Variable Star Page 7

  “You’ll find a car waiting at ground level. Just state your destination; it’ll find it.”

  “How do I—”

  “When you get where you’re going, just get out and say, ‘Dismissed.’ It homes.”

  Of course it did. I started for the elevator, then paused. “Ev, honey?”

  “Yes, Joel?”

  “Is this… I mean, are you going to get in trouble for this?”

  She grinned. “Not unless you rat me out.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Guest cars aren’t a secret. Anybody could have called you one.”

  “But won’t the record show that it was you who did?”

  She grinned again. “The record says Jinny did.”

  I nodded. “Okay, then. Thank you. I owe you one.” It didn’t seem adequate. I bent, took her hand in mine, lifted it to my lips, and planted one just behind the knuckles. Then I straightened up and stepped into the elevator. “So long, Ev.”

  Her eyes were huge. “Hot jets.”

  “Clear skies.” The door slid closed, and I rose rapidly enough to pull gee forces, reaching the surface in no time.

  The car waiting for me there was generic, but much more luxurious—to the eye, at least—than the faux heap Jinny had driven me there in. The feature I found most praiseworthy was an exceedingly well-stocked bar. It contained the most expensive liquids, solids, vapors, sprayers, and essences then popular for the radical adjustment of attitude, mood, and energy. Being a poor student, from a frontier world with conservative customs, I was familiar with most of them only… well, academically—and about their synergistic effects in multiple combination I knew nothing whatsoever. I decided to remedy this deficiency by personal experiment. I attempted to try at least one of everything, and for all I know may have succeeded. I never noticed the takeoff, or indeed any of the trip, and I have no recollection of arrival back at my place.

  I never did get my shoes back.

  5

  Like the fabulous Conrad compound, my apartment was mostly underground, and did not appear on any map. But there the similarities ended.

  For one thing, it was not located in the middle of a glacier somewhere, but smack in the midst of some of the most densely populated land in the U.S.N.A., the White Rock district of Greater Vancouver. For another, it was the polar opposite of opulent or luxurious, as comfortable as a coffin. Vancouver itself has a tradition of quasilegal “basement suites” dating back centuries to some World’s Fair, or perhaps Olympics, but outlying suburbs like White Rock acquired theirs so recently that they’re still illegal, hence unrecorded, hence unregulated, hence mostly shitholes. In sharp contrast to Conradville, it had only a single virtue to recommend it.

  But right then, that virtue rated high in my scale of values: it was mine.

  I take it back: it had one other thing going for it. The thing that had recommended it to me in the first place, back when I’d first grounded on Terra: like most caves, it was a terrific place to hole up. It had been my first refuge from the unbelievable crowding Terrans considered normal, from the appalling crime rate they considered acceptable, from my own sudden shocking physical weakness, from unexpectedly crushing homesickness and loneliness, and from my own unaccustomed social ineptitude. A womb with a view.

  What I needed when I woke up, that horrible morning after, was refuge from my own thoughts and feelings. The apartment did its best, but I suspect a riot would have been insufficient distraction.

  The emotion foremost in me when consciousness first reconstructed itself again was sadness, grief insupportable, but it took me a while to recall exactly what I was so sad about. Then it all came back in a rush, and I sat bolt upright in bed. My skull promptly exploded with the force of an antimatter collision—I’d obviously forgotten to take anti-hangover measures the night before—but the blinding white light and total agony seemed merely appropriate. I’d have howled like a dog if I’d had the strength. Instead I whimpered like a puppy.

  For the last—I couldn’t remember how many mornings, I had woken up thinking of Jinny. Yearning for Jinny. Aching for Jinny. Had woken every time from dreaming of Jinny—of us—of us together—of the distant but attainable day when she would be there in the morning, there all night, the day when I would finally possess her fully.

  Possess her? Ha! My lifetime net worth would probably not suffice to lease an hour of her time.

  And yet she wanted me.

  And God help me, I still wanted her—as fiercely as ever. I could still have her, if I chose. So why was I so sad I wanted to fall out of bed and bang my face against the floor?

  The sadness was because my dream was gone. Whatever the future might hold for me and Jinny, it would not, could not, remotely resemble anything I had ever envisioned. Conceivably it could be a better future, perhaps much better—but right now, at this remove, mostly what it was, was unimaginable.

  Unless it was nothing at all. I could imagine that easily enough. I just didn’t want to. Like life before I met Jinny—minus hope.

  Let’s not be hasty, Joel. I couldn’t rent an hour of her time… but I could have all of her hours, if I wanted, without paying a single credit. What would it cost me, though? Let’s see. All my plans for my, our, future, for a start. The identity and goals and place in the world I had picked for myself. The rustic notion that the husband should be the one who supported the family, which I had already admitted to myself months ago was archaic nonsense anywhere but a frontier society like Ganymede. It hadn’t been customary for the majority of the human race for well over a century now.

  And let’s not forget one other little cost that Conrad had been quite upfront about: most of my waking hours for the rest of my days, which would be spent working very long and hard on things for which I had little interest, training, or talent. With the very best of medical care assuring that I’d be in harness as long as possible. I would have to assume and bear a yoke of almost inconceivable responsibility—responsibility to literally billions of people, all with their own loves and dreams and plans for their futures.

  And even if I washed out personally, my children would be groomed and fitted and trained for that same responsibility from birth. All of them. In my vague eighteen-year-old imaginings of the children I might have one day, I had always pictured myself advising them to pursue whatever really interested them, to follow their hearts, the way my father had with me. That would no longer be an option if they were Conrads.

  I’m making my hungover maunderings seem far more coherent and organized and cogent than they really were. At the very same time that all the thoughts I’ve just described were going through my head, for instance, I was also simultaneously asking myself over and over again just what, exactly, was so horrible about becoming one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in human history, if that was what it took to win the most beautiful woman in the Solar System?

  Well, for a start, myself kept answering, you haven’t earned it. What good is a prize, any prize, if you don’t deserve it, if you haven’t done the work? Face it, Joel: you don’t even have the vaguest idea what the work is.

  To which my ongoing rebuttal was: Oh, give me a break, self. Do you think even Conrad of Conrad truly earned that much power and money? Do you think anyone could? Do you honestly believe any conceivable human being, however talented and however hardworking, could possibly deserve that much compensation, merit that much authority? The most anyone can do is have it. Old man Conrad happened to have been born from the right womb at the right time, and must have behaved thereafter more intelligently than any of his rivals, that was all. That was as close as he came to deserving what he had: it had been handed to him, and he had not fumbled it. Now it—or at least a piece of it—was being handed to me—or at least to my—

  —children. Mine and Jinny’s—

  How could she do this to me?

  Distraction. Distraction. Change the ch—ah, that was it. I found the remote—thank you, Mr. Tesla—turned on the tube,
and selected passive entertainment, genre search.

  First, drama: on some unimaginably distant colony planet—because there were two moons in the sky, one of them ringed—a beautiful woman with red hair was crying as if her heart were broken. No, thank you; change channel—

  Comedy, next: a young man my age—we did make great natural comedic victims, didn’t we?—had done something incredibly stupid, and a roomful of people and Martians were laughing openly at his humiliation. Next, please—

  Erotica. I was utterly disinterested, and noticed that my right arm was extremely weary. Apparently that car’s drug supply had included libido enhancers. Next—

  Sports. Free-fall soccer semifinals, O’Neill versus the Belt, winner to face Circum-Terra in the fall. As it came on, the mob outside the globe roared: a forward as long and lean as a Ganymedean had just frozen, fumbled his chance, blown an easy shot by hesitating. Zoom in for extreme close-up of his anguished features, his obvious shame. Next—

  News, Systemwide: Luna Free State was saying very rude things about Ganymede’s trade policy, and Terra was making no comment; while nobody had actually used the words “trade war” yet, everyone was thinking them, louder than they had last week. And here I was, trapped at the bottom of the gravity well. Next—

  News, Global: The outfitting and provisioning of the latest colony ship, RSS Charles Sheffield, was nearly complete. It was expected to leave orbit in a few days, and a few days after that, assuming its drive lit without incident, its complement of some five hundred souls should go bye-bye in a big hurry. Hopeably to a star called Immega 714—known also, for reasons I could not imagine, as “Peekaboo.” Only the day before yesterday, I had considered most of them to be idiots, a company of misfits, malcontents, romantics, failures, crackpot visionaries, runaways, transportees, and other defective personalities. Now I found myself fiercely envying them. Just a couple more days, and nothing the Conrad dynasty or any individual Conrad could possibly do would ever again affect them in the slightest. What dominated my future and my children’s future was shortly to become as irrelevant to them as the Roman Empire. Sigh. Next—

  Local news. Housing riots again. This time the demonstrators had somehow overwhelmed or outsmarted both proctors and private security, and penetrated to the very heart of Vancouver’s most upscale neighborhood, the tony intersection of Main and Hastings. Standard anticrowd measures could not be taken for fear of excessive damage to private property.

  I switched to the fiction channel, scanned my favorites index for a story I wanted to reread, something really good and solid and dependable—and long, at least a trilogy. As I did, random sentences from old favorite books kept running through my head. You don’t turn down a promotion… if someone puts money in your hand, close your fingers and keep your mouth shut… let this cup pass from me… he played the hand he was dealt… opporknockity tunes but once, and you’d better be in tune with it….

  Forget fiction. I was way too scattered to read. Even focusing on titles was beyond me. I didn’t bother with any of the music channels: I just knew that whatever I got would be heartbreaking. I shut the screen altogether and flung the remote across the room.

  God damn it, how could she do this to me?

  How could she lie to me that way, hide the truth from me for so long, tell so many lies to me, play me for a fool? My innocent, loving maiden turned out to be a slumming aristocrat, Harun al-Rashid’s granddaughter in clever disguise, casing the marketplace for a strapping young peasant lad with acceptable features and good teeth, to serve as stud back at the palace… smiling fondly inside at his earnest naïveté and childish dreams….

  Again, rebuttal wrote itself. Joel, don’t be a nincompoop. How could she not have done this to you? How would you have handled her problem differently, in her place? Placed an ad on the Web? “Princess seeks hybrid vigor. Salary effectively infinite. Auditions daily at noon; bring résumé, genotype, and headshot.”

  Me: Well, no, but—

  Myself: But what? Once you did catch her eye, once she did somehow, for some glorious reason, cut you out of the herd and let you sniff each other, what was she supposed to do? Tell you who she really was on the first date? Come, now.

  Me: But she could have! It wouldn’t have—

  Myself: Oh, please. In the first place you’re full of shit, and in the second place even if you’re not, even if you really happen to be the kind of unique and special human being who isn’t remotely fazed by small things like unimaginable wealth and power… how the hell was she supposed to know that on a first date? Or a twentieth?

  Me: She kept the damn masquerade up a lot longer than twenty dates! She strung me along for—

  Myself: She maintained her cover until about thirty seconds after you stated for the first time, unequivocally and with sincerity in your voice, that you wanted to marry her as soon as you were able.

  Me: …

  Myself: You tell me: can you think of any other way at all that a girl in her position could know, for certain, whether she’s loved for her self or for her pelf? A girl needs to know these things, pal.

  I: He’s right, you know.

  Me: Yes, but—

  Myself: Wait, I’m not done. Can you think of any other way at all that a guy in your position could know, for certain, that he genuinely loves a girl who’s worth gigacredits? Isn’t that a good thing for the guy to know before he marries her?

  I: You’ll never have any doubts about your own motives, now.

  Myself: And neither will she.

  Imaginary friend, kibitzing: And neither will anybody else. Everyone will know the story: face it, it’s too good not to tell.

  Me: Spiffing. Everyone I ever meet will be thinking, how smart can he be, to have been so profoundly fooled for so long.

  Myself: If they know the story, they’ll know Jinny. They’ll understand.

  Me: Okay, good point. Only… only… it’s just… it’s…

  Damn it out to the Oort Cloud and back, I understood why she had to do what she did—but how could she do that to me?

  Distraction. Distraction.

  I found that I was on my feet, dressed, and pacing around my tiny apartment, with no memory of having willed any of these things. This suggested to me that the distraction should take the form of a depressant rather than a stimulant.

  The bar in my home was a pathetic joke compared to even the field model in Conrad’s guest taxi—I was a starving student, who couldn’t afford to indulge, and usually didn’t mind—but its sole useful content happened to be a large, unopened bottle of an ancient Greek alcoholic beverage called Metaxa, a species of brandy, given to me by a friend with family on Ikaros. I pulled the cork, decided to dispense with a glass, took a big incautious gulp. It smelled and tasted the way I have always imagined gasoline must have smelled and tasted—especially if the gasoline were on fire at the time. By the time I realized my error and tried to scream, my vocal cords were crisped. My tongue cooked through as if microwaved. Tears spilled like lava from my boiling eyes.

  When I could see again, I located my arm, followed it to my hand. The bottle was still in it. I transferred my consciousness, became the bottle, managed to locate my former mouth, and made my way back there. But in attempting to make the jump back to my own brain again, in order to appreciate the full benefit of that second swallow, I got lost somehow. I thrashed around the noosphere for a while, looking for me, but eventually I decided the hell with it and just embraced the darkness. Darkness was a very good thing to embrace. You could count on it staying what it was.

  * * *

  After that comes a series of disconnected fragmentary memories, of events so unlikely and actions so unlike me I’m honestly not sure whether they were real, hallucinations, or some combination thereof.

  I’m quite prepared to believe, for instance, that at one point I raced up the Granville Street Slidewalk, scattering pedestrians like duckpins, while screaming, “I am Prorad of Prorad! Absolutely nothing that happens to you is
my fault!” But can it be remotely possible that I really was, as memory insists, holding hands with a monkey at the time? Where did the monkey come from? Where did he go?

  Similarly, it’s not impossible that I challenged half a dozen White Hat boys to personal combat for laughing at me in Chinatown. The Granville Slidewalk leads in that direction, and I was in a suicidal mood. But how I could have survived… whatever ensued… unscathed, I can neither recall nor imagine. I had no weapon, no combat skills, and Ganymedean muscles. (I never understood, by the way, why Chinatown was still called that, considering that it had been well over a century since the population of Greater Vancouver was less than sixty percent Chinese by ethnicity. I don’t know; maybe ghettoization becomes funny after it stops happening. Or perhaps it was more of a “Never forget!” thing.)

  And if I was in Chinatown, on foot—I had no money for cabs or other public transport—how could I have found myself, an eyeblink later, all the way across town at Spanish Banks beach, watching the vast boat city moored there, Little Kong, gleam in the sunlight, and boil and bustle with the indomitable industry of the doomed? As far as I could see, they were selling seawater to each other out there—but they did it with all their might, each dreaming of cornering the market one day. When a few Vietnamese came ashore, I reeled over and tried to apologize to them, for not having the guts to become a Conrad, and thus solve the politico-economic conditions that trapped them there. But the language barrier intervened—they spoke no Basic, I spoke no Vietnamese—and somehow I ended up buying an unlabeled sprayer of something even more diabolical than Metaxa from them, instead. Maybe they did understand what I was trying to say, after all.