I sat by myself at dinner. A lot of us did, I think.
When I got back to my room Kirra was not there. I spent an hour or so at my desk, browsing through data banks, learning basic things about Top Step’s layout. It is a huge, complex place, but interactive holographic maps help a lot in understanding it. I only had to bother Teena once. The important thing to remember from a navigational standpoint is that the arrow will always be painted on the wall farthest from Earth, and will point “outboard,” toward the main docking area through which everyone enters Top Step. Eventually I sighed and collapsed the display back to the simple overview map I’d started with.
There was no sense putting it off any longer. I’d already stalled for almost a full day. I was as ready as I was ever going to be.
I described my requirements to Teena, and she found me a gym not presently in use, where I could try to dance.
The space Teena directed me to was terrific—spacious, well padded, fully equipped, complete with top of the line sound and video gear. I could lock it from inside for up to an hour at a time. I locked it, selected music that did not dictate tempo, and—at last!—began trying my first dance “steps” in space.
The session was a disaster.
I spent a longer, slower time than usual warming up, and was careful not to overextend myself. But it was a fiasco. After an hour and a half of hard sweaty effort I had not put together five consecutive seconds I would want to show anyone. Not one single sequence I’d invented in my mind worked the way it was supposed to; not one combination I’d memorized from videos of Stardancers worked the way I’d thought it would. I was less graceful than a novice skater. Part of the problem was that the moves I’d envisioned always stopped when I was done with them…whereas every motion in free fall keeps going until something stops it. Every once in a while I accidentally created a moment of beauty…then could not reproduce it a second later. It was as though someone had randomly rewired a computer keyboard so there was no way to predict the effect of hitting any given key. And I kept poking my face through drifting mists of sweat globules that I’d spun off earlier, a truly disgusting experience.
I had not expected this to be easy. Well, okay, maybe I had. As I watched the video replay of my flounderings on the monitor, I was not sure it was possible.
It had to be possible. There was nothing back on Earth for me to return to. Shara Drummond had done this. Her sister Norrey had done it. Crippled defeated old Charlie Armstead had managed it. I had seen countless tapes of Stardancers who had had no dance training before coming to space, making shapes of almost unbearable beauty. Dammit, I was a good dancer, a great dancer.
Back on Earth, yeah, said the video monitor, when you were younger…
Finally I’d had all I could take for now. “That’s it. Teena, wipe all tapes of this session.”
“Yes, Morgan. There is a message for you, left after you told me to see that you were not disturbed. Will you accept it now?”
I sighed. “Why not?” Nothing happened, of course. I sighed again. “I mean, ‘Yes, Teena, I’ll take it now.’ ”
The monitor filled with Robert’s face, wearing the vague smile everyone wears when leaving a phone message. “Hello, Morgan. You asked me if I’d tutor you in jaunting. I have time free this evening. Call me if you’re still interested.”
I thought about it while I got my breathing under control and toweled up sweat. I’d begun this evening confused and scattered. With diligent effort I had brought myself to miserable and depressed. It was time to cut my losses. “Record this message, Teena—” The screen turned into a mirror. “—Jesus, audio only!” It opaqued again. “Take one: ‘Hello, Robert, this is Morgan. Thank you for your offer. Perhaps another time.’ Cut. Too stiff. Take two: ‘Hi, Robert, Morgan here. Maybe another night, okay? I just washed my spine and I can’t do a thing with it.’ Oh my God…take three: ‘Robert, this is Morgan. Look, I don’t know if it’s a good idea if we—I don’t think I—’ ” I stopped and took a deep breath. “Teena, just send take one, to ‘cut’, okay? Then refuse all calls until I tell you otherwise.”
“Yes, Morgan.”
I used the gym’s shower bag—God, I’ll never get used to water that slithers, it’s even weirder than sweat that won’t trickle—and went back to my room. Halfway back, as an experiment, I had Teena stop guiding me, and tried to find my own way. I barked my shins a couple of times misjudging turns, I had to double back once, and my Contact-Per-Hectometer rate was humiliating…but I found my own damn home without help.
As the door irised open, song spilled out. Kirra was home. She was halfway into her sleepsack, her “swag,” as she called it, and the lights were out in her hemisphere. My own lights were on low standby. She stopped singing to greet me. “Oh, don’t stop,” I protested, closing the door behind me.
“I haven’t,” she said. “You just can’t hear it anymore. What you been up to, lovey?”
“Wasting time,” I answered evasively. “Sing so I can hear, Kirra, really. If I fall asleep listening to music, I dream dances. At least I used to. I could use the inspiration.”
So she went back to it. In this song her voice had about the range, pitch and tone of an alto recorder, if you know that sound. (I don’t know why they were called that: they had no recording capacity at all.) It was soothing, hypnotic, resonated in my belly somewhere like a cat’s purr.
I stripped and stuffed myself into my own sleepsack, told my room lights to slow-fade. Today I talked with Charlie Armstead and Norrey Armstead, I told myself. Kirra’s warm sweet voice rose and fell in ways as unfamiliar to me as the words themselves. Just as I was drifting off to sleep I understood that they were unfamiliar to her too. She was singing about space, about zero gee. If there is no up or down, what’s a melody to do? Her soothing voice washed away all turbulent emotion, set me adrift from my drifting body.
In my dreams there were sea lions. Highlit crimson by sunset, the colour of Stardancers. Floating all around me, all oriented to my personal vertical, treading air. Waiting patiently. For the first time, I wished I spoke Sea Lion.
Chapter Five
I humbly say to those who study the mystery,
Don’t waste time.
Kirra and I both woke up with stiff necks. We hadn’t learned yet that if you don’t secure your head while you sleep in zero gee, you nod all night long, in time with your breathing. A terrestrial equivalent might be watching a tennis match for eight hours while lying on your side. We gave each other neck rubs before we got dressed. Kirra gave a first-rate neck rub. It’s a rare skill, and blessed in a roommate. It was the first time I’d had friendly hands on me, and the first warm flesh I’d touched with my fingers, in I couldn’t remember how many months.
I didn’t see Robert at breakfast the next morning, and was just as glad. I wasn’t sure what to say to him, how to act with him, how I felt about him. So far he had made no moves that were not ambiguous, that could not be read as simple friendliness. How would I respond if he did? Dammit, I didn’t need this distraction now. I would tell him so…if the son of a bitch would only give me a clear opportunity!