The Last Dancer

by The Last Dancer (new ed) (mobi)

  Her skin had the fineness of grain that is the province of either the very young or the recently regenerated; hers had just the faintest hint of green tracings, as though she were half plant, half human. Her makeup implant included her eyes; they glowed blue, the color of star sapphires. A pair of green stud emerald earrings finished the ensemble.

  Michelle Altaloma looked for all the System like she'd just walked off a fashion runway, until she tried to walk. Jay had applied mag patches to the bottom of her boots, but she'd clearly never been in drop before, and I had to bite my cheeks to keep from smiling over the way Jay kept putting out a hand to steady her as they walked to the table.

  It left me feeling a little wistfully lecherous.

  After the waiter had taken our orders she fell silent for the first time. I knew why; she was looking around herself. It's a view you normally get only after someone who doesn't like you pushes you into death pressure without your suit. Observation Bubble is located out near the Edge; it used to be closer to the center, but they keep moving it because the new buildings obscure the view.

  In the bubble, you can see everything. Luna, Earth, Halfway, the odd bright needles of torch ships moving through the distant darkness; the encompassing, sheltering blaze of the stars.

  From the Edge, the seven-kilometer long shell of the Unity is Halfway's single largest visible structure. It's more than twice as large as the whitish blob of Administration Central. Michelle pointed it out. "What's that one?"

  I said gently, "That's the ship that's going to conquer the outer planets. They've been building it since '72; it's supposed to be completed in '79."

  "Oh." She looked troubled, worried. "They're building it at Halfway?"

  "Yes."

  "But--I thought that terrorists kept trying to blow it up?"

  I leaned back in my chair. "Well, dear, it's happened a couple of times, that's true enough. But if Space Force moved the ship just a bit, it'd happen a lot more. As it is, the ship's being built in the middle of a largely civilian section of Halfway. Most of the folks from the outer planets have better morals than Space Force, so they've avoided attacking it so far."

  "But if they did attack it--the Collective or the CityStates--"

  "Be a lot of deaths," I said bluntly. "Amiga, we'd have dead people making like meteors in Earth's atmosphere for days afterward. We'd never know who had died."

  "But it's not going to happen," said Jay smoothly. "Shell, you shouldn't worry about things that aren't going to happen. Okay?"

  "Um. All right."

  Dinner came then, which was probably just as well. I'd intended to have my handheld go off with a message for me shortly after dinner--bow out gracefully, give the kids a chance to enjoy the romantic scenery together--but over coffee the conversation got mildly serious, and the teenage bubblehead stopped seeming like such a bubblehead. I was only a bit surprised; very intelligent women often downplay their intelligence until they feel secure with you. It was more common when I was younger than it is today, and I suppose that's a good thing.

  "Listen," she said earnestly, after the second round of coffee had been served, "suppose a group from the CityStates did attack the Unity. Would that be wrong?"

  "It would be an act of war. It'd be stupid."

  "But would it be wrong?"

  I glanced at Jay; he gave me an I-give-up shrug. "Good question. There's no secret what the Unification plans to do with that ship; I guess the question is, should the Unification be extended to the outer planets? If it should be, then, yes, attacking the Unity is wrong. If it shouldn't be, then attacking the Unity is a moral act."

  Michelle nodded. "And it's the Unification--Space Force--that's done the immoral thing, by building it in the midst of all those civilians?"

  I smiled at the girl, said gently, "Dear, that's a leading question. I'm the Chief of Security for Halfway. It's an apolitical job."

  "Of course you have to say that," she said persistently. "But that doesn't prevent you from having opinions."

  I laughed aloud at that. "'Selle Altaloma, if I told everybody every opinion I have on every subject, I'd be out of a job so fast it'd make your head spin. And mine. What are your plans for tomorrow?"

  Jay grabbed it, obviously relieved. "I'm taking her on a tour of the Edge in the morning--the nicer parts, such as they are--and in the afternoon we're going to go flying."

  Michelle said swiftly, "You promised me we'd do the Relay Station."

  I lifted an eyebrow. "Amiga? Why do you want to see the Relay Station?"

  "I'm taking a class in Net traffic control next Fall semester. Better than two thirds of all Net traffic flows through the Halfway InfoNet Relay Station." She shrugged, smiled a secretive smile at me, a thing that seemed to invite me to share in the joke. "It'll be fun."

  "It's not my idea of fun. Are you serious?"

  She and Jay both said, "Yes," at the same moment, she very seriously, he glumly. I glanced at Jay, and Jay said, "She's a Player."

  I looked back and forth between the two of them. "You're kidding. You mean you dance in the web sometimes?"

  "He means," Michelle Altaloma said evenly, "that I'm a Player. And a very good one, too."

  She was a sixteen year old fashion statement. "Um--you have an Image? Someone I could get on the Boards and find the name somewhere?"

  I'm sure she understood I wasn't asking for the name of her Image, merely whether she had one; but she shook her head swiftly. "No. I've written an Image, but I try to avoid dancing with it. Letting your Image get to be well known is a tactical error. The Players whose Images dance the Net when they don't have to are fools."

  I shook my head. "I don't understand that. I thought the purpose of having an Image was that it allowed you to move through the Net. Why wouldn't you let your Image get to be well known?"

  "Fame is bad for you," Michelle said simply. "Look, you've played sensables, right?"

  "Sure."

  "You pick up a Gregory Selstrom sensable from before his accident, whether it has his name on it or not, could you possibly, having read his other work, mistake this one for work by anyone else?"

  Five minutes prior I'd have bet long odds she'd never played a Selstrom sensable in her life. "Not a chance."

  "Well, writing an Image is the same deal. There's maybe fifteen, twenty thousand significant decisions that have to be made in writing it, and at least half of those are nothing but personal taste. Nobody is so good that they can wipe all trace of their personality from how they assemble an Image. For example, I'll use this one because it's famous, before Trent the Uncatchable was Johnny Johnny, his Image was named Ralf the Wise and Powerful. Apparently Trent lost Ralf in '62, during the Troubles. Now, he was eleven. About six years later a new Player, calling himself Johnny Johnny, starts dancing the Net. DataWatch doesn't make him cause they're stupid, but half a dozen Players, at least, look at this image Johnny Johnny, and they say to themselves, the person who wrote Johnny Johnny is the same person who wrote Ralf the Wise and Powerful. Mind you, they didn't know who it was who'd done it--Trent was still anonymous back then--they just knew that enough elements correspond that it's probably the same person. And Trent must have changed dramatically between the ages of eleven and seventeen; people do. There is no way an adult Player, once she was recognized, in Realtime, as the author of her Image, could write a new Image that wouldn't be instantly recognizable as her work. So, to wrap this up, the best way to work the Net is to not have an Image that people know; cause once you're famous, you have no margin of error."

  Jay grinned at me. "She's a bright girl, Neil."

  I stood, caught the girl watching me. I said simply, "'Selle Altaloma, it's a great pleasure to have met you. Perhaps I'll see you again before you go home."

  Little Michelle bit her lower lip and cast her eyes down slightly in what was supposed to be shyness. I could imagine how many hours she'd spent practicing that look in the mirror. She said in a small voice, "Thank you. It was nice meeting you too." />
  I picked up my p-suit, waved aside the waiter who wanted to help me into it. "Good night, kids. I'll see you at work tomorrow, Jay."

  "Good night, Neil."

  Her voice was very soft. "Good night, 'Sieur Corona."

  I was halfway home before I realized who it was she reminded me of.

  Tanni, the summer before I joined the Marine Corps.

  I don't think I'd thought of Tanni in at least a decade.

  Tanni had been sixteen too.

  I don't know why the memory was so depressing. Maybe it was just the fact that Tanni was the last time I'd even kidded myself that anything permanent was happening.

  I flipped the sled at turnover and touched the braking rockets, feeling old and careful and cautious.

  Mostly old.

  Marc was waiting for me at my house.

  He'd let himself in; he's keyed for access. He and Jay and Vasily are the only ones who are.

  The security system alerted me that Marc was inside while I was still a good klick away, and told me he'd been waiting for most of an hour. It wasn't 9 p.m. yet; it meant that Marc had left the office and headed for my place sometime around seven. Very unusual; Marc lives to work.

  When I got closer to the house I saw that an ExecuSled was parked at the visitor's airlock, and when I got a bit closer yet I saw that Marc had left his bodyguards inside. Marc runs through bodyguards quickly, and crap like that is why. Direct solar radiation is dangerous; people who spend much time in it get cancer, sterility, and children with odd numbers of limbs.

  I docked at my private lock, unsnapped my seat belt and made sure my tie-line was connected to the lock before I got out of my seat. I walked on magboots over to where the ExecuSled was parked and saw to my surprise that the suits inside weren't bodyguards; they were Halfway Security, my kids. Names on their pressure suits read Lopez and McCarthy. Rookies, both, and I didn't know either well. I tapped the side of my helmet, raised up a pair of fingers; on two.

  Lopez's voice clicked in on Channel 2. "Hey, Chief."

  "Hi, kids. How long has he left you sitting out here in the sun?"

  I could tell from her voice she was pissed. "'Bout an hour, Chief."

  "Unbuckle and take yourselves to the kitchen. You know where it is?"

  "No."

  "Follow the security program's instructions; it'll guide you. Feed yourselves whatever you like. I have Earth-grown coffee." There was wine and beer also, but if they were so stupid they needed to be told not to touch the Chief's alcohol while on duty, they were so stupid they needed to be shipped back downside pronto.

  From inside the craft I saw their helmets bob up and down. "Thanks, Chief. You guys going to be talking long?"

  "Beats the hell out of me, kids."

  I cycled through and went looking for Marc.

  He was in my office, sitting in the big leather chair in front of my systerm. "Hello, Neil."

  I hung my p-suit on the hook. "Get your ass out of my chair, Marc."

  He looked surprised, but got up and moved over to the small sofa on the other side of the office. "Neil, we need to talk."

  "No shit?" I hung my dinner coat on the back of my chair, kicked my shoes off and sank down into the chair facing Marc. "Want my resignation?"

  Marc stopped cold. He'd come prepared to dicker--he wanted something from me, and it was important, or this would be happening in his office--and he expected me to be wary and mildly pissed about the circus deal. But he hadn't expected that I'd be genuinely sore at him, and didn't know what had caused it. "What's wrong?"

  "You had a couple of my kids sitting out there in the fucking sun is what's wrong. One, you don't requisition bodyguards from Security without clearing it with me. Two, they are people, not 'bots, and you do not leave them out in the goddamn sun to suffer heat exhaustion and radiation poisoning." Marc started to speak and I raised my voice. "Three, you have one real friend in this city and if I have my chain jerked in public again you're not going to have any. What's got you running so scared?"

  I don't do this to him often; Marc is a dangerously smart man, and he has no weak spots to speak of; but naked aggression slows him down some. If he ever caught on to the technique, it would stop working; and it's one of the very few methods I know to deal with him. Our friendship, though as real as any Marc has probably ever had, has never really been stressed, and I don't depend on it much. I've seen what's happened to other people who thought that Marc was their friend.

  He is capable of decency, where his own self-interest is not involved. I've seen him go out of his way to aid people throughout Halfway, not because it was good business or even good publicity, but because he had spare time. But like his friendship, Marc's altruism is nothing to depend on. Like a man who'll stop to pick up a lost puppy at the side of the road, and then have the dog put to sleep when he finds it's taking up too much of his time and he can't find a home for it.

  So my anger threw him. He said carefully, "Okay. Both of my personal guards are with Hand Moreau; he's visiting the InfoNet Relay Station, and they're guiding him. Second--"

  I exploded, came up out of my chair. "And this is the first I hear about it? I didn't even fucking know Alex Moreau was at Halfway!"

  Marc snapped, "Sit down. He came back today, Neil, this afternoon. His personal yacht. May I continue?"

  I glared at him, but sat. "Go ahead."

  "I couldn't send Security with him; he's here privately and we can't allow his presence to be known. Apologies about leaving your Security staff outside, I've had other things on my mind. Lastly, about the circus, that whole deal was necessary."

  "You're going to have a hell of a time convincing me."

  Marc took a deep breath and said, "The PKF is considering declaring martial law at Halfway."

  I had to look at the carpet for I don't know how long until the roaring in my ears finally went away. It seems at times that the centerpiece of my whole fucking life has been the PKF. Fighting them, being imprisoned by them, fleeing them; the last few decades, dealing with them professionally.

  After a long while I sat up again. I didn't have any anger left, just a cold, solid lump of animal scared sitting down in my gut. "Okay."

  "I don't have to tell you how disastrous that'd be. For both of us. The Board of Directors would fire me. Neil, I'm a Halfer; I can't go to Earth, and there's only one post off Earth that I'm suited for, and I have it. If they take it away from me I either retire, at the age of fifty-two, or I jump ship and go out to the Belt CityStates." He paused. "In your case it's worse. Your half-brother was nearly executed for Reb activities, and you've done time in the Capitol City Detention Center." I'd never mentioned that to him and wasn't surprised that he knew about it. "If we have martial law, the PKF is going to arrest you again, Neil, and probably impound your property. Worst case, martial law, serious TriCentennial riots at Halfway, they're going to blame the riots on you and execute you for being a Reb." He leaned forward and shouted with what looked like genuine anger, "Do I have your attention?"

  "You've got it."

  He took a deep breath and leaned back again. "Good." He closed his eyes briefly, abruptly looked weary. Opened them again. "All right. Secretary General Eddore suggested the damn circus."

  I was ready to believe anything by then. "Go on."

  "It shows we're on top of things. That business is going on as usual, that Halfway's sympathy for Occupied America is so completely trivial that we're comfortable entertaining a traveling circus during the Fourth of July weekend. It makes the PKF who want to take over Halfway look like nervous old maidens."

  "Why does Eddore give a shit?"

  "What's your grasp of politics, Neil?"

  "Minimal."

  He sighed. "All right. Briefly, Eddore's having problems with the PKF. He's concerned about their growing power and the very last thing he wants is to have the engine that drives Earth's economy under PKF control. Which is, need I point out, what martial law at Halfway amounts to."

 
"What got the PKF in an uproar in the first place?"

  "I don't know exactly," Marc said reluctantly. "A report that the InfoNet Relay Station was a target of terrorists played a part in it, but I don't know how large a part. DataWatch is convinced the report is true; they expect to see the rebels attempt to destroy the Halfway Relay Station on or around the Fourth. It's at least part of the reason Moreau is here; he brought a group of the Secretary General's webdancers up with him, and they're checking, and rechecking, and triple checking, the Relay Station's informational integrity."

  "So," I said slowly, "in order to prevent the PKF from declaring martial law at Halfway, we're going to bring the circus to town."

  Marc said evenly, "Yes."

  "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard in my life."

  "It's the truth, Neil."

  "That's the only reason I believe it."

  * * *

  50.

  His bodyguards were the best Credit could buy; currently with Security Services, one was ex-Space Force, the other ex-PKF. David had told them both before they boarded the semiballistic to San Diego that, if necessary, they were to give their lives in protecting his.

  They agreed with him. People did.

  Still the deal made him nervous. That a pimp who had made it big in the Johnny Rebs wanted to see him made very little sense. The reasons the Old Ones in New York had given him--that Obodi was considering dosing the Reb troops with electric ecstasy before sending them into battle--did not convince him. If he'd been prepared for a war with New York David would have refused to go; but he did not have the manpower for war, and New York had made it clear that those were the stakes.

  It made him very nervous.

  He hadn't run wire in six years, and his own use of the wire was well enough known that nobody was going to seek his opinion on the subject. With one possible exception, the scenario made no sense.

  David didn't like to think about the exception.