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:
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.
Rand was honored to be included in the merriment. It was apparent to him that this trip was a sentimental journey for Reb—and for Meiya, Reb's successor as Head Teacher at Top Step. While they had been training and graduating a quarter of a million Stardancers together over the past half century, Fat Humphrey had been one of the very few constants in their lives. Meiya, a quiet, solemn woman, wore an expression that reminded Rand of old pictures he had seen of mothers sending their sons off to war.
As he watched Fat Humphrey mock the moves of a Stardancer, he suddenly wondered why Fat had not accepted Symbiosis on retirement. But he knew he would not ask, not today anyway. The question was in an area of privacy you learned not to violate if you spent any time at Top Step: he didn't know Fat well enough yet.
And the man read his mind. The moment the laughter for his performance had died away, he looked at Rand and said, "You wonderin' how come I didn't eat the red Jell-O for my dessert, huh?"
"Well . . . yes, Fat, I was, as a matter of fact."
Fat Humphrey grinned. "You ever hear about the time them assholes blew up about a cubic kilometer of Sym?"
"Sure." Almost a decade before Rand's birth, a fanatic antiStardancer terrorist group, headed by Chen Ling Ho's father, had somehow managed to destroy a large mass of Symbiote on its way from its source in the upper atmosphere of Titan to Earth orbit, where it was supposed to serve the needs of the next generation of Top Step graduates. Several Stardancers riding herd on the load had been killed.
"Well, most o' that was suppose' be for me. They been tryin' to catch up ever since, but it's gonna be another twenty year or so before they ready to handle me again." Rand cracked up; so did Reb and Meiya. "I figure in the meantime I watch a little TV, go for a swim, catch a show. You get me a good seat?"
"Well, I'll tell you, Fat," he said thoughtfully, "in terms of sightlines and vectors, maybe what we should do is mount a special show just for you."
"How you mean?"
"Put you in the center of the theater, and work around you."
Fat roared with glee and slapped him on the back; fortunately his seat belt held. "You're all right, kid."
They reached the Shimizu by 19:30. The deceleration was as mild as the acceleration had been, no more than half a gee, and for only a few minutes. Rand could have taken more easily, but the others were all spacers, intolerant of gees.
Fat Humphrey had specifically requested that there be no reception on his arrival. Of course Evelyn Martin had double-crossed him, and was waiting at dockside to drag him off to a press conference. But Rand had halfway expected that: he debarked first, took Martin aside, and threatened to take him by the testicles and fling him through the nearest bulkhead into hard vacuum if he didn't change orbits, now. Grumbling and muttering, the little PR man complied. It is difficult to slink in free-fall, but he managed it. "Don't bother with check-in," he snarled over his shoulder as he went. "It's covered. Just take him right to P-427."
Rand rapped on the hatch to signal that it was safe, and the others emerged. As nanobots scurried away with luggage, he tried to show Fat Humphrey where to insert the wafer that would install his AI in the Shimizu's data crystals . . . and was startled and a little nonplussed to learn that Fat did not have one.
"How about you, Meiya?" he tried.
But she shook her head too. "I won't be inboard long enough to bother. We'll all use Reb's to get around."
"Well, okay," he said. "But stick close to him. This place can be a rabbit warren if you don't have an AI."
"There are public terminals all over, left over from the old days," she pointed out. "If I get lost, I can just ask for you."
"Sure. I'm not listed, but my AI is: Antonio Salieri. How about if I go get my brother and meet you all at Fat's new suite in about an hour? I'd like to grab a shower too; I've been in this p-suit all day."
"Good with me," Fat Humphrey said.
"We'll meet you there in an hour," Reb said, and installed his own AI. "Rild—direct us to Suite Prime 427, please."
One of several exits began to blink softly. "This way, Tenshin."
Rand jaunted to his own room, checked the time, and decided to phone Jay before showering. He would have just finished dinner by now.
"Hey, bro, what's shapin'? When are you coming back?"
"About five minutes ago. Want to meet the happiest fat man in human space?"
Jay blinked. " ` . . . the happiest fat man . . .' Hey, you mean Fat Humphrey? Is he here?"
"To stay. He's just retired; it's his centennial. I came along for the ride; I'm going back with Reb tomorrow. Little gathering at his new digs in about an hour: just him, you, me, Reb and Meiya, as far as I know. You know Meiya, right?"
"Sure. Hey, this is great! I've always wanted a chance to kick back and talk with Fat for a few hours. Where's he at?"
"Prime 427. Meet me at the nearest corner at 20:25 and we'll go in together."
"See you there."
Fifty minutes later he was waiting at the appointed spot. Almost at once, Jay arrived from another direction, grinning. They hugged, and pounded each other's shoulder blades.
"How are you, bro?"
"Fine," Rand said. "I've gotten a little work done—I'll show you later."
"The hell with that—how are you?"
"Okay," he said. "Not well, yet, but I can see daylight, you know?"
"That's good. I told you that place'd be good for you. Hey, Eva's gonna be here too: Reb called her. Probably in the suite already, in fact; I spoke with her half an hour ago and she said she was leaving right away. I get the idea she and Fat are old friends."
"It wouldn't surprise me in the—"
The lights went out.
"What the fuck—" Jay said. "Diaghilev!"
No answer.
"Diaghilev, God dammit!"
"Salieri?" Rand tried.
Silence.
There was a public terminal nearby, but it was unlit, presumed dead. "Jesus," Jay said softly, clearly controlling his voice with an obvious effort. "I think the whole fucking system is down. That's never happened. I'd have bet a billion dollars it couldn't possibly happen."
They heard a scream somewhere in the far distance; no telling even the direction. The Shimizu corridors had some funny acoustics.
Rand's heart hammered. "Oh my God . . ." If they had no lights, no AIs, no phones—how long before they had no air? He fought for calm in the claustrophobic darkness. "All right, what's our move?"
Just then lights came on. Small red emergency lights, every hundred meters along the corridor, with larger blinking ones marking intersections. Rand found them an immense relief, a sign of recovery, but he saw Jay frowning. "They should have kicked on a lot sooner, even if this is a total system collapse," Jay said. "Something really weird is going on."
"Have we got air?"
Jay spotted the nearest grille, jaunted to it, and put his face near it. "Yeah. Reduced flow, but it's air."
"What do you think: is this just local, or is the whole damn hotel really dark right now?"
"Beats me. They're supposed to be equally impossible. I pray to God it's local."
A suite door opened not far from them, and someone stuck his head out. "Hey, mate," he called in an Aussie accent, "any idea what the bloody hell is goin' on?"
"Look at it this way," Jay called back. "You're getting tonight's rent free."
"Too right," he said, and closed his door again.
"God," Rand said, "Fat and the others must be freaking out in there. If they had the window closed when the power failed, they're in minimal emergency lighting: it could take them an hour to find the manual door release, let alone figure out how to use it."
"Hell of a welcome to the Shimizu," Jay agreed. "Come on, let's go try and calm them down."
They jaunted in the eerie pale red light to Suite 427. "We'll never convince Fat the place is safe now," Jay complained as they neared it. "Shit, I just don't believe this. The only thing I can imagine taking out the Shimizu system is a comet right through the core crystals—and we didn't feel any impact. It just doesn't . . . oh, you asshole." Automatically, he had stopped in front of the door and waited for an AI to ask his business. "Hit that release for me, will you, bro?" he said, pointing.
Rand pulled open the access hatch indicated and pulled the handle inside. It moved easily—but the door did not move. "Seems to be broken," he reported.
Jay grimaced. "Naturally. Things never go wrong one at a time." He put his hands on his hips. "Christ, the door's soundproof—we can't even bang out `Calm down' in Morse code."
"What's Morse code?" Rand asked.
"Eva would know, but it doesn't—wait a god damn minute! What do you mean, `broken'? That's a mechanical latch: it can't be broken."
"Okay," Rand said agreeably. "Then what does nonfunction and a blinking red light mean?"
"A blinking—"
In free-fall one almost never pales visibly; blood does not drain from the head as pressure drops. But even in the poor light, Rand could see his brother's expression come apart. He jaunted quickly to Rand's side and stared at the little flashing pilot bulb. After a few seconds, he began to shake his head slowly back and forth, the picture of denial.
Rand grabbed his shoulder, hard, and shook him. "What does it mean?" he cried.
Jay turned to him. There was horror in his eyes. He needed three tries to get the words out, and when he did, they were barely audible. "There is no pressure on the other side of that door."