Gravity Wells (Short Stories Collection)

when she gave an order, she wanted everyone's undivided attention.

'Just another sec,' Alex whispered. A concealed mike amplified his whisper clearly. He made more kissing sounds.

In front of him was an animal about the size of a mouse, part of the local wildlife. I could see the beast was brightly colored, a splash of green and crimson stripes against the drab dirt background; but it was too far away for me to make out much else. It inched toward the cracker Alex held out, its head wobbling back and forth slightly. I guessed it was sniffing, trying to make up its mind about the food and the human that held it. The animal seemed just about to nibble when a voice yelled, 'Don't!'

Every head jerked up, including the little beastie's. Scrambling over the partly buried tank came Jerith, our archeologist and resident expert on the planet of Caproche. He'd lived on these abandoned battlefields for years, alone except for his robots, excavating dozens of sites as he tried to determine who had fought here and why.

I flattened down on the bunker roof. In the two days our group had been on Caproche, Jerith had already passed his quota for peeks down my blouse. I didn't fuss about it—he seemed harmless, just a guy who hadn't seen a woman in a long, long time—but I refused to give him the ogling opportunities provided by a sprawl-shot.

'What's wrong?' Helena asked. 'Is the animal dangerous?' She put a hand on Alex's arm and tried to pull him away from the creature.

'No, no, they're harmless,' Jerith said, scooping up the little beast with a sweep of his hand. He cradled it against his chest and began stroking it the way you'd pet a hamster. 'I call them parrots.'

'It doesn't look like a parrot,' our songwriter Roland said. 'More like a lizard.'

'It's brightly colored like a parrot,' Jerith answered. 'Anyway, the point is, everyone should leave them alone.'

'I wasn't going to hurt it,' Alex said in a wounded tone.

'You never know,' Jerith told him. 'Earth food can be poisonous to aliens. The tiniest nibble might kill this little guy.'

'Polly doesn't want a cracker,' Roland smirked to Alex.

'And even if Polly does, we have work to do,' Helena said briskly, 'Come along, Alex. Recording time.'

'Can I pet the parrot for a sec?' Alex asked, reaching out his fingers. Jerith shied away and Helena grabbed Alex's arm with both hands.

'We're going to work now,' she said, 'and I mean right now. Jerith, take that animal away. Roland, get off the set. Alex, I want the Singer, and no more putting it off. You aren't fooling anyone with these delaying tactics; I want the Singer now.'

She turned her back on him and marched to the control console. The console operator quickly shut off his book and tried to look busy. Helena glared but said nothing.

Back in front of the tank, Jerith turned to walk away, still caressing the parrot. Roland patted Alex on the back, said, 'Break a leg,' and sauntered toward the control console too.

Alone, Alex stood dejectedly for a moment, his eyes moving aimlessly around the battlefield. I smiled when he looked in my direction, but I don't think he saw. He sighed an amplified sigh that echoed through the surrounding ruins: a litter of shattered war-machines that stretched as far as the eye could see. Then he reached up and undid the top button of his shirt.

He stood straighter.

Another button. His hands took on some flourish, like the hands of a concert keyboardist.

'Cue the fog,' Helena's voice whispered in my earphone. The nozzle of the fog machine gushed a cataract of mist, flowing along the ground and pooling at Alex's feet.

Another shirt button. He shook out his ringleted brown hair and flicked it off his shoulders.

'Cue the wind,' whispered Helena, and massive fans on anti-grav platforms began to turn, slowly at first, then faster and faster until they were silent blurs. The anti-grav platforms banked slightly to resist the force of the wind. Alex's hair caught the breeze and grew wild.

The final button. His head lifted. His cheeks were gaunt, his eyes feral and glittering. A dangerous face: a striking, compelling danger.

'Cue cameras,' whispered Helena.

Time for work, I said to myself. But I found I was already in my pose, sprawled and primed; roused without thinking when Alex became the Singer. Sure, I'd rehearsed this scene till it all came naturally, but there was no feeling of rehearsal—just pure reaction to the Singer's presence. I was panting, budding with prickles of sweat.

'Cue music,' came a far-off whisper.

The ground rumbled with a heavy bass riff. Wind washed across me, whipping my hair against my shoulders; I screamed into the gale, and no rehearsal had taught me to scream with such fear and desire.

Then silence. The eye of the storm. And the Singer stepped forward through swirls of mist to whisper,

You have entered my heart, milady;

Now I shall enter your mind…

He swiveled sharply and pointed his finger directly at me.

Betray me not, milady,

For then I shall be…unkind.

I'd laughed at the lyrics in rehearsal as Alex good-naturedly waved a finger in my direction. Now the words came from the Singer, skeletal, ominous; and the threat in his voice chilled me. He blazed with danger…and I, in ripped and ragged clothes, shuddered at my vulnerability.

'Close-up on Lyra,' I heard Helena whisper.

I screamed again. On cue.

'That Kilgoorlie is a spooky guy,' Jerith said.

It was after supper and we were in a Quonset hut in Jerith's camp. Three of us, Jerith, Roland, and I, stood at a workbench where we brushed dirt off chunks of metal that Jerith claimed were archeological artifacts. The piece I had to clean was slightly bigger than my hand, fairly solid, and heavier than it looked. It was mostly copper-rust green, but a trumpet-like mouth at one end had its interior streaked with bronze. Like most of the artifacts on Caproche, this was probably a broken weapon.

We were dusting off the past because we had become archaeologists-in-training. Technically speaking, the planet Caproche was classified SIO, Scientific Investigation Only; but seven hundred years ago, unknown alien races had warred here from tropics to tundra, and the resulting devastation fit Alex Kilgoorlie's music like a chain mail glove. Helena had decided she must shoot Alex's next album on Caproche. To get around the Planet Protection Agency, she paid Jerith a great deal of money to claim our party was helping him in his studies; so when we weren't in recording sessions, we made a show of devotion to the digs. Well…most of us made such a show—Helena had yet to touch a shovel. And Alex got so enthusiastic the first time he came to the work hut, he'd somehow smashed the lens of a heavy-duty battle laser; so Jerith excused him from future duty.

'Alex isn't spooky,' Roland said. 'He's the most normal person here.'

'Don't give me that,' Jerith replied. 'I saw him this afternoon. When he was singing…it was like he was some kind of wraith. That's exactly the word, a wraith.'

'You're confusing Alex with the Singer,' Roland answered calmly. 'Alex is a regular guy; the Singer is something else.' He busied himself with dabbing at a clot of mud that clung to the snarl of wires he was cleaning, then added, 'The Singer is spooky as hell.'

Jerith stared at Roland for a long moment. 'Are you talking split personality?'

'I asked a psych-tech about that once,' Roland answered. 'She laughed at me. Everyone knows split personalities only exist in low-budget grislies. These days, potential splits are detected in childhood and sewn right back up. Oh yes, that perky little psych-tech had herself a real giggle over my naivete.'

'Sorry,' Jerith said. From the tone in his voice, I guessed that our resident archaeologist had also been laughed at by women sometime in the past.

'I went to school with Alex,' Roland said, making a show of attention to his work. 'Good guy. Everybody's friend. Not too bright…not very bright at all…' Roland slapped his brush roughly at the dirt. 'But he was everybody's friend. Women loved him.' He looked up at me accusingly. 'What do you think of Alex, Lyra? Not the Singer, but Alex. Kind of cute, kind of helpless, right? Sweet lovable guy?'

'I like Alex,' I replied, trying not to sound defensive. 'What's wrong with that?'

Both men looked at me silently. Neither one came close to Alex's easy charm. Roland, overweight, his hair thinning though he was only twenty-five, and his lips too red and blubbery. Jerith, with his droopy face and weak chin unsuccessfully hidden by a patchy blond beard, uncombed and scraggly…no doubt he'd known people like Alex too, and…

Jerith turned quickly away from me. His hand went reflexively to his beard. I told myself I must have been staring and I felt like shit.

'There's nothing wrong with Alex,' Roland said quietly as he went back to cleaning his artifact. 'I admit, the problem was mine. I envied him like hell. Especially back when we were starting our band. Eighteen years old, both of us, playing school dances and grotty little booze bins. Me playing keyboards, writing all the songs, doing the work!' He dug the brush into the gap between two metal tubes and twisted it hard. 'Alex sang my songs, my songs, every word mine, not his…but who did the women steam for? Pissed me off, pissed me right…' He stopped and calmed himself. After a moment he said, 'These days I can handle it. I'm not writing to impress people, I'm not writing to get laid.' He gave me a pointed look. 'I'm writing to say something and the message is what counts. If the only way to be heard is putting my words in the Singer's mouth, so be it.'

There was a lengthy silence, a painful one. I felt guilty without knowing why, like I'd been accused of some crime…as if I were a slut waiting to fall at Alex's feet just to spite Roland. I wished Jerith would say something, anything to ease the tension.

And he did.

'You still haven't talked about Alex and the Singer,' Jerith said, sounding like the words came awkwardly to him, but clearly doing his best to break the silence.

'Oh, that,' said Roland. 'Do you believe in possession?'

'No,' I answered, though the question was directed at Jerith.

Roland laughed without humor. 'I don't believe in it either. But I'll tell you, when Alex and I first started performing, we stank. I have no idea why—he had a decent voice, and I knew the songs were brilliant…' He laughed again. 'We just didn't have the chemistry, that's all. Then one night in this ratty blow-bar called Juicy's…one night this woman came to see us backstage between sets. An older woman, maybe as old as thirty. Hey, I was eighteen, she was ancient. I thought she was a hooker and I was prime self-righteous the way only teenagers can be, so I made some cutting remarks and stomped out for some air. What you'd call a very pointed exit.

'By the time I got back, she was nose-to-nose with Alex, talking about ways to improve the act. That pissed me off, this woman telling us our jobs. I grabbed Alex by the arm and dragged him off toward the stage, but she called to Alex's back, 'And undo your shirt. Strut the flesh, for Christ's sake. Put some groin into it. When people watch the stage, they don't want the boy next door. They want a goddamned performer.'

'Well. We hit the stage for the next set, and Alex started trying stuff. Rolling his eyes, swiveling his hips…completely forced, and embarrassing. He wasn't that kind of guy—not a drop of sleaze in him. When he tried it, I'm telling you, he just had no clue! I told him to smarten up, but that woman was watching from a front row table, and Alex must have figured he could get lucky if he played up to her.

'The mood of the bar shifted from bored to hostile; we'd been mediocre before, but now the act positively turned your stomach. Even Alex sensed how ugly the crowd was getting. One guy, built like a tank, dressed in leather from head to toe, this guy pulled out a switchblade and started clicking it in, out, click, click, making sure we saw him. I broke into a cold sweat, and Alex, he panicked completely. Panic was the only thing that could have made him unbutton his shirt, because believe it or not, he was shy about his body, showing it in public.

'He started unbuttoning in the middle of this long instrumental break, after the chorus of 'A Short Spell of Rain'—first cut on our first album, you should know it. And with every button he undid, it was like something rewiring itself in his head. Like a puppy changing into a wolf. When the instrumental break was over and he started singing the next verse…God, my hands were shaking so bad I could hardly play. The room fell absolutely still—not a whisper, not a glass tinkling. The bouncer outside the front door came running in, pulling on his brass knuckles like he expected real trouble; but