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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 "An interstellar adventure story worthy of Golden Age masters like Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein. " - Dave Duncan, author of the Seventh Sword series, the King's Blades series and Children of Chaos |
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Andy
Nebula: Double Trouble CHAPTER ONE The beer bottle just missed my right ear before crashing into the brick wall at the back of the stage, spraying me and my battered old stringysnth with a fine, sticky mist. Glass shards skittered around my feet. Nobody in the crowded Parisian bar paid the slightest attention. That didn't really surprise me: they hadn't paid attention to anything that had happened on stage since I had started playing half an hour before. Actually, I was kind of grateful to whoever had thrown the beer bottle--at least it proved he'd been listening. I reached the end of the song, said, "Thank you very much" to empty air, clicked off my stringsynth, pressed the button on my belt that turned off the tiny mike-dot glued to my forehead, and stepped off the stage. Nobody noticed. I picked my way between tables to the bar, and sat on one of the stools. "Icefizz," I said. The bartender glowered at me and said something in French. "Sorry, gladeye," I told him. "I only speak Fed." He looked even grumpier, if that were possible. "I cannot serve you. You are a minor." "I asked for icefizz, gladeye, not beer. Clue into chemistry." He muttered something that I knew enough French to know wasn't complimentary, but slapped down a coaster, banged a glass down on top of it, hauled a hose down from the dispenser over the bar and squirted the glass full of a blue, fizzy liquid. Blue. It figured. I hated blue icefizz. "Delete the blue, gladeye. Green is my preferred program." "I do not have green," he said, in the same tone he might have used to tell me I'd insulted his mother. "I do not have red. I have only blue. " I had a quick mental image of me washing that sneer of his face with his own blue icefizz, but then happened to glance up at the mirror behind the bar. A man in a bright red, baggy suit--the latest fashion in Paris, apparently, though to me he looked like a juggler I used to know back in Fistfight City on my home planet of Murdoch IV--picked a path through the tables, chatting with patrons along the way, but definitely headed toward me. The owner. My employer. Who had almost certainly heard my last set...and could still see the critical response dribbling down the stage wall. Time to lift, I thought, gulping the icefizz and getting to my feet. He couldn't fire me if he couldn't catch me. But he must have had one eye on me, because the moment I turned around, there he was. I plastered my best phony smile onto my lips. "Monsieur Chapdelaine! Orbital! Did you input my last set, boss-man?" Chapdelaine did not smile back. His puffy face and bald head were almost as red as his pantsuit; he wiped sweat from his brow with a white kerchief decorated with enormous black polka dots. "Your music was passable," he said in heavily accented Fedspeech. "But it is not working with my patrons." "Hey, boss-man, I'm fully programmable. I'll shift algorithms. Anything from deep-space blues to waveslap, I can play. Your input is my output." Chapdelaine shook his head. "Non. It will not do. Your contract is cancelled." I kept my phony smile intact, but inwardly I swore. "Aw, come on, boss-man, flexibilize. Another set. Just one. Your program." Chapdelaine looked around the bar's wood-and-brick interior, then back at me. His eyes narrowed, which made him look remarkably like an Earth creature I'd seen at the Paris Zoo...a wild pig, that was it. "Very well. You may play one more set. And you will play From the Street to the Stars." I stiffened. "No." He shrugged. "Then your contract..." he fished a datachip out of his inside pocket... "is finis." He slapped the chip on the bar, picked up my icefizz glass, and with evident relish brought the edge of its base down hard on the chip, which shattered into glittering dust. "Adieu, monsieur Murdoch." He turned away and walked back into the crowd, taking my glass with him. I turned back to the bar and ordered another icefizz, ignoring the bartender's smug smile as he poured it. I sipped the fizzy blue liquid, no longer concerned about the sickly sweet taste. I just wished it were something stronger. At least now I knew why Chapdelaine had hired me without an audition. He'd obviously recognized me from my Sensation Singles days, when I was "Andy Nebula," and for six months the hottest thing in the galaxy...until it all went sour. Not only had my star faded, like all the one-hit, computer-generated Sensation Singles did, but Qualls, my manager, addicted to me to the illegal hallucinogenic drug flash and sold me to the alien Hydras, doomed to perform the same song over and over in a time bubble. If I hadn't escaped, I'd still be there, aging at twenty times the normal rate, approaching middle age by now, and probably quite spectacularly crazy... But I had escaped. I wasn't Andy Nebula any more, I was Kit. (Kit Murdoch, it said on my passport, but that was just because I'd had to have a last name to get one and since I'm from Murdoch IV, Murdoch was the first thing that came to mind.) With the money I'd made as Andy, I'd set out to create a new career for myself, writing and playing my own music... And here I was, on Old Earth itself, in the ancient city of Paris, two blocks off the Champs-Elysées, not five blocks from the Eiffel Tower...and the only place I'd found to play had just cancelled my contract because I wouldn't play Andy Nebula's hit. I heard the door open, but didn't look up. More patrons who would never hear me play--and wouldn't care. But the bar hushed suddenly. I'd never heard it so quiet--certainly not while I was trying to perform. I looked up into the mirror over the bar, saw a flash of orange, a color I knew all too well, and whirled... "Greetings, gladeye!" shrieked the tentacled, four-eyed, crab-legged creature that had just sidled through the door. I stared. "Rain?" I couldn't believe it. "Rain?" "It is I, gladeye. And someone else has come to refresh memory of you..." He scuttled aside, causing a large bearded man at the nearest table to scramble to his feet so quickly his chair went over with a clattering crash. But I hardly noticed. I was staring at the girl who had been hidden behind Rain until that moment, taller than I remembered, but unmistakably... "Meta!" I leaped off the stool and hugged her, swinging her around as she laughed with delight. I let her go and turned to the alien. "Rain!" I didn't hug him, but I gripped the nearest tentacle and gave it a friendly tug. "I can't believe it! What...how..." "Hi, Kit," Meta said, grinning from ear to ear. "Surprise!" "Nuclear surprise. Asteroid impact surprise. What are you doing in Paris?" "Looking for you, gladeye!" Rain shrieked. Only one of his purple eyes was focused on me; the other three swayed and darted avidly. I knew he was filing everything he saw into his short-term memory. Later, during the night, he would sort through the day's memories and choose which to keep permanently and which to discard. From past experience, I knew he would likely consider his visit to this dump one of the high-points of his day. Rain liked to soak up local color--or, in this case, off-color. "I'd rather not tell you here, Kit," Meta said, lowering her voice and looking conspiratorially about, although with Rain in the room she could have sung Le Marsailles at the top of her lungs while standing on her head and attracted not the slightest bit of attention. Rain had skittered over to the bar and was now examining the array of bottles behind it with great interest. "Fine," I said. "I'm done here anyway." I joined Rain at the bar and held my credit chip out to the barman. He took it without looking at--all his attention was on Rain--and stuck it into the nearest payment slot. I offered my thumbprint, ignoring the option to add a tip, and took back the chip. The bartender still didn't look at me; from his expression, I figured he was convinced Rain was going to start breaking his precious bottles at any moment. "Come on, Rain, let's lift," I said. "I'll take you to a place that's really worth remembering." That got an angry glance from the bartender, which was what I'd hoped for. I deadpanned him in response. "Orbital, gladeye!" Rain squealed. With Meta at my side, Rain at my heels, and my stringsynth slung over my shoulder, I exited the bar with all eyes focused on my back. It almost made me want to go back in and try playing Moons of Jupiter again. Almost. The streets outside glistened with moisture, and their glow had already been dimmed, leaving only a faint phosphorescence. "This way," I said, turning left. A couple heading for the bar stopped, stared, then crossed the street to avoid us. "Rude," Meta commented. "They don't get a lot of Hydras in Paris," I said. "And meeting one in person for the first time can be a bit of a shock... I just about jumped out of my skin when I found Rain in my room in Fat Sloan's a year or so ago." I gave Meta a sideways glance. "Or maybe they're really reacting to you. I just about jumped out of my skin when I found you hiding under my bed in Andy Nebula's dressing room, too." Meta laughed. "I'm through stowing away. And I haven't gone to another Sensation Single concert since." She hesitated. "Although..." "Although what?" "Never mind. I'll tell you when we get where we're going." She looked up and down the street. "Which is where, exactly?" "Here." From the outside, it was only a blank door in a blank wall; no latch, knob or touchplate. But when I stepped toward it, it slid open, revealing a short corridor. "It's a rental suite," I said, leading them into the corridor. The door closed behind us. "Discreet. I don't want the people I'm trying to get gigs with to see me living like this." The inner door slid open as I approached. "Keyed to my personal biometrics," I explained, but Meta wasn't listening to me; she was gaping at the garden revealed by the open door. Flowers of every shape and color grew in exuberant profusion on either side of a winding path, lit by ankle-high lights every metre or so. The path led to a low white building. Its domed roof and fluted columns, lit from below, gave it the appearance of an ancient temple. Overhead, stars twinkled through a glass roof. In this garden, it only rained when programmed to do so. "You rented this?" "A most unexpected sight!" Rain chortled. "I will retain it." "Orbital. Follow me!" I led my friends along the path, Rain goggling around with all four eyes, Meta doing her best with just two. A door on the "temple" slid open as we approached, and lights came up inside. I ushered Meta and Rain into a circular room five metres in diameter, with white marble walls and a floor of gold-flecked marble tile. Rain peered around. "Is it not small for one of your stature, gladeye Kit?" I laughed. "This is only the lobby." I placed my finger in a slight depression in the wall next to the door. The door closed, and the entire room began to descend. Meta started. "Sorry," I said. "I should have warned you." The room stopped. The door slid open again, and I led my guests into the main part of my Parisian apartment, an underground building as large as the garden up above, with bedrooms, kitchen, entertainment and communications rooms and bathrooms all opening off of a large circular central room, which surrounded the elevator shaft down which we had just come. The "Greek temple" motif continued throughout, with pillars, frescoes, tapestries, throw cushions, lights that looked like hanging oil lamps and a lot of naked statues making up the decoration. Rain skittered out first, then stopped suddenly and stared down at the floor. "Another delight!" he squealed. "The floor looks like stone, but is soft to walk on!" "It's something called 'plush marble,'" I said. "The woman that rented me this place was very proud of it." Meta took a long hard look around. Her gaze lingered on some of the unclothed statuary, and when she looked back at me, her mouth quirked. "Reminds me of the first time I saw you," she said. I blushed. The first time Meta saw me, I was just barely wearing a towel--and nothing else. "I didn't decorate the place, I just rented it." "And why, exactly, didn't you want the people you're trying to get gigs with to see you living like this? I thought you meant you were living in the local equivalent of Fat Sloan's." "I don't think there is a local equivalent to that slimepit," I said. "Look, I rented it sight unseen, all right? I arranged my whole trip here through a travel agent. I said I wanted some place nice. Apparently she took me a little too literally." Meta laughed. "You let her access your credit chip, didn't you?" "Well, yeah..." "And so she knew exactly how much money you have." "I guess so..." "You should have asked me to help you." "I can look after myself!" "On the street, sure, but when it comes to traveling first class...you need an expert. And you can't find a better expert in first-class living than a girl from the Pleasure Planets." I looked around at my 'apartment.' "It really is awful, isn't it?" "I do not think so," Rain said. He was running his tentacles over a tapestry covered with nude wrestlers. "I have not seen anything like it. I will retain much of it." I groaned. "It's worse than I thought. That's what he said about Fat Sloan's. Well, come into the kitchen. I'll get you something to drink." The kitchen was a much more human-sized room with ordinary appliances and a nice big brass-and-glass table. Meta pulled up a chair while I went to the food dispenser. Rain stood in the doorway so he could continue ogling the living room decor. "What will you have?" I said. "This place is stocked with anything you could possibly imagine." "Icefizz will be fine. Green." "Good choice. All I could get at the bar was blue." Meta made a face. I keyed in the instructions for two glasses of icefizz; a moment later a panel slid aside and I pulled them out, cold in my hands and beaded with moisture. I pulled up another chair and took two or three big gulps. "Ah," I said, and burped. Rain's eyes swung around to look at me. "'Sorry, gladeye," I said. Meta laughed and sipped her own icefizz. "So how has your Earth trip been working out?" I sighed. "Badly. Nobody likes my songs. And singer/stringsynthers are ten to the deca-fed. Everybody wants spacethrash or fissionrip, and I don't play that stuff." Meta ran a finger around the rim of her glass. "Maybe you should do a little Andy Nebula music." I groaned. "Not you, too. Look, Meta, I told you, I'm through with that Sensation Singles crap." Meta sipped more icefizz, and didn't meet my eyes. A horrible suspicion dawned on me. I looked at Rain, who now had all four eyes pointed in my direction. "Wait a minute. Why are you two here, again?" "To see you, of course." Meta smiled a smile of pure innocence. "My father had to come to Earth on business, and you'd told me you were coming, so I told Dad I'd come along. We're staying in Tokyo, but WorldNet knew where you were, so I hopped on a sub-orbital flight." "Uh-huh. And Rain just happened to be in Paris when you arrived?" "Oh, no. We met in Tokyo." I looked at Rain. "Where you were doing...what?" "Vacationing, gladeye," Rain said instantly. "Awfully big coincidence, you two bumping into each other in a city of 50 million people." "Isn't it?" Meta smiled again. I looked from her to Rain. They both looked innocent (well, it was hard to tell with Rain, actually, since I've never figured out how to read emotions in a bright-orange upside-down octopus with crab legs), but I wasn't buying it. "Whenever Rain turns up by 'coincidence' he's got a very good reason for it. Why do I get the feeling I'm being set up?" Meta tried to keep the innocent look a moment longer, but couldn't hold it. "OK, OK," she said, laughing, but turning red, too. "I knew Rain was on Earth, too, on 'forcer business--he'd dropped me a message during a layover at Carstair's Folly--and so I asked him if he'd meet me in Tokyo. I knew he'd want to see you. And I thought...he might be able to help." "Help?" Here it comes, I thought. "Help you do what?" "Um...persuade you." "Persuade me to do...what?" Meta bit her lip. "Come back to Carstair's Folly with me." Huh? "Why? I wasn't exactly a hit right after I got out of the hospital." "But that's because..." Meta stopped. "Because..." Light dawned. "Because I wouldn't call myself Andy Nebula. You want me to come back as Andy Nebula." I could feel myself flushing. "No." I stood up. "Kit, listen..." "I'm not interested." I drained my icefizz in one angry gulp. "Please calm yourself, gladeye Kit!" Rain said. "Download Meta's program!" "I won't call myself Andy Nebula," I said. "I'm going to make it with my own music as Kit Murdoch, or I won't make it at all." "This isn't about you!" Meta said. I turned away from her and stuffed my glass through the round rubber iris of the dishwasher. "No, it's about you, isn't it?" I spun back toward her. Her face looked as flushed as mine felt. "You want one more chance to show Bekka and Roo and all your other little vacuum-headed friends that you're pals with a big star." The minute I said that, I regretted it, but it was too late. "A big star? You?" Meta got to her feet and stamped toward me until we were nose to nose--and when did that happen, anyway? She used to be a head shorter! "You just got fired from a dingy bar where they threw beer at you! You haven't had a gig longer than a week in the last year! Big star? If I wanted to be friends with a big star I'd stow away in Linda Lightning's shuttle!" Now that hurt. Linda Lightning had taken over as Sensation Single after my star faded, and against all odds was still going strong a full year later. There was even talk about giving her a second Single, which was unheard of. Of course, her manager presumably wasn't trying to ship her off as a drugged entertainment slave to Hydra... I opened my mouth to say something, anything, as long as it was nasty, only to gag on an orange tentacle that had wrapped around my head and slapped across my mouth. A similar tentacle blocked Meta's mouth. I rolled my eyes toward Rain. "Enough, gladeyes!" he said, his voice cold and hard as an asteroid. It was easy to forget, most of the time, that Rain was an undercover 'forcer, but every now and then he let you know it. "You will both be quiet, and I will explain. Agreed?" Since I couldn't do more than grunt with a tentacle in my mouth, I nodded. So did Meta. "Good." He relaxed his grip, but didn't un-gag us. "First, I came to Earth on official business, but I had concluded my business when I heard from Meta. I was very glad to meet her in Tokyo. There she explained her plan." I tried to say something, but the tentacle tightened and I subsided. "It is true, gladeye Kit, she would like you to come back to Carstair's Folly and perform as Andy Nebula. But it is not for herself. It is for all the Sensation Singles that came before you." I blinked, my best non-verbal equivalent to "Huh?" "My 'official business' has been tracking down the survivors of the human-slavery operation run by your former manager-man, Qualls. More of them are alive than you might think, and they all need special treatment and care. It is Meta's idea to hold a benefit concert to pay for that care on Carstair's Folly." I blinked again, and looked at Meta. She looked away. "Mmmph," I said. "Mmmmmmmph!" "Apologies, gladeye," said Rain, and let go of both our heads. I kept my gaze on Meta. "Why didn't you say so?" I said. "You weren't listening." Two angry red spots still flared on her cheeks. "You usually don't." I bit my lip. She was probably right. In fact, I was sure she was. There was nothing for it. "I'm sorry," I said, and I meant it. Oddly, her cheeks turned even redder, but, "Apology accepted," she said, and then she grinned. "Does that mean you'll do it?" I grinned back. "When do we lift, gladeye?" #
Posted November 6, 2001
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