Singing the Dogstar Blues

by Alison Goodman

  ‘Well it’s not comfortable for me. I don’t want anyone to know where I am or where I’m going. Especially tonight.’

  Call me paranoid, but I had a hunch that Mavkel wasn’t the only one with a tracker in his wrist-band. It was possible that Donaldson-Hono had been lying through his teeth about my wrist-band. Even if he wasn’t, I wasn’t going to take any chances. That meant I had to ditch my wrist-band before I set foot out of the university.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mav, you can’t come. I want to get in and out of the Buzz Bar real quick. I can do that better by myself.’

  Mavkel sneezed, rubbing at his noses irritably.

  ‘You want to be alone too much,’ he sang.

  I thought about that as I left the suite. Mav was probably right. I did like to be alone a lot. On the other hand, sometimes I needed people around. Mav just hated to be alone. I think that’s why he hums. To keep himself company. Either that or he does it to drive me crazy.

  Barton was at the guard desk, still on duty from the afternoon shift. He grunted as I scanned my way out of the building.

  I had a hazy kind of plan to get rid of my wrist-band. It was a bit disgusting, but it was the only thing I could come up with that might work. I peeled off the pseudo skin that I’d slapped around my sand-blasted wrist and arm a few days ago. Most of the abrasion was healed, but the bit near my wrist-band was still scabby. I picked at the crusty bits until they looked red and raw then headed towards the P3 security office. Operation Band-Off was go.

  The Duty Officer was grossed out when I showed her my arm.

  ‘How did that happen?’ she asked, turning my arm over to get a better look.

  ‘I think there’s a rough bit on the inside that keeps on scratching me,’ I said.

  She screwed up her nose. ‘You should have come earlier. That arm’s a mess.’

  I nodded pathetically.

  ‘Probably the best thing to do would be to plane it out and get rid of the sharp bit. Here, scan the band,’ she said, pointing to the unit Donaldson-Hono had shown me.

  The wrist-band clicked open and fell onto the scanning pad without a hitch. The officer ran her finger around it.

  ‘I can’t feel anything.’

  ‘Maybe I’m just super sensitive,’ I said.

  ‘Whatever,’ she shrugged. ‘I’ll issue you with a visitor’s band until yours comes back.’

  She logged my clearance onto the heavy bracelet.

  ‘You should probably wear it on your other arm until that one heals.’

  ‘Thanks, I will,’ I said, ostentatiously clipping it around my right wrist.

  Which brought me to step two of the plan.

  ‘Hey, can I hire one of those security lockers?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure.’ She reeled off a list of prices.

  I made my choice and she logged my fingerprint against the lock. While she was busy checking through a flower delivery, I slipped off the visitor’s bracelet, wrapped it in my jacket and stuffed it in the locker. Call me paranoid, but also call me untraceable. I couldn’t stop grinning. Don’t you just love that feeling when a plan comes together? It’s like holding a royal flush in a no limit game of poker.

  I was still pumped full of drene when I walked out the university gates. I gave the Venturi loop a miss as I’ve never been very keen on the underground trans system. Being sucked through a vacuum tube in a metal box is not my idea of fun. It feels like you’re being farted out by a giant worm. I prefer to take a route through the side streets.

  The Buzz Bar was in Mall 16, so it was quicker to cut through Central towards the Mall 15 overpass. A group of No-Suns moved in front of me, slowing down my progress. These ones must have been pretty high in the sect because their head-to-toe robes were yellow and the face masks black. SPF 100. A few also carried large parasols, even though most of the levels are under cover anyway and the highrises put the top levels in permanent shadow. I saw an opening and ducked through the group, catching a glimpse of corpse-white skin along an eye slit.

  With the No-Suns behind me, the run up to the overpass was fairly clear. Then, to my left, Berko Harris walked out of the Red Triangle, my favourite pool hall. Major spin out. As far as I knew, Berko still wanted to wrap a cue round my head for hustling him out of one hundred creds. I ducked into a side alley and squashed myself into a shallow doorway.

  He must have seen me because he headed towards the alley. Time to be scarce. I pushed the door behind me. It opened.

  For a minute or so I just hid out in the scrappy entrance foyer. Then I heard Berko pound past, so I ducked inside the main room. Just to make sure.

  It was time for a bit of deep breathing, Tai Chi style. A few breaths in I smelled something funny. Musty.

  Where was I?

  It was a huge empty warehouse although a whole load of large bright squares were painted on the walls. There were more on the ceiling. And the floor. I leaned closer to the wall. It wasn’t paint, it was cloth. Embroidered cloth.

  For Luke. I’ll see you soon, all my love, John.

  It finally hit me. The walls, floor and ceiling of the room were covered by a huge quilt made up of bits of old clothing, paper photos, paint and embroidery.

  In memory of Stephen Gossman, son and brother. RIP.

  Daniella Tapp. Died age 20. My love always, Dad.

  Daniella’s square stood out because it was so plain. A large piece of white cotton, embroidered with uneven blue chainstitch. Even though it was so old, the plasglass cover had kept it clean. Daniella’s father had tried to sew a large flower in the corner, but it looked more like a spider with an old style TV aerial.

  ‘Hello. Would you like a tour?’ a voice asked behind me.

  It was an old man. Wrinkly old. Most people get rejuved before they wrinkle up, but this guy was sagging and bagging all over the place.

  ‘You gave me a bit of a fright,’ he continued. ‘Not many people come in here these days.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I came in by mistake. I should get going,’ I said, moving towards the door. Hopefully Berko was gone.

  The old man sighed, his whole body getting into the act.

  ‘Then I’ll let you go on your way,’ he said. ‘Do come back if you remember.’

  For some reason, he reminded me of Mav. It must have been the droopy ears.

  ‘What is this place?’ I asked.

  ‘The AIDS museum and what’s left of the Quilt Project,’ he said, as if he was announcing something important.

  ‘The Quilt Project?’

  ‘Have you any time to stay and look around? I could tell you about it.’

  He looked so hopeful that I nodded. The spyder at the Buzz Bar could wait a few more minutes.

  ‘Oh, good. Come over here then.’

  He took my arm and led me over to the back wall. We stopped in front of a small screen.

  ‘This quilt was started in 1987 as a memorial for viral AIDS victims. Each patch has been sewn or painted by a loved one. Of course, it should be about four times as big as it is, but most of it got destroyed by a fire. You can see how big it would have been on this picture.’

  He punched up a diagram on to the screen.

  ‘The red bit is the section we have, the rest is gone.’

  ‘It must have been enormous,’ I said.

  ‘Unfortunately, it was.’ He crossed himself in the old religious way. ‘The whole quilt was going to be put on the Net as part of Project Guttenberg, but before any of it was done, someone set fire to it.’

  ‘Deliberately?’

  He nodded, rubbing his knuckles. ‘We think so. It was burned just after the same sex marriage law went through. So most of this beautiful quilt is gone forever.’

  ‘Is it on the Net now?’ I asked.

  ‘This bit is. I’m a bit of a throwback, I know, but I think seeing it on the Net is nothing like seeing it for real,’ he said proudly.

  He was right.

  I’d never been in a real-museum before. Sure, I’d gone through the virtual
Smithsonian and Louvre a couple of times, but they didn’t have an atmosphere like this place. I looked down at one of the patches under the glass floor. Like so many of the other patches, someone had sewn in a large old-style photograph of the victim. This one was Roberto. He was laughing.

  ‘That left-hand wall, floor and all of the ceiling are the viral AIDs patches,’ the old man said, swinging his arm in a wide arc. ‘The rest is the implant AIDs patches.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘People don’t learn do they. You can’t play Russian roulette with your body. They couldn’t in those days and you can’t today. You wouldn’t stick one of those chips in your head, would you? Just for a few more brain cells?’

  ‘No way,’ I said. Not when there was a chance that the thing would eat your immune system.

  I walked over to Daniella’s square in the implant AIDs section.

  I couldn’t get past Daniella. Dead at twenty. That was only two years older than me. Why did she go for an implant? Maybe she didn’t know about the risks. Maybe she didn’t care. Her father cared, though. For a second I envied Daniella that ugly spiky flower. At least she’d had a father who’d cared enough to sew her a patch, even though you could tell it was the first time he’d seen a needle. And it had worked too, because here I was thinking about his daughter.

  In a way, I suppose that’s what a time-jumper is all about. We add patches of information onto history so that someone or something is remembered. But it’s such a pot-luck business. There are so many missing patches. There’s also a lot of wrong patches and not all of them are accidental. Take the Camden-Stone/Sunawa-Harrod thing. After what I’d read it seemed likely that most of that story was hidden. The question was, why? I had a feeling that the answers were at the Buzz Bar, courtesy of a spyder. Time to go and find out.

  ‘People seem to have lost interest in sewing patches these days,’ the old curator said. ‘There hasn’t been an addition to the quilt for over fifty years.’

  ‘Maybe people have forgotten how to sew,’ I said, immediately regretting the joke.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, smiling. ‘Or maybe people have just forgotten.’

  I nodded, glancing at the door.

  ‘You have to go now, I see,’ the curator said. ‘I hope you’ll come back and visit us again.’

  Outside in the alley, the air tasted clean. That’s one thing about virtual museums. You never get that old-things smell. Maybe that’s why I gave up visiting them.

  Itsy Bitsy Spyder

  At the Buzz Bar, Lenny was sitting in his office watching one of the news broadcasts. The news item was about the President, one of Lenny’s pet hates. He held up his hand as I walked in, motioning me to wait.

  ‘How ya doing, Lenny?’ I asked after he’d stopped listening.

  ‘Fine, fine. You here to hire yourself a spyder, hey?’

  He hauled himself off his chair.

  ‘Here, sit down. One A-grade answered the call. Here’s the new code. You’ll have to sit tight but the spyder knows you’ll be casting tonight. But remember, only use the keyboard. When you’re finished, come for a drink.’

  He left the room abruptly. I heard him yell at one of the bouncers to get off the bar.

  I keyed in the call code then sat back. Lenny had just bought this unit and it was already out of date. My P3 organic screted all over it. There was no doubt the organics were going to take over. That is as soon as everyone mortgaged their lives and bought one. Of course people might baulk at having a computer made out of living gel. Everyone is still pretty spooked about the organic brain implants. Maybe the Takahini Corporation should rethink their strategy and market the organics as pets. Pat a heaving lump of gel today!

  Something was happening on the screen. I hunched over, fingers ready on the keyboard. A sentence appeared.

  This is Blackwidow. What do you need?

  Just as I finished reading the line, it disintegrated backwards, character by character. Blackwidow was backbyting our conversation. They say you can never trace or recall anything that’s been backbytten. They also say that if any spyder leaked the backbyte secret, they’d be dead in an hour.

  I was lucky to get Blackwidow. She always delivered. I typed in my request. Find out about the security arrangements for building P3 on the university campus, emphasis on the Ledbetter suite. Break into any sealed files about Camden-Stone and Sunawa-Harrod, dating back twenty years. Finally, and I knew this was a long shot, any news on who had hired Tori Suka.

  I tossed up whether I should also change my P3 clearance, but it would probably cost too much.

  My message disintegrated. A dollar sign appeared.

  Blackwidow was naming her price.

  A line of numbers moved across the screen. Snork me gently! Any more noughts and I’d have enough for a game of Enow. It was lucky I hadn’t asked her to change my clearance, too. As it was, I’d have to sell my soul. Luckily, I knew just the person who’d buy it. I typed in my acceptance of the price.

  Blackwidow will contact you. Payment will be through the big man. Half by 9 am tomorrow. Other half on delivery. Agreed?

  Agreed.

  Your key word is ‘conspiracy’.

  A small graphic of a spider ran across the screen and disappeared. The CommNet logo came up. Blackwidow must have been piggybacking on the CommNet line.

  In a few days a courier would deliver a ‘novel’ to me. When I loaded the disc onto my Reader, it would just look like a normal book. However when I activated the word ‘conspiracy’ in the text, all of the novel’s text would disintegrate and leave the embedded information that I had paid for. Ingenious.

  But first I had to sell my soul. I switched to voice recognition and requested Ingrid’s number. It was connected immediately.

  ‘Hello, Joss,’ Lewis said. He had dyed his hair blonde. Now he looked like an albino ferret.

  ‘I don’t suppose Ingrid is free?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not. She’s with her masseur. Can I pass on a message? Or maybe I can help you? I do live for it, you know.’

  I didn’t want Lewis to know I was asking for more money. He thought I was a spoiled little kuso, already. On the other hand, I had to have it pronto. I’d hoped Ingrid would want to say hi, since tomorrow was my birthday. It looked like I’d have to sell my dignity as well as my soul.

  ‘Perhaps you can help, Lewis. It’s my birthday tomorrow …’

  ‘Happy birthday, Joss,’ he interrupted.

  ‘Thank you. As I said, it’s my birthday and I want to have a bit of a bash, but I need some money for it. Do you think Ingrid could forward a bit on?’

  ‘As you know, Ingrid has given me authority to grant your financial requests, Joss. What is your proposal?’

  Proposal? That was a sneaky one. I quickly invented the mega-party of the century.

  ‘And how much will all of this cost?’

  I gave him Blackwidow’s price and a half again for miscellaneous expenses. You never know what might come up.

  He raised his eyebrows. They were still black and he’d plucked them to the wrong side of thin.

  ‘That’s quite an amount,’ he said.

  The creep was letting me sweat it. He looked off into the distance as if he was pondering the country’s budget.

  ‘Yes. All right. I’ll put it into your account now.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And Joss,’ he said, smiling. ‘I hope you like Ingrid’s present. When she asked me to get you something, I was a bit concerned. But as soon as I saw it, I knew you’d love it.’

  He signed off.

  I jabbed the comm button off. At least Ingrid had remembered to tell him to get me something. I stood up, my chair rolling back so hard it hit the gun locker.

  I found Lenny in his booth, shaking his head over some accounts.

  ‘So, your business is done?’ he asked, not looking up.

  ‘Not quite. Half the payment has to be deposited now. Blackwidow wants to go through you. Should I pu
t the money through the bar account?’

  ‘No, put it through the restaurant. Safer.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll give you a call when the stuff is delivered so you can put through the other half.’

  ‘Fine.’

  I went back to the office and transferred the money over to Lenny’s restaurant account. Then I joined him back at the bar. He passed me a Reader when I sat opposite him.

  ‘Tell me, can you see the problem?’ he asked.

  I scanned the spreadsheet.

  ‘The Koli Brothers are still paying last year’s protection rate,’ I said, passing the Reader back.

  ‘Ha, you’re right.’ He made an adjustment to the sheet. ‘You want a drink?’ he asked.

  He held up his finger to Rocky who was cleaning glasses behind the bar.

  ‘How about a sake?’ Lenny suggested. ‘I’ve got a good import.’

  ‘I’ll just have a coffee.’

  ‘Two short blacks, Rocky. And don’t be stingy with the beans,’ Lenny said. Rocky nodded and headed towards the coffee machine. ‘He still doesn’t know how to make a decent cup,’ Lenny confided. He reached into his jacket pocket.

  ‘Here, something for tomorrow,’ he said gruffly, putting a long slim package on the table. It was wrapped in recycled Christmas paper.

  I picked it up. Weighty.

  ‘You can open it now, if you want to,’ he said.

  The paper was off in a second. Inside was a beautiful Hohner C chromatic harp. The best you could buy. I had promised myself one when I thought I was good enough to play it. I ran my finger along the smooth chrome top.

  ‘Do you like it? Is it the right one?’ Lenny asked anxiously.

  ‘It’s wonderful.’

  ‘Play something, then.’

  I played The Dogstar Blues, experimenting with chord variations by pushing the slide. The tone was magnificent although it wasn’t as loud as my Marine Band harp. The final note reverberated through my head like Mav’s song.

  Lenny clapped.

  ‘It makes me sound better than I really am,’ I said.

  ‘You’re better than you think. Lots of people have been asking where you’ve gone. The band misses you too.’