Interstellar Rock Star

by Edward Willett

  I’d never performed for more than a dozen people at a time in my life, but as the concert approached I felt no nervousness, only exhilaration. I’d rehearsed to the point I could do my song and dance in my sleep—and often did, in my dreams. I considered it vastly superior to the last few Sensation Singles I’d heard; heavy on the dance beat, of course, and the lyrics were nothing special, but the set blew me away. I could have sworn, first time they turned on the holos and I stepped into the picture, that I was back in the alleys of Fistfight City—except these alleys looked even darker and more dangerous. The dance moves, stylized from police vid of gang fights, supported a basic story line of boy (me) meets girl, boy loses girl to flashgang leader, boy bravely fights gang leader and wins, boy and girl ride off into sunset. It would have been a lot more fun if the “girl” had been real instead of a dancebot...

  I stood in the wings, listening to the crowd chant, “An-dy, An-dy, An-dy,” and felt their energy pour over me and into me like a wave. “Better get out there before they tear the satellite apart,” Marcel, the stage manager, said in my earplug. A pounding drumbeat began, the roar of the crowd rose to an incredible volume—and then the set lit up, the stringsynths rasped through the blistering instrumental solo that opened the piece, and I dashed out on stage.

  I couldn’t see a thing through the lights and the holowalls and everything else, but I could sense every individual in that vast crowd screaming my name. I rode their energy and danced and sang like I never had before, even for the vid. I wasn’t streetslime any more—no way. At the climax I smashed the “gang leader” dancebot out of my way with a spinning, leaping kick, and thought, “Suck vacuum, Dry Ice!” Every screaming kids out there knew, knew I was the greatest thing they had ever seen, and in that moment, I knew it, too—and I liked it. I liked it a lot.

  Qualls had kept his word. I was a star.

  When it was over, I stood backstage, panting, mirrorcloth tights soaked with sweat, and thought I heard, in the blood pounding in my ears, words of caution. “It won’t last...it can’t last...” But as I ran on-stage again to accept the wild, screaming, standing ovation, as I watched blue sparks crackling around the hands of girls braving the sting of the static fields to get as close to me as possible, I forgot that warning voice. This was what I was meant for.

  Kit, the ragged streetkid from Fistfight City, was gone for good. He’d been replaced by an interstellar superstar—me.

  Andy Nebula!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Six months passed in a blur of performances, interviews, rehearsals and travel, but every night I felt that same surge of exhilaration just before I went on, as the crowd thundered, the synths built the pounding back-beat, the lasers flashed through the smoke and the dancebots whirled. I was the detonator of a bomb; when I stepped on stage, things exploded.

  At the end of the six months we were on Carstair’s Folly, the fourteenth stop in my triumphant tour of the Pleasure Planets. I stood in the wings in my mirrorcloth skin-tights until the crowd was threatening to tear down the soaring gossamer roof of the acoustic tent, then I gave the signal, the computer shouted, “Ladies and gentleman—Andy Nebula!” and I burst on stage and ripped into my sizzling opening dance, while the dancebots fell back in shock and phantom stars exploded overhead.

  We had a hundred and twenty-five thousand people there that night and I felt good as I finished my bows and made my exit, the crowd still chanting, “An-dy! An-dy! An-dy!”

  Qualls waited backstage; unusual, but not that unusual. “Hey, Qualls,” I shouted above the crowd noise. “They still love me.”

  “Come in here a minute, Kit.”

  I followed him into his soundproof office and he pointed me to the formchair across from his silver-topped desk. I sat down gingerly; I hate the way those things flow to conform to my butt. “What’s powering, manager-man?”

  “Cut the slang, Kit.”

  “Hey, that’s my home babble, glad—”

  “I said cut it!”

  I cut it. “What’s wrong?”

  He sat down and pulled a whirligig bottle from a drawer, along with two glasses. He filled them both and pushed one to me. I took it, but my stomach fluttered; Qualls never risked heat from the local ‘forcers, and on Carstair’s Folly serving an intoxicant to a minor, even an intoxicant as weak as whirligig, could land you in jail. Still, the cold fizzy liquid felt great going down. I drank half of it in a gulp, burped, then lowered my glass to see Qualls staring moodily into his own. “Well?” I said.

  “You saw the crowd tonight, Kit.”

  “Looked good. The tent was full.”

  “Tents are always full, Kit...because you can move the walls.”

  I stared at him. “What?”

  “Capacity is two hundred thousand. We sold one-twenty-five. You weren’t a sell-out, Kit.”

  The fluttery feeling in my stomach grew. I guzzled more whirligig, but it didn’t go away. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and set the glass down. “A hundred and twenty-five thousand tickets at fifty feds apiece isn’t exactly biowaste.”

  “Maybe. But it’s the first time Andy Nebula hasn’t sold out.”

  “The next planet—”

  “Ticket sales are slow. I just got a call from Mr. Korpov.”

  I wondered if I could get Qualls to serve me something stronger than whirligig. Korpov was the CEO of Sensation Singles, Inc. “He’s fading me out?”

  “Not yet. You’ve got four more concerts, no matter what. But if you’re not back to sell-outs by that fourth gig...”

  “Yeah, I know.” I’d always known it couldn’t last. Sensation Singles were like non-repeating comets; one blaze of glory, then cold oblivion for eternity. “The crowds will come back, Qualls. I’m sure of it.”

  “Right, Kit.” He drained his whirligig in four gulps. “You’d better go get cleaned up. They’ll be moving your dressing room back to the ship in about an hour. We lift tonight.”

  I stood up, the formchair releasing me reluctantly, and handed him my glass. “I’m vapor, gladeye.”

  My usual post-concert bubbly feeling had gone thoroughly flat, whirligig notwithstanding. I trudged to my dressing room in a mood as black as the shadows that filled the backstage corridors. As I neared my dressing room door, one of those shadows moved.

  I froze, heart racing. In my experience, moving shadows were bad news. The last moving shadow I’d seen, in a Fistfight City alley not far from Fat Sloan’s, had been armed with a very nasty zapclub and an even nastier temperament. Fortunately, I was so obviously streetslime he didn’t bother with me. But I wasn’t streetslime any more, I was a superstar, and prime fodder for—

  “Got you!” said the shadow.

  “What?” I looked frantically around for Security. What did we pay them for, anyway?

  “They got you, got you, got you!” The shadow moved forward, and a red bulbous nose appeared in the light, followed by squinting, puffy eyes and bared, yellowing teeth.

  “Who got me?” I backed up against the wall. In the Fistfight City alley I’d at least had my battered old stringsynth to use as a club or shield (which was one reason it was so battered), but now I had nothing but me and my mirrorcloth, and I didn’t think either of us would dazzle this madman.

  “They got you!” He waved toward the stage. “The sssss...sssss...” Whatever word he wanted wouldn’t come. Face contorted, he slammed his fist against the wall so hard I thought I heard a bone break. I jumped, and he shouted in my face, “Got you like they got me like they got her like they got we—we’ve all been got, got, got, only—” He broke off suddenly, stared up and down the corridor, then leaned in close. His breath reeked of something considerably stronger than whirligig. “I escaped.”

  “Goo—good for you.”

  “You can, too.” For the first time his eyes opened wide, and I shivereds. The whites were blue-gray, even darker than his blue irises. He was a flashman, and if he was flashing now, he could tear me into little pieces with his bare ha
nds.

  It seemed like a good reason to be friendly. “Uh...how?”

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “Run!” he whispered, then screamed, “Run! Run! Run!”

  Footsteps, at last, clattered down the corridor. “Andy?”

  “Marcel!” I yelled. “Help!”

  The flashman glared at me, pulled back his fist as if he were going to punch me, then said calmly, “Think about it,” and turned and ran—straight into the arms of a burly Security man. “Let me go!” he shouted. “I’m Paris Paradise! They’re waiting for me on—” He slumped suddenly, head lolling. Marcel’s gray-bearded face appeared behind the Security man’s bulk.

  “Did you trank him?” Marcel asked.

  “Didn’t have to,” the Security man grunted as he heaved the flashman over his shoulder. “I think he just crashed on his own. I’m sorry, Mr. Roy. I don’t know how he got past us.”

  “Figure it out soon or you’ll be looking for a new job,” Marcel snapped. “Get him out of here” He came over to where I leaned against the wall. “Are you all right, Andy?”

  “Sure,” I said. “He didn’t do anything except talk.” I straightened, then casually leaned against the wall again. My legs weren’t quite ready to move me yet.

  “I’ve got to talk to Qualls,” Marcel muttered. He hurried back up the corridor, while I stumbled the last few metres to my dressing room. I closed the door, then sat on the bed, looked at my trembling hands, and clenched them into fists.

  “I’m getting soft,” I muttered. “I’ve been through a lot worse.” But that was in Fistfight City. In my new life things like this weren’t supposed to happen.

  Good thing my fans would never know about it. With my fake hero-of-the-streets image, they’d never understand why I hadn’t simply knocked him down and dragged him off to Security by myself...especially since they were mostly teenage girls with well-to-do parents and nice safe homes. Most of them had probably never even heard of flash. I wished I hadn’t.

  They’d never understand what it had really been like on the streets, just trying to survive. There had even been times when, if the orphanage would have taken me back, I’d have gladly put up with any kind of abuse just to be warm and fed. And for all my pride at never selling myself to a meatman, I’d been a lot closer to it than I wanted to admit more times than I liked to remember. Street life was almost no life at all, and I had no wish to go back to it—or to Fistfight City. The money I’d earned would keep me off the streets, but it wouldn’t keep me out of Fistfight City, if what Qualls said about ticket sales was true. That’s where my contract specified I had to eventually be returned, since the law assumed minors should be sent “home.”

  I looked around the dressing room. This was home, and I didn’t want to give it up. Maybe if we boosted promotion...

  Who was I kidding? You couldn’t possibly boost promotion above the Sensation Singles Inc.’s normal hysterical level.

  My terminal beeped, announcing a message. Probably the local media, and I wasn’t in the mood. I stripped out of my mirrortights and stepped into the shower, thinking about the Ice Boys as I soaped away sweat. They’d had the same gray-blue eyes as the old flashman. Some were probably dead by now; a lot of people couldn’t handle flash—they’d O.D. within half a year. But others went on for years and years, getting stronger and nastier and crazier. I had an uncomfortable feeling Dry Ice might be one of those. I wondered if he knew where I’d gone.

  I stepped out of the shower. Brown eyes stared back at me from the mirror. My face and body were a little more filled out than they had been that day in the Fistfight City spaceport, but otherwise I looked the same—same shaggy black hair, same less-than-perfect nose, broken by “accident” after I spilled a bowl of soup in the orphanage. My disreputable appearance had happened to mesh perfectly with the image Sensation Singles, Inc., had cultivated for me, so I’d escaped plastic surgery. Which meant that, yeah, Dry Ice would know what had become of me—hanging around the Port, he could hardly have avoided my video blaring from holoprojectors and flatscreens everywhere.

  I dried off and padded back into my dressing room, tossing the towel on the bed, glanced at the beeping terminal, decided I couldn’t keep ignoring it, and tapped RECEIVE. Green letters scrolled across the screen. “Again you make pleasant memories I shall retain, gladeye. Your ex-roomie, Rain.”

  I laughed. I should have known. I’d already had half a dozen similar messages from Rain, in the most unexpected places—but I’d never seen him in person. I’d pretty well decided he wasn’t actually at the concerts, but was sending the messages from off-planet. If he really were attending the concerts, why didn’t he ever pop backstage to see me? If an old flashman could get through Security, surely a Hydra could...

  Still, I felt better. At least I had one fan left.

  I cleared the screen, then crossed the room to my closet. Before I reached it, someone knocked. “Who is it?” I called.

  No answer, but I heard the latch click open. “Wait a minute!” I yelled, and grabbed the towel from the bed, wrapping it around my waist just as the door swung open and—

  I stared in astonishment. “Who are you?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I had a quick impression of bright blue eyes and short black hair, and then my unexpected visitor squealed, almost as loud as a Hydra. After a painful few seconds her squeal resolved into words. “You’re Andy Nebula!”

  “In the flesh,” I said, extremely aware that all I was wearing was a not-very-big towel.

  The girl blushed. She was two or three years younger than me, with short black hair and wide blue eyes. She wore a glittergold blouse emblazoned with a half-holo of my face, which winked at me whenever she shifted position. Below that were mirrorcloth tights, and below that transparent platform shoes that made her look like they she was floating barefoot ten centimeters above the floor. Her toenails were painted silver. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—I mean, I knocked first and—”

  “Never mind.” At lest she didn’t have a camera. I was going to have Marcel fire Security. First a flashman and now a groupie. Fans were never supposed to see Sensation Singles in unscripted situations. They might realize we were ordinary human beings, and we couldn’t have that, could we?

  Well, she could see I was an ordinary human being, all right, and getting to be a chilly one, because there was a cold draft blowing in from the corridor. “Look, you’re not supposed to be here,” I said. You’ll have to leave, I intended to add, but—

  “I know!” she said breathlessly, ducking inside and closing the door behind her. “Isn’t it wonderful? Just like in your song, when Bloodstone tells you to get off the planet and instead you sneak into their hideout and Rocket Rick sees you and says—”

  “You’re not supposed to be here. Yeah, I know, but you’re really not supposed to be here. You’ll get in trouble.”

  “It’s worth it to see you!”

  I sighed. “All right, great, anything for a true fan, but would you mind doing me one favor?”

  “Anything,” she breathed.

  “Turn around so I can get dressed?”

  “Oh!” She blushed again, and quickly faced the wall. “I’ve got my eyes closed, too!”

  “Orbital.” I dropped the towel and pulled on the first outfit I could find—an all-black affair in leather and microfiber. “All right, I’m decent.”

  She turned, and frowned. “That’s not what Andy Nebula wears.”

  “I left Andy Nebula on stage.” I grabbed a brush and quickly ran it through my wet hair. “Call me Kit.”

  “You mean—Andy Nebula’s not your real name?”

  She sounded so shocked I had to laugh. “‘Fraid not.” I tossed the brush aside and sat down on the bed to pull on my favorite pair of soft-soled boots. “Look, what’s your name?”

  “My name? You want to know my name?” You’d have thought I’d just handed her a million feds. “Meta.”

  “Well, Meta, I’m glad you like my Single, but i
f Security finds you they’re going to be very upset and they’re going to ask you a lot of questions, not very gently, and then they’re going to throw you out, even less gently. Plus, this whole dressing room is going to be sealed and moved to my ship in a few minutes. So I really think you should get out however it was you got in—”

  “It was easy,” she said. “An old man came running out and all the Security people chased after him and I just walked in.”

  “Great. I’m lucky a thousand fans didn’t knock at my door.”

  “Oh, no, there was nobody else out there. Everyone knows you never see a Single by hanging around the stage door.”

  “Except you?”

  “But that’s different. I mean, I’m different. I mean, I like to try new things.” She smiled shyly. “Just like you say in your song, you know, ‘I don’t follow the crowd/I shout it out loud/when they tell me to go/I’m gonna stay, don’t you know?’“

  I winced. She’d sung that last part. Sort of. “Well, you’d better get out of here now, and I mean it.”

  “All right.” At the door, she stopped and looked back. “I’ll see you again. Real soon.”

  “Oh, yeah?” If a million or two other kids felt the same way, Korpov might get off my back. “Great. I’ll look for you in the crowd.” As if I could pick out one face even if I wanted to.

  She smiled and slipped out. I flopped back onto the bed, groaning. I really should tell Marcel...but that might get Meta in trouble, and I didn’t want that. I had to admire her guts. Not at all what I’d have expected from a Pleasure Planet brat.

  So I let it slide; no harm done. I secured the dressing room for transport, then walked back to the stage. Qualls’s office had already been hauled away, and the stagebots had dismantled the projectors and lights, leaving only a scuffed and dusty black platform. The roof and walls of the tent sagged. Soon only the litter of discarded programs, snackpacs and drink containers would be left, and a large vacant lot. Time to move on.