Starmind

by Spider Robinson

  —it was at that point that her back spasmed and she screamed.

  Any telepathic scream is strident and shocking enough; when it comes from one who has been in deep meditation for a year, every Stardancer in the Solar System flinches. And comes running to see what is wrong and what must be done about it. At once, the Starmind enfolded her like a womb, probing gently to learn the nature of her hurt.

  But even she did not know.

  The only clue was the word she had screamed: the name of her first co-parent. I just touched him, she told the others, and suddenly I knew something was wrong. Everything is wrong.

  He was in the hookup, of course, and as baffled as she was. He reported that as far as he knew, nothing specific was wrong. He was in a region of great potential danger, but he had been there for half a century now. He was presently engaged in a delicate and complex task, with elements of almost inconceivable danger in it, but as far as he could tell it was shaping correctly.

  Since there was absolutely no explanation for her terror, she could not shake it off. Unreasonable fears are the hardest to conquer. She wanted to scan and analyze every second of his memories of the last several weeks at least, looking for clues to the danger, but since he was not a full-fledged Stardancer she could not probe as deeply as she wanted. Their son Lashi joined her, and they probed together.

  The results were still ambiguous.

  So Lashi turned his attention to his mother. When did you first become aware that something was wrong?

  When I screamed.

  But how long before that could something have gone wrong? When was the last time you had monitored Father?

  She thought about it. Yesterday, I think. And everything was fine then.

  And we know what has changed in the last twenty-four hours. So we know where the danger lies.

  Lashi's father said, But why are they any more dangerous to me today than they were yesterday?

  I don't care, she wanted to say. Can't you get out of there? But she could not ask that, because she already knew the answer.

  I don't know, she said instead. But dammit, you be careful!

  You know I will, Rain, he replied.

  PART F0UR

  10

  The Shimizu Hotel

  7 January 2064

  By the time Jay and his brother had finished a room-service dinner and separated for the night, it was 21:45. Jay tried to call Eva, but her phone was not even accepting messages. He and Rand had accomplished so much work that he decided to celebrate. He jaunted to Jake's, in the Deluxe Tier, one of the livelier of the Shimizu's twenty-one taverns—and one of only three in which off-duty employees were welcome. There he found some friends, and settled down to matching orbits with them.

  He liked Jake's; he had become a semiregular there since Ethan left him for an earthworm. The management frowned on spilled blood or broken bones, but was tolerant of merriment short of that point. It was a great place to hear extravagant lies. One red-faced old man, for instance, a wildcat asteroid miner named Wang Bin who had come to the Shimizu to drink up a lucky strike, insisted on telling the whole room about a "white Stardancer" he claimed to have seen on his last trip out. "Damn near ran into him, no beacon or anything, spotted him by eyeball. Just like any other Stardancer, but white as a slug. Didn't even have the manners to acknowledge my hail." And a groundhog dancer from Terra who had joined Jay's table told them all a whopper about a broken ankle that had healed itself just in time for a curtain.

  The dancer was attractive, close enough to his age and well built—but as Jay thought about making an approach, he realized he still wasn't ready. The memory of Ethan was still too clear. A few abortive experiments had reconfirmed for him that casual sex is best with oneself—certainly simpler.

  A sense of duty made Jay leave sooner than he wanted to. As soon as he got back to his room, he tried Eva again. Considering the late hour, he did not expect to reach her; he hoped to leave a message requesting an appointment for a chat tomorrow. But the face that appeared onscreen was not Jeeves. Instead he saw a bald and beardless man who had done nothing to disguise the fact that he was well over ninety years old, dressed in black loose-fitting tunic and trousers.

  "Hi, Reb," Jay said after a moment of surprise. "I heard you were coming over. How are things in Top Step?"

  Reb Hawkins bent forward in the Buddhist gassho bow, then smiled warmly. "Hello, Jay. It's good to see you again. Things are well in Top Step, I'm happy to say. How is it with you these days?"

  It had been a long day; Jay was too tired for tact. "To be honest, Reb, I'm consumed with curiosity. Is Eva still up?"

  "She's gone to bed, but she told me to expect your call. Why don't you come over for a cup? We haven't talked in a while. Or are you too tired? I know you've been working hard on the new piece."

  Jay was torn. His brain hurt. But he did want to know why his old friend had decided not to die after all, and it was not the sort of question that could be dealt with over the phone. "I'm on my way."

  Hawkins-roshi was something of a legend in space. He was a Zen Buddhist monk, and the oldest continuous resident of Top Step, the Earth-orbiting asteroid where human beings came to enter Symbiosis. For over forty years, until his retirement, he had helped hundreds of thousands of postulants make that profound transition, from Homo sapiens to Homo caelestis, with minimal psychological and spiritual trauma. A cronkite had once referred to him as the Modest Midwife to the Starmind. During those four decades, he had also made regular visits to most of the other human habitations in High Earth Orbit, including the Shimizu, dispensing spiritual sustenance and friendship to Buddhists and nonBuddhists alike. He and Eva were old and close friends, had known each other since they'd been groundhogs. Jay had met Reb through her.

  Almost the moment Eva's door had dilated behind Jay, he was glad he had come. He had forgotten how soothing Reb's presence could be. It was not merely his obvious years; Jay was pretty sure Reb had had the same effect on people when he was a teenager. He simply had an almost tangible aura around him, projected a zone of serenity, of clarity, of acceptance. There is a quality dancers call "presence," and Jay was very good at achieving it onstage. Therefore he knew how amazing it was for Reb to have it all the time, every day. Presumably Hawkins-roshi had an automatic pilot, like everybody else . . . but he never seemed to use it. He would surely have long since been abbot of his own monastery somewhere down on Earth by now, if he had not found a career more important to him in space; helping human beings become something more.

  "How long are you here for?" Jay asked him. "Can that big rock get along without you?"

  Reb smiled. "Top Step can get along just fine without me. I'm retired, remember? It's Meiya's headache these days. I'll be here for a week, or until Eva throws me out, whichever comes first. I can use the vacation."

  "I'm glad. I'd like to have a long talk with you sometime."

  Reb nodded. "But not tonight. You're exhausted. You don't want any tea, do you? I'll make this as quick as I can. You want to know why Eva has changed her mind."

  Jay nodded gratefully. "She told you she'd confided in me, then."

  Reb nodded. "We talked for a long time. About suffering, and what it is for. About friendship, and what that is for. About what she has done since she came here to space, and what she might do yet. About samsara. In the end I was able to persuade her that to end one's life when one is not in mortal pain or fear is a kind of arrogance."

  Jay stared. He had said much the same thing to Eva, in one form or another, at least a dozen times in the last month. "But Eva is arrogant," he blurted out.

  Reb said nothing.

  It came to Jay that perhaps Reb was just better than he was at teaching people about arrogance. Come to think of it, he was doing it now. . . .

  "Well," Jay said lamely, "that's great, then. I'm glad you managed to get through to her. But I still don't see how you—"

  "How do you feel about Eva's new decision?" Reb interrupted quietly. "If you d
on't mind my asking."

  One of the problems with talking with holy men was their uncanny habit of putting a finger—gently, nonthreateningly—right on your sore spots. Another was the difficulty of successfully bullshitting them. "Ambivalent," he admitted.

  Reb nodded. "I can see why. What a mix of emotions you must have felt, when she asked you to dance at her dying."

  Jay nodded vigorous agreement. "Oh God, yes! Sad, of course, but also proud to have been asked, and annoyed at the extra workload, and creatively stimulated, and . . . and Reb, I'm almost as confused right now. I'm glad we're not going to lose her. But I've just gone through a month of trauma and grief reconciling myself to the idea that we were . . . and I've wasted hours of work on a piece that now may never get performed, at a time when I was already up to my ass in alligators . . . and—"

  "And?"

  "—and if you want to know the truth, a part of me resents the hell out of you, for accomplishing in one conversation what I've failed to do in a month of trying. I mean, I know this is your line of work—but she and I have been friends a long time. Part of me wants to kick you—and then go wake her up and punch her in the nose."

  Reb grinned. "You're welcome to kick me. But if you feel you must wake Eva, make sure your insurance is paid up first. Whatever Eva's brain may be thinking at any given moment, her body's survival instincts are strong . . . and I happen to know she fights dirty."

  "Yeah, I know." Jay had once seen a foolish person behave rudely to Eva. He lived.

  "Think of it this way. A man tries to split a tough piece of wood with an ax. He strikes again and again, day after day, with no result. Then another man comes along and takes a tentative swing. The wood splits with a loud crack. Did the first man play no part?"

  "Well . . . sure, he did. But he's going to feel frustrated as hell."

  "So you didn't just want Eva not to die; you wanted the credit for changing her mind. Be content with partial credit, all right?"

  Jay laughed ruefully. "You're right. I'm being silly."

  "Also known as the human condition. You're tired and high. Go to bed, and in the morning you'll be a much more admirable human being. I'll be impressed, I promise."

  Jay laughed out loud. Reb could always jolly him out of a sulk. "You're right. Uh . . . look, tomorrow's going to be hectic. Could you ask Eva if she can set aside time for a visit with me the day after tomorrow?"

  "I'll tell Jeeves."

  "Thanks. And could you and I have a talk the day after that?"

  "Whenever you like. I'm going to be busy myself tomorrow, but the rest of the week is pretty much open. Diaghilev and Rild can work out a time."

  "Good. I'll see you then."

  "And I'll see you tomorrow night at the performance," Reb said.

  "Oh, right. I should have known you'd be on the comp list."

  They exchanged bows, and Jay left. On the way home his thoughts were so scattered that he let Diaghilev navigate for him. Eva's sudden flip-flop just seemed so weird, so . . . arbitrary. Rhea would have said that it didn't ring true artistically. Eva spends sixteen years making up her mind, withstands a month of argument from me . . . and then Reb shows up and tells her suicide isn't nice, and she folds? There had to be more to it than that. What else had Reb said to her? All Jay could think of to do was to ask her at his first opportunity.

  As he jaunted along, he remembered some of Reb's closing words. "Diaghilev and Rild can work out a time." Jay was struck by that now. Reb met thousands of people a year, juggled trillions of details . . . and had remembered the name of Jay's AI without checking. He himself had forgotten that Reb called his own AI "Rild"—and had never gotten around to following up his original mental note to find out what that name signified. Whereas he was willing to bet that Reb knew not only who Sergei Diaghilev had been, but exactly what he symbolized for Jay. Perhaps here was a clue as to why Reb had succeeded with Eva where he had failed. Reb retained every detail of what people told him, and followed them up, thought them through. "Sergei," he said suddenly, "who did Reb Hawkins name his AI for?"

  "I don't know, Jay. Shall I find out?"

  "Please."

  "Waiting . . . The only match I find on file is a character in a twentieth-century novel called LORD OF LIGHT, by Roger Zelazny. Rild was student of the Buddha, a former assassin who came to surpass his master in enlightenment."

  The answer was interesting—but what caught Jay's attention was its first word. It had taken Diaghilev a startlingly long time—nearly two whole seconds—to tap into the vast memory cores of the Net. It was late at night; most guests and staff were asleep. Someone must be using a hell of a lot of bandwidth and processing power for something.

  Of course. The Fat Five were inboard. When Leviathan swims under your boat, the sea swells.

  He was essentially asleep before he reached his suite; Diaghilev guided him inside, sealed the door, undressed him, administered hangover preventative, and strapped him into his sleepsack so that he would not wake with the classic free-fall stiff neck. His dreams were full of Stardancers . . . millions upon countless millions of them, swarming around Terra like moths around a fire, staining the ionosphere red with their numbers.

  * * *

  The next day began with an omen, to which he paid insufficient attention.

  "Huh? Whazzit?"

  "I'm sorry, Jay," Diaghilev said, "but Evelyn Martin insists on speaking to you at once."

  Jay suggested some other things Martin could do instead; Diaghilev pointed out that they were physically impossible. "Not for him they aren't. All right, all right: audio only, accept. What the fuck do you want?"

  "You're not archiving tonight, right?" Martin's nasal voice demanded.

  "Oh, for Christ's sake." From time to time, especially if he had made any alterations in the choreography, Jay would have a concert recorded for archival purposes—and some of the camera angles would include the faces of the audience. Martin was afraid he might do so tonight, with the Fat Five in the house. As a matter of fact, he had been planning to. "Of course not. Anyway, what's the difference? By the time the tapes are edited, the uips will be long gone, and the fact that they've been here won't be secret anymore."

  "Doesn't matter," Martin said. "Just promise me the cameras stay off tonight. If you want to swear it on your mother's grave, I won't mind."

  "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

  "I don't give a shit. I've been up all night, swimming in a river of shit upside down, and the tide's still coming in: they come aboard in a couple of hours. I feel like that little Dutch kid that used to go around sticking his finger in lesbians; if it ain't one thing it's six others. On top of everything else I had a guest croak on me a couple of hours ago, like I got nothing else to do—"

  "A guest died?" That was unusual. The Shimizu had diagnostics and emergency medical facilities as good as anything on Terra; it would take something like an exploding bullet to the brain to defeat them. The saying was, You couldn't die here if you tried. "How did he manage that?"

  "Genius. Apparently he built the comm gear in his p-suit himself. So he's outside taking a stroll, and he goes to put in a call to his heap, up at the dock. Only his homemade antenna slips out of alignment when his homemade power supply blows up, so he microwaves his frontal lobe instead. So now I got to grease all the news weasels to forget to file the story, and rummage through the antheap down there to find his dirtbag relatives and grease them—"

  Jay did not want to hear about french-fried brains and PR men's problems before coffee. "Who was he?" he interrupted. "Anybody I'd know?"

  "Nah—just checked in yesterday. Some old rock rat who struck it rich, and decided to spend his fortune and the last minutes of his life making mine miserable. Why the hell couldn't the inconsiderate bastard have poached his brains out there in the Belt somewhere, where it wouldn't have been my problem?"

  Alcoholic memory stirred. "Wait a minute. Chinese guy? Wang something?"

  "How the hell did you know
?" Martin sounded suspicious.

  "I ran into him at Jake's last night. He was telling us all some yarn about a white Stardancer."

  "Jesus Christ—keep that quiet, will you? It's gonna be hard enough sitting on this, and those bastards love anything with a Stardancer hook, gives 'em great visuals to cut to. `White Stardancer,' my ass—the old fart's probably been sautéeing his cerebrum for weeks now, and only just finished the job this morning. Hey, that's it—if he was already brain-damaged when he got here, we got no liability at all—"

  This triggered Jay's gag reflex. "I'll keep the cameras off tonight, Ev," he said, and cut the connection. Getting back to sleep was out of the question now, so he called for coffee, unstrapped himself from his sleepsack, and began his day.

  * * *

  Twelve extremely hectic hours later, he met Rand and his family at their suite and journeyed with them to the Nova Dance Theatre. All were dressed in their finest, and the adults were as nervous as if they were about to go onstage themselves. They chattered along the way, and fiddled with their seams and fastenings, and inspected each other for unseen flaws in costume or makeup. Only Colly seemed to take it all in stride; money and power did not impress her, since she did not use the former and had all she presently wanted of the latter.

  They had to pass a checkpoint to reach the foyer, manned by six very serious-looking guards, each wearing different-colored armbands. No weapons were visible, but it was clear that they were available. Jay noticed with amusement that the guards seemed to watch each other as carefully and constantly as they did the civilians. Five private security forces, plus the Shimizu security, and none of them trusted any of the others.