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Lost in Translation

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Praise for Ed's previous novel, Lost in Translation:

"Edward Willett has arrived, and SF is the richer for it." -  Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Hominids

"A believable, absorbing, thought-provoking and highly enjoyable read." - Kathy Tyers, Author of the Firebird trilogy, Star Wars: The Truce at Bakura, and Star Wars: Balance Point

Andy Nebula: Interstellar Rock Star
Published by Roussan Publishers

Nominated for the 2001 Manitoba Young Readers Choice Award
Named to the Our Choice list by the Canadian Children's Book Centre

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CHAPTER FOUR

Six months passed in a blur of performances, interviews, rehearsals and travel, but every night I felt that same surge of exhilaration just before I went on, as the crowd thundered, the synths built the pounding back-beat, the lasers flashed through the smoke and the dancebots whirled. I was the detonator of a bomb; when I stepped on stage, things exploded.

At the end of the six months we were on Carstair's Folly, the fourteenth stop in my triumphant tour of the Pleasure Planets. I stood in the wings in my mirrorcloth skin-tights until the crowd was threatening to tear down the soaring gossamer roof of the acoustic tent, then I gave the signal, the computer shouted, "Ladies and gentleman--Andy Nebula!" and I burst on stage and ripped into my sizzling opening dance, while the dancebots fell back in shock and phantom stars exploded overhead.

We had a hundred and twenty-five thousand people there that night and I felt good as I finished my bows and made my exit, the crowd still chanting, "An-dy! An-dy! An-dy!"

Qualls waited backstage; unusual, but not that unusual. "Hey, Qualls," I shouted above the crowd noise. "They still love me."

"Come in here a minute, Kit."

I followed him into his soundproof office and he pointed me to the formchair across from his silver-topped desk. I sat down gingerly; I hate the way those things flow to conform to my butt. "What's powering, manager-man?"

"Cut the slang, Kit."

"Hey, that's my home babble, glad--"

"I said cut it!"

I cut it. "What's wrong?"

He sat down and pulled a whirligig bottle from a drawer, along with two glasses. He filled them both and pushed one to me. I took it, but my stomach fluttered; Qualls never risked heat from the local 'forcers, and on Carstair's Folly serving an intoxicant to a minor, even an intoxicant as weak as whirligig, could land you in jail. Still, the cold fizzy liquid felt great going down. I drank half of it in a gulp, burped, then lowered my glass to see Qualls staring moodily into his own. "Well?" I said.

"You saw the crowd tonight, Kit."

"Looked good. The tent was full."

"Tents are always full, Kit...because you can move the walls."

I stared at him. "What?"

"Capacity is two hundred thousand. We sold one-twenty-five. You weren't a sell-out, Kit."

The fluttery feeling in my stomach grew. I guzzled more whirligig, but it didn't go away. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and set the glass down. "A hundred and twenty-five thousand tickets at fifty feds apiece isn't exactly biowaste."

"Maybe. But it's the first time Andy Nebula hasn't sold out."

"The next planet--"

"Ticket sales are slow. I just got a call from Mr. Korpov."

I wondered if I could get Qualls to serve me something stronger than whirligig. Korpov was the CEO of Sensation Singles, Inc. "He's fading me out?"

"Not yet. You've got four more concerts, no matter what. But if you're not back to sell-outs by that fourth gig..."

"Yeah, I know." I'd always known it couldn't last. Sensation Singles were like non-repeating comets; one blaze of glory, then cold oblivion for eternity. "The crowds will come back, Qualls. I'm sure of it."

"Right, Kit." He drained his whirligig in four gulps. "You'd better go get cleaned up. They'll be moving your dressing room back to the ship in about an hour. We lift tonight."

I stood up, the formchair releasing me reluctantly, and handed him my glass. "I'm vapor, gladeye."

My usual post-concert bubbly feeling had gone thoroughly flat, whirligig notwithstanding. I trudged to my dressing room in a mood as black as the shadows that filled the backstage corridors. As I neared my dressing room door, one of those shadows moved.

I froze, heart racing. In my experience, moving shadows were bad news. The last moving shadow I'd seen, in a Fistfight City alley not far from Fat Sloan's, had been armed with a very nasty zapclub and an even nastier temperament. Fortunately, I was so obviously streetslime he didn't bother with me. But I wasn't streetslime any more, I was a superstar, and prime fodder for--

"Got you!" said the shadow.

"What?" I looked frantically around for Security. What did we pay them for, anyway?

"They got you, got you, got you!" The shadow moved forward, and a red bulbous nose appeared in the light, followed by squinting, puffy eyes and bared, yellowing teeth.

"Who got me?" I backed up against the wall. In the Fistfight City alley I'd at least had my battered old stringsynth to use as a club or shield (which was one reason it was so battered), but now I had nothing but me and my mirrorcloth, and I didn't think either of us would dazzle this madman.

"They got you!" He waved toward the stage. "The sssss...sssss..." Whatever word he wanted wouldn't come. Face contorted, he slammed his fist against the wall so hard I thought I heard a bone break. I jumped, and he shouted in my face, "Got you like they got me like they got her like they got we--we've all been got, got, got, only--" He broke off suddenly, stared up and down the corridor, then leaned in close. His breath reeked of something considerably stronger than whirligig. "I escaped."

"Goo--good for you."

"You can, too." For the first time his eyes opened wide, and I shivereds. The whites were blue-gray, even darker than his blue irises. He was a flashman, and if he was flashing now, he could tear me into little pieces with his bare hands.

It seemed like a good reason to be friendly. "Uh...how?"

He looked at me like I was crazy. "Run!" he whispered, then screamed, "Run! Run! Run!"

Footsteps, at last, clattered down the corridor. "Andy?"

"Marcel!" I yelled. "Help!"

The flashman glared at me, pulled back his fist as if he were going to punch me, then said calmly, "Think about it," and turned and ran--straight into the arms of a burly Security man. "Let me go!" he shouted. "I'm Paris Paradise! They're waiting for me on--" He slumped suddenly, head lolling. Marcel's gray-bearded face appeared behind the Security man's bulk.

"Did you trank him?" Marcel asked.

"Didn't have to," the Security man grunted as he heaved the flashman over his shoulder. "I think he just crashed on his own. I'm sorry, Mr. Roy. I don't know how he got past us."

"Figure it out soon or you'll be looking for a new job," Marcel snapped. "Get him out of here" He came over to where I leaned against the wall. "Are you all right, Andy?"

"Sure," I said. "He didn't do anything except talk." I straightened, then casually leaned against the wall again. My legs weren't quite ready to move me yet.

"I've got to talk to Qualls," Marcel muttered. He hurried back up the corridor, while I stumbled the last few metres to my dressing room. I closed the door, then sat on the bed, looked at my trembling hands, and clenched them into fists.

"I'm getting soft," I muttered. "I've been through a lot worse." But that was in Fistfight City. In my new life things like this weren't supposed to happen.

Good thing my fans would never know about it. With my fake hero-of-the-streets image, they'd never understand why I hadn't simply knocked him down and dragged him off to Security by myself...especially since they were mostly teenage girls with well-to-do parents and nice safe homes. Most of them had probably never even heard of flash. I wished I hadn't.

They'd never understand what it had really been like on the streets, just trying to survive. There had even been times when, if the orphanage would have taken me back, I'd have gladly put up with any kind of abuse just to be warm and fed. And for all my pride at never selling myself to a meatman, I'd been a lot closer to it than I wanted to admit more times than I liked to remember. Street life was almost no life at all, and I had no wish to go back to it--or to Fistfight City. The money I'd earned would keep me off the streets, but it wouldn't keep me out of Fistfight City, if what Qualls said about ticket sales was true. That's where my contract specified I had to eventually be returned, since the law assumed minors should be sent "home."

I looked around the dressing room. This was home, and I didn't want to give it up. Maybe if we boosted promotion...

Who was I kidding? You couldn't possibly boost promotion above the Sensation Singles Inc.'s normal hysterical level.

My terminal beeped, announcing a message. Probably the local media, and I wasn't in the mood. I stripped out of my mirrortights and stepped into the shower, thinking about the Ice Boys as I soaped away sweat. They'd had the same gray-blue eyes as the old flashman. Some were probably dead by now; a lot of people couldn't handle flash--they'd O.D. within half a year. But others went on for years and years, getting stronger and nastier and crazier. I had an uncomfortable feeling Dry Ice might be one of those. I wondered if he knew where I'd gone.

I stepped out of the shower. Brown eyes stared back at me from the mirror. My face and body were a little more filled out than they had been that day in the Fistfight City spaceport, but otherwise I looked the same--same shaggy black hair, same less-than-perfect nose, broken by "accident" after I spilled a bowl of soup in the orphanage. My disreputable appearance had happened to mesh perfectly with the image Sensation Singles, Inc., had cultivated for me, so I'd escaped plastic surgery. Which meant that, yeah, Dry Ice would know what had become of me--hanging around the Port, he could hardly have avoided my video blaring from holoprojectors and flatscreens everywhere.

I dried off and padded back into my dressing room, tossing the towel on the bed, glanced at the beeping terminal, decided I couldn't keep ignoring it, and tapped RECEIVE. Green letters scrolled across the screen. "Again you make pleasant memories I shall retain, gladeye. Your ex-roomie, Rain."

I laughed. I should have known. I'd already had half a dozen similar messages from Rain, in the most unexpected places--but I'd never seen him in person. I'd pretty well decided he wasn't actually at the concerts, but was sending the messages from off-planet. If he really were attending the concerts, why didn't he ever pop backstage to see me? If an old flashman could get through Security, surely a Hydra could...

Still, I felt better. At least I had one fan left.

I cleared the screen, then crossed the room to my closet. Before I reached it, someone knocked. "Who is it?" I called.

No answer, but I heard the latch click open. "Wait a minute!" I yelled, and grabbed the towel from the bed, wrapping it around my waist just as the door swung open and--

I stared in astonishment. "Who are you?"

#

On to Chapter 5...