Harmony (51 page)

“I couldn’t.”

“You can. Pick it up.”

The knife nestled into my hand like an incubus taking up residence. The silky metal was eerily warm. I had to remind myself that Sam had been holding it. A knife is not a living thing.

“Work with Ule, half hour a day. He says he’ll be happy to find the time. And you and I’ll run every day, build you up slowly.”

“Sam, I can’t… carry a knife. I couldn’t…”

“Kill a man?” he finished savagely. “What if it had been me out there instead of Pen?”

“I… uh.” Sean Reilly was right to fear these people. They blew into Town like an injection of another reality, bringing their own set of rules and more violence in six weeks than I had witnessed in my entire dome-bred life. Stability just wasn’t one of their priorities.

“What if it’s you out there someday and me not around to help?”

The little knife assumed a totemic significance. The gift of a piece of Sam’s mysterious life. A sign, dare I hope, that I might be something more than a casual bed partner to him. I set it down on the sheet. It seemed to leave my hand reluctantly and my palm felt chill without it for minutes afterward.

I laid my hands on Sam to warm them. “Of course you had to save Pen’s life. The problem’s not, you know, scruples or anything. It’s just, well, it wouldn’t feel real. It would feel like
acting
.”

“Good, good. Half of life is acting.” He smiled at me oddly and his sky-colored eyes had never seemed clearer or more mysterious. “You’ve been playing those apprentice role games. You know how it’s done. So here’s your newest role, and it’s me going to prepare you for it: Gwinn Rhys, survivor.”

SECOND TECH:

I had my first session with Ule that Wednesday morning, in Cora’s parquet-floored music room, the ebony concert grand pushed into a corner, the silk bokhara rolled up against the wall.

“Inept,” said Ule, “but not slow and not clumsy. Now, take up your blade, and take it up well. A blade’s like the magic: you use it as a last resort and no messing around when you do.”

Take it up
well
? Sam watched, intent and silent on the window seat. I slid the little knife out of its sheath and folded my palm around the smooth, flesh-warm grip. It was like holding someone’s hand.

“Yes!” Ule grinned happily. “This blade tells you how to handle it. This blade’s life is strong.” He nodded to Sam. “Good choice. It likes her.”

Sam offered me his blandest smile. “He means it’s the right knife for you.”

“When it knows you better,” Ule told me confidingly, “he’ll sing you its history.”

Ule was not an easy teacher. He yelled at me when I made mistakes, mocked me when I stumbled with exhaustion. Sam never made a move to stop him. Not like learning from Micah, but at least I was smart enough to realize it was part of the training. I put up with it, to please Sam. When the lesson was done, Ule showed me where to strap on the soft leather leg sheath. He told me to wear it without the knife until I got used to having it there. I left it on under my coveralls when I went off to work, but I felt utterly foolish.

When I arrived at the theatre, the vanishing trick was in place and the tracking units installed onstage. Micah was painting furiously while Louisa ran her edited cues. Light and darkness played in fast motion across the stage.

“I’ve a few prop notes Te-Cucularit asked me to take care of,” I told Micah.

He nodded absently. “Jane isn’t with you?”

Worried at last, I instituted a search.

The corridor offstage left was stuffed with potted plants. Live ones this time. A long-suffering assistant stage manager and a very grumbly prop runner were hauling them into the Eye’s dressing rooms. I found Mark overseeing delivery of the costumes. The rolling racks were a welcome blaze of color against the cold white counters and walls.

“You got Jane with you?”

“No, haven’t seen her.” He offered a richly patterned batik for my inspection and held it up against my chest. “You look fabulous in this color, G. I should make you something after. If there is an after.” He turned away abruptly to hang the costume on the rack. “Can you believe Wardrobe is already complaining about the greenery?” His usually deft fingers fumbled with the cloth.

“Oh, Mark.” I put my arms around him. “Scared? You of all people, our fearless leader?”

He leaned his head against mine. “You ever wonder how he’s doing Out There? You ever think about
being
Out There?”

“All the time.” It wasn’t quite a lie. I didn’t used to think about it. Now I did. “They told you, didn’t they? About the Outside.”

He nodded.

“You think it’s all true?”

“Yes. But I don’t know what it means, for me, for us.” He wiped at his eyes. “I’m worried about Thursday, G. I think there’s a strong chance these good citizens’ll vote us right out of Town.”

“I’ve gone sort of numb about it.”

He smiled fondly. “Nah, you’re just steady. Really. A rock.”

“No. That’s Mali.”

We both giggled and felt a little better, until Cris came back from BardClyffe to report that nobody had seen Jane at meals and her bed didn’t look slept in. “Maybe the Admin took her.”

“Her term isn’t up for another two weeks,” I protested. “Besides, they don’t leave behind a whole roomful of your stuff.”

“Yeah,” seconded Mark faintly.

I’d seen Bela’s room after. Gone without a trace, as if he’d never been there. “We’d better tell Micah.”

* * *

“Missing for
two days
?”

I was appalled myself. “We just now put it together.”

Micah dropped his brush into water. “I’m in Howie’s office if you need me.”

Liz Godwin paged me in the shop just before noon. “Micah’s gone off and they want to test the trap. Come and play designer.”

I debated rousing Micah from the office, but I hoped he was on the phone to the Apprentice Administration. I trotted out onstage. The crew had cleaned up and broken for an early lunch. Sean straddled the spot where the hole had been, explaining the mechanism to Howie and Sam. The pliant decking material between his feet gave softly as if full of water. The trap looked more like a tear in a taut stretch of fabric than the gaping hole I knew it to be underneath. Mali and Ule stood by listening. Howie was being conciliatory. Sam was being bristly, asking questions.

Sean pushed off one foot and regained solid ground. “Watch this now.” He signaled the booth, and the rent in the fabric of the ground tightened like sheet elastic and sealed itself without visible seams. Sean stepped onto the spot where the hole had been.

Liz drooped against me in relief. “Damn thing works.”

Howie applauded. “Bravo!”

“What tells you he’s through the trap before it closes again?” Sam asked.

“Got a little beam gate in there.”

“Is there a fail-safe?”

“Sure.” Sean glanced at Liz as if to say, Who is this asshole?

“Let me,” said Ule. Sean shrugged and moved aside. Ule whirled and leaped, landing full center on the trap. It held.

“A slider moves in under after the tension’s turned off,” Sean told him lazily. “It’s rated for a ton. Don’t be worrying about the weight.”

“What should we be worrying about?” asked Sam.

“Acting,” said Sean levelly.

Liz moved between them. “Well, I’d like to know a little more, since I’m going to be presetting the thing.”

Sean was like a dog with its hackles raised. He turned his back on Sam and showed Liz the tiny pinholes ringing the trap. They formed a circle about a meter in diameter. “The reflector field is weak, but I wouldn’t want to get my ass caught in it too often.”

“How about a demonstration?” said Sam.

“No problem.” Sean draped his headset over his ear and murmured into it. “Stand back a little, eh? This part’s never been tested, but what the hell.” He stepped into the center of the circle of pinholes. He grinned at his men, winked at me, and for a moment was the jaunty old Sean again. “Good-bye cruel world!”

The field switched on with a bright hum. A dancing column of not-quite-visible force shot up around Sean’s body. His image wavered and vanished. The field shut off. The hole in the floor had not quite finished sealing. I looked up to find Micah watching from the house, looking pensive.

“Could have done that with light and flash powder,” Sam muttered disgustedly.

“But that wouldn’t be invisible,” said Howie.

“Is this?”

The trap gaped again. Sean peered up at us, hands on hips. “Well?”

“Needs a little work,” said Howie. “It’s noisy, you know?”

“It’s not worth it,” said Sam.

“Well, now,” countered Howie, “I can see the potential.”

Sam eyed the hole stubbornly. “What do you think, Mal? You’re the one who’s got to ride it.”

“I think we give it a try, bro.”

“Damn straight.” Sean stood aside for him. “Right over here.”

Mali shook his head. “I’d rather run it in rehearsal.”

Sean shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Howie let out the breath he’d been holding. Liz clapped her hands. “All right, everybody. This is your fifteen-minute call for Act One.”

I joined Micah in the house. “Looks like it’ll work. Any word on Jane?”

“They’re looking into it.”

* * *

When the light came up on the set that afternoon, Micah sat up energized. “Ah, Louisa, marry me. You’ve done it again.”

Lou nodded from her console. “It’s going to work, Mi. At least our part of it.”

The light fell into the space like mist. It touched life into the sculptured contours like an Impressionist’s paintbrush. Metal, plastic, and wood breathed in the darkness, coiling out of the shadowed corners, steaming in the green jungle air.

I caught my breath and shivered. This was Micah’s magic.

“Looking good, Mi!” Howie strode down the aisle from the lobby, Kim Levin hot at his heels. He bent to Louisa’s ear. “Make it brilliant, darlin’. We’ve got visitors.”

Across the house, Cam Brigham bulked into an aisle seat with an audible grunt. Rachel Lamb and Reede Chamberlaine followed with an entourage of secretaries and assistants. Rachel looked nervous. Chamberlaine looked like polished steel.

Micah shook his head.

“He wasn’t supposed to be back ‘til opening night,” I whispered.

“Come to check on his investment. Somebody’s been telling tales.”

“Oh, Reede,” scoffed Louisa. “He ought to be outlawed. Always putting these high-toned projects together, then bitching when they turn out to cost him some small percentage of his profit. I’d sworn never to work for him again, but you talked me into it.”

Micah sniffed. “I heard he sent a star package on the road in black velours last year because he wouldn’t pay overtime to get the set built.”

Through the headset waiting on my shoulder, I heard Liz calling places. I put it on, to be in touch with the prop and automation crews in case of a cuing screwup.

Lou hooked the slim curl of her own wire over one ear. “Well, here we go. Remember that old vid, Mi?” She let her voice get husky as the houselights faded, drawling, “ ‘Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.’ ”

A breeze whispered through the darkened theatre, the scent of salt and damp undergrowth. Micah had been unable to resist these very simplest of effects. The first sound swam up through the blackness like a dream melody: the trill of No-Mulelatu’s pipes, followed by an earthy rumble of drums. Light glowed on a seated figure house left, Moussa on his “hill.” He wore only a loincloth. His oiled skin caught the light like a prism. Elevated on his narrow promontory, he loomed like a giant out of myth, a jungle god.

“Clever Micah,” Louisa murmured.

Downstage center, light burst around Te-Cucularit in full-body paint. Micah sighed and sat forward in his seat.

Cu was zebra-striped in red and yellow. As he moved through the light, his darker skin became the negative space. The vibrant stripes seemed to turn in the air disembodied. He brandished a bright, plume-tipped Puleale in either hand. Floor-length orange feathers trailed from a headdress of brilliant red. With a thrill I recognized Moussa’s totem. Akeua the bird of power stalked the stage of the Arkadie.

With a soft explosion of wing sound, a cloud of tiny shadows fled across the stage, vanishing in the darkness overhead.

“What was that?” Micah demanded. “Was that one of yours, Lou?”

I squeaked with awe and delight. Over the headset I heard Sam’s background murmur: “That oughta wake ’em up out there.”

* * *

The show moved along well for a while, through the magical opening music-and-dance ritual at the secret shrine of the Ancestors and through the introductory scenes in the village, the clansman and his wife worrying over the harvest, the clandestine meeting of the young lovers and the visit of the planter to announce the clearing of new fields. Neither Mali nor Omea was in costume, though Omea had worn an appropriate blouse and skirt-wrap from her own wardrobe. Mali slouched around in black sweats, which combined with his own darkness to render him nearly invisible. He was a disembodied voice floating within the deep earthy colors of the set. Lou made rapid adjustments at her console. A moment later, we could see his face.

Marie hurried over. “Don’t worry, what he’s really wearing is this kind of washed-out gray shirt with a little stripe and mossy green work shorts. They wouldn’t give me the dyers until this morning, but we’ll have it by tonight. Omea’s in dirty pink with a little lemon and his same green.”

Lou nodded. “What about whatsisname, the one with the tricks?” Whenever Sam came on, his shiny-new khakis practically blinded you.

“Oh I know, it’s awful! He looks like a tourist in the Serengeti Safari Dome! I’ve scheduled him for tomorrow.” Marie shoved her billowy sleeves up to her elbows. “Maybe I’ll do it over dinner break.”

Their whispered chatter broke off as the first of the tracking units glided onstage.

It was the public bar unit, a raunchy, broken-down hovel crammed in the most naturalistic way with the sort of dressing Hickey normally threw into the recycler. It came in smoothly, quietly, and on cue. I heaped approval on Automation over my headset as the unit breathed to a clean halt just as Ule and Cu arrived at the door. Cu, out of body paint, looking… mortal again. But the bar’s perfect entrance was the only thing right about it. Once it stopped moving, it sat there like a lump, a fussy, literal-minded intruder in an alien landscape. Beside me, Micah groaned softly.