Love and Rockets Part 18

"Give my eyes a minute," I said, "and I might be able to see you back."

Carl and Lex both chuckled at my stupid joke, then Carl moved back down the bar to keep working on the evening preparations.

"Thanks for the loan," I said to Lex after taking a sip of the wonderful, cool beer. "Again, I'm not sure when I'll be able to pay you back."

Lex held up a beautiful hand. "No need to even think of paying me back. The money was like an option on your time. I wanted you to consider my offer."

"Well," I said, taking another sip of the beer. "I considered it. I even called a friend who confirmed that time travel at some point in the distant future would be possible."

Lex nodded. "It is."

"So how far forward would I be going?"

"A very long ways," Lex said.

"How far?" I asked.

Lex glanced at me, then at Carl to make sure he was far enough away to not hear.

"Fourteen thousand years."

"Not possible," I said, turning back to my beer. "Humans won't be around for that long."

"Oh, they very much are and have a real desire for Old Earth music like you play."

"So why not go back another six hundred years and get real Old Earth musicians?"

"Not allowed to," she said.

"So explain to me how it works," I said. "Since you're asking me to give up my life and climb into something that flies through time, I better know at least some basics about how it works."

Again, Lex stared at me for a moment like I was some alien thing. Clearly, other dead-end musicians she had offered this to hadn't bothered with any homework.

"I really don't know how it works," she said. "At least not the science of it. Something about folding s.p.a.ce." She glanced down the bar to make sure Carl couldn't hear what she was saying.

d.a.m.n, I just couldn't get the attraction I was feeling toward her out of my head. She had to be doing something to me. I hated agents and she was an agent. I couldn't want to sleep with an agent. That would be like sleeping with some mud-cow alien on the Farms. But I still just wanted to lean forward and kiss her.

Had to be the reaction to the money.

"The Consolidated Planets are a group of about forty thousand systems banded together for safety and trade. The Planets as an organization has been in existence about ten thousand years now."

I was too stunned at the number to say anything since there were only about fifty colonized systems now.

She went on. "Travel between my time and this time is done only by people who have no ties or family because of the time loss issues."

"Okay, that makes my brain hurt," I said. "So you have no family, no husband waiting for you back home?"

"None," she said. "If I did, they would be long dead by the time I returned from one trip. The time lag works both ways I'm afraid."

"Okay," I said, not liking the sound of that either, but deep down happy she didn't have anyone.

Lex went on. "Only two weeks will pa.s.s on board the ship, but decades will pa.s.s on the planets at either end of the trip, forty-five years on the trip there, forty-five years on the trip back here."

I finished my beer and held up my gla.s.s until Carl saw it and nodded.

"I see why you need someone with no ties to here."

Lex nodded and again I resisted the urge to just kiss her. She put her hand on my hand and the soft feel of her skin sent a shock through my system.

"Are you drugging me?" I asked, looking into her blue eyes.

"No," she said, smiling. "Not my style. Just trying to do a job."

"And this attraction I'm feeling to you is part of the job?"

She pulled her hand back and shook her head, looking away. "Never happened before."

I wanted to believe her but I wasn't sure that I did.

Carl slid another beer in front of me. Again, Lex bought.

I stared at her, then decided I still needed a few more questions answered. "So, what planet were you born on?"

She smiled. "One named Small Five about two hundred light years from here. It hasn't been discovered or explored yet in this time period."

"So, how many trips have you made to this time period?"

"This is my second."

"Ninety years each?" I asked, staring at her. "How old are you?"

Lex laughed. "Actually, in real time just three years younger than you are. I'm thirty. Time pa.s.ses normally on either end. I'm still aging just like normal. But if you took my birth date on my home world, I guess you would say I'm a lot older than you."

"We'll just leave it at thirty." I took a big drink out of the beer to try to give myself time to think and also not look at her. The attraction between us seemed to be growing by the minute, at least on my side.

"It's a job," Lex said, clearly feeling she needed to explain even more. "I meet interesting people like you and I do a service. In a few years I'll retire back to my time. There are some beautiful places in the future among the Planets."

"There are beautiful places here in this time, too," I said. "Granted, I haven't seen many of them lately, but I know they're here."

"Take this job," Lex said, "live a couple of months like you've never lived before, see planets you can't even imagine exist, play ten concerts and then come back rich, with enough money to see the places you want to see and start your music career over under a new name."

"Ninety years from now."

Lex nodded.

"So why? Why me?"

Lex actually laughed at that. "Honest question. We want to hear you play concerts. That's all. The Consolidated Planets love any type of Old Earth music, and have gotten very little of the style of music you play before. That's why we're willing to offer someone of your talent so much money. Trust me, we'll make a profit on you."

"You've gotten people to go with you for less?"

"Oh, sure. One burnt-out rocker went out about two years ago with only the promise of a lifetime supply of food and drugs."

"And how did it go for him?" I asked, before it dawned on me Lex would have no way of knowing.

Lex shrugged. "He's still in transit."

"Still in his first day on the ship?"

"More than likely," Lex said. "He won't arrive for another forty-three years this time."

"Oh," I said. I was starting to catch on how it worked.

"What I told you is the limit of my knowledge about this stuff," Lex said, her voice soft and sincere sounding. "I've been totally honest with you. I just fly in the ships and hope someone somewhere knows what they are doing."

"I know that feeling," I said, smiling at her. "I'm the same d.a.m.n way with these s.p.a.ceships that flit from system to system now."

"So you understand?" Lex asked.

"Not a bit of it," I said. "But what the h.e.l.l difference does that make, right?"

"Right," Lex said. "So what do you say?"

"Give me an hour sitting here alone," I said, "and I'll give you an answer."

Lex nodded and slid off her stool. I really didn't want her to leave, but I had to be outside of her wonderful smell, those driving blue eyes, to think clearly.

A moment later, the tavern was lit with bright light as Lex went out onto the sundeck.

"The way you two were talking," Carl said, "it seemed important."

I shrugged and finished off my beer so Carl could bring me another. "She's just offering me a gig is all."

"Fantastic," Carl said, his face lighting up like someone had just given him a hundred buck tip. "It's about d.a.m.n time you got back on the horse."

"Not even sure what a horse looks like anymore," I said.

Carl laughed as he slid another beer in front of me. "Man, I heard you when you opened for Baked Pie in the Princeton System in the Baseline Theater. Trust me, you know the horse."

I stared at Carl, actually looking at him for the first time in the two years I had been coming into this place. "You were at that concert?"

"Sure was," he said. "And I saw you over on Mercer as well, when you opened for Craig S. and the Princes. I even bought a hard disk copy of your first song collection."

"Only collection," I corrected.

"First," he said, smiling at me.

"Man, I didn't even think you knew who I was."

Carl laughed. "I let people in my bar do as they want. But I can tell you I was a huge fan of yours. You were just ahead of your time is all."

"Yeah, ahead of my time playing Old Earth Country," I said, sipping my beer. It sure seemed that time was an issue a lot lately.

"No man, honest," Carl said. "Things have changed, your original songs would take off now."

"I sure hope you are right, my friend."

"Oh, I am," Carl said, smiling. "Take the gig, get back on tour. I'll miss your business, but I can buy the next collection and play it in here on busy nights."

It had always seemed that my songs, the only songs I really wanted to play, were just a little too "edgy" for most Old Earth Country fans a few years back.

"Man, this is exciting that you're getting back to playing," Carl said. "Just tell me when and where your first concert is, and I'll be there, right in the d.a.m.n front row. I know a bunch of fans who will do the same."

"Well, right now everything's a little up in the air," I said.

Carl smiled real big. "Just let me know."

With that he turned and walked down the bar, going back to his prep work for the nightly crowd, leaving me to my thoughts.

I couldn't believe how much things had changed for me in simply a day. I had an offer for a short tour that I didn't really believe, yet part of me accepted.

And I had been reminded I still had fans, few as they may be, but they were still out there, and they remembered my work.

I glanced down the bar at Carl. I doubted he had any idea how important his comments were to me. h.e.l.l, any fan's comments to any artist, in any field were important. When the money runs out, the recording contracts are cancelled; all musicians have left are fans to keep them going. Fans. They are everything.

I sipped my beer and sat there, remembering the concerts, the feel of making people happy with my music, the disappointments and setbacks on the business side, and finally, all the loneliness, hitting rock bottom yesterday when I hocked my guitar for money.

Lex had been right. I had nothing to lose by taking her offer.

I glanced down the bar. Nothing to lose except fans like Carl, who still remembered.

Carl's dream had been to own a bar. He'd told me that right after he bought the place. He was scared to death, and at the same time as happy as a little kid at Christmas. It couldn't be easy running a bar off a sundeck on an old s.p.a.ce station orbiting a star with a name no one could p.r.o.nounce, but he was doing it, making it one day at a time.

I shook my head. Man, that was admirable. Maybe Lex was right, maybe I had given up and dove into the bottle a little too soon.

And now I was getting a second chance. Granted, no one like Carl would be around to remember me in ninety years, but it was still a second chance.

Maybe my songs would be dated by then, I would be dated. Wouldn't that be ironic, a musician who was ahead of his time coming back dated?

Again, that time thing.

I glanced down the bar at Carl. I hated to lose my fans, even the few who still remained. I hated the idea of coming back and starting over and being dated then. For me, it would only be a few months, but I wouldn't recognize most of anything.

There had to be a way to get everything. I was always accused of wanting everything, and I guess this time was no different.

I started to take another drink from my beer, then looked at it and sat it back down on the bar napkin. I pushed it to the inside edge of the bar away from me and said, "Hey, Carl, could you bring me a diet soda of some kind?"

Carl looked up, the smile on his face huge. "Coming right up."