control."
Lindsay licked his dry lips.
"Give me what's real," she said.
She undid her obi sash. Her kimono was printed in a design of
irises and violets. The skin beneath it was like a dying man's
dream of skin.
"Come here," she said. "Put your mouth on my mouth."
Lindsay scrambled forward and threw his arms around her.
She slipped her warm tongue deep into his mouth. It tasted of
spice.
It was narcotic. The glands of her mouth oozed drugs.
They sprawled on the floor in front of the old woman's half-
lidded eyes.
She slipped her arms inside his loose kimono. "Shaper," she
said, "I want your genetics. All over me."
Her warm hand caressed his groin. He did what she said.
THE MARE TRANQUILLITATIS PEOPLE'S CIRCUMLUNAR
ZAIBATSU: 16-1-'16
Lindsay lay on his back on the floor of Ryumin's dome, his long
fingers pressed to the sides of his head. His left hand had two
glittering impact rubies set in gold bands. He wore a shimmering black kimono with a faint pattern of irises set in the weave.
His hakama trousers were of the modern cut.
The right sleeve of his kimono held the fictitious corporate
emblem of Kabuki Intrasolar: a stylized white mask striped
across the eyes and cheeks with flaring bands of black and red.
His sleeves had fallen back as he clutched his head and revealed
an injection bruise on his forearm. He was on vasopressin.
He dictated into a microphone. "All right," he said. "Scene
Three: Amijima. Jihei says: No matter how far we walk, there'll
never be a place marked for suicides. Let us kill ourselves here.
"Then Koharu: Yes, that's true. One place is as good as an-
other to die. But I've been thinking. If they find our dead
bodies together, people will say that Koharu and Jihei commit-
ted a lovers' suicide. I can imagine how your wife will resent
and envy me. So you should kill me here, then choose another
spot, far away, for yourself.
"Then Jihei says-" Lindsay fell silent. As he had been
dictating, Ryumin had occupied himself with an unusual handicraft. He was sifting what appeared to be tiny bits of brown
cardboard onto a small slip of white paper. He carefully rolled
the paper into a tube. Then he pinched the tube's ends shut and
sealed it with his tongue.
Me put one end of the paper cylinder between his lips, then
held up a small metal gadget and pressed a switch on its top.
Lindsay stared, then screamed. "Fire! Oh my God! Fire, fire!"
Ryumin blew out smoke. "What the hell's wrong with you?
This tiny flame can't hurt anything."
"But it's fire! Good God, I've never seen a naked flame in my
life." Lindsay lowered his voice. "You're sure you won't catch
fire?" He watched Ryumin anxiously. "Your lungs are smoking."
"No, no. It's just a novelty, a small new vice." The old Mechanist shrugged. "A little dangerous maybe, but aren't they all."
"What is it?"
"Bits of cardboard soaked in nicotine. They've got some kind
of flavoring, too. It's not so bad." He drew on the cigarette;
Lindsay stared at the glowing tip and shuddered. "Don't worry,"
Ryumin said. "This place isn't like other colonies. Fire's no
danger here. Mud doesn't burn."
Lindsay sagged back to the floor and groaned. His brain was
swimming in memory enhancements. His head hurl and he had
an indescribable tickling sensation, like the first fraction of a
second during an onset of deja vu. It was like being unable to sneeze.
"You made me lose my place," he said peevishly. "What's the
use? When I think of what this used to mean to me! These plays
that hold everything worth preserving in human life. . . . Our
heritage, before the Mechs, before the Shapers. Humanity, mortality, a life not tampered with."
Ryumin tapped ashes into an upended black lens cap. "You're
talking like a circumlunar native, Mr. Dze. Like a Concatenate.
What's your home world? Crisium S.S.R.? Copernican Com-
monwealth?"
Lindsay sucked air through his teeth.
Ryumin said, "Forgive an old man's prying." He blew more
smoke and rubbed a red mark on his temple, where the
eyephones fit. "Let me tell you what I think your problem is.
Mr. Dze. So far, you've recited three of these compositions:
Romeo and Juliet, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, and
now The Love Suicide at Amijima. Frankly, I have some problems with these pieces."
"Oh?" said Lindsay on a rising note.
"Yes. First, they're incomprehensible. Second, they're impossibly morbid. And third and worst of all, they're preindustrial.
"Now let me tell you what I think. You've launched this audacious fraud, you're creating a huge stir, and you've set the whole Zaibatsu on its ear. For this much trouble, you should at
least repay the people with a little fun."
"Fun?" Lindsay said.
"Yes. I know these sundogs. They want to be entertained, not clubbed by some ancient relic. They want to hear about real people, not savages."
"But that's not human culture."
"So what?" Ryumin puffed his cigarette. "I've been thinking.
I've heard three 'plays' now, so I know the medium. There's notmuch to it. I can whip one up for us in two or three days, I
think."
"You think so?"
Ryumin nodded. "We'll have to scrap some things."
"Such as?"
"Well, gravity, first of all. I don't see how you can get any good dancing or fighting done except in free-fall."
Lindsay sat up. "Dancing and fighting, is it?"
"That's right. Your audience are whores, oxygen farmers, two
dozen pirate bands, and fifty runaway mathematicians. They
would all love to see dancing and fighting. We'll get rid of the
stage; it's too flat. The curtains are a nuisance; we can do that
with lighting. You may be used to these old circumlunars with
their damned centrifugal spin, but modern people love free-fall.
These poor sundogs have suffered enough. It'll be like a holiday
for them."
"You mean, get up to the free-fall zone somehow."
"Yes indeed. We'll build an aerostat: a big geodesic bubble,
airtight. We'll launch it off the landing zone and keep it fixed up
there with guy wires, or some such thing. You have to build a
theatre anyway, don't you? You might as well put it in midair
where everyone can see it."
"Of course," Lindsay said. He smiled as the idea sank in. "We
can put our corporate logo on it."
"Hang pennants from it."
"Sell tickets inside. Tickets and stock." He laughed aloud. "I
know just the ones to build it for me, too."
"It needs a name," Ryumin said. "We'll call it ... the Kabuki
Bubble!"
"The Bubble!" Lindsay said, slapping the floor. "What else?"
Ryumin smiled and rolled another cigarette.
"Say," Lindsay said. "Let me try some of that."
WHEREAS, Throughout this Nation's history, its citizens have
always confronted new challenges; and
The Nation's Secretary of State, Lin Dze, finds
himself in need of aeronautic engineering expertise that our
citizens are uniquely fitted to supply; and
, Secretary Dze, representing Kabuki Intrasolar, an
autonomous corporate entity, has agreed to pay the Nation for
its labors with a generous allocation of Kabuki Intrasolar corporate stock;
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Fortuna Miners' Democracy, the Senate concurring, that the Nation will construct the Kabuki Bubble auditorium, provide promotional services for Kabuki stock, and
extend political and physical protection to Kabuki staff, employees, and property.
"Excellent," Lindsay said. He authenticated the document and