by Spider
Just as seeming chance brought the dancers fairly close together in a cluster, an especially bright bolt of lightning lingered longer than usual, split again and again, fractured into a hundred snake-tongues of fire that raced around the entire storm—and in their flickering light, the cluster of dancers began to move in space, turning end over end like a Catherine wheel. As the actinic sparkles faded slowly away, the dancers themselves began to glow softly, somehow emitting their own light, shining from within like fireflies. They began to move bodily too, without losing their place in formation, first in unison and then individually, and before long the tension of their solos tore the cluster apart into smaller groups.
Two of the groups, asymmetrically opposed, began to leave trails of light behind them as they moved. Short at first, mere afterimages, the trails slowly lengthened until they were winding tails, as though the invisible eraser that chased them was falling farther and farther behind—then they vanished, and three other groups began to leave trails of their own. Soon dancers were making light sculptures all over the sky, like particle tracks in a cyclotron, occasionally mirroring one another for a time and then diverging. Again Eva was reminded of something from the dawn of the Age of Silicon: a screen-saver program called Electric Fire. The effect was hypnotic—but a kind of hypnosis that made the pulse race and the breath come faster, a heightening of alertness. Forks of lightning still flared here and there among the clouds, imbuing the whole scene with a sense of energy, largeness, danger. Perhaps there were subsonics buried in the score as well. One sensed that something awful, cataclysmic, might happen if one of the dancers missed a movement, distorted the weave of the incomprehensible pattern they were shaping together. Something on the scale of Ragnarok. The speed and intensity of the dance increased, until all twelve were racing to and fro at the highest speeds they could reach without crashing into the unseen audience, threatening to lose control and do so. The very clouds seemed to back away from them. In their boiling frenzy, they came to resemble the classic historical footage of the Fireflies confronting Shara Drummond…save that they were not red. Each glowed a different color now, twelve distinct shades; together they seemed the shards of a proto-rainbow struggling to form.
As the music swelled and steadied, they succeeded: seemingly by chance, they settled one after another into the same stable orbit, a great ring whose axis kept changing, like the “orange-slice” orbit of Peace Monitor satellites around Terra, like a primitive model of an atom with twelve electrons. Their trails became one orbit in length: a coruscating rainbow chased itself around the globe.
A short blast of trumpets, and the rainbow flared, doubling in brightness. Each and every cloud dissolved into a trillion spherically expanding droplets of water, a trillion seeds, each carrying with it a tiny reflection of the rainbow. As they dispersed and vanished, the stormclouds lightened in color and mass, thinned out, became wispy, melted away save for a handful of benign white clouds. The storm was broken; the sun returned, and the achingly familiar blue of the Terran sky. (Even spaceborns, studies had long shown, resonated emotionally to that color; it seemed to be in the DNA somewhere, though none could say how.) The music moved gradually up the scale, from deep baritone horn sounds to medium frequencies that sounded eerily like human voices, yet moved in ways no human culture sang. The dancers glowed so fiercely now that they seemed to have enlarged, and their features were indistinct.
Then the rainbow-ring came apart, and they were again the playful, independent sprites they had been in the first movement—but shining, gleaming. The voices became a vast choir, hundreds of voices singing their hearts out in a language Eva had never heard before. The net effect was dysharmonic, but occasionally little resolutions came and went, as if the choir were singing a dozen songs in a dozen keys simultaneously.
The blue sky turned suddenly to gold. Groups of dancers formed, interacted and broke up with dizzying speed. A quartet would come together, agree on a movement phrase, split apart and bring the phrase to other groups, which made up new phrases to combine with them, then split apart in their turn. Choreographic ideas appeared spontaneously and spread around the stage like heat lightning or rumor. A unison formed by apparent accident among the twelve dissolved, then returned—while in the score, more and more singers reached agreement on a key and rules of harmony, until they too were working together to build something. Dance and music together established a stable base and began to climb higher.
Literally! Clouds came toward Eva, and wind into her face: she and the dancers were rising, leaving unseen Terra behind them. The illusion was utterly convincing, and quite breath-taking. The wind fell away, and they left the clouds below; the golden sky began to darken again—not the turgid dark of the storm, but the pure star-spattered blackness of space.
No, not pure. They traveled through a fine mist of some kind of dust. Red dust. It began to accumulate on the bodies of the dancers, until they were caked with it, coated by it, covered in it, each of them glowing a shade of red: ochre, umber, amber, crimson, scarlet, ruby. It was Symbiote, and they a dozen newborn Stardancers, spreading their wings now, spinning them out into lightsails, joyously learning a new way to dance together, rubbing together like blobs in a lava lamp.
Eva put all of her attention on keeping perfectly still and calm. It was difficult—but Reb had trusted her. Many decades of lucrative poker came to her aid.
Briefly the twelve boiled together at the center of the stage like swarming bees, a “quotation” of the Fireflies who had given mankind the Symbiote—then they opened out again, formed a spherical matrix…and folded gracefully together into the kûkanzen posture of those who meditate in space, each facing out from the center, away from all the others. Together they bowed, to the Universe; the music resolved at last into a major chord spanning the entire audible range; dancers and music began to fade away, like Cheshire cats, until there was only silence and infinite space and the burning stars; then they too dwindled and were gone.
Five full seconds of total silence. Then, pandemonium—
One of the many reasons art in space is performed in spherical theaters is acoustics. Applause reinforces itself, just as a person standing in a hemispherical building on Earth can hear with total clarity a whisper from someone standing precisely opposite him. Any ovation in space sounds like a Terran audience going mad; it makes up for the fact that they cannot stand to deliver it. But this ovation would have shaken the walls of the Bolshoi.
Eva let herself glance at Jay and Rand, now, as the house lights came up. They were together at the opposite end of the vip section, unbuckling their belts to join the dancers for the bow. Her eyes were not what they had once been, but she had a century of experience in intrigue: one glance at Jay’s face and she was intuitively certain he didn’t know Reb’s secret. Rand was much harder to read. Ev Martin—hearing that Rand’s wife had left him yesterday, taking his daughter back to Provincetown with her—had spoken with the house physician. The shaper was stoned to his cheeks, smiling beatifically. His eyes were wounds, and he was jaunting like a tourist, but he would pass muster for the media.
Could Rand know something? Unlikely…but then, it was a visual that had shocked her, rather than choreography. Still, perhaps it was just coincidence…
The crowd was merciless in its admiration, demanding eight curtain calls before the exhausted dancers were allowed to go backstage and peel off their soaked costumes. Eva stopped clapping much sooner; her aged hands gave out. Finally the ovation was over, and her companion, Chen Ling Ho, was murmuring, “I liked it very much…despite the ending.”
Again she had recourse to her poker experience. “Wasn’t that blackout section terrific? Where they did the tableaux in the lightning flashes? How do you suppose they got around in the dark without a train wreck?”
“‘How do I get to Carnegie Hall?’” the trillionaire replied.
“You can’t possibly be old enough to remember that joke—Carnegie Hall was torn down before you were bor
n!”
His eyes twinkled. “I like to think of myself as a student of classical humor.”
She blinked. “‘Your money or your life?’” she asked, quoting an ancient radio joke.
Chen gave the correct response: dead silence.
She rewarded him with a smile, unbuckled herself with one hand and took his arm with the other. “Let’s head for the reception—I want to congratulate the boys before the crowd beats them stupid.”
Rand and Jay were already glazing over by the time Eva elbowed her way into the receiving line with Chen, but she caught their attention—and managed to fluster them both—when she said, “Lads, somewhere Willem Ngani is smiling tonight.”
“He’d have loved that piece,” Chen agreed, and the two thanked them, both stammering. Then Eva let herself be chivvied away by assistant cronkites—this was the worst possible time and place to probe Rand’s secret thoughts.
She and Chen returned to her suite. He accepted a drink, and they moved to the window. Terra was about a quarter full. The illuminated crescent contained China; twilight in Beijing. They shared silence for a few minutes. Then he said, “You did not respond to my criticism of the ending of Kinergy. Did you like it?”
She felt like she was juggling eggs in a gravity field. “Yes, I did. It resonated for me. What didn’t you like about it?”
“The Stardancer motif.”
“Too obvious?”
He hesitated. “Yes, that.”
“Something else?”
Again he hesitated. “You know my true feelings toward the ones in red.”
“Not really,” she said. “I’m aware that you’re not a major fan—and that you don’t want that publicly known. Given your father’s history with the Starmind, I understand that. But do they really bother you so much that a reference to them spoils a work of art for you?”
“Yes.”
“For heaven’s sake, Ling, why? Personal feelings aside, you of all people must know how much the human race owes them—”
“Precisely. How then can I not resent them?”
“Oh, that’s silly!”
There might not be another person alive privileged to say that to Chen Ling Ho; from Eva he took it. “Gratitude implies obligation. The scale of the obligation is, in this case, horrifying.”
“But there’s almost nothing they want that we have—just trace elements we’ll never miss. The bill will never come due.”
He nodded, and again said, “Precisely. That makes the obligation even more intolerable. It is, on both sides, literally unforgivable.”
She frowned. “There’s more to it than that.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You’re not mankind. Your personal share of the debt…well, with your resources you could probably pay cash. At most, it’s a philosophical abstraction. To spoil a dance, something has to have its roots in your gut, not your head. What really bothers you about the Starmind?”
“Their virtue,” he said.
“Come again?”
For the first time, emotion came into his voice. “They are so damned virtuous! So relentlessly admirable. My instincts tell me to despise and fear anyone who appears above reproach. Their harmlessness disarms us. Again, literally! We allowed them to abolish war for us, allowed them to strengthen the United Nations into a true world government. Perhaps war is not, after all, a truly necessary evil—there are more efficient ways of getting rich now—but we may find one day that it was necessary in ways we do not yet grasp.”
“Jesus, Ling—you want war back? Even I’m not that nostalgic.”
“I feel in my heart that in the old days, when we were a brawling, clawing, struggling world, we were more human. Now we grow fat and soft on the riches flung down to us from on high—and because our short-term wealth has temporarily overtaken population growth, we have stopped fearing population growth. One day we will reach a point where no input of new wealth can help us…and then civilization will fall, and millions, billions, will die. Conceivably all. All humans. But not the Stardancers. They may never die.” He heard emotion creeping into his voice and caught himself. “You understand, I do not discuss these matters publicly. Stardancers are much beloved. In this age, no man can hold real wealth or power save he treat with them. Humanity is drunk, today, happily drunk, and in no mood for grim warnings. But how can the Neanderthal not hate the Cro-Magnon, Eva?”
She nodded. Time to change the subject. “Well, I can’t say I share your feelings, but at least I think I understand them now. Thanks for explaining. I’ll remember not to buy you the new Drummonds holo for your birthday.”
“Oh, no,” he said. “Please do, if you like. One may admire the exquisite gyrations of cancer cells in the microscope. The choreography of the Stardancers themselves I find very interesting; it’s only their existence that offends me.”
That made her smile. “It’s a shame your country gave up emperors, Ling. You’d have been one of the great ones.”
“One hates to be a merely good emperor,” he agreed, and finished his drink.
She followed suit. “Are you sleepy?”
“No.”
“Shall we go to bed?”
He bowed and took her hand. “All my life I have wondered why other men prize young women.”
“Perhaps,” she suggested, “they do not feel they deserve the best.”
He smiled, and came closer.
18
Washington, D.C.
28 January 2065
THE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE knew that her office was as snoop-proof as human ingenuity could make it. Nonetheless she got up from her desk and personally made sure her office door was locked. Then she told her AI to cancel all appointments for the day and hold all calls, and opened a “Most Secure” phone circuit to Brussels.
Her global counterpart, the Right Honorable Undersecretary of Revenue for the United Nations, and Assistant Chairman of the Committee on Fiscal Anomalies, answered promptly. “Hello, LaToya. This is early in the day for you to call. What is it, 8 AM in Washington?” He looked closer. “My God—are you ill?”
“I’ve been up all night, George.”
The Undersecretary sighed. “Something serious, then. All right, which hat shall I wear?”
“Both of them, I think. And hold on to both. You may have to invent a third hat: I don’t think there’s any precedent for this.”
A sigh. “Go ahead.”
“George, I’ve run the integrations through again and again. I used three methods, different machines, I even had the software triplechecked.”
“And—”
“You’ll be receiving more than you’re expecting from us this year.”
The Undersecretary lifted an eyebrow. “How much more?”
“On the order of ten percent.”
The other eyebrow rose to join the first. “You are telling me the gross national product of the United States has taken a ten percent jump. Up.”
“That is part of what I’m telling you. I talked with Jacques and Rogelio last night…and they report nearly identical bulges. Jacques puts his at nine percent; Rogelio is running behind, but says Mexico will probably run eleven and a half.”
The Undersecretary was frowning. “So someone is pumping serious money into North America. Is it real, or just pixels?”
“As far as I can learn, it’s genuine money.”
“Where is it coming from?”
“It falleth as the gentle rain from heaven. Drop by drop—all over.”
A grunt. “Stonewalled, eh? Very well—where is it going? Who’s paying taxes on it? What categories?”
“Take a tranquilizer.”
The Undersecretary frowned, then did as he was bid. At once the frown smoothed over. “Go ahead.”
“One category: self-employed income.”
“Self-employed?” That was the last sector in which he would have expected such a surge in earnings. “Any breakdowns as to sub
categories yet?”
The assistant director nodded. “Again, one. Self-employed artists.”
The Undersecretary stared. After a full ten seconds of silence, he said, “What kind of artists?”
“All kinds of artists. Live theater, dance, film, music, literature, sculpture, painting…what it comes down to is, in every genre and subgenre there is, from grand opera to street theater, roughly ten percent of the working professionals have had a very good year.”
“And all from the same source?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. I suspect it, because it all seems to be coming in the same way: anonymous donations, rather than grants or box office. One donation per artist or arts group. Substantial ones.”
“But then it’s simple!” the Undersecretary said. “Who’s declaring the increased donations on their taxes?”
“That’s the problem. Nobody. Not in North America anyway. But why the hell would someone overseas want to take such a huge flyer in North American art?”
“Confusing,” the Undersecretary agreed.
“Confusing, hell. It worries me, George. Good news on this scale is ominous. I smell a swindle of some kind.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance these benefactors are North Americans who elected for some reason not to claim…” He trailed off.
