I started to get irritated. Tact had never been the strong suit of either of them…but this was a little excessive. Suddenly I understood something. Underneath their excitement and anticipation, Kirra and Ben were both scared silly.
“I’ll dance it at my own Graduation,” I said, softer than I might have. “You can both see it then.”
“We’ll be halfway to Titan by then,” she protested.
“So what? As long as one Stardancer is in the neighborhood, you’ll have a front-row seat.”
“Huh. Right enough, I guess.”
“Have you two recorded your Last Words for your families, yet?”
They let me change the subject. But I kept thinking about their request, wishing I had something to give them for a wedding gift, and a little while later I had a very bright idea. I excused myself, went off and made a phone call. It worked even better than I had hoped. I had to work hard to conceal my excitement when I rejoined them.
We three slept together that night, for the last time. It was a memorable night; people who are scared silly make incredible lovers. We spent the next day together, visiting all their favorite places. Solariums One and Three, Le Puis, the Great Hall, the games rooms and all the places where we’d shared so much fun and laughter. After dinner I slipped away while they weren’t looking and let them have their last evening to themselves. They didn’t come back to the room, and I fell asleep with a smile on my face.
The next day was Sunday. I didn’t see them until dinner time; according to Teena they never left Ben’s room until then. We talked awhile, and they gave some attention to their last meal. Then the two of them instigated one last food fight. It was glorious. You could tell how close a person was to Graduation by how little food they wore when the fight was over. Ben and Kirra were the only ones who ended up completely unmarked—somewhat unfairly, as they had started it. Either of them could dodge anything they saw coming, and Ben had no blind spot, and had enough attention to spare to guard Kirra’s back and warn her of sneak attacks. I only got hit a couple of times myself, each time from behind.
I showered and was done in time to catch them coming out of Reb’s room. “Hey, you guys. Hello, Reb.”
“Hi, Morgan,” Kirra said. “Guess it’s time to get it done, eh?”
“Yeah. Listen, I know this is kind of last-minute, but…would you mind a bit of dance at your Graduation after all?”
They both brightened. “That’d be great, love,” Kirra said. “Gee, I’m glad you changed your mind.”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “I’m dying to see Coda.”
“Oh, it won’t be Coda,” I said. “I came up with something special for the occasion. I think you’ll like it. Are you coming, Reb?”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” he said. He took Kirra’s arm and I took Ben’s, and the four of us jaunted away like a chorus line on skates.
A fair-sized group was waiting at the airlock. Kirra and Ben had invited anyone who wanted to come, and they were well liked; all of our class that were still around were present, and even some people I didn’t know. There were hugs and handshakes and goodbyes, and then everybody put their hoods on. It took awhile to cycle everybody through the lock. While we were waiting outside, Kirra asked me, “Don’t you need to warm up or somethin’, love?”
“Not this time,” I said.
She made a sound of puzzlement, but let it go.
When everyone was assembled outside, we set off as a group, led by Reb. Newer chums who drifted out of formation did their best to recover without drawing attention to themselves. We ascended like a slightly tipsy celestial choir; Top Step slowly fell away below us, and when it had dwindled into a distant cigar, the Symbiote Mass was visible above us. “Above” in an absolute sense, relative to Earth: by that time we had flipped ourselves so that it seemed to be below our feet. “I don’t see any Stardancers waitin’ to meet us,” Kirra said as we closed in on the red cloud.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be along.”
“Bloody well better. I don’t know how to make that big glob squeeze off a piece my size.”
“Relax, Kirra,” Reb said. “Be your breath.”
“Right. No worries, mate.”
Our formation became most ragged as we came to rest near the Mass, but Reb issued quiet instructions and got us all together again with minimal confusion. Kirra and Ben floated a little apart from the rest of us. Ben’s p-suit was a pale yellow that suited him and his red hair as well as cobalt blue suited Kirra. Between the two of them and the glowing red Symbiote Mass beside them, they had the rainbow covered. There was a moment of silence.
“Well, here we are,” Kirra said finally. “I’d like to thank you all for comin’—”
“—or however you’re reacting.” Ben interjected, and she aimed a mock blow at him that he dodged easily. We all chuckled, and some of the solemnity went out of the occasion.
“We got no speeches to make or anythin’,” she went on. “But before we get down to it, our good friend Morgan McLeod is going to dance for us all.” An approving murmur began.
“Me?” I said. “Oh, no!”
“What do you mean, ‘no’? You promised.”
“I asked if you’d mind a bit of dance. I didn’t say I’d be dancing. Curtain!”
“I don’t get you, love.”
“Wait a second, spice,” Ben said. “Here comes our stuff, I think.” (Ben and Kirra called each other “spice,” a term of endearment I find distinctly superior to “honey” or other sticky sweetness.)
She processed to face the way he seemed to be looking. “Where?”
“No, no, there,” he said, and pointed behind him and to his right.
“You and your trick eyes,” she said, and faced the way he was pointing. “Right you are, here it comes. Still don’t see any Stardancers, though.” A red blob was slowly growing larger in the distance.
“You’re looking at six of them,” I said, enjoying myself hugely.
“Where?”
“Twelve, actually, but they’re squeezed into six bodies at the moment. Kirra and Benjamin Buckley, allow me to present Jinsei Kagami, Yuan Zhongshan, Consuela Paixio, Sven Bjornssen, Ludmilla Vorkuta, and Walerij Pietkow.”
The red blob was much closer now. Music swelled out of nowhere, a soft warm A chord with little liquid trills chasing in and out of it. It couldn’t seem to make up its mind whether it was major or minor.
“They are all trained dancers themselves, but they have all agreed to lend remote-control of their bodies to six of their more distant siblings, who will now dance in your honour. These are Shara Drummond, Sascha Yakovskaya, Norrey Armstead, Charles Armstead, Linda Parsons, and Tom McGillicuddy. Choreography is by all six, around a frame by Shara. Music prerecorded by Raoul Brindle; playback, set design and holographic recording by Harry Stein. The piece is called Kiss the Sky.”
By now the jumbled murmuring of our group was as loud as the soft music. Shara Drummond…and all of the original Six…and Yakovskaya, the first truly great dancer to join them in space, the man who had choreographed the Propaedeutics in his first week as a Stardancer…all dancing together, if only by proxy, for the first time in over a decade—with Brindle on synth! “Pull the other one,” Kirra said. “I don’t see a bloody soul. Just that great hunk of—oh!”
She and everyone fell silent. The approaching blob of Symbiote had suddenly flexed, and stretched in six directions at once to become a kind of six-pointed red snowflake, swirling gently as it approached, like a pinwheel in a gentle breeze, its axis of rotation pointed right at us.