Vinge, Joan D - SS - Tin Soldier.pdf

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Tin Soldier
Joan D. Vinge
The ship drifted down the ragged light-robe of the Pleiades, dropped
like a perfect pearl into the midnight water of the bay. And reemerged, to
bob gently in a chain of gleaming pearls stretched across the harbor
toward the port. The port’s unsleeping Eye blinked once, the ship replied.
New Piraeus, pooled among the hills, sent tributaries of light streaming
down to the bay to welcome all comers, full of sound and brilliance and
rash promise. The crew grinned, expectant, faces peering through the
transparent hull; someone giggled nervously.
The sign at the heavy door flashed a red one-legged toy; TIN SOLDIER
flashed blue below it. EAT. DRINK. COME BACK AGAIN. In green. And
they always did, because they knew they could.
“Soldier, another round, please!” came over canned music. The owner of
the Tin Soldier, also known as Tin Soldier, glanced up from his polishing
to nod and smile, reached down to set bottles out on the bar. He mixed the
drinks himself. His face was ordinary, with eyes that were dark and
patient, and his hair was coppery barbed wire bound with a knotted cloth.
Under the curling copper, under the skin, the back of his skull was a
plastic plate. The quick fingers of the hand on the goose-necked bottle
were plastic, the smooth arm was prosthetic. Sometimes he imagined he
heard clicking as it moved. More than half his body was artificial. He
looked to be about twenty-five; he had looked the same fifty years ago.
He set the glasses on the tray and pushed, watching as it drifted across
the room, and returned to his polishing. The agate surface of the bar
showed cloudy permutations of color, grain-streak and whorl and
chalcedony depths of mist. He had discovered it in the desert to the
east—a shattered imitation tree, like a fellow traveler trapped in stasis
through time. They shared the private joke with their clientele.
“—come see our living legend!”
 
He looked up, saw her coming in with the crew of the Who Got Her —
709, realized he didn’t know her. She hung back as they crowded around,
her short ashen hair like beaten metal in the blue-glass lantern light. New,
he thought. Maybe eighteen, with eyes of quicksilver very wide open. He
smiled at her as he welcomed them, and the other women pulled her up to
the agate bar. “Come on, little sister,” he heard Harkané say, “you’re one of
us too.” She smiled back at him.
“I don’t know you… but your name should be Diana, like the silver Lady
of the Moon.” His voice caught him by surprise.
Quicksilver shifted. “It’s not.”
Very new. And realizing what he’d almost done again, suddenly wanted
it more than anything. Filled with bitter joy he said, “What is your name?”
Her face flickered, but then she met his eyes and said, smiling, “My
name is Brandy.”
“Brandy…”
A knowing voice said, “Send us the usual, Soldier. Later, yes—?”
He nodded vaguely, groping for bottles under the counter ledge. Wood
screeked over stone as she pulled a stool near and slipped onto it,
watching him pour. “You’re very neat.” She picked nuts from a bowl.
“ Long practice.” She smiled, missing the joke.
He said, “Brandy’s a nice name. And I think somewhere I’ve heard it—”
“The whole thing is Branduin. My mother said it was very old.”
He was staring at her. He wondered if she could see one side of his face
blushing. “What will you drink?”
“Oh… do you have any—brandy? It’s a wine, I think; nobody’s ever had
any. But because it’s my name, I always ask. ”
He frowned. “I don’t… hell, I do! Stay there.” He returned with the
impossible bottle, carefully wiped away its gray coat of years and laid it
gleaming on the bar. Glintings of maroon speared their eyes. “All these
years, it must have been waiting. That’s where I heard it… genuine vintage
brandy, from Home.”
“From Terra—really? Oh, thank you!” She touched the bottle, touched
his hand. “I’m going to be lucky.”
 
Curving glasses blossomed with wine; he placed one in her palm. “Ad
astro.” She lifted the glass.
“Ad astro; to the stars.” He raised his own, adding silently, Tonight …
They were alone. Her breath came hard as they climbed up the newly
cobbled streets to his home, up from the lower city where the fluorescent
lamps were snuffing out one by one.
He stopped against a low stone wall. “Do you want to catch your
breath?” Behind him in the empty lot a weedy garden patch wavered with
the popping street lamp.
“Thank you.” She leaned downhill against him, against the wall. “I got
lazy on my training ride. There’s not much to do on a ship; you’re
supposed to exercise, but…” Her shoulder twitched under the quilted
blue-silver. He absorbed her warmth.
Her hand pressed his lightly on the wall. “What’s your name? You
haven’t told me, you know.”
“Everyone calls me Soldier.”
“But that’s not your name.” Her eyes searched his own, smiling.
He ducked his head, his hand caught and tightened around hers. “Oh…
no, it’s not. It’s Maris.” He looked up. “That’s an old name, too. It means
‘soldier,’ consecrated to the god of war. I never liked it much.”
“From ‘Mars’? Sol’s fourth planet, the god of war.” She bent back her
head and peered up into the darkness. Fog hid the stars.
“Yes.”
“Were you a soldier?”
“Yes. Everyone was a soldier—every man—where I came from. War was
a way of life.”
“An attempt to reconcile the blow to the masculine ego?” He looked at
her.
She frowned in concentration. “ ‘After it was determined that men were
physically unsuited to spacing, and women came to a new position of
dominance as they monopolized this critical area, the Terran cultural
foundation underwent severe strain. As a result, many new and not always
 
satisfactory cultural systems are evolving in the galaxy… One of these is
what might be termed a backlash of exaggerated machismo —’”
“‘—and the rebirth of the warrior/chattel tradition.’”
“You’ve read that book too.” She looked crestfallen.
“I read a lot. New Ways for Old, by Ebert Ntaka?”
“Sorry… I guess I got carried away. But, I just read it—”
“No.” He grinned. “And I agree with old Ntaka, too. Glatte—what a sour
name—was an unhealthy planet. But that’s why I’m here, not there.”
“Ow—!” She jerked loose from his hand. “Ohh, oh… God, you’re strong!”
She put her fingers in her mouth.
He fell over apologies; but she shook her head, and shook her hand. “No,
it’s all right… really, it just surprised me. Bad memories?”
He nodded, mouth tight.
She touched his shoulder, raised her fingers to his lips. “Kiss it, and
make it well?” Gently he caught her hand, kissed it; she pressed against
him. “It’s very late. We should finish climbing the hill… ?”
“No.” Hating himself, he set her back against the wall.
“No? But I thought—”
“I know you did. Your first space, I asked your name, you wanted me to;
tradition says you lay the guy. But I’m a cyborg, Brandy… It’s always good
for a laugh on the poor greenie, they’ve pulled it a hundred times.”
“A cyborg?” The flickering gray eyes raked his body.
“It doesn’t show with my clothes on.”
“Oh…” Pale lashes were beating very hard across the eyes now. She took
a breath, held it. “Do—you always let it get this far? I mean—”
“No. Hell, I don’t know why I… I owe you another apology. Usually I
never ask the name. If I slip, I tell them right away; nobody’s ever held to
it. I don’t count.” He smiled weakly.
“Well, why? You mean you can’t—”
“I’m not all plastic.” He frowned, numb fingers rapping stone. “God, I’m
not. Sometimes I wish I was, but I’m not.”
“No one? They never want to?”
 
“Branduin”—he faced the questioning eyes—“you’d better go back down.
Get some sleep. Tomorrow laugh it off, and pick up some flashy Tail in the
bar and have a good time. Come see me again in twenty-five years, when
you’re back from space, and tell me what you saw.” Hesitating, he brushed
her cheek with his true hand; instinctively she bent her head to the caress.
“Goodbye.” He started up the hill.
“Maris—”
He stopped, trembling.
“Thank you for the brandy…” She came up beside him and caught his
belt. “You’ll probably have to tow me up the hill.”
He pulled her to him and began to kiss her, hands touching her body
incredulously.
“It’s getting—very, very late. Let’s hurry.”
Maris woke, confused, to the sound of banging shutters. Raising his
head, he was struck by the colors of dawn, and the shadow of Brandy
standing bright-edged at the window. He left the rumpled bed and crossed
cold tiles to join her. “What are you doing?” He yawned.
“I wanted to watch the sun rise, I haven’t seen anything but night for
months. Look, the fog’s lifting already: the sun burns it up, it’s on fire, over
the mountains—”
He smoothed her hair, pale gold under a corona of light. “And embers
in the canyon.”
She looked down, across ends of gray mist slowly reddening, and back.
“Good morning.” She began to laugh. “I’m glad you don’t have any
neighbors down there!” They were both naked.
He grinned. “That’s what I like about the place.” He put his arms
around her. She moved close in the circle of coolness and warmth.
They watched the sunrise from the bed.
In the evening she came into the bar with the crew of the Kiss and Tell
—756. They waved to him, nodded to her and drifted into blue shadows;
she perched smiling before him. It struck him suddenly that nine hours
was a long time.
 

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