River of Blue Fire (6 page)

“The noise is getting worse,” said Martine suddenly, as though oblivious to what was happening. “The noise in my head.”

“We can't do anything about the bugs now,” Renie said. “You'll just have to ignore it. This boy may be dying!”

“No, it's . . . it's very loud.” Martine's voice rose. “Ah! Oh, God, help me, it's . . . something is . . .”

The leaf abruptly lurched upward, as though some great fist had punched it from below. Renie and !Xabbu and the others found themselves floating in the air, weightless at the top of the sudden rise; for a brief instant, their eyes met in astonishment, then the leaf dropped back down to the surface of the river again and they scrabbled to maintain their balance.

Before they could speak a word, a vast shining shape, big as the prow of a submarine, rose from the water beside the floating leaf. It was a fish, hallucinatory in its gigantism, water streaming from its glossy, spotted back, its flat, stupid eye wider than Renie was tall. A pink cathedral miracle of flesh and cartilage was visible for an instant down the titan gullet. As the leaf rocked violently in the foaming waves of its emergence, the mouth snapped shut like a cannon crash. The hatchling insect disappeared. The fish fell back into the fountaining river.

The first waves had just spun the leaf around, sending Renie and the others tumbling across its uneven surface, when a monstrous dark shape leaped over them, then smashed into the river on their far side, smacking a huge spume of water far up into the air. The leaf, caught between waves, tipped up on one side. Shrieking, Renie felt herself skidding down the veined surface toward the seething water. At the last moment, the bottom end of the leaf was batted upward by another surfacing shape. Renie crunched into the leaf's fibrous, curling edge and fell back, stunned and breathless.

More fish were popping their heads above the water to feed on the hovering insects, so that the whole surface of the river seemed to boil. Gouts of water splashed onto the leaf, instantly filling it waist-high. Renie struggled to pull herself upright, but the leaf was rocking too boldly.

“!Xabbu!” she screamed. She could dimly see human figures being tossed like bowling pins all around her, splashing and foundering, then being dashed to one side again, but no sign of the little man's baboon sim. A shard of memory pierced her: !Xabbu's terrible fear in the water at Mister J's, his childhood terror from a crocodile attack. She tried to call for him again, but a wave running horizontally across the leaf filled her mouth and knocked her down.

“Hold on!” someone shouted. A moment later the edge of the leaf was jerked upward again as though on a string, what had been horizontal rising in a split second to the vertical. Renie found herself hanging in midair, weightless again for a fractional instant, then she was tumbling downward into dark water. It closed on her, swallowed her, like the cold jaws of Leviathan itself.

H
E
was down deep, deep as he could imagine being. There was no light. There was no noise, not even the familiar, old-neighbor sounds of his own body. The stillness was absolute.

Orlando was waiting for something, although he did not know what. Someone was going to tell him an important fact, or something was going to change, and then everything would be clear. One thing he knew for certain, down in the depths, down in the dream of darkness, was that he himself had nothing left to do.

He had fought so long against the weakness, against the fear, against the pain of simply being different, of feeling other people's horror and pity like a smothering weight—fighting not to care, to smile and make a joke, to pretend that really he was just as good, just as happy, as everyone else. But he couldn't fight any more. There was no strength left in him. He could not sustain the weight of another struggle against the remorseless tide, could not imagine anything that could make him care.

And yet . . .

And yet a small voice, something that almost did not seem a part of him, was still alive within the great stillness he had become. A part of him that still
wanted
, that believed things, that cared, that . . . hoped?

No. Such a voice could only be a joke, a final terrible joke. Hope had been a meaningless word for so long, a doctor's word, his mother's word, his father's brave-smile word. He had given all that up, which took more strength than any of them could ever know. Hope was a word whose purpose had nothing to do with its meaning; rather, it was a word used to keep him going, a word that wasted what little time and strength he had, disrupting the small moments of serenity with false promises. But now he had turned away, abandoned the rough current of life struggling to maintain itself. He was in deep, enveloping darkness, and he finally had the strength to look at hope squarely and dismiss it.

But the ridiculous voice would not go away. It poked him and irritated him like an argument in the next room.

Don't give up
, it said, adding cliché to insult.
Despair is the worst thing of all
.

No
, he told the voice wearily,
hope without meaning is the worst thing. By far the worst thing
.

But what about the others? What about the people who need you? What about the great quest, a hero's quest, just like something out of the Middle Country, but real and incredibly important
?

He had to give the voice credit for sheer persistence. And, if it was a part of himself, he had to admire his own capacity to play dirty.

No, what about me
? he asked it.
Enough about all those other people and what they want. What about me
?

Yes, what about you? Who are you? What are you
?

I'm a kid. I'm a sick kid, and I'm going to die
.

But what are you until then
?

Leave me alone
.

Until then
?

Alone
.

Only you can decide that
.

Alone
 . . .

Only you
.

It would not give ground. It would not surrender. The voice was hopelessly outmatched, but still it would not do the gracious thing and capitulate.

With a weariness he could never have imagined even on the worst days of his illness, against all the weight of the peaceful, solitary deeps, Orlando surrendered to himself and to that small, stubborn voice.

He began to make his way back.

CHAPTER 2

Greasepaint

NETFEED/INTERACTIVES: GCN, HR. 7.0 (Eu, NAm)—“Escape!” (visual: Zelmo being rushed into surgery)

VO: Nedra (Kamchatka T) and Zelmo (Cold Wells Carlson) have escaped from Iron Island Academy again, but Lord Lubar (Ignatz Reiner) has activated his Delayed Death-Touch on Zelmo. 8 supporting, 10 background open, previous medical interactive pref'd for hospital strand. Flak to: GCN.IHMLIFE.CAST

O
NE of the tires on the Zippy-Zappy-Zoomermobile had gone flat, and they were all going to be late for King Sky Monkey's fabulous Pie in the Sky Picnic. Uncle Jingle, with help from the children, was trying to comfort a weeping Zoomer Zizz when the headache came back with vengeance.

She turned down the responsiveness of her facial tactors as the pain knifed through her—it didn't really matter if Uncle Jingle wore a fixed grin for a little longer than usual. She held her breath until she could tell how bad it would be. It wasn't as serious as some of the others. She'd probably live.

“Zoomer's still crying!” one of the younger children shrieked, overcome by the pathos of a weeping zebra in a bobble hat.

Unseen beneath the electronic mask, Uncle Jingle gritted her teeth and struggled to sound halfway normal. “But that's silly—he's being silly, isn't he, children? We'll help him fix the Zippy-Zappy-Zoomer-mobile!”

The roar of agreement made her wince again. God, what was this? It felt like a brain tumor or something, but the doctors had promised that her scans were fine.

“No-o-o-o!” wailed Zoomer. “It'll be t-t-t-oo l-late! No, no, no! We'll miss King Sky Monkey's picnic. And it's
all my fault
!” The striped snout belched forth another long, nerve-searing wail of woe.

Uncle Jingle rolled her eyes. This particular Zoomer Zizz, whoever he was—Uncle J. had a vague recollection that this shift it was the new guy in Southern California—was really pushing it with all this bellowing. What did he want, a spin-off of his own? It wasn't like his legs had fallen off. (That had happened to one of the other Zoomers in an episode, and that particular actor had shaped it into a charming comic turn.) The problem was, these new people didn't know how to do real improv. They all wanted to be stars, and wanted to end everything with a punchline. And they didn't understand anything about working with children.

The headache was getting worse, a pain behind her left eye like a hot needle. Uncle Jingle checked her time. Ten minutes to go. Tired and hurting, she could not take any more.

“I guess you're right, Zoomer. Besides, they probably wouldn't want a smelly old zebra at their picnic anyway, would they, kids?”

The child-chorus cheered, but only a little, unsure of where this was going.

“In fact, I guess we better just leave you here crying by the side of the road, Mister Stripey-Butt. We'll go to the picnic without you and have fun, fun, fun. But first, let's all look at that special party invitation that King Sky Monkey and Queen Cloud Cat sent to us! Let's look at that invitation right now, okay?” She cleared her throat suggestively. “Invitation-right-
now
.”

She held her breath, hanging on until one of the engineers caught the signal and played the invitation—a recorded segment featuring the royal court, an all-feline, all-simian singing and dancing extravaganza. Uncle Jingle pushed her panic button and an engineer's voice chirped in her ear.

“What's up, Miz P.?”

“Sorry. Sorry, I have to go off. I'm . . . I'm not feeling well.”

“Well, you sure put the boot to old Zoomer. Maybe we can say you were trying to show him how silly he was being—you know, feeling sorry for himself.”

“Certainly. Whatever. I'm sure Roland can think of something.” Roland McDaniel was the next Uncle Jingle in the rotation, already in harness and waiting to go; he would only be filling an extra few minutes before his regular slot.

“Chizz. You gonna be systems go for tomorrow?”

“I don't know. Yes, I'm sure I will.” She clicked off, pulled the Uncle Jingle plug, and became Olga Pirofsky again. She undid the harness with shaking hands and let herself down, then stumbled to the bathroom where she vomited until there was nothing left in her stomach.

When she had cleaned herself up and put on water for tea, she went to the master bedroom to let out Misha. The little bat-eared dog stared at her from his seat on the bedspread, making it quite clear that her tardiness was not going to be easily forgiven.

“Don't look at me like that.” She picked him up and tucked him into the crook of her arm. “Mummy's had a very bad day. Mummy's head hurts. Besides, you only had to wait an extra five minutes.”

The tail did not yet wag, but Misha seemed to be considering the possibility of forgiveness.

She opened a seal-pac of dog food and squeezed it into his bowl, then put it on the floor. She watched him eat, experiencing the first thing resembling happiness she had felt since her workday had started. The water was not yet boiling, so she walked gingerly into the front room—her head was still throbbing, although the worst was past—and turned the radio on very quietly, a classical station out of Toronto. There was no wallscreen; a framed series of St. Petersburg's riverwalk and a large picture of the Oranienburgerstrasse Synagogue of Berlin filled the space where the screen had once been. Olga got quite enough of the modern world in her job. Even the radio was an antique, with a button on the side to scan stations and red digital numbers glowing on its face like the coals of a fire.

The whistle of the kettle brought her back to the kitchen. She turned off the halogen plate and poured the water into the cup on top of the spoonful of honey, then dropped in the strainer full of Darjeeling. The one time she had visited the studio's corporate building, someone had brought her one of those pop-top, self-boiling teas, and even though she had been hoping for a raise in salary, and thus was desperately anxious to be liked, she had not been able to make herself drink the swill.

She limped out to the front room. The radio was playing one of the Schubert
Impromptus
, and the gas fire was finally beginning to heat the room properly. She settled into her chair and set the cup down on the floor, then patted her thigh. Misha sniffed the cup and her ankle, then, apparently deciding it was not an evening for grudges, vaulted up into her lap. After she had bent to pick up her tea, the tiny dog tucked his nose under the bottom hem of her sweater, paw-pushed a few times to find just the right position, then immediately fell asleep.

Olga Pirofsky stared at the fire and wondered whether she was dying.

The headaches had started almost a year ago. The first had come just at the climax of Uncle Jingle's Magic Mirthday Party, an event that had been planned for most of a season, and which had been cross-marketed with a fervor never before seen in children's interactives. The pain had come so suddenly and with such hammering intensity that she had dropped offline immediately, certain that something terrible had happened to her real body. It had been a fortunate coincidence that the Mirthday Party plotline had featured Uncle J. splitting into twelve identical versions of himself—the production company was kindly allowing all the Uncle Jingles to participate in the residuals bonanza—so her absence was not critical. In any case, it was only a short absence: The pain had come and gone swiftly, and there was nothing unusual at home to suggest that something had happened to her helpless physical body.

If the problem had stopped there, she would never have thought of it again. The Mirthday shows broke net ratings records, as expected, and provided her with a nice bonus when the accounting was completed. (A sort of living explosion named “Mister Boom,” which she had invented on the spot with Roland and another Uncle, even became a bit of a short-term fad, featuring in comedy monologues and other people's online games and spawning his own line of eternally-detonating shirts and mugs and toys.)

Two months later, though, she had another attack, and this one forced her off the show for three days. She had visited her doctor, who pronounced it stress-related, and prescribed a mild course of pain-blockers and Seritolin. When the next attack came, and the others that began to follow almost weekly, and when the tests repeatedly showed nothing abnormal in her physiology, the doctor grew less and less responsive.

Olga had ultimately stopped seeing him. It was bad enough to have a doctor who could not make you well; to have one who clearly resented you for being ill in an unfathomable way was unbearable.

She scratched the little crease that ran down the middle of Misha's skull. The Papillon snored quietly. His world, at least, was as it should be.

The Schubert piece ended and the announcer began to read some interminable commercial about home entertainment units, only slightly easier to stomach for being in soft classical-radio tones instead of the usual overstimulated screaming. Olga did not want to wake the dog by getting up, so she closed her eyes and tried to ignore the advertisement, waiting for the music to start again.

It was not stress that caused these horrid pains. It couldn't be. Years had passed since she had gone through the real stresses of her life: All the worst things, the nearly unbearable things, were long past. The job was difficult sometimes, but she had been in front of audiences most of her life and the electronic interface could disguise a multitude of sins. In any case, she loved children, loved them deeply, and although the children could certainly tire her out, she could think of nothing she'd rather be doing.

Years and years and years had passed since she had lost Aleksandr and the baby, and the wounds had turned to hard, numb scars long ago. She was only fifty-six, but felt much older. In fact, she had lived the life of an old woman for so long now that she had nearly forgotten any other way to do it. She could count on one hand the number of lovers she'd had since Aleksandr, none of them in her life longer than a few months. She seldom left her apartment except to shop, not because she was frightened of the outside world—although who wouldn't be, sometimes?—but because she liked the peace and solitude of her life at home, preferred it to the hubbub of other people living their heedless lives.

So, what stress? That was no explanation. Something more organic must be eating away at her, something darkly hidden inside her brain or glands that the doctors simply hadn't spotted yet.

The commercial ended and another began. Olga Pirofsky sighed. And if she was truly dying, was it so bad? What was there to regret leaving? Only Misha, and surely some other kind soul would give him a home. He would get over her as long as someone gave him love and wet food. The only other things she had were her memories, and losing them might well be a blessing. How long could a person mourn, anyway?

She laughed, a sour, sad laugh. “How long? For the rest of a lifetime, of course,” she told the sleeping dog.

Finally, the announcer-babble ended and something by Brahms began, a piano concerto. She opened her eyes so she could drink some tea without spilling it on poor trusting, snoring Misha. Her coordination was never good after one of the headaches. They made her feel decades older.

So if it were all to end, was there anything she would regret leaving? Not the show. She had not created the character, and although she thought she brought something to him none of the others could—her circus training was so unusual in this day and age it had to make a difference—it did not mean much in the end. A fancy way to sell toys and entertainments to children was really all it was. As Uncle Jingle, she could occasionally do a little teaching, perhaps bring cheer to a sad child. But since the viewers did not distinguish between one Uncle Jingle performer and another—millions of credits of gear and filters and continuity coaches and art direction went every year to make sure they couldn't—she felt very little personal contact with her audience.

And lately, since the pain had begun, she found it increasingly difficult to stay involved with her job. So hard, it was so hard to be there for the children when that pain was pecking at her skull. It sometimes seemed that it only happened when she was working.

Only happened . . .

Misha began to wriggle in irritation, and Olga realized that she had been stroking him in the same spot for at least a minute. She was quite astonished that she hadn't noticed that detail before—that the doctors and the company's medical insurance personnel hadn't spotted it either. The headaches only happened when she was hooked into the Uncle Jingle character.

But they had tested her neurocannula and her shunt circuits as a matter of routine in every company physical for years, and had tested them again when the headaches began. They weren't stupid, those company men and women. The ‘can wiring had been just fine, as problem free as the scans.

So what did that mean? If the circuitry was good, then perhaps something else was wrong. But what could it be?