by Spider
While the dough was rising, she went upstairs and outside onto the roof, to watch the sun rise from the widow’s walk. It was one of the few authentic widow’s walks left in Provincetown; five generations of Paixao women had paced these very boards, scanning the horizon for signs of their returning husbands. Every time they had been successful too, eventually; none of the Paixao men had been lost at sea—which probably made this the luckiest widow’s walk anywhere. Rhea was conscious that she was breaking the string of good luck, and it brought a pang—but as the colors began to take form on the horizon, she decided it was one she could endure.
Most of the boats had gone out long since, but one unfortunate captain with a cranky engine was just putting out from MacMillan Wharf, warping around the breakwater. A delivery truck was clattering down Commercial Street, and gulls were harassing the garbage collectors. From her high eyrie, Rhea could see the silhouette of a lone figure walking along the shore, beachcombing.
That trance-dance had been her first extended break from pain in many weeks. No, not from pain, but from the suffering of it. At no time had she lost a preconscious awareness of her emotionally damaged condition…but she had relaxed to it, ceased to fear it. She believed now that she was healing—even if she had no idea how long the process would take. And she knew she would be returning to the ocean shore to join more trance-dances. Perhaps Colly might enjoy it too; Rhea had seen children at daytime trance-dances, and it was something they could share…
Just as there was enough light for her to make out Tia Marguerite and Tia Marion’s house, a few blocks distant, she saw a light go on in the room where Colly would have slept. She went back downstairs and punched down the malassada dough. She cut it into pieces, stretched them a little, and set them aside. Then she called Colly, making sure to tell Maxwell not to wake Colly’s guardians if she failed to answer.
But she did answer, at once. “Hi, Mom!”
“Hi, honey. Are you having a good time?”
“Sure!”
The enthusiasm was plainly counterfeit; Rhea was recovered enough to hear that now. Colly loved her great aunts—but knew perfectly well that she only slept under their roof when she was being left out of something. “Well, I don’t want to spoil any big plans or anything…but if you’re not here in ten minutes, the flippers won’t be hot when you eat them.”
“Flippers? Homemade? Wow! Quick: open the door so I don’t break it.” She hung up—and was in the kitchen before the oil was hot. They made the malassadas together, giggling, and gorged themselves until they creaked.
And then they had a long, long talk.
20
Top Step
25 February 2064
RAND HUNG SUSPENDED LIKE A FLY IN BLACK AMBER at the precise center of the universe, tethered to a mountain. The only sounds were the oceanic ebb and flow of his own breath, and the persistent slow drumming of his pulse. All of creation was arrayed around him. He felt an impulse to put himself into a spin, so that he could see all of it, but knew that he would foul his umbilical if he did. Probably just as well; even half of infinity was a lot to take in at once.
He found himself thinking of a poem Salieri had retrieved for him last night. He had asked for “something with Fireflies in it,” and the AI’s search engine had yielded up a hauta, a species of Japanese folk song more elaborate than the more common dodoitsu:
Kaäi, kaäi to
Naku mushi yori mo
Nakanu hotaru ga
Mi wo kogasu.
Nanno ingwa dé
Jitsu naki hito ni
Shin wo akashité—
Aa kuyashi!
(Numberless insects there are that call from dawn to evening,
Crying, “I love! I love!”—but the Firefly’s silent passion,
Making its body burn, is deeper than all their longing.
Even such is my love…yet I cannot think through what Karma
I opened my heart—alas!—to a being not sincere.)
The truly remarkable thing was that the hauta had been transcribed and translated into English by Lafcadio Hearn in 1927—seventy years before “Firefly” meant anything but a species of insect. Yet it seemed to fit Rand’s situation with eerie accuracy.
The Fireflies had created humanity, seeding Terra with life millions of years ago and moving on. The Fireflies were of space. They had returned here the instant man began making art in space. Surely, then, space was where a human artist should go—even if love called him back to Earth.
Space didn’t solve your problems…but it sure put them into a larger perspective.
“All right, people,” Thecla said in his earphones. “Time’s up. Precess.”
Rand turned with the rest of the class, until they all faced the mountain they had come from: Top Step, the place where humans came to become Stardancers. He was a little self-conscious; he knew he did not really belong here, with these Novices. They were second-month students, only another month away from renouncing their former lives forever and accepting Symbiosis. Being among them made him feel a little like a tourist on Death Row, or an infidel smuggled into Mecca. But Reb Hawkins himself had suggested that he join this class.
Rand already had his “space legs,” could handle himself in free-fall—but all his experience was indoors, inside pressurized cubics. Everyone said that to really feel space, it was necessary to spend a lot of hours EVA. The Shimizu was equipped to take guests EVA if they wished—but strictly as tourists, carefully shepherded and pampered, in permanently tethered suits with no thrusters at all and so much radiation shielding that mobility was severely limited, for a maximum of half an hour. Groundhogs were just too good at getting themselves killed outdoors. Spacers all laughed at anyone whose only EVA hours were in Hotel Suits—but more advanced training was not offered in-house.
When he’d met Reb Hawkins, he’d found himself telling Reb his problem, and the monk had invited him to visit Top Step and join a Suit Class. “But won’t your students resent an outsider?” he’d asked.
“There’ll be no reason for them to know you are one,” Reb said. “Top Step is a big place now, and we have a strong custom of privacy going back half a century. If you show up in a class one day, people will just assume you’ve transferred in for some reason, and leave you alone. Most of them will be in the middle of life-reviews of their own.”
Rand had thanked him—but still felt uneasy about the idea, and put it out of his mind.
Until his marriage had self-destructed.
When both Jay and Eva had suggested, within hours of each other, that he take Reb up on his invitation to visit Top Step, Rand had shrugged and acquiesced. He and Rhea had agreed that there was nothing a counselor could do to help them—but now that the plug had been pulled, he found that he needed to talk to someone. A legendary holy man who made his home in space didn’t sound like a bad choice. Rand had liked Reb at once when they’d met, and Jay and Eva vouched for him, “punched his ticket,” as Eva called it.
And now, as he rotated in space and faced Top Step—an immense stone cigar, glowing softly at the tip—he had to admit that coming here had been a good idea. Talking with Reb had helped: Reb’s end of the conversation had consisted entirely of questions, just the right questions. Taking class had helped: it was hard to sustain self-pity out in naked space. And being around Postulants and Novices and Symbiotics had helped too: all these people were in the process of saying goodbye to their lives, and their company helped reconcile Rand to living his own.
“All right,” Thecla said, “we’re going to try something new, today: you’re all going back in on your own power.”
There was a buzz of excitement, but it cut off quickly. Nobody wanted to louse this up.
“One at a time,” she added. “I don’t want you unsnapping until the person before you has made it all the way inboard. Abadhi, you’re first.”
One of the two dozen-odd p-suited figures in Rand’s field of vision tapped his umbilical join. The tether separated,
and Top Step began reeling it in. He oriented himself, starfished, and waited.
“Go ahead.”
There was no visible exhaust from Abadhi’s thrusters, but slowly he began to move toward Top Step. Very slowly. The trick in EVA maneuvering was to go about half as fast as you thought you should—then you only arrived about twice as hard and fast as you wanted.
At such speeds, covering ten thousand meters takes some time. Porter came far down the alphabet. Rand had plenty of time to study his classmates as he waited for his turn.
He had lost a marriage: these people were surrendering everything. They were more committed to space than he would ever be, and they were giving up more to be there.
And in return they would gain so much that part of him envied them. Centuries of life, life free of fear or hunger or loneliness, in the bosom of the largest and closest family that had ever been, working and playing among the stars. Those of them who were artists could spend the next century or two pursuing their art, twenty-four hours a day if they chose, with no need to seek commercial or popular or critical success. Or to look for love.
Maybe someday, he thought. Maybe in another ten or twenty years, I’ll come back here for real.
The thought came back, why not now?
He was not done yet, that was all. Married or not, he was still a parent, and would be for at least another decade. He had not used up his visions yet; he still had shapings to create which would not have worked in a Stardancer context. He had still not outgrown his need for applause, his need to achieve. He had fought for his present position so long and so hard that he could not abandon the cup until he had drained it dry. It had, after all, cost him a good wife.
“Porter—get ready!”
He snapped out of his reverie and ran through the procedure in his mind. This sequence of commands tells the tether to go home; that combination of taps on the palm keypads will deliver matched bursts from all five thrusters; move my chin like this for the heads-up targeting display…“Ready, Thecla.”
His tether wiggled away toward Top Step. He centered the target ring in his display, stiffened his limbs, and triggered the thrusters. Aside from a mild pressure at wrists and ankles, nothing seemed to happen. The thruster at the base of his spine produced no sensation at all. Could it be broken? No, his display claimed he was jaunting, just as planned. He glanced around, and saw that the others were indeed receding, just quickly enough to perceive. He waited—and after a while, Top Step suddenly began to visibly approach. He checked his position carefully, decided he needed a course correction, and made it.
His aim was good: if the vast open window of the Solarium had had a bull’s-eye, he would have hit it on his way through. His deceleration was equally perfect: he ended up motionless within arm’s reach of the handgrip he had been aiming for. He saw admiring glances from other returnees, and preened. “Very nice,” Thecla said. “Okay, Pribram: get ready!”
His AI, Salieri, whispered in his ear. “Phone, Rand. Reb Hawkins.”
He cut off his suit radio and took the call. “Hi, Reb.”
“Hello, Rand. Are you enjoying EVA?”
“A lot!” he said. “Thanks for letting me sit in. It’s different outside…”
“It certainly is. Listen, I just wanted to tell you I’m not going to be around for the next couple of days. I have to shuttle over to the Shimizu.”
“Really? What’s up?”
“A party, of sorts. You’re invited if you want, actually—if you don’t mind taking a couple of days off from EVA classes, you could hop over and back with me. It should be a memorable event.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“You know Fat Humphrey?”
“Who doesn’t?” The round restaurateur had been famous ever since the release of Armstead’s Starseed Transmission at the turn of the century; it was said that his Le Puis rivalled the Hall of Lucullus as a gourmet’s and gourmand’s paradise. Armstead claimed you never had to tell Humphrey what you wanted to eat, how you wanted it done, or how much you felt like eating. Over the past week, Rand had found that to be literal truth.
“Well, he just turned one hundred…and he’s retiring to the Shimizu to enjoy his golden years.”
“Wow. That’s going to disappoint a lot of folks.”
“Yes, it will. He’s been swearing for decades that he was going to retire the day his odometer showed three figures, and it seems he meant it. Last night after dinner he took off his tux and spaced the thing. The chefs are all people he trained, of course—but it just won’t be the same without him sizing up the customers and serving the orders. Fat sweetens the air where he is. Anyway, he won’t let us have a farewell party for him here, prefers to just leave like a cat—so Meiya and I are bringing him over to the Shimizu tonight in a special shuttle. There’s room for you if you want to come along.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “I’d like a chance to get to know Fat half as well as he knows me. Every time he pulls that magic act of his, I can’t help wondering what he likes to eat.”
Reb’s answer was a moment in coming. “Do you know…in almost fifty years, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Fat eat?”
“He must do it some time,” Rand said dryly. Fat Humphrey massed well over a hundred and forty kilos; in repose he resembled a Jell-O model of the Shimizu.
“True enough. Well, maybe we’ll get to see him in action when we get him to the hotel.”
“I’ll take him to Lucullus’s tomorrow,” Rand said. “It would be an honor to buy Fat Humphrey a meal. And you and Meiya.”
“Done,” Reb said. “Meet us at the dock at 17:00.” He broke the connection. Reb never seemed to be in a hurry—but he never wasted time or words either.
The last of the students had returned inboard; Rand turned his radio back on in time to hear Thecla dismiss the class. He left the Solarium and with Salieri’s help found his way through the maze of tunnels that honeycombed Top Step to the room he’d been assigned. There he took off his airtanks and thrusters and set both to recharging, and packed a small overnight bag. He was not yet ready to return to the Shimizu full time, but a day or two couldn’t hurt. It might be instructive to test the strength of the scab Top Step had begun to form over the deep wound in his heart.
And he could check in with Jay, see how the new piece was going. He hadn’t produced a note of music yet, hadn’t even viewed the working tapes Jay sent every day…but Jay would understand. Rand had left him a perfectly good shaping to use—the New Mexico desert setting he’d already had in the can—and Jay knew his brother was perfectly capable of showing up a week or two before curtain and producing an acceptable score for whatever choreography he came up with. This retreat had been Jay’s idea as much as anybody’s.
A thought struck him as he packed. “Salieri—can you determine relative locations for Colly and Rhea?”
“Maxwell indicates they are approximately fifty meters apart, Rand.”
“Good. Get me Colly on a hush-circuit.”
“Hi, Daddy! What’s up?” Colly’s cheerful voice asked a few seconds later.
“Hi, princess. I just wanted to let you know I’m going back to the Shimizu for a couple of days. I know we were scheduled for a long chat tonight, but it looks like I’m going to be too busy. Can we reschedule for Thursday?”
“Sure. I guess…”
“Problem?”
The answer was a while in coming. “Dad?”
“Yes?”
“I…uh…Mom and I had a talk this morning.”
“Oh.” The first sensation he was conscious of was of a large weight leaving his shoulders. He had not relished the prospect of explaining things to Colly—but it hadn’t looked as if Rhea was ever going to get off the dime. He was enormously relieved to learn that she had.
Then he realized that only half the weight was gone. “Are you…okay with that?”
Again the answer was agonizingly slow in arriving. “Can I ask you something? I asked Mom, but she said she didn
’t know, and I should ask you.”
He took a deep breath, and held it. “Go ahead, honey.”
“What’s the most time I can spend up there with you?”
He exhaled noisily. There was a sound in his ears like bad reception on a suit radio, a sort of vast echoing hum. “Without adapting, you mean.”
“No, I found that out from the White Rabbit,” she said. “I mean, without being a pain in the butt.”
His heart turned over in his chest. “The max, baby. The max. And if that isn’t enough to suit us both, I’ll come down there and see you sometimes. Until I adapt, anyway.”
“That’s good,” she said firmly. “Uh…can I ask you one more thing?”
“Sure.”
“Are you still mad at Duncan, Daddy?”
The question was like a surprise punch in the stomach. He took it, and shook his head, and answered honestly. “No, Colly. I’m not mad at Duncan.”
“I’m glad. Tell him I said hi. Bye, Daddy—I love you!”
“What an extraordinary coincidence: I love you.”
“What are the odds of that, huh?” She hung up smiling.
Rand finished packing. Then, with time to kill before he was due at the dock, he played some of Jay’s tapes, and tinkered with ideas for musical accompaniment. Hell, maybe he should stay at the Shimizu when he got there, and get back to work. Maybe it was time to resume his life. He could play around with EVA another time, when there wasn’t so much to do. He thought of calling Jay, to tell him he was coming. But the timing was bad: Jay would be in the studio now. He decided to call when he got in.
The trip to the Shimizu was thoroughly enjoyable, despite the spartan furnishings aboard the small shuttle. Fat Humphrey in a p-suit was an unforgettable sight, for one thing. And as a traveling companion, he was the original barrel of monkeys; while they were all unstrapped between acceleration and deceleration he even managed to produce a recognizable parody of Kinergy that reduced Rand and everyone else aboard to tears of laughter.
