“It’s stupid,” Rhea went on. “It’s just stupid elitist thinking. There’s no sensible reason why you can’t phone it in, like any other job. They only have the best holo gear in human space.”
“That’s what the Shimizu is all about,” Rand said patiently. “That’s what they’re buying. The most conspicuous consumption there is. Nothing canned, nothing piped-in—”
“I know, I know—the celebrity artists are all on-site for the customers to press flesh with, and half the robot-work is done by human beings, just to prove they can afford to waste money. Snob logic.”
“You can’t make art for a place without going there,” he said. “Holo isn’t enough. I can’t explain why, but it isn’t. I always go to the site if there is one, at least at first. You know all this.”
“So you’ve been there for three months! Isn’t that enough?”
It was a fair question. He tried to find the words to answer it. All he could come up with was, “Space is different.”
“Different how?”
“Look: you were there.”
“For three days.”
“Long enough to get a taste. Now, tell me: can you remember what it was like?”
She started to answer, then stopped. “No,” she said finally. “I can remember what I told people about it. I can remember what I wrote about it. But no, you’re right. I can’t remember what it was like. Not really. I have a lingering feeling about it—”
“If you had to write a poem about it, right now, could you? Or a story set there?”
Her shoulders slumped. “I’d have to go back. For longer than a few days. And either write it there, or right after I got back down.”
“That’s why Ngani bullied the Board into putting in writing a provision that his successors would have to live in-house. And that’s why Jay bullied them into honoring the agreement when Ngani died.”
This was all old ground. They had had this conversation over a year ago, when he had first become a candidate for the position. He saw her momentarily as a trapped animal, doubling back on its tracks in search of a way out overlooked earlier, and felt a pang of guilt.
She gestured at the ocean and half a world of clouds, at the crazy Trancers moving in harmony—then turned and gestured in the other direction, at P-Town. “And all of this, we’re supposed to give up, forever, so that Willem Ngani’s artistic vision isn’t violated?”
The question was so unfair that he returned fire with some irritation. “Only if we want me to have the job.”
She left the car and walked a short way along the beach, past the gyrating dancers. By the time she returned, he had cooled down and she looked chilly despite her thermally smart clothing. The Trancers too had finally run out of manic energy, and were dispersing, looking blissed-out.
“How about this?” Rand said, as the car heater switched on to normalize the temperature in the vehicle. “We give it a couple of months. I’ll complete Pribhara’s season. Then if you absolutely hate it, I’ll quit.”
“You couldn’t break your contract!”
“Hell, Pribhara did. I’ll reserve the right. If they want me bad enough, they’ll negotiate. It’s perfectly reasonable—considering they’re wrecking my whole schedule on no notice at all. By rights they ought to be paying me a whopping bonus. If they don’t like it, let ’em give Mazursky and Choy socks full of dung, and let them fight it out.”
She thought about it. “Huh. Two more months wouldn’t be long enough to change you into a spacer. And it’s long enough for me to form an opinion…”
“I promise if you want to come back, there won’t be an argument.”
The device didn’t fool either of them; he could see that in her eyes. But it brought the situation a little closer to tolerable. It would buy some time.
“How soon would we have to leave?”
“I’ll call Jay.”
3
Yawara
Queensland, Australia
2 December 2064
At about that moment, not too far from the opposite point on the planet’s surface, an old—no, ancient—woman switched off her ancient compact disc player, brushed the headphones out of her hair with a palsied hand, and decided it was time for sleep. Or at least for bed. Slowly and carefully she got up from her rocking chair, then used it to steady herself while she removed the denim shorts which were her only clothing. She walked with halting steps through the darkness to her bed, but when she reached it, she dropped easily and comfortably into a squat beside it. Reaching beneath it, she drew out her chamber pot and removed the lid. When she maneuvered it beneath her, its weight and a small sloshing sound reminded her that she had forgotten to empty it that morning. As she was about to put it to its accustomed use, she suddenly stopped, clamping her sphincter and flaring her nostrils. Her head turned from side to side, twice. Then she looked down between her legs, bent her head lower and sniffed. She took the chamber pot from beneath her and brought it to her nose and sniffed again.
She knew, then, but nonetheless she reached up and got matches from the bed table. In the sudden flaring light, her eyes confirmed what her nose had told her. Her chamber pot contained wine.
It delighted her. It had been a long time since anything had surprised her. This was a good one. She thought about it, savoring the puzzle. No one had approached her home closer than a hundred yards all day. She had not left it for a moment. She had not emptied the utensil after using it that morning, she was sure of that. She might be old—no, ancient—but her memory was still sharp as the long edge of a war boomerang. There was no logical explanation… so she went inside herself, to her special place.
And at once, contradictory things happened on her face. Her eyes brightened, and bitter tears spurted from them, and years—no, decades—melted from her visage, and her mouth smiled while her brows knotted in a fierce frown. She glanced across the room at her CD player, and ran a hand across her head to confirm that she had taken its headphones off. “Badunjari…?” she whispered, and cocked her head as if listening.
Whatever she heard caused her to smile even wider and weep even harder—but the frown relaxed. She sat back on her heels and began to rock slowly from side to side. After a time, she lifted the chamber pot to her lips and drank from it. The wine was excellent, delicious and immediately powerful. She took a deeper draught.
“Really?” she said in Yirlandji. “What is?”
If there was an answer, no microphone could have recorded it.
Her tears ceased; the smile remained, and became the mischievous grin of a little girl. “Okay,” she agreed, and drank again. “I will wait and see.”
She had not been this happy in forty-four years. Magic, real Dreamtime magic, was loose in the world again…
PART TWO
4
The Shimizu Hotel, High Orbit
2 December 2064
Jay Sasaki was in the studio when his AI spoke up. “Phone, Jay: your brother, Rand, flatscreen only.” It waited patiently while he finished a movement phrase for the camera and toweled off sweat.