It seemed that we were occupying the only portion of the room that was not intensely fascinating. They knew. They watched TV, they read the papers. Even as we watched, one of the students stepped out in front of the rest. “All right,” she said to them, “let’s take it from the top, I’ll give you three for nothing and—one,” and the whole group resumed their workout. The new leader would not meet Norrey’s eyes, refused to accept or even acknowledge the gratitude there—but she seemed to be smiling gently, as she danced, at nothing in particular.
Norrey turned back to me. “I’ll have to change.”
“Not much, I hope.”
She grinned again and was gone. My cheeks itched, and when I absently scratched them I discovered that they were soaking wet.
The afternoon outdoors struck us both with wonder. New colors seemed to boil up out of the spectrum and splash themselves everywhere in celebration of fall. It was one of those October days of which, in Toronto anyway, one can say either “Gee, it’s chilly” or “Gee, it’s warm” and be agreed with. We walked through it together arm in arm, speaking only occasionally and then only with our eyes. My stuffed head began to clear; my leg throbbed less.
Le Maintenant was still there then, but it looked shabbier than ever. Fat Humphrey caught sight of us through the kitchen window as we entered and came out to greet us. He is both the fattest happy man and the happiest fat man I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen him outdoors in February in his shirt sleeves, and they say that once a would-be burglar stabbed him three times without effect. He burst through the swinging doors and rushed toward us, a mountain with a smile on top. “Mist’ Armstead, Miz Drummond! Welcome!”
“Hey there, Fat,” I called out, removing my filters, “God bless your face. Got a good table?”
“Sure thing, in the cellar somewheres, I’ll bring it up.”
“I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“There’s certainly something wrong with your up-bringing,” Norrey agreed drily.
Fat Humphrey laughing aloud is like an earthquake in the Canadian Rockies. “Good to see you, good to see you both. You been away too long, Mist’ Armstead.”
“Tell you about it later, Fat, okay?”
“Sure thing. Lemme see: you look like about a pound of sirloin, some bake’ potato, peas Italian hold the garlic and a bucket of milk. Miz Drummond, I figure you for tuna salad on whole wheat toast, side of slice’ tomatoes and a glass of skim milk. Salad all around. Eh?”
We both burst out laughing. “Right again, as usual. Why do you bother to print menus?”
“Would you believe it? There’s a law. How would you like that steak cooked?”
“Gee, that’d be terrific,” I agreed, and took Norrey’s coat and filtermask. Fat Humphrey howled and slapped his mighty thigh, and took my own gear while I was hanging Norrey’s. “Been missin’ you in this joint, Mist’ Armstead. None of these other turkeys know a straight line when they hear it. This way.” He led us to a small table in the back, and as I sat down I realized that it was the same table Norrey and Shara and I had shared so long ago. That didn’t hurt a bit: it felt right. Fat Humphrey rolled us a joint by hand from his personal stash, and left the bag and a packet of Drums on the table. “Smoke hearty,” he said and returned to the kitchen, his retreating buttocks like wrestling zeppelins.
I had not smoked in weeks; at the first taste I started to buzz. Norrey’s fingers brushed mine as we passed the digit, and their touch was warm and electric. My nose, which had started to fill as we came indoors, flooded, and between toking and honking the joint was gone before a word had been spoken. I was acutely aware of how silly I must look, but too exhilarated to fret about it.
I tried to review mentally all that must be said and all that must be asked, but I kept falling into Norrey’s warm brown eyes and getting lost. The candle put highlights in them, and in her brown hair. I rummaged in my head for the right words.
“Well, here we are,” is what I came up with. Norrey half smiled. “That’s a hell of a cold.”
“My nose clamped down twenty hours after I hit dirt, and I’ve never properly thanked it. Do you have any idea how rotten this planet smells?”
“I’d have thought a closed system’d smell worse.”
I shook my head. “There’s a smell to space, to a space station I mean. And a p-suit can get pretty ripe. But Earth is a stew of smells, mostly bad.”
She nodded judiciously. “No smokestacks in space.”
“No garbage dumps.”
“No sewage.”
“No cow farts.”
“How did she die, Charlie?”
Oof. “Magnificently.”
“I read the papers. I know that’s bullshit, and… and you were there.”
“Yeah.” I had told the story over a hundred times in the last three weeks—but I had never told afriend, and I discovered I needed to. And Norrey certainly deserved to know of her sister’s dying.
And so I told her of the aliens’ coming, of Shara’s intuitive understanding that the beings communicated by dance, and her instant decision to reply to them. I told her of Shara’s slow realization that the aliens were hostile, territorially aggressive, determined to have our planet for a spawning ground. And I told her, as best I could, of the Stardance.
“She danced them right out of the solar system, Norrey. She danced everything she had in her—and she had all of us in her. She danced what we are, what she was, and she scared them silly. They weren’t afraid of military lasers, but she scared ’em right the hell back to deep space. Oh, they’ll be back some day—I don’t know why, but I feel it in my bones. But it might not be in our lifetime. She told them what it is to be human. She gave them the Stardance.”
Norrey was silent a long time, and then she nodded. “Uh huh.” Her face twisted suddenly. “But why did she have to die, Charlie?”
“She was done, honey,” I said and took her hand. “She was acclimated all the way to free fall by then, and it’s a one-way street. She could never have returned to Earth, not even to the one-sixth gee in Skyfac. Oh, she could have lived in free fall. But Carrington owns everything in free fall except military hardware—and she didn’t have any more reason to take anything from him. She’d danced her Stardance, and I’d taped it, and she was done.”
“Carrington,” she said, and her fingers gripped my hand fiercely. “Where is he now?”
“I just found out myself this morning. He tried to grab all the tapes and all the money for Skyfac Incorporated, i.e., him. But he’d neglected to have Shara sign an actual contract, and Tom McGillicuddy found an airtight holograph will in her effects. It leaves everything fifty-fifty to you and me. So Carrington tried to buy a probate judge, and he picked the wrong judge. It would have hit the news this afternoon. The thought of even a short sentence in one gee was more than he could take. I think at the last he convinced himself that he had actually loved her, because he tried to copy her exit. He bungled it. He didn’t know anything about leaving a rotating Ring, and he let go too late. It’s the most common beginner’s error.”
Norrey looked puzzled.
“Instead of becoming a meteorite like her, he was last seen heading in the general direction of Betelgeuse. I imagine it’s on the news by now.” I glanced at my watch. “In fact, I would estimate that he’s just running out of air about now—if he had the guts to wait.”