“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…