Antarctica Starts Here
»I’m ready now,« Piper Hill said, eyes closed, seated on the carpet in a loose approximation of the lotus position. »Touch the spread with your left hand.« Eight slender leads trailed from the sockets behind Piper’s ears to the instrument that lay across her tanned thighs. Angie, wrapped in a white terry robe, faced the blond technician from the edge of the bed, the black test unit covering her forehead like a raised blindfold. She did as she was told, running the tips of her fingers lightly across the raw silk and unbleached linen of the rumpled bedspread. »Good,« Piper said, more to herself than to Angie, touching something on the board. »Again.« Angie felt the weave thicken beneath her fingertips. »Again.« Another adjustment. She could distinguish the individual fibers now, know silk from linen. . . . »Again.« Her nerves screamed as her flayed fingertips grated against steel wool, ground glass. . . . »Optimal,« Piper said, opening blue eyes. She produced a tiny ivory vial from the sleeve of her kimono, removed its stopper, passed the vial to Angie. Closing her eyes, Angie sniffed cautiously. Nothing. »Again.« Something floral. Violets? »Again.« Her head flooded with a nauseating greenhouse reek. »Olfactory’s up,« Piper said, as the choking odor faded. »Haven’t noticed.« She opened her eyes. Piper was offering her a tiny round of white paper. »As long as it’s not fish,« Angie said, licking the tip of her finger. She touched the dot of paper, raised her finger to her tongue. One of Piper’s tests had once put her off seafood for a month. »It’s not fish,« Piper said, smiling. She kept her hair short, a concise little helmet that played up the graphite gleam of the sockets inset behind either ear. Saint Joan in silicone, Porphyre said, and Piper’s true passion seemed to be her work. She was Angie’s personal technician, reputed to be the Net’s best troubleshooter. Caramel . . .
»Who else is here, Piper?« Having completed the Usher, Piper was zipping her board into a fitted nylon case. Angie had heard a helicopter arrive an hour earlier; she’d heard laughter, footsteps on the deck, as the dream receded. She’d abandoned her usual attempt to inventory sleep — if it could be called sleep, the other’s memories washing in, filling her, then draining away to levels she couldn’t reach, leaving these afterimages. . . . »Raebel,« Piper said, »Lomas, Hickman, Ng, Porphyre, the Pope.« »Robin?« »No.«
»Continuity,« she said, showering. »Good morning, Angie.« »Freeside torus. Who owns it?« »The torus has been renamed Mustique II by the current joint owners, the Julianna Group and Carribbana Orbital.« »Who owned it when Tally taped there?« »Tessier-Ashpool S.A.« »I want to know more about Tessier-Ashpool.« »Antarctica starts here .« She stared up through the steam at the white circle of the speaker. »What did you just say?« »Antarctica Starts Here is a two-hour video study of the Tessier-Ashpool family by Hans Becker, Angie.« »Do you have it?« »Of course. David Pope accessed it recently. He was quite impressed.« »Really? How recently?« »Last Monday.« »I’ll see it tonight, then.« »Done. Is that all?« »Yes.« »Goodbye, Angie.« David Pope. Her director. Porphyre said that Robin was telling people she heard voices. Had he told Pope? She touched a ceramic panel; the spray grew hotter. Why was Pope interested in Tessier-Ashpool? She touched the panel again and gasped under needles of suddenly frigid water. Inside out, outside in, the figures of that other landscape arriving soon, too soon . . .
Porphyre was posed by the window when she entered the living room, a Masai warrior in shoulder-padded black silk crepe and black leather sarong. The others cheered when they saw her, and Porphyre turned and grinned. »Took us by surprise,« Rick Raebel said, sprawled on the pale couch. He was effects and editing. »Hilton figured you’d want more of a break.« »They pulled us in from all over , dear,« Kelly Hickman added. »I was in Bremen, and the Pope was up the well in full art mode, weren’t you, David?« He looked to the director for confirmation. Pope, who was straddling one of the Louis XVI chairs backward, his arms crossed along the top of its fragile back, smiled wearily, dark hair tangled above his thin face. When Angie’s schedule allowed for it, Pope made documentaries for Net/Knowledge. Shortly after she’d signed with the Net, Angie participated anonymously in one of Pope’s minimalist art pieces, an endless stroll across dunes of soiled pink satin, under a tooled steel sky. Three months later, the arc of her career firmly under way, an unlicensed version of the tape became an underground classic. Karen Lomas, who did Angie’s in-fills, smiled from the chair left of Pope. To his right, Kelly Hickman, wardrobe, sat on the bleached floor beside Brian Ng, Piper’s gofer-cum-understudy. »Well,« Angie said, »I’m back. I’m sorry to have hung all of you up, but it had to be done.« There was a silence. Minute creaks from the gilt chairs. Brian Ng coughed. »We’re just glad you’re back,« Piper said, coming in from the kitchen with a cup of coffee in either hand. They cheered again, somewhat self-consciously this time, then laughed. »Where’s Robin?« Angie asked. »Mistuh Lanier in London,« Porphyre said, hands on his leather-wrapped hips. »Expected hourly,« Pope said dryly, getting up and accepting a coffee from Piper. »What were you doing in orbit, David?« Angie asked, taking the other cup. »Hunting solitaries.« »Solitude?« »Solitaries. Hermits.« »Angie,« Hickman said, springing up, »you have to see this satin cocktail number Devicq sent last week! And I’ve got all of Nakamura’s swimwear. . . .« »Yes, Kelly, but –« But Pope had already turned to say something to Raebel. »Hey,« Hickman said, beaming with enthusiasm, »come on! Let’s try it on! «