Robert Heinlein - Variable Star

“You’d think so, but no,” I said. “Melody. The little buggers will work hardest to bring about repetition of a favorite scrap of melody. That’s how hardwired love of music is, in the human brain. It predates survival instinct .”

“It doesn’t seem reasonable,” Zog said. “How would a brain evolve so?”

I spread my hands. “Ask God. I just work here. All I know is, it’s my very favorite mystery.”

“You like music, too?” she asked. “I like it a lot.”

“What kinds?”

The question seemed to puzzle her, but she gave it a try. “Audible.”

She liked everything? It seemed to me, in my sophistication, that people who liked everything must understand hardly anything. I was eighteen, all right?

“For the past hour I’ve been thinking this place could use a banjo player,” I said.

“There are two listed,” she said, “and one other who isn’t. They’re all pretty good.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I did a data search for musicians, way back on Terra, and listened to all their audition recordings. I also asked the ship to alert me anytime someone makes live music, and let me listen in if they haven’t put privacy seal on it. I discovered at least half a dozen unregistered musicians that way. In fact, the best musician I’ve heard aboard so far was unlisted. He came aboard at the last possible minute, so they waived his audition.”

I opened my mouth, closed it again.

“What’s his instrument?” the Zog asked her.

“Saxophone. I sat in with him, remote, for a few numbers. I wanted to introduce myself afterward, but by the time I got the system to give up his phone code, somebody he was sitting with put a heavy privacy shield on the whole table.”

“Have you tried him since?”

My kindly wristband produced the chip-chirp indicating a watch alarm. Today’s shift was over. Saved by the chip. “Zog,” I said, “I really hate to act like a clock-watcher on the first day I’ve bothered to show up, but I really do need to—”

“There are things we need to talk about,” he interrupted.

“I know. Uh… I could meet you somewhere in a couple of hours. Your office?” I shifted my weight from foot to foot as if I badly needed to pee.

“Go. Our AIs will work something out.”

“Thanks Zog nice to meet you Kathy see you both tomorrow.”

I fled.

“I don’t get it,” Herb said, squinting at images on his wristband’s monitor. “This girl is clearly much better-looking than you are, even with the baldness, string warts, and that glass eye. You raved about her piano playing—and you say she appears able to endure your own instrumental atrocities, so it’s certain she has a forgiving nature. Did she google up bad?”

“I haven’t tried yet. I mean, I haven’t tried. I’m not interested, I keep telling you.”

“Age, height, mass, marital status, economic status, state of health, attractiveness, talent, all apparently compatible within reason. And you can forget all those factors, and remember just the three important things.”

I rolled my eyes. “Go ahead.”

“She is a female mammal, she has a pulse, and she thinks you’re the best musician in the colony.”

I grimaced in exasperation. “Didn’t you hear me? I’m… not… interested. I told you: I took that class. I’m done with women.”

He put his own exasperation into a sigh instead of a grimace. “Joel, twenty years is a long, long time. And it’s going to seem even longer, with an attitude like that.”

“She and I have nothing in common. Didn’t I tell you what her greatest dream for mankind is? Telepathy, for Murphy’s sake!”

“Something wrong with telepathy?” he asked mildly.

I blushed. “Aw, you know what I mean. She’s talking about the kind where nobody has any secrets and yet we all love each other. Fantasy.”

Herb had successfully passed two other Secret Messages back to little Evelyn Conrad for me so far. Her replies always cheered me up. But they always came back via conventional electronic mail rather than telepathic courier; for some reason she was willing to accept information from a telepath but not give information to one. I was a little afraid she might be overestimating the security of whatever mail route she used. So I kept my own messages to her to a minimum, for fear of getting her in trouble with her elders.

Thinking about telepathy gave me an idea. “Hell’s bells, Herb, why don’t you take a run at Kathy?”

He looked at me strangely. “Really?”

“Well, you’re obviously interested in her. And she doesn’t find telepathy weird.”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

I closed my eyes, counted to five, opened them again. “Why would I mind? Haven’t you been listening? I’m through with romance, I’m through with love, I’m through with counting the stars above.”

“You’re really serious about that, then.”

I rolled my eyes upward and asked the ceiling to bear witness to the tribulations I had to endure here below. “Yes, for the love of—is that you or me?”

He brought his wrist to his ear. “You. Go ahead.”

I tapped my own wrist. “Yes?”

The face on the screen was unfamiliar to me, as his first words confirmed. “Mr. Johnston, we haven’t met yet. My name is Paul Hattori. I am the colony’s banker. Forgive me for disturbing your privacy, but there is a matter we should discuss at your earliest convenience. A matter of some importance.”

I thought for a second. The day was young—hell, it was still before noon. But my morning had been overfull of stimulating inputs. I was tired, and confused, and wanted only to put my feet up and try to get some thinking done about everything that had happened that morning. “How about tomorrow?” I temporized.

He hesitated. “I will of course follow your wishes. But I have information you really should have as soon as possible.”

What could he possibly be on about? Was this some sort of pitch for investment advice or banking services? He had access to my financial records—record—surely he must know I was a dry hole. “Can you give me some idea what it’s about?”

He was smiling, but there was something odd about the smile, something I couldn’t put my finger on. It wasn’t phony, exactly. Just odd. “I can, but if you will forgive me, I would greatly prefer to tell you in person.”

I met Herb’s eyes, raised an eyebrow. He shrugged. “Are you sure you don’t want Communicator Johnson? Same address, he’s my roommate.”

“No, it’s you I need to speak with, Mr. Johnston.” He gave an address only one deck below the officers and crew. He was a VIP.

“All right, I’ll be there in half an hour. But I still think you have the wrong bloke.”

“Who was that?” Herb asked.

“Never mind,” I said. “It can’t be important.”

I started to change to better clothes—and changed my mind. Why should I dress up for this joker? I wasn’t the one who’d asked for this meeting. Showing up was courtesy enough; putting on formal tights and collar would be obsequious. I had no reason to impress the man… because I had absolutely nothing to impress him with . He had nothing I wanted. Pausing only to empty my bladder and comb my hair, I left dressed just as I was: like a man who had recently been in a goat shed when somebody sneezed.

I took my time on the way, too. So I had time to develop a dark suspicion as to what he might want to talk to me for, which quickly built itself into an ugly and plausible theory.