Light From Uncommon Stars(67)
“No. Silence has been good to us.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Thank you, Shirley.”
Traveling through space-time is like driving through Los Angeles. Universes pass by like random cars on the four-level at rush hour. To keep their way, ships must synchronize with their own timeline at regular intervals. Stargates perform this function automatically; in fact, providing foolproof space-time coordinates was one of the primary functions of a stargate.
But since the Trans had arrived at this planet without utilizing a stargate, both spatial and chronological navigation were manual. Many good pilots would not have been able to do this. However, Lan was far more than a good pilot. Now the only way to interact with their home timeline was to recombine their raw navigation data with the correct space-time variables.
And the only one with access to variables, as well as the computational ability to perform this calculation, was Shirley.
Lan strictly limited contact to their home timeline to weekly reports, and only to Shirley. No one else knew about the connection home. Although Lan did not want to keep secrets from her crew, contact with the Empire might invite hunters, invaders, and even other, less careful, refugees.
Besides, until they were fully situated here, she needed everyone to focus on the planet they were on. They could not grow complacent, for with its Internet, Stargate machines, donuts, and ducks, this planet seemed touched with a madness that Lan now believed was not the Endplague, yet confounded her all the same.
* * *
“Arch your back. A sunken chest means a sunken sound!”
“Your bow hold is collapsing—you can’t already be tired.”
“No, I don’t care how it sounds in the game. Cleaner!”
“Timing! Timing!”
“More precision on the marcato! Mar-ca-to!”
Shizuka knew Katrina was straining. But Shizuka would push her student even more. No, she could not take away Katrina’s past. But what she could give her was this training, this practice—how to make this measure, this passage—better than it had been before.
Shizuka had thought she knew all about being damned. Still, she had always assumed that damnation required some sort of exchange.
Yet, this student, this human being, had been forsaken not for ambition, nor revenge, nor even love, but for merely existing?
Who needs the Devil when people can create a hell like this themselves?
“You’re still too tense. Relax your fingers. Unless you relax, the notes will sound indistinct.”
“But this is just before the level boss!” Katrina cried.
“I don’t care. The level boss can wait until you play with satisfactory détaché.”
Her student was going to perform a piece from a video game. A student of Shizuka Satomi—playing gaming music. She thought of her six previous students. What would they think of the Queen of Hell now?
Katrina laughed.
It was such a beautiful laugh, wasn’t it?
May Hell have mercy on her soul.
JULY
22
Who lives in Temple City?
One hundred years ago, the answer would have been easy; the area had been opened with railroad money, to be settled by German Americans and those comfortable living with them.
Seventy-five years ago, the Camellia Festival was started by the Ladies of Temple City to make their community notable, beautiful, and officially incorporated. There had been a Miss Temple City contest. A pancake breakfast with the firemen. An active Boy Scout troop. A student art show at the Temple City Library. There had been a cobbler, a hobby shop, a dance studio. Ye Loy Chinese restaurant offered postwar Americans an exotic selection of sweet and sour pork, beef chop suey, and egg foo young.
Fifty years ago, kids from Temple City High School would stop at Fisher’s Drug store for a root beer from the soda fountain, while in the park was a pristine white pavilion where local performers played big band, swing, Elvis, Tom Jones.
And today, the Boy Scout troop was still there, as was the pancake breakfast, the art show at the library. There was the hobby shop, the bike shop, and even the dance studio. The park was still there. Miss Temple City was now Miss Temple City Ambassador. The pavilion, now with a fresh coat of paint, still featured the music of big bands and Engelbert Humperdinck.
Yet now, rather than Germans, one was far more likely to find Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipinos, a few Malaysians, and still more Vietnamese. Where there had been shoemakers, coffee shops, and tailors, there were now Vietnamese bridal shops, boba places, a new branch of Golden Deli Pho.
And where Ye Loy once stood, Ahgoo’s Kitchen was now busy making stir-fried water spinach, Taiwanese fried noodles, and green onion sesame pie. And, although they offered fried rice and hot and sour soup, at least once a week a staff member would have to inform a confused customer that they did not serve egg foo young.
This evening, the park chattered with an uncommon energy. On most summer nights, older people gathered on familiar lawn chairs to hear familiar music. Sometimes they let their hair down to a Beatles tribute band or, very rarely, classic rock.
But this evening was classical music under the stars! The atmosphere felt a little like the Hollywood Bowl. Some had even brought picnic fixings from Trader Joe’s. And the park was also full of younger, mostly Asian families, who were either musicians or the families of musicians.