"Why?"
The man shrugged. "I don't feel that we'll make further progress today."
Beasley lowered his Stradivarius. "Look, Soccer, I'm paying you a lot of money for lessons. I'll say when they're over."
Soccer's brown eyes met Beasley's glare calmly. "I'm the teacher. I'll say when lessons end."
Beasley looked away. "I could have five holo-teachers for the money I'm paying you. I could have Paganini, Heifeitz, Oistrakh, Midori, and Chung for the money I'm paying you."
Soccer nodded. "Quite so. However, those program teachers, though interactive, are dead. I live and still learn nuances of our instrument. My capacity to learn enhances my ability to teach. That is what you're paying for."
Beasley raised his eyes. "What's the matter? Why can't we make more progress today?"
Soccer raised his hands, put them together palm to palm in an almost prayerful gesture. He said, "I'll be plain. This Mozart concerto's first movement is a collection of coy, teasing, playful, ephemeral musical thoughts. The bow should at least pursue them, at best fly with them. Your bow crushes each and every note. I can't listen to such butchery any longer."
Beasley snarled and flung the Stradivarius across the room. The violin cracked against a silver and onyx coffee table and fell in pieces onto the carpet.
Soccer rose and walked toward the door.
Beasley, his voice rough with unreleased malice, shouted, "Where are you going?"
Soccer stopped, turned, and looked mutely at the shattered violin.
Beasley glanced down. "All right. It will take twenty minutes or so for my fabricator to come up with another fiddle. Have some coffee."
Soccer shook his head. "I'll have no coffee and I'll not see you again."
"But I'm—"
"I know. You're paying me a great deal of money. I shall return it all to you. Good-bye." He turned to leave.
Beasley's voice rose even louder. "You can't do this! I've got to play this concerto for several thousand important people in two weeks!"
Soccer turned again. "Mr. Beasley, you play Mozart as if you wished to tie him up and torture him. Sadistic dominance is the only concept you convey in your playing. Performing Mozart should inform, upraise, and illuminate you and your listeners. You should approach joy, Mr. Beasley, joy."
"How do I do that?"
Soccer snorted. "That question is beyond me. Try asking Mozart." He turned and walked toward the door. It sensed his approach, altered its molecular structure to accommodate him, and became translucent. Soccer walked straight through it without pausing.
Beasley stared at the door as it again became opaque. He loosened his bow. Ask Mozart? Why not?
In his madness Beasley does not stand alone. He is surrounded by a large group who hold similar views, who believe that they remain the last believers in heightened circumstance, in beauty, in a way toward salvation for the lost occupiers of this time. They share the conviction, this misguided group (for they are terribly misguided) that the outcome of their odyssey will settle this issue beyond debate, that the only way into the future is a retreat to the past, and they have found the technology to manage this.
Pru slid sinuously into the cushioned chair next to the onyx coffee table. Beasley watched her appreciatively. Her pale blond hair contrasted well with her pale blue skin tone. He said, "You should put some clothes on before the others arrive."
She shrugged. "They've seen me before."
"That's not the point. You're distracting when you're naked."
"Thank you."
"We have no time for distractions. The Institute's conference is imminent. I've invited a few people to join us and they need to pay attention, as do you."
She shrugged again with intentionally provocative vigor. "Whatever."
"I mean it." He sipped from his chartreuse-colored drink. "I intend to carry off the most daring abduction in history."
Interested at last, Pru leveled her blue-black eyes on him.
"Ah," she said. "Tell me more."
Beasley proceeded to tell her. He told her with great passion and force. Passion and force were Pru's own drowning point; "I am a serious person," she had said to him more than once,"with serious intentions, but each of the seven deadly sins makes me pant with desire. They make of me once more a totally unschooled person."
Knowing this, knowing of Pru's overwhelming and embracing avarice, he noted at the outset that abducting Mozart, first trawling through time for him, then dragging him stunned to the present, would cause a sensation at the grand conference and certainly draw large sums of money to the Institute. "Furthermore, we can accomplish this easily," he said. "The technology is available. There are legalities and prohibitions, but these can be circumvented." He went on to explain, in more detail than is necessary to record here, the nature of the technology that would enable them to reach into December of 1791, pluck the dying, consumptive, oracular genius from his deathbed, and, after pumping him full of palliatives, bring him to the florid present.
It is a marvelous age that Beasley occupied, an age in which technological ambition had conflated with accomplishment in a fashion not anticipated through all the centuries of the Industrial Revolution. Beasley, both beneficiary and victim of this abstruse and uncontrollable technology (his victimization is the most salient part of this tragic story) gestured forcefully, spoke wondrously, made clear to Pru how exciting and advantageous this could be. "A Forty-third Symphony !" he emoted. "A Sixth Violin Concerto ! And of course a completed Requiem. "
"Forget the completed Requiem, " said Pru, who played an antiquarian viola in a consort she had assembled to perform in unassembled parts of Africa that had not yet learned to regard her feebly acoustic tours with pity. "The Requiem was never written to be completed. He had no plan, no intention. Furthermore, he was much too ill."
"But that's what we can address!" Beasley said with a poisonous enthusiasm. "We can restore him to health! Or at least stabilize him to the degree where he can compose." He felt himself seized by possibility, almost transfigured by an almost immeasurable possibility. "Of course there is the issue of culture shock but we can deal with that, at least for as long as we need him."
"Perhaps we can," Pru said. She was, for all of her embarrassing anachronism and failure of resistance, an adorable and passionate creature, much taken with Telemann and the importance of maintaining compassion in a metallic society. "I would like to hear your plan. I would like to discuss this somewhat less formally and without the intervention of clothing." She made a gesture that cannot be properly converted to print. "Like this," she said.
Chimes played a plangent passage from a Mahler lieder. Nothing moved in Beasley's apartment. The chimes sounded again and Beasley appeared wearing only a Roman-style robe. His dark hair was combed, but he looked somehow hastily groomed. He motioned toward the door. It became translucent and five young people, three men and two women, walked through it. The men were dressed in neo-punk black crusted with silver and crystal ornaments. Only one, however, wore his hair in the regulation six-inch purple spikes. The two women were more subtly attired in fitness leotards, neon pink and sunset gold. They stopped a few steps from Beasley.
Purple Spikes, the leader, spoke: "We're here."
Beasley pursed his lips. "Obviously."
Purple Spikes glanced around the room. "Where's Pru?"
"She's indisposed."
Purple Spikes smiled. "Sure." The others smirked and glanced at each other.
Beasley ignored the byplay. "Chad, this is not a social occasion. We have a chance to seize control of the Institute in two weeks and, therefore, of human destiny. I have devised an infallible means to do so, infallible if my lieutenants perform well. You," he indicated them all with a gesture, "are my most trusted companions. I requested you to come here to ask you one question. Are you able to perform as I need?"
Chad looked around at the others. They all shrugged and nodded. He turned back to Beasley and nodded. "Absolutely."
/> Beasley looked long at each of them in turn before he replied. "Good. In a few hours, we will travel in time to eighteenth century Vienna. We'll require specialized knowledge for this operation. Pru is presently spending implant time absorbing all there is to know about eighteenth-century music and composition."
One of the women, Pink Leotard, chuckled. "I'll bet that's not all she absorbed."
Beasley ignored her. "Each of you must undergo implant training. Chad, you and Hess will take two hours to ingest the programs I've forwarded to your implants."
Hess, the man to Chad's right, asked, "What's in it?"
Beasley looked at him. "Everything we know of culture, customs and conventions in eighteenth-century Vienna. You'll also acquire comprehensive geographic data. You two will be responsible for our interface with that society. Arzu? Pearl?" Gold Leotard and the other young man looked up. "You and Pearl have some mathematical adeptness. You must learn the basics of time travel, enough to manage regular operations and troubleshoot if any technological problems arise. We will have more than competent support on this end." Both Arzu and Pearl nodded.
Pink Leotard frowned. "What about me?"
Beasley smiled. "You, Tina, must learn more about weapons, theirs and ours. I don't intend to waste your aptitude for violence. You are security."
Tina smiled, revealing small white teeth filed to sharp points.
Beasley continued, "Instructions for initial actions prior to our liftoff have also been forwarded to your implants." Beasley turned and took several steps toward his private chambers. The others stared at his retreating back. Before any of them could speak, Beasley raised his right hand, made a gesture of dismissal, and said, "Begin."
A few more words about the age in which Beasley, however tentatively, dwelt—it was an age of Pru's metal and contempt, of distance and compartmentalization, and yet for a few like Beasley it seemed to smolder with a barely containable fire which that could leap barriers, soar through intervention, lead its confused and distracted masses toward an era in which for the first time humanity could truly observe and then model its destiny.
Beasley played the "Turkish Concerto" miserably, his rendition of the "Twenty-fourth Caprice" driving not only his instructor but any casual listeners to tears; he was not nearly as compassionate as Pru or as rigorous as his teacher, but then neither was the age itself, and the two of them were coterminous. In wanting to kidnap Mozart, Beasley—like so many of his time and through our rather awkward history—was trying as it were to kidnap himself, to extract, wriggling from circumstance, some purer element of reason or belief that would burn open Pru's metal enclosure and expose it to the purer winds of circumstance. Mozart revivified, Mozart displaced, would enable Beasley to displace himself and make the metal smile.
Ah, the folly! But remember before you detach yourself from this tormented protagonist and pronounce yourself ineffably resistant to his folly, remember that night when you stood against the sky, stood against the night, stood to the arrow of the Queen's high F. Was it any different for you? Would you have been any more resistant to that lust that made Pru helpless in Beasley's clutch, immune to her cries of falsified resistance?
Doctor Abigail Richards squeezed Joan Chin's fingers very gently. Joan, too weak to do more, responded with a slight upward curve of her lips. Doctor Richards said, "You'll be stronger soon."
Joan was the recipient of a lungs-liver-stomach-pancreas-gall bladder transplant. Part of her esophagus had been replaced, too. All the organs were clones, of course, perfectly matched to Joan's body. She had ignored warning signs, however, and waited too long to undertake a normal succession of outpatient procedures. A crisis had precipitated forced maturation and rapid surgical installation of her replacement organs. She'd almost died during the few hours it had taken to bring the cloned organs to a minimally functional state.
But she lived, and Doctor Richards squeezed her fingers again. Medicine, despite enormous advances in knowledge and technology, was still a human art. The enhanced, trained, and compassionate human mind was still the ultimate medical tool. Microprocessors in various places beneath her skin supplied her with the sum total of medical knowledge. A microcomputer within her abdominal cavity provided systems with which to utilize that data. Her judgment guided that use.
Doctor Richards exited Joan's room into a circular corridor. The corridor's walls were colored dusky violet, soothing to all eyes, tired or ill. She walked upon what appeared to be soft gray carpet, though this floor covering was capable of a great deal more than mere carpet. The elevator door became clear as she approached. Before she could enter, a hand gripped the back of her neck.
Chad whispered into her left ear. "Easy, Doc. I've got a stun package on my index finger. I'd hate to have to mess up your 'tronics by using it. Ready to come with me?"
Doctor Richards did not resist. She nodded very slowly. At the same time, her tongue pressed the roof of her mouth three times, activating a security alarm. Help was on the way.
Chad, now without his spikes, guided her into the elevator and touched the sensor panel for the transport level. The elevator launched into swift motion. It stopped a few seconds later. The door became transparent. Hess was visible on its far side. As they exited, Hess took Doctor Richards's right arm. A wheeled van waited a few meters beyond him. Tina, less colorfully clad, leaned against its paneled side.
Two heavily armed hospital guards approached from the other side of the van. They halted several meters away and the larger one, a woman, asked, "Is everything okay, Doctor Richards?" Hess let his hand drop away from the doctor's elbow. He stood more than two meters tall and was proportionally broad. Both guards kept their eyes on him—understandably so.
Tina stepped away from the van. She held out a wallet. "Here," she offered, "let me show you my ID."
The guards were well trained and experienced. They knew not to let a potential threat within striking distance. Tina, barely five feet tall and waif-thin, seemed harmless. The lead guard reached for Tina's wallet.
Tina jabbed a concealed needle between the woman's fingers. She took one step back and uttered a surprised grunt before Tina's venom took effect. Paralyzed, she fell to the concrete floor. Tina's left foot rose in a wicked arc that ended in the other guard's groin. The shock package on the end of her shoe delivered its charge and the agonized guard fell to the floor. She reached down, touched his left mastoid, and rendered him unconscious.
Chad grinned. "Well, that's that. Let's go."
Tina straightened. Her plush red tongue passed briefly over the sharp, bright points of her teeth.
Falsified resistance for a falsified age. Mozart composed the first seven measures of the "Lachrymosa" and could go no further. He died with the papers strewn on his chest. Desperate, the destitute Constanze reportedly brought in Süssmayr to finish the piece but Beasley had heard from a Traveler that when Süssmayr had seen the "Tuba Mirum," he scowled with revulsion and crumpled the paper. "It cannot be completed," Süssmayr said. "Mozart himself could not proceed past the 'Dies Irae.'"
"I shall bring Mozart here. You will help me. I intend for him to proceed past the 'Dies Irae' and finish his Requiem. "
Doctor Richards shook her head. "You're mad!"
Beasley smiled. "Not in the least. I intend to secure control of the Institute at the conference of worlds. Presenting the real Mozart conducting his personally completed Requiem will be a sweeping tour de force. It will afford me a period of opportunity."
"Opportunity to do what?"
Beasley shrugged and sipped champagne from the crystal flute he held. "Opportunity to become the leader humanity needs. Human culture has sprawled across the stars, but it is an amoeba. It needs a guiding intelligence." He placed the half-empty flute on the polished granite surface of his bar. He looked directly at Richards. "Mine."
Richards took a deep breath. "You can't do that!"
Beasley smiled coyly.
"You can't tamper with the Institute computers!" Rich
ards continued. "Music flows, docu-streams, simulations, ancient videos—all those are locked, secure from outside content."
"Perhaps not as secure as you're led to believe." Beasley again picked up his glass.
Richards looked down. "I won't help you. You abducted me."
Beasley stepped behind her, allowed his fingers to trace a line down her shoulder. "Need I remind you that your nephew and niece live nearby in the lunar gardens?" He squeezed her shoulder. "Or that your valued friends and colleagues follow quite predictable patterns here in the city, quite vulnerable patterns?"
Richards stared at her lap. "What do you want me to do?"
Beasley removed his hand from her shoulder. "First, you are to stabilize Mozart so that we can transport him here."
Richards looked up. "We don't know anything about his condition."
"Doctor Richards!" Beasley looked at her disdainfully. "Surely your expertise and the tools of modern medicine with which we will provide you are equal to this small task."
Richards nodded. "What else?"
"You are also to supervise the complete cloning of Mozart once we reach Vienna and acquire him. We need a replica to take his place, you see. The conventions of time travel are murky, but we wish to cause as little disruption as possible."
Richards shook her head. "That would be murder. We can create such a clone with portable equipment, but we don't have the resources to support complete maturation. The new person would die within weeks."
Beasley smiled. "That is precisely what I'd hoped you'd say. It is, after all, what history dictates."
Richards gritted her teeth. "This is against our laws and against my oath as a physician."
Beasley shrugged. "True progress sometimes requires the breaking of laws, the violation of ethics." He looked at her. "Any laws. All ethics."
But no less than Beasley, we must disdain this, cast it aside. Problems of credibility, legality, morality: ptui! "What do they want? Dazzle!" he replied and spat, "Enchantment!"
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