by Spider
“Yes, there is that. It’s like talking to an angel on psychedelics sometimes. Would you mind sitting in on the conversation once or twice? You’ve been talking with Stardancers a lot longer than I have.”
“Sure—but don’t expect that to help much. Buchi’s just different. Even for a Stardancer. The ones born that way, who’ve never breathed, are the weirdest…but the most interesting too, I think.”
A week ago, Rhea had asked Duncan how one got to know a Stardancer. She knew it could be done simply and easily, even from the surface of Terra—but how did one scrape up an acquaintance? It turned out Duncan was friendly with several Stardancers. Most spacers were. And one of his personal friends among Homo caelestis happened to be physically located near enough to the Shimizu to allow for something very like a face-to-face meeting…through Rhea’s own window. Duncan had made the introduction a few days earlier, then politely left them alone. “When would be good for you in the next few days?”
“Any time; when’s good for you?”
She thought about it—and suddenly realized that the search criterion with which she was examining her calendar was “times when Rand and Colly won’t be around.” That made perfect sense: the conversation would be confusing enough without distraction. Nonetheless it struck her all at once that she was making a date to be alone—or almost alone—with a handsome young man. One who, if she wasn’t misreading signals, was interested in her.
It’s for work, for heaven’s sake!
Yes…but is it prudent?
Oh, shut up. “How about tomorrow night, after twenty?”
He nodded. “Program loaded.”
There was a brief silence. Rhea felt compelled to break it. “So how are things with you?”
“Pretty good, actually. I made another piece last night, and it turned out well.”
Duncan’s hobby was vacuum-sculpture. To Rhea the artform seemed to consist of assembling ingredients in various combinations, exposing them suddenly to vacuum, and then taking credit for the weird and beautiful shapes chemistry caused to occur. But vacuum-sculpture could be very beautiful—and she had to admit that Duncan seemed to produce aesthetically pleasing results more often than chance could account for. Didn’t photographers throw out twenty prints and take credit for the perfect twenty-first? Come to think of it, wasn’t her own storage cluttered with drafts that hadn’t quite gelled?
“I’d like to see it,” she said politely.
“No problem. We’ll talk to Buchi from my place, then.”
She opened her mouth…and then closed it firmly. He was pointedly not looking in her direction.
“I thought I’d take Colly to the pool again,” he went on.
Rhea laughed. “You think you have a choice, huh?” The laugh sounded too loud in her ears. “She’s a born water baby. You couldn’t keep her out of the surf, back ho—…back in Provincetown. You know, I’ve always thought it’s ironic. As far back as history goes, the Paixaos have made their living on and from the sea—and my mother was the first one in the family that ever learned to swim. How could you spend all that time on the water and not know how to swim? Weren’t they scared?”
Duncan shrugged. “I’ve lived all my life in space—and I don’t know how to breathe vacuum.”
“But that’s not possible—and it is possible to learn to swim, and it doesn’t even take much time.”
“Look at it from your greatest grandfather Henry’s perspective,” he said. “Suppose you’re off the Grand Banks and the ship sinks. How much good does it do you to know how to swim?”
It occurred to Rhea that Duncan knew a lot more about her family than she knew about his. She was not normally so forthcoming; had he been making an effort to draw her out? She reviewed memory tape, and could not decide. “I guess. It still seems odd. Maybe we should ask Buchi to teach you how to breathe vacuum.”
And now I’ve drawn the conversation back to our rendez-vous…
Colly appeared just then. How she could have spent five minutes dressing was something of a mystery, for she was dressed for the pool, in the ubiquitous guest robe and nothing else. Since so many nationalities and cultures mingled in the Shimizu, all guests conformed to a minimal nudity taboo in politeness to the less civilized nations; one did not jaunt down public corridors naked. But a guest robe was sufficient, and even those could be dispensed with once one reached the pool—or any other nonpublic location. “Hi, Duncan! Come on, let’s go!”
“Sorry to hold you up,” he said sarcastically, and made way so Colly could hug her mother goodbye.
As Rhea handed the child off to Duncan, their hands brushed briefly. Rhea had gotten used to casual touching in space, even from strangers; free-fall made it necessary in close quarters. But this touch she felt from her scalp to the soles of her feet. It seemed to her that he made it linger.
She was glad then for Colly’s eagerness to be in the water; the two headed for the door before the blush reached her cheeks.
I should have said yes when he asked if I was working.
In fact, she should be working. She took her keyboard from her pocket and unfolded it. Work would be a wonderful distraction from the trend her thoughts were taking.
Almost at once she found another distraction. The virtual screen that sprang into existence over the keyboard was preset to display her calendar as its boot document, so she wouldn’t start sinking into the warm fog if there was some imminent obligation scheduled. It showed the next thirty days, and the box for 5 February was highlighted—it leaped out of the screen at her, as it had been doing ever since she had highlighted it.
I have two more weeks to make up my mind whether I’m going to stay here, was what she had thought when she first started work that morning. Now, perhaps because of what had just transpired, it came out, I have two more weeks to make up my mind whether I’m going to stay married to Rand.
She entered her date with Duncan into the calendar, put the typewriter away again, and went to the window. She watched the majestically turning Earth for a measureless time, trying to put names on her feelings, and failing. They would not hold still long enough.
Finally she looked around her, as if to make sure she was alone…and checked her watch to make sure Rand was not due home…and spoke to her AI. “Maxwell: window program ‘Home.’”
“Yes, Rhea.”
Terra went away, and was replaced by Provincetown.
She was back in her own writing room in her own home, looking out of the turret through her favorite window, hearing the sounds of the street below, hearing the gulls and the distant surf, seeing Mrs. Vasques, her neighbor, haranguing yet another motorist who had clipped her fence in trying to negotiate the insanely narrow street. The illusion was nearly perfect—except for the same flaw it had had weeks ago, when Rand had first sprung it on her. This time, she was able to identify the flaw. This Provincetown didn’t smell. There was no salt tang in the air—none of that rich aroma that the landsman calls the smell of the sea and the sailor calls the smell of the land, the shore smell of decaying vegetation and sea creatures at the border between two incompossible worlds.
Maybe I could get a steward to bring me some fish leftovers, she thought, and began to cry. Fetal position is hard to achieve in free-fall, but she managed it.
She never did get back to work that afternoon. But she did manage to stop crying an hour before Duncan was due to bring Colly home for supper, so that her eyes wouldn’t be red when they arrived.
Rand showed up just as they did. He had been making a major effort to eat most meals with his family these days. For some reason, his arrival relieved her. Duncan declined an invitation to join them for dinner, and that relieved her too. During the meal she found herself paying more attention than usual to her husband, asking questions about his work and listening attentively to the answers, making little excuses to touch him. Before she knew it they had made a nonverbal contract, entirely by eye contact, to make love when he got home again that night. He went off
to Jay’s place whistling.
She managed to get a little work done after supper, while Colly was off playing with a friend. She didn’t understand where the story was going, but it wouldn’t let her alone; its disturbing central image—adrift, running out of air, no direction home—had been recurring in her thoughts for weeks now. The question was, of course, who was adrift, and why? She had no clear idea as yet, but she knew if she kept playing with the situation it would come out of her eventually.
As she was putting Colly to bed that night, she said, “So—was it fun playing with Jason, honey?”
“He’s okay, I guess,” Colly said. “For a boy, anyway. At least he’s gonna be here a whole two weeks.” For Colly, the biggest flaw in the Shimizu’s accommodations was its criminally inadequate and excessively fluctuating supply of eight-year-olds. Children of transient guests rarely remained aboard more than a few days; permanent guests tended not to have small children, and by evil luck all the spacer children of hotel staff were either over ten or under six—less use than a grown-up. Colly still had all of her phone friends, of course, and her Provincetown chums were all phone friends too, now…but she was chronically short of playmates she could smell and touch.
“Oh, that’ll be fun,” Rhea said.
“I guess.” Suddenly Colly looked stricken. “Hey, Mom?”
“Yes, dear?”
“I just thought of something. My birthday comes in two and a half weeks, right?”
Rhea did mental arithmetic. “That’s right, honey. Why?”
Colly sat up on one elbow. “How am I gonna have a party?”
Rhea started to answer, and stopped.
“You can’t have a birthday party on the phone,” Colly said. “And all my friends are back on Earth! I’m not gonna get to have a real party, am I?” Her voice was rising in alarm.
“Uh…sure you will, honey. There’ll be kids aboard then, I’m sure there will. One or two, anyw—”
“But I won’t know them,” Colly insisted. “What good is a party with people you don’t even know?” She started to snuffle.
Rhea was tempted to join her. Instead she took Colly in her arms and rocked her. “Don’t cry, baby. It won’t be so bad. All your friends can be there on the phone—no, you know what? I’ll tell you what: we’ll get Daddy to merge all the phone signals into his shaping stuff, and your friends can be here almost like real, holographically, walking around and everything.” As she spoke, Rhea was estimating the cost of such an event: assuming Rand had time for this, and valuing his time at zero, it came to roughly the price of two luxury automobiles back on Terra. They could afford it, now—but still…
Colly considered the offer for a moment, then resumed snuffling, softer than before. “That’d be better…but you can’t tickle a holo, Mom. You can’t throw pieces of birthday cake at a holo.”
“Sure you can—only it’s even better, because nobody really gets messy. You wait and see: it’ll be fun.”
Colly was dubious, but after ten minutes of rocking and cuddling and soothing she allowed herself to be mollified, and went to sleep. Rhea left her bedroom exhausted and heartsick. Colly was right: a birthday party aboard the Shimizu probably wasn’t going to be much fun.
Less than a minute later, Rand arrived home, shiny-eyed and eager to make love.
Since adolescence Rhea had known that a contract with a man to have sex at an appointed time must be honored, if at all possible. Feeling martyred, she pasted a smile on her face and cooperated. But she made a mental note to discuss Colly’s birthday party with him as soon as they were done; she was not a hundred percent sure the consolation prize she had promised her daughter was technically feasible.
It was just as he was entering her that it dawned on her that the question might be moot: their child’s birthday came after the date on which she was to give Rand her final decision…
It was not a terribly erotic train of thought. The act was technically successful for both of them, for they had been married for a long time—but for the same reason, Rand asked, “Want to talk about it?” when their breathing had slowed.
She burst into tears. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
He held her close, but said nothing. He knew, in general, what was on her mind—and knew that she knew he knew. What was there for either of them to say?
What could Donny Handsome have said to Patty?
She untucked her chin from his neck and pushed at him with her hands; he rose far enough on his elbows so that she could see his face. She looked at it a long time…not just the eyes or the mouth, but the whole face. He waited. “You’re staying?” she said finally.
His face went blank. He was silent an equal time. She waited.
“Yes.”
She nodded, and pulled him back down to her. They lay there together in silence, breathing in the same rhythm and thinking the same thought.
What did that nod mean?
Twice, she felt him start to ask her. Each time he changed his mind. She couldn’t blame him—but part of her wished he had asked. If he had, perhaps an answer would have come to her.
She forgot to ask him about Colly’s birthday party that night.
Rhea knew that a real window like the one in her suite was supposed to be much better than a fake one—she knew, to the yen, how much more the former cost. But she was a shaper’s wife: to her Duncan’s fake window was just as good. Better, for she could shift to a view in any direction at all simply by touching a control. Somehow it felt more correct to talk with a Stardancer without Earth in the background, overshadowing everything.
And Buchi Tenmo did not appear to mind talking to a camera rather than a person in a window. She did not need to see Rhea; she already had. She must be used to talking with Duncan this way too.
Insofar as she was used to talking at all. So far Rhea had found it always took the first few minutes of the conversation for Buchi to become even partly comprehensible. That did not surprise Rhea. To temporarily “place on hold” an ongoing conversation with millions of others, and funnel consciousness down to only one or two nontelepathic minds must be a disorienting experience—especially for a spaceborn Stardancer, who had never been such a limited being herself. The wonder was that the trick was possible.
And already Buchi was winding down, only minutes in. She had progressed from incomprehensible polyglot babble to a lock on English—of a sort. Any minute now it would start conveying information.
“—as the world whirls around peg in a square holy cowhide it from yourself-esteem cleaning up your action figures it would be that’s entertainment to tell you but I forgot is a concept by which we measure painting the town read all of your books now, Rhea, and they’re very beautiful…the gostak distims the doshes…eftsoons, and right speedily…don’t blame him for not being careful in the beginning…a straight hook basically seeks fish who turn away from life…there: subject, object, predicate…am I getting there, Rhea? Duncan? Can I hear you, now? Are we having fun yet?”
“You’re getting there,” Rhea agreed. Things always improved dramatically, she had found, once Buchi reinvented the sentence. She found herself asking the question she had suppressed during her previous encounters with the Stardancer. “Buchi? Does it hurt? Doing this, I mean, talking with us—is it hard?”
“It’s fun!” For that moment Buchi sounded remarkably like Colly. “Is it hard to talk with me?”
“A little,” Rhea admitted. “But you’re right, it’s fun. But then, I’m only doing what I do all the time: talking, in my own language. You’re doing all the work.”
“By ‘work’ I understand you in this context to mean ‘energy expenditure regretted or begrudged.’ By that definition I have never worked in my life. Although I’m always busy.”
“I wish I could say the same.” A light dawned somewhere in the back of Rhea’s head. “But you’ve put your finger on something, Buchi. I’ve been thinking about our conversations, and why they haven’t satisfied me, and I think
you just gave me a handle on my problem.”
“Problems are better with handles on them?”
“For me they are. Looking back over it, everything I’ve been asking you has been about…has had to do with things that a human supposes would be disadvantages of being a Stardancer. The bad parts. I’ve been asking you about the bad parts—and for each one I come up with, you explain how it’s not a bad part. Some of the explanations I just flat don’t understand—”
“I always have trouble conveying the idea of self generated reality,” Buchi agreed. “To a human it seems a flat contradiction in terms.”
Rhea had asked in her first conversation whether Buchi ever missed being able to “really” walk the surface of a planet, as opposed to “merely” reexperiencing it through the memories of those Stardancers who had lived on Earth before joining the Starmind. Communication had broken down when Buchi insisted that she could, really, walk on Terra any time she wanted—that she could “really” experience things she had never personally experienced—knowing the difference, but unbothered by it. Rhea, who had never confused even the best virtual-reality environments with real-reality, was baffled by this. She had spent most of her own professional life battering at the interface between almost-real and real, trying to make words on a screen sound and smell. She had to tiptoe around the thought that anyone for whom reality and imagination were interchangeable was someone who was not quite sane.
“—but that’s not the problem,” she went on, but Duncan interrupted her.
“It’s like this window, Rhea,” he said, touching her wrist and pointing.
“Huh?”
“You know that to most of the people in this hotel, this window we’re looking out right now isn’t as good as the one you have back in your suite. God knows it costs a lot less. But we’ve talked about it, so I know you agree with me that this one is actually better. It may not be ‘real’—but it can look in any direction you want, or show you anything you want to see, flatscreen anyway. I know yours can do even better, the way Rand has it tricked out now…but most people who pay a premium for one of those windows do it so they can tell themselves that what they’re looking at is ‘real.’ They care a lot about ‘real.’ You and I care a little less. Buchi cares not at all. Think of it as a spectrum rather than a discontinuity.”
