The Year's Best SF 11 # 1993 Page 13

  First came the slow grinding headaches and the unending sense of fatigue. Then the tripping and flopping and stumbling as the nerves of the victim’s legs gave out. As the lesions spread, and tunneled deep within the brain, the muscles went slack and flabby, and a lethal psychotic apathy set in. In those old cinema newsreels, Western civilization gazed at the Indian lens in demented puzzlement as millions refused to realize that they were dying simply because they had eaten a cow.

  What were they called? thought Jackie. Beefburgers? Hamburgers. Ninety percent of Britain, thirty percent of Western Europe, twenty percent of jet-setting America, horribly dead. Because of hamburgers.

  Baisho’s set-design crew was working hard to invest the dreary place with proper atmosphere. They were spraying long white webs of some kind of thready aerosol across the cropped grass and setting up gel-filtered lights. It was to be a night shoot. Macbeth and Macduff would arrive soon on the express train.

  Betty sought him out. “Baisho-san wants to know what you think.”

  “My professional opinion of his set, as a veteran Indian filmmaker?” Jackie said.

  “Right, boss.”

  Jackie did not much care for giving out his trade secrets but could not resist the urge to cap the Japanese. “A wind machine,” he pronounced briskly. “This place needs a wind machine. Have him leave some of the taller weeds, and set up under a tree. We’ve fifty kilos of glitter dust back in Bolton. It’s his, if he wants to pay. Sift that dust, hand by hand, through the back of the wind machine and you’ll get a fine effect. It’s more spooky than hell.”

  Betty offered this advice. Baisho nodded, thought the idea over, then reached for a small machine on his belt. He opened it and began to press tiny buttons.

  Jackie walked closer. “What’s that then? A telephone?”

  “Yes,” Betty said. “He needs to clear the plan with headquarters.”

  “No phone cables out here,” Jackie said.

  “High tech,” Betty said. “They have a satellite link.”

  “Bloody hell,” Jackie said. “And here I am offering technical aid. To the bloody Japanese, eh.”

  Betty looked at him for a long moment. “You’ve got Japan outnumbered eight to one. You shouldn’t worry about Japan.”

  “Oh, I don’t worry,” Jackie said. “I’m a tolerant fellow, dear. A very secular fellow. But I’m thinking, what my studio will say, when they hear we break bread here with the nation’s competition. It might not look so good in the Bombay gossip rags.”

  Betty stood quietly. The sun was setting behind a bank of cloud. “You’re the kings of the world, you Asians,” she said at last. “You’re rich, you have all the power, you have all the money. We need you to help us, Jackie. We don’t want you to fight each other.”

  “Politics,” Jackie mumbled, surprised. “It’s … it’s just life.” He paused. “Betty, listen to old Jackie. They don’t like actresses with politics in Bombay. It’s not like Tulsa Oklahoma. You have to be discreet.”

  She watched him slowly, her eyes wide. “You never said you’d take me to Bombay, Jackie.”

  “It could happen,” Jackie muttered.

  “I’d like to go there,” she said. “It’s the center of the world.” She gripped her arms and shivered. “It’s getting cold. I need my sweater.”

  The actors had arrived, in a motor-driven tricycle cab. The Japanese began dressing them in stage armor. Macduff began practicing kendo moves.

  Jackie walked to join Mr. Baisho. “May I call on your phone, please?”

  “I’m sorry?” Baisho said.

  Jackie mimed the action. “Bombay,” he said. He wrote the number on a page in his notebook, handed it over.

  “Ah,” Baisho said, nodding. “Wakarimashita.” He dialed a number, spoke briefly in Japanese, waited, handed Jackie the phone.

  There was a rapid flurry of digital bleeping. Jackie, switching to Hindi, fought his way through a screen of secretaries. “Goldie,” he said at last.

  “Jackieji. I’ve been asking for you.”

  “Yes, I heard.” Jackie paused. “Have you seen the films?”

  Goldie Vachchani grunted, with a sharp digital echo. “The first two. Getting your footing over in Blighty, yaar? Nothing so special.”

  “Yes?” Jackie said.

  “The third one. The one with the half-breed girl and the Moon and the soundtrack.”

  “Yes, Goldie.”

  Goldie’s voice was slow and gloating. “That one, Jackie. That one is special, yaar. It’s a smasheroo, Jackie. An ultrahit! Bloody champagne and flower garlands here, Jackie boy. It’s big. Mega.”

  “You liked the Moon, eh,” Jackie said, stunned.

  “Love the Moon. Love all that nonsense.”

  “I did hear about your brother’s government appointment. Congratulations.”

  Goldie chuckled. “Bloody hell, Jackie. You’re the fourth fellow today to make that silly mistake. That Vachchani fellow in aeronautics, he’s not my brother. My brother’s a bloody contractor; he builds bloody houses, Jackie. This other Vachchani, he’s some scientist egghead fellow. That Moon stuff is stupid crazy, it will never happen.” He laughed, then dropped his voice. “The fourth one is shit, Jackie. Women’s weepies are a drug on the bloody market this season, you rascal. Send me something funny next time. A bloody dance comedy.”

  “Will do,” Jackie said.

  “This girl Betty,” Goldie said. “She likes to work?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s a party girl, too?”

  “You might say so.”

  “I want to meet this Betty. You send her here on the very next train. No, an aeroplane, hang the cost. And that soundtrack man too. My kids love that damned ugly music. If the kids love it, there’s money in it.”

  “I need them both, Goldie. For my next feature. Got them under contract, yaar.”

  Goldie paused. Jackie waited him out.

  “You got a little tax trouble, Jackie? I’m going to see to fixing that silly business, yaar. See to that straightaway. Personally.”

  Jackie let out a breath. “They’re as good as on the way, Goldieji.”

  “You got it then. You’re a funny fellow, Jackie.” There was a digital clatter as the phone went dead.

  The studio lights of the Japanese crew flashed on, framing Jackie in the graveyard in a phosphorescent glare. “Bloody hell!” Jackie shouted, flinging the phone away into the air and clapping his hands. “Party, my crew! Big party tonight for every bloody soul, and the bill is on Jackie Amar!” He whooped aloud. “If you’re not drunk and dancing tonight, then you’re no friend of mine! My God, everybody! My God, but life is good.”

  DANCING ON AIR

  Nancy Kress

  Born in Buffalo, New York, Nancy Kress now lives in Brockport, New York. She began selling her elegant and incisive stories in the mid-seventies, and has since become a frequent contributor to Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Omni, and elsewhere. Her books include the novels The Prince of Morning Bells, The Golden Grove, The White Pipes, An Alien Light, and Brain Rose, and the collection Trinity and Other Stories. Her most recent books are the novel version of her Hugo- and Nebula-winning story, Beggars in Spain, and a new collection, The Aliens of Earth, and a sequel to Beggars in Spain, entitled Beggars and Choosers, will be out soon. She has also won a Nebula Award for her story “Out of All Them Bright Stars.” She has had stories in our Second, Third, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Annual Collections.

  In the compelling and powerful novella that follows, she gives us a look at the surprising future of one of the oldest of all the performing arts—and embroils us as well in a complex and suspenseful web of mystery, intrigue, passion, betrayal, and murder.

  “When a man has been guilty of a mistake, either in ordering his own affairs, or in directing those of State, or in commanding an army, do we not always say, So-and-so has made a false step in this affair? And can making a false step derive from
anything but lack of skill in dancing?”

  —Molière

  Sometimes I understand the words. Sometimes I do not understand the words.

  Eric brings me to the exercise yard. A man and a woman stand there. The man is tall. The woman is short. She has long black fur on her head. She smells angry.

  Eric says, “This is Angel. Angel, this is John Cole and Caroline Olson.”

  “Hello,” I say.

  “I’m supposed to understand that growl?” the woman says. “Might as well be Russian!”

  “Caroline,” the man says, “you promised.…”

  “I know what I promised.” She walks away. She smells very angry. I don’t understand. My word was hello. Hello is one of the easy words.

  The man says, “Hello, Angel.” He smiles. I sniff his shoes and bark. He smells friendly. I smell two cats and a hot dog and street tar and a car. I feel happy. I like cars.

  The woman comes back. “If we have to do this, then let’s just do it, for Chrissake. Let’s sign the papers and get out of this hole.”

  John Cole says, “The lawyers are all waiting in Eric’s office.”

  Eric’s office smells of many people. I go to my place beside the door. I lie down. Maybe later somebody takes me in the car.

  A woman looks at many papers and talks. “A contract between Biomod Canine Protection Agency, herein referred to as the party of the first part, and the New York City Ballet, herein referred to as the party of the second part, in fulfillment of the requirements of Columbia Insurance Company, herein referred to as the party of the third part, as those requirements are set forth in Policy 438-69, Section 17, respecting prima ballerina Caroline Olson. The party of the first part shall furnish genetically modified canine protection to Caroline Olson under, and not limited to, the following conditions…”

  The words are hard.

  I think words I can understand.

  My name is Angel. I am a dog. I protect. Eric tells me to protect. No people can touch the one I protect except safe people. I love people I protect. I sleep now.

  “Angel,” Eric says from his chair, “wake up now. You must protect.”

  I wake up. Eric walks to me. He sits next to me. He puts his voice in my ear.

  “This is Caroline. You must protect Caroline. No one must hurt Caroline. No one must touch Caroline except safe people. Angel—protect Caroline.”

  I smell Caroline. I am very happy. I protect Caroline.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Caroline says. She walks away.

  I love Caroline.

  * * *

  We go in the car. We go very far. Many people. Many smells. John drives the car. John is safe. He may touch Caroline. John stops the car. We get out. There are many tall buildings and many cars.

  “You sure you’re going to be okay?” John Cole says.

  “You’ve protected your investment, haven’t you?” Caroline snarls. John drives away.

  A man stands by the door. The man says, “Evening, Miss Olson.”

  “Evening, Sam. This is my new guard dog. The company insists I have one, after … what’s been happening. They say the insurance company is paranoid. Yeah, sure. I need a dog like I need a knee injury.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Doberman, isn’t he? He looks like a goooood ol’ dog. Hey, big fella, what’s your name?”

  “Angel,” I say.

  The man jumps and makes a noise. Caroline laughs.

  “Bioenhanced. Great for my privacy, right? Rover, Sam is safe. Do you hear me? Sam is safe.”

  I say, “My name is Angel.”

  Caroline says, “Sam, you can relax. Really. He only attacks on command, or if I scream, or if he hasn’t been told a person is safe and that person touches me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Sam smells afraid. He looks at me hard. I bark and my tail moves.

  Caroline says, “Come on, Fido. Your spy career is about to begin.”

  I say, “My name is Angel.”

  “Right,” Caroline says.

  We go into the building. We go in the elevator. I say, “Sam has a cat. I smell Sam’s cat.”

  “Who the fuck cares,” Caroline says.

  I am a dog.

  I must love Caroline.

  2

  Two days after the second ballerina was murdered, Michael Chow, senior editor of New York Now and my boss, called me into his office. I already knew what he wanted, and I already knew I didn’t want to do it. He knew that, too. We both knew it wouldn’t make any difference.

  “You’re the logical reporter, Susan,” Michael said. He sat behind the desk, always a bad sign. When he thought I’d want an assignment, he leaned casually against the front of the desk. Its top was cluttered with print-outs; with disposable research cartridges, some with their screens alight; with pictures of Michael’s six children. Six. They all looked like Michael: straight black hair and a smooth face like a peeled egg. At the apex of the mess sat a hardcopy of the Times 3:00 P.M. on-line lead: AUTOPSY DISCOVERS BIOENHANCERS IN CITY BALLET DANCER. “You have an in. Even Anton Privitera will talk to you.”

  “Not about this. He already gave his press conference. Such as it was.”

  “So? You can get to him as a parent and leverage from there.”

  My daughter Deborah was a student in the School of American Ballet, the juvenile province of Anton Privitera’s kingdom. For thirty years he had ruled the New York City Ballet like an anointed tyrant. Sometimes it seemed he could even levy taxes and raise armies, so exalted was his reputation in the dance world, and so good was his business manager John Cole at raising funds and enlisting corporate patrons. Dancers had flocked to the City Ballet from Europe, from Asia, from South America, from the serious ballet schools in the patrolled zones of America’s dying cities. Until bioenhancers, the New York City Ballet had been the undisputed grail of the international dance world.

  Now, of course, that was changing.

  Privitera was dynamic with the press as long as we were content with what he wished us to know. He wasn’t going to want to discuss the murder of two dancers, one of them his own.

  A month ago Nicole Heyer, a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater, had been found strangled in Central Park. Three days ago the body of Jennifer Lang had been found in her modest apartment. Heyer had been a bioenhanced dancer who had come to the ABT from the Stuttgart Ballet. Lang, a minor soloist with the City Ballet, had of course been natural. Or so everybody thought until the autopsy. The entire company had been bioscanned only three weeks ago, Artistic Director Privitera had told the press, but apparently these particular viroenhancers were so new and so different that they hadn’t even shown up on the scan.

  I wondered how to make Michael understand the depth of my dislike for all this.

  “Don’t cover the usual police stuff,” Michael said, “nor the scientific stuff on bioenhancement. Concentrate on the human angle you do so well. What’s the effect of these murders on the other dancers? Has it affected their dancing? Does Privitera seem more confirmed in his company policy now, or has this shaken him enough to consider a change? What’s he doing to protect his dancers? How do the parents feel about the youngsters in the ballet school? Are they withdrawing them until the killer is caught?”

  I said, “You don’t have any sensitivity at all, do you, Michael?”

  He said quietly, “Your girl’s seventeen, Susan. If you couldn’t get her to leave dancing before, you’re not going to get her to leave now. Will you do the story?”

  I looked again at the scattered pictures of Michael’s children. His oldest was at Harvard Law. His second son was a happily married househusband, raising three kids. His third child, a daughter, was doing six-to-ten in Rocky Mountain Maximum Security State Prison for armed robbery. There was no figuring it out. I said, “I’ll do the story.”

  “Good,” he said, not looking at me. “Just hold down the metaphors, Susan. You’re still too given to metaphors.”

  “New York Now could use a few metaphors. A feature
magazine isn’t supposed to be a TV holo bite.”

  “A feature magazine isn’t art, either,” Michael retorted. “Let’s all keep that in mind.”

  “You’re in luck,” I said. “As it happens, I’m not a great lover of art.”

  I couldn’t decide whether to tell Deborah I had agreed to write about ballet. She would hate my writing about her world under threat.

  Which was a reason both for and against.

  * * *

  September heat and long, cool shadows fought it out over the wide plaza of Lincoln Center. The fountain splashed, surrounded by tourists and students and strollers and derelicts. I thought Lincoln Center was ugly, shoebox architecture stuck around a charmless expanse of stone unredeemed by a little splashing water. Michael said I only felt that way because I hated New York. If Lincoln Center had been built in Kentucky, he said, I would have admired it.

  I had remembered to get the electronic password from Deborah. Since the first murder, the New York State Theater changed it weekly. Late afternoons was heavy rehearsal time; the company was using the stage as well as the new studios. I heard the Spanish bolero from the second act of Coppelia. Deborah had been trying to learn it for weeks. The role of Swanilda, the girl who pretends to be a doll, had first made the brilliant Caroline Olson a superstar.

  Privitera’s office was a jumble of dance programs, costume swatches, and computers. He made me wait for him for twenty minutes. I sat and thought about what I knew about bioenhanced dancers, besides the fact that there weren’t supposed to have been any at City Ballet.

  There were several kinds of bioenhancement. All of them were experimental, all of them were illegal in the United States, all of them were constantly in flux as new discoveries were made and rushed onto the European, South American, and Japanese markets. It was a new science, chaotic and contradictory, like physics at the start of the last century, or cancer cures at the start of this one. No bioenhancements had been developed specifically for ballet dancers, who were an insignificant portion of the population. But European dancers submitted to experimental versions, as did American dancers who could travel to Berlin or Copenhagen or Rio for the very expensive privilege of injecting their bodies with tiny, unproven biological “machines.”