Interstellar Rock Star

by Edward Willett

  Marcel emerged from the wings. “Dressing room ready?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And so am I.” I walked over to him as he plugged his handcomp into the lead stagebot. “I heard the flashman got away.”

  “Yeah,” Marcel grunted. “But not far. Ran out in front a speeding wheeler.”

  I felt a pang. “Poor old flashman.”

  “Not as old as you think.” Marcel disconnected. The ‘bot rolled away to store itself for transport.

  “What?” I stared at him. “Did you know him?”

  “Of course not. All I meant was, flash burns people out.”

  “But—”

  “Your transportation’s waiting.” He strode off. I shook my head and headed for the stage door.

  I opened it to discover rain pounding down, and my private wheeler barely visible through the downpour, a good thirty metres away, blocked from coming any closer by the massive transport crawler whose crane was lifting my dressing room. I swore and dashed into the storm, splashing through puddles and arriving at the little black two-seater soaked to the skin. I clambered into the passenger seat and took revenge by shaking my hair like a dog, spraying the blue interior. The driver, a Sensation Single Inc. employee I knew distantly, glared at me and pulled away from the curb way too fast, snapping my head back against the headrest. “Where’d you learn to drive?” I snarled.

  “Same place you learned to sing, streetslime,” he snapped.

  I gaped at him. Sensation Single employees never spoke that way to performers; it could get them fired.

  Yeah, it could. I smiled. “Tired of your job?”

  “Now, why should I be tired of chauffeuring an obnoxious brat?” He hurtled around a corner, throwing me against the door.

  I straightened, rubbing my bruised elbow. “When Qualls hears about this—”

  “At this point in your so-called career, kid, I’m more valuable to Mr. Qualls than you. So shut up and enjoy the ride.”

  I wanted to knock that smirk from his face—but the scary thing was, he could be right. So I shut up and turned toward the window, seething. Everybody thought I was heading for a crash-and-burn. Well, we’d see. There were still four confirmed shows. Ticket sales could still pick up and boost me back into orbit—in which case vacuum-brain here would soon find himself driving garf-drawn carriages on Stimpson’s Regret.

  I slammed the door extra hard as I got out at the ship.

  Each of the modules from backstage, including my dressing room, plugged neatly into The Bullet’s hold. Until my dressing room arrived I had no place to go, so I made my way to the lounge to get something to eat and listen to someone else’s music besides my own. Use of the lounge was restricted to me, Qualls, and VIP guests, so while I wasn’t surprised to see Qualls there, I didn’t expect to see a two-metre orange, tentacled alien enthusiastically downing something that looked like sulfuric acid laced with iron filings. “Rain, old gladeye!” I shouted gleefully, rushing toward him.

  Tentacles that felt like thin wet rubber wrapped around steel wire lashed around my neck, arms and legs, immobilizing me, then tightening ‘til I could hardly breathe. Three purple eyes glared at me. “Or maybe not,” I choked out.

  Qualls chuckled. “Never startle a Hydra, Andy.”

  “Good—urk!—advice.” The Hydra released me. I managed a smile. Qualls had called me “Andy,” which meant this was business. I wished he’d warned me, not only because it would have saved me from near-strangulation but also because Andy Nebula, as Meta had pointed out, should be in mirrorcloth, not funereal black. Still, Qualls must think this Hydra could boost my career, so I’d better play it to the hilt. “Sorry, octofriend, thought I’d scanned you before,” I said, plopping down on the stool next to the Hydra. “Whirligig,” I said to the bartender, and “What’s powering, manager-man?” to Qualls. The bartender turned quickly away. I’d once spent an evening teaching him Fistfight City slang. He almost died laughing.

  The Hydra still had three eyes on me. “Octofriend?”

  “Just a word, gladeye. Insignificant mass. I’m Andy Nebula.”

  “Yes, Mr. Qualls has provided images,” said the Hydra. “I am sorry for seizing you so impolitely.” He’d obviously been around humans quite a bit; he held out a tentacle, and I took it momentarily, remembering how I’d almost jumped out of my skin the first time Rain touched me. This time, I didn’t even flinch. “My name is—” The Hydra made a sound like glass breaking.

  I couldn’t help wincing. “Tuneful,” I said, “but don’t you have a label in a lower register?”

  “Our guest is usually called The Dealer by his human associates,” Qualls said.

  “The Dealer?” I laughed. “Better hope the sleazeoids don’t get hold of that. They’ll be datadumping all over the starnet, saying Andy Nebula’s got a private flashpusher.”

  “Flashpusher?” said The Dealer.

  Qualls hastily punched buttons on his pocketsynth. “(Moan-scream-whistle-thud),” it said.

  “Ah,” said The Dealer. “A joke. Ha ha ha.” His “laugh” had no inflection at all.

  “The Dealer,” said Qualls, “may have a gig for you after this tour is over.”

  “Orbital!” I said. “Download details!”

  “It is tentative,” said The Dealer. “However, the venue would be my home world. And it would be a long-term engagement.”

  “It could help you make the transition from Sensation Single to a, ah, more rounded performer,” said Qualls. “If you are interested in continuing your career, that is. Are you?”

  Was I! I squelched my initial reaction. Wouldn’t do to appear too eager. “Could be, manager-man. You think these orange octopeople would still scan me when I’m not Andy Nebula?”

  “I think you would be very popular on Hydra,” said Qualls. “From your enthusiastic greeting of The Dealer here, I take it you remember the Hydra you were with when we first met.”

  “Rain? Yeah.”

  “You’ll recall he was quite impressed with you.”

  “But that was my own music, not this Sensation Single sh—uh, not my current material.” Oops, I was forgetting the street slang. But maybe it wasn’t important. If the Hydras would let me play my own music, it could be the break I’d been hoping for, the chance to stay in music even after Sensation Singles, Inc. dumped me. It wasn’t impossible; Pyotr Vasilovich, one of the Pleasure Planets’ most famous and enduring stars, had been one of the very first Singles, Parsec Prince, two decades ago.

  “Precisely. We’d design a whole new show around your music.”

  “I wouldn’t be working for Sensation Singles any more?”

  “No.” Qualls smiled. “I assume you could live with that.”

  “Smoothly, gladeye. Intensely smoothly.”

  “Of course, I would hope to continue as your manager...”

  “Activate this and I’m yours ‘til termination, gladeye.”

  Qualls’s smile widened, revealing teeth. “Excellent! Once the Dealer and I have come to a final understanding, I’ll prepare a contract and send it to your room later.”

  I took the hint. “I’m lifting,” I said. “My dressing room should be plugged in by now. Orbital tugging your tentacle, Dealer. Down the timestream, manager-man.”

  “See you, Andy. Now, then, Dealer...” Qualls lowered his voice and bent toward The Dealer. I took my glass of whirligig with me, wondering if I could get an extra copy of the contract so I could make that driver eat it.

  I stopped at hold’s main entrance and scanned an electronic schematic of the space beyond. Green, green, and more green; we were loaded and ready to lift. I touched the lockplate and the massive pressure-door slid open to admit me.

  The forward part of the ship was like any other spacecraft, but the hold was more like a small village. Modules stood alone in the vast echoing space, connected not by corridors but by lighted pathways. The hold even smelled different, still mostly full of planetary air with all its odors of growing things and people and mach
ines. That smell would linger until a new burst of planetary air replaced it at our next port of call.

  The various personnel modules were in the forward part of the hold; the stage and auditorium equipment were installed or stored aft. Beneath the hold were the engines and gravity-field generators; above was shielding and insulation; beyond that was the sky of Carstair’s Folly, through which we would very shortly lift. Overhead a slowly blinking red light told anyone interested that the huge cargo doors were not yet space-secured.

  On the first few legs of the tour I had occasionally had nightmares about those doors opening in space, spewing all of us out into the ship’s wake. I still made sure the door of my module was safety-sealed air-tight whenever I was in it.

  Of course it was shut and sealed now, but out of habit I checked the telltales beside the lockplate, and frowned. The internal life support system had activated. It wasn’t supposed to do that unless its sensors indicated a living creature needed the oxygen. “Must have picked up a rat,” I muttered.

  But inside, the module seemed as empty as it should be. Nothing lurked in the bedroom or the bathroom or the little lounge. I plugged a Pyotr Vasilovich musichip into the player, propped myself up my bed, sipped my drink, and finally began to relax, to come down from the concert high.

  After a few minutes I set the empty glass on the side table and closed my eyes, enjoying Pyotr’s unique wailing vocals. He was singing something mournful about purple skies and golden eyes...or was that purple eyes and golden skies...

  Crash! I jerked awake. Pyotr’s wailing had been replaced by a deep rumble—the engines, warming up. But that hadn’t woken me. The crash had been closer—in my room—Security had already failed me twice that evening—what was the name of that Single who had been murdered by a fan...I stared around the room, but could see no one, and no indication of what had made the crash—

  Wait a minute. The whirligig glass had vanished. I relaxed, laughing at myself. The ship’s vibration had obviously shaken it off the table. I rolled onto my stomach and peered over the edge of the bed—

  —into the wide blue eyes of Meta.

  CHAPTER SIX

  She smiled tentatively. “Told you I’d see you again!” she said over the rising moan of the engines.

  I stared at her. This couldn’t be happening. For a moment I didn’t say anything because the first words that came to mind were ones I was pretty sure Meta had never heard before. I finally settled on, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’ve never been in a spaceship before,” Meta said. “I thought it would be fun to see if I could sneak onto yours before you left, and you told me the dressing room was going to be moved on board, so I just slipped back in here after you left it backstage but before they sealed it and I slid under the bed but then I got scared when you came in and decided to try to sneak out but I hit the table and the glass broke and—you’re not mad, are you?”

  I shook my head. You almost had to admire her. Almost. “Look, Meta, do you hear that sound?”

  “Yes, and I was wondering—”

  “That’s the sound of our lift engines. In—oh, I’d say about thirty seconds—we’re going to take off.”

  Her face turned white. “What?” She pulled herself out from under the bed, scrambled up and ran for the door. “I’ve got to get out of here—”

  She was quick, but I was quicker. I grabbed her arm before she could touch the lockplate. “It’s too late!” The engines’ pitch rose a minor third. “We’ve lifted.”

  The moment I touched her, she froze; and then she squealed, a full three octaves higher than the engines, “Andy Nebula touched me!”

  I let go of her as though she were hot. “Will you stop this Andy Nebula waste? I told you, when I’m not on stage, I’m not Andy Nebula. I’m just Kit.”

  She didn’t seem to hear me. “I can’t believe it! I got into Andy Nebula’s dressing room, I talked to him, he touched me, I even went into space aboard his—I can’t wait to tell Bekka and Roo and—

  “You’re going to have to,” I said, more harshly than I intended, but I had to get through to her somehow. “You won’t be seeing them any time soon.”

  “What?” That penetrated, all right. “But once you tell the crew I’m on board, won’t they—”

  “Turn around and land?” I shook my head. “Meta, do you have any idea how much it costs to operate a spaceship?” Actually, I didn’t either, but I knew it was a lot, even by Sensation Single standards. “Landing and taking off are the most expensive.” That much I knew. The engines changed pitch again, dropping a perfect fourth, and I said, “Hear that? We’re boosting for orbit. There’s no way this ship is going back now. You’re stuck here until we get to our next stop and can put you on a commercial flight home.”

  Meta had gone pale again. “How long?”

  “A week.”

  “A week?” She gaped at me, then suddenly lunged at the door again, this time getting it open before I grabbed her. “Let go!” she said, struggling in my grasp. “I have to tell my parents—”

  “We will, we will,” I said soothingly. “But don’t you think it would make more sense for me to take you where you have to go to do that than for you to run aimlessly around the ship?”

  She subsided, wiping her eyes, and suddenly laughed a little. “I’m sorry. I’m all right now.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.” She bent her head back and batted her eyes at me. “But you don’t have to let go of me if you don’t want to...” she said in as husky a voice as a fourteen-year-old could manage.

  I let go of her so fast she half-fell against the bulkhead. “All right,” I said stiffly. “Let’s take you to face the music.”

  Meta gazed as wide-eyed at everything we passed on our way to the bridge as I had the first time I came on board. The Bullet impressed everyone (which was the idea, of course). I doubted you’d find many ships with corridors paneled in real Earth oak, floored with deep golden carpets and lit by crystal fixtures. Here and there tiny holovids of previous Singles endlessly repeated the dance steps that had made them—briefly—famous. If you stopped by one the sound came up, too. I never stopped because the last thing I wanted to hear was more Sensation Singles, but Meta would have listened to every one if I hadn’t insisted she keep moving. “I don’t know how far it is to jump-off,” I pointed out, “and we can’t send a message once we’re in alternity. You don’t want your parents thinking you’ve vanished into thin air and we don’t want to be charged with kidnapping. And you’ll have plenty of time to explore the ship after this is all settled.”

  “Right,” Meta said, but she still moved reluctantly away from a holo of Phil FreeLight singing Program Your Love, the syrupiest Single of them all, which was saying something. Were all teenaged girls on the Pleasure Planets this spaceheaded? I wondered. Not that I was an expert on girls, public image to the contrary. The “girls” I’d known in Fistfight City were hard as duracrete and meaner than spaceport rats, while as Andy Nebula the only girls I saw were the screaming ones in the audience. Only carefully planned and managed scandals were permitted Sensation Singles.

  A sudden shift in decor from flamboyant to utilitarian marked our arrival in Ship’s Operations. I sometimes wondered what The Bullet’s crew thought of all the Singles they’d seen come and go—and usually decided I was better off not knowing.

  The Second Mate, whom we found in a wardroom near the bridge, was not pleased. A small, stout woman with an incredibly deep voice, she frowned ferociously at Meta. “What the blazes did you think you were playing at?” she boomed, and Meta shrank back against me. “Do you know what interstellar law gives us the right to do to stowaways? Do you?”

  Meta shook her head.

  “It says we can space you. Did you think of that before you—”

  I knew the Second Mate only wanted to scare Meta, to make her see how stupid she’d been. I’d tried to do the same thing. But suddenly, I didn’t like it very much.
After all, Meta was my fan. “End program,” I said. “We don’t have time for this. You know and I know you’re not going to space her, but you’re going to worry her parents sick and get us in legal trouble if we don’t get a message to them before jump-off. So are you going to let us use ship communications or not?”

  The Second Mate flushed—but I was still the current Single and therefore carried considerable weight on board The Bullet, even though I’d never used it before. Seeing the fire in the Second Mate’s eyes, I decided I wouldn’t try to use it again. But just this once—

  “You’ve got ten minutes to jump-off,” she growled. “You and your ‘friend’—” she managed to make the word sound insulting, and I flushed even though I had nothing to be ashamed of—”can use communications.”

  “Thank you.” I pulled Meta out of there before the Second Mate could change her mind.

  I’d used communications before; the crewman there knew me. “Hi, Andy,” he said as I came in. “Who’s your lady friend?”

  “Hi, Hosking. Stowaway, believe it or not. Fister says you’re to let her use communications to call her parents.”

  “Sure.” Hosking smiled at Meta and poised his fingers over the controls. “Access code?”

  Meta reeled out a string of letters and numbers that Hosking echoed into the console. After a moment’s lightspeed delay, a screen lit with a written message repeated by a computerized voice. “This is the Prescott home. At the moment no human is available to speak to you. Do you wish to leave a message?”

  Meta sat down in front of the console. “Milly, this is Meta.”

  “Identity confirmed. Hello, Meta.”

  “Are my parents really not at home or are you just in intercept mode?”

  “Your parents are attending a reception at the Administrator’s Residence,” the computer said.