Mercenary Read Free

adapt.
    Then, abruptly, it was my turn. “This is Hope's maiden voyage,” Joe said. “We must select his song.” He turned to me. “First we have to know about you. How did you come to leave Callisto?”
    “That's a long story,” I said. “You probably wouldn't be interested in—”
    “We love long stories,” Joe said. “They fill our tired evenings when the songs give out. But right now we're only doing your song, not your story. Can you summarize your life in one hundred words?”
    “I can try,” I said, realizing that this was not a joke. Now that I was active, my headache was fading.
    “My family had trouble with a scion, and we had to flee the planet in a bootleg bubble powered mostly by a gravity shield. Pirates came and—” Suddenly the horrible memories overwhelmed me, I choked up and could not continue. Only four months ago my family had been united and reasonably happy. Now...
    “I think I understand,” Joe said. “They killed your family?”
    I nodded.
    “And you alone survive?”
    “My—my sisters—” I said.
    “Survive? Raped and taken as concubines for private ships?”
    “One. The other, younger, she's called Spirit, and she's twelve. Got a... a position on a ship, concealed as a boy—”
    “And you don't know where she is now,” Joe finished. He looked around at the bunks. “I think we have enough of the picture. You Hispanic refugees come through a hardball game.”
    There was a general murmur of agreement. “A kid sister hiding among pirates,” Rivers said. “He's got reason to worry.”
    “But his name is Hope,” Gallows said. He was the foreman, but he was evidently also part of this group.
    “Hope is a worried man,” Rivers said, looking around.
    Slowly the others nodded.
    I looked up, perplexed. “What?”
    “Oh, that's right,” Joe said, as if surprised. "You don't know our songs. We'll have to teach you.
    Anybody want to do this one?"
    “I'll do it,” Rivers said. He turned to me. “With your permission, Hope, I will sing your song.”
    “Sure,” I said doubtfully.
    “This time only, I lead Hope's song,” Rivers said formally. “The Worried Man Blues .” And then he sang, in his fine deep voice:
    It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
    It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
    It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
    I'm worried now, but I won't be worried long.
    I had to smile. The words did speak to my mood and my situation, and it was a pretty melody. Because the lines repeated, it was easy to remember.
    “Now you try it,” Rivers said.
    Singing was not my forte, but I knew my voice was as good as those of a number of the other folk I had heard here, and I realized this performance was necessary if I was to be accepted into this group. I took a breath and sang, somewhat tremulously. “It takes a worried man to sing a worried song—”
    At the second line, the others joined in, and it became much easier. They were careful not to drown me out; it was necessary that I be heard, that I set the cadence. By the time we got to the fourth line, it was rousing, and I felt it uplifting me. I really did feel better, physically and emotionally. I was part of the group, participating in a performing art. Surely this rendition would never be recorded as great music, but it was great, nevertheless.
    Then Rivers sang the second verse—or maybe it was the first, for what we had sung before turned out to be the refrain, repeated after every regular verse.
    I went across the river and I lay down to sleep....
    When I awoke, there were shackles on my feet.
    I had gone across the Jupiter Ecliptic—and lost my joy of life along with most of my family and freedom.
    I was shackled, yes.
    Twenty-nine links of chain around my leg...
    On every link, an initial of my name.
    Twenty-nine initials. I pondered that and realized that my name was legion. My initials were H. H., but there were many others like me, and their initials were on the chain, too. I