Variable Star

  Would I have understood what he was saying, if I’d heard it? Interesting and pointless question. Adewale said later he did hear it, and didn’t get it—as far as he could see, everyone around there had flipped.

  Halfway down that stair-shaft—any and all gods be thanked, once they’ve been cleared of any involvement in the original catastrophe—Solomon Short heard John Barnstead’s scream. He was then in a kind of frenzy, or fugue state, as fixated as a heat-seeking warhead. But John had selected a word from the tactical menu used by warheads. It was a legal command, and as Sol received it he instantly saw the sense of it and obeyed. By a process that has never been properly described because everyone who’s spent time in free fall knows it, and nobody who hasn’t can ever understand it, Sol tumble-flipped his body end over end, and continued his plunge feet first.

  John’s mental process had gone more or less like so: if Sol is the first Relativist to reach the Power Room, we’re all screwed. By the time he can get there from this far away, the ramjet will probably have been off too long to restart safely. So we must pray that another of his colleagues beats him there.

  But if so, what of Sol, in the stair-shaft?

  Sure enough, the Sheffield was later able to tell me that it was less than a second after Sol stabilized in his new position that weight suddenly returned—followed a split second later by the siren blast that was supposed to give ten seconds’ warning before any vector change. At once he began slapping at passing rungs to kill velocity, and looking below for his landing site. In the end, he landed with nothing worse than a sprained ankle, which became severely sprained after he ran on it.

  By the time he landed, that was important. Crucial, even. Because by then George R was dead, and London was…was permanently out of action.

  The Sheffield was down two Relativists, now…and that left us exactly enough to keep the quantum ramjet running twenty-four hours a day. There was going to be no acceptable excuse to miss a shift…for the next fifteen years.

  What happened in the Power Room that day?

  There’s a lengthy report on file, which I am assured is accurate and complete; you’re welcome to look it up. It’s full of what look like words, arranged in sequences that seem to be sentences, and the one I come closest to understanding seems to say that the Zero Point became briefly numerable, and George R was unable to deny it. Maybe that conveys something to you; it’s noise to me.

  Months later, at various times, I heard Dugald Beader say that George R had “stopped surrendering,” and heard a massively drunken Kindred assert that his colleague had “lost his focus.” How those two things could describe the same event, I cannot imagine.

  Here’s what little I do understand.

  First of all, George R was not supposed to be on duty that shift. Hideo was. That was why Sol lost it. But at the last minute, one of Hideo’s Zen students had come to him with a spiritual crisis, and he’d asked to be replaced.

  This was no big deal. By that point in the voyage, all of the Relativists had missed a shift or two; it was part of what spares were for. Hideo had probably missed fewer than anyone else but Kindred—and had extracurricular responsibilities the others lacked. If anyone was entitled to blow off a shift, it was him.

  The person he was supposed to succeed was George R. When his request showed up on George R’s board, George R should have messaged backup, confirmed availability, then let Hideo know he was off the hook—a total of three keystrokes. He did only the third.

  Who can say what was in his mind? Of the Relativists aboard, Sol was the loudest, and Peter Kindred the most egotistical, but George R was far and away the most sheerly confident. There was no leader, but he was senior among equals. The backup he should have called was London. She was asleep just then, in their quarters. Perhaps he just wanted to do something nice for his wife. Maybe it was a gesture of apology to get him out of some marital doghouse. It may simply have been easier for a man as confident as him to push one key than three.

  He certainly was not the first Relativist ever to work a double shift. But I think it’s safe to say he was the last.

  Fatigue? Monotony? Bad judgment? Bad luck? None of them ever said, and none of us ever had the balls to ask.

  Something Horrible happened in there, that’s all.

  Whatever it was took something like thirty seconds to finish burning his brains out, and matters should have ended there. It is certain that he did not at any time trigger an alarm or send out a message of any kind. The ramjet should have failed, and then whoever won the race to the Power Room should have yanked his smoking body out of the way and, hopeably, restarted it.

  I do not know how London got there before he finished dying. She knew exactly how dangerous it was to try and go in there, just then, and never hesitated. Whether she believed she could save him or simply didn’t care to outlive him is not for me or anyone to say. If it was a mistake in judgment she paid dearly enough for it—with her eyesight, most of her hearing, and about eighty-five IQ points.

  A rain of shit can take time to stop. It was doubtless lucky for all of us that Hideo was the next to reach the Power Room. Of all of them he most had the kind of iron discipline and diamond calm it must take to toss the smoldering bodies of two friends out in the corridor for others deal with, forget them, and try to restart a quantum ramjet. I honestly think any of them could have done it, but I’m glad it was Hideo who got the job.

  But when he emerged, and had been thanked in turn by Captain Bean, Governor Roberts, Governor-General Cott, and Coordinator Grossman, Sol and Dr. Amy had to take him aside and tell him that the student he’d blown off his original shift to counsel had pieced events together, and committed suicide from guilt.

  A poor reward for heroism.

  Sixteen

  During this period, Tesla spoke out vehemently against the new theories of Albert Einstein, insisting that energy is not contained in matter, but in the space between the particles of an atom.

  —Tesla, Master of Lightning

  PBS-TV documentary, Dec. 12, 2000

  The next few weeks were dark.

  Disaster on that scale can demoralize a community—or draw it together. The crucial factor seems to be, how fast does the fear ease?

  It was touch and go. Dr. Amy and her three other Healers had their work cut out for them. Coordinator Grossman and the Zog, Governor Roberts, Governor-General Cott and his partner, Chief Engineer Cunningham, even Captain Bean himself, all made a point of wandering around the ship with cheerful optimistic expressions fixed on their faces. It did help, a little. But only a little.

  How do you tell someone falling through the universe at nearly the speed of a photon there’s nothing to worry about? When the most valued, pampered members of the ship’s company can die and worse than die, who is safe? I don’t think any of us had really expected any dying to begin until we got to Bravo. Now all our lives and plans and hopes depended on four particular people remaining not only alive but healthy enough to work for every day of the next fifteen years.

  And that was the heart of our darkness: theirs.

  “Thanks for coming in ahead of schedule, Joel,” said Dr. Amy.

  “No problem,” I said, settling into my chair. “To tell you the truth, though, things haven’t been too bad lately.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” she said.

  “I mean, I know you must have your hands full—”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about, this time.”

  “Crave pardon?”

  “I’m going to be more blunt and candid with you than I have been with the rest of the colony, Joel.”

  Yikes. “Okay.”

  “This ship is in trouble.”

  I nodded. “I know.”

  “The morale crisis is not responding to anything we can do. I think you know why.”

  I nodded again. “The Relativists. The rest of us…colonists, administrators like you, crew…none of us can begin to heal until they do.” All four stalked
the corridors like golems, now, and were given as wide a berth by all they passed. All four had politely declined to speak to a Healer, as was their right. They didn’t even seem to crave each other’s company. They spoke as little as possible at shift change, and less at any other time.

  Her turn to nod. “They do their duty. They keep the engine running. But that’s the absolute limit of their strength right now They’re the heart of the ship. And they’re heartsick.”

  “I have to say I can’t blame them a bit,” I said. “One of the best of them died, another wasn’t as lucky—and it could happen to any one of the rest at any time. It can’t be easy healing if every day you have to spend six straight hours utterly devoid of all emotions…in the presence of the force you most fear and hate. I’m amazed they can function at all.”

  “Nobody blames them, Joel.”

  “No—but nobody has the hairs to tell them to suck it up, and let you Healers help them.”

  Her shoulders relaxed. “Exactly. You do understand.”

  “Well, that much. What you can do about it, I have no idea. A year ago, I’d have said, have Matty Jaymes talk to all of them.”

  She nodded. “They all used to respect him a lot.”

  “He used to deserve it.”

  Matty had long since been restored to the Covenant. But the man who’d emerged from his room was not the Matty Jaymes anyone remembered. He was pale, dwindled, and taciturn, and he did not want to talk to anybody. Something had changed him, and no one had any idea what.

  She grimaced ruefully “Suppose you were in my chair. Where would you start?”

  “That’s easy,” I said. “With Sol. He’s the linchpin, now that George R is gone. Until you turn him around, you’ll never…” I trailed off as I realized where this had to be going.

  “I agree,” she said.

  I held up both hands, shook my head, and shut my eyes briefly, refusing delivery with all the body language at my disposal. “No way. Don’t look at me.”

  “Joel—”

  “I tried already. Twice, okay? Both conversations together totaled a single word, and I didn’t say it.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “The first time I saw him after…afterward, I walked up to him, and we stood about a meter apart for a few moments, and after a while I opened my mouth, and he shook his head no, and I closed my mouth, and he went away.”

  “And the second time?”

  “Two days ago. I waited outside his room, where his door couldn’t see me. I had a zinger prepared. A brutal, stinging line that would shock him into paying attention to me. Use anger to invoke his fighting spirit. Healing 101. The door opened, he came out and saw me, and this time I didn’t even get to open my mouth. ‘Don’t,’ he said. Just that.”

  “How did he say it?” She was leaning forward slightly.

  “Way back at the dawn of video, there was a short time when animation was so expensive, they made cartoons in which little ever moved but the characters’ mouths, which were real human lips superimposed on 2D drawings. He looked just like that.”

  She winced.

  “So I just nodded, like, ‘Okay, I won’t.’ And he gave one little gesture of a nod, like somewhere between ‘Thank you,’ and ‘Fuck off, now’ So I fucked off.”

  She was wearing her most empathic expression. “And now if you try a third time, without some kind of direct invitation from him, you’ll lose him as a friend. I see that.”

  “You’re good.”

  “How horrible for you. Okay, never mind. Thanks, Joel. I should have known you would already have tried your best. I apologize.”

  She stood up. We were done. I got up, too, and we gave each other the Japanese style bow that was our half-ironic custom. But I did not turn and head for the door.

  “What was it you were going to suggest?”

  She waved it away. “No, never mind. Thanks. Probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.”

  “If this is reverse psychology—”

  She smiled. “No. It was just an idea.”

  “So just tell it.”

  “I read a line somewhere in an old book once, to the effect that when you’re really depressed, the only person you’d be glad to see coming is somebody who wants to pay an old debt.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “You’ve never paid Sol for his services as your advocate, four years ago. You promised him an original composition of at least fifteen minutes, on the baritone sax, with his name in the title.”

  She was right. I had certainly meant to do it. I’d even made a start on it, once. But what with one damn thing after another, it had fallen between the cracks, and eventually been silted over. I told myself I would have recalled my promise eventually.

  “I was thinking maybe you could offer to do it now, ask him for direction, use that to get him talking. But you’re right: if you raised the subject now, he’d tell you where to put your saxophone. Don’t worry. I’ve got a few other approaches I can try. Thanks for sharing your insights with me.”

  I left. But when I got back to Rup-Tooey, I stayed only long enough to grab my Yanigasawa B-9930, and then headed for my studio. Now that I was a rich man, I was renting a soundproofed cubic on the lower of the two VIP decks, so I wouldn’t have to inflict my saxes on my roommates.

  When I got there, I had enough forethought to phone both the Zog, and Jill and Walter at the Horn of Plenty, and beg off my upcoming shifts at both jobs. Then I sealed the door and shut off phone and mail.

  Three days later I switched the phone back on, called Dr. Amy, and outlined what I had. It was she who figured out how to try and put it to use.

  Coming off shift, Solomon Short craved only oblivion. If he could manage to sleep twelve hours—and he could, easily—that left only six to fill. Same amount of time spent in and out of the Hole, each day. When he entered his quarters and found the sitting room full of people, he simply backed out again before the door could shut behind him.

  At least he tried to. It didn’t work. He encountered someone coming in the other direction, found himself back in the sitting room, heard the door dilate behind both of them.

  He didn’t bother to turn and find out who it was, didn’t even bother to take note of exactly which assholes were cluttering up his parlor with this moronic Intervention attempt. Like a soldier removing the muzzle cap from his assault weapon and jacking one into the chamber, he slowly opened his mouth and took in air.

  A face was suddenly decimeters from his own. An angry, brutal, stupid face. Its mouth was already open, and had already taken in lots of air.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Richie bellowed at him.

  His own mouth slammed shut.

  “Sit down there.”

  Sol sat.

  Richie sat down to his right. The man behind him—Jules—took a seat at his left, and shifted his drink to his left hand. Proctor DeMann stepped across the doorway and dropped into parade rest, then softened it by taking one hand from behind him and stroking his gunfighter mustache, in the manner of one who wishes he still smoked a pipe.

  And before Solomon could get himself planted, let alone prepare his first withering wisecrack, I began to play.

  At first, he was so pissed off he didn’t hear a thing I was playing.

  That was okay. I’d expected that. I kept on playing.

  He tried to stop me by talking over me.

  That was okay. Nobody can talk over a baritone saxophone. Not my silver Anna. Not even Solomon Short. I kept on playing.

  With elaborately insulting body language, he stuck a finger in each ear, screwed his eyes shut, and stuck out his tongue.

  That was okay. The sound struck him with renewed force again at the same instant muscle-bound arms were flung across him from each side, pinning him in place—so he opened his eyes just in time to watch his own fingers jammed up his nose. They released him at once. Richie leaned into his field of vision, shook his head no very slowly, and sat back. I kept on playing.


  He tried making faces at people, clearly hoping to escalate to mime. He tried everyone in the room.

  That was okay. Nobody would play along. I kept playing.

  Finally he fell back on his last line of defense, and met my eyes, wearing an expression that said, I don’t care if you are the reincarnation of the Yardbird himself playing me a previously unknown Beiderbecke masterpiece, you aren’t getting in as deep as the layer of moisture on the surface of my eyeballs, motherfucker. Most musicians have seen that look, and it is indeed demoralizing, and Sol did it better than most.

  But that was okay, too, because by the time he had it fully in place and the mortar had set, it was already starting to show tiny cracks. Because I kept on playing. And kept on playing.

  It took longer to penetrate than it would have in his normal mindset. But eventually, even in his depression he couldn’t help but notice that I had been playing for something like a minute and a half by now.

  Without stopping to breathe.

  Even once.

  A fellow amateur historian of music, he caught on to what I was doing faster than most would have. And in spite of himself, he started to grow interested…

  The technique known as “circular breathing” is in fact nothing of the sort. But it looks like it to a civilian.

  If you’re doing it right. This is vastly easier said than done.

  I hold with the school of thought that says modern music (as they were now calling it, again) copied it from the Aborigines of the continent Australia, on Terra. So it could be as much as 47,000 years old—a little under a thousand generations. The Australian didgeridu is an immensely powerful but intrinsically limited instrument; like haiku, it finds enormous beauty within severe constraints. Denied the endless variety offered by pitch, however, it finally began to lack the bandwidth to carry concepts as sophisticated as those that some didgeridu players wished to express. There were only so many things, and combinations of things, you could do before you ran out of air and had to start a new phrase.