The Stardance Trilogy

by Spider

  As Jay was returning to “P” section, he found himself humming a tune in a minor key, and suddenly recognized it as a nearly century-old Stevie Wonder song called “Blame It on the Sun.” The irony was too unsubtle for his conscious mind; he stopped humming. He knew he should be sad for his brother, he intended to be as soon as he could, but for now he was numb. Too much going on; too much still to do; an eight-year-old still his nominal responsibility—to whom this all must somehow be explained before much longer. Then, three days or more locked in a can with the problem. His head began to throb.

  Rhea came out of it as quickly as Rand had—and began blushing the moment she focused on Jay’s face.

  “What happened?” he asked. “No, forget that: how much did he see? How much can he prove?”

  Her eyes widened as she took his meaning. “Oh, Jay—”

  He turned away. “Dammit, Rhea…dammit to hell…fuck it to hell—”

  “Where’s Colly?”

  “Having a jolly time in the company of a very nice lady, meeting other kids,” he said bitterly. “I’d say we have at least another ten minutes before you’re going to have to explain to her why Mommy and Daddy aren’t talking to each other. And why Uncle Duncan has a bruise on his chin. But you’re a writer: I’m sure you can improvise something.”

  “She doesn’t call him ‘Uncle Duncan,’” she said absurdly. And then: “Oh…my…God…”

  “MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE,” said a loud and omnipresent voice. It repeated twice, as the hubbub dwindled, then went on, “WE ARE VERY PLEASED TO REPORT THAT THE CLASS THREE FLARE ALERT WAS A FALSE ALARM—REPEAT, THE ALERT WAS A FALSE ALARM.” The hubbub became an uproar; the voice got louder to compensate. “THE EMERGENCY IS OVER. TO MINIMIZE CONFUSION, PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR STATEROOMS BY LETTER-GROUPS, BEGINNING WITH THOSE WHOSE LAST NAMES BEGIN WITH ‘A’ AND THEIR FAMILIES. PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO LEAVE UNTIL ALL THOSE IN THE PRECEDING LETTER-GROUP ARE GONE. THE SHIMIZU APOLOGIZES FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE, AND THANKS YOU ALL FOR YOUR COOPERATION DURING THE EMERGENCY—”

  “Jesus Christ—” Jay began.

  “Take her home for me, Jay,” Rhea blurted, and jetted away before he could object. She mingled with the crowd whose last names began with “A,” and was lost from sight. Jay stared after her, feeling his headache gather force.

  Within moments, Colly appeared, trailing a frantic Xi. “Did they show up yet, Uncle Jay?”

  He started to say no automatically. But then he had the thought that in the near future, a lot of people were going to be lying to this child, and he didn’t want to be one of them anymore. “I caught a glimpse of them,” he said, then skated quickly off the thin ice. “But we’ll never find them in this madhouse now. That’s okay; I’m sure we’ll meet them back at your suite”—whoops, hitting thin ice again—“eventually. Say, did you meet any interesting kids?”

  “Wow, yeah—I met a boy my own age, named Waldo, and he’s a spacer, like me: he’s gonna be here forever too! I never saw him around before because he’s got something wrong with his muscles and he can’t go out and play—but who cares? I can go to his house and we can be friends forever! I invited him to my birthday party—”

  Don’t count on it, pumpkin, Jay thought, but all he said was, “He sounds nice.”

  A lot of people’s plans were going to be changing soon.

  He had already left the pool with the rest of the S’s, and was in the corridors with Colly, before it sank in: Kinergy was going to go on at the appointed time after all…

  In common with most of the choreographers who had ever lived, Jay had, two days before curtain, no idea whether he was on the verge of artistic triumph or disaster. It was no longer possible for him to evaluate the work, either objectively or subjectively. He was prepared to take the most ignorant amateur criticism to heart, or discount the most informed professional praise. The final, and only important, verdict would come two nights from now, in the form of applause or its embarrassing absence or—God forbid!—active booing. He burned to know what that verdict would be…and feared to find out. The only thing he knew for certain was that he could definitely have used another week to polish the damned thing. That was why he had welcomed the flare emergency.

  And all the fucking emergency had accomplished was to cost him his tech rehearsal—and to shatter his brother’s world.

  Well, perhaps there was a relatively bright side to all this—at least from Jay’s point of view. Presumably Rhea would go back dirtside now—that might even be why she had done it. That would leave Rand no real choice but to stay here in space! The only place waiting for him on Terra was Provincetown, Rhea’s town. He’d be miserable for a while, sure…but as Sam Spade had once said, that would pass. He’d heal. A season of his own original work, some media massage courtesy of Ev Martin, a few standing O’s…

  Oh, shit! Would Rand be in any shape to come to the premiere?

  Jay assumed his brother would not make the remaining two days of rehearsals—and that would hurt, but Andrew could probably handle things alone. Jay also knew he would miss Rand’s companionship, his services as a sounding-board, the last-minute inspirations he might have contributed—and that wasn’t fatal either.

  But Kate Tokugawa would be livid if Rand did not appear at the premiere. His presence was required. All the media would be there. It was a matter of face. Hers, and the Board’s.

  In his heart, Jay knew face was as low in Rand’s present scale of values as it was high in Kate’s. Oh, this was more than a tragedy: it had all the makings of a catastrophe…

  “I wish that dumb old flare wasn’t a false alarm, Uncle Jay,” Colly said. “That was starting to be fun.”

  Guilt tore at his heart. He thought he had problems? “Me too, honey,” he said softly, tightening his grip on her small hand. “Me too.”

  What the hell am I going to do with her?

  “Sergei?” he tried.

  Personal AIs were back on-line. “Yes, Jay?” Diaghilev said.

  “Excuse me, Colly, I have to check on something with Andrew. Sergei, hush-field, please.” The sounds of the crowd around him went away. “Phone Rand.”

  “Not accepting calls, Jay.”

  “God dammit, emergency override ‘P-Town’!”

  Rhea answered. “What?”

  “What do I do with your daughter?” Jay asked brutally.

  There was a short silence. “Can…can you take her? For a while, anyway?”

  “What do I tell her?”

  He heard Rand say something angry in the background. “…something good, okay?” she said. “Please, brother? I’ll call you when…when we’re ready for her.”

  It was the word “brother” that made up his mind. Rhea had never called him that before. She was begging. “Okay.” He was prepared to end the conversation, but could not decide how. Did he say “Good luck”? Instead he said, “I’ll wait for your call. Off.”

  Something good, okay?

  “Colly, you’re coming home with me. The cronkites want to interview your mom and dad about the flare—you know, celebrity on the spot stuff.”

  It was weak; no one had interviewed them after the previous, genuine emergency. But Colly bought it. “Neat! Maybe we can watch it at your house—they’ll probably rush it onto the Net—”

  Jay winced. “Well, maybe not right away. It’ll take time to edit, you know—”

  “Phone, Jay,” Diaghilev said. “Two calls waiting: Andrew and Francine.”

  Jay wished someone would solve brain-cloning. “Colly, excuse me; Sergei, give me both of them; Andrew, Francine, I can’t talk for long right now, but…” His mind raced. “…uh, today’s a wrap. We’ll do the tech rehearsal tomorrow at noon; first dress after supper; final run-through will have to be the afternoon of the performance.”

  “Are you sure, Boss?” Francine asked. “We could do the tech tonight—cancel the pony show.”

  “No,” Jay said. “After something like this, the cabaret show is essential. I won’t be t
here, but trust me: you’ll never have a better house. They’ll cheer themselves hoarse, and tip like Shriners. Everybody needs to celebrate still being alive”—well, almost everybody…—“and not being trapped in a swimming pool for three days. I’ve got to go; I’ll leave my notes from this afternoon with your AIs later and talk with you tomorrow. Off.”

  “Calls waiting, Jay: Katherine Tokugawa, Evelyn Martin, Eva Hoffman…and another just coming in, Duncan Iowa.”

  “Suffering Jesus! Flush Iowa and Martin, tell Eva I’ll call her back, refuse all further calls, and give me Kate. Greetings, Tokugawa-sama—some excitement, eh? I know why you’re calling, and don’t worry: we’ll be ready when the bell rings—”

  By the time he had given his boss every reassurance he could counterfeit and gotten her off the phone, he was back home. Once inside, he turned Colly over to the White Rabbit; it checked, learned that Room Service was not yet back on-line, and led her off to Jay’s personal pantry, glancing irritably at its pocket watch, for the stiff peanut-butter and jelly it knew she required. Jay took a deep breath—

  —let it out; took another—

  —thought longingly of a drink, and retracted all the furniture in his living room, and began to dance. And kept on dancing, ricocheting around the room in great energy-wasting leaps and landings and spins and recoveries, until his body was as exhausted as his brain. He poured all his fear and confusion and guilt and anger into the dance…his irritation with his beloved brother, for picking now to be betrayed…his sneaking sympathy for the bitch who had picked now to put the horns on his brother…his heartbreak for the small child who was about to become a helpless leaf in a storm she would not understand for years…

  When he finally stopped, Colly’s applause startled him. He had not been aware of her watching, hadn’t thought to censor what his body was saying. But she was not disturbed by his dance, only impressed; her applause was sincere. She was oblivious to her doom.

  They ended up napping in each other’s arms.

  17

  Nova Dance Theatre

  The Shimizu Hotel

  22 January 2065

  EARLY ON IN THE DANCE, Eva knew she was in good hands, and relaxed.

  You couldn’t always tell, that early. Sometimes a serious dance was over before you had decided whether you liked it or not. Every piece must, along with what it actually conveys, explain to you the rules by which it is meant to be judged, and sometimes that subtext can take as long to grasp and evaluate as the work itself. For that very reason, Eva had avoided seeing any rehearsals, so she could assess the finished work fairly. But a minute or so into Kinergy, she stopped praying that her friend’s work wouldn’t bomb, and became lost in it. Jay and his brother had meshed well, for the second time: this piece, despite its origins in the turgid head of Pribhara, was even better than Spatial Delivery had been.

  It was not as cerebral as that piece, nor as simple. For one thing, it was staged in the sphere rather than in proscenium, so it had to work in any direction. The stage was bare: apparently none of the standard vector-changing hardware of free-fall dance was going to be used tonight…which meant the dancers were going to work harder. The piece’s title was another clue. Spatial Delivery had been a single pun, based on a long-obsolete term—but Kinergy was a cascade of overlapping ones—synergy/kinetic energy/kinship energy/kin urge—all primal concepts of the human universe, as old as DNA and as unlikely to ever become dated. It had opened, in fact, with two chains of six dancers unwinding from a double helix in a sudden burst of illumination. The musical accompaniment that appeared as they separated was likewise timeless: the tones of its individual voices did not precisely match any classical instrument, but neither did they sound electronic. The music they made together was difficult to categorize; one could have imagined such music being played at just about any time in history. The dancers were costumed as neutrally as possible, in unitards that matched their complexions, with hoods that masked their diversity of hair styles and colors, and with oversized wings and disguised thrusters.

  Nor did the ensuing choreography seem to contain any period or style “flags” in its movement vocabulary—not even those characteristic to its creator. Eva was familiar with most of Jay’s work, and might not have identified this as his if she hadn’t been told: he had managed to transcend his own limitations.

  Ordinarily, for instance, he hated unisons, referred to them as “redundancies,” and tended to use them as little as possible—but once his two chains of dancers had separated into twelve individuals, they spent several minutes dancing in unison, changing only in their dynamic relation to one another, like birds altering their formation in flight.

  Eva slowly realized that the piece did have an unavoidable period flag: since the dancers were weightless, the dance had to belong to the twenty-first century. Few of its sweeping movements could have been performed any earlier in history, on Terra, without the help of special effects. But as that realization came to her, Rand’s shaping began, and cut the piece adrift in time again. The audience facing her on the far side of the theater went away; the dancers were now flying in a blue Terran sky that went on forever, peppered with slow-moving clouds. The sun, its brilliance tempered to a tolerable level by an intervening cloud, was directly opposite Eva, so her subconscious decided that she was lying on her back, mere thousands of meters above Terra, about to fall, an effect so unsettling that she grabbed for her seatmate. (Glancing briefly around, she noticed that many others were doing the same—but not those who were spaceborn.) But the clouds and dancers did not recede, she did not “fall”; before long she relaxed and accepted the fact that she could float in a gravity field, that she was simply lying on a cloud. She resumed watching the dance.

  How old is the concept of fairies? Of winged humans who play among the clouds? These dancers played with the clouds, buzzing them, bursting through them, batting them to and fro like fluffy beachballs. A sextet formed, grabbed each other’s ankles and made a great circle just in time for a cloud to thread it in stately slow motion. Another group at the opposite end of the theater seemed to echo the phrase, but contracted as the cloud was passing through their circle and pinched it into two clouds; the sextet broke into two trios, and each took one of the cloudlets to play with. The remaining six formed a puffball, like fish in the pool, with a cloud at their center; it slowly expanded outward through them, moving up their torsos, and became a translucent wispy sphere around them, then a globe of water, swirling with surface tension. All six came apart from each other and burst the bubble: it popped with a comical moist sound and sent droplets cascading in all directions like a cool firework blossoming. The ones coming toward Eva vanished just before arriving.

  She was delighted. The simple beauty of weightlessness, which became prosaic for every Shimizu resident through daily familiarity, was made magical again by the setting. In this context, the dancers seemed somehow more than (or was it less than?) weightless; they seemed to be nearly massless as well, ethereal. They could meet at high speed without apparent impact, change vector so that it seemed to be their will rather than thrusters which caused the change, bounce from a cloud as easily as penetrate it, pivot on a passing breeze.

  Fetch a Sumerian shepherd with a time machine, give him an hour or two to get used to zero gee, and show him this piece: it would communicate to him instantly. The same for a Cretan stonecutter or a medieval alchemist or, Eva imagined, a hypothetical twenty-third century energy creature. There were probably apes who would appreciate this dance. The creative audacity of trying to rekindle the ancient wonder of flying, for people in an environment where one had to fly to get to the bathroom, people who had been striving since their arrival inboard to become blasé about that very miracle, was inspired. Eva had been in space for a long time, and this was the first time in years that she had reflected on how lucky she was: that mankind’s oldest dream—to fly like a bird, and never fear hitting the ground—was for her a commonplace.

  During the
brief interval between movements, Eva reached up and tapped the program-button in her ear; she had deliberately not audited the program notes before the piece began, but now she wanted to know what the creators had had to say about it. She heard the recorded voice of the immortal Murray Louis, reading from one of his own books:

  Performance is not mired, it floats. It exists upward, it hovers. It is immediate. It happens. It has no roots, it feeds from the air. It floats above all the tangibles that create it. From its loftiness, its aura descends and permeates all, lifting everything to its height as well as its depth. Performance is the revelation that speaks for itself.

  She switched off as the credits began; the second movement had begun. During the interval the dancers had all exited—seeming to shimmer out of existence, one by one—and the clouds had thickened into banks of rolling thunderheads that blotted the sun and darkened the sky. Now the darkness was nearly complete; one could just make out individual billowings in the roiling storm. The temperature seemed to drop slightly, and the air pressure to rise.

  Suddenly, with an earsplitting crash, a fractal fork of lightning arced between two prominences. It came toward Eva, ended only meters from her; for the second time she clutched her seatmate tightly. The audience gasped, then muttered and tittered nervously. Five or ten seconds later a second bolt, shorter and with a different vector, again gave a snapshot of the interior of the storm. The music began to sound like mountain horns in the far distance, great deep bass tones punching through intervening winds. Another bolt, more crooked than the last, flared and died…then another, and another. Their randomness was convincing; they came anywhere from two to twenty seconds apart, lingering in the eye for nearly a second.

  Then all at once all twelve dancers were there, caught in the sudden glare of God’s flashbulb, frozen in tableau. Again the audience murmured. The next flash found them in a different tableau, and the next. Sometimes they were arrayed as two sextets, sometimes as four trios, or three quartets, or a septet and quintet, or six pairs; sometimes they were simply twelve lost individuals. No matter how close together the flashes came, the dancers were never caught in motion. Eva wondered how they managed to navigate to each new position in the dark without colliding, but refused to let herself speculate on how the trick was being done, preferring to simply enjoy it. Soon she was noting patterns in the progression of patterns itself. The whole thing began to remind her of the ancient computer game called “Life,” in which a collection of cells changes shape and structure in successive frames, “evolving” and “growing” according to simple rules. This was like a three-dimensional Life sequence run at a very slow frame rate, had the same weird but intuitively appealing beauty, constantly changing yet remaining stable over time.