The Best of All Possible Worlds (18 page)

She walked away, leaving me stunned and not a little fearful of what the morrow might
bring.

RIDI, PAGLIACCIO

“
T
raining with Nasiha
going well?” asked Qeturah absently, tapping out a report with a practiced staccato
rhythm.

We were working in a place called Crue, a midsize town that straddled a few key trade
routes. The population was large but constantly changing: merchants, tourists in transit
to more interesting places, and of course our fellow civil servants keeping the wheels
of government moving smoothly (or, to quote Gilda at her most cynical, keeping the
speed bumps of government before the greased wheels of commerce). It had little to
offer in terms of taSadiri culture, but we were there for a teleconference of a more
agreeable kind. The midpoint of the mission schedule was approaching, and the media
wanted to give us a little attention. Qeturah and Dllenahkh had been interviewed,
and the rest of the team got a piece of the spotlight as well. It was also a good
time to catch up on paperwork and reports in actual offices with full-size desks,
courtesy of the local branch of Central Government.

“Quite well,” I replied, not hiding my pleased surprise. “She’s almost patient with
me, but not too much. Keeps me sharp, y’know?”

“Those early mornings alone would keep you sharp,” she said drily.

Of course Nasiha would not sacrifice her own meditation time for me, so I had the
dubious honor of rising even earlier than the average Sadiri for my training. “Well,
she’d better let me off just this once, because tonight’ll be a late one.”

We were going out on the town. I’d discovered that both Dllenahkh and Joral had managed
to duck Gilda’s cultural tours, and Qeturah thought we needed a little change of pace.
She, Nasiha, and Fergus opted for something contemporary in the form of a holovid
at the local cineplex, and the rest of us were going to risk a stage production by
a touring company. It was certainly rustic, right down to the paper playbill and glossy
poster tacked up outside the theater.

“
The End of the Laughter
. I recognize this one,” said Joral. “Is this the adaptation of
Enough
, the taSadiri tale of a man who kills his unfaithful wife and her lover?”

“No,” said Tarik, shaking his head firmly. “You have made a common error. In
this
one, he kills the man that he mistakenly thinks is her lover while her real lover
gets away. This is an adaptation of the Ainya play
Deception
, not
Enough
.”

“Okay, not meaning to muddy the waters,” I said, “but I’m fairly certain that what
we have here is a version of
Otello
, one of the old Terran standards. Kills his not-unfaithful wife on the say-so of
a man who was out to get him.”

Lian approached the poster more closely and read the fine print at the bottom out
loud. “Based on the Italian opera
Pagliacci
.”

We crowded around the poster. “Who dies?” asked Tarik with interest. “And was the
infidelity real or alleged?”

“Is there some other production we might attend which does
not
illustrate that dysfunctional pair bonding is endemic in most cultures?” asked Dllenahkh
with heavy disapproval.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Everyone’s a critic. Come on. Let’s go in.”

Lian was already making for the foyer, and I began to follow when I sensed something
strange in the atmosphere. Turning back, I saw that the Sadiri had paused, almost
in midstride, and were watching a pretty girl with tumbling black curls dashing toward
a side alley, presumably on her way to the back entrance of the theater. She held
a coat and a handbag tightly in one hand and a pair of shoes in the other, as if she
had grabbed them while running out the door and hadn’t had time to pull herself together.
It might have been better if she had, for she was wearing one of the skimpiest dresses
I have ever seen. Her legs were pretty much uncovered, and I have
no
idea how she managed to run so fast with so little support for her upper assets.
All the skin on view, and there was plenty, radiated a muted shimmer. I’ve seen some
women try to imitate that look with silicon- and mica-rich lotions, hoping to be taken
for a Zhinuvian woman with flexible limbs and even more flexible morals. It never
looks the same.

Heads everywhere were turning, not just the Sadiri ones. There was a small collective
sigh when she disappeared from view. I stared at my colleagues in amazement.

“You—all of you—you were looking that girl up and down!” I didn’t know whether to
be appalled or hugely entertained.

“First Officer Delarua,” Joral said in a tone so severe that he almost sounded like
Dllenahkh in chastising mode, “while it is true that we are Sadiri and therefore not
prone to mental distractions, we are more than capable of aesthetic appreciation of
the feminine human form.”

I had no answer to that, so I rounded on Tarik. “Well, then, you—you’re married!”

“I am allowed to look,” he said uncertainly.

“I’d confirm that with Nasiha if I were you,” I said skeptically.

Dllenahkh’s voice was utterly composed. “There is no need to
be concerned, Delarua. Sadiri possess far too much mental control to be susceptible
to the mesmeric influence of Zhinuvians.”

“Oh, and that makes it better, does it?” I said. I was
this
close to wagging a finger and calling them naughty boys, so I made myself back off.
I went and whispered to Lian instead, and we broke down in quiet tears of laughter
at the concept of horny Sadiri.

Our seats were midhouse near the central aisle—decent enough for what we were seeing
and hearing. It was of a style referred to as neo-opera. It combined an absence of
technological enhancement with a blend of contemporary styles of music, which meant
that the performers had to be both vocally powerful and versatile. I wish I had time
to tell you about the whole neo-opera movement and how it relates to the
rustica
backlash against audio smoothing and augmentation in musical performance and
realissimo
effects in holovidding. I will say that there is a simplicity in the staging. Not
minimalist—that’s another style—but a simplicity that pretends at amateurism but most
definitely isn’t.

I wasn’t the least surprised to find that the mysterious golden girl was the leading
lady, Nedda. Only a diva could risk turning up that late and not expect to be fired.
I
was
surprised at the modesty of her costume, covering to neck and ankle and wrist. She
was good, perhaps a little weak in the singing but with a presence and expressiveness
that made up for it. Her husband, Canio, was played by a tall, dark, brooding type
who seemed destined to go the Othello route, because this girl was just too popular.
In addition to having a lover, Silvio, she had also attracted the attentions—unwanted,
alas—of Taddeo. Silvio was unexpectedly weedy and scholarly, but Taddeo was boyish
and sweetly besotted, offering a kind of comic foil to the unrelenting and obsessive
passion of the two older men.

The performers were not Terran method actors. Method actors call up a strange mask
of remembered emotion and fit it to
the situation on stage. You can feel the reality of it, but something jars a tiny
bit if you know what to look for. These ones were of the Ntshune verisimilitude school,
which is very similar but can only be mastered by those with a touch of empathic ability.
Basically, the actors draw on one another’s feelings, and sometimes one great actor
is all that is needed to provoke the right emotions and reactions from the rest of
the company.

I’m mentioning this to give a reason for what I was doing. I was reading the actors.

Sadiri ethics on telepathy do
not
match Ntshune ethics on empathy. To the Sadiri, thoughts may be shared but are still
considered private for the most part, and emotions are definitely private and must
be shielded against as much as possible. Most Ntshune are comfortable reading anyone’s
emotions. It’s part of how we communicate. We wouldn’t pry for feelings that aren’t
intended for us, but projected emotions are fair game. A lot of Ntshune-influenced
Cygnian cultures have internalized this distinction.

So when I turned and whispered excitedly to Dllenahkh that I was picking up real jealousy
from one of the actors on stage, he gave me a look that made me feel like Joral on
the receiving end of a lecture on Sadiri comportment. I was confused.

During the intermission, he pulled me aside and asked sternly, “What has Nasiha been
teaching you?”

I gave him a very old-fashioned look. “What I did in there has nothing to do with
what Nasiha is teaching me. I was simply reading the actors, as I always do.”

He didn’t back down. “The training you are receiving will improve and focus your empathic
abilities, making casual use particularly unethical at this stage. I thought that
you of all people would appreciate this.”

“Dllenahkh! They’re actors! I’m not digging for state secrets; I’m trying to enjoy
the play at another level! Now, lighten up,
please. People are looking at us strangely. I don’t think they’ve ever seen a Sadiri
arguing before.”

He exhaled slowly. “I am not arguing.”

I had only been teasing him, but there was a tiny bit of stress on the word “not,”
and for a moment he closed his eyes a fraction longer than a blink. “Of course you
aren’t,” I said quietly, suddenly repentant. “I won’t do it again if it bothers you,
okay?”

During the second act, I found myself distracted by Dllenahkh’s unusual moodiness.
He sat beside me, his attention entirely on the stage, but there was a set to his
features that spoke of endurance rather than enjoyment. I began to feel guilty, but
then when I glanced at Joral and Tarik, they appeared absorbed and interested. Not
just a general Sadiri thing, then.

Then I saw it. It wasn’t empathy—it was clearly visible on the man’s face. Canio looked
across at Nedda, and his eyes spoke murder.

I grasped Dllenahkh’s arm. “Tell me you didn’t see that.”

“Grace,” he remonstrated, firmly removing my hand.

I did something then that was definitely unethical. In that rare moment of skin-to-skin
contact between our hands, I reached out to read Canio. An ugly wave of jealousy and
hatred came from Canio, washing over us like fouled water. Dllenahkh’s hand convulsed
on mine, for a moment gripping so tightly that it hurt, then fell away quickly.

“How did you do that?” He sounded more stunned than disapproving this time.

“Shhh! Listen!” I whispered frantically. It wasn’t the right word perhaps, but he
understood, because slowly, almost unwillingly, he put his arm along the back of my
seat and rested his palm discreetly against my temple.

I concentrated on the scene before me. It was a moment of high drama when Canio is
acting the part of Pagliaccio and becomes
so overwhelmed with jealousy and passion that he forgets he is on stage and pressures
Nedda to tell him the name of her lover. When he picked up a knife, I shivered; when
he chased her off the ministage, caught her, and stabbed her in the belly, I jumped
and turned away. I wasn’t the only one in the audience who did so, but I was probably
the only one whose disbelief hadn’t been suspended. Dllenahkh broke contact with my
temple and gripped my shoulder reassuringly.

Silvio was the next to be stabbed, but there was no emotion behind that one, only
the actor’s facade, the leftover grimace of pain and disgust from the earlier attack.
I shivered again.

“I have to get out of here,” I muttered. I stood up and left just as the last notes
of the final song were ringing out.

Lian was the first to come to me as I paced up and down in the foyer. “What was that
about? You looked like you were going to be sick. Are you okay?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” I paced some more, biting my nails. “I don’t know what happened
in there.”

“Well, whatever it was, you’ve made Joral, Tarik, and Dllenahkh go into deep discussion.”

I stopped, suddenly self-conscious. “Really? What are they saying?”

“Sadiri’s not my thing, remember?” Lian remarked. “Here they are. Just ask them.”

They looked horribly serious, more serious than even a Sadiri had any right to look.
I cowered instantly, anticipating criticism. “I’m sorry—”

“Apologies are not necessary,” said Tarik. “We wish to know more about your experience
of what happened during the performance.”

Dllenahkh looked around the foyer, now filling with people on their way out. “But
not here. Let us return to our lodgings.”

Qeturah was already asleep when we got back, but after Tarik brought Nasiha into the
sitting room of our hotel, Lian frowned, shrugged, and went to get Fergus, so there
was almost a full house for the meeting.

Dllenahkh spoke immediately to Nasiha, not even waiting for her to be seated. “Your
pupil did something unusual tonight.”