Starmind

by Spider Robinson

  On the mantle, amid the more recent Paixaos, was a holo of Rand's parents, Agnes and Tom, taken just before their divorce. The background was Newark, New Jersey.

  There was no point to this: he already knew he wanted the job badly enough to take it; whether he should want it that badly or not seemed irrelevant. Nonetheless he flogged himself, as his penance, endlessly replaying the argument until it became a loop that annihilated time.

  I want to be great. Is that so terrible?

  Just as he felt that his brain might explode, thirty-five kilos of eight-year-old reality landed on his lap like a tonne of bricks, shouting, "Boo!" and his heart nearly exploded instead. Daylight and his daughter had crept up on him.

  "I scared you, Daddy!" she reported with glee. "I did, didn't I?"

  For an instant he was tempted to use Colly as a new club to beat himself—how can you ask a child to go pioneering?—but he shifted gears instead, grabbed her in his arms and stood up. "That you did, baby," he said, clutching her close. "That you did."

  "Did you catch it, Daddy?"

  "Huh?"

  "Whatever made you stay up all night. Did you get it?"

  "Oh. Uh . . . not yet, sweetheart. I got a look at it, but it got away."

  "Don't matter about it," she advised him. "You'll get it next time."

  Her optimism—and the boundless, unquestioning faith that underlay it—floored him. I can't be a bastard, he thought. I'd never have fooled her. He hugged her even closer, making her squeal. "That I will," he agreed. "Right now, let's you and me get us some grub."

  "I cook," she said quickly. Her faith in him had practical limits. That was why he could trust it.

  "Deal," he agreed.

  And she did cook a better breakfast than he could have—albeit somewhat more messily. Rhea came in while she was doing it, and stood in the doorway in her bathrobe watching and trying not to smile. Colly refused to let either of them help, or even coach. By the time they were all sitting down eating together, it seemed to have been decided that today was a happy day. Rhea's eyes were unguarded when they met his. The Issue was still there between them, but it was on hold for the moment.

  After the meal, it was Rhea who said, "Colly, sit back down. You can be a little late for playgroup today. Your father and I need to talk about something with you."

  "Aw, Mom—do you have to? Sarah's gonna bring her cat in today, and she swears it has thumbs!"

  "Yes, honey, it's important."

  "Four of 'em! Oh, okay, go ahead." She sat back and adjusted her nervous system to fidget mode.

  Rhea handed the ball to him. "Rand?"

  He cleared his throat. "Colly . . . have you ever thought about . . . living somewhere else?"

  "You mean I'm going to grandma's house again? How long this time?"

  "No, honey, that's not what I meant. I mean . . . all three of us moving away from here, to a new home."

  "And not coming back?"

  "That's right. Not ever."

  The notion did not seem to shock Colly. "Where?" she asked practically.

  "Well, remember that time we went to visit Uncle Jay?"

  She got excited. "Go to space, you mean? And stay there? In that cool hotel? Oh, wow!"

  "You really liked it that much?" Rhea asked, surprised.

  "Da! Si! Ja! Oui!" Colly said. "I'm not little in space!"

  Both parents were startled into laughter.

  "It's true," she insisted. "I can reach everything there, and look grown-ups in the eye, and I'm as strong as anybody and not clumsy like everybody else. Besides, it's fun! When do we go?"

  Even Rand was taken aback by support this enthusiastic. "But baby . . . you know if we stay in free-fall for long, we have to stay forever?"

  "Sure."

  "Well . . . won't you miss your friends?"

  She thought about it. "I could still call them up, right? We could holo-play. And they could come visit me realies, sometimes. And I'd make lots of new friends. I'm good at that."

  Rand squelched a grin. "Well . . . yes, you are. But won't you miss . . . this house, and P-Town . . . and everything?"

  "And the beach?" Rhea prompted. "And the ocean?"

  Colly looked around her. "I guess. But if I do, you can just make it for me, Daddy. Anyway, you can't play six-wall here. I tried."

  He didn't have to look at his wife to know that she was looking faintly stricken. Her only potential ally had defected. He wanted to put an arm around her, but was not sure whether that would make it worse.

  Colly had gone from fidget to bounce mode. "Can I go tell everybody now, Daddy? How soon are we going, Mommy? I gotta go get dressed! Oooh, Kelly's gonna be so jealous—"

  "Hold your horses, young lady. Nothing's been decided yet. Your mother and I are still discussing the idea—"

  Colly wasn't listening. Her eyes had gone wide. "Wait a minute—this means you got the job, didn't you, Daddy? You get to work with Uncle Jay now! They picked you! Oh, I knew they would! I told you they would!"

  Rhea winced.

  "We are going, we are! Can I go tell Kelly now? And Sigrid? And Bobby?"

  The choices were let her go or strap her down. "Maybe you better get dressed first," Rhea said.

  Colly looked down at her rumpled pajamas, and giggled. "Oh, okay, if you insist," she said, and ran for the stairs. She was naked before she reached the top.

  Rand and Rhea looked at each other. Each waited for the other to speak, with voice or expression.

  "We have to laugh," he said finally.

  "Oh yeah? Why?"

  "Because if we strangle each other, who's going to take Colly to playgroup?"

  And so they laughed.

  "Come on, somebody," Colly called from upstairs. "Get dressed! I'm almost ready already!"

  They laughed harder, and then got up together and sprinted up the stairs, shouting, "Yes, ma'am! Right away, Your Highness!"

  * * *

  "I still don't see why you have to live there," Rhea said thirty minutes later. They had dropped Colly off at playgroup in the West End, and now were sitting in the car at the edge of the sea at Herring Cove, half watching a group of eight or ten Trancers in sleek thermal clothing dancing on the shore, spinning and jumping in the December breeze, falling and recovering but always springing back up at once. They made Rand think, as always, of birds trying to batter their way through an invisible ceiling. Provincetown had been a magnet for Trancers since the strange fad had begun and spread around the planet with the speed of a catchphrase. P-Town had always been a Mecca for all kinds of odd behavior.

  "It's stupid," Rhea went on. "It's just stupid elitist thinking. There's no sensible reason why you can't phone it in, like any other job. They only have the best holo gear in human space."

  "That's what the Shimizu is all about," Rand said patiently. "That's what they're buying. The most conspicuous consumption there is. Nothing canned, nothing piped-in—"

  "I know, I know—the celebrity artists are all on-site for the customers to press flesh with, and half the robot-work is done by human beings, just to prove they can afford to waste money. Snob logic."

  "You can't make art for a place without going there," he said. "Holo isn't enough. I can't explain why, but it isn't. I always go to the site if there is one, at least at first. You know all this."

  "So you've been there for three months! Isn't that enough?"

  It was a fair question. He tried to find the words to answer it. All he could come up with was, "Space is different."

  "Different how?"

  "Look: you were there."

  "For three days."

  "Long enough to get a taste. Now, tell me: can you remember what it was like?"

  She started to answer, then stopped. "No," she said finally. "I can remember what I told people about it. I can remember what I wrote about it. But no, you're right. I can't remember what it was like. Not really. I have a lingering feeling about it—"

  "If you had to write a poem about it, right
now, could you? Or a story set there?"

  Her shoulders slumped. "I'd have to go back. For longer than a few days. And either write it there, or right after I got back down."

  "That's why Ngani bullied the Board into putting in writing a provision that his successors would have to live in-house. And that's why Jay bullied them into honoring the agreement when Ngani died."

  This was all old ground. They had had this conversation over a year ago, when he had first become a candidate for the position. He saw her momentarily as a trapped animal, doubling back on its tracks in search of a way out overlooked earlier, and felt a pang of guilt.

  She gestured at the ocean and half a world of clouds, at the crazy Trancers moving in harmony—then turned and gestured in the other direction, at P-Town. "And all of this, we're supposed to give up, forever, so that Willem Ngani's artistic vision isn't violated?"

  The question was so unfair that he returned fire with some irritation. "Only if we want me to have the job."

  She left the car and walked a short way along the beach, past the gyrating dancers. By the time she returned, he had cooled down and she looked chilly despite her thermally smart clothing. The Trancers too had finally run out of manic energy, and were dispersing, looking blissed-out.

  "How about this?" Rand said, as the car heater switched on to normalize the temperature in the vehicle. "We give it a couple of months. I'll complete Pribhara's season. Then if you absolutely hate it, I'll quit."

  "You couldn't break your contract!"

  "Hell, Pribhara did. I'll reserve the right. If they want me bad enough, they'll negotiate. It's perfectly reasonable—considering they're wrecking my whole schedule on no notice at all. By rights they ought to be paying me a whopping bonus. If they don't like it, let `em give Mazursky and Choy socks full of dung, and let them fight it out."

  She thought about it. "Huh. Two more months wouldn't be long enough to change you into a spacer. And it's long enough for me to form an opinion . . ."

  "I promise if you want to come back, there won't be an argument."

  The device didn't fool either of them; he could see that in her eyes. But it brought the situation a little closer to tolerable. It would buy some time.

  "How soon would we have to leave?"

  "I'll call Jay."

  3

  Yawara

  Queensland, Australia

  2 December 2064

  At about that moment, not too far from the opposite point on the planet's surface, an old—no, ancient—woman switched off her ancient compact disc player, brushed the headphones out of her hair with a palsied hand, and decided it was time for sleep. Or at least for bed. Slowly and carefully she got up from her rocking chair, then used it to steady herself while she removed the denim shorts which were her only clothing. She walked with halting steps through the darkness to her bed, but when she reached it, she dropped easily and comfortably into a squat beside it. Reaching beneath it, she drew out her chamber pot and removed the lid. When she maneuvered it beneath her, its weight and a small sloshing sound reminded her that she had forgotten to empty it that morning. As she was about to put it to its accustomed use, she suddenly stopped, clamping her sphincter and flaring her nostrils. Her head turned from side to side, twice. Then she looked down between her legs, bent her head lower and sniffed. She took the chamber pot from beneath her and brought it to her nose and sniffed again.

  She knew, then, but nonetheless she reached up and got matches from the bed table. In the sudden flaring light, her eyes confirmed what her nose had told her. Her chamber pot contained wine.

  It delighted her. It had been a long time since anything had surprised her. This was a good one. She thought about it, savoring the puzzle. No one had approached her home closer than a hundred yards all day. She had not left it for a moment. She had not emptied the utensil after using it that morning, she was sure of that. She might be old—no, ancient—but her memory was still sharp as the long edge of a war boomerang. There was no logical explanation . . . so she went inside herself, to her special place.

  And at once, contradictory things happened on her face. Her eyes brightened, and bitter tears spurted from them, and years—no, decades—melted from her visage, and her mouth smiled while her brows knotted in a fierce frown. She glanced across the room at her CD player, and ran a hand across her head to confirm that she had taken its headphones off. "Badunjari . . .?" she whispered, and cocked her head as if listening.

  Whatever she heard caused her to smile even wider and weep even harder—but the frown relaxed. She sat back on her heels and began to rock slowly from side to side. After a time, she lifted the chamber pot to her lips and drank from it. The wine was excellent, delicious and immediately powerful. She took a deeper draught.

  "Really?" she said in Yirlandji. "What is?"

  If there was an answer, no microphone could have recorded it.

  Her tears ceased; the smile remained, and became the mischievous grin of a little girl. "Okay," she agreed, and drank again. "I will wait and see."

  She had not been this happy in forty-four years. Magic, real Dreamtime magic, was loose in the world again. . . .

  PART TWO

  4

  The Shimizu Hotel, High Orbit

  2 December 2064

  Jay Sasaki was in the studio when his AI spoke up. "Phone, Jay: your brother, Rand, flatscreen only." It waited patiently while he finished a movement phrase for the camera and toweled off sweat.

  "Thanks, Diaghilev," he said then. "Monochrome head-shot, minimum audio, accept." It was the cheapest possible earth-to-orbit call, small black-and-white image and rotten sound, probably relayed on a satellite circuit so old its expiry date began with "19." Rand would have been offended if Jay had tried to reverse the charges—and it was not yet settled whether his kid half-brother could afford to make fullscreen color calls to High Earth Orbit on his own dollar. Jay spoke before the AI finished producing an image, to let Rand know the circuit was completed. "Well, how did she take it?"

  "She's right here," Rand said. "Ask her yourself." He swiveled the carphone so that Rhea came into frame. She was smiling wryly.

  " `Oops,' he said gracefully," Jay said. "Hi, Rhea. Well, how did you take it?"

  "Rectally," she said sourly.

  The joke cued him—first, that Rand would indeed be coming back up to work in the Barn . . . and second, that it would not be a good idea to sound too delighted just yet. Was Rhea coming up with him right away? Was Colly? "You'll really like it up here, I promise you," he said experimentally.

  "I'd better."

  Good. Rand would arrive still married. "And Colly will love it. Space was made for kids."

  "It must be," she said. "You like it." But she was smiling.

  He relaxed, trying not to let the extent of his relief show. The worst that could happen now was that his half-brother's wife would make Rand's life miserable to the end of his days. But he'll be able to work with me again! It would take a lot of the sting out of Ethan not being around anymore. . . .

  "We're going to give it a trial period," Rand said. He swiveled the phone again so that he was back in frame. "Two months, so Rhea and Colly can check it out before they commit themselves."

  Jay managed to hold his poker face. Fortunately, in zero gravity one's face does not pale as blood pressure drops. If Rhea left in two months, Rand would go with her. With the example of Jay's own disaster with Ethan before him, Rand would not risk losing her in a long-distance marriage. Kate was going to have a blowout when she heard this. "That'll be hard to sell to the Board. They want this settled. Face, you know."

  "I've got face too," Rand said. "I require notice before uprooting my family. If the Board doesn't like it, they can start running want ads in the trades."

  Briefly, Jay fantasized telling his brother the whole truth. The primary reason the Board had abandoned the audition process and chosen Rand as their shaper was that Jay—feeling reckless in the aftermath of his breakup with Ethan—had
privately sent word through the hotel manager that he would quit if they did otherwise. He had just enough clout to pull that off . . . and no margin at all: if the hotel came out of this looking bad, he was out of a job. He was the most famous living human choreographer of free-fall dance—but if he left the Shimizu, where could he go? There were only two other dance companies in space, and neither was hiring. Jay had been a spacer, permanently adapted to zero gravity, for over a decade now: if he could not work in space, he could not work—even if he could have learned to think and choreograph in up-and-down terms all over again.

  No—he couldn't tell Rand any of this. If he did, Rand would think—would suspect in his heart forever, no matter what Jay said—that Jay had put his job on the line purely and simply because they shared a mother. Rand would never believe the truth: that he was truly the only one of the four candidates who was any damn good, the only one Jay could stand the idea of being locked into working with for the next umpty years. The hole in his self-confidence would founder him. And the realization that Jay's job was on the line would make his problem with his wife even worse.

  Well, it was up to Jay to see that Rhea didn't opt out. His other choice was to slit his throat. "You're absolutely right. I'll make them see it that way. Shall I call you back with their answer?"

  Rand shook his head. "We both know they're going to say yes. I can afford to call you now. Full-band color."

  Jay let the grin escape at last. His brother was right. Kate would hate this—but she was committed. As committed as he was. "Damn right. Call me back at . . . what the hell time is it down there?"

  "About ten in the morning." The Shimizu was on Greenwich Time; it was nearly 3 PM for Jay.