When I realized I had spent all of breakfast thinking about not thinking about him, it occurred to me that it might be simplest to just get it over with. Have a quick intense affair, end it cleanly, and get on with preparing for Symbiosis.
Right. When had I ever had a quick intense affair that ended cleanly? Symbiosis would be hard enough without going out of my way to risk ego damage just beforehand.
He was in class when I got there, on the far side of the room. I took a vacant space near the door. In what would become a daily ritual, we all sat kûkanzen together for a half an hour; then we pushed off the wall and expanded to fill the room again. There were no bungee cords today; we were all in constant slight motion, forced into frequent touching, into learning the knack of stabilizing each other without setting up chain reactions of disturbance. It was interesting. When you’re part of an unsecured group in free fall, you’re part of a group. Like a driver watching cars far ahead for possible danger, you find yourself keeping track of movements three or four people away from you, because any motion anyone else makes will sooner or later affect you. You can’t withdraw inward and ignore your fellows—because if you do, sooner or later you get an elbow in the eye.
Reb spoke that day of Leavetaking. It was his word for our primary task during our first month of Postulancy. Taking our leave, emotionally and psychologically, of all earthly things, of the kin and kindred we were leaving behind. “In effect you must do what a dying person does…with the advantages that you are not in pain or drugged or immobilized. You can take your leave with a clear mind and a clear heart. Most important, you have no need to be afraid. In your case, you know that the kind of dying you do will not mean the end of you, and your universe. In a sense, you’ll get to have your afterlife now, while you’re around to enjoy it.” There were a few chuckles. “But I apologize, sincerely and humbly, if to any of you that sounds like blasphemy. I do not mean to imply that Symbiosis is the same as the afterlife or rebirth that terrestrial religions speak of. It is not. But it carries nearly the same price tag. You have to abandon everything to get there.
“You’re a little like terminal patients with three months to live. You have one month to grieve, and one month to prepare, and then one month to decide. Don’t waste a minute of it, is my advice. Life on earth is something to lose. Get your mourning done, so you can put it aside. Because life in space is something to look forward to.”
Someone asked how you mourn your past.
“One of the best methods,” Reb said, “is something of a cliché. Let your whole life pass before your eyes. Only you don’t have to cram it into one final instant. Take a month. Remember. Re-member: become a member again. Remember your life, as much of it as you can; write your memoirs in your mind, or type them out or dictate them to Teena if it helps you. Every time you remember a good part, say goodbye to it. Every time you remember a bad part, say goodbye to that as well. If you come to a part that hurts to remember, sit kûkanzen with it until it doesn’t hurt anymore. If you have a place you just can’t get past, come to me for further help.”
The rest of class was devoted to a long lecture/demonstration on how to breathe correctly—“You ought to get it right once before you give it up for good,” he told us—but I won’t record it here. Read Shunryu Suzuki-roshi if you’re really interested, or Reb’s book Running Jumping Standing Still. Before breaking for the day, Reb announced that anyone interested in formal kûkanzen sitting, with traditional Soto Buddhist forms, was welcome to come to his zendo any evening after dinner. He was also available for dokusan, private interviews. It seemed to me that his eyes brushed mine while he said this. After class I approached him and, when I had his attention, told him that I intended to join his evening meditation group, but that I had a private project of my own to complete first. He smiled and nodded. “You need to know if you can dance,” he agreed. “Good luck.” He gave his attention to the next person who wanted it.
I tottered off to lunch, more than a little surprised. Yes, he’d known every one of us by name on the first day. But to know so much about me as an individual implied either remarkable research for a teacher…or insight approaching telepathy.
On my way to lunch I missed a transition and spent a humiliating few minutes drifting free in the center of a corridor intersection until a Second-Monther came along and bailed me out. It caused me to work through a logic chain. If I was ever going to learn to remaster my body in this weird environment, and dance again, I was going to need all the help I could get. But help from Robert came with ambiguous strings attached. Therefore I needed someone else. A Second-Monther, like the one who’d just helped me? I’d seen a few of them so far, they were billeted in a different section of Top Step, and the ones I’d passed in the corridors had all worn an air of quizzical distraction and seemed in a hurry. (I still hadn’t seen any Third-Monthers, but Kirra had; she said he’d looked “awful holy or awful high, or maybe both,” in a sort of daze.) Still, there had been helpful Second-Monthers at meals; maybe I’d ask one of them for tutoring and see what they said.
But as I entered the cafeteria I changed my mind. Sulke Drager was eating by herself; I took my food over to her table and asked if I could join her. After a few conversational politenesses, I asked her if she’d be willing to tutor me after hours.
She laughed in my face. “How much are you offering per hour?”
Since Suit Camp, I’d gotten out of the habit of thinking about money. It was part of what I was leaving behind. But what money I owned was still mine until I entered Symbiosis and thereby donated it all to the Starseed Foundation. There wasn’t much, mostly the carefully measured trickle of Grandmother’s trust fund, but what did I need it for? Symbiosis or Euthanasia were my choices, and neither required capital. “How about two hundred dollars an hour? Uh, Canadian dollars.”
She grimaced. “What do I know from dollars? How much is that in air-days or calories? Or even Deutschmarks? Never mind, you don’t know and I don’t care. Whatever it is, it isn’t enough.”
“Why not?”
She stopped eating and faced me. “I just got here from six hard sweaty hours in a p-suit over at the Mirror Farm. After I finish trying to teach you clowns here, I go put in another six hours as a glorified lab clerk over at the NanoTech Safe Lab—only six hours turns into eight because of what they put you through every time you enter and leave that place. Like what you got at Decontam, but worse. Then I can catch the shuttle home to Hooverville and catch a few hours of sleep. All this buys me just enough air and food to keep going. I haven’t got an hour to spare. And if I did, the last thing in the System I’d spend it on is more of teaching one of you freebreathers how to swim.”
“Sorry I asked.”
“Look, you’re a dancer, right? Do you enjoy teaching first position and pliés to beginners?”
I certainly couldn’t argue with that. We finished our meals without further conversation.
I watched her during that afternoon’s class. She worked hard and well with us, but she did it with a barely submerged air of resentment. I thought of her term for us. Freebreather. Analogous, no doubt, to freeloader. We did not sweat for the air we breathed. It was given to us by the Starseed Foundation. We loafed and probed our souls while Sulke scrambled to survive. She and the other hundreds of zero-gee-adapted spacers must all dislike us.
I noticed something else as I floundered with the others, trying instinctively and uselessly to swim in air. Robert’s roommate Ben had become terrific at this…literally overnight. Yesterday he’d been as clumsy as the rest of us—and today he was as graceful and controlled in his movements as Robert. He learned new moves and tactics as fast as Sulke could show them to him; he even showed her one she didn’t know. I don’t think I could describe it; it seemed to involve having eyes in the back of your head.