The Last Dancer

by The Last Dancer (new ed) (mobi)

  Robert counted himself fortunate to have known and loved her. Already well trained as a dancer when he met her, he had taught her a degree of control over her body she had never known; and she, a child of the streets, had taught him music. It amazed him that he had never missed the lack of music in his life; it seemed to him that wrapped in the music was the source of all movement.

  Fragments reached out to him from the midst of the songs, snatches of melody, phrases:

  Well Elvis sanctified me

  I tell you Elvis saved my soul

  He flew to me through time and space

  And we shared a jelly roll

  The lyric amused him; he wondered sometimes who Elvis might have been. Some religious leader, he guessed, one of the dozens that the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries had produced in such profusion; perhaps one of the Prophet Harry's competitors. The old songs that played now were among his favorites; he did not even know the name of the man who sang them. They were simply a set of songs--an "album"--one of his students had given him about two years prior; the student had moved with his family to Europe shortly thereafter, and Robert had lost touch with him.

  Tonight he waited for his visitor, waited with the music and the thin wail of the singer's voice. The music rolled along, washed over him, and then, out of stillness, a figure cloaked in shadows stepped forward, out of the darkness and into the light. And the music playing in the background, the smooth warm stone of the cup in his hand, every awareness of the outside world, ceased to exist for Robert Dazai Yo.

  He put the cup down on the wooden floor and inclined his head slightly. Aside from that he did not move.

  "Good evening, sir."

  He was a painting come to life, Camber Tremodian; slightly taller than Robert, a monochrome image in black and white and grays. Shadows swirled around him like living things. In the place where his face should have been was a featureless dark mist the color of slate. In times past Robert had found that the more deeply he gazed into that mist, the more strained his eyesight had become. After a time he had learned not to look.

  Upon Camber's breast was a circle of concentric rings, and a single line of writing that Robert could not read; the circles and the words wavered in Robert's eyesight like an image seen on the highway in the desert heat.

  When Camber spoke his voice was smooth and even and featureless. "Hello, Robert."

  "She came back to me."

  "I know."

  Robert had not doubted it. "I've missed her. I've missed her a great deal."

  Camber took another step forward, farther into the light. Still his form grew no clearer; the shadows traveled with him, wrapped themselves about him as he moved. "I know, Robert."

  Robert kept his features stilled, gave no sign of the anguish in his heart. "In your service I have lost everyone I ever cared for. Must I lose her as well?"

  The dark figure said gently, "I do not know if it will be necessary. I can tell you only that which you know; if you can protect her, do. But her path is not yours, and if in serving me you lose her, then lose her you must. I have, I think, denied the Enemy access to Trent the Uncatchable; beyond that I cannot say. Deviation in this year is almost twelve percent: you are approaching a cusp over which my opponent has secured control. This is perhaps my last visit to you. For at least the next two years and four months, and possibly longer, I will not be here to aid or advise you."

  Robert said slowly, "You won't be here?"

  Robert did not think he imagined the weariness in the voice. "My opponent has effectively prevented it, Robert. We traded, he and I; there are no guarantees that one of Trent's enemies of this time will not harm him, but unless my Enemy has an avatar in this time, then from him at least I have kept Trent secure. The details of our agreement do not concern you--but through perhaps the end of this decade, if you see me again it will be in the Other Place; and in that place I am a different order of person. As you have learned, I will not always know you there."

  "You...told me once, that if I were unlucky, I might someday meet your opponent."

  "It is more likely now than previously, and grows likelier the closer we come to the cusp. Even my visit tonight is dangerous; the Enemy's agents in this time are more numerous and more powerful than mine. I think you have probably been identified as mine; there is a chance the Enemy will attempt to turn you from my service."

  "Or Kill me?"

  Camber Tremodian hesitated, and spoke directly, as though to an equal. "Robert, I don't think so. You are one of the six living shivata of this era; I don't think my opponent will dare inflict the Kill upon you, artistic though your death might be. I am a night face; so is he, and if shiabrè died out because of your loss it would destroy both of us. But there are five other night faces in this time, and I don't know with certainty that the Enemy will not make that attempt. Robert, I can't see."

  "If I meet the opponent, how will I know him?"

  The man shrugged. "If he wants you to know him, you will. If he doesn't, you won't." The dark figure laughed suddenly, a deep amused sound. "If you see someone dressed like me who's not me, it's him. Except he'll be in white."

  "In white."

  The amusement was still evident in Camber's tone. "Yes. It's a long story. Perhaps some day a decade or two from now I'll tell it to you. Though, if you have the opportunity, feel free to ask the Enemy about it--you'll never meet a better storyteller. I promise you."

  "Is Denice in danger?"

  Camber shook his head. "No. Not from him, not the way you mean. I could not protect her as I have protected Trent, but Denice is his direct ancestor, and needs the protection less; he won't risk harming her. No more would I. She is no ancestor of mine, but her descendant's lives have touched mine in many places. I once tried to kill her father, but Denice had been born by then, and her father's death, at the time I sought it, would have saved her from a greater loss." The shadowed features turned toward Robert; Robert had the eerie impression that Camber Tremodian met his eyes. "But Robert, if it were necessary that she die, I would have it. If it is necessary that you lose her, I will have that."

  "What you ask of me is hard."

  "Others have been asked more. And given it." He paused. "More will be asked of Denice than has been asked of you."

  Robert looked directly at Camber Tremodian. "You are cruel, sir."

  "No, Robert," said Camber Tremodian, and Robert did not think he imagined the pain in the smooth voice: "I am necessity." And with the word, the shadows reached out to enfold him, and he was gone.

  Robert glanced down at the cup of his tea.

  He knew without touching it that it would be cold.

  He sat for a long while by himself, alone in the dark with his music.

  I think you loved me as I loved you

  And why we stopped I just don't know

  I guess your guess is as good as mine

  ... I miss you though

  He rose after a while and went upstairs to bed, and in his sleep he dreamed with pain and longing of a woman he had not even seen in thirty years.

  DateLine: Shawmac on Writing

  (Taken from an address to a writer's group in Des Moines, Iowa. Shawmac appeared with a bottle of smoke whiskey in hand; his opening line to the group was, "When the bottle's done, I'm done.")

  Where do I get my fucking ideas? Is this the best question you punks can come up with? You want to be a writer and you ask that question?

  Back in '63, when the U.N. outlawed manually operated vehicles, it was a relief for some of us. How do you not get ideas? I used to get them while I drove. It was dangerous. (Okay so yes it was fun. But it was still dangerous. If somebody asks me, someday I'll tell you the story about the time I hit a van, and the rear doors swung open and two blondes and a trampoline fell out. If you ask nicely--it's much too painful a story to remember for a measly thousand-CU speaking fee.)

  Okay, the truth is, I go to an Idea Board in Peoria, Illinois. And I download new ideas from them w
henever I need a new one. It's an expensive way to work, but it's where I got the idea for the Motorpigs.

  ... what's the address? You schmuck, you yellow dog fuckhead, that was a joke. Humor. There is no fucking Idea Board. I make it up.

  You see, it comes to me. It percolates around my skull, combining and recombining, growing more potent with every passing moment, until I awaken in the middle of the night and the brew spews forth through my traceset. And becomes a story or sensable script or DateLine column.

  It's an interesting way to live. Can you imagine what it's like? To be unable to operate heavy equipment, or weapons, or explosives, safely? To get a reputation for rudeness because you can suddenly, in the middle of a conversation, come back to yourself from some fine conceit, and realize you have no idea what the person you're speaking to has just been saying? To come back with a rude, unpleasant jar from some wonderful place, and realize that you have absolutely no idea how much time is left on the hand grenade you're holding?

  Some of you can imagine. You'll be writers and people will ask you stupid questions. And you won't get any sympathy, either, ever, not from anyone. Certainly not from me, cause I got problems of my own.

  So you'll just have to suck it in and tough it out.

  As for the rest of you--the rest of you are yellow dog punks and you'll always be punks.

  Period, end of discussion.

  * * *

  5.

  On the afternoon of July 3, 2075, Terry Shawmac sat at a banquet table toward the rear of the hall and watched as people arrived.

  He was exceptionally drunk.

  To the man sitting next to him, he said suddenly, "It's not like any of the people who got nominated are any good."

  William Devane, newsdancer for the Electronic Times, nodded. When he spoke his voice held a distinct Irish lilt, and for a man of his size--for a man of any size--his voice was very soft and gentle. "I've often thought."

  William Devane did not look like a newsdancer. He was black Irish with black eyes, a face so smooth it looked as though he had just depilated; even in his tuxedo he looked more like a bodybuilder than a nominee for an Electronic Times Award for Excellence in News Reporting.

  A hundred and fifty years earlier he'd have been the meanest, toughest Irish cop in his precinct.

  "You, for example," Shawmac continued. "Don't take this personally, but do you really think your article on the Johnny Rebs was one of the five best pieces of feature reporting in the last year? Really? Not like my extended column on recreational explosives. Now there was a subject that people responded to."

  William Devane's lips curved into a slight smile that did not reach his black eyes. "I heard."

  "And my story on retirement benefits," Shawmac continued. "My examination of the ways in which the fact that people are living longer affects the willingness of large corporations to pay retirement benefits that workers have legitimately earned. Brilliant," he said briskly, "fine, fine writing." Shawmac suddenly upended the bottle of smoke whiskey on the table in front of him, held it upside down for a good ten seconds, and drank straight from the neck. After putting it down again, he fixed Devane with a hostile stare. "So. Think you're going to win?"

  Devane shrugged, massive shoulders moving easily beneath the black cloth of his tuxedo. "I've no idea, M. Shawmac."

  "I've never been nominated, you know."

  "Yes."

  "Oh." Shawmac blinked. "Thought I'd mention it." He returned to his bottle.

  William Devane sat quietly and watched the hall fill up. He did not much like visiting New York; if he had not been nominated for an award, he would not have come.

  He did not much like Terry Shawmac.

  There was one advantage to visiting the city of New York.

  Six hours later William Devane, in his tuxedo, passed through the Barrier and walked down the nighttime streets of the Long Island Fringe. Peaceforcer glowfloats and spyeyes bobbed quietly in the air above, but Devane did not allow it to lull him into a false sense of security; the PKF would not rouse itself to come to the aid of a single man, walking alone at night in the Fringe, should trouble befall him.

  Devane did not intend to allow trouble to befall him.

  Twice, as he walked the ten blocks from the Patrol Sectors Barrier to McGee's, bands of the Gypsy Macoute, draped in American flags in honor of tomorrow's Independence Day, came upon him.

  Both times Devane ignored them.

  Both times the Macoute--perhaps not certain themselves why they did so--let him pass.

  A single hunting waldo sat next to the doorway that led into McGee's. Two men stood immediately inside the door. One carried an Excalibur laser rifle; the other appeared unarmed.

  Both were the equals of Devane's own not inconsiderable height.

  "William Devane," said Devane. "Here to see Mister McGee. He's expecting me."

  After dinner they retired to McGee's study upstairs on the third floor. The study was a place of windows; one window faced inward, overlooking the restaurant below; another looked out into the Fringe. A third looked off across the water, toward the spacescraper-dominated nighttime skyline of Manhattan.

  They were real windows, not holos. The Fringe had, in years past, been a more brutal and violent place than it had since become. It was inevitable; those who had been damaged the worst during the Troubles were now dead, and the children of the Troubles, if deadlier than their parents, were also saner. The random sniper fire that had once been endemic was now rare, and windows had once again become safe.

  The one wall that lacked a window bore a large American flag.

  A photograph, grainy and two-dimensional, hung over the desk; it held the image of a boat McGee had once owned.

  A holo in the corner was tuned to the Electronic Times Board; a second holo, beside it, showed imagery from NewsBoard. Images of rioting--burning cars, pitched battles with PKF troops--flickered through the fields.

  An irony; as the Independence Day riots had grown more violent in the outside world, they had grown less so in the Fringe. From his study McGee could see only one building afire.

  "It was fascinating," said Devane, "to be sure. Newsdancers, nominated themselves, kept sneaking out of the proceedings to check on the status of the riots."

  The old man nodded. "Did you mind losing?"

  Devane sipped at the coffee and brandy McGee had prepared for him, and smiled. "Only a bit, if the truth be told. The award would have made it more difficult for me to work on stories in anonymity. I don't generally write features material anyway." He wondered, briefly, if there was any chance McGee could have understood how deeply he had wanted to lose. After a moment he said, "The Credit would have been nice."

  "CU:5,000, isn't it?"

  "That's only a bit of it, McGee. The rest is that other Boards would have paid more for my work, for the privilege of placing my name on the masthead. In a year or so I'd have brought in twice again the amount of the prize Credit."

  "Surely you're not hurting?"

  Devane shook his head. "No. But who knows what the future will bring? It never hurts to have some put away as hard Credit."

  McGee grinned. "Your point is well taken. Over the course of my own ridiculously prolonged life, I've been broke more times than I like to think." McGee paused, said abruptly, "Just out of curiosity, how old are you?"

  Devane did not even blink. "Forty-seven."

  McGee shook his head. "No, you're not. I mentioned Bob and Ray to you once, and you knew who they were. Nobody who wasn't listening when they were on the air remembers Bob and Ray any longer."

  Devane lied easily. "McGee, you've the fine suspicious mind of a newsdancer. I did some background research once on a comedy Board in Texas; Bob and Ray were prominently mentioned in that Board's history of live comedy duos."

  "You've slipped up on other points as well; you remember too damn many of the same things I remember, things that no one who is not my age should recall." McGee shrugged. "So don't tell me. I've had
one or two experimental treatments myself; you don't live as long as the both of us have without them. I was just curious; your skin, in particular. No looseness to speak of, and I don't see much in the way of joint degeneration in your hands. Whoever did your work, it impresses me."

  "Indeed." Devane paused, changed the subject. "I did appreciate the background material on the Ministry's decision to start sterilizing Public Labor clients again. It helped my story."

  "Yeah." McGee nodded, accepting Devane's change of subject. When he spoke, his voice was grim. "It was a stupid decision, William. We are damn near the point where the PKF are going to have to stop calling them riots and start admitting that they're insurrections; we are only a year away from the TriCentennial itself, and the Ministry brings back the single most unpopular population control measure Occupied America has ever seen. One of my waiters had a sister in Public Labor; I didn't know about it, or I would have paid her debt and gotten her out. By the time he came to me it was too late; they'd sterilized her already. And I don't care what the Ministry says, that damn copy-protection transform virus they use kills people."

  William Devane nodded. "I must tell you, I am not looking forward to next summer. It is not going to be a good time to be on Earth, and particularly North America."

  McGee rose from behind his desk, moved restlessly to stand at the window. He held a single beer bulb in one hand; Devane thought McGee had forgotten it, had not seen McGee drink from it since opening the bulb. "I lose Credit on this restaurant, on the hotel; you know that."

  "Yes."

  "People think I'm wealthy." McGee snorted. "The Fringe needs them, so I've kept them going. The hotel gives the Gypsy Macoute and the Temple Dragons a place to negotiate treaties, neutral territory they can't find anywhere else. The restaurant is just a safe place for people to come and not be bothered. God knows there are few enough of them in the Fringe."

  Devane said nothing.

  "Trent the Uncatchable used to come here, you know. Before he got out of the Fringe and got famous."