Azami answered the knock at Rhin’s door. 23 greeted her cheerily, "Ready to go?" Azami looked over her shoulder, "Well..."

Rhin didn’t look up, "No." She plucked out a tune on her lap harp, then jolted some more notes on the paper in front of her. "Go on without me."

"Rhin..." Azami was exasperated with her friend, but 70 years of friendship had told her when not to press. She rolled her eyes and turned back to the others, "We’re going without her."

Tamlynn glanced into the room and saw the disorder. "Aye yi -- what a mess."

"Don’t even ask," Azami muttered, walking by Tamlynn and out into the corridor.

Rhin looked up, "Oh, Tamlynn. Can I get into your house to use the synth and the digital processor?"

"Sure." It was a common enough request that Tam didn’t think twice. "As long as you’re there, though..." An apprehensive look came over Rhin’s face, but Tam didn’t notice it. "... can you make Jacine eat something? I left her frantically scribbling notes, and when I tried to remind her, she just waved a hand at me. She’s been up the whole bloody night." Tamlynn’s voice had the combination of exasperation, tolerance, and affection, that the Gang normally used when speaking of Jacine.

Azami started laughing. It was not only a perfect description of typical Jacine, but also of what Rhin had been like just ten minutes before the Gang got there as Azami had at least tried to get her to eat some toast for breakfast, and the tone of voice expressed Azami’s sentiments exactly. Two of a kind.

"Jacine’s here?" Michael asked, not terribly surprised and sounding rather amused.

"Yes, she needed to get some things here that she couldn’t get in Austria, and she got caught up..." Tamlynn shrugged. "She was only suppose to be here for a couple hours, that’s why I didn’t mention it last night when you called."

"But..." He paused with dramatic effect.

"Yes," Tam grimaced, but laughed at the same time, "‘but...’."

"OUT!!" The shout was perfectly controlled, with trained diaphragm muscles and projected voice. Rhin wanted to get back to work, and the group was distracting her.

Tamlynn grinned and shut the door. "Water time, people."

Absorbed in the music, Rhin played Tamlynn’s synthasizer with her eyes shut. The chords were flowing. The main theme repeated on the right hand, augmented by the sweepings of the left. She switched and went back to the beginning, trying a slightly different variation of the cording. I like that one better. She took her hands off the keyboard and reached out to the digital processor, which had been recording the music as she played it. She picked out the last three measures and highlighted them. That’s for the flute sections, now for the bass. Altering the controls on the synth, she tried a few notes and found the right trombone. She started again with the background working on keeping the music individual, yet not overwhelming for the whole. After she’d worked out the rough, she mixed the music she had so far, and listened to ten minutes of a partial orchestra. It was coming out mostly how she’d planned. She wanted the harps to have the dominate placement in the concerto, but the backup had to stand out on its own as well. She programmed in the drums using the processor and written music -- she didn’t have quite as good a technique for them. Again, she listened to the whole. It sounded okay, and she let it keep playing until the end, thinking of placements and tunes for the other wind and string instruments. The flutes and harps had prominance, which is why she worked on them first, but clarinets and violas would make a good backing... The cello needs to extend that theme out in the fourth movement. Scribbling notes frantically, by the last few notes played Rhin was starting to realize how tired she was. She looked at her notes and thought about all she had to do still on the piece. She reached for her water glass and realized she’d drunk it all ages ago. Rhin looked at the notes, licked dry lips, and shrugged -- definitely time for a break. She stood up and stretched, her shoulders, back, and neck all crackling from tenseness. And I tease Michael about his shoulders making noises -- mine are a symphony in themselves! Laughing at herself, Rhin shook her hands to get the cinks out. Heading to the kitchen, something didn’t quite seem right, and she paused and looked back at the room where she’d been playing.

Jacine grinned at her from where she was curled in a beanbag, a cat in her lap, looking very relaxed. "I like it."

"How long have you been there?" Rhin hadn’t even noticed her come in.

"A couple of hours." Jacine stretched as well, but made no move to get up. "I heard the music and came down." The cat jumped off and wandered out of the room.

Rhin had observed in the past that music was one of the few things that would draw Jacine out. No matter how deeply involved in a project, if Jacine heard music being played, she would come and settle nearby. It was always an unobtrusive watch, and Rhin was rarely disconcerted by Jacine listening, as she could be by others. Jacine would listen so hard to the music that Rhin felt only a conduit and not a recipient of the attention -- which was how Rhin felt about her playing. She was a instrument of the music that would make itself known through her, just as she used the instruments of metal and wood to express it.

"I was going to get something to drink." Rhin looked at the chrono, "Actually, it’s lunch time. Actually, it’s past lunch time. Now that I think of it, I think I was instructed this morning to try and get you to eat something."

Jacine laughed, and slowly straightened out of the beanbag. She put a lot of weight on the cane as she was trying to get up, and Rhin moved over to offer a hand.

"Thanks. I’m a bit stiff."

"And weak from no food?"

Jacine chuckled for a reply, but didn’t deny it.

They ate in companionable silence, each devouring their respective sandwich with the realization that they really were hungry.

Jacine finished the last bite, and licked peanut butter and honey off her fingers, regarding Rhin with a speculative look.

Rhin watched Jacine over the top of her ham sandwich. She put it down and drank her root beer. After swallowing, she asked, "Yes?"

"You might actually be just the person I wanted to see." Jacine grinned, then picked up a celery stick. Rhin followed her example and took a carrot.

"Yes?" Rhin asked again, prompting for the next info.

"Where’s the Music Consortium?"

Rhin blinked. She hadn’t expected that question. "It’s in a building a few blocks from the North Pyramid. But what on earth do you need with a recording studio?"

"Oh good. You do know it. Craig didn’t leave any instructions on how to get there," Jacine explained, sort-of. "I could have looked it up, but since you’re here..." Jacine trailed off.

A carrot tapping on the table was indicative of Rhin’s patient annoyance with the rambling, and the fact that her own question had not yet been answered.

Jacine grinned in apology, "I had a message from Craig to meet him there this afternoon."

"But I thought they were at the beach today?" Rhin was sure that’s what they had planned. And the gang this morning had been dressed in shorts and tanktops...

With a laugh, Jacine explained, "Different Craig. There’re too many of them running around."

Rhin’s eyes widened, "Another brother?"

"No!" Jacine paused, "At least I don’t think so." She munched the celery thoughtfully, "Come to think of it, I really don’t know."

"You don’t know?" Rhin regarded her friend with amusement, "How could you possibly not know? They all look alike."

"I’ve never seen him. We communicate via the Net."

"So?" Most people used pictures/anime characters of themselves when transmitting messages.

Grinning, Jacine pushed back her chair, "I think I’ll show you his last message -- You’ll like it!" She grabbed another celery as she moved away from the table.

They headed downstairs to the computer room, pausing to pet a few cats on their way. Jacine sat down comfortably at the Internet station and pulled up her messages. Selecting one, she activated it, and leaned back to watch Rhin.

Rhin watched the screen, amused and delighted. Jacine had been right -- Rhin liked the person who had designed this wonder of music and art.

The background was a swirl of colors and pictures, one fading into the next. The sound system resonated with single notes and chords in synchrony with the rhythms and patterns of spoken speech, yet not constrained by the same. Across the bottom of the screen scrolled the actual message, a little bouncing ball keeping time with the music and the words. Drawn down the left side was a line that vibrated and wobbled. After watching it for a few seconds, Rhin realized that it represented the pitch of the instruments/speech -- a la Fantasia.

The message started off with a background mix of cheerful, soothing colors of blue, green and plum. The instruments were flute and oboe. The message itself read: ‘Hi Jacine! I send you greetings and salutations! :) How’s Scarface? Not grown tired of your frontier town yet, have you? :) Unfortunately, I also have some business to talk over with you.’

With the advent of the word ‘greetings’, a picture of flowers and balloons came into view, fading out to be replaced by a picture of a green tree boa just in time for ‘Scarface’, and then a shot from an old classic movie of a ‘frontier town’ living on the edge of wildness and disaster.

The music moved to flute alone with ‘greetings’, then back to the mix of flute and oboe, with a classic Italian Western beat accompanying the ‘frontier town’. On the second sentence, the colors deepened and slowed until they were a rhythmic pulsing swirl of deep blue and purple. The oboe carried the tune by itself.

‘I hate to cause you any pain, but we’re coming up on ten years, and I’d like to do something special for a memorial. Over the last decade, Wes has built up quite a dedicated following. As you know well, with your consent, I’ve already released most of the music he had archived but not published. For the upcoming album, I’d like to include some of the unfinished pieces. I’ve been working on them, and I think I’ve stayed in his style and intent, but I would like you to listen and tell me your opinion -- of both the songs and the idea. Enclosed are two of them. And if you have the time and opportunity, next Saturday starting around 2pm I’ll be at the Music Consortium (in Island City) with some of the others who used to jam with Wes. We’d like you to be there. Please?’ The music and pictures changed continuously, flowing with, and emphazing, the mood and ideas.

The message went on to less serious matters, the music and colors lightening and more pictures and showy themes in the imagry, and then it ended with a smile.

Rhin sat down next to Jacine. "Can I see that again?" She was awed by the avant-garde of music, rhythm, and visual artwork of the message. "He does this every time?"

Jacine started it over. "Just about. When he’s in a hurry, it shows -- the visuals are just a mismash of randomized colors, but the music almost always stays nifty -- he’s got a few standardized themes, like for Scarface, but he loves to experiment with different sounds. I tried it once in reply -- I love the concept -- but it took me hours and hours to work it out and it came out nowhere as nifty as his. I just enjoy his now." A sad expression flitted by, "It’s something Wes would have loved... Actually, I wonder if it was his idea in the first place." Jacine grinned, "It’s something he would have done."

Looking from the screen to her friend, Rhin frowned for a moment, thinking. The siblings didn’t talk much about Wes -- just as she and Azami rarely talked about Billy. Though well-loved and still-loved, they were in the past now. Softly she spoke, "I didn’t know Wes was a musician."

"Oh." Jacine looked around and saw the sympathy on Rhin’s face. Shrugging very slightly in response to it, she replied to the implied question. "He didn’t publish under his name, of course. Sort-of." She grinned once more at memories, "‘The Western Terror.’ It actually referred more to O-Storms and his childhood, but he liked the ambiguity."

"Oh," Rhin breathed softly, "‘Silences.’" The music was haunting, branded into her memory the first time she’d heard it fifteen years ago. The pain and desperation in the song without words had touched her deeply, though she tried hard to believe in the undercurrent of hope carried by the soft guitar under the more moving and deeper-felt violins. To this day, she cried when she heard it. Now she finally knew why.

Jacine was nodding, "Yes. That was one of his first. He wrote it while still in Minnesota, before he’d been taught... uh, retaught, language." Her face lit up happily at more memories, "Before he met us."

Rhin’s own lips twitched, as she recalled more of the music, "Then, ‘My Belle’..." She left it unfinished, but Jacine took her up on it.

"...Was written for me." Her smile was proud and fond, with the added touch of love remembered vividly.

Slightly envious, Rhin recalled the song, full of a love and devotion that any woman would desire. I have never had somebody love me so much, so perfectly... She had a number of friends, and loved them as friends, but no one that she’d given her heart to. Billy and Tethys were always my image of perfect love -- and it seems that Jacine had hers in Wes. Does every perfect love have to end in tragedy? And if it does, do I really want it? Rhin remembered Tethys’ pain, and her joy, and decided that, yes, she still wanted that sort of a love.

She watched the message again, and yet a fourth time before she thought of another question. "If this Craig and Wes were such good friends, how come you’ve never met him?"

Jacine had wandered off and was idly fixing Tamlyn’s desk lamp -- the screw on the rotation base was stuck. She looked up, "Craig lives in Minnesota. Wes had to go back fairly often for tests and they’d get together then. I never went." Her face clouded over briefly, but with an obvious effort she yanked herself off a tangent. She switched to a different tangent, "Craig was out of contact when Wes was dying, or he’d’ve been there for sure. After, he tried to get ahold of me several times, but there was always something... This is the one-hundred-fifty-first time he’s invited me to get together with him."

Rhin stared, "Goodness." Jacine’s expression was remote and Rhin suspected that she was going over all the reasons behind the refusals to the one-hundred-fifty other invitations. Rhin rubbed her hands together and stood up, "I think such persistance deserves a reward at last." Looking at the crono, she estimated times, "They’ll all be there by now, but it sounded rather open-ended."

Jas grinned, "Craig will be so surprised that I’m there, I don’t really think it’ll matter." She grabbed her cane and rested on it, "Any bets?"

"Bets?"

"If he’s a Craig-Series." Jacine winked at Rhin, "For mischeviousness’ sake, I’ll bet against."

"42 Craigs out there part of the Series... Probably over 300 whose parents just liked the name... I like the odds." Rhin laughed, "You’re on. And I want ice cream at the Eskimo Bar."

"Humm. Okay -- I want tickets to your new concerto."

"Assuming I can find an orchastra to play it." Rhin was joking -- she guested in several postions and had enough connections that if she herself was satisfied with the music, she’d get it played. The synth just didn’t compare to hearing it played with a full orchastra with all the individual talents and players combining to physically feel the music beating through her body. "That was never in doubt." She hadn’t written a new concerto since she’d met Jacine until now, but she would have given her tickets anyway. Though it did make for an easy bet.

"Okay, then. The rehersals."

"Done." It would be harder, but Rhin could arrange it. They shook on the bet, and headed out towards the North Pyramid.

As they walked in the door to the Music Consortium, several people in the lobby saw them come in and instantly greeted Rhin. Jacine looked around, amused -- she might be taller than Rhin by a foot, but in this place, Rhin seemed to overshadow all others in her radius.

"Yep -- you were the right person to ask," Jacine whispered to Rhin as they passed by and Rhin greeted her various friends. Rhin acknowledged it with a grin as they walked to the main desk. "Hi, Joe."

The person behind the counter smoothed out his moustace, "Rhin -- if I’d known you were coming... I can let you have booth 16, but it’s really not set up for harp accostics... Your normal booth 5 is rented for --"

Rhin held up a hand, laughing, "I’m not here to record, Joe. Yet. Actually, if you could tell us where Craig..." Rhin trailed off, realizing that she didn’t know his last name.

Jacine inserted, "...Albinoni."

Joe pulled the end of his moustace, "They’re on a limited access pass over in set 39. I don’t know..."

"I should be down on the visit list -- Jacine Mendi."

"Oh yes," he highlighted something on his computer screen, "go on up. Nice to see you Rhin -- come back soon and release a new album!!"

Rhin replied abstractly as they headed to the elevators, and she was quiet as they were going up. Jacine at first simply regarded her with amusement, then finally asked, "What’s wrong?"

"Nothing’s wrong... Did you say ‘Albinoni’?"

"Yes -- Craig Albinoni. Do you know him?"

"Know him?" Rhin studied her reflection in the mirrors of the elevator, then headed through them as the doors opened on their floor. "No -- but I love his music. I thought there was something familier about those oboe sections on his e-mail... Huh. I never thought..."

Jacine paused outside of a door labeled "39". "What’s the procedure on going in to a sound studio?"

Rhin pushed open the door, "We can just go in on the first door -- the sound proofing is beyond--" She broke off as the people in the room looked at them.

"Wrong room, Rhin -- acoustics is on level 4." "Very funny, Tiger."

"Jacine?" One person approached Jacine in disbelief.

"Hunter." Jacine allowed herself to be hugged. "It’s good to see you again."

Rhin noticed a certain tightness around Jacine’s eyes, but other than that, she showed no signs of distress. Two others immediately grouped around her. The other three people apparently recognized Jacine’s name, but not the person. Rhin herself knew most of them as members of the local record producers, technical experts and media. ‘The Western Terror’ was still worth attention in the sound world. She peered through the window at the mixing booth. The performance room was beyond it. In the mixing booth, Plato saw her and waved, then turned back to his boards.

Tiger was watching the group around Jacine, and he asked Rhin with puzzlement evident in his voice, "You know Jacine?"

She nodded, "Her brother is in my HazLib Unit."

Tiger’s eyes widened, "You’re in HazLib?!?"

Rhin couldn’t help but laugh, she’d forgotten her music world was generally separate from the RCF. She herself combined them so in her life, it was hard to remember what others didn’t know.

Then 23 walked through the door. As soon as she thought that, Rhin knew she was wrong. The differences weren’t as obvious as with 13 or 8 -- in appearance he was much as she was used to seeing 23. The same chestnut-brown hair brushed back in a wave, though longer; the skin just as smooth and silky, albit moderately suntanned; the same hazel eyes, but more intense, focused, gazing at her with an unfamiliar expression. Rhin was lost in those eyes but was jolted back to herself as Jacine came up beside her, remarking, "Damn, lost that bet."

The elegant eyebrows lifted, "Bet?"

Rhin didn’t take her own gaze off 23’s brother, but she heard the grin in Jacine’s reply, "Rhin and I were betting as to whether or not you were a--" Jacine cut herself off, unusual enough that Rhin turned to look at her friend. Jacine was studying Craig, and then laughed ruefully and finished, "whether we knew any of your brothers."

"Oh." Craig sounded extremely disgruntled and not a little worried, "Which ones?"