Light From Uncommon Stars(87)

Lan turned to Shizuka and bowed. “I am sorry for the trouble that I have caused.”

Shizuka felt a little flutter—Lan really did look great in a uniform. She then saluted and disappeared in a green flash.

Shizuka and Katrina stood there in the living room.

“You’re blushing,” Katrina said.

“No I’m not,” Shizuka replied.



* * *



Lanny had ordered Windee off of the computers and into the donut shop. She wanted Windee to learn some patience. She suggested it might even be fun.

How was any of this fun?

“Aunty! Heeelp!” Windee was caked in donut mix.

“You can’t mix that way. You need to be patient.”

“I aaam patient! How much time does it need?”

Seriously, the girl had no feel for this.

However, Starrgate was finally cooking donuts! Compared with replication, the task might seem daunting, but operating the kitchen was no more difficult than maintaining a starship engine room.

With their first batch, all talk of replicators and reference donuts had ceased. People started visiting the Starrgate not for the Big Donut, nor the kitsch, nor even a try at the vintage Stargate machines, but for the amazing donuts.

Were they adding steamed bun flour to the donut mix? Maybe they were adding butter? One rumor was that they added a little mayonnaise to the mix to keep the donut moist. Another suggested they brushed their old-fashioneds with just a little cider vinegar to bring out the sweetness.

Floresta smiled. These sorts of rumors were good for business. And some of them were even true.

Yes, Floresta was using steamed bun flour. But she also reduced the gravity in the proofing box for added fluffiness. She genetically modified domestic and wild yeast DNA to create a strain that worked faster, while producing optimum flavor, texture, and aroma. She installed lasers in the ovens; a twelve-microsecond burst gave cake donuts the perfect crunch around the edges, as well as creating a lattice of nanoperforations that let in just the right amount of hot coffee.

And then there was an amazing substance she had discovered on this planet: MSG. Just a little, and everything took on a whole new level of tastiness.

No, you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to make donuts—but that didn’t mean being a rocket scientist didn’t help.

For now, the only worry Floresta had was her niece. Lanny was spending longer and longer hours upstairs in the donut. Sometimes she barely came down for meals. Lanny said focusing on the stargate was best for the family.

However, Floresta did not believe for a second that focusing on the stargate was best for Lanny. Her nightmares were getting worse. She was laughing even less than she had before. She hadn’t taken the twins to the movies in weeks. And when she wasn’t on the stargate upstairs, she was in front of the store, putting more quarters in those awful Stargate video game machines.

Stargate, stargate, Starrgate …

What was her niece thinking? Could she not see that the family was safe? She thought back to Markus pleading, begging to know.

Why are we building a stargate, anyway?

Why indeed? Why so many nightmares, so many sleepless nights, when her family was safe? Why was Lanny so obsessed with the stargate, when their lives were finally here?



* * *



Katrina’s online popularity continued to increase.

Every day, under Shizuka’s instruction, she became just a bit better. Every night, she took what she learned and channeled it into her next recording. With Shirley’s help and technology, the type of content they were producing began to outstrip anything Shizuka could have imagined.

Katrina and Shirley enhanced all that was heard and seen. She could fight dragons, seduce a ghost, fly through space. She could be elf, faerie, Japanese spider woman … With a wave of the hand, she could alter her features, change her proportions, or obscure herself in a forest.

But Katrina never showed herself unaltered. Furthermore, Katrina asked Shirley to remove live footage of her from the Internet, even the Temple City footage. People constantly asked her do interviews, to go on tour, all of which she graciously declined.

She said she wanted her music to be front and center and that seeing who was actually making the music would only get in the way. Of course, there was more to her decision than that.

For outside the violin world, she was still transgender. She knew how cruel and hurtful people could be in person. Just imagine how they would be online.

More and more, Shizuka realized how the world was not the same place for Katrina. One morning, Shizuka had menudo. The menudo place down the hill had new tablecloths, cute curtains, and flower vases on every table. But the owners were very Christian, and the customers were city workers on lunch break, arriving in trucks and utility vans.

They had always been kind to Shizuka. But how would they serve Katrina? These were good people, most of the time, weren’t they?

In the end, she sent Astrid, who brought the menudo home in large Styrofoam cups.

The irony was almost unbearable. For Shizuka, not to have live footage of herself was a curse. But for Katrina, anonymity was salvation itself.

Shizuka could do nothing about so much of the world Katrina faced each day. But the violin could shield her from at least some of its ugliness.

Perhaps Shizuka would show her the speed and response of the Russian bow hold—especially since she was carrying far less tension in her wrist. There were more videos online—she had barely begun to show Katrina anything Baroque—which was criminal, considering how much video game music was influenced by Bach.