The bonephone static was a subliminal sandstorm. The elevator slid up into its narrow shaft through the floor of Heaven. I counted blue lights at two-meter intervals. After the fifth light, darkness and cessation. Hidden in the hollow command console of the dummy Highway boat, I waited in the elevator like the secret behind the gimmicked bookcase in a children’s mystery story. The boat was a prop, a set piece, like the Bavarian cottage glued to the plaster alp in some amuse- ment park a nice touch, but one that wasn’t quite necessary. If the returnees accept us at all, they take us for granted; our cover stories and props don’t seem to make much difference. “All clear,” Hiro said. “No customers hanging around.” I reflexively massaged the scar behind my left ear, where they’d gone in to plant the bonephone. The side of the dummy console swung open and let in the gray dawn light of Heaven. The fake boat’s interior was familiar and strange at the same time, like your own apartment when you haven’t seen it for a week. One of those new Brazilian vines had snaked its way across the left vlewport since my last time up, but that seemed to be the only change in the whole scene. Big fights over those vines at the biotecture meetings, American ecologists screaming about possible nitrogen shortfalls. The Russians have been touchy about biodesign ever since they had to borrow Americans to help them with the biotic program back at Tslolkovsky 1. Nasty problem with the rot eating the hydroponic wheat; all that superfine Soviet engineering and they still couldn’t establish a functional ecosystem. Doesn’t help that that initial debacle paved the way for us to be out here with them now. It irritates them; so they insist on the Brazilian vines, whatever anything that gives them a chance to argue. But I like those vines: The leaves are heart-shaped, and if you rub one between your hands, it smells like cinnamon. I stood at the port and watched the clearing take shape, as reflected sunlight entered Heaven. Heaven runs Ofl Greenwich Standard; big Mylar mirrors were swiveling somewhere, out in bright vacuum, on schedule of a Greenwich Standard dawn. The recorded birdsongs began back in the trees. Birds have a very hard time in the absence of true gravity. We can’t have real ones, because they go crazy trying to make do with centrifugal force. The first time you see it, Heaven lives up to its name, lush and cool and bright, the long grass dappled with wildflowers. It helps if you don’t know that most of the trees are artificial, or the amount of care required to maintain something like the optimal balance between blue-green algae and diatom algae in the ponds. Char- mian says she expects Bambi to come gamboling out of the woods, and Hiro claims he knows exactly how many Disney engineers were sworn to secrecy under the Na- tional Security Act. “We’re getting fragments from Hofmannstahl,” Hiro said. He might almost have been talking to him- self; the handler-surrogate gestalt was going into effect, and soon we’d cease to be aware of each other. The adrenaline edge was tapering off. “Nothing very coher- ent. `Schone Maschine,’ something . . . `Beautiful machine’ … Hillary thinks she sounds pretty calm, but right out of it.” “Don’t tell me about it. No expectations, right? Let’s go in loose.” I opened the hatch and took a breath of Heaven’s air; it was like cool white wine. “Where’s Charmian?” He sighed, a soft gust of static. “Charmian should be in Clearing Five, taking care of a Chilean who’s three days home, but she’s not, because she heard you were coming. So she’s waiting for you by the carp pond. Stubborn bitch,” he added.
Charmian was flicking pebbles at the Chinese bighead carp. She had a cluster of white flowers tucked behind one ear, a wilted Marlboro behind the other. Her feet were bare and muddy, and she’d hacked the legs off her jump suit at midthigh. Her black hair was drawn back in a ponytail. We’d met for the first time at a party out in one of the welding shops, drunken voices clanging in the hol- low of the alloy sphere, homemade vodka in zero grav- ity. Someone had a bag of water for a chaser, squeezed out a double handful, and flipped it expertly into a roll- ing, floppy ball of surface tension. Old jokes about passing water. But I’m graceless in zero g. I put my hand through it when it came my way. Shook a thou- sand silvery little balls from my hair, batting at them, tumbling, and the woman beside me was laughing, turn- ing slow somersaults, long, thin girl with black hair. She wore those baggy drawstring pants that tourists take home from Tsiolkovsky and a faded NASA T-shirt three sizes too big. A minute later she was telling me about hang-gliding with the teen tsiolniki and about how proud they’d been of the weak pot they grew in one of the corn canisters. I didn’t realize she was another surrogate until Hiro clicked in to tell us the party was over. She moved in with me a week later. “A minute, okay?” Hiro gritted his teeth, a hor- rible sound. “One. Uno.” Then he was gone, off the circuit entirely, maybe not even listening. “How’s tricks in Clearing Five?” I squatted beside her and found some pebbles of my own. “Not so hot. I had to get away from him for a while, shot him up with hypnotics. My translator told me you were on your way up.”~ She has the kind of Texas accent that makes ice sound like ass. “Thought you spoke Spanish. Guy’s Chilean, isn’t he?” I tossed one of my pebbles into the pond. “I speak Mexican. The culture vultures said he wouldn t like my accent. Good thing, too. I can’t follow him when he talks fast.” One of her pebbles followed mine, rings spreading on the surface as it sank. “Which is constantly,” she added. A bighead swam over to see whether her pebble was good to eat. “He isn’t going to make it.” She wasn’t looking at me. Her tone was perfectly neutral. “Little Jorge is definitely not making it.” I chose the flattest of my pebbles and tried to skip it across the pond, but it sank. The less I knew about Chilean Jorge, the better. I knew he was a live one, one of the ten percent. Our DOA count runs at twenty per- cent. Suicide. Seventy percent of the meatshots are automatic candidates for Wards: the diaper cases, mumblers, totally gone. Charmian and I are surrogates for that final ten percent. If the first ones to come back had only returned with seashells, I doubt that Heaven would be out here.