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Prologue
Carbon monoxide killed quietly, softly.
Sixteen hundred parts per million. Enough to cause death in less than two
hours. Possible side-effects could include headache, tachycardia, dizziness,
and nausea. But, if she were asleep, she would be unaware of the discomfort.
He didn’t want to hurt her. Or mar her
beauty. She was as beautiful as his mother. She sang like a dream spirit. A
sublime soprano. Ethereal. In time she would have been as good as his mother.
But already the critics didn’t appreciate her. They questioned her
interpretation. They said she lacked maturity and depth, that she hadn’t the
passion the role demanded. What had that to do with perfection?
The audiences were stupid and cruel. They refused
to accept digital modulation of the instruments. Her voice, unassailable in its
clarity and purity, was too fragile to stand up to the electronica. The
producers had allowed her only five performances. If they would just give her
time, her growing confidence would strengthen her presentation. But they replaced
her before moving to Kyoto.
That was months ago and she'd only gotten small parts. Insignificant rolls, insulting to her talent, her transcendent voice.
“Some of them liked me,” she said through
tears.
“They did. They did like you.” He held her
close and let her cry.
“I can do it. I know I can.”
“Stay at home,” he said, his chest tight with
anger at the critics. They were idiots who thought themselves experts. His lungs, his heart seized with frustration. There was nothing he could do to make them see
the talent and beauty standing in the spotlight right before them.
He saw the dream, the desire.
Just as he had seen it in his mother – the hunger for applause. Even more for
the awed silence just before the applause.
“My dearest.” She caressed his face. “I love
being at home, but a singer must sing.”
He dropped to his knees and pressed his face against
her. “Sing for me.”
“I do sing for you. But there's a feeling. When I'm on the stage, there's a freedom. I'm somehow bigger. I can fly. Above the world. Into the universe." She smoothed his hair. "I can't explain it.” She took his hands and urged him to his feet. “It’ll be all right, you’ll see. The next time I’ll do better. I’ll get another
part and I’ll do better. I can do this. I know I can.”
He jerked away from her and paced, his face
flushed and rigid. “It’s not you.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “It’s them.
They don’t deserve you.”
She put out a hand to stop him. “I do love
you. Now be a good boy. Don’t get so upset. My day will come, you’ll see.”
But he knew how it would end.
He’d taken his time assembling everything he
needed. He built the glass chest himself using his own crystal propagation
method. Big enough to contain them both. The vacuum pump was one he’d had for
years. Once the box was closed, he would withdraw the air reducing the humidity
to near zero and achieving an expected preservation rate of perpetuity.
New silk bedding – pale green, the color of
new life – softened the sides and bottom. The glass could be dialed opaque
before being lowered into position.
As always, he was meticulous in planning and
equally particular in following his plan. Any deviation marked carelessness in
preparation or errors in thinking. He could excuse neither in others, nor
indeed, in himself.
It took less than two hours for each of the
necessary elements of the evening to arrive at Denver from their origination space
ports – lobster from the North Atlantic Coast, veal from the Argentine Prefect,
fresh strawberries from the Andean foothills, and champagne from Greater
Europe. Despite their centuries of decline, Europe still produced the finest
wine.
The most beautiful, the most perfect gift he acquired
for her took forty days from the Takimoto OsteFarm on Poe Colony in Low Mars
Orbit. A triple strand choker of perfectly matched, luminescent pink pearls.
All the required items arrived the day before their
anniversary. The final leg of their journeys, sixty-three miles, took more than
an hour. Kevin picked them up at Denver Space Port and delivered them to the
lodge. When the time came Kevin would also transport the glass case.
That evening was perfect. He made dinner for
her ending with strawberries and champagne. She sang for him. “A New Rose,” the
closing aria from Beyond the Event
Horizon’s second act.
They shared a leisurely shower with the
drying cycle shortened by half so they were pleasantly damp.
He led her into the bedroom. With indirect
lighting on the matte walls it seemed a room without walls, without boundaries.
A small bowl of gardenias from Texico sat on a white marble pedestal. Their satiny
blossoms infusing the room with the perfume of her childhood home. He knew the
fragile flowers would soon brown, but not before she slept.
He dialed the bed to neutral buoyancy and
thirty-seven degrees Celsius, their own body temperature. Smooth, creamy satin
spilled from the bed to the floor. White like the walls and the floor and the
ceiling.
As he intended, there were no physical
sensations other than themselves – the sounds of their breathing, the feel of their
own skin against skin, the musk of love and sweat intermingling with the scent
of the flowers.
Her black hair and rich sepia skin were the
only colors in the room. And the pink pearls. Of course, the pearls.
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