The Trouble With Heroes.... (3 page)

Dan gave the nurse his tally and she typed in
the code that would authorize his payment from Anglia's health
program.

Jenny noticed the expressions of the people
around. Most were awed, but some looked uneasy. They’d be ones who
weren't comfortable with fixing, though they were glad enough if
they needed it. A few nutcases called it sorcery, and some
religious types worried about it being ungodly.

She'd always thought that daft, but where
exactly did fixing come from?

As they returned to the tram stop, she asked,
"Does that take a lot of your power?"

"Not particularly. A string of those and I'd
be wiped for a while. Normally."

Normally?

Before she could ask, he said, "As it is, I
welcome the chance. If I don't use the energy it tends to...
flare."

He was walking so fast she had to work to
keep up. She caught his hand, to slow him. "Flaring's bad?"

“
It can turn me a bit wild."

"It's your greatest charm, Dan Rutherford,
and you know it."

He laughed. "I like it when you call me that.
I know people like my energy, but there's an edge there."

That put her worry into words. Flaring high
spirits that led to exciting times, but that threatened a
conflagration, perhaps mostly of himself. Though they could fix so
many problems, fixers rarely lived to a hundred.

"It's the magic," he said. He put an arm
around her, urging her on. “We’re half the town away from the
Merrie. The others must be wondering where we’ve got to.”

A shiver went up her back at his touch. Not
particularly unpleasant, but a shiver, and for a moment she thought
that’s what he meant. But then she realized he meant the
flaring.

"You mean fixing?"

"Magic’s a better word. A more realistic
one."

"Realistic? Magic doesn't exist.”

"Who knows? Why so many Earth stories if it
never existed? And they show it as dangerous stuff. Magic creatures
who lurk in dark places and trick people to their deaths. Or seduce
them with gifts and feasts, then keep them prisoner forever. Or
make them dance themselves to death for amusement. That fits."

She eased out of his arm. "That's
superstition, and it’s nothing to do with what you do. With
fixing."

"Isn't it?"

She didn't want this, not now, with her
stomach queasy and her mind jangled by his touch, and by ashes on
the wind. But his silence demanded something, and friends should be
friends, so in the end she asked, "Well, is it?"

He leaned against the tram shelter. "There's
no way to compare, is there? They say fixing doesn’t work on Earth,
but I’m not sure when they tried. I've thought of going back to
find out, but who can afford it? Someone once said that all
sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic. That’s another
way of looking at it."

The tram glided up and they climbed on. He
led the way right to the back, where they used to sit as kids, but
he talked quietly, even though there was no one close.

"Fixers aren't normal, Jen. You have to see
that. They warn us to be solitary, that it's safer. Not to return
home. To keep aloof wherever we go."

"Aloof?" It pulled a laugh from her. "Failed
that part of the course, didn't you?"

“
Abjectly. And I insisted on coming
back home." A fleeting grin faded. "Sometimes I think they're
right."

"No, they're not. Bad enough that you had to
leave home for years."

"People marry out. Your mother did. Or in, in
that case."

"That's different. That's love. And I wonder
how people can love enough to do a thing like that."

"So do I. I didn't like it, Jen."

It was the first time he'd said that, and
he'd been back two years.

Chapter 2

The tram stopped in Market Square, and they
got out and crossed to the Merrie England pub. Gyrth, Polly, and
Assam were at an outside table with a bunch of the others. Everyone
hailed Dan as if he was rain in midsummer, asking where he’d been.
Chairs shuffled. Yas, who looked like a princess from the Arabian
Nights, snagged Dan's sleeve and virtually forced him into the
chair beside her. Jenny found herself at the other end of the
table, between Gyrth and Rolo.

It was okay. She needed space. Things were
shifting, and she didn't know what to do.

Magic.

Seduced with gifts and feasts.

Driven to dance to death.

For some reason Dan had wanted to tell her
that, and now it was scarily easy to imagine when she remembered
some of the wild times, often here at the Merrie.

Not tonight, though. Beneath chatter, the
mood was definitely not merrie, and it wasn't just her group. The
tavern, even the square, seemed subdued. Thoughts of war returned
to trouble her. People didn’t leave their homes without a serious
reason.

A quarrel started behind them, then Yas
started complaining about "some bitch" who'd stolen a promotion
from her, and the means she'd used. Back in the tavern, a crash
suggested someone had dropped a whole tray of glasses. Raised
voices....

But then it changed. Being so aware of Dan
she saw him do it, saw him open his gifts and set everyone
alight.

Saw him create a wild Dan Fixer night.

Yas laughed and let her complaints drop. The
shouting stopped. Someone called for music. Jenny went with Rolo
and Tom to fetch the instruments from the back room and started
rollicking folk songs. That wasn't unusual. Three nights a week
they did it for pay.

It went beyond that, though, tonight.

Market Square was ringed with taverns and
restaurants, all with tables outside on two levels. Soon everyone
was joining in, thumping hands and feet with the rhythm. Fiddling
into a sweat, Jenny glanced at Dan. There was no way to tell
whether he was still making it happen, but she knew he was.

Dancing to death....

Other musicians joined them, and then they
were urged out into the center of the square. Jenny ended up on a
precarious spot high on statue of the first ship to Gaia leaving
Earth. Perched up there, surrounded by singing and stamping, Jenny
felt like the heart of a bright burning bonfire that shone out on
hundreds of faces at tables, in windows, and crowding into the open
space as well.

She realized people were being drawn here
from all around.

Like moths to a flame?

Or like a firestorm, sucking everything into
infernal destruction. And what became of those at the center of
such a storm?

Where was Dan?

She found him, leaning against the base of
the ship, singing along with the rest, a tankard in one hand, a
woman -- a stranger -- in the other arm.

This couldn’t be bad. Dan wasn't bad. He was
just flaring, burning off his whatever, and creating light against
the dark at the same time.

But why tonight did Dan the Fixer need so
much light, laughter, and song? Why did he have so much energy to
burn, even after fixing that boy's leg?

What did it say about the blighters?

She escaped that by diving back into the
music.

Tom called an end to it round about
midnight.

"We've got to stop. I'll get fired if my
mates turn up." He was a policeman. "Last song!" he called in his
strong voice.

Despite protests, they huddled, trying to
come up with the best piece to wrap this up without a riot.

"Gaia," Jenny said, not knowing where that
came from.

Tom looked at her. "The anthem?"

"You can sing it, can't you? I think it's
right."

No one argued, which was strange. They
weren't in the habit of singing the planet's syrupy anthem based on
a bad poem by one of the first settlers. Each settlement had its
own, but Gaia was dragged out at any planetary-wide event --
usually to groans.

Jenny wondered where the idea had come from
and glanced at Dan, but he was sitting now, an adoring woman in
each arm.

Flies to jam. She'd better watch it. She
wasn't going to ruin a friendship by turning stupid over Dan. But
if he wanted the anthem, he could have it. She struck up a chord
and Tom started to sing in his deep, strong voice.

What a wonder it is

To find a planet like this

In the limitless oceans of space.

Where the air is pristine.

And the oceans are clean.

Oh Gaia, you sweet, blessed place.

Though hellbanes may ash,

Our dream will not crash.

We will cherish our new home forever!

The crowd was singing along by then, and in
the chorus, the thunder of it seemed to rattle the windows all
around. With the gates closed and blighters attacking, the words
had new meaning. Power crept up Jenny's spine, almost making her
hands fumble on her fiddle.

She glanced down at Dan again. He had his
head back and his eyes closed as if he was absorbing something from
the air.

We come from an Earth

Under burden of birth,

It's beauty long gone and turned rotten.

But here it is new,

A rich gift to the few,

Oh Gaia, here pain is forgotten.

Though hellbanes may ash,

Our dream will not crash.

We will cherish our new home forever!

With a treasure so grand,

With such beauty to hand,

What can we be but peaceful and giving?

Never strife, never war,

We will spill blood no more,

Oh, Gaia, you were made for blessed
living.

Though hellbanes may ash,

Our dream will not crash.

We will cherish our new home forever!

It was the crowd rather than Tom that
repeated the chorus one last time, almost softly despite the
hundreds of voices.

Though hellbanes may ash,

Our dream will not crash.

We will cherish our new home forever!

Like a lamp turned down, the roaring energy
settled to a glow, and everyone began to drift peacefully away.

She sat in the convenient dip between ship
and Earth because her legs had turned weak. The others looked
pretty shocked.

"The power," Tom said.

The magic, she thought, and she might have a
bit of it in her.

Dan stood waiting to help her down, but she
jumped down by herself, then hurried back to the tavern with her
fiddle.

The publican, Ozzy Rooke, shook his head.
"You're supposed to get the customers drinking, not out there
singing the planetary anthem!"

But he was joking, and he gave them all a
free round of beer.

Dan sat beside Jenny at the bar. She made a
business of picking up her glass because it let her move an inch
away. She probed the air around him. Nothing. Nothing more than the
usual aura that was Dan. Had he burned it all up in that
singing?

By the time Ozzy threw them out and locked
up, the city was quiet -- a soft quiet that seemed infinitely safe.
They set off home together, but Rolo and Tom split off not far from
the square. Jenny, Dan, Gyrth, and Yas all lived in the west riding
so they carried on in a group, singing softly, teasing and tussling
sometimes.

Like kids again. Or like teenagers. Jenny
remembered that Dan had rarely been around for nights like this
with singing, and horseplay, and as they got older, the maneuvering
into possible bedmates.

She noticed Yas maneuvering for Dan. That'd
be nothing new, but she was glad he wasn't responding. In Chestnut
Copse, Yas went into her building alone with a last, hopeful look.
Gyrth turned off at the next corner, leaving Jenny and Dan alone
for the last little way.

It was just that it’d been a strange day, but
she hoped he wouldn't touch, wouldn't even want to talk. Perhaps he
felt the same, because he walked beside her in silence, and by the
time they came to his place, the silence was comforting as a
lambswool blanket. Everything was all right.

He lived in the fixer's flat which took up
the whole ground floor of a big house. They had parties there
sometimes because it was huge.

They paused at the bottom of the steps.

"Night, then," she said.

"I'll walk you to your place."

She stared at him. "You expect a blighter to
leap out of the pavement?"

"You never know." But then he smiled. "I'm
just not ready to go to bed."

Tension ricked her shoulders, but she said,
"Oh, okay then. Thanks."

He touched her arm. "You're feeling the
effects of the music, aren't you?"

"No. Yes, but it was okay. It was good." She
might as well tackle it. "Did you make it happen?"

"I helped." He turned her, and they walked
on. "I am the town's fixer, after all."

"What were you fixing?"

"The closing of the gates upset a lot of
people."

How often did he do things like that? Could
he, did he, fix people's moods? Fix hers? They were on her street
now, a tall terrace facing a small park called Surrey Green.

"It's a bright burning night and I'm not
ready for sleep," he said. "Do you want to walk around the park and
talk some more?"

It was the dead hour on a chilly night and
Jenny felt drained, but she couldn't not go. Something important
hovered here. They walked through a gap in the hedge, but as soon
as they were away from the sparse street lights, she couldn't see
what was in front of her feet.

She stopped. "I'm likely to break a leg."

Dan put an arm around her. "Then you're with
the right person. Come on."

"It'll still hurt." It came out light as
she'd hoped, but her entire skin was jumping as she let him lead
her forward. "Night vision, too?"

"Right."

And what else?

There was talk about fixers and sex, for
example. Yas spoke about Dan in a way that suggested things. But
this was Dan. They'd played in the sandbox here together. Say
something, Jenny. Something light and normal.