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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 FIVE

I had a quick impression of bright blue eyes and short black hair, and then my unexpected visitor squealed, almost as loud as a Hydra. After a painful few seconds her squeal resolved into words. "You're Andy Nebula!"

"In the flesh," I said, extremely aware that all I was wearing was a not-very-big towel.

The girl blushed. She was two or three years younger than me, with short black hair and wide blue eyes. She wore a glittergold blouse emblazoned with a half-holo of my face, which winked at me whenever she shifted position. Below that were mirrorcloth tights, and below that transparent platform shoes that made her look like they she was floating barefoot ten centimeters above the floor. Her toenails were painted silver. "I'm sorry, I didn't--I mean, I knocked first and--"

"Never mind." At lest she didn't have a camera. I was going to have Marcel fire Security. First a flashman and now a groupie. Fans were never supposed to see Sensation Singles in unscripted situations. They might realize we were ordinary human beings, and we couldn't have that, could we?

Well, she could see I was an ordinary human being, all right, and getting to be a chilly one, because there was a cold draft blowing in from the corridor. "Look, you're not supposed to be here," I said. You'll have to leave, I intended to add, but--

"I know!" she said breathlessly, ducking inside and closing the door behind her. "Isn't it wonderful? Just like in your song, when Bloodstone tells you to get off the planet and instead you sneak into their hideout and Rocket Rick sees you and says--"

"You're not supposed to be here. Yeah, I know, but you're really not supposed to be here. You'll get in trouble."

"It's worth it to see you!"

I sighed. "All right, great, anything for a true fan, but would you mind doing me one favor?"

"Anything," she breathed.

"Turn around so I can get dressed?"

"Oh!" She blushed again, and quickly faced the wall. "I've got my eyes closed, too!"

"Orbital." I dropped the towel and pulled on the first outfit I could find--an all-black affair in leather and microfiber. "All right, I'm decent."

She turned, and frowned. "That's not what Andy Nebula wears."

"I left Andy Nebula on stage." I grabbed a brush and quickly ran it through my wet hair. "Call me Kit."

"You mean--Andy Nebula's not your real name?"

She sounded so shocked I had to laugh. "'Fraid not." I tossed the brush aside and sat down on the bed to pull on my favorite pair of soft-soled boots. "Look, what's your name?"

"My name? You want to know my name?" You'd have thought I'd just handed her a million feds. "Meta."

"Well, Meta, I'm glad you like my Single, but if Security finds you they're going to be very upset and they're going to ask you a lot of questions, not very gently, and then they're going to throw you out, even less gently. Plus, this whole dressing room is going to be sealed and moved to my ship in a few minutes. So I really think you should get out however it was you got in--"

"It was easy," she said. "An old man came running out and all the Security people chased after him and I just walked in."

"Great. I'm lucky a thousand fans didn't knock at my door."

"Oh, no, there was nobody else out there. Everyone knows you never see a Single by hanging around the stage door."

"Except you?"

"But that's different. I mean, I'm different. I mean, I like to try new things." She smiled shyly. "Just like you say in your song, you know, 'I don't follow the crowd/I shout it out loud/when they tell me to go/I'm gonna stay, don't you know?'"

I winced. She'd sung that last part. Sort of. "Well, you'd better get out of here now, and I mean it."

"All right." At the door, she stopped and looked back. "I'll see you again. Real soon."

"Oh, yeah?" If a million or two other kids felt the same way, Korpov might get off my back. "Great. I'll look for you in the crowd." As if I could pick out one face even if I wanted to.

She smiled and slipped out. I flopped back onto the bed, groaning. I really should tell Marcel...but that might get Meta in trouble, and I didn't want that. I had to admire her guts. Not at all what I'd have expected from a Pleasure Planet brat.

So I let it slide; no harm done. I secured the dressing room for transport, then walked back to the stage. Qualls's office had already been hauled away, and the stagebots had dismantled the projectors and lights, leaving only a scuffed and dusty black platform. The roof and walls of the tent sagged. Soon only the litter of discarded programs, snackpacs and drink containers would be left, and a large vacant lot. Time to move on.

Marcel emerged from the wings. "Dressing room ready?"

"Yeah," I said. "And so am I." I walked over to him as he plugged his handcomp into the lead stagebot. "I heard the flashman got away."

"Yeah," Marcel grunted. "But not far. Ran out in front a speeding wheeler."

I felt a pang. "Poor old flashman."

"Not as old as you think." Marcel disconnected. The 'bot rolled away to store itself for transport.

"What?" I stared at him. "Did you know him?"

"Of course not. All I meant was, flash burns people out."

"But--"

"Your transportation's waiting." He strode off. I shook my head and headed for the stage door.

I opened it to discover rain pounding down, and my private wheeler barely visible through the downpour, a good thirty metres away, blocked from coming any closer by the massive transport crawler whose crane was lifting my dressing room. I swore and dashed into the storm, splashing through puddles and arriving at the little black two-seater soaked to the skin. I clambered into the passenger seat and took revenge by shaking my hair like a dog, spraying the blue interior. The driver, a Sensation Single Inc. employee I knew distantly, glared at me and pulled away from the curb way too fast, snapping my head back against the headrest. "Where'd you learn to drive?" I snarled.

"Same place you learned to sing, streetslime," he snapped.

I gaped at him. Sensation Single employees never spoke that way to performers; it could get them fired.

Yeah, it could. I smiled. "Tired of your job?"

"Now, why should I be tired of chauffeuring an obnoxious brat?" He hurtled around a corner, throwing me against the door.

I straightened, rubbing my bruised elbow. "When Qualls hears about this--"

"At this point in your so-called career, kid, I'm more valuable to Mr. Qualls than you. So shut up and enjoy the ride."

I wanted to knock that smirk from his face--but the scary thing was, he could be right. So I shut up and turned toward the window, seething. Everybody thought I was heading for a crash-and-burn. Well, we'd see. There were still four confirmed shows. Ticket sales could still pick up and boost me back into orbit--in which case vacuum-brain here would soon find himself driving garf-drawn carriages on Stimpson's Regret.

I slammed the door extra hard as I got out at the ship.

Each of the modules from backstage, including my dressing room, plugged neatly into The Bullet's hold. Until my dressing room arrived I had no place to go, so I made my way to the lounge to get something to eat and listen to someone else's music besides my own. Use of the lounge was restricted to me, Qualls, and VIP guests, so while I wasn't surprised to see Qualls there, I didn't expect to see a two-metre orange, tentacled alien enthusiastically downing something that looked like sulfuric acid laced with iron filings. "Rain, old gladeye!" I shouted gleefully, rushing toward him.

Tentacles that felt like thin wet rubber wrapped around steel wire lashed around my neck, arms and legs, immobilizing me, then tightening 'til I could hardly breathe. Three purple eyes glared at me. "Or maybe not," I choked out.

Qualls chuckled. "Never startle a Hydra, Andy."

"Good--urk!--advice." The Hydra released me. I managed a smile. Qualls had called me "Andy," which meant this was business. I wished he'd warned me, not only because it would have saved me from near-strangulation but also because Andy Nebula, as Meta had pointed out, should be in mirrorcloth, not funereal black. Still, Qualls must think this Hydra could boost my career, so I'd better play it to the hilt. "Sorry, octofriend, thought I'd scanned you before," I said, plopping down on the stool next to the Hydra. "Whirligig," I said to the bartender, and "What's powering, manager-man?" to Qualls. The bartender turned quickly away. I'd once spent an evening teaching him Fistfight City slang. He almost died laughing.

The Hydra still had three eyes on me. "Octofriend?"

"Just a word, gladeye. Insignificant mass. I'm Andy Nebula."

"Yes, Mr. Qualls has provided images," said the Hydra. "I am sorry for seizing you so impolitely." He'd obviously been around humans quite a bit; he held out a tentacle, and I took it momentarily, remembering how I'd almost jumped out of my skin the first time Rain touched me. This time, I didn't even flinch. "My name is--" The Hydra made a sound like glass breaking.

I couldn't help wincing. "Tuneful," I said, "but don't you have a label in a lower register?"

"Our guest is usually called The Dealer by his human associates," Qualls said.

"The Dealer?" I laughed. "Better hope the sleazeoids don't get hold of that. They'll be datadumping all over the starnet, saying Andy Nebula's got a private flashpusher."

"Flashpusher?" said The Dealer.

Qualls hastily punched buttons on his pocketsynth. "(Moan-scream-whistle-thud)," it said.

"Ah," said The Dealer. "A joke. Ha ha ha." His "laugh" had no inflection at all.

"The Dealer," said Qualls, "may have a gig for you after this tour is over."

"Orbital!" I said. "Download details!"

"It is tentative," said The Dealer. "However, the venue would be my home world. And it would be a long-term engagement."

"It could help you make the transition from Sensation Single to a, ah, more rounded performer," said Qualls. "If you are interested in continuing your career, that is. Are you?"

Was I! I squelched my initial reaction. Wouldn't do to appear too eager. "Could be, manager-man. You think these orange octopeople would still scan me when I'm not Andy Nebula?"

"I think you would be very popular on Hydra," said Qualls. "From your enthusiastic greeting of The Dealer here, I take it you remember the Hydra you were with when we first met."

"Rain? Yeah."

"You'll recall he was quite impressed with you."

"But that was my own music, not this Sensation Single sh--uh, not my current material." Oops, I was forgetting the street slang. But maybe it wasn't important. If the Hydras would let me play my own music, it could be the break I'd been hoping for, the chance to stay in music even after Sensation Singles, Inc. dumped me. It wasn't impossible; Pyotr Vasilovich, one of the Pleasure Planets' most famous and enduring stars, had been one of the very first Singles, Parsec Prince, two decades ago.

"Precisely. We'd design a whole new show around your music."

"I wouldn't be working for Sensation Singles any more?"

"No." Qualls smiled. "I assume you could live with that."

"Smoothly, gladeye. Intensely smoothly."

"Of course, I would hope to continue as your manager..."

"Activate this and I'm yours 'til termination, gladeye."

Qualls's smile widened, revealing teeth. "Excellent! Once the Dealer and I have come to a final understanding, I'll prepare a contract and send it to your room later."

I took the hint. "I'm lifting," I said. "My dressing room should be plugged in by now. Orbital tugging your tentacle, Dealer. Down the timestream, manager-man."

"See you, Andy. Now, then, Dealer..." Qualls lowered his voice and bent toward The Dealer. I took my glass of whirligig with me, wondering if I could get an extra copy of the contract so I could make that driver eat it.

I stopped at hold's main entrance and scanned an electronic schematic of the space beyond. Green, green, and more green; we were loaded and ready to lift. I touched the lockplate and the massive pressure-door slid open to admit me.

The forward part of the ship was like any other spacecraft, but the hold was more like a small village. Modules stood alone in the vast echoing space, connected not by corridors but by lighted pathways. The hold even smelled different, still mostly full of planetary air with all its odors of growing things and people and machines. That smell would linger until a new burst of planetary air replaced it at our next port of call.

The various personnel modules were in the forward part of the hold; the stage and auditorium equipment were installed or stored aft. Beneath the hold were the engines and gravity-field generators; above was shielding and insulation; beyond that was the sky of Carstair's Folly, through which we would very shortly lift. Overhead a slowly blinking red light told anyone interested that the huge cargo doors were not yet space-secured.

On the first few legs of the tour I had occasionally had nightmares about those doors opening in space, spewing all of us out into the ship's wake. I still made sure the door of my module was safety-sealed air-tight whenever I was in it.

Of course it was shut and sealed now, but out of habit I checked the telltales beside the lockplate, and frowned. The internal life support system had activated. It wasn't supposed to do that unless its sensors indicated a living creature needed the oxygen. "Must have picked up a rat," I muttered.

But inside, the module seemed as empty as it should be. Nothing lurked in the bedroom or the bathroom or the little lounge. I plugged a Pyotr Vasilovich musichip into the player, propped myself up my bed, sipped my drink, and finally began to relax, to come down from the concert high.

After a few minutes I set the empty glass on the side table and closed my eyes, enjoying Pyotr's unique wailing vocals. He was singing something mournful about purple skies and golden eyes...or was that purple eyes and golden skies...

Crash! I jerked awake. Pyotr's wailing had been replaced by a deep rumble--the engines, warming up. But that hadn't woken me. The crash had been closer--in my room--Security had already failed me twice that evening--what was the name of that Single who had been murdered by a fan...I stared around the room, but could see no one, and no indication of what had made the crash--

Wait a minute. The whirligig glass had vanished. I relaxed, laughing at myself. The ship's vibration had obviously shaken it off the table. I rolled onto my stomach and peered over the edge of the bed--

--into the wide blue eyes of Meta.

#

On to Chapter 6...