retired on Luritti. Burst, if theyd had someone else, they wouldnt have picked him in the first place. Creaser was a good pilotfor a hackbut he was no Loper. But the chairman wanted his LD box, and he obviously didnt want to waitor else he couldnt wait with the SA hot after his little prize. Creaser waddled across the cabin to his control seat, feeling his folds of flesh slap against each other as he moved. Creasers home planet bore the highest grav level of any humanhome. BLajjilites were built wide and low, and when they left home their muscles collapsed into saggy layers unless they worked out constantlysomething Creaser had never bothered to do. The pneumatic chair shuddered as he thudded into it. What time had he told the others to collapse orbit? Oh, right, 333. Symmetry. His black pin eyes peered at the clock face, so dirty he could hardly see it. Only three tenths. Thirty stinking hundredths. Maybe he should get on the mitt and order a delay. Uh, uh, the wise smuggler keeps radio silence until after the first jumps. Well, hed make it. Except for the hangover, he wouldnt even worry. If he could keep away from the platinum box.

Creaser grinned as he allowed himself one hungry look at the cabinet that contained his friend. The Workers Friend, known also as Ktaners Ecstasy. Ghost. Angelshit. Little yellow podpills of joy, joy, joy. A wave of pain ignited Creasers eyes. Joy? Not the next day. He should have left his friend back on Kap. Ah, but how could you visit Ktaners Planet and not bring away some of that sweet true genuine Ghost? Winds of blackness, what a ghostdance hed sung the night before (or was it two nights?), stretched out on the floor of his cubicle in the Workers Refuge, fingers twitching, eyes rolled back into his skull, while the whole slimy universe flooded his body in orgasmic waves. And now, if he paid the priceboiling stomach, eyes on firewell, hed paid that bill before, and hed do it again. As soon as he delivered that bursting box to the mighty chairman. Almost start time. Creaser pushed the food bar for a roll of nip, the bitter brown paste extracted from squat ugly trees on Kap. A couple of rolls would wake him up enough to at least hit the course correctly.

As the crawl engines started with a hiss Creaser could see, through the side viewers, his two escorts move away from him into the dark. One more tenth to collapse orbit and then the first series of jumps. Creasers thumb gestured obscenely at the fant wires lying in their case, ready to hook his mind up to the engines of the unknowable ship.

What is non-space? A shortcut? A dash across the hole of the doughnut? A slide between the threads of the fabric? Maybe a glide in the inertialess zone between universes. No one knows. How does a ship jump into the Great Nothing, and how does it emerge again somewhere far away, yet somewhere specifically set by the course channels? Does the ship warp space? Does it destroy space and recreate it somewhere else? Does it simply stop moving relative to the universe, then start again, when the universe has properly turned underneath it? No one knows.

Why cant it jump infinitely? What ancient decree limits the jump distances and the number of jumps in any series? Any answers remained locked in the ships robot builders.