“Thanks, Diaghilev,” he said then. “Monochrome head-shot, minimum audio, accept.” It was the cheapest possible earth-to-orbit call, small black-and-white image and rotten sound, probably relayed on a satellite circuit so old its expiry date began with “19.” Rand would have been offended if Jay had tried to reverse the charges—and it was not yet settled whether his kid half-brother could afford to make fullscreen color calls to High Earth Orbit on his own dollar. Jay spoke before the AI finished producing an image, to let Rand know the circuit was completed. “Well, how did she take it?”
“She’s right here,” Rand said. “Ask her yourself.” He swiveled the carphone so that Rhea came into frame. She was smiling wryly.
“ ‘Oops,’ he said gracefully,” Jay said. “Hi, Rhea. Well, how did you take it?”
“Rectally,” she said sourly.
The joke cued him—first, that Rand would indeed be coming back up to work in the Barn… and second, that it would not be a good idea to sound too delighted just yet. Was Rhea coming up with him right away? Was Colly? “You’ll really like it up here, I promise you,” he said experimentally.
“I’d better.”
Good. Rand would arrive still married. “And Colly will love it. Space was made for kids.”
“It must be,” she said. “You like it.” But she was smiling.
He relaxed, trying not to let the extent of his relief show. The worst that could happen now was that his half-brother’s wife would make Rand’s life miserable to the end of his days. But he’ll be able to work with me again! It would take a lot of the sting out of Ethan not being around anymore…
“We’re going to give it a trial period,” Rand said. He swiveled the phone again so that he was back in frame. “Two months, so Rhea and Colly can check it out before they commit themselves.”
Jay managed to hold his poker face. Fortunately, in zero gravity one’s face does not pale as blood pressure drops. If Rhea left in two months, Rand would go with her. With the example of Jay’s own disaster with Ethan before him, Rand would not risk losing her in a long-distance marriage. Kate was going to have a blowout when she heard this. “That’ll be hard to sell to the Board. They want this settled. Face, you know.”
“I’ve got face too,” Rand said. “I require notice before uprooting my family. If the Board doesn’t like it, they can start running want ads in the trades.”
Briefly, Jay fantasized telling his brother the whole truth. The primary reason the Board had abandoned the audition process and chosen Rand as their shaper was that Jay—feeling reckless in the aftermath of his breakup with Ethan—had privately sent word through the hotel manager that he would quit if they did otherwise. He had just enough clout to pull that off… and no margin at alclass="underline" if the hotel came out of this looking bad, he was out of a job. He was the most famous living human choreographer of free-fall dance—but if he left the Shimizu, where could he go? There were only two other dance companies in space, and neither was hiring. Jay had been a spacer, permanently adapted to zero gravity, for over a decade now: if he could not work in space, he could not work—even if he could have learned to think and choreograph in up-and-down terms all over again.
No—he couldn’t tell Rand any of this. If he did, Rand would think—would suspect in his heart forever, no matter what Jay said—that Jay had put his job on the line purely and simply because they shared a mother. Rand would never believe the truth: that he was truly the only one of the four candidates who was any damn good, the only one Jay could stand the idea of being locked into working with for the next umpty years. The hole in his self-confidence would founder him. And the realization that Jay’s job was on the line would make his problem with his wife even worse.
Well, it was up to Jay to see that Rhea didn’t opt out. His other choice was to slit his throat. “You’re absolutely right. I’ll make them see it that way. Shall I call you back with their answer?”
Rand shook his head. “We both know they’re going to say yes. I can afford to call you now. Full-band color.”
Jay let the grin escape at last. His brother was right. Kate would hate this—but she was committed. As committed as he was. “Damn right. Call me back at… what the hell time is it down there?”
“About ten in the morning.” The Shimizu was on Greenwich Time; it was nearly 3 PM for Jay.
“… at about suppertime. Listen, I don’t want to crowd you, but… how soon can you come up? The sooner you can make it, the less trouble I’ll have selling this trial period.”
Rand acquired the harried look of someone who is trying to solve a tricky problem while long-distance charges are ticking away. He glanced sideways. “What do you think, hon?”
After a time, Rhea’s voice came from out of frame. “Three days, minimum. I’d like a month. I’d like a year, dammit.”
“I think I can get three days, no sweat,” Jay said cheerfully.
Rand tried for a diversion. “Anything we can bring up for you?”
“If I think of anything, I’ll tell you when you call back.” He gave the phone his best grin. “Listen, this is really great news. Really, Rhea—you’ll see! Kiss Blondie for me. Phone off.” As Rand’s smiling image dissolved, he went on, “Diaghilev, where’s Kate?”
“In her office, Jay. Do you wish an appointment to see her? She has an opening in her calendar tomorrow at—”
“No, I want her now. She’ll see me. ETA fifteen minutes.”
“Yes, Jay. You’re right: Ms. Boswell has accepted for her. Fifteen minutes from… mark.”
“Shower please, Diaghilev.”
“Yes, Jay.”
The studio shower accepted and cleansed him; ten minutes later he was dry, shaved, groomed and jaunting along the corridors of the Inner Sphere, heading inboard toward Katherine Tokugawa’s executive office in the Core.
Heads turned as he floated past, but only one of the hotel guests had the nerve to call out to him. “Hello, Jay. You look happy—good news?”
Jay made a long arm and grabbed a jaunt-loop, braked himself to a halt. His boss would have a fit if she ever heard that a mere guest had learned news of this importance before she did—but Eva Hoffman was more than just a guest: she had been a resident fixture in the Shimizu for sixteen years now. He glanced around mock-conspiratorially. “Are you sure those are your original eyes?”
Eva grinned. She was one hundred sixteen years old, and showed most of them—having, most unusually, given up controlling her appearance on her hundredth birthday. She drew stares everywhere she went in the Shimizu these days… the most horrified of them coming from those guests whose own odometers had rolled past zero. “Thirty years ago I’d have known exactly why you were looking happy, at twice the distance. So your brother’s coming back up to stay, eh? Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I’m excited.”
“Me too. You two do good work together. Pribhara was a waste of air.”
“She… had her own way of doing things.”
“Yeah. Wrong. Would you like me to take charge of his wife and daughter? What’s her name, Spaniel?” Eva, of course, knew perfectly well what Colly’s name was. “Help them get reoriented to free-fall, their first day, show ’em around the Mausoleum, and all that, so that you and Rand can get right down to work?”
He was touched by the offer. Eva was a Shimizu institution, and she did not offer her time lightly or often. She was one of very few guests who knew her way around the place as well as Jay, who did not need to follow some AI’s trail of blinking lights to get where she was going. “I think I’ve got that covered,” he said. “But if they do need more help, I’ll know where to come. Thanks, Eva.”