The Mammoth Book of Best Short SF Novels

by Gardner R. Dozois

  But he had heard her name, he realized. “Oh, that dramaturge,” he said, faintly remembering a long-ago message.

  “The dramaturge who has a wonderful part for you,” she confirmed, “if you have intelligence enough to accept it.” She patted his head in a friendly way, and stood up.

  “If you want me for a part, you should talk to my agent,” he called after her.

  “Oh, I did that, Rafiel. She threw me out.” Hillaree was rummaging through the heap of her discarded clothing on the bedside chair. She emerged with a lapcase, which she carried back to the bed. “I admit this isn’t going to be a big show,” she told him, squatting crosslegged on his bed as she opened the screen from the case. “I’m not Mosay. I don’t do spectacoli. But people are traveling out to the stars, Rafiel. The newest one is a habitat called Hakluyt. The whole population has voted to convert their habitat into an interstellar space vehicle—”

  “I know about that!” he snapped, more or less truthfully. “Habitat people have done that before – last year, wasn’t it? Or a couple of years ago? I think one was going to Alpha Centauri or somewhere.”

  “You see? You don’t even remember. No one else does, either, and yet it’s a grand, heroic story! These people are doing something hard and dangerous. No, Rafiel,” she finished, wagging her pretty head, “it’s the greatest story of our time and it needs to be told dramatically, so people will comprehend it. And I’m the one to tell it, and you’re the one to play it. Oh, it won’t be like a Mosay production, I’ll give you that. But you’ll never again see anything as right for you as the part of the captain of the kosmojet Hakluyt.”

  “I don’t know anything about kosmojets, do I? Anyway, I can’t. Mosay already had one cacafuega attack when he heard a rumor about it.”

  “Fichtig Mosay. He and I don’t do the same kind of thing. This one will be intimate, and personal. Pas music, pas dancing, pas songs. It will be a whole new departure for your career.”

  “But a song-and-dance man is what I am!”

  She sniffed at him. “You’re a short-timer, Rafiel. You’re going to get old. Listen to me. This is where you need to go. I’ve watched you. I’m willing to bet my reputation—”

  “Your reputation!”

  She ignored the interruption. “—that you’re just as good an actor as you are a dancer and singer . . . and, just to make you understand what’s involved here, you can have five points on the gross receipts, which you know you’ll jamais get from Mosay.”

  “Five per cent of not very much is still very little,” Rafiel said at once, grinning at her to show that he meant no hard feelings.

  She nodded as though she had expected that. She opened her bag and fingered the keypad for her screen. “May I?” she said perfunctorily, not waiting for an answer. A scroll of legal papers began to roll up the screen. “This is the deal for the first broadcast,” she said. “That’s twenty million dollars from right here on Earth, plus another twenty million for the first-run remotes. Syndication: that’s a contract with a guarantee of another forty million over a ten-year period. And all that’s minimum, Rafiel; I’d bet anything that it’ll double that. And there are the contracts for the sub rights – the merchandising, the music. Add it all up, and you’ll see that the guarantee comes pretty close to a hundred million dollars. What’s five per cent of that, Rafiel?”

  The question was rhetorical. She wasn’t waiting for an answer. She was already scrolling to the next display, not giving Rafiel a chance to order her out of his condo. “Lá!” she said, “Voici!”

  What they were looking at on the screen was a habitat. It was not an impressive object to the casual view. As in all pictures from space, there was no good indication of size, and the thing might have been a beverage can, floating in orbit.

  “There’s where our story is,” she said. “What you see there is habitat Hakluyt. It starts with a population of twenty thousand people, with room to expand to five times that. It’s a whole small town, Rafiel. The kind of town they used to have in the old days before the arcologics, you know? A place with everybody knowing everybody else; interacting, loving, hating, dreaming – and totally cut off from everyone else. It’s a microcosm of humanity, right there on Hakluyt, and we’re going to tell its story.”

  Although Rafiel was looking at the woman’s pictures, he didn’t think them very interesting. As far as Rafiel could tell, Hakluyt was a perfectly ordinary habitat, a stubby cylinder with the ribs for the pion tracks circling its outer shell. What he could tell wasn’t actually very much. He hadn’t spent much time on habitats, only one two-week visit, once, with – with . . . ? No, he had long since forgotten the name of the companion of that trip, and indeed everything about the trip itself except that habitats were not particularly luxurious places to spend one’s time.

  “How much spin does this thing have?” he asked, out of technical curiosity. “I’m not used to dancing in light-G.”

  “When it’s en route pas spin at all. The gravity effect will be along the line of thrust. But you’re forgetting, Rafiel,” she chided him. “There won’t be any dancing anyway. That’s why this is such a breakthrough for you. This is a dramatic story, and you’ll act it!”

  “Hum,” said Rafiel, not pleased with this woman’s continuing reminders that, in his special case, becoming older meant that it would become harder and harder for him to keep in dancer’s kind of shape. “Why do you say they’re cut off from the rest of the world? Habitats are a lot easier to get to than, per esempio, Mars. There’s always a stream of ships going back and forth.”

  “Not to this habitat,” Hillaree told him confidently. “You’re missing the point, and that’s the whole drama of our story. You see that cluster of motors on the base? Hakluyt isn’t just going to stay in orbit. Hakluyt will be going all the way to the star Tau Ceti. They’ll be cut off, all right. They aren’t coming back to the Earth, ever.”

  As soon as the woman was out of his condo, unbedded but also unrejected, or at least not finally rejected in the way that most mattered to her, Rafiel was calling his agent to complain. Fruitlessly. It was a lot too early in the morning for Jeftha to be answering her tel. He tried again when he got to the rehearsal hall, with the same “No Incoming” icon appearing on the screen. “Bitch,” he said to the screen, though without any real resentment – Jeftha was as good a talent agent as he had ever had – and joined the rest of the cast.

  They had started without him. Charlus was drilling the chorus all over again and Victorium, with Docilia standing by, was impatiently waiting for Rafiel himself. “Now,” he said, “If you’re quite ready to go to work? Here’s where we come to a tricky kind of place in Oedipus. You’ve ordered Creon banished, in spite of the fact that he’s your brother-in-law. You think he lied to you about the prophecy from Apollo’s priest, and you’ve just found out that your wife, Jocasta, is also your mother—”

  “Victorium dear,” Docilia began, “that’s something I wanted to talk about. I don’t have enough lines there, do I? Since it’s per certo as big a shock to me too?”

  “You’d have to talk to Mosay about that when he gets back, Docilia dear,” Victorium said. “Can’t we stick to the point? Besides the incest thing, Rafiel, you’re the one who murdered her husband, who is also your real father—”

  “I’ve read the script,” Rafiel told him.

  “Of course you have, Rafiel dear,” Victorium said, sounding much less confident of it. “Then we follow you into Jocasta’s room, and you see that she hung herself, out of shame.”

  “Can’t I do that on-screen, Vic?” Docilia asked. “I mean, committing suicide’s a really dramatic moment.”

  “I don’t think so, dear, but that’s another thing you’d have to talk to Mosay about. Anyway, it’s not the point right now, is it? I’m talking about what Rafiel does when he sees you’ve committed suicide.”

  “I take the pins out of her hair and blind myself with them,” said Rafiel, nodding.

  “Right. You jab
the gold hairpins into your eyes. That’s what I’m thinking about. What’s the best way for us to handle that?”

  “How do you mean?” Rafiel asked, blinking at him.

  “Well, we want it to look real, don’t we?”

  “Sure,” Rafiel said, surprised, not understanding the point. That sort of thing was up to the computer synthesizers, which would produce any kind of effect anybody wanted.

  Victorium was thoughtfully silent. Docilia cleared her throat. “On second thought,” she said, “maybe it’s better if I hang myself offstage after all.”

  Victorium stirred and gave her a serious look. Then he surrendered. “We’ll talk about all this stuff later,” he said. “Let me get Charlus off everybody’s back and we’ll try putting the scene after that together.”

  Rafiel was surprised to see Docilia give him a serious wink, but whatever she had on her mind had to wait. Victorium was calling them all together. “All right,” he said, “let’s run it through. All the bad stuff is out in the open now. Rafiel knows what he’s done, and all four of you kids are onstage now in the forgiveness scene. Ket, you’re the Polyneices, take it from the top.”

  Obediently the quartet formed and the boy began to sing

  POLYNEICES: We forgive you. If you doubt it, ask that zany Antigone, or Eteocles, or sweet Ismene.

  ETEOCLES: You can’t be all that bad.

  ISMENE: After all, vous êtes our dad.

  “Now you, Rafiel,” Victorium said, nodding, and Rafiel took up his lines.

  OEDIPUS: Calm? Come possible for me to be calm? I’ve killed my pop and shtupped my dear old mom.

  ANTIGONE: It’s okay, dad, we’re all with you. It’ll be a lousy life, but we’ll be true.

  Wherever you go –

  “No, no,” Charlus cried, breaking in. “Excuse me, Victorium, but no. Bruta, this is tap, not ballet. Keep your feet down on the floor, will you?”

  “Aspet!” Victorium snapped. “I’m running this rehearsal, and if you keep interrupting—”

  “But she’s ruining it, don’t you see?” the choreographer pleaded. “Just give me a minute with her. Please? Bruta, I want you to tap on the turn, and give us a little disco hip rotation when you sing. And I want to hear every tap all by itself, loud and clear . . .”

  There was, naturally, more objection from Victorium. Rafiel backed away to watch, not directly involved, and turned when he felt Docilia plucking at his arm.

  “Be real careful,” she whispered. “Don’t let Mosay push you into anything. I think he wants you to really do it. The blinding,” she added impatiently when she saw that he hadn’t understood.

  Rafiel stared at her to see if she was joking. She wasn’t. “Believe me, that’s what he wants from you,” she said, nodding. “No faking it. He wants real blood. Real pain. Pieces of eyeball hanging out on your cheek.”

  “Docilia!” he said, grimacing.

  “Was ist das ‘Docilia’? Voi sapete how Mosay is. Oh, maybe he wouldn’t expect you to permanently blind yourself. After the shooting was over he’d pay so the doctors could graft in some new eyes for you – but still.”

  “Mosay wouldn’t ask anybody to do that,” Rafiel protested.

  “Wouldn’t he? Especially considering – Well, when he comes back, just ask him,” she said, and stopped there.

  Rafiel had grasped her meaning, anyway. Especially considering could only be that, in the long run, they were beginning to be looking on him as expendable.

  When he finally did get through to his agent she was only perfunctorily apologetic. “Mi scusi,” Jeftha said. “I had a hard night.” That was all the explanation she offered, but her dark and youthful face supported it. The skin was as unlined as always, but her eyes were red. “Acrobats,” she said, wearily running one hand through her thick hedge of hair.

  “You shouldn’t sleep with your clients,” Rafiel said, setting aside the historical fact that she had, on occasion, with himself. “Now, this woman Hillaree . . .”

  When Jeftha heard about the dramaturge’s surprise visit she was furious. “The puta! she snapped. “Going behind your agent’s back? She’ll never cast a client of mine again – but how could you, Rafiel? If Mosay finds out you’ve been dealing with a tuppenny tinhorn like Hillaree he’ll go berserker!”

  “I wasn’t dealing with her,” Rafiel began, but she cut him off.

  “Pray he doesn’t hear about it. He’s in a bad enough mood already. When he got to look at his locations somebody told him that the Thebes he was trying to match was the wrong Thebes – two of them with the same name, Rafiel, can you imagine that? How stupid can they be? The Thebes in Egypt didn’t count. The Thebes somewhere north of Athens was the one where Oedipus had been king, and it was an entirely different kind of territory.”

  “He’s back?”

  “He will be in the morning,” she confirmed. “Now, was that what you were so fou to talk to me about?”

  He hesitated, and then said, “Forget it now, anyway.” Because he couldn’t quite bring himself to ask her the question that was mostly on his mind, which was whether it was at all possible that Docilia’s hints and implications could possibly be right.

  8

  The work of a dramaturge does not end with making sure a production is successfully performed. A major part of the job is making sure the audiences will want to spend their money to see it. In the furtherance of this endeavor, sweet are the uses of publicity; for which reason Mosay has arranged to do his first costumed rehearsals in a very conspicuous place. The place he has chosen is the public park on the roof of the arcology, where there are plenty of loungers and strollers, and every one a sure word-of-mouth broadcaster when they get home. Nor has Mosay failed to alert the paparazzi to be present in force.

  Rafiel thought seriously of taking the kitten with him to show off at the day’s rehearsal – after all, who else in the troupe owned a live cat? But the park was half a kilometer square, with a lake and a woodsy area and sweet little gardens all around. There was even a boxwood maze, great for children to play in, but all too good a place for a little kitten to get lost in, he decided, and regretfully left it in the care of his server.

  The trouble with the rooftop was that it was windy. They were nearly a kilometer above the ground, where the air was always blowing strong. Clever vanes deflected the worst of the gusts, but not all of them; Rafiel felt chilled and wished Mosay had chosen another workplace. Or that, at least, they hadn’t been instructed to show up in costume: there wasn’t much warmth in the short woolen tunic. The winds were stronger than usual that day, and there were thick black clouds rolling toward them over the arcologies to the west. Rafiel listened: had he heard the sound of distant thunder? Or just the wind?

  He shivered and joined the other performers as they walked around to get used to their costumes. Although the rooftop was the common property of all the hundred-and-sixty-odd-thousand people who lived or worked in that particular arcology, Mosay had managed to persuade the arcology council to set one grassy sward aside for rehearsals. The council didn’t object. They agreed that it would be a pleasing sort of entertainment for the tenants, and anyway Mosay was a first-rate persuader – after all, what other thing did a dramaturge really have to be?

  The proof of his persuasive powers was that, astonishingly, everyone in the cast was there, and on time: Mosay himself, back from his fruitless quest but looking fresh and undaunted, and Victorium, and Charlus, the choreographer – no, assistant choreographer, Rafiel corrected himself resolutely – and all the eleven principal performers in the show and the dozen members of the chorus. Rafiel had practiced with the sandals and the sword in his condo, while the watching kitten purred approvingly; by now he was easy enough in the costume. Not Andrev, the Creon, who kept getting his sword caught between his knees. There weren’t any costume problems for Sander, the Tiresias, since his costume was only a long featureless smock, and Sander, who was a tall, unkempt man with seal-colored hair that straggled down over his shoulde
rs, wore the thing as though he was ignoring it, which was pretty much the way he wore all his clothes anyway. All the women wore simple white gowns, Docilia’s Jocasta with flowers in her hair, the daughters unembellished.

  But when Rafiel first saw Bruta, the Antigone, turn toward him his heart stopped for a moment, she was so like Alegretta. “Che cosa, Rafiel?” she asked in sudden worry at his expression, but he only shook his head. He kept watching her, thought. Apart from the chance resemblance to his life’s lost love, Bruta struck him as a bit of puzzle. Bruta looked neither younger nor older than anyone else in the cast, of course – Rafiel himself always excepted – but it was obvious that she was a lot less experienced. That interested Rafiel. Mosay was not the kind who liked to bother with newcomers. He left the discovery of fresh talent to lesser dramaturges; he could afford to hire the best, who inevitably were also the ones who had long since made their reputations. Rafiel thought of asking Docilia, who would be sure to know everyone’s reasons for everything they did, but there wasn’t time. Mosay was already waving everyone to cluster around him.

  “Company,” said Mosay commandingly. “I’m glad to be back, but we’ve got a lot of work to do, so if I may have your attention?” He got it and said sunnily, “I do have one announcement before we begin. I’ve found our shooting location. Wunderbar, it has an existing set that we can use – oh, not exactly replicating old Thebes, in a technical sense, but close enough. And we’d better get on with it, so if you please . . .” Rafiel concealed a grin at the way Mosay was making sure he looked every centimeter the staging genius as he played to the spectators behind the velvet ropes, and, of course, to the pointing cameras of the paparazzi. When he had everyone’s attention he went on. “We aren’t going to do the short fighting-the-Sphinx scene because we don’t have a sphinx” – well, of course they didn’t; they never would be a sphinx until the animation people put one in – “so we’ll start with the pas de quatre, where you kids” – nodding to the four “children” of Oedipus and Jocasta – “sing your little song about how after Oedipus saved Thebes from the Sphinx he married your maman, the widowed Jocasta, whose husband had been mysteriously murdered and thus Oedipus became koenig himself—”