Robert Heinlein - Variable Star

“Nobody blames them, Joel.”

“No—but nobody has the hairs to tell them to suck it up, and let you Healers help them.”

Her shoulders relaxed. “Exactly. You do understand.”

“Well, that much. What you can do about it, I have no idea. A year ago, I’d have said, have Matty Jaymes talk to all of them.”

She nodded. “They all used to respect him a lot.”

“He used to deserve it.”

Matty had long since been restored to the Covenant. But the man who’d emerged from his room was not the Matty Jaymes anyone remembered. He was pale, dwindled, and taciturn, and he did not want to talk to anybody. Something had changed him, and no one had any idea what.

She grimaced ruefully. “Suppose you were in my chair. Where would you start ?”

“That’s easy,” I said. “With Sol. He’s the linchpin, now that George R is gone. Until you turn him around, you’ll never…” I trailed off as I realized where this had to be going.

“I agree,” she said.

I held up both hands, shook my head, and shut my eyes briefly, refusing delivery with all the body language at my disposal. “No way. Don’t look at me.”

“Joel—”

“I tried already. Twice, okay? Both conversations together totaled a single word, and I didn’t say it.”

“Tell me about it.”

“The first time I saw him after… afterward, I walked up to him, and we stood about a meter apart for a few moments, and after a while I opened my mouth, and he shook his head no, and I closed my mouth, and he went away.”

“And the second time?”

“Two days ago. I waited outside his room, where his door couldn’t see me. I had a zinger prepared. A brutal, stinging line that would shock him into paying attention to me. Use anger to invoke his fighting spirit. Healing 101. The door opened, he came out and saw me, and this time I didn’t even get to open my mouth. ‘Don’t,’ he said. Just that.”

“How did he say it?” She was leaning forward slightly.

“Way back at the dawn of video, there was a short time when animation was so expensive, they made cartoons in which little ever moved but the characters’ mouths, which were real human lips superimposed on 2-D drawings. He looked just like that.”

She winced.

“So I just nodded, like, ‘Okay, I won’t.’ And he gave one little gesture of a nod, like somewhere between ‘Thank you,’ and ‘Fuck off, now.’ So I fucked off.”

She was wearing her most empathic expression. “And now if you try a third time, without some kind of direct invitation from him, you’ll lose him as a friend. I see that.”

“You’re good.”

“How horrible for you. Okay, never mind. Thanks, Joel. I should have known you would already have tried your best. I apologize.”

She stood up. We were done. I got up, too, and we gave each other the Japanese style bow that was our half-ironic custom. But I did not turn and head for the door.

“What was it you were going to suggest?”

She waved it away. “No, never mind. Thanks. Probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.”

“If this is reverse psychology—”

She smiled. “No. It was just an idea.”

“So just tell it.”

“I read a line somewhere in an old book once, to the effect that when you’re really depressed, the only person you’d be glad to see coming is somebody who wants to pay an old debt.”

“I don’t follow.”

“You’ve never paid Sol for his services as your advocate, four years ago. You promised him an original composition of at least fifteen minutes, on the baritone sax, with his name in the title.”

She was right. I had certainly meant to do it. I’d even made a start on it, once. But what with one damn thing after another, it had fallen between the cracks, and eventually been silted over. I told myself I would have recalled my promise eventually.

“I was thinking maybe you could offer to do it now, ask him for direction, use that to get him talking. But you’re right: if you raised the subject now, he’d tell you where to put your saxophone. Don’t worry. I’ve got a few other approaches I can try. Thanks for sharing your insights with me.”

I left. But when I got back to Rup-Tooey, I stayed only long enough to grab my Yanigasawa B-9930, and then headed for my studio. Now that I was a rich man, I was renting a soundproofed cubic on the lower of the two VIP decks, so I wouldn’t have to inflict my saxes on my roommates. When I got there, I had enough forethought to phone both the Zog, and Jill and Walter at the Horn of Plenty, and beg off my upcoming shifts at both jobs. Then I sealed the door and shut off phone and mail.

Three days later I switched the phone back on, called Dr. Amy, and outlined what I had. It was she who figured out how to try and put it to use.

Coming off shift, Solomon Short craved only oblivion. If he could manage to sleep twelve hours—and he could, easily—that left only six to fill. Same amount of time spent in and out of the Hole, each day. When he entered his quarters and found the sitting room full of people, he simply backed out again before the door could shut behind him.

At least he tried to. It didn’t work. He encountered someone coming in the other direction, found himself back in the sitting room, heard the door dilate behind both of them.

He didn’t bother to turn and find out who it was, didn’t even bother to take note of exactly which assholes were cluttering up his parlor with this moronic Intervention attempt. Like a soldier removing the muzzle cap from his assault weapon and jacking one into the chamber, he slowly opened his mouth and took in air—

A face was suddenly decimeters from his own. An angry, brutal, stupid face. Its mouth was already open, and had already taken in lots of air.

“Shut the fuck up,” Richie bellowed at him.

His own mouth slammed shut.

“Sit down there.”

Sol sat.

Richie sat down to his right. The man behind him—Jules—took a seat at his left, and shifted his drink to his left hand. Proctor DeMann stepped across the doorway and dropped into parade rest, then softened it by taking one hand from behind him and stroking his gunfighter mustache, in the manner of one who wishes he still smoked a pipe.

And before Solomon could get himself planted, let alone prepare his first withering wisecrack, I began to play.

At first, he was so pissed off he didn’t hear a thing I was playing.

That was okay. I’d expected that. I kept on playing.

He tried to stop me by talking over me.

That was okay. Nobody can talk over a baritone saxophone. Not my silver Anna. Not even Solomon Short. I kept on playing.

With elaborately insulting body language, he stuck a finger in each ear, screwed his eyes shut, and stuck out his tongue.

That was okay. The sound struck him with renewed force again at the same instant muscle-bound arms were flung across him from each side, pinning him in place—so he opened his eyes just in time to watch his own fingers jammed up his nose. They released him at once. Richie leaned into his field of vision, shook his head no very slowly, and sat back. I kept on playing.

He tried making faces at people, clearly hoping to escalate to mime. He tried everyone in the room.

That was okay. Nobody would play along. I kept playing.

Finally he fell back on his last line of defense, and met my eyes, wearing an expression that said, I don’t care if you are the reincarnation of the Yardbird himself playing me a previously unknown Beiderbecke masterpiece, you aren’t getting in as deep as the layer of moisture on the surface of my eyeballs, motherfucker . Most musicians have seen that look, and it is indeed demoralizing, and Sol did it better than most.