The Stardance Trilogy

by Spider

  Later that night I started to record a message for Robert…then gave up and erased it unsent.

  The next day the shuttle left for Earth.

  I found myself in the corridor outside the Departure Lock, in an alcove where I could watch the queue forming. I avoided the gazes of those who lined up, and they avoided mine. Robert was one of the last to arrive, coming to a stop right outside my alcove. I saw him before he saw me. It had an almost physical impact. Then he saw me, and that was even worse. We looked at each other, treading air. He glanced at the others, then back to me.

  He waved Earthward. “Come with me.”

  I waved starward. “Come with me.”

  He made no reply. After a time I left the alcove, grabbed a handhold and flung myself away into the bowels of the rock, not stopping until I reached hardhat territory. I joined a handful of gawkers and watched a new tunnel being cut. They struck ice, and that was good, because soon there were so many warm water droplets in the ambient air that a few tears more or less went unnoticed.

  I cut classes that day, as I had the previous two, and spent some time in the studio in the afternoon, trying to dance. It was a fiasco. I sought out Reb’s after-classes sitting group, and sat kûkanzen for a couple of hours, or tried to. It was my first time with the group. I had done a fair amount of sitting outside class, but never with the group. But that night I needed them to keep me anchored, to keep me from bursting into tears. Sitting, and the chanting after, helped, a little. Not enough.

  I went to Le Puis, where Fat Humphrey allowed me to get drunk. He did so with skill and delicacy, so that I woke the next day without a hangover despite my best efforts.

  But I was dumb enough to decide to go to morning class, and logy enough to sleepwalk through suit inspection, and so I came damned close to dying when a thruster I should have replaced went rogue on me at just the wrong moment. I was not able to recover as Ben had from a similar problem, and had to be rescued. By Ben, since Robert was no longer there to take care of it.

  It straightened me up. I did not want to die—not even subconsciously, I think. Or if I did, I wanted it to be at a time and place, and by a method, of my own choosing; not in some stupid accident, not over a man. I won’t say I started to feel better…but I did start to take better care of myself again. That’s a beginning.

  Sulke didn’t chew me out for my stupidity. She was the one I’d gotten drunk with the night before, the one who’d gotten me to bed, as I had once done for her.

  I don’t know, maybe it’s easier to turn your back on Earth if there’s someone down there you never want to see again. Perhaps it’s easier to attain Zen no-thought if your thoughts are all painful ones anyway. I started to make real progress in my studies, both practical and spiritual.

  When I arrived at Top Step, free fall had seemed an awkward, clumsy environment; the graceful Second- and Third-Monthers had seemed magical creatures. I didn’t feel particularly magical now, but free fall seemed a natural way to live, and the new crop of Postulants seemed incredibly awkward and clumsy. My p-suit had once seemed exotic, romantic; now it was clothing. Sitting kûkanzen had once been unbearable boredom and discomfort; now it was natural and blissful. I told myself that I had learned a brutal lesson in nonattachment, which would actually help me in the transition to Symbiosis. All my bridges were burnt behind me. All I had left to lose were dance and my life itself. All I had to do was to go forward, or die trying.

  One thing never changed. Space itself was always and forever a place of heart-stopping majesty and terrible beauty.

  I even learned to stop resenting Kirra and Ben’s happiness in time to preserve our friendship. I’m ashamed to admit how hard a learning that was. Other happy couples, triads and group marriages in Top Step somehow did not grate on me—but at first it seemed disloyal for my friends to be joyous when I was not. And Ben certainly had more than enough quirks for which one could work up a dislike. But Reb caught me at it, diagnosed my problem, and talked it over with me until I could be rational again. In my heart of hearts, I loved them both, and wished them well.

  They both made an effort to bring me out myself, to invite me for drinks and include me in their games and discussions. We three had been friends like this before I’d become Robert’s lover; now we were again, that was all.

  Only one thing was really keeping me from symbiosis, now. I wanted to make one last dance before I went, to choreograph my farewell to human life while I was still human. I knew I would make other dances in concert with my Stardancer brothers and sisters, and perform in theirs, for centuries to come—but this last one would be mine alone, the last such there could ever be. In a way, it was almost good that Robert was gone, for now the dance could be all my own personal farewell, rather than ours.

  I stopped calling the piece Do the Next Thing. Although those words are a pretty fair approximation of the meaning of life—they’ll get you through when life itself has lost its meaning—they were a little too flip for the title of my last work as a human. Instead I began thinking of it simply as Coda.

  There is a pun in there that perhaps only a choreographer would get. In music, a coda is the natural end of a movement, the passage that brings it to a formal close. In dance, it is the end of a pas de deux.

  I worked on it for hours at a time, throwing out ideas like a Roman candle, ruthlessly pruning every one that wasn’t just right, then trying them in different combinations and juxtapositions, like someone trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube by intuition alone. I had the constant awareness that something might kill me at any minute, but I tried not to let it hurry me. Better to die with it incomplete than do a sloppy job of it.

  It ate up a lot of time. Or kept the time from eating me up. One of those.

  “When are we gonna see this bleedin’ dance, then?” Kirra asked me that Friday. “Ben and me are gone day after tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry, love,” I told her. “It’s just not ready to show yet.”

  “Why don’t you do a bit of it just before we swallow the stuff? It don’t have to be finished—just a little bit to send us off in style, like.”

  “Yeah,” Ben chimed in. “We’d love to have you dance at our GraduWedding, Morgan.”

  “And I’d love to,” I said, “but it just won’t be ready in time. I’m sorry, I wish it could be.”

  “Ah, don’t be stingy with it, Morgan,” Kirra said. “I sung for you, ain’t I? An’ Benjy taught you free fall handball an’ all. It’s your shout.”

  I started to get irritated. Tact had never been the strong suit of either of them…but this was a little excessive. Suddenly I understood something. Underneath their excitement and anticipation, Kirra and Ben were both scared silly.

  “I’ll dance it at my own Graduation,” I said, softer than I might have. “You can both see it then.”

  “We’ll be halfway to Titan by then,” she protested.

  “So what? As long as one Stardancer is in the neighborhood, you’ll have a front-row seat.”

  “Huh. Right enough, I guess.”

  “Have you two recorded your Last Words for your families, yet?”

  They let me change the subject. But I kept thinking about their request, wishing I had something to give them for a wedding gift, and a little while later I had a very bright idea. I excused myself, went off and made a phone call. It worked even better than I had hoped. I had to work hard to conceal my excitement when I rejoined them.

  We three slept together that night, for the last time. It was a memorable night; people who are scared silly make incredible lovers. We spent the next day together, visiting all their favorite places. Solariums One and Three, Le Puis, the Great Hall, the games rooms and all the places where we’d shared so much fun and laughter. After dinner I slipped away while they weren’t looking and let them have their last evening to themselves. They didn’t come back to the room, and I fell asleep with a smile on my face.

  The next day was Sunday. I didn’t see them until dinner time; accord
ing to Teena they never left Ben’s room until then. We talked awhile, and they gave some attention to their last meal. Then the two of them instigated one last food fight. It was glorious. You could tell how close a person was to Graduation by how little food they wore when the fight was over. Ben and Kirra were the only ones who ended up completely unmarked—somewhat unfairly, as they had started it. Either of them could dodge anything they saw coming, and Ben had no blind spot, and had enough attention to spare to guard Kirra’s back and warn her of sneak attacks. I only got hit a couple of times myself, each time from behind.

  I showered and was done in time to catch them coming out of Reb’s room. “Hey, you guys. Hello, Reb.”

  “Hi, Morgan,” Kirra said. “Guess it’s time to get it done, eh?”

  “Yeah. Listen, I know this is kind of last-minute, but…would you mind a bit of dance at your Graduation after all?”

  They both brightened. “That’d be great, love,” Kirra said. “Gee, I’m glad you changed your mind.”

  “Yeah,” Ben agreed. “I’m dying to see Coda.”

  “Oh, it won’t be Coda,” I said. “I came up with something special for the occasion. I think you’ll like it. Are you coming, Reb?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” he said. He took Kirra’s arm and I took Ben’s, and the four of us jaunted away like a chorus line on skates.

  A fair-sized group was waiting at the airlock. Kirra and Ben had invited anyone who wanted to come, and they were well liked; all of our class that were still around were present, and even some people I didn’t know. There were hugs and handshakes and goodbyes, and then everybody put their hoods on. It took awhile to cycle everybody through the lock. While we were waiting outside, Kirra asked me, “Don’t you need to warm up or somethin’, love?”

  “Not this time,” I said.

  She made a sound of puzzlement, but let it go.

  When everyone was assembled outside, we set off as a group, led by Reb. Newer chums who drifted out of formation did their best to recover without drawing attention to themselves. We ascended like a slightly tipsy celestial choir; Top Step slowly fell away below us, and when it had dwindled into a distant cigar, the Symbiote Mass was visible above us. “Above” in an absolute sense, relative to Earth: by that time we had flipped ourselves so that it seemed to be below our feet. “I don’t see any Stardancers waitin’ to meet us,” Kirra said as we closed in on the red cloud.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be along.”

  “Bloody well better. I don’t know how to make that big glob squeeze off a piece my size.”

  “Relax, Kirra,” Reb said. “Be your breath.”

  “Right. No worries, mate.”

  Our formation became most ragged as we came to rest near the Mass, but Reb issued quiet instructions and got us all together again with minimal confusion. Kirra and Ben floated a little apart from the rest of us. Ben’s p-suit was a pale yellow that suited him and his red hair as well as cobalt blue suited Kirra. Between the two of them and the glowing red Symbiote Mass beside them, they had the rainbow covered. There was a moment of silence.

  “Well, here we are,” Kirra said finally. “I’d like to thank you all for comin’—”

  “—or however you’re reacting.” Ben interjected, and she aimed a mock blow at him that he dodged easily. We all chuckled, and some of the solemnity went out of the occasion.

  “We got no speeches to make or anythin’,” she went on. “But before we get down to it, our good friend Morgan McLeod is going to dance for us all.” An approving murmur began.

  “Me?” I said. “Oh, no!”

  “What do you mean, ‘no’? You promised.”

  “I asked if you’d mind a bit of dance. I didn’t say I’d be dancing. Curtain!”

  “I don’t get you, love.”

  “Wait a second, spice,” Ben said. “Here comes our stuff, I think.” (Ben and Kirra called each other “spice,” a term of endearment I find distinctly superior to “honey” or other sticky sweetness.)

  She processed to face the way he seemed to be looking. “Where?”

  “No, no, there,” he said, and pointed behind him and to his right.

  “You and your trick eyes,” she said, and faced the way he was pointing. “Right you are, here it comes. Still don’t see any Stardancers, though.” A red blob was slowly growing larger in the distance.

  “You’re looking at six of them,” I said, enjoying myself hugely.

  “Where?”

  “Twelve, actually, but they’re squeezed into six bodies at the moment. Kirra and Benjamin Buckley, allow me to present Jinsei Kagami, Yuan Zhongshan, Consuela Paixio, Sven Bjornssen, Ludmilla Vorkuta, and Walerij Pietkow.”

  The red blob was much closer now. Music swelled out of nowhere, a soft warm A chord with little liquid trills chasing in and out of it. It couldn’t seem to make up its mind whether it was major or minor.

  “They are all trained dancers themselves, but they have all agreed to lend remote-control of their bodies to six of their more distant siblings, who will now dance in your honour. These are Shara Drummond, Sascha Yakovskaya, Norrey Armstead, Charles Armstead, Linda Parsons, and Tom McGillicuddy. Choreography is by all six, around a frame by Shara. Music prerecorded by Raoul Brindle; playback, set design and holographic recording by Harry Stein. The piece is called Kiss the Sky.”

  By now the jumbled murmuring of our group was as loud as the soft music. Shara Drummond…and all of the original Six…and Yakovskaya, the first truly great dancer to join them in space, the man who had choreographed the Propaedeutics in his first week as a Stardancer…all dancing together, if only by proxy, for the first time in over a decade—with Brindle on synth! “Pull the other one,” Kirra said. “I don’t see a bloody soul. Just that great hunk of—oh!”

  She and everyone fell silent. The approaching blob of Symbiote had suddenly flexed, and stretched in six directions at once to become a kind of six-pointed red snowflake, swirling gently as it approached, like a pinwheel in a gentle breeze, its axis of rotation pointed right at us.

  It took a moment for the eye to get it into correct perspective: it was not just enough Symbiote for two people, but enough and more than enough for six, therefore somewhat farther from us than it had seemed to be. Six Stardancers had mingled their Symbiotes and were joined at the feet, held together by their linked hands, a hundred meters from us. The snowflake shifted and flowed, as the six dancers who comprised it changed their position in unison from one pattern to another by flexing elbows and knees, contracting and releasing.

  The music acquired a slow, steady pulse in the bass. The pattern of the spinning snowflake changed with each beat, as if it were some great red heart clenching rhythmically. Percussion instruments and a Michael Hedges-like guitar began adding counterpoint accents to the rhythm. The total mass of Symbiote began to swell away from the dancers it contained, until it was a translucent crimson disc with six people at its heart, perhaps twenty meters in diameter. The disc swelled from the center and became a convex lens, nearly transparent; pink stars swam behind it, rippling. Lights came up. The lamps themselves were invisible to us, since they were tiny and dull black and pointing away from us, but we saw their blue and yellow reflections come up as highlights on the crimson lens, highlights that bled all the other colours there are at their edges.

  The six children of the lens separated like a bud opening into a flower, fanned out in six directions and wedged themselves into the narrow parts of the lens wall. One of them doubled and jaunted back to the center of the lens, came to rest there…and began to move. Even at a hundred meters, even behind that carmine film of Symbiote, even wearing a different body, there was no mistaking her. The familiar motif that emerged in brass in the underlying music only confirmed it. Jinsei’s body it may have been, but it was Shara Drummond, the greatest dancer of our time, who took the first solo.

  She wore thrusters at wrists and ankles, but could not have used them inside that lens, I think. She dan
ced only with body and muscles, moving three-dimensionally in place, with her unmistakable fluidity and precision of line. It reminded me of a piece I’d seen years ago by a colleague recovering from a leg injury called Dancing in Place: confining himself to one spot on stage, standing on one leg, he had explored more ways of dancing and looking at dance than most performers can do using an entire stage. Shara/Jensei did the same now, tumbling, arching, turning, while her center stayed anchored to the center of the lens. She could have been a butterfly gifted with limbs, or a leaf in flight, or a protozoan swimming in the primordial soup. The brass stopped hinting at Shara’s Theme and made a new statement, underlined by strings. Soon, inevitably, she drifted far enough from the center of the lens to touch its inner surface, and used it to jaunt back to her original place at the periphery.

  This time two figures moved to the center and met there. Linda Parsons and Tom McGillicuddy, the hippie and the businessman who had met in space, fallen in love, and become the fourth and fifth founding members of Stardancers Incorporated (after Charlie, Norrey and Raoul). McGillicuddy at least was easy for me to identify: he had always been the least trained of the original company; even after decades of practice, and even wearing a better-trained body than his own, there were minor limitations to his technique. But Linda compensated for them so perfectly after thirty-four years of dancing with him that I don’t think anyone else noticed. They did a pas de deux at the heart of the lens, like mating hummingbirds, and now the brass and strings made different but complementary statements to accompany them.

  When they returned to their places at the rim, three figures replaced them. Charlie and Norrey and Sascha, legendary partners and friends, did a trio piece loosely derived from their famous Why Can’t We?, as woodwinds brought in a third theme that fit the brass and string motifs like an interlocking puzzle; all three resolved into a major chord as the trio broke up and returned to the rim again.

  Next a quartet of both Drummond sisters and Armstead and Yakovskaya, faster and more vigorous, interacting with the kind of precision and intuition that nontelepaths would have needed weeks of rehearsal to achieve; a great pipe organ added its voice to the music, which rose in tempo and resolved into a four-note diminished chord at the quartet’s end.