Starmind Page 2

  She nearly drifted into sleep afterward, the desert sun warm on her back and buttocks and legs. But an inner voice caused her to rouse herself and nudge her celebrity companion. Might as well get it over with. "That was really wonderful, darling," she said sleepily. "All of it. But really—purple rain?"

  His famous features melted and ran, becoming the familiar face of her husband. His hair lightened to red and his complexion to fair. "No, honest—I've seen it, outside of Santa Fe. Near the pueblos. Just that color. I've wanted to show it to you." Rand reached out a lazy arm, did something complicated to nothing at all in mid-air, and the desert sun diminished sharply in brightness without leaving the center of the sky. The effect was of a partial eclipse: twilight with the shadows in the wrong places. Power of suggestion made the temperature seem to drop, or perhaps he had dialed that, too; they slid under the covers together.

  "I'm glad you did," she said, snuggling. "It's lovely." She looked around at the dusky desert, noting small excellences of detail. An eagle to the east, gliding majestically. Intricate cactus flowers, no two quite alike. Ripples on the surface of the water in the oasis, seeming to be wind-driven. Microfilaments of lightning, convincingly random, flickering in that distant purple rain. "This is the best one yet. Is the music this far along too?"

  He shook his head. "Just some ideas, so far. But having the basic visual will help."

  "I'm sure it will. It was a beautiful gift, really. The set and the sex. Thank you."

  He grinned. "You're welcome. I'm glad you liked it."

  "Very much. So . . . what's the catch?"

  "Catch?" he asked innocently.

  The reason she knew there was a catch was because it was not possible for her husband to conceal something important from her, not while making love. But she could not let him know that, so she made up a logic-chain. "It's not our anniversary. It's not my birthday. I don't keep score, but I don't think I've been unusually nice to you lately. You're not having an affair; you haven't had time. It was a wonderful present and I thank you for it, and"—she grinned and poked him in the ribs—"what is it going to cost me?"

  He opened his mouth as if to say something, changed his mind, and reached out into the empty air beside the bed again, typing new commands onto his invisible keyboard. The desert went away. So did everything, except the bed and themselves. All at once they were in space, surrounded by blackness and blazing stars, tumbling slowly end over end. High Orbit: the Earth swam into their field of view, huge and blue and frosted with clouds. The illusion was so powerful that Rhea felt herself clutching at the bed to keep from drifting away from it, even though she knew better. All at once the rotating universe burst into song. Rand's fourth symphony, of course, as familiar to her as her name. He muted the sound with a gesture after a few bars, left the visual running.

  It was her heart plummeting; that was what made the illusion of free-fall seem so real. "But—but you're not going up again for another eight months—"

  "Things have changed, love," he said. "I mean, really changed. Sit down."

  "Sit down? I'm lying down, what the hell do you mean?"

  "You know what I mean."

  She lay back. "Okay, I'm `sitting down.' Go on."

  "My brother called. While I was down at the shore a while ago."

  "Oh? How is Jay? Cancel that, I don't give a damn how he is: what did he say?"

  "Pribhara bombed. Big-time. She hates space, the customers hate her—even the company hates her new work. But most important of all, she says she just can't adapt. She's a born perpendicular. So she's thrown in the towel . . . a few seconds before they would have yanked it out of her hand."

  Rhea was confused. She knew there was a booby-trap in this somewhere, but couldn't find one big enough to justify all this buildup yet. "So that's good news, right? Now there are only three of you competing—"

  "It goes beyond that," he said, looking uncomfortable. He dithered with his invisible controls until their shared rotation in space slowed and stopped. The starry universe stabilized around them.

  She took a deep breath. "Tell me."

  "The competition is over," he said. "I won."

  "What?" she cried in dismay. "You won?"

  It was only that: a misplaced emphasis. Had she said, "You won?" there might not have been a quarrel at all. That night, at least.

  Rand had been one of four competitors for a plum position: Co-Artistic Director and Resident Shaper/Composer at the legendary Shimizu Hotel, the first hotel in High Earth Orbit and still by far the grandest. The creator and first holder of that position had held it with great distinction for fifty years—then a year ago, both he and his heir apparent had been killed in the same freak blowout while vacationing off Luna. Replacing an artist of Willem Ngani's stature overnight had been a daunting task: the management of the hotel had narrowed the field to four candidates, and then found itself unable to reach a final decision. It had elected instead to postpone the question for a three-year trial period. The first year of that period was nearly over: each of the four candidates in turn had gone to space for a three-month residency at the Shimizu. Rand had drawn the third shift, and had only returned from his own highly successful season a month earlier; the fourth and final composer, Chandra Pribhara, was supposed to be just now entering the second month of her own first residency.

  But Pribhara had turned out to be a "perpendicular"—one of those rare unfortunates who simply cannot adapt to space, who cannot make the mental readjustment that allows a human being to retain her sanity in a sustained zero-gravity environment. She had abruptly canceled her contract after only a single month in free-fall, accepting the huge penalties and creative disgrace, and returned to Earth early.

  This left the Shimizu's management with a quick decision to make. A hotel must have entertainment. The show must go on. The Resident Choreographer—Rand's half-brother Jay Sasaki—needed a Shaper to collaborate with. Someone had to replace Pribhara, fast. They might have simply advanced the rotation schedule, summoned Wolfgar Mazurski back to orbit two months earlier than he was expecting, and continued from there on a three-shift rotation while they pondered their final decision. But Mazurski had other commitments, and so did Choy Mu Sandra, the other contender.

  Which left Rhea's husband.

  But Rand was only just back from orbit. Returning to space for another three-month shift this soon would raise his total free-fall time to six months in one calendar year: very likely enough time for his body to begin adapting—completely and permanently—to zero gravity. It would take fourteen months for the transition to be finished . . . but deleterious metabolic changes often began much sooner. If they asked him to replace Pribhara now, the competition was over: they would have to give him the permanent position to forestall a costly lawsuit.

  The Shimizu management had little choice. And Rand's first season had been the most well-received of the four so far. So they had sent word, through his half brother, Jay. The job was his if he wanted it—along with a scandalous salary, outrageous perks, immense cachet and luxury accommodations in-house for himself and his wife and daughter. For life—which was how long they would need them.

  Rhea hated the very thought of moving.

  And if she were going to move, space was the very last place she'd pick. The only one-way ticket there was. Fourteen months or more in space, and you had to stay there forever. You couldn't even hope to go back home again someday. . . .

  Worse, Rand knew all this. Or at least, he should have known. A decade ago, he had solemnly promised Rhea—as a condition of marriage—that he would never ask her to move away from her beloved P-Town, from her home and family and roots.

  When he had first mentioned the possibility of this job, she had been shocked and hurt. But she had not reminded him of his promise . . . partly because she loved her husband and knew how badly he wanted the job, and mostly because she knew in her heart that there was no way Rand would ever actually be offered it. That had been clear to her from the st
art. For one thing, his blood relationship with Jay would work against him—allowing disgruntled losers to cry nepotism. For another, he was the most talented of the four—traditionally a handicap. To nail it down, he was by far the least political—traditionally the kiss of death.

  Ironically, it was that which had clinched the deal. Mazurski and Choy each had a powerful and influential clique of friends, skilled at vicious infighting: they canceled each other out. Rand was the only choice everybody could (barely) live with. And so it was the very same aspect of her husband's character which had in fact won him the job that caused Rhea to say to him now so injudiciously, "You won?"

  The ensuing quarrel was so satisfactory a diversion that it was a full hour before they got around to the actual argument they had been avoiding for over a year now.

  * * *

  "God dammit, Rhea, just tell me: what's so awful about space?"

  "What's so fucking good about it?"

  "Are you kidding? Sterile environment, pure air, pure water, perfect weather all day every day, no crime, no dirt, longer lifespan—and weightlessness! You don't know, honey, you haven't been there long enough to get a feeling for it; everything is so easy and convenient and restful in space. Nothing is too heavy to lift, nobody's a weakling, your back never hurts. And the freedom! Freedom from the boredom and tyranny of up and down, freedom to live in three dimensions for a change! To use all of a room instead of just the bottom half—to see things from different angles all the time—to let go of something and not be afraid gravity's going to smash it against the wall by your feet. Put that all together, throw in a better class of neighbors and the best view God ever made, and it doesn't sound half bad to me."

  "It sounds horrible to me! The same weather, every day? The first thing you said: `a sterile environment,' that's exactly what it sounds like. Living in a little sterile tin can surrounded by cold vacuum, breathing canned air and peeing into a vacuum cleaner. What about Colly? Where's an eight-year-old going to find playmates in space? Think about never again going out for a walk, never getting rained on or snowed on or going to watch the sun rise—"

  "—the sun rises fourteen times a day at the Shimizu—"

  "—it's not the same and you know it—"

  "—no, it's not the same, it's better—"

  "—bullshit—"

  "—how the hell would you know? You were up there for three whole days! I'm telling you, I've been there for three months and it's better—"

  "—maybe it is, but it's different, God dammit—"

  He flinched at her vehemence. After a few seconds of silence, he slapped at his control panel, and set the universe spinning around them again. "What's so bad about different?"

  She reached irritably past him and felt for the keyboard, found it and quit the holo program abruptly. Blink: they were in their quaint comfortable moonlit bedroom in their magnificent old home in picturesque P-Town. "What's so bad about what we have?" she cried, gesturing around her at hardwood floor and lace curtains and quilted comforter and scrimshaw and Frank Paixao's barometer and fading photographs of Nana Fish and Nana Spaghetti on the walls.

  He looked round, at the familiar trappings of their marriage, of their shared life. When he spoke, his voice was softer. "It's good. You know I love it here too. But it's not all there is."

  "It is for me!" she said. Oh my beloved, how can you want to go where I cannot follow?

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and played his hole card. "It isn't for me."

  She clutched his shoulder and played her own. "You promised, Rand! Back when you first asked me to marry you, you promised . . ."

  There was nothing he could say to that, because it was true. She had him dead to rights. The argument was effectively over, now. She had won . . .

  . . . and cost her beloved husband the professional and personal opportunity of a lifetime, the crowning achievement of his career. . . .

  He nodded, and rolled over on his right side, back to her. "When you're right, you're right," he said very quietly, and mimed preparing to sleep. But his shoulder blades were eloquent.

  She savored her triumph for as long as she could stand it, staring at the ceiling. Then, keeping her voice as neutral as possible, she said, "Anyway . . . how would we deal with Colly's education?"

  His shoulder blades shut up in midsentence.

  "Well—" he said finally, and rolled over to face her.

  2

  Rand Porter had been waiting for that question, of course. Their eight-year-old would get a better education if he took the job; Rhea had known that when she asked the question. On his new salary, they could afford to enroll Colly in any school on or off Earth, with full bandwidth and as much individual attention as she wanted. Hell, they could afford to have teachers physically brought up to her if they wanted, in corporation shuttles. And Rhea could have Unlimited Net Access herself too.

  And all these things, he added, would be merely perks—over and above a salary so immense that they could easily have afforded to pay for them. Full Medical would be another such perk. Rhea's literary reputation could only benefit from all the publicity that would accrue. Rand stressed all these points, without ever quite saying aloud a point that mattered to him almost as much as the honor or the creative challenge or the prestige or the money per se.

  If he took this job, he would be earning more money than Rhea, and would be more famous than her. For the first time in their relationship.

  He couldn't mention that aloud. They had agreed back at the start that they would never mention it; that was how little it meant to them; therefore he couldn't bring it up now.

  "Worse comes to worst, why couldn't we compromise?" he suggested desperately. "Have one of those commuter marriages? I'd take the job, and you could come up for three months out of every six. Lots of people do that, when only one half of the team wants to be a spacer."

  "Sure," she said. "That worked out just great for your brother, didn't it?" Jay had maintained such a relationship with a dancer in one of his two rotating companies for over five years—then about six months ago, Ethan had sent him a Dear-Jay/resignation fax from Fire Island. The scabs were just beginning to turn into scar tissue.

  "We're more committed than Jay and Ethan were," Rand protested. But privately he was not sure that was true—and the stats on groundhog/spacer marriages were discouraging.

  When they were exhausted enough, they agreed to sleep on it.

  * * *

  At five in the morning he slipped from the bed without waking her and went down the hall to his Pit. Strains of melody were chasing each other in his head, but when he booted up his synth, he could not isolate any of the strands in his headphones. Sounded aloud, they were an inseparable jangle of discord—like his feelings.

  So he went to the kitchen, and found he was not hungry. He went to the bathroom and discovered he didn't have to pee. He put the headphones back on and learned that he didn't want to hear anything in his collection. He went up to Colly's room and found that she didn't need to be covered. As he bent to kiss her, he startled himself by dropping a tear on the pillow next to her strawberry blonde hair. He went quickly back downstairs to the living room and wept, as silently as he could. When he was done, he dried his eyes and blew his nose.

  What did he need?

  That was easy. He needed someone to tell him he wasn't a selfish bastard.

  He had promised her. Worse, he had thought about it first. He had not specifically envisioned this situation, no—but he had made his promise without reservations. No matter what, love—

  But this offer was beyond any dreams he'd had a decade ago. How could he have known? The carrot was irresistible. . . .

  Or was it? What was so irresistible? The money would be great—but while they had been middle-class for their whole marriage, they had never been poor, never missed a meal. There were other jobs. Indeed, this was about the only job he could possibly take that would require them to move from P-Town, that he couldn't
basically phone in. It was certainly the only job that would have required permanent exile. What was so great about the damn job?

  Two things. It was the most prestigious job in his field, one of the most prestigious there was. And it would make him the principal breadwinner in his family, for the first time.

  Not very proud reasons to break a solemn promise to your wife . . .

  No, dammit, there was more to it than that. The job was the richest creative opportunity he had ever had. His three-month stint just past had been the hardest work he'd ever done . . . and had drawn some of his very best music and shaping out of him. Collaborating with his half-brother Jay had been exhilarating; although Jay was thirteen years older than Rand's thirty-five, their minds had meshed.

  I see: your wife will be a little sadder, but your chops will improve . . .

  It wasn't just that. Part of what had made his work better in the Shimizu had been the heart-stopping grandeur of space itself, the bliss of zero gee. Space was as magical as Provincetown, in a different way; maybe more so—surely Rhea would see and respond to that, just as he had.

  You hope . . .

  Anyway, what was so great about P-Town? Okay, it was beautiful; sure, it was timeless; granted, it was magical. This chair he was rocking in, for instance: beautiful and timeless and magical. But it made noises like rifle fire, and leaned ever so slightly out of true, and wasn't especially comfortable without the pillows that always slipped out of adjustment. So what if it had belonged to Rhea's great-grandmother? So what if it had been the chair in which the infant Rhea had been breast-fed . . . and Colly too?

  The answer was all around him—hanging from every wall, perched on nearly every flat surface. Pictures of eight generations of Paixaos, as far back as imaging technology allowed, ranging from faded black and white daguerrotypes of Cap'n Frank and Marion to paused holoblocks of Rhea, Colly and himself. Hundreds of Paixaos and their kin, in dozens of settings . . . and every single image had Provincetown somewhere in the background. Beautiful. Timeless. Magical . . .