“Don’t be silly. A twenty-year-old? I’m old enough to be his… his…”
“… best lover yet. Come on, what have you got to lose?”
“A lot. You obviously haven’t tried to keep up with a twenty-year-old lately. Anyway, I like ’em with muscles. We’re wandering. Look, what I started to say was, don’t change that diaper until you smell it. I know how much that house means to Rhea, and I know Provincetown is the most amazing place on Earth. But this is the most amazing place in space. Give her time.”
“Well… I’ve got a surprise I’ve been working on for her in my spare time; I plan to spring it on her soon. Maybe tonight. It might just—”
“Phone, Jay,” Diaghilev said. “Eva Hoffman, urgent.”
Jay’s face changed. “Oh, shit. Excuse me, bro. Sergei, give me privacy.” Tugbots brought him earphones, hushmike and a monitor screen. He tossed Rand his holo remote and took the call. Rand passed the time by not-quite-watching flatscreen music videos from the Old Millennium, with the sound off, trolling for images to swipe.
He killed the screen when he heard Jay say, “Jesus Christ.”
“Something wrong?”
His brother looked stricken. “One of my closest friends just decided not to die after all.”
Rand looked at him. “Yeah, that’d be hard to take,” he said solemnly.
Jay grinned, then frowned, then emitted a short burst of nervous laughter. “God, that sounds dumb, doesn’t it?” He shook his head. “Maybe I’ve got the same problem she has. I just don’t know how to deal with good news.”
“Who are we talking about? Or should I ask?”
“Eva Hoffman.”
Rand was shocked. “She was thinking of catching a cab? I always figured her for an honored guest at the Party at the End of the Universe. I’m glad she changed her mind. I like her a lot.”
“Me too. She’ll be at the special, tomorrow night.”
“What special?”
The company was presently performing Spatial Delivery, the piece he and Jay had co-created during his earlier residency; it would be played three nights a week and Sunday matinees until the new piece replaced it a month from now. But this was the first Rand had heard of a special performance.
“Oh shit, I haven’t told you yet? Sorry; too many things on my mind. We’re doing a command performance. A private concert. In the same theater, of course, but the rest of the goats get told the show is cancelled. Only uips and a handful of peasant vips admitted.”
“ ‘Whips’?”
“Spelled U-I-P. Ultimately Important People.”
Rand prepared himself not to be impressed. “Like who?”
“Chen Ling Ho. Imaro Amin. Grijk Krugnk. Chatur Birla. And Victoria Hathaway. The Fat Five, I call ’em.”
It was hard to get air. “All of them? In the same room at the same time? They’re gonna see my—our—piece?”
“Yep. Kate Tokugawa’s been working on this visit for a month, in secret, and she wants all the trimmings. She authorized me to tell you, of course, but I plain forgot.”
“What the hell are five of the most powerful people on Earth all doing here at the same time?”
Jay shook his head. “My guess is, historians will just be getting really involved in arguing about that forty years from now. Probably no one will ever know. Those folks can edit reality. And they do not like people knowing what they’re doing. Especially before they’ve done it. Make damn sure you tell Rhea and Colly not to tell anyone about the special until all five are dirtside again.”
“Tell two women not to talk about the most exciting thing that’s happened to them in weeks. Yeah, that’ll work.”
Jay grabbed him by the upper arm. “Listen to me. This is serious. If the presence of those five guests becomes public knowledge, while they’re still here, you and I could both become unemployed real fast. If not worse. People have accidents in space.”
Rand shook his arm free. “And an ordinary hotel guest like Eva Hoffman is invited to this top-secret performance?”
“Oh Christ, Rand, Eva isn’t any ordinary guest, you know that. Eva is Eva. Even Kate is afraid of her. As a matter of fact, I think Eva’s going to be there as a guest of Chen Ling Ho. Her and Reb Hawkins-roshi. Look, just trust me on this, okay? Tell Rhea and Colly not to discuss this, even with Duncan. After the Fat Five have left, they can brag all they want; by then security won’t matter anymore. Between you and me, I suspect the news will be all over Shimizu within five minutes after they dock—but I do not want any leaks traceable to us. I like this job. And I’d like to get back to it, okay?”
“Okay. I’ll tell them. Boot up Terpsichore and let’s see how the new idea is going to work.”
While Jay brought up the holographic choreography software, a collateral descendant of the original twentieth century Lifeforms program, and set up the parameters of Pribhara’s wretched piece, Rand checked in with Salieri.
“How’m I doing, Salieri?”
“Rhea and Colly are expecting you for dinner at 19 o’clock in the Hall of Lucullus, but they will understand if you are late. I will remind you at 18:45. If you elect to keep working, I will inform them, and remind you to stop work and eat at 21 o’clock, using extreme measures if necessary.”
“Excellent. Whenever I go home, remind me about that new window program just before I get to the door. Dismissed. Let me at that interface, Jay—see how you like this…”
Extreme measures proved necessary. By the time he got back to his suite, Colly was fast asleep, dreaming of angelfish making puffballs.
He was eager to show Rhea the surprise he had prepared. But she had a surprise of her own to show him first. “I was checking on… oh hell, what I was doing was snooping,” she said gleefully, tapping a keyboard. The file she wanted displayed on the nearest wall. “And I found this in Colly’s partition.” It was a text document. At first he took it for one of Rhea’s manuscripts, since it had been created with the same arcane, obsolete word-processing software she used. But then he saw the slug at the top of the file: “The Amazing Adventure, by Colly Porter.”
“It’s a short story,” she said, her delight obvious. “About a little girl who goes to space and defeats spies.”
He grinned. “Oh, that’s wonderful. And she didn’t say anything to you about it?”
“Not a hint. Wait, let me show you the best part…” She scrolled the document a page or two, found the place she wanted, and highlighted a portion of the text. It read: “But the truth was far from reality.”
His bark of laughter triggered hers, and then they tried to shush each other for fear of waking Colly, and broke up all over again. The sequence ended with them in a hug, looking at the screen together in fond appreciation. “Is it any good?” he asked.
“Hard to tell; she hasn’t finished it yet. But so far… for an eight-year-old… it’s terrific.”
“How long has she been working on it?”
She punched keys. “File created three days ago.”
He was impressed. “And she’s got, what, eight pages down? Jesus, that’s amazing.”
She nodded vigorously. “Damn right. Eight pages in three or four days is good output for me.” She frowned. “Could we have raised one of those freaks who actually enjoy writing?”
He gave a theatrical shudder. “Could have been worse. At least it isn’t heroin.”
“That’d be cheaper. Ah well, she’ll grow out of it. At her age I wanted to be a gymnast.”
“Sure, I know. But it’s still cute as hell. And you should still be flattered.”