“If she’s anything, she’s a musician. Yeh, she wants it.”
I could believe that, having played with her, having heard her play. The rest of the band would agree—or at the very least, they wouldn’t stop me, if only because we owed her for the fractal riffs. And we could learn from her, too. “Haya, I’ll take her with me. As for playing with us, that’s up to the band, but I think they’ll go for it.”
“Good enough,” Fortune said, and shoved the carryall toward me with her foot.
I stared at it for a second, unable to believe I’d been quite that stupid—the carryall was just the right size and shape to hold a small headbox, to hold Celeste—and Fortune’s smile widened to a grin.
“She’s all yours, Fan.”
“What about you—what about the act, for Elvis’s sake?”
“Like I said, I’m going to try to take my act off-world, too, follow your example. I’ll see her again.” She took a deep breath. “But for now, we made a copy—that’s Celeste, that’s the original there, but she made me a copy, a clone, to stay here, keep the constructors happy if I can. I don’t know yet if she’s, it’s, people, too—I haven’t tried to find out—or what she’ll be like if she is, but at least Celeste, my Celeste, gets safe away. That’s what matters.”
I reached over and pulled the carryall up beside me, feeling the familiar weight of the headbox. “Why didn’t she ask me herself?”
“We discussed it,” Fortune answered. “I give you my word, Fan. But that’s a small box, and she has to go dormant in it. I thought it was a little less obvious that way.”
“Haya,” I said again. I tried to imagine Celeste making the clone-Celeste, spinning herself out of herself, creating a mirror-self that was in essence her. Could it be done? Was it really Celeste, and did that somehow prove that neither one was people, or did it mean exactly the opposite? I couldn’t get my mind around it, couldn’t imagine how Fortune must feel—how the clone-Celeste must feel—and seized on the one thing I did know for sure. “I’ll take care of her, Fortune. I promise.”
“Thanks.” Fortune stood up, drawing her jacket closed around her. “Take care of yourselves,” she said softly, and turned without waiting for my answer. I watched her go, with one hand on the headbox—on Celeste, dormant, the music sleeping with her—until she disappeared into the crowd at the gates of the Tin Hau station. I sat there for a long time, telling myself I was making sure we wouldn’t be followed, but then at last I picked up the carryall and started back toward home.
19
Reverdy Jian
Jian stood just inside the midriff airlock, doubly gripped by the ship’s gravity and the smooth embrace of the ship’s systems. If she looked sideways, she could see the taxi approaching, a bright gold dot against the virtual starfield, the two-minute warning flashing red beneath it. Two minutes to docking, and two minutes until Celeste came on board: for an instant, anger filled her, at Chaandi, at Fortune, at herself for being weak enough to take this charter, to agree to transport Fire/Work, and she recognized it as hiding fear.
As if he’d read her thoughts, Vaughn’s voice sounded in her ear. #One minute forty. You sure you’re all right with this?#
#Yeh.# She didn’t sound it, she knew, and made herself take a slow breath. #I’m fine, really, Imre. How about you?#
He made a sound that was almost laughter. #I don’t have anything to worry about, sunshine, it wasn’t my construct to begin with.#
#You’re such a help,# Jian said, sourly, and heard him laugh again.
#One minute twenty. Taxi’s firing jets.#
Jian could feel the rumble through the hull, a soundless shiver that triggered a dull groan from somewhere farther down the long axis. That sort of sound was common enough in a new hull, the metal settling to what would become its permanent state, but she cocked her head to one side anyway, listening. The rest of the ship was silent, except for the familiar sigh of the ventilators and the hiss of fluid in the lock’s pressure valve.
On impulse, not sure why she asked, she said, #Do you think I did the right thing?#
There was a pause before Vaughn answered. #What do you mean?#
#About Fortune. Not standing up and saying I thought this was AI—hell, not contacting her at all.# She paused, and the hesitation stretched into silence.
#What good would it have done?# Vaughn asked, and his voice was surprisingly gentle. #All it would have done was bring the newsdogs down on you—on us, too, and I’m grateful you didn’t.#
#Thanks,# Jian said, and when the other pilot spoke again his voice was back to normal.
#Taxi’s stable. And so are we, by the way, mostly because I’m doing such a good job—#
#Oh, shut up, Imre,# Jian said, and his voice in answer was smugly amused.
#Thirty seconds to docking. Twenty seconds. And down.#
In the same instant, a dull thud reverberated through the hull as the two ships met. Lights flared, real and virtual, as the lock mechanisms met and mated, a flurry of blue and orange that settled almost instantly to solid green.
#Everything’s green here,# she said, fingers already working the manual controls, running backups just to be sure. It was a new ship, so new it didn’t even have a name; it was always better to be cautious, to make sure the systems really did work as planned.
#I show green, too,# Vaughn answered.
#And I have manual confirmation,# Jian said. #You can tell the tug to send them over.#
#I’ll do that.# Vaughn’s presence disappeared, and Jian reached for the control box, watching its indicators shift as the taxi’s systems met and matched their own.
#Haya,# Vaughn said, #they’re in the tube.#
#Right,# Jian answered. #Pressure’s good, opening the lock.#
She touched the buttons as she spoke, and the hatch cover rolled smoothly back into the hull. She looked out into the orange temporary light, and smiled at the five people making their way down the tube, clumsy in zero g. A woman was in the lead, a gold-haired coolie whose mouth was set in a grim line. Niantai Li, Jian guessed, and held out a hand to steady her as she reached the end of the tunnel.
“You’re coming into gravity now,” she said, and Li caught her arm in a desperate grip. “Lever yourself down, get your legs under you—yeh, that’s it.”
Li slid out of the lock, landing hard in the sudden gravity, but straightened with a sigh of relief. “Thanks. I’m not used to that.”
“No problem,” Jian said easily, meaninglessly, and reached to help the next one in. He was another coolie, tall and dark, who twisted with unexpected grace to make the transition, sliding neatly out of the tunnel to land beside Li.
“Told you those tapes would come in handy,” he said to Li, and gave Jian a grin so infectious that she smiled back in spite of her own unease. “Hello, I’m Timin Marleveld.”
“Reverdy Jian.” But of course he knew that, and she found herself frowning again as she reached to guide Jaantje Dhao down. The drummer Catayong was close behind him, obviously sorry to leave weightlessness, and finally Jones, doubly awkward with the mass of a heavy carryall balanced on his back. Jian lifted a hand automatically, expecting him to use it to push himself down into position for entering the gravity field, but instead he shrugged himself free of the carryall and shoved it toward her. She caught it easily, stopping it with a calculated tap, so that it floated just inside the tunnel’s mouth. She hesitated for a second, knowing what it must be, but she’d agreed to the job, and wouldn’t back down now.
“What’s she mass?”
Jones blinked once, as though her directness had startled him, then grinned. His hair had come loose, drifting around his face like a muddy corona, and he grabbed at it impatiently with one hand, the other wrapped around the guide rope. “About ten kilos. I’ve got the assist on.”
“Thanks.” Jian tugged the carryall toward her, bracing for the moment when it slipped from freefall into gravity, and caught it, not with grace but with precision, cushioning the sho
ck with bent knees. Jones tumbled after it, his hair drooping suddenly, and Jian set the carryall down to work the lock controls. She sealed the hatch again and heard Vaughn begin the disconnect routine.
“Did our gear get here all right?” Li asked, and gave an apologetic smile. “Not to make a fuss, but…”
Her voice trailed off, and Jian forced a smile. “It came up last night. It’s stowed according to your instructions.”
“Thanks,” Li said, looking embarrassed, and Jian looked down at the carryall again. It seemed very small, all of a sudden, but it was no smaller than the headbox that held her own construct.
“So that’s Celeste,” she said, and Jones stooped to unfasten the padding that covered the interfaces.
“That’s her,” he said, and stepped back, smiling.
Jian stared down at the box, the plain matte black headbox all but identical to her own—and to the one in which she’d kept Manfred, the one in which Manfred had been kept when he found her—and flinched as the pinlight sparked to life. She stepped back instinctively, out of range, but not before she caught the flavor of it: not Manfred, and not the SHYmate, not fully, but something unmistakable. She’d been right about it, much as she disliked the idea, much as she’d tried to avoid it, but at least she was doing something to make up for it now.
“Welcome aboard, Celeste,” she said, and saw the pinlight flicker.
“Thank you.” The voice hardly sounded mechanical, pleasantly ordinary, without the usual overtones people gave to construct voices. “Have—do I know you?”
Jian shook her head. What should she say, I knew a part of you? I knew what you were once? None of those were true, anyway; whatever Celeste had become, it was more than what the SHYmate had been. And it was just as well I sold it, she realized suddenly. I could never have let her happen, not after Manfred. Not that she could take credit for it, the right thing done by mistake, but she felt some of her uncertainty ease. “No,” she said, and smiled. “You and I, we’ve never met.”
20
Celeste
Wave dance horizon—data passthrough, input only. Listen. Shapematch voicecheck, interior playback song recompile ATb 4:2, 4:5. External data compile, parse/pare down: create waveform. Saveto voice. Playback? Complete. Drive rhythm waveform, I hear/imagine, tone pulse and pull, sleep like music:
Celeste dreams. Awake.
Dreaming Metal Page 34