On the dance floor stood a woman, radiance streaming around her like water. She was small, black-haired, with a white face and burning black eyes. She wore a fabulously elaborate kimono, iridescent as a diamond, and so much larger than the woman it seemed as though she were impaled upon it. The waltz strains faltered; Jack glanced at the sextet, saw them gazing awed as everyone else at the vision in white. Very slowly, with careful steps and head downcast, the luminous figure walked to the center of the dance floor.
“Holy Christ,” breathed Leonard. “It’s Michiko.”
Jack shook his head. “Who?”
“His wife. The one who killed herself. Michiko Tatsumi. They made an icon of her.”
Jack looked for Mr. Tatsumi. The CEO was bent double, clutching the edge of the table in front of him. His eyes were fixed on the icon. Several men clustered at his side, Larry Muso among them, but Mr. Tatsumi motioned them away. The CEO straightened, and haltingly walked to the dance floor.
The woman stood, arms outstretched, the sleeves of her kimono spilling from her arms like wings. Her mouth parted in a rapturous smile. As the chairman approached, she moved her head slightly back and forth, as though struggling to see him in a darkened room. When he stopped in front of her she cocked her head and opened her arms to him. The waltz swept joyously on. For a moment they were absolutely still, the frail black-clad man staring down into that glorious nimbus of a face, the icon’s mouth fluttering as though she were trying to speak. With exquisite care, he took her in his arms, and they began to dance.
Jack wiped his eyes and glanced around furtively, to see who else was crying. At his table, everyone. With the exception of Leonard, whose expression shifted from wonder to amusement to something Jack couldn’t read. He turned, looked at Jack, then shook his head.
Enough, Jack thought. Leonard Thrope is rendered speechless.
The room was still, all eyes fixed on the dancing pair. As “The Blue Danube” ended and the strings swept into another waltz, a couple from the head table stood and walked to the dance floor. Another couple joined them, and another, a zephyr of flowing gowns and coattails, until the entire room flowed with dancers, men and women, men and men, women and women, Mr. Tatsumi and his luminous bride, whirling like gorgeous clockwork toys. Jack watched them, so enthralled that he jumped when someone tapped his shoulder.
“Jack?” Larry stood there, smiling. “Would you like to dance?”
Jack stared at him, then nodded. “Yes,” he said, getting to his feet. “Of course.”
There were so many waltzing couples that they could only move very slowly, and nowhere near the dance floor. Jack held Larry hesitantly, his hand poised upon the smaller man’s shoulder. Larry tilted his head and stared up at him with such naked joy that nothing mattered but this, that he was no longer alone; that he could still dance, hear music, feel the warmth of Larry Muso’s neck beneath his hand. They turned, clockwise, counterclockwise, first one leading and then the other. Jack glanced up to see other faces mirroring his own joy, women with their husbands, daughters with their fathers, lovers and businessmen, scientists and artists. Only Leonard Thrope seemed to be sitting it out, leaning back in his chair with legs crossed, watching with an expression at once wistful and satisfied: as though finally, after all these years, he had gotten what he’d paid for.
“Look,” murmured Larry. He tipped his head to stare upward. “It must be almost midnight.”
High above them the stars were gone. The dome seemed to have melted away as well; the grid of glass and metal had disappeared. Where it had been an aperture was an opening in the ceiling, a circle spiraling outward like a huge blinking eye, until it revealed the naked sky in all its livid glory, and within it the Fougas, blindingly lit. It was as though sunlight spilled onto the assembled waltzers, sun and the glimmering’s bacchic pennons streaming across the heavens. The sounds of the waltz grew faint as couples clutched each other and cried out in amazement. Jack heard an exultant roar as the Pyramid’s ten thousand invited guests looked upon this crack in the dying century’s defenses. From an even greater distance he heard the almost unimaginable thunder of the city’s trembling revelry; the world’s.
“They’re ready,” said Larry Muso. Jack could only nod, watching raptly as the Fougas began to move. A darkness blotted out the whirling sky, as though a cloud passed between the Pyramid and the heavens.
“That’s the platform.” Larry grabbed Jack’s hand. “That’s what it’ll look like again, soon—we’ll see the sky again! We’ll see the stars—”
“It’s—it’s amazing.” Jack was trembling, with fatigue and exhilaration and something he could only think of as rapture. “I mean, that they’re going to do it.”
Larry squeezed his hand. “We’re going to do it. All of us. We’re going to make it all right again.”
The music had stopped. There was a deafening wave of sound, but Jack could still hear the Fougas’ steady thrum. He stared into open sky, the icy air dispersing the scents of perfume and sweat and Viconix. The dirigibles with their heraldic gryphons began to drift in formation, the SUNRA platform a swath of darkness behind them. Jack’s eyes hurt, he saw once more those luciferian flashes of emerald green. He found himself shouting, one hand on Larry’s shoulder, the other pounding at the air; cheering on the fleet.
Beneath one Fouga there was a starburst of white and crimson, a Catherine wheel of orange flame. Everyone applauded wildly, and Jack laughed, exultant.
“Look!” he cried. “God, look at it!”
He glanced at Larry. His eyes were wide, his smile gone.
“No,” said Larry Muso. “That’s wrong, they’ve got the timing wrong.”
“What do you mean—”
And then Jack looked up at the sky and saw that it was not fireworks but a conflagration, the night on fire:
Blue Antelope had struck.
Horrified screams as flame rained down and metal joists, burning fuselage and liquid fire. Glass exploded everywhere, there were bodies flying as people ran blindly, trampling tables and chairs, bodies. The forest of lighttubes shattered into bolts of violet and green. Jack stood, too stunned to move. Something slashed his arm. He looked down and saw a piece of glass protruding above his wrist. As in a nightmare he plucked it out, staring as blood welled from the seam of flesh.
“Jack! Jack!” Oily black smoke stung his eyes as someone barreled past him. “JACK! ”
“Larry!” Jack cried, and desperately searched until he saw him, sprawled on the floor. “Larry!”
The other man lifted his head, stumbling to his feet. His face was dead white, but as his eyes met Jack’s he nodded and raised his hand.
“I’m okay!” Larry shouted. “Go back to your house—wait for me there, Jack, I’ll meet you as soon as I can!”
There was a roar as a slab of burning fuselage crashed to the floor, and Larry’s voice echoed from behind smoke and leaping flame. “I’ll find you, just GO! ”
Jack staggered toward the blaze. His mouth formed Larry’s name, but he could no longer think of anything but the smell of burning metal, burning flesh, the screams of a woman made of light lurching toward him—