The Stardance Trilogy (39 page)

“You folks don’t seem to know which way is up, do you?” he said pleasantly.

There were a very few polite giggles, and one groan.

He did something, and was suddenly upside down to us again. He was stable in the new position and had not touched anything. I didn’t quite catch the move at the time—and still can’t describe it; I’d have to show you—but I was fascinated. I wanted to ask him to do it again.

This time we all let him stay upside down.

“All right. My name is Phillipe Mgabi. I am your Chief Administrator for Student Affairs. On behalf of the Starseed Foundation, I’d like to welcome you all to Top Step, and wish you a fruitful stay. I’m sorry you had such an eventful journey here, and I assure you all that Top Step is considerably less vulnerable than your shuttle was. You’re as safe as any terrestrial can be in space, now.”

No one said thanks.

“I must remind you that you are no longer on United Nations soil, in even a figurative sense. Top Step is an autonomic pressure, like Skyfac or The Ark, recognized by the UN but not eligible for membership, and wholly owned by the Starseed Foundation. At the moment, you are technically Landed Immigrants, although we prefer the term Postulants.”

It was weirdly disorienting to be addressed by an upside down person. It was almost impossible to decipher his facial expressions.

“You were given the constitution and laws of Top Step back at Suit Camp, and you’ll find them in the memory banks—along with maps, schedules, master directory, and for that matter the entire Global Net. You have unrestricted and unmetered access, Net-inclusive, free of charge for as long as you’re resident here.”

There were murmurs. Unmetered access to the Net? For everybody?

This whole operation struck me as being run like a dance company financed by task-specific grants. In some areas they were as cheap as a cut-rate holiday (Suit Camp had featured outdoor privies, just like the ones I’d used as a little girl on Gambier Island)…but when they spent, they spent like sailors on leave. It seemed schizophrenic.

“The point is that you are responsible. You are presumed to know your obligations and privileges as a Postulant. The Agreements you have made are all in plain language, and you are bound by them. They allow you a great deal of slack…but where they bind, there is no give at all. I recommend that you study them if you haven’t already.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the loudmouthed joker start to say something, then change his mind.

“I hope all of you paid attention at Suit Camp. I said you were as safe as any terrestrial in space. That compares favorably with, say, New York…but not by much, and space bites in different places and unexpected ways. As you learned on your way up here.” Ouch. “To survive long enough to enter Symbiosis, you must all acquire and maintain a state of alert mindfulness—and there are few second chances. Space is not fair. Space is not merciful. I see you all nodding, and I know that at least three of you will be dead before your term is up. That is the smallest number of Postulants we have lost from a single class. I would like it very much if your class turns out to be the first exception to that rule.”

Mgabi cocked his head, listening to something we couldn’t hear. “And now I’m going to hand you over to your Orientation Coordinator. Any and all problems, questions, requests or complaints you may have during your stay in Top Step will go to her; I’m afraid I will not be seeing you on any regular basis myself. Dorothy?”

The hatch opened and admitted a red-haired woman in her seventies, frail and thin, dressed in Kelly green p-suit. One look at her face and I knew I was in good hands. She looked competent, compassionate and wise. She aligned herself to us rather than Mgabi.

“Hello, children,” she said. “I’m Dorothy Gerstenfeld. I’m going to be your mother for the next two months. Daddy here—” She indicated Mgabi. “—will be away at the office most of the time, so I’ll be the one who tucks you in and makes you do your chores and so on. I’ve got a squad of Guides to help me. My door is always unlocked and my phone is always on.

“Now I know you’ve all got a thousand questions—I know at least a few of you urgently want a refresher course in zero-gee plumbing!—but I’ve got a little set speech, and I find if I start with the questions I never get to it. So here goes:

“I’ve used the maternal metaphor for a reason…just as Doctor Mgabi entered this room upside down to you for a reason. He was trying to show you by plain example that you have come to a place where up and down have meaning only within your own skull. I am trying to suggest to you that for the next two months you are no longer adults, whatever your calendar age.”

Mgabi drifted nearby in a gentle crouch. It was hard to read his inverted face, and he must have heard this dozens of times, but it seemed to me he paid careful attention, though he was looking at us. He reminded me of an old black and white film I saw once of Miles Davis listening to Charlie Parker take a solo.

“It is said,” she continued, “that space makes you childlike again. Charles Armstead himself noted that in the historic Titan Transmission. Free fall makes you want to play, to be a child again. Look at you all, trying to be still, wanting to hop around. Well you should…and shall! Look at me: I’m considerably over thirty, and I’ve been six-wall-squash champion in this pressure for over five years now.

“Now, what are the three things a child hates the most? Aside from bedtime, I mean. Going to school, doing chores, and going to church, am I right?” People chuckled, including me. “Well, you’ve all just spent several weeks in school. It probably even felt like summer school, since all the Suit Camps are in tropical locations. And now that school’s out, you’re going to have to spend some time doing chores and being in church.” There were scattered mock-groans. “Not only that, you’re going to have to remember, every single time without fail, to wear your rubbers when you go out!” That got giggles.

“Don’t worry,” she went on, “before long you’ll be going out a lot, all you want—and there’ll be plenty of time for play. But church—or temple or zendo or synagogue or whatever word you use for ‘place where one prays’—is sort of what Top Step is all about, what it’s for. It’s just a kind of church it’s okay to play in, that’s all. It has only one sacrament, and only you know—if you do—what it will take to become ready to receive it. We know many ways to help you.

“If you use your time here wisely, then soon church will be done, and school will be out forever, and you will become more ideally childlike than you ever were as a child.

“I hope every one of you makes it.”

A facile and pious cliché, surely—but when she said it, I believed it. Your mother doesn’t lie. This one didn’t, at least.

“Remember: if you have any
practical
difficulties, I’m the one you want to consult; don’t bother Administrator Mgabi or his staff without routing through me first. But few of your problems are going to turn out to be practical—and some of your practical problems will kill you before you have a chance to complain. When you do need help, it’s more likely to be spiritual help. You’ll find that Top Step has more
spiritual
advisers than any other kind. We have representatives of most of the major denominations inboard—you’ll find a directory in your computer—but please don’t feel compelled to stick with whatever faith you were raised in or presently practice. You’ll find that personal rapport is a lot more important than brand name. All right, enough speeches—”

People with full bladders sighed, anticipating relief—but there was an interruption from the loudmouth. He wanted to report Shannon, our flight attendant for what he called outrageous authoritarianism and psychological instability. “The woman is dangerous,” he said. “I actually thought for a moment she was going to strike me! I want her relieved of duty and punished.”

The rest of us made a collective growling sound. He ignored us.

“We’ll discuss this in my office,” Dorothy said, “as soon as I’ve—”

“Dammit, I want satisfaction, now.”

Dorothy looked sad. “Eric,” she said, “did you read your contracts with us?” It struck me, that she knew his name.

He didn’t seem to notice. “I ran ’em past my legal software, sure. But she had no right—”

“She had every right. I saw all that happened, from my office. If Shannon had chosen to kill you, I would have been sad—but I would not have been cross with her.”

He snorted. “She’d have had a busy time trying!”

Dorothy looked even sadder. “No, she wouldn’t. Eric,
can’t
we discuss this later, in my office?”

“I’m afraid not, ma’am. If the setup here actually requires me to take orders from every hired hand, let’s get it straight right now so I can return to Earth at once.”

Now she mastered her sorrow; her face smoothed over. “Very well. I’ll take you back to your shuttle now. It will be departing almost immediately.” She kicked off gently and jaunted toward him.

At once he was waffling. “Wait a minute! You can’t just throw me out without a hearing, after all the time I’ve invested—and you certainly can’t make me go back in
that
crate, it’s defective. And these p-suits are substandard, I want a real one, with a proper radio, and—”

She approached slowly, empty hands outstretched in a gesture of peace, maternal concern on her face. She killed most of her momentum on the empty rope just in front of his, setting it shivering, covered the last few meters very slowly, reached for his rope—

—and her hands slipped past it, touched Eric behind each ear with delicate precision. His eyes rolled up and he let go of the rope, slowly began to pivot around her hands. He snored gently.

Towing Eric, Dorothy jaunted slowly back to her original place by the hatch; it opened as she got there, and she aimed Eric out through it to someone out in the corridor. Then she turned to us.

All the sadness was gone from her face, now, replaced by resolution. She looked as strong, as powerful, as my own grandmother. “I’m sorry you’ve all had such an inauspicious trip so far.” Small smile. “It can only get better from here. Now: Eric raised a good point. The p-suits you’re all wearing
are
inadequate. They’re tourist suits, designed only for emergency use by passengers in transit. They’ll be going back to Earth on the shuttle, so please remove them now. You’ll be issued your own personal suits—
real
suits, the best made—in just a little while.” We all began removing our suits. “From here you’ll go through Decontam, where there’ll be washrooms for those who need one—and, I’m afraid, for those who don’t think you do—and then you’ll be guided to your rooms. You’ve got three hours before dinner; I recommend you spend them either at your terminals, learning your way around Top Step, or resting. They’ll be plenty of time for physical exploring, believe me.”

Again there was a bucket-brigade. We were warned not to attempt any maneuvers of our own along the way, but I intended to cheat just a little…until the line was held up by the first couple of jerks to do so, and people with full bladders began to get surly. Sure, I knew more about kinesthetics than the two jerks. That gave me the opportunity to make an even bigger jerk out of myself. I decided to be patient.

There was plenty of time. We wouldn’t be allowed to go EVA for another four weeks, and we wouldn’t be allowed to enter Symbiosis until we’d had at least four weeks of EVA practice…and we were entitled to hang around Top Step making up our minds for another four weeks after
that,
if we chose, before we had to either take the Symbiote, or go back to Earth and start making payments on the air, food and water we had used. I’d have lots of time to play with zero gee.

Having toured a lot of strange places with various dance companies, I’d been through several sorts of stringent international decontamination rituals before, and thought I was prepared for anything. You don’t want to know about Top Step Decontam, and I don’t want to discuss it. Let’s just say they were thorough. Top Step is a controlled environment, and they want it as sterile as possible.

When I got out the other end, naked, dry, and bright red, I found myself drifting in a boardroom-sized cubic with five other naked females. Kirra was among them, and I recognized Glenn Christie, an acquaintance from Suit Camp. At the far end of the space were what looked like several dozen drifting footballs, tethered together. Kirra threw me a grin. “Am I still black?” she called softly.

“On this side,” I agreed.

She giggled, and…wriggled, somehow, so that she spun end over end gracefully, like a ballerina pirouetting but in three dimensions.

“Couple of pink places,” I said, “but I think you had them when you started. How did you
do
that?” It hadn’t looked at all like the maneuver Mgabi had used.

“Little pinker now, maybe. I dunno how I did it. You try it.”

When I try out a new move, I’m alone in the studio. I was saved by the bell. An amplified voice came from nowhere in particular. (I tried to locate the speaker grille, but it seemed to be hidden.) It was female, a warm friendly contralto. After what we’d just been through, it shouldn’t have mattered much if she’d been a male with a leer in his voice…but I found myself liking her somehow, whoever she was. She sounded sort of like the best friend I never really had. “Welcome, all of you, to community pressure. One of the containers you see on the inboard side of the chamber will have your name on it. Please put on the contents and check them for fit: let me know if you have any problems.” We all thanked her.

It occurred to me briefly to wonder why she wasn’t present in the room. Surely we were as thoroughly decontaminated as we were ever going to be. But the tone of her voice said that whatever the reason was, it was unimportant, not anything scary, so I put it out of my mind.

Getting to the football-shaped containers got comical; we were like kids in some Disneyland ride, giggling and trying to help each other and getting tangled up and giggling some more. By the time I located the box with my name on it, we all had aching sides. The unseen woman did not chastise us for our antics; she seemed to understand that we were ready for some laughter.