Starmind. Part 10

"They have?"

"Of course. How often does life hand you a really good puzzle?"

She blinked, and grinned. "You're right. Not often enough these days. I feel like a sixty-year-old again."

12.

Kechar Dzong Lo Monthang The Kingdom of Lo, Nepal 12 January 2065.

"There was a time," the old monk said above the howling of the late afternoon wind, "when this kingdom controlled all trade throughout the Himalayas. It was the top of the roof of the world."

Gunter Schmidt thought,I will not kill my travel agent. That is far too merciful. I will sue him until he bleeds from the eyes.

"Of course," the old man said with magnificent redundance, "all that was long ago." He underlined the unnecessary words with a sweeping and equally superfluous gesture. Every square inch of the immense fortress-c.u.m-temple within which they stood shouted that the structure had already been a long-abandoned ruin on the day Johann Sebastian Bach died.

From their vantage point on one of its flat rooftops, they could see Lo itself laid out below them in the merciless sunlight of a cloudless December afternoon, a collection of flat-roofed, log-laddered earthen dwellings at the base of the hill on which this crumbling castle of Kechar Dzong stood. Even by Fourth World standards, the Kingdom of Lo was unimpressive. The land was parched, supporting nothing higher than thornbushes; a few carefully nurtured stands of poplar and willow saplings were to be found in the village itself, but wood had been too precious to burn here for centuries. The brief growing season was over, and even the Himalayan vista in the distance could not overcome the bleakness and desolation of the landscape. The kingdom was permitted to exist, semiautonomously with its own king and queen, within the larger kingdom of Nepal-largely because there was nothing here worth arguing over.

"What happened?" Gunter asked, not because he wanted to know, but because he wanted to hear the old monk say something he didn't know already.

"Calamity. The Kali Gandaki moved."

"I hate when that happens."

The old man actually seemed to catch the sarcasm. "The Kali Gandaki was the river from which the strength of Kechar Dzong flowed. It once pa.s.sed by right there-" He indicated a vague gully meandering through a section of rocky outcroppings no more or less desolate than any other, a few hundred meters downslope. "But when it changed its location at the end of the sixteenth century . . ."

Gunter understood now, and his anger deepened. "And ever since, you have been praying for its return-"

"-in the Tiji ceremony, the elaborate and beautiful ritual I told you of earlier, yes," the old monk agreedhappily. "Dorje Jono, the son of the demon who moved the river, repels his father with the power of his magical dancing, and brings water back to the land. The Tiji ceremony takes three full days, and involves every member of the kingdom who is well enough to travel. We summon them with the two mountain horns I showed you downstairs, each of them four meters long. For three days Lo becomes the most magical place in the Himalayas, withdamyin music and feasting and dancing and singing and beautiful costumes and pageantry and-"

"InMay, "Gunter said through his teeth.

His rhapsody interrupted, the old man blinked at the venom in Gunter's tone. "Well, yes, as I said, that is when foreigners usually visit us. We seldom see a European this late in the year."

"Really?" Gunter said, pulling his parka tighter at his throat against the sharp and icy wind. He mentally replayed the conversation with his travel agent, realizing in hindsight that while the man had waxed eloquent about the Tiji festival, he had never specifically said when it was held. He had only seemed to suggest, somehow, that Gunter barely had time to book his pa.s.sage if he wanted to be there in time. The trip here had been quite arduous. The last fifty kilometers had been accomplished on horseback, following a guide with whom Gunter had no languages in common.So I can't sue the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and killing him is too good for him. Ah, but what about torture?

From somewhere in the far distance to the north came the half-mournful, half-comic sound of a Tibetan mountain horn like the two Gunter had been shown downstairs, a sustained baritone bleat that made him think of a brontosaur dying in agony. It made the mountains ring with echoes. "What's that?" he asked idly. "Call to prayer? Some sort of religious ceremony in another temple?" Perhaps this trip need not be a total loss. Exotic religions were a hobby of Gunter's; having had his mouth set for a grand festive colorful Buddhist ceremony, he was now prepared to settle for the local equivalent of Vespers, rather than go home empty-handed.

But the old man was shaking his head. "I have no idea."

For some reason, this irritated Gunter. "Well, who lives up that way, then?"

The old man looked sore puzzled. "Hardly anyone. There is an old hermit who lives in that general direction . . . and I know he has such a horn, because I have seen it outside his home. But I have never heard him blow it-if indeed that is his horn."

Gunter lost his manners. He had wasted a week and a fortune to see something exotic, and now he was freezing his buns off in a crumbled ruin-anempty crumbled ruin-that would be deserted for the next six months, with a canny native guide-clearly one of the oldest inhabitants of the area-who could not even tell him the significance of a simple mountain horn signal. "Perhaps it is Charlie Parker," he snarled, "practicing in secret until the day when Kansas City needs him again!"

He did not expect the monk to get the reference, of course-but the gesture the old man made indicated that he had not even heard the remark. The wind had redoubled in fierceness and volume. "Never mind!"

he said, louder, and could not even hear himself this time. Again the monk pantomimed,Excuse me?

Gunter's temper boiled over; he waved his arms angrily, gave a wordless shout of exasperation, and set off toward Lo, below. He deliberately left the ancient ruin by a different exit than the one by which he and the monk had entered, one which was more difficult to negotiate, and once he had reached the ground he continued at a pace which he knew the old man would be unable to match. He had forgotten how difficult the climb up had been. Within a few hundred meters, he was breathing hard. It occurred to him suddenly, as he was negotiating a two-meter drop-off, that in his irritation he was about to leave herecompletely empty-handed. He stopped and took his camera from his s.h.i.+rt pocket. At least he could get some good shots of the ruined temple itself. He had purchased enough memory for five straight days of shooting; might as well get a few minutes. He turned and grunted with satisfaction: the decaying temple really did look striking against the sky. It somehow gave Gunter the impression of a fortress built to defend men against the G.o.ds.

Unsuccessfully. He backed off a few steps for a better angle, and checked the camera's charge. To avoid wasting power, he disabled the audio pickup. The wind was really roaring now, and he could overdub the audio later, with something suitably timeless and melancholy.

He peered through the viewfinder and panned across the face of the ruin, left to right and then back again. He did not see the old monk anywhere, and wondered if he were still within the walls, paralyzed by Gunter's rudeness. Then he did see him-and sure enough, he was standing in the same window they had both been looking out from, minutes earlier. He appeared to be doing jumping jacks.

Gunter grunted in surprise, and zoomed in. No, the old man was hopping up and down and flapping his arms, but not in any organized fas.h.i.+on. He seemed to be waving at Gunter. Gunter zoomed in farther, and became even more puzzled. The old man appeared to be laughing like a loon. And he was pointing now, pointing to the north. Was he trying to say something about that silly horn blast? In sign language, at this distance? Gunter waved back with his free hand, signing,forget it. This seemed to convulse the aged monk; he held his ribs and roared with silent laughter.

Gunter had heard of this: Himalayans were known to go into spontaneous laughing jags, due to the low oxygen content at this height. He found it annoying: here he was trying to get an imposing shot of this ancient temple, and its caretaker was capering like an ape in the foreground.Go away, he gestured.Get out of the window!

The monk nodded at once, still laughing merrily, and vanished from the window. Gunter kept shooting.

Now the wind began to devil him, increasing its force until it was tugging at his clothes, pressing at him like a Tokyo commuter, hammering at his eardrums. The camera was just big enough to present sail-area to it; the wind kept trying to force it to the right. Gunter had image-stabilization circuitry, but knew that this much wavering was taxing it. He twisted slightly to his right to put his back toward the wind, s.h.i.+elding the camera with his hunched left shoulder. The wind pressed especially hard at his ankles, for some reason, and his feet began to feel chilly.Oh fine, he thought,defective boots on top of everything else. I am definitely going to sue somebodywhen I get home!

But almost as he finished the thought, he realized that his feet were actuallycold, colder than they should have been even if the boots' heating systems had both failed completely. He glanced down, and discovered that he was standing ankle deep in crystal clear water. It rose as he watched, climbing his s.h.i.+ns.

He looked to the north, and saw the Kali Gandaki river returning, after five centuries, dividing around his feet. Now his ear could distinguish between the sound of its pa.s.sage and the similar sound of the wind.

For no reason at all he remembered the d.a.m.ned travel agent saying that the Tiji festival was also known as the Festival of Impermanence.

From above him, in the temple, came the continuousBBBRRRRRAATTTTTTTT! of a mountain horn, cutting cleanly through the wind and water noise to alert the village below, and this horn sounded to Gunter more like a brontosaur laughing. . . . PART FIVE

13.

The s.h.i.+mizu Hotel 18 January 2065.

Rhea was drifting helplessly in deep s.p.a.ce, her air supply almost gone, her thrusters dry, gasping for air that wasn't there, when windchimes sounded in the distance. She sighed, came back to reality, saved her changes, folded the typewriter and tucked it in her pocket, and went to answer the door.

It was Duncan, of course-the only person besides Rand, Colly and Jay for whom the doorbell would function while she was working. "Is Colly ready?" he asked.

His eyes seemed to ask several other things, and Rhea sighed again.I wonder what my eyes are answering, came the sudden thought. "Come in," she said, and looked away. "Max, please tell Colly Duncan is here."

"Beg pardon?" the AI said.

"Sorry. Tell Collythat Duncan is here." Rhea hated making syntax errors; it was professionally embarra.s.sing.

After a pause, her AI said, "Colly says to tell you she's changing clothes and will be with you in two seconds."

They looked at each other. "Five minutes," they chorused together, and shared a grin.

Almost at once something about that trivial event bothered Rhea. It was a domestic little moment, something she and Rand might have shared, a small intimacy. Rand had in fact been doing his best to generate such moments, lately-probably because the deadline for her Big Decision was approaching.

That underlying awareness had been making the return grins she gave her husband slightly forced. The grin she had just given Duncan was quite genuine. She realized she was drifting just perceptibly toward him, and overcorrected. "Come on in," she said to cover it. "You know where everything is."

"Are you working?" he asked, entering the suite.

She hesitated. The question meant, do you want to be left alone? Duncan was very understanding of a writer's problems; if she said yes, she would cease to exist for him. "No," she decided. "Can I get youanything? There's time for coffee."

"No, thanks," he said. "How's the work coming?"

"Not bad, thanks to you. I really struck ice with Buchi Tenmo."

He grinned again at the s.p.a.cer expression. s.p.a.cers didn't give a d.a.m.n for gold or diamonds or oil: for them a new source of potable water was real wealth. She had picked up the idiom from him-and it seemed to please him that she had. "Yeah, she's pretty amazing . . . when you can tell what the h.e.l.l she's talking about."

"Yes, there is that. It's like talking to an angel on psychedelics sometimes. Would you mind sitting in on the conversation once or twice? You've been talking with Stardancers a lot longer than I have."

"Sure-but don't expect that to help much. Buchi's justdifferent. Even for a Stardancer. The ones born that way, who've never breathed, are the weirdest . . . but the most interesting too, I think."

A week ago, Rhea had asked Duncan how one got to know a Stardancer. She knew it could be done simply and easily, even from the surface of Terra-but how did one sc.r.a.pe up an acquaintance? It turned out Duncan was friendly with several Stardancers. Most s.p.a.cers were. And one of his personal friends amongh.o.m.o caelestis happened to be physically located near enough to the s.h.i.+mizu to allow for something very like a face-to-face meeting . . . through Rhea's own window. Duncan had made the introduction a few days earlier, then politely left them alone. "When would be good for you in the next few days?"

"Any time; when's good for you?"

She thought about it-and suddenly realized that the search criterion with which she was examining her calendar was "times when Rand and Colly won't be around." That made perfect sense: the conversation would be confusing enough without distraction. Nonetheless it struck her all at once that she was making a date to be alone-or almost alone-with a handsome young man. One who, if she wasn't misreading signals, was interested in her.

It's forwork, for heaven's sake!

Yes . . . but is it prudent?

Oh, shut up."How about tomorrow night, after twenty?"

He nodded. "Program loaded."

There was a brief silence. Rhea felt compelled to break it. "So how are things with you?"

"Pretty good, actually. I made another piece last night, and it turned out well."

Duncan's hobby was vacuum-sculpture. To Rhea the artform seemed to consist of a.s.sembling ingredients in various combinations, exposing them suddenly to vacuum, and then taking credit for the weird and beautiful shapes chemistry caused to occur. But vacuum-sculpture could be very beautiful-and she had to admit that Duncan seemed to produce aesthetically pleasing results more often than chance could account for. Didn't photographers throw out twenty prints and take credit for the perfect twenty-first? Come to think of it, wasn't her own storage cluttered with drafts that hadn't quitegelled?

"I'd like to see it," she said politely.

"No problem. We'll talk to Buchi from my place, then."

She opened her mouth . . . and then closed it firmly. He was pointedly not looking in her direction.

"I thought I'd take Colly to the pool again," he went on.

Rhea laughed. "You think you have a choice, huh?" The laugh sounded too loud in her ears. "She's a born water baby. You couldn't keep her out of the surf, back ho- . . . back in Provincetown. You know, I've always thought it's ironic. As far back as history goes, the Paixaos have made their living on and from the sea-and my mother was the first one in the family that ever learned to swim. How could you spend all that time on the water and not know how to swim? Weren't they scared?"

Duncan shrugged. "I've lived all my life in s.p.a.ce-and I don't know how to breathe vacuum."

"But that's not possible-and it is possible to learn to swim, and it doesn't even take much time."

"Look at it from your greatest grandfather Henry's perspective," he said. "Suppose you're off the Grand Banks and the s.h.i.+p sinks. How much good does it do you to know how to swim?"

It occurred to Rhea that Duncan knew a lot more about her family than she knew about his. She was not normally so forthcoming; had he been making an effort to draw her out? She reviewed memory tape, and could not decide. "I guess. It still seems odd. Maybe we should ask Buchi to teach you how to breathe vacuum."

And now I've drawn the conversation back to our rendezvous. . . .

Colly appeared just then. How she could have spent five minutes dressing was something of a mystery, for she was dressed for the pool, in the ubiquitous guest robe and nothing else. Since so many nationalities and cultures mingled in the s.h.i.+mizu, all guests conformed to a minimal nudity taboo in politeness to the less civilized nations; one did not jaunt down public corridors naked. But a guest robe was sufficient, and even those could be dispensed with once one reached the pool-or any other nonpublic location. "Hi, Duncan! Come on, let's go!"

"Sorry to hold you up," he said sarcastically, and made way so Colly could hug her mother goodbye.

As Rhea handed the child off to Duncan, their hands brushed briefly. Rhea had gotten used to casual touching in s.p.a.ce, even from strangers; free-fall made it necessary in close quarters. But this touch she felt from her scalp to the soles of her feet. It seemed to her that he made it linger.

She was glad then for Colly's eagerness to be in the water; the two headed for the door before the blush reached her cheeks.

I should have said yes when he asked if I was working.

In fact, sheshould be working. She took her keyboard from her pocket and unfolded it. Work would be a wonderful distraction from the trend her thoughts were taking. Almost at once she found another distraction. The virtual screen that sprang into existence over the keyboard was preset to display her calendar as its boot doc.u.ment, so she wouldn't start sinking into the warm fog if there was some imminent obligation scheduled. It showed the next thirty days, and the box for5 February was highlighted-it leaped out of the screen at her, as it had been doing ever since she had highlighted it.

I have two more weeks to make up my mind whether I'm going to stay here,was what she had thought when she first started work that morning. Now, perhaps because of what had just transpired, it came out,I have two more weeks to make up my mind whether I'm going to stay married to Rand.

She entered her date with Duncan into the calendar, put the typewriter away again, and went to the window. She watched the majestically turning Earth for a measureless time, trying to put names on her feelings, and failing. They would not hold still long enough.

Finally she looked around her, as if to make sure she was alone . . . and checked her watch to make sure Rand was not due home . . . and spoke to her AI. "Maxwell: window program 'Home.' "

"Yes, Rhea."

Terra went away, and was replaced by Provincetown.

She was back in her own writing room in her own home, looking out of the turret through her favorite window, hearing the sounds of the street below, hearing the gulls and the distant surf, seeing Mrs.

Vasques, her neighbor, haranguing yet another motorist who had clipped her fence in trying to negotiate the insanely narrow street. The illusion was nearly perfect-except for the same flaw it had had weeks ago, when Rand had first sprung it on her. This time, she was able to identify the flaw.This Provincetown didn't smell. There was no salt tang in the air-none of that rich aroma that the landsman calls the smell of the sea and the sailor calls the smell of the land, the sh.o.r.e smell of decaying vegetation and sea creatures at the border between two incompossible worlds.

Maybe I could get a steward to bring me some fish leftovers,she thought, and began to cry. Fetal position is hard to achieve in free-fall, but she managed it.

She never did get back to work that afternoon. But she did manage to stop crying an hour before Duncan was due to bring Colly home for supper, so that her eyes wouldn't be red when they arrived.

Rand showed up just as they did. He had been making a major effort to eat most meals with his family these days. For some reason, his arrival relieved her. Duncan declined an invitation to join them for dinner, and that relieved her too. During the meal she found herself paying more attention than usual to her husband, asking questions about his work and listening attentively to the answers, making little excuses to touch him. Before she knew it they had made a nonverbal contract, entirely by eye contact, to make love when he got home again that night. He went off to Jay's place whistling.