Star of Gypsies

"Since when did you ever do what you were supposed to do?" "Maybe it makes sense, the rule."

"Oh, come on, Valerian." "But maybe it makes sense."

"At least tell me what's happening out there right now, then. There's no rule about that."

"You mean, in the Empire? The Kingdom?"

"Yes. Since Shandor arrested me. What's been happening." "Plenty's been happening," he said. He floated across the room and came to rest in mid-air right in front of my nose, hanging sideways with his feet just grazing the golden wall. In a much quieter voice he said, "I never thought you were going to get away with this thing, this lunacy, handing yourself over to Shandor. I thought it was the most cockeyed thing you had ever done in your life. I owe you a big apology, I guess, Yakoub."

"So I got away with it, did I? It worked out all right?" "Don't you know?"

Maddening. Still playing question and answer games with me.

He was worse than Polarca. Polarca didn't even offer to tell me anything when he came ghosting. Valerian has no scruples at all. Rules mean nothing to him. The only rule that has ever seriously mattered to him is the one that says, Whatever you do, don't get caught at it. Despite all the prohibitions Valerian would certainly be capable of revealing the future to me if he felt like it. And if he could manage to understand how important it was to me to know. But getting him to stay on the subject was more work than shoveling salizonga dung.

Exasperated, I said, "How would I know? It's still the future to me. I'm still here, remember? Still a prisoner. And nobody's been telling me a thing."

Valerian drifted down until he was standing practically upright and gave me a close look, and drifted back up at right angles to the floor again. "I forget," he said after a while. "That was dumb. Being a ghost all the time like this, I get mixed up. I lose track of what comes before which, you know. Of course if you're still here you probably don't know anything."

"Come on, Valerian."

"You want to know? All right. I'll tell you." "You keep on saying that."

"I'm trying to tell you." He took a big breath, which lit him up in sixteen ghostly up-spectrum colors. The moment of revelation at last. He said, "Everything's going to be fine. It'll turn out just like you said it would. "

Great. Polarca had said that too. But he had refused to give me any details. Just vaguenesses, same as Valerian. They were both in a conspiracy to drive me crazy.

I worked at keeping my temper, though. No sense yelling at ghosts: they just go away.

"How so? What's this it that turns out right?"

"I'm not supposed to tell you stuff like this. But you know me, Yakoub."

"Come on."

"Just between you and me, you have Shandor on the run." "Tell me. "

"You don't know anything?"

"Not much. Syluise was here and she said things are pretty bad. Breakdown of interstellar commerce. Starships going to the wrong destinations. Things like that. But I don't trust Syluise to give me straight news. Tell me."

"That's the straight news. It was a mess out there."

"Was?"

"Will be. Is. Whatever. You know, it isn't so simple for me, remembering what's future and what's past. It's all past to me, you know, Yakoub? Your future is my past. A lot of things have happened that haven't happened yet."

"Try to keep your mind on it. If you can. Do I get out of here soon?" A long pause.

"Do I?'

"I think so."

"You think! You think! You never thought in your life, Valerian. All right. What's happening to the Empire?"

"Breaking down," he said, brightening. He was making a real effort now. "The old emperor's still alive. Hanging on like he means to stay forever. But nobody can understand what he says any more. Sunteil's trying to run things and Periandros and Naria are trying hard to get in his way. Doing a damned good job of it."

"More.,, "More what?"

"More news. Keep talking." "A ghost isn't supposed to-"

"Fuck what a ghost is supposed to. When the great kris found you guilty, was I supposed to let you go free? But I did it."

"You know I'll always be grateful for-" "Fine. Tell me more."

He thought a moment. "Well, there's Shandor. Shandor's panicky." I felt my pulse rate picking up. We were getting to the core of things now. Maybe.

"He is?"

"Scared completely shitless. He's just realizing who he's up against and it terrifies him. You've been fighting one hell of a war, you know. Without lifting a finger, without getting a word out of here to anyone." "So you understand that, finally."

"It's amazing what you've accomplished just by handing yourself over to Shandor. Your boy Chorian escaped, you know, and he told everyone Shandor had you locked up here."

"I was wondering about him."

"And that's when things started to fall apart for Shandor. It made a lot of Rom very angry, hearing what he had done to you. Especially the pilots: they've begun doing all sorts of wild things to protest, flying to the wrong planets, messing up everybody's schedule. Some worlds are practically cut off altogether. Clard Msat: you just can't get there. Iriarte, I think."

I felt like crying for joy, hearing that.

But was it true? Past and present were such a jumble for Valerian. He might be reporting rumors, or fantasies, or events out of some other era entirely. I closed my eyes. So frustrating to have to depend for news on a couple of hyperkinetic ghosts and a gilded viper. I wanted desperately to feel the pulse of the worlds with my own hand. I had been here alone so long, isolated from the ebb and flow of the galaxy. My plan, my strategy, a shrewd one but a painful one. Attack by surrendering. Nobody had understood. They all thought I was crazy. All of them except Bibi Savina and Thivt. But my lunatic gamble seemed to be paying off. Valerian wouldn't lie to me. He might be confused but he wouldn't lie. Out there, the thousands of worlds, the millions of Rom, the billions of Gaje, all the human turmoil and bustle: was the whole thing tumbling into chaos? Useful chaos, on which I would be able to build?