Starmind. Part 18

"Problem?" The answer was a while in coming. "Dad?"

"Yes?"

"I . . . uh . . . Mom and I had a talk this morning."

"Oh." The first sensation he was conscious of was of a large weight leaving his shoulders. He had not relished the prospect of explaining things to Colly-but it hadn't looked as if Rhea was ever going to get off the dime. He was enormously relieved to learn that she had.

Then he realized that only half the weight was gone. "Are you . . . okay with that?"

Again the answer was agonizingly slow in arriving. "Can I ask you something? I asked Mom, but she said she didn't know, and I should ask you."

He took a deep breath, and held it. "Go ahead, honey."

"What's the most time I can spend up there with you?"

He exhaled noisily. There was a sound in his ears like bad reception on a suit radio, a sort of vast echoing hum. "Without adapting, you mean."

"No, I found that out from the White Rabbit," she said. "I mean, without being a pain in the b.u.t.t."

His heart turned over in his chest. "The max, baby. The max. And if that isn't enough to suit us both, I'll come down there and see you sometimes. Until I adapt, anyway."

"That's good," she said firmly. "Uh . . . can I ask you one more thing?"

"Sure."

"Are you still mad at Duncan, Daddy?"

The question was like a surprise punch in the stomach. He took it, and shook his head, and answered honestly. "No, Colly. I'm not mad at Duncan."

"I'm glad. Tell him I said hi. Bye, Daddy-I love you!"

"What an extraordinary coincidence:I loveyou."

"What are the odds of that, huh?" She hung up smiling.

Rand finished packing. Then, with time to kill before he was due at the dock, he played some of Jay's tapes, and tinkered with ideas for musical accompaniment. h.e.l.l, maybe he should stay at the s.h.i.+mizu when he got there, and get back to work. Maybe it was time to resume his life. He could play around with EVA another time, when there wasn't so much to do. He thought of calling Jay, to tell him he was coming. But the timing was bad: Jay would be in the studio now. He decided to call when he got in.

The trip to the s.h.i.+mizu was thoroughly enjoyable, despite the spartan furnis.h.i.+ngs aboard the small shuttle.

Fat Humphrey in a p-suit was an unforgettable sight, for one thing. And as a traveling companion, he wasthe original barrel of monkeys; while they were all unstrapped between acceleration and deceleration he even managed to produce a recognizable parody ofKinergy that reduced Rand and everyone else aboard to tears of laughter.

Rand was honored to be included in the merriment. It was apparent to him that this trip was a sentimental journey for Reb-and for Meiya, Reb's successor as Head Teacher at Top Step. While they had been training and graduating a quarter of a million Stardancers together over the past half century, Fat Humphrey had been one of the very few constants in their lives. Meiya, a quiet, solemn woman, wore an expression that reminded Rand of old pictures he had seen of mothers sending their sons off to war.

As he watched Fat Humphrey mock the moves of a Stardancer, he suddenly wondered why Fat had not accepted Symbiosis on retirement. But he knew he would not ask, not today anyway. The question was in an area of privacy you learned not to violate if you spent any time at Top Step: he didn't know Fat well enough yet.

And the man read his mind. The moment the laughter for his performance had died away, he looked at Rand and said, "You wonderin' how come I didn't eat the red Jell-O for my dessert, huh?"

"Well . . . yes, Fat, I was, as a matter of fact."

Fat Humphrey grinned. "You ever hear about the time them a.s.sholes blew up about a cubic kilometer of Sym?"

"Sure." Almost a decade before Rand's birth, a fanatic antiStardancer terrorist group, headed by Chen Ling Ho's father, had somehow managed to destroy a large ma.s.s of Symbiote on its way from its source in the upper atmosphere of t.i.tan to Earth orbit, where it was supposed to serve the needs of the next generation of Top Step graduates. Several Stardancers riding herd on the load had been killed.

"Well, most o' that was suppose' be for me. They been tryin' to catch up ever since, but it's gonna be another twenty year or so before they ready to handle me again." Rand cracked up; so did Reb and Meiya. "I figure in the meantime I watch a little TV, go for a swim, catch a show. You get me a good seat?"

"Well, I'll tell you, Fat," he said thoughtfully, "in terms of sightlines and vectors, maybe what we should do is mount a special show just for you."

"How you mean?"

"Put you in the center of the theater, and work around you."

Fat roared with glee and slapped him on the back; fortunately his seat belt held. "You're all right, kid."

They reached the s.h.i.+mizu by 19:30. The deceleration was as mild as the acceleration had been, no more than half a gee, and for only a few minutes. Rand could have taken more easily, but the others were all s.p.a.cers, intolerant of gees.

Fat Humphrey had specifically requested that there be no reception on his arrival. Of course Evelyn Martin had double-crossed him, and was waiting at dockside to drag him off to a press conference. But Rand had halfway expected that: he debarked first, took Martin aside, and threatened to take him by the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and fling him through the nearest bulkhead into hard vacuum if he didn't change orbits, now.

Grumbling and muttering, the little PR man complied. It is difficult to slink in free-fall, but he managed it."Don't bother with check-in," he snarled over his shoulder as he went. "It's covered. Just take him right to P-427.".

Rand rapped on the hatch to signal that it was safe, and the others emerged. As nan.o.bots scurried away with luggage, he tried to show Fat Humphrey where to insert the wafer that would install his AI in the s.h.i.+mizu's data crystals . . . and was startled and a little nonplussed to learn that Fat did not have one.

"How about you, Meiya?" he tried.

But she shook her head too. "I won't be inboard long enough to bother. We'll all use Reb's to get around."

"Well, okay," he said. "But stick close to him. This place can be a rabbit warren if you don't have an AI."

"There are public terminals all over, left over from the old days," she pointed out. "If I get lost, I can just ask for you."

"Sure. I'm not listed, but my AI is: Antonio Salieri. How about if I go get my brother and meet you all at Fat's new suite in about an hour? I'd like to grab a shower too; I've been in this p-suit all day."

"Good with me," Fat Humphrey said.

"We'll meet you there in an hour," Reb said, and installed his own AI. "Rild-direct us to Suite Prime 427, please."

One of several exits began to blink softly. "This way,Tens.h.i.+n."

Rand jaunted to his own room, checked the time, and decided to phone Jay before showering. He would have just finished dinner by now.

"Hey, bro, what's shapin'? When are you coming back?"

"About five minutes ago. Want to meet the happiest fat man in human s.p.a.ce?"

Jay blinked. " ' . . . the happiest fat man . . .' Hey, you mean Fat Humphrey? Ishe here?"

"To stay. He's just retired; it's his centennial. I came along for the ride; I'm going back with Reb tomorrow. Little gathering at his new digs in about an hour: just him, you, me, Reb and Meiya, as far as I know. You know Meiya, right?"

"Sure. Hey, this is great! I've always wanted a chance to kick back and talk with Fat for a few hours.

Where's he at?"

"Prime 427. Meet me at the nearest corner at 20:25 and we'll go in together."

"See you there."

Fifty minutes later he was waiting at the appointed spot. Almost at once, Jay arrived from another direction, grinning. They hugged, and pounded each other's shoulder blades.

"How are you, bro?" "Fine," Rand said. "I've gotten alittle work done-I'll show you later."

"The h.e.l.l with that-howare you?"

"Okay," he said. "Not well, yet, but I can see daylight, you know?"

"That's good. I told you that place'd be good for you. Hey, Eva's gonna be here too: Reb called her.

Probably in the suite already, in fact; I spoke with her half an hour ago and she said she was leaving right away. I get the idea she and Fat are old friends."

"It wouldn't surprise me in the-"

The lights went out.

"What thef.u.c.k -" Jay said. "Diaghilev!"

No answer.

"Diaghilev, G.o.d dammit!"

"Salieri?" Rand tried.

Silence.

There was a public terminal nearby, but it was unlit, presumed dead. "Jesus," Jay said softly, clearly controlling his voice with an obvious effort. "I think the whole f.u.c.king system is down. That's never happened. I'd have bet a billion dollars it couldn't possibly happen."

They heard a scream somewhere in the far distance; no telling even the direction. The s.h.i.+mizu corridors had some funny acoustics.

Rand's heart hammered. "Oh my G.o.d . . ." If they had no lights, no AIs, no phones-how long before they had noair ? He fought for calm in the claustrophobic darkness. "All right, what's our move?"

Just then lights came on. Small red emergency lights, every hundred meters along the corridor, with larger blinking ones marking intersections. Rand found them an immense relief, a sign of recovery, but he saw Jay frowning. "They should have kicked on alot sooner, even if this is a total system collapse," Jay said. "Something really weird is going on."

"Have we got air?"

Jay spotted the nearest grille, jaunted to it, and put his face near it. "Yeah. Reduced flow, but it's air."

"What do you think: is this just local, or is the whole d.a.m.n hotel really dark right now?"

"Beats me. They're supposed to be equally impossible. I pray to G.o.d it's local."

A suite door opened not far from them, and someone stuck his head out. "Hey, mate," he called in an Aussie accent, "any idea what the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l is goin' on?" "Look at it this way," Jay called back. "You're getting tonight's rent free."

"Too right," he said, and closed his door again.

"G.o.d," Rand said, "Fat and the others must be freaking out in there. If they had the window closed when the power failed, they're in minimal emergency lighting: it could take them an hour to find the manual door release, let alone figure out how to use it."

"h.e.l.l of a welcome to the s.h.i.+mizu," Jay agreed. "Come on, let's go try and calm them down."

They jaunted in the eerie pale red light to Suite 427. "We'll never convince Fat the place is safe now,"

Jay complained as they neared it. "s.h.i.+t, I just don'tbelieve this. The only thing I can imagine taking out the s.h.i.+mizu system is a comet right through the core crystals-and we didn't feel any impact. It just doesn't . . . oh, you a.s.shole." Automatically, he had stopped in front of the door and waited for an AI to ask his business. "Hit that release for me, will you, bro?" he said, pointing.

Rand pulled open the access hatch indicated and pulled the handle inside. It moved easily-but the door did not move. "Seems to be broken," he reported.

Jay grimaced. "Naturally. Things never go wrong one at a time." He put his hands on his hips. "Christ, the door's soundproof-we can't even bang out 'Calm down' in Morse code."

"What's Morse code?" Rand asked.

"Eva would know, but it doesn't-wait a G.o.d d.a.m.n minute! What do you mean, 'broken'? That's a mechanical latch: itcan't be broken."

"Okay," Rand said agreeably. "Then whatdoes nonfunction and a blinking red light mean?"

"A blinking-"

In free-fall one almost never pales visibly; blood does not drain from the head as pressure drops. But even in the poor light, Rand could see his brother's expression come apart. He jaunted quickly to Rand's side and stared at the little flas.h.i.+ng pilot bulb. After a few seconds, he began to shake his head slowly back and forth, the picture of denial.

Rand grabbed his shoulder,hard, and shook him. "What does it mean?" he cried.

Jay turned to him. There was horror in his eyes. He needed three tries to get the words out, and when he did, they were barely audible. "There is no pressure on the other side of that door."

21.

High Earth Orbit 25 February 2065.

Sulke Drager had always hated it when everybody talked at once. Thirty years as a member of a telepathic community had taught her a great deal about handling multiple inputs-more than any human being had ever known-but never before in history had so much of the Starmind all been sending at the same time. And underlying it all, pervading the whole Solar System like a taste of metal in the back of the mouth, was the wordless shriek from Saturn.

And naturally, the "voices" she most needed to "hear" were the weakest. They were also the closest, but distance means nothing to a telepath; signal strength and bandwidth were all that counted.

So she borrowed energy from every Stardancer in the heavens who wasnot shouting something, and used it to drive a message that had never before been sent across the matrix.

Shut the f.u.c.k up!