In the Balance

Yet at the same time he dreaded going back. They’d just make him part of another patched-together landeruiser crew, another piece of a puzzle forced into a place where he did not quite fit. He’d already had two crews killed around him. Could he withstand that a third time and stay sane? Or would he die with this next group? That would solve his problems, but not in a way he cared for.

An orderly shuffled by, pushing a broom. Like a lot of the males who did such lowly work, he had green rings painted on his arms to show he was being punished for a breach of discipline. Ussmak idly wondered what he’d done. These days, idle wondering was about the only sort in which Ussmak indulged.

The orderly paused in his endless round of sweeping, turned one eye toward Ussmak. “I’ve seen males who looked happier, friend,” he remarked.

“So?” Ussmak said. “Last I heard, the fleetlord hadn’t ordered everybody to be happy all the time.”

“You’re a funny one, friend, you are.” The orderly’s mouth fell open. The two males were alone in Ussmak’s chamber. All the same, the orderly swiveled his eyes in all directions before he spoke again: “You want to be happy for a while, friend?”

Ussmak snorted. “How can you make me be happy?” Except by leaving, he added to himself. If this petty deviationist kept bothering him, he’d say it out loud.

The orderly’s eyes swiveled again. His voice fell to a dramatic half-whisper: “Got what you need right here, friend, you bet I do.”

“What?” Ussmak said scornfully. “Cold sleep and a starship ride back Home? And it’s right there in a beltpouch, is it? Tell me another one.” He nodded slightly while opening his own mouth: a sarcastic laugh.

But he did not faze the other male. “What I’ve got, friend, is better than a trip Home, and I’ll give it to you if you want it.”

“Nothing is better than a trip Home,” Ussmak said with conviction. Still, the fast-talking orderly stirred his curiosity. That didn’t take much; in the middle of stultifyingly dull hospital routine, anything different sufficed to stir his curiosity. So he asked, “What do you have in there, anyhow?”

The orderly looked all around again; Ussmak wondered if he expected a corrector to leap out of the wall and bring new charges against him. After that latest survey, he took a small plastic vial out of one of the pouches he wore, brought it over to Ussmak. It was filled with finely ground yellow-brown powder. “Some of this is what you need.”

“Some of what?” Ussmak had guessed the male was somehow absconding with medications, but he’d never seen a medication that resembled this stuff.

“You’ll find out, friend. This stuff makes you forgive the Big Uglies for a whole lot of things, yes it does.”

Nothing, Ussmak thought, could make him forgive the Big Uglies either for the miserable world they inhabited or for killing his friends and landcruiser teammates. But he watched as the orderly undid the top of the vial, poured a little powder into the palm of his other hand. He held that hand up to Ussmak’s snout. “Go ahead, friend. Taste it-quick, before somebody sees.”

Ussmak wondered again why the orderly was sporting green stripes-had he poisoned someone with the stuff? All at once, he didn’t care. The doctors had been doing their level best to poison him, after all. He sniffed at the powder. The smell startled him-sweet, spicy… tempting was the word that sprang to mind. Of itself, his tongue flicked out and licked the fine grains off the scales of the orderly’s hand.

The taste was like nothing he’d known before. The powder bit at his tongue, as if it had sharp little teeth of its own. Then the flavor filled his whole mouth; after a moment, it seemed to fill his whole brain as well. He felt warm and brilliant and powerful, as if he were the fleetlord and at the same time in the bosom of the Race’s deceased Emperors. He wanted to go out, hop into a landcruiser-by himself, for he felt capable of driving, gunning, and commanding all at the same time-and blast Big Uglies off their planet so the Race could settle here as it should. Getting rid of the Tosevites seemed as easy as saying, “It shall be done.”

“You like that, friend?” the orderly asked, his voice sly. He put the vial of powder back into the pouch.

Ussmak’s eyes followed it all the way. “I like that!” he said.

The orderly laughed again-he really was a funny fellow, Ussmak thought. He said, “Figured you would. Glad you found out it doesn’t have to be a mope in here.” He made a few haphazard swipes with his broom, then went out into the hallway to clean the next healing cubicle.

Ussmak reveled in the strength and might the Tosevite-herb, he supposed it was-had given him. He desperately wanted to be out and doing, not cooped up here as if he were being fattened for the stewpot He craved action, danger, complication… for a while.