Storyteller

by Amy Thomson

"I took that picture with a remote camera. It was my first orchard," Teller told him. "I was all alone, and desperate for something to do. So I broke into the agricultural shipment on board my Jump freighter and started playing with the germ plasm bank. I wasn't much of a gardener back then,"

  she admitted. "I thought fruit trees would be easy to grow." She grinned ruefully. "I had a lot to learn. But some of the trees made it, despite my help."

  Samad touched the picture lightly with one marveling finger. It was real. He flipped farther back through the book, almost to the beginning, stopping at a picture of a group of young men and women, dressed in severe black uniforms, a gleaming starburst emblem arced over each of their hearts.

  He glanced up at Teller, lifting an inquiring eyebrow.

  "My graduating class at the Pilot's Academy," Teller said. "Can you find me?"

  Samad studied the faces in the picture. He glanced up at Teller and then back at the photograph. There were half a dozen women, but one stood out. She stood a little off to the side, a familiar, ironic smile on her mouth, her eyebrows dark and a little too heavy, her nose long and distinctive, even in youth. She looked impossibly young, but no one else in the picture could possibly be her.

  "There?" he asked.

  She glanced at him sidelong and nodded. "You're pretty good at faces. Sometimes I have trouble recognizing myself in that picture." She shook her head. "It's hard to believe that I was ever really that young." She touched the picture reminiscently. "I guess it all started there. Once I became a Jump pilot, everything else was inevitable." She looked into the distance of memory. "Though if I hadn't lost my Talent when and where I did, I'd probably have died."

  "Why?" Samad asked.

  "Pilots usually die within a few years of losing their abil­ity to Jump through hyperspace," she said. "If it hadn't been for Abeha, I'd have killed myself, too. But somehow Abeha kept me from missing my Talent. Now he's gone." Her eyes

  started to fill with tears. She wiped them away, closed the photo album, and put it back on the shelf.

  Samad felt suddenly awkward and uncertain. He thought he had understood Teller, but now—

  "You really are the Pilot," he whispered in amazement. "It really is you in all those pictures."

  Teller nodded. "You're the only other person who's ever seen this place," she told him.

  "You haven't even shown this to Florio?"

  Teller shook her head. "Florio knows that I've had rejuve, and that's a big enough secret. If he knew that I was really the Pilot, and if he saw some of the things here, then sooner or later, he'd feel obliged to tell someone in the Guild. I built this after Barbara died. I wanted a place where my memories would be safe."

  "But—if you didn't show it to Florio, why are you show­ing it to me? I'm just a kid."

  "Florio is a Guild member, first, last, and always." She reached out and pulled gently at one of Samad's black curls, letting it stretch out, and pull back between her fingers. "But you're my son. If I hadn't known that already, I'd know it after these last few months, Samad. Everyone else gave up on me. You hung on and refused to let me die."

  Teller swept him up in her embrace. Samad clung to her, tears pushing behind closed lids.

  "Thank you for trusting me, Mother," he said.

  Teller pulled back far enough to meet his gaze. "That's the first time you've ever called me your mother, Samad."

  Samad, shrugged, embarrassed, and looked away. Teller hugged him again.

  "Thank you, Son," Teller whispered into his black curls, tears pricking her eyelids. "Thank you."

  CHAPTER 11

  TELLER TIPTOED INTO SAMAD'S ROOM AND stood for a moment, smiling down at her lanky, handsome, sixteen-year-old son. How had he grown so big so quickly, she wondered? Already he was the youngest Master Story­teller the Guild had ever had. She reached down and lightly stroked his sleep-tousled black curls. He stirred sleepily.

  "Samad, Samad. Wake up, it's time for you to get ready to go to the theater. Jose's going to be here in a few minutes."

  Samad groaned and rolled over, clutching his pillow. He lay like that for a minute; then, just as Teller was going to say something to rouse him again, he inhaled, stretched, and yawned.

  "All right, all right," he said. "I'm up."

  "Are you sure you need to go to the theater this early?" Teller asked him when he emerged from his room, fully dressed and ready to go. "Your performance won't be for another three hours, and they did all the sound and lighting checks this morning."

  Samad shrugged. "I've never performed in the Grande before," he said. "It's such a prestigious venue. I want to make sure that I'm familiar with it."

  "You'll be fine, Samad. You know the story and tell it well. I don't want you to wear yourself out before you go on."

  "I'll be fine," Samad told her. "I'm just worried about the arrangements Jose made."

  "He did a fine job, Samad. You're worrying too much."

  "I know. But I can't help it. And I might as well do my worrying at the theater as around here, where I'll drive you nuts."

  Teller smiled; he was right. But she still worried, as any parent of a sixteen-year-old would do. But mostly she wor­ried because he gave her so little cause to worry. He seemed so mature, so self-contained, so obedient and dutiful. What would happen if he really decided to cut loose and rebel?

  There was a knock at the door. It must be Jose. She opened the door and welcomed him in.

  "Samad's just finishing his packing, Jose. He'll be out in a couple of minutes."

  At the sound of voices, Samad looked up. "I'm almost ready. I was just double-checking my costume for tonight."

  "You'll be fine, Samad," Teller said.

  Jose smiled. "He just wants everything to be perfect."

  "I know, I know," Teller told him, rolling her eyes.

  Samad emerged from his room with his costume in a gar­ment bag and a satchel full of makeup and other supplies in the other hand.

  "Okay, I'm ready to go," Samad announced.

  "One moment, mijo," Teller said. "I have a present for you." She handed him a small box. He opened it and lifted

  out a pendant of cream-colored stone on an expensive silver chain. The smooth, fine-grained stone was carved into the shape of a weathered column, with the faces of a man and a woman carved on opposite sides. It was a replica of the mon­ument erected over the graves of Roxane and Paoli, whose story he was to tell tonight.

  "Teller, it's perfect. Thank you! It'll be perfect with my costume tonight."

  Teller smiled. "I'm glad you like it, Samad. I'll see you tonight, just before the show?"

  Samad nodded.

  "Buenas suerte, mijo," she said, "and please, don't forget to eat a little something before you go onstage."

  Samad gave her a hug and bent down to kiss her fore­head. "I will, mi madre. I will."

  Then he and Jose headed out the door. Teller heard their feet clumping downstairs and sighed. Samad still seemed so young. Too young to be a Master Storyteller with students of his own. But he was. Jose was only six months younger than Samad, and Teller wondered how Samad could main­tain authority over the other boy. But Jose seemed willing and eager to be Samad's pupil, and he was learning a great deal from Samad. She shook her head. She worried too much.

  Samad followed his student Jose into the darkened theater, carrying his costume over one shoulder.

  "The dressing rooms are down this corridor," Jose said.

  As part of Jose's training, Samad had put him in charge of handling the details with the theater manager. They walked down the carpeted hallway until they came to a fea­tureless door.

  "Here, the theater manager said it would be unlocked." Jose tried the knob, and then they went through the door and into a backstage like any one of the many backstages

  Samad had been in: worn, dingy, utilitarian, dimly lit, and oddly spooky.

  Samad felt a rush of arousal at being alone with Jose in this darkened theater. Quickly, Samad suppre
ssed his desire. He didn't want to be like the predators the other beggar children had whispered about in the streets, who did un­speakable things to boys in the dark. He would not do such a thing, no matter how his desire tugged and whispered at him. He had chosen to teach Jose because he had wanted to put Jose out of reach of physical temptation.

  But despite the change in their relative status, he still de­sired Jose. If only he were not so handsome! Such eyes! Such hands! At night Samad fought to keep from thinking about his handsome student, and always failed. If only Jose were not so eager to please, if only Jose wasn't standing so near him in the darkened theater!

  Jose opened the door to the dressing room and turned on the lights. Samad set his satchel on the dressing room table, feeling a wave of relief wash over him as the bright lights chased his predatory yearnings back into the shadows, where they lingered, waiting for another opportunity to tempt him.

  "Thank you, Jose," Samad said. "Why don't you go and get us some coffee while I get ready."

  "Are you sure there's nothing I can do for you here?" Jose asked.

  "No, Jose. Thank you." Was he being too curt? Had Jose" sounded hurt?

  "All right, then. I'll go get the coffee."

  Jose left, and Samad closed his eyes tightly in despair. He should find Jose another teacher. But Jose was a good student, and Samad could find no plausible excuse to send the boy away. He sighed and wondered if Teller had ever felt like this when Florio was her student. He wished he

  could ask her, but he was afraid of what she might think. Besides, this was his problem. It was his job to find a so­lution.

  Turning his mind away from his troubles, Samad walked out onto the stage, pacing off his blocking and rehearsing the key moments in the story. When some of the other per­formers arrived, he greeted them and returned to his dress­ing room. He put on his costume and regarded himself critically in the mirror. He looked good. The tunic empha­sized his slenderness and made him look taller. He had let his hair grow a bit longer, and it fell in dark, curly waves to just past his jawbone, framing his face and giving him a sense of mystery and romance.

  The costume's long, flowing lines and flaring, archaic sleeves evoked an earlier, more turbulent and romantic pe­riod in Thalassan history, the time of Roxana and Paoli, the story he was to tell tonight. That had been the time of the vendetta, the evil eye, and the mystical dream-hunting mazzeri.

  He had heard the story first from an old voceratrice on Bonifacio Island, late one night as the flickering fire in her hearth died down to embers. When he expressed an in­terest in performing the tale, Teller had shown him other versions of the story in the Guild archives. Tonight, he would be premiering his own version of this ancient tragedy of forbidden love. He would take all the hidden desire that smoldered for Jose and pour it into the story before it drove him mad.

  Samad got out his makeup case and began working on his face, darkening the hollows of his eyes and shading his cheeks so that he would look gaunt, mysterious, and tragic onstage. He was pacing back and forth in his dressing room, muttering parts of the story to himself, when Jose returned

  with the coffee. "You look marvelous!" Jose declared. "Just a minute, let me get those loose threads off of your tunic."

  Jose delicately brushed a few loose threads from his clothing. Samad felt himself responding to the touch of his student's hands and stepped away.

  "It's all right, Jose. They aren't going to see a few specks of lint, even in the first row." He picked up the pendant and put it on. "Do you think Teller will be pleased?"

  "Of course I am," Teller said, standing in the open door­way. "But you know that already, mijo."

  "Hello, Teller!" Samad said. He gave her a hug and kissed her cheek, grateful for her presence.

  "They're going to start in a few minutes. I just came by to bring you a little supper and wish you luck with your performance," she said. "I'm looking forward to your new story."

  "But Roxana and Paoli isn't a new story, Teller," Samad protested.

  Teller smiled. "In your hands it will be."

  Embarrassed, Samad looked away. When he looked back, Teller was gone, leaving only a couple of containers of stew on his dressing table.

  His restless, seeking fingers stroked the smooth, fine­grained stone his pendant was carved from. Caressing the stone seemed to ease the tension within him. He glanced at himself in the mirror. The pendant was the perfect touch with his costume.

  Jose looked at it. "You're lucky to have such a mother," he said wistfully.

  Samad nodded. "I know."

  Just then, the stage manager stuck his head in. "Five minutes to curtain, Ser Bernardia. You'll be on in forty-five minutes."

  Jose handed Samad a container of stew. Samad carefully swathed himself in napkins to protect his costume and ate. The hot stew settled his stomach, made him feel less like he was going to fly away at the slightest breath of wind. He heard the applause and the music as the show began. He would be on last, which gave him even more time to fret.

  "I think I'll go watch the show," Samad said, feeling sud­denly nervous. He always felt this way before presenting a new story, and this was such a prestigious venue, especially for someone as young as he was. Even off-worlders came to the Grande.

  He watched the comedy and the dances. Tonight, a troupe of traditional Arabic dancers from Sursur were per­forming, and he watched the women and especially the men writhe sensuously onstage, until at last he had to look away.

  Then it was his turn. Samad took his place behind the closed curtain. He could hear the murmuring audience on the other side and felt a rush of doubts. What if he forgot the story? What if no one liked it? He closed his eyes, breathing deep and slow into his belly, stroking the smooth stone pendant, until he felt centered and confident again. Then he nodded to the stage manager, and the curtains parted with a smooth sweep of fabric.

  The applause swelled as he stepped forward into the bright spotlight. As his eyes adjusted to the glare, he could see Teller sitting off to one side. He smiled at her, and his fingers brushed the pendant in a quick gesture of thanks. He saw her nod in response. Then he turned to smile at the entire audience, bowing as their applause swelled again. He stepped another pace forward and drew himself up. The ap­plause died away into silent anticipation. He waited another beat and then began.

  "Roxana and Paoli should never have met, and meeting,

  should never have fallen in love. But meet they did, and fall in love they did. Here is their story. . . ."

  Teller watched Samad enthrall the audience with the ro­mance of Roxana and Paoli. Over the centuries following the lovers' deaths, she had seen and heard Thalassa's most poignant and well-known love story hundreds of times. She had seen it performed in almost every conceivable manner, from plain storytelling to high opera.

  Samad's simple rendition of this classic tale was one of the finest versions she had ever seen. He set the air afire with the exquisite torture of the lovers' forbidden yearning. His mobile hands shaped houses and people and emotions on the empty air. Samad's deep-set eyes glowed like embers as he wound the tension between the two lovers tighter and tighter. She heard the audience sigh as one when the lovers finally kissed. In the hands of a lesser performer, the telling would have seemed mawkish and extreme, but Samad in­fused the story with a passion that surprised Teller with its intensity.

  Looking across the first few rows, Teller saw tears glisten­ing in the eyes of even the most hardened critics, as Samad brought the story to its compelling, tragic conclusion. The silence was broken only by the soft sounds of weeping as he described how the lovers' deaths had ended the cycle of vendettas that had afflicted the Corsican Archipelago for generations.

  After Samad was done, the audience sat in a gathering si­lence, too overwhelmed to respond. Then all of a sudden they burst into applause, slowly at first, then faster and faster as they released their pent-up emotions in wild ac­claim. Girls tossed flowers onto the stage. Samad picked up
the flowers and bowed deeply and gracefully in acknowledgment. When the applause diminished, he made one last sweeping bow and exited the stage.

  A group of girls were waiting at the stage door when he emerged with Jose. Samad shrugged the girls' adulation off like water and hurried to meet Teller, waiting at the mouth of the alley. Jose followed close behind, with barely a glance at the crowd of admiring girls.

  Teller snorted and shook her head. There he was, the most talented storyteller of his generation, handsome as any off-world Tri-V star, with girls following after him like a line of male tala after a female in season, and he seemed completely oblivious to the opposite sex. Teller shook her head. He was sixteen. Adolescent hormones should be run­ning riot throughout his body right now, and he didn't even notice the girls.

  Ah well, Teller told herself. It's not like he's had much of a chance. We've been traveling so much. And Samad wasn't really the type to have a girl on every island. He was too serious, too intent on his storytelling. But when she looked at Jose's face, shining with admiration for his teacher, another, more complex possibility crossed her mind.

  She pushed the thought out of her mind. Samad was still young. He would figure it out. They always did.

  Samad came up and kissed her once on each cheek. He looked at her. "How did I do?" he asked, a hint of anxiety appearing in his eyes.

  "You know very well how you did, Samad. Why do you even bother to ask me?" she chided him affectionately.

  Samad shrugged. "You make it real," he told her. "I'm not sure until you tell me."

  "Well then, mijo, you were fabulous. As always."

  "Can Jose join us for dinner, Teller?"

  "If you don't mind dining with an old lady like me, Jose."

  "What old lady? I see only you, beautiful senora," Jose said gallantly.

  "Ah, Jose," Teller said. "You're wasted on me. You should go talk to those pretty girls over there." She gestured with her chin at the crowd of disappointed girls standing in the alley.

  "But I only have eyes for you," Jose said, clasping his hands to his breast theatrically. He glanced at Samad as he said this. Teller's suspicions flared. Whatever Samad was growing into, she had no doubts about Jose's preferences.