Aurora In Four Voices

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Analog - Aurora in Four Voices

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Catherine Asaro: Aurora in Four Voices

First appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December

1998. Nominated for Best Novella.

Part I: The Dreamers of Nightingale

He missed the sun.

The planet Ansatz boasts one city, Nightingale, a gem that

graces eternal night. Just as a diamond sparkles because light

that ventures into its heart is captured, bouncing from face to

face, so Jato Stormson was trapped in Nightingale. Unlike the

light inside a faceted diamond, however, he could never

escape.

After a few years, his memories of home faded. He could no

longer picture the sun-parched farm on the planet Sandstorm

where he had spent his boyhood. It was always dark in

Nightingale.

The Dreamers–the artistic geniuses who created Nightingale–

were also mathematical prodigies. That was why they named

their planet Ansatz. It referred to a method of solving

differential equations. Guess an answer, an ansatz, and see if

it solved the equation. If it didn’t, make another guess.

Another ansatz. Jato felt as if he were trapped on a guess of a

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Analog - Aurora in Four Voices

world.

One night he went to the EigenDome, an establishment for

dancing. He sat at a table and waited for the drink server, but

the server never came to his table. That was why he rarely

visited the Dome. The artist who had designed the place

considered it aesthetic to have humans serve the drinks and

the humans in Nightingale ignored him. But that night he was

lonelier than usual and even the icy Dreamers were better

than no company at all.

Made from synthetic diamond, the Dome resembled a

truncated soccer ball. Jato had looked up its history in the city

library and found a treatise on how the Dome’s shape

mimicked the molecule buckyball. Its holographic lighting

evoked the quantum eigenfunctions that described a

buckyball. He didn’t understand the physics, but he

appreciated the beauty it produced.

Tonight Dreamers were everywhere, dancing, talking,

humming. Centuries of playing with their genes and living in

perpetual night had bleached their skin almost to

translucence. Their hair floated around their bodies like silver

smoke. Light from lamps outside the Dome refracted through

the diamond walls, gracing the interior with rainbows that

collected on the Dreamers in pools of color. They glistened

like quantum ghosts.

Across the Dome, the doors opened. A spacer stood in the

doorway, her body haloed by the rainbow luminance. This was

no Dreamer. She looked solid. Sun-touched. She must have

come in on one of the rare ships that visited Nightingale; rare,

because the Dreamers allowed no immigration and most sun-

dwellers found a city of unrelieved night depressing anyway.

The only reason people usually came to Ansatz was to trade

for a Dream.

Ah, yes. The Trade.

Dreamers make a simple offer; give one a pleasant dream

and in return the Dreamer will give you a work of art. They

allow you ten days to try. After that, you must leave

Nightingale, trade or no trade. Considering the prices Dreamer

art claims throughout the Imperialate, that trade seems

astoundingly one-sided, the offer of great treasure for no more

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"Aurora in Four

Voices" by

Catherine

Asaro,

1998 by

Catherine

Asaro, used by

permission of

the author.

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than a nice dream.

Jato had let the lure of that promise fool him. He spent years

saving for the ticket to Ansatz. But how do you give a dream?

It was harder than it sounded, particularly given how sun-

dwelling humans revolted the Dreamers. The same husky

build and rugged looks that had won him such admiration

back home repelled the Dreamers. Considering their disdain

for ugliness, he feared they wouldn’t even let him stay the ten

days.

They never let him go.

So now he sat by himself and watched the spacer walk to a

table across in the Dome. She wore dark pants tucked into

boots and a white sweater with gold rings decorating the

upper arms. Her clothing looked familiar, but Jato couldn’t

place why. She had no jacket; Nightingale’s weather

machines aided the planet’s natural convection to keep the

climate pleasant, free from the fierce winds the tore at the rest

of Ansatz. Her hair was a cloud of black curls with gold tips,

and dark lashes framed her eyes–green eyes, the color of a

leaf in the forest. Her skin had a dusky hue, full of rosy

blooming health. None of the Dreamers spared her a second

look, but Jato thought she was lovely.

She sat down–and the server showed up to take her order.

Irked, Jato got up and headed for the laser bar, intending to

insist they serve him. Reaching it, however, was no simple

feat. The Dome’s floor consisted of nested rings, each slowly

rotating in one direction or the other. The text he had found in

the library described some business about "mapping

coefficients in quantum superpositions onto ring velocities." All

he knew was that it took a computer to coordinate the motion

so patrons could step from one ring to another without falling.

Dreamers carried it off with grace, but he had never mastered

it.

He managed to reach the dance floor, a languid disk turning in

the Dome’s center. Dancers drifted away from him, slim and

willowy, silver-eyed works of art. On the other side, he

ventured into the rings again and was soon being carried this

way and that. Each time he neared a hovertable occupied by

Dreamers, it floated away on cushions of air. He wished just

once someone would look up, admit his presence, give a

greeting. Anything.

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Meanwhile, the server brought the spacer her drink, which

was a LaserDrop in a wide-mouthed bottle. Tiny lasers in the

glass suffused the drink with color: helium-neon red, zinc-

selenium blue, sodium yellow. Drink in hand, she settled back

to watch the dancers.

Jato quit pretending it was the bar he wanted and headed for

the spacer. But whenever he neared the ring with her

hovertable, people and tables that had been drifting away

suddenly blocked his path. The spacer meanwhile finished her

drink, slid a payment chip into the table slot, and headed for

the door. He started after her–and the drink server appeared,

blocking the way, his back to Jato, his tray of laser-hued

drinks held high.

Jato scowled. He had always been long on patience and short

on words. But even the most stoic man could only take so

much. He put his hand against the server’s back and pushed,

not hard, just enough to make the fellow move. The server

stumbled and his tray jumped, rum splashing out of the jars in

plump drops. Even then, no one looked at Jato, not even the

server.

He made it to the door without pushing anyone else. Outside,

lamps lit the area for a few meters, but beyond their radiance,

night reigned under a sky rich with stars. Jato strode away

from the Dome, his fists clenched. He didn’t want to give them

the satisfaction of seeing their treatment provoke him.

The Dome was on the city outskirts, near the edge of a large

plateau where the Dreamers had built Nightingale. The Giant’s

Skeleton Mountains surrounded the plateau, falling away from

it on three sides and rising in sheer cliffs on the fourth, here in

the north. The northern peaks piled up higher and higher in

the distance, until they become a jagged line against the star-

dazzled sky.

The Dreamers claimed they built Nightingale as a challenge:

can you create beauty in so forbidding a place? This was the

reason they gave. Jato had heard others put forth, but the

Dreamers denied them.

Although his past attempts at convincing spacers to smuggle

him offplanet had failed, he never gave up. In the distant

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shadows, he saw the spacer climbing the SquareCase, a set

of stairs carved into a cliff. The first step was one centimeter

high, the second four, the third nine, and so on, their heights

increasing as the square of integers. The first twenty ran

parallel to the cliff, but then they turned at a right angle and

stepped into the mountains, rising taller and taller, until they

became cliffs themselves, too high, too dark, and too distant

to distinguish.

By the time he reached the first step of the SquareCase, the

spacer was climbing the tenth, about the height of her waist.

She sat on it, half hidden in the dark while she watched him.

He approached slowly and stopped on the ninth step.

"Can I do something for you?" she asked.

"I wondered if you wanted a guide to the city." It sounded

unconvincing, but it was the best introduction he could think of.

"Thank you," she said. "But I’m fine." The conversation

screeched to a halt.

He tried again. "I don’t often get a chance to talk to anyone

from offplanet."

Her posture eased. "I noticed my ship was the only one in

port."

"Did you come to trade for a Dream?"

"No. Just some minor repairs. I’ll be leaving as soon they’re

done."

Behind her, Jato caught sight of a globe sparkling with lights in

a fractal pattern. As it floated forward, it resolved into a robot

drone over a meter in diameter, its surface patterned by

delicate curls of the Mandelbrot set, swirls fringed by swirls

fringed by swirls in an unending pattern of ever more minute

lace.

Following his gaze, the woman glanced back. "What is that?"

"A robot. It watches this staircase."

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Analog - Aurora in Four Voices

She turned back to him. "Why does that make you angry?"

"Angry?" How had she known? "I’m not angry."

"What does it do?" she asked.

"I’ll show you." Jato strode forward and hauled his bulk onto

the tenth step. Although he towered over the spacer, she

seemed unperturbed, simply scooting over to let him pass.

That self-confidence impressed him as much as her beauty.

As he approached the eleventh step, the globe whirred into

his face. When he tried to push it away, it rammed his

shoulder so hard he fell to one knee.

"Hey!" The woman jumped up and grabbed for him, as if she

actually thought she could stop someone his size from falling

over the edge. "Why did it do that?"

He stood up, brushing rock dust off his trousers. "As a

warning."

That’s when she did it. She smiled. "Whatever for?"

Jato hardly heard her. All he saw was her smile. It dazzled.

But after a moment, her smile faded. "Are you all right?" she

asked.

He refocused his thoughts. "What?"

"You’re just staring at me."

"Sorry." He motioned at the globe. "It was warning me not to

go past the city border, which crosses the cliff here." Having

the drones watch him up here was almost funny. As if he

could actually escape Nightingale by climbing a staircase that

grew geometrically.

"Why can’t you leave the city?" she asked.

He discovered he couldn’t make himself tell her, at least not

yet. Why should she believe his story? Eight years ago, the

Dreamers had showed up at his room in the Whisper Inn and

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locked his wrists behind his back with cuffs made from sterling

silver Möbius strips. He had no idea what was happening until

he found himself on trial. They convicted him of a murder that

never happened and sentenced him to life in prison.

Supposedly, years of treatment had "cured" him, and he no

longer posed a danger to society. So the Dreamers let him out

of his cell, which had never been a cell anyway, but an

apartment under the city. For a giddy span of hours he had

thought they meant to send him home; if he was no longer

dangerous, after all, why keep him under sentence?

He soon found out otherwise.

For the Dreamers who believed in his guilt, which was most of

them, it would take a lifetime for him to atone. One of their

most renowned artists, Crankenshaft Granite, had argued–

with truth–that to Jato it would be almost as much a

punishment to spend his life confined to Nightingale as to his

apartment. But by making the city his jail, they showed their

compassion for a criminal who had turned away from his

violent nature. Jato saw why that logic appealed to the

Dreamers, who for some reason had a driving need to see

themselves as kind, yet who in truth considered all sun-

dwellers flawed, deserving neither freedom nor friendship.

But he knew the truth. Crankenshaft’s motives had nothing to

do with compassion. The only reason Jato had a modicum

more freedom now was because it made Crankenshaft’s life

easier.

Jato didn’t want to see that wary look appear on this woman’s

face, the one spacers always wore when they learned his

story. Not yet. He wanted to have these few minutes without

the weight of his conviction pressing on them.

So instead of telling her, he pointed at his feet and made a

joke. "This is where I live. These are my coordinates."

"Your what?"

So much for scintillating wit, he thought. "Coordinates. This

staircase is the plot of a non-linear step function."

She laughed, like the sweet ringing of a bell. "Why would

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anyone go to all this work just to make a big plot?"

"It’s art." He wished she would laugh again. It was a glorious

sound.

"This is some art," she said. "But you haven’t told me why

your people won’t let you leave."

His people? She thought he was a Dreamer? It wasn’t only

that he bore no resemblance to them. Dreamers were gifted at

both art and mathematics, neither of which he had talent for.

Yet this beautiful woman thought he was both. He grinned.

"They like me. They don’t want me to go."

She stared at him, her mouth opening.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She closed her mouth. "What?"

"You’re just staring at me."

"I–your smile–" She flushed. "My apologies. I’m afraid I’m

rather tired." She gave him a formal nod. "My pleasure at your

company." Then she turned and headed down the stairs.

He almost went after her, stunned by her abrupt leave-taking.

But he managed to keep from making a fool of himself.

Instead, he stood in the shadows and watched her descend

the SquareCase.

When Jato turned into the underground corridor that dead-

ended at his apartment, he saw a Mandelbrot globe waiting at

the door. Given that he lived nowhere near Nightingale’s

perimeter, only one reason existed for its presence.

Crankenshaft had sent it. With Jato no longer confined to his

apartment, Crankenshaft could have him brought wherever he

wanted instead of the Dreamer having to come down here.

Jato spun around and ran, his boots clanging on the metal

floor. If he could find a side passage too narrow for the globe

to follow, he might evade capture. It was a stupid game

Crankenshaft played; if Jato escaped the drones,

Crankenshaft let him have the day off.

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A whirring sound came from behind him. The drone hit his

side and he stumbled into the wall, bringing up his arms to

protect his face. An aperture opened on the robot and an air

syringe slid out, accompanied by the hiss of its firing.

His view of the hall wavered, darkened, faded. . . .

Jato opened his eyes. A face floated above him, an aged

Dreamer with eyes like ice. Gusts of wind fluttered her silver

hair around her cheeks. He knew that gaunt face. It belonged

to Silicate Glacier. Crankenshaft’s wife.

Crankenshaft was standing behind her. Tall for a Dreamer, he

had a well-kept physique that belied his one-hundred and six

years of age. Black hair covered his head in bristles. He had

two-tone eyes, grey bordered by red, like old ice in ruby rings.

Jato spoke in a hoarse voice. "How long?"

"You have slept several hours," Crankenshaft said.

"I meant, how long do you need me for?"

"I don’t know. We will see."

As Jato pulled himself into a sitting position, Silicate stepped

back, avoiding contact with him. He swung his legs over the

stone ledge where he had been lying and looked around.

Crankenshaft had chosen the big studio. The ledge jutted out

of the west wall, an otherwise blank plane of grey stone. On

the left, the south wall was a window looking over Nightingale,

which lay far below. The east and north "walls" were

holoscreens, sheets of thermoplastic that hung from the

ceiling. Holos rippled in front of them, swaths of color that

trembled as breezes shook the screens.

It always disoriented Jato, that wind. Moving air didn’t belong

inside a house. For that matter, neither did Mandelbrot globes.

But two floated here, one hovering behind Crankenshaft and

another prowling the studio.

The major feature in the room was a round pool. A glossy

white cone about two meters tall rose out of the water. A

second cone stood next to it, its top cut flat in a circular cross-

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section. The three other cones in the pool were cut at angles,

giving them elliptical, parabolic, and hyperbolic cross-sections.

"Circle today," Crankenshaft said. Then he headed across the

drafty studio to a console in the corner where the two holo-

walls met.

Jato looked at Silicate and she looked back, as cool and as

smooth as stone. Then she too walked away, leaving the

studio via a slit in a thermoplastic wall.

A gust rumpled Jato’s hair and he shivered, wrapping his arms

around his body. "Do you have a jacket?" he asked.

Crankenshaft didn’t answer, he just stooped over his console

and went to work. So Jato waited, trying to clear out the haze

left in his mind by the sedative.

A globe nudged his shoulder. When he stayed put, it pushed

harder. "Flame off," he muttered.

A syringe extended out of the globe.

Still intent on his console, Crankenshaft said, "It shoots a heat

stimulant. A strong specimen such as yourself might tolerate it

for ten minutes before going into shock."

Jato scowled. Where did Crankenshaft come up with this sick

stuff? He looked at the globe, at Crankenshaft, at the globe

again. With Crankenshaft he used care in choosing his

battles. This one wasn’t worth it.

He took off his boots and went to the pool. The knee-deep

water was cool today, but at least no ice crusted the surface.

He waded to the truncated cone and climbed up onto it, then

sat cross-legged, hugging his arms to his chest for warmth.

"Move ten centimeters to the north," Crankenshaft said.

Jato moved over. "Can you warm it up in here?"

Crankenshaft sat down at his console, concentrating on

whatever he was doing. So Jato moved to the south side of

the cone.

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