Vienna Station (3 page)

I love music. The hours I’ve spent alone with my cello are the best of my life. I love rehearsing, matching my skill with others, blending, creating something much more beautiful than I could achieve alone. Yet this concerto has been drudgery to rehearse. I can’t cleanse myself of the defilement Mozart’s casual mistreatment of me left. I feel shame.

I’ve seen him only twice since the scene at the Sacher Cafe. He was distant and polite. Still, his presence permeates Vienna Station. Anger and misery have been my twin companions. They are with me now in front of billions of people. Yes, the numberless moons of pearls and countless stars of diamonds gleaming from powdered breasts and slender necks around me are only the inner shell of our audience. This event is being broadcast live to the world.

The music intensifies. I’m playing competently, but woodenly. I focus on finger positions, the tension of bow against string. I cannot reach out to the others. We pause for the cadenza. Mozart builds tower upon tower of notes. His fingers flash brilliantly. I’m dimly aware that I’m hearing the best solo piano passage ever played. His tornado of sound sweeps up the orchestra and we finish the movement with three crashing chords.

I’m numb, not afraid, just numb. This should be the greatest musical moment of my life. I am to play a duet with Mozart before the largest audience ever assembled. The notes are not difficult. They are slow, lyrical, set in my cello’s loveliest range. All depends upon what Mozart plays, how he plays. Can we make music together? I have no hope that we can.

Violins and violas begin, slowly, sonorously. An oboe’s clear note enters and drifts above all. The piano begins, sweetly and simply. My years of training betray me. I look up. I look up to receive my entrance cue and fall into Mozart’s eyes. They are dark, deep, brimming with tears. Those eyes, shining and sad, give me assent, urge me to play. I look down. Training again carries me. I stroke the opening notes and flow on into an extended duo with the piano.

It is beautiful. The piano sings. I answer. I answer and then we weave our singing together. Mozart’s platform drifts close to mine and hovers almost protectively. The rest of the orchestra enters. We sing and dance together near water silver with moonlight. Other players gradually fall away. Only the piano and my cello still turn together in darkness. Our platforms turn in the darkness. A last Grecian curve of melody, a last caress of sound, lingers above us. My bow is extended. The final vibrations rise from the strings. My head is bowed. I am drained, stunned, and yet a storm of emotions churns within me.

The third movement, full of laughter and mischief, romps into being. I pull myself together and begin playing when the opening theme and development are repeated. My mind clears and music fills me. I realize that the rest of the orchestra is caught up too. Only rarely do professionals allow themselves to become wholly involved, wholly consumed by a performance. Mozart creates the final cadenza, an impossible cascade of flickering notes. We enter the coda together and storm through to three strong major chords—tah, tah, tah. Silence explodes around us.

Then the audience explodes. Jaded and wise though they are, their applause is pure and exultant. Mozart, head bowed, fingers still arched over the keys, seems frozen to the piano. Then he stands. Bathed in white light, he bows deeply. His silver wig shines like the noon sun. He motions to the orchestra. The applause redoubles. Then he motions to me.

My legs tremble as I rise, but a roar of praise enfolds me, lifts me. My smile is a reflex. I cannot comprehend billions of human beings.

CEO Frederick, holding a flute of champagne, chuckles as he surveys the board room annex. Large paintings, portraits and landscapes, caress his eyes. His gaze lingers on the Tippolo. Classical statues and holograms dot the room’s periphery. A dozen computer consoles cluster apologetically in a shadowed corner of the room. Director Lola enters.

Frederick turns to her and raises his glass. “To our success!”

Lola plucks up a flute of champagne from a tray on a marble stand and drinks. “Indeed. That was the greatest artistic event of our age.”

Frederick sips. “Yes, and it was extraordinarily profitable for Vienna Station, not to mention us personally.”

Lola smiles sardonically. “Never to mention us, if you please.”

Frederick ignores her. “What can we have Mozart do to follow up on this concert?”

Lola turns and studies a statue. “That will take some thought, perhaps a great deal of thought.”

Frederic stepped lightly to Lola’s side. “What about the cellist?”

Lola continues viewing the statue. “She’s on her way to meet Mozart now.”

“There’s hope that she will assist us?”

Lola shrugs. “We’ll see.”

I walk through a passageway in the deeps of the Station. I’m vaguely aware of destination, but emotions, exalted and bitter, swirl through my mind, muddy any sense of conscious purpose I can summon. Why has he treated me so? I can only wait to hear his explanation.

My hand automatically presses a softly glowing rectangle on the hatch frame to my right. So far, all portals have opened for me, though I know that access to these sublevels is strictly controlled. This hatch hisses open too. Light pours through and I know I have arrived.

Vienna Station has fifteen regeneration areas. Waste products are recycled in these areas by genetically engineered bio-processors—earth plants and animals made into super filters, super metabolizers. Twelve of these areas also serve as public parks. Three are private retreats. I have reached the most private such area of all.

I step through the hatchway into pine-scented, sunlit air. Granite cliffs rise to either side of the entrance. Wildflowers of every hue splash colors across slopes of gravel dotted with stolid boulders. A path winds down among the boulders toward pine trees. I walk down it.

I reach the pines. Their shadows fall in velvet folds upon my shoulders. Their scent, freshness older than our race, quiets my mind. I come to falling water.

A stream rushes from between two jutting boulders and falls free for ten meters into a deep pool. Beside the pool is a flat slab of white granite. On this platform rests a golden harpsichord. Its wood is honey-colored and it is touched here and there with gilding. Mozart sits on the rock beside the harpsichord. He looks up.

He smiles. “You got my note. I hoped you’d come.”

I take a deep breath. “Why?”

“I wanted to tell you how wonderfully you played.”

I shake my head. “No! Not that! Why did you treat me the way you did?”

He looks down. “Will you come and sit with me beside the stream?”

I hesitate.

He looks up and smiles gently. “I promise that I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

I nod and sit beside him.

He looks sideways at me. “Would you like some coffee? There’s a concealed spigot behind that tree. It’s good. Viennese, of course.”

I shake my head. “No coffee. I just want to know what kind of game you are playing with me.”

He looks away. “Certainly. I have much to explain.”

“You do.”

He looks at me. “You’re wondering if I’m truly perverted, arrogant and cruel?”

I say nothing.

“The potty humor? The insults? The abuse?”

I still say nothing.

“Please believe me that I had no choice but to humiliate you.”

Tears of rage and pain brim in my eyes. I don’t want to cry in front of this man. I again blurt out, “Why?”

“It was a test. I needed to see if you are working against me.” He looks down. “You aren’t.”

I am truly puzzled. “Working against you? How? I’m just a cellist.”

“I know that now.” He looks at me. “I tried to apologize to you. The second movement was for you. I created it for you.”

I sigh. “I know. That’s why I’m here.”

He looks up at me hopefully, “You liked it?”

I was entranced by it. I was devastated, opened, made new by its beauty and my part in its creation. I can’t say this. I say instead, “It is worthy of the first Mozart.”

Mozart smiles. “Father?” He looks back at the harpsichord, “He isn’t really my father, but I think of him so. I need to think of him so. My life is very strange. I’ve done what the directors of Vienna Station intended that I do. But I’m not simply a music-machine. You’re aware of how I was created?”

I shrug. “They used some sort of experimental genetic recovery process?”

He nods, “That’s true as far is it goes, but I am much more than they intended me to be, just as father was more than anyone In the Eighteenth Century suspected.”

I look at him. “You said that you were afraid I was working against you. Working for whom? Why?”

Mozart rose. “Will you take a short walk with me? It will be easier to show you than to just explain.”

I say, “Lead on.”

We walk in silence up the path I descended before.

CEO Frederick stares at a holo-projection in the middle of the board room annex. His face is impassive, though he is sweating slightly. He glances at Director Lola, who is sitting in an armchair some distance away. He says, “The girl is with him now.”

Lola shrugs. “So?”

Frederick looks back at the projection. “We didn’t expect her to go to him so soon.”

“So?”

Frederick’s moon-like face clenches with impatience. “Alex did not speak with her.”

Lola reaches for a martini glass on a floating tray beside her chair. “It doesn’t matter. She can be of use to us passively, perhaps more so than if we’d recruited her, as long as she spends a lot of time with our impulsive composer.”

Frederick sighs. “I don’t like surprises. Operation Two Birds must proceed with no interference from Mozart.”

Lola sips her drink. “It will.” She smiles cruelly. “He’s in love. Nothing could be more disabling.”

Mozart is silent as he leads me down a winding corridor. He opens a hatch at the corridor’s end and brilliant, white light floods the deck at our feet. He motions for me to precede him. I step through the hatch into a wide room containing many gleaming machines. Its far wall is transparent.

Mozart joins me and I ask him, “Why have you brought me here?”

He smiles. “I had five brothers. I’d like you to meet one of them.”

“But this is a lab.”

He nods, “Of course it is. This,” he spreads his hands indicating a bewildering array of machines connected by wires and glittering tubes, “is Genuflect’s main facility on Vienna Station.”

I nod. “Well, where is your brother?”

“This way.”

We walk toward the transparent wall. Mozart continues speaking as we walk, “The directors of Vienna Station were unwilling to risk their investment on only one life. Five embryos were created. Five babies were grown.”

“Where are they now?”

Mozart stops, turns, spreads his hands and grins. “I am here!”

I smile. I can’t help myself. He turns back to the transparent wall. “Two of my older brothers died during forced maturation. It is a dangerous process. Hormonal therapies speed growth. Psych matrices along with drug-enhanced states of consciousness speed learning.”

“You have two living brothers?” I ask.

“Yes,” he nods. “Two. The maturation process damaged them both. Johann is here.” He points at the transparent wall.

I notice for the first time that a young man is huddled in the far corner of the adjacent room. He wears a station coverall and clutches a blue pillow to his chest. He hides his face in the pillow. Mozart calls, “Johann? Johann? I have someone for you to meet.”

Johann raises his head and Mozart’s face stares at me. Johann’s gaze, however, becomes frantic, fearful. He claws at the walls to either side. Blood springs from his already broken fingernails. He whimpers in terror.

Mozart motions for me to step back. He says, “It’s all right, Johann. She’s leaving. She’s leaving.”

I step behind one of the larger machines. Mozart continues, “It’s only me, now, Johann. Only me.” Johann subsides. Tears still course down his cheeks, but his lips hint at a smile. Mozart smiles at him. “I’ll leave a chocolate in the tray for you. I’ve got to go now, but I’ll come back later.” He places a chocolate in a rotating drawer and pushes it so that the chocolate is within the sealed room. Johann stares at it but does not move. Mozart retreats to my side. We stand silently for several moments.

At last, I ask, “Is he always so frightened.”

Mozart nods. “Most of the time. He is extremely vulnerable. His mind spins endless possibilities from every tiny bit of information he receives. Many of these possibilities terrify him. Sometimes he is relaxed with me, lucid even and able to do creative work. He helped me with the orchestration of the concerto.”

“Will he get better?”

Mozart looks down, folds his hands. “I hope so, in time. With care.”

“You said you have another brother?”

Mozart looks up. “Yes, Felix. Felix suffered extreme physical deformation during the maturation process, but his mind is sound.”

I look around the lab. “Where is he?”

Mozart smiles. “Not here. He’s in space.”

“Space?”

“Yes, his mind, a very able mind, is linked to a nest of super computers and an extensive industrial facility in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. He supervises the combined extractive industries of all the orbital stations. It is a very responsible position.”

My eyebrows go up. “Let me get this straight. Beck, Osama, Vienna and the others cooperate on mining the asteroids?”

Mozart shrugs. “Why not? Whatever their differences, they all like money.”

Alex follows Kelly into the practice room. Kelly touches a screen and her holo-violin becomes a plastic and steel contraption. She drops it on a counter. It lands with a clatter. She loosens her bow. Alex approaches her, leans close and speaks softly, “There’s a good deal of money in this for you.”

Kelly inspects her bow and says nothing.

Alex continues, “A very great deal.”

Kelly looks at him. “You want me to betray a friend and colleague for money?”

Alex smiles. “Not betray. Never betray. Simply give her a small gift, one provided by me. Perhaps in celebration of the concert’s success?”