I knocked at the dressing room Sam shared with Ule and Cu, and stuck my head in. Green jungle air invaded my lungs. Clouds of steam from the shower billowed through the bathroom door, settling in a fine mist on thick rubbery leaves, lacy ferns, and drooping palm fronds. Ivies scaled the mirrors. Purple and green orchids bloomed around the light fixtures. An astonishing amount of plant life had been crammed into the narrow space. Te-Cucularit sat out of makeup at his mirror, writing in his notebook with such concentration that I felt guilty for disturbing him.
“He’s in the shower,” Cu said without looking up.
Ule was stretched out on the cot, buck-naked and asleep. I leaned against the doorframe. “I love the way it smells in here.” Though Cu gave no sign of listening, I told him about my grandfather’s “green” room. “I knew he was crazy, but I loved being in there with him anyway. It was like a refuge.”
“For him, it was,” Cu said quietly.
“Yes. If only I could have understood that then.” In the bathroom, the shower shut off with a lingering hiss. “You were amazing in the opening ritual today. I felt like Akeua was in the theatre.”
“She was.” He flicked me a cool smile in the mirror and bent back to his writing.
“You’re not allowed to give the Preacher compliments, didn’t you know that?” Sam came in toweling off. “Nobody who looks like that should be allowed compliments.”
Cu’s perfect body was an abstraction to me now, obsessed as I was with the thicker, more compact body in front of me. “Even if they did something right?”
“He’s always right, aren’t you, TeCu? Hasn’t been wrong since… well, I’d hate to give away clan secrets.”
Te-Cucularit raised barely tolerant eyes to the mirror. I offered him sympathy and got again the brief, careful smile.
Ule stirred on the cot, turned over. “Oh hullo, ladykins.”
Sam tossed his towel at him. “Cover up, man.”
Ule winked at me, wrapped the towel slowly around his waist. “Ver-ree possessive, our Sammy. How’s the leg feel?”
The sheath on my calf. “Forgotten all about it,” I admitted.
“Good, good.” Ule rubbed his face. Slumped on the edge of the cot, without his dancer’s energy enlivening his body, he looked thin and worn, more like the fifty-three years he claimed and I found hard to believe. “Time to add a little weight, then.”
The little knife appeared in front of me, on Sam’s palm.
I sighed, took it from him, and knelt to slip it into its sheath. “I have to tell you, this feels really silly—”
“No,” said Te-Cucularit. “You must be protected.”
Ule and Sam looked at him in surprise.
Cu rose, folding his notebook under his arm. I stood aside to let him pass. In the doorway he turned back to me. “He was not crazy, your grandfather. He was preserving what he thought was right in the only way left to him. Gwinn-Rhys, listen to the voice of your ancestor.”
“Uh-oh,” said Sam when he’d gone, “Preacher’s looking for a convert.”
* * *
Coming back from dinner and other things, Sam and I met Micah at the stage door.
“The Administration denies terminating Jane,” he reported. We slowed behind a clot of Crossroads actors blocking the alley with their effusive greetings to one another. Tonight was their press night. “I’ve alerted Security.”
My body was still languid with the pleasure I’d had with Sam. I felt the guilt sharply. “All day long I’ve been thinking we should be out looking for her instead of…”
“Instead of inside doing a play?” Micah held the door, nodded us through brusquely. “They promised an immediate search. We’d only get in their way. The secretary at Admin did ask if Jane had been out after curfew or involved ‘in this petition thing.’ ”
Sam murmured beside me, “Nowhere outside this building without me, you understand? Nowhere.”
* * *
In the theatre, Sean was lecturing Cris about the trap. Cris was in pirate mode, with his bandanna knotted around his head and his long hair pulled back. He’d stayed to work through the dinner break with Automation.
Micah moved past them, across the stage. “I’ll be in the house.”
“They’ve got to sync the drop with bringing the field to full power,” Sean was insisting.
“I’d like to edit out the delay,” said Cris.
“Nah, let ’em practice. Can’t get these timings right the first time, you know.”
Sean signaled and the crew ran the sequence. Cris rode the trap. It worked, it was quieter, but it was still not magic. I wanted never to hear how much this device had cost. I wasn’t going to think it was worth it.
Howie appeared, Howie who could smile at a man who’d just spat on him if the need was great enough. He hovered at Sean’s shoulder. “How’s it going?”
Sean dusted his palms together. “Got the sucker licked.”
“How about sticking around for the rehearsal?”
“I’ll be in and out. A man’s gotta eat.”
“Eat here. I’ll buy you dinner.”
“Howie? Need you a minute.” Kim Levin stood downstage with one of the Chamberlaine entourage, a thin, young man failing in his efforts to mimic Reede’s London elegance.
“Mr. C. sends his apologies,” he breathed.
“He’s not coming tonight?”
“Since he’s leaving tomorrow evening, Mr. C. thought he should take advantage of the chance to see the performance next door. But Mr. Rand has invited your company to be his guests at the press reception in the lobby afterward.”
“His guests?” Howie roared. “This is my goddamn theatre!”
“Yessir, I know, of course, sir.” The young man’s last shred of polish vanished.
Howie waved him away and threw himself into a seat in the front row, muttering, “Cam Brigham at work again. When this is over, I’m getting myself a new chairman of the board.”
He didn’t let the cast in on Reede Chamberlaine’s desertion to Crossroads, but he was edgy all evening. Having decreed a proper dress run-through in full costume and makeup, he then stopped the action every five minutes to dispute a line reading or rework some blocking. It took two and a half hours to get through the first act.
“Just let me play the damn scene!” Ule snarled at him. Sam took him on over the timing of a bit of magical business and told him he had his head up his ass. At the intermission break, Omea walked Howie to the back of the house for a very animated conference. When the second act began, Howie left the actors alone and took notes.
The act glided right along and we were into Two, five, before we had a chance to worry about it. Ule and Cu began the incantation, the matta appeared, the Ancestors spoke, and Mali moved into position downstage center. I didn’t hear the field hum; but a quick, hard flash lit the backdrop white and a geyser of sparks shot up as the floor slitted to drop Mali into the trap. He danced back from the widening gap. Sam hurtled forward to snatch him away. Bright pinpoints of fire died in the air above their heads.
Babble roared in the headset. “Kill it, kill it!” Liz yelled.
Actors and crew surged into the wings and the exit ramps. Howie raced center stage. “Everyone okay? Mali?”
Mali nodded, searching himself and his clothing for burns.
“Where’s Sean?” Howie was tired of asking.
“Not here,” someone called.
“In the big house,” someone else added.
Howie shoved his hands to his hips and stared at the floor for a full thirty seconds. “All right,” he said finally. “Let’s work it through to the end.”
“It’s not fair,” I muttered to Micah afterward. “A whole evening ruined by the failure of one effect.”
“An arch would collapse without its keystone.”
“Well, that’s not fair, either,” I returned irritably.
“No, but it’s so wonderful when it stays up that it’s worth it.”
Ever sinc
e I’d joined his studio, Micah had been leading me toward an understanding and appreciation of the “wondrous” aspect of risk. Until then, I’d thought he’d succeeded. “Is it?”
“You’d prefer a sure thing, perhaps?”
“Surer than this, I guess.”
An ironic smile softened his rebuke. “Then you’d better join Reede Chamberlaine next door.”
Howie insisted that we all put in an appearance at the Crossroads press reception in the lobby. To my surprise, the Eye gathered willingly to plan another of their attention-grabbing entrances, then went off to change from one set of costumes into another.
Press nights weren’t jewels-and-black-tie fancy like official openings, but being the “in” night for the literati, they brought out the most expensive casuals in Harmony’s closets. Well-worn coveralls used to be an apprentice badge of merit, but now, conscious of their stains and baggy fit, Mark and I sipped champagne on the sidelines with Songh, and watched the Eye work the crowd. Enveloped in their most exotic finery, they laughed and sang like eccentric sentient birds imported from another planet. Sam moved among them mute and entirely in black, creating minor sensations with his astonishing hands.
Crispin let no apprentice self-consciousness hold him back. He retied his red bandanna to a more rakish angle, split the neck of his coveralls another several inches and plunged into the glittering crowd bearing his arty beauty and his most arrogant smile.
“We should be doing that,” noted Mark.
“Yeah,” I agreed, with equal lack of enthusiasm. “At least you’re good at it.”
“With me, it’s an act. Crispin is the act.”
“I just want to do the work. The selling shouldn’t have to be part of it!”
“Micah doesn’t sell,” said Songh.
“Not now that he’s famous,” Mark and I replied simultaneously.
When they’d done what they could with this opportunity for free publicity, the Eye drifted away, taking us with them.
“That ought to sell a few tickets,” I said to Omea on the way to the dressing rooms.
She sighed, untangling orange feathers and blooms from the dark buoyant cloud of her hair. “Just once, though, I’d like to know we sold because we were the best show in town, not just the weirdest. I mean, however we sell is better than not selling, but… just once.”
“This time,” I insisted gallantly.
Omea laughed and curled her arm about my waist. “Of course. What am I saying? Of course, this time.”
Crispin caught up with us in the corridor as the Eye dispersed to change into their street clothes. “Did you guys talk to the production manager from Pineland Stage? Guy with a dark beard and glasses?”
This described half the men in the Arkadie lobby. It was press night, after all, and eyeglasses were back in vogue among journalists. “Didn’t get around to him,” I said circumspectly.
“They’re looking for designers for next season. He wants to see my stuff, said to call first thing tomorrow.” Cris smoothed his hands down his coveralls as if they were suede and silk. “He really liked what I had to say.”
“Good,” I said wanly.
“We might not even be around next season,” muttered Mark.
“Come on, you guys! We’re gonna be here. We’ve got it nailed!” Cris untied his bandanna and folded it carefully. “So then I talked to this woman from the puppet theatre in Franklin Wells—”
“I, um, left my notes in the theatre. Be right back.” I shot Mark a look of apology and escaped down the corridor.
Theatre Two was a lightless cavern at the end of the white tunnel of hallway. Preoccupied with what I wasn’t doing to further my career, I was already onstage before I felt the full weight of the darkness, and then it closed around me like a fist. I slowed. Had I heard someone behind me? My hand shot to my pant cuff, fumbling. Gods, so quick to reach for a weapon! And then I thought, What good is it if I can’t get it out any faster than this?
“Gwinn? Can we talk a minute?”
“Cris! You scared me.”
“Sorry. Suddenly got nervous about you being alone in here in the dark.” He shrugged. “Silly, hunh?”
I exhaled deeply. “Liz forgot the safety light.”
“I’ll get it.”
He turned toward the red glow of the indicators on the work-light panel against the stage right wall.
“Cris! Shhh!”
When he stilled, there it was again, a faint rustle and thump from the darkness onstage.
“Yeah. I hear it.” He felt his way quietly to the panel. The work lights flared on, revealing an empty stage. The noises continued. I knelt, pressed my ear to the deck, then looked at Cris, and jabbed my thumb downward. Cris moved silently to my side. I was very aware of the knife strapped to my leg.
Suddenly the downstage trap unsealed and Peter rose through it on the elevator, a lit searchbeam in one hand and the little remote operating console in the other. He squinted around in the work light, then spotted us staring at him openmouthed.
“Hi!” He gave us his puppy-dog grin. “Just finishing up here.” He switched off his beam, hung his belt. “Man, that Sean is one clever dude. Hey, how was the party? Lots of priceless fizzy?” He stepped aside and thumbed the remote to retract the elevator. The hole resealed.
Cris eyed Peter’s laden tool belt. “What’s up down there?”
“Oh, she’s working fine now.”
I went to retrieve my pad from the house. “No call tonight, right?”
“Tomorrow first thing. You got notes for me?”
I laughed. He was so eager. “Morning’s soon enough.”
He loped over to the work-light panel, looping his long legs over obstacles instead of going around. “Go on ahead. I’ll get these.” He waited until we’d reached the stage right door, then doused the lights.
“Leave the safety,” I reminded him.
“Oh. Yeah.” He messed around for a bit, then the overhead safety light glowed on. He followed us out. “Okay, see you in the old A.M.” He tossed us a two-fingered salute and went off down the corridor, bobbing and jingling.
“Odd,” I said, watching after him. Laughter echoed from the dressing rooms.
“Who, him?” Cris snorted. “He’s the kind of techie who figures the more his tool belt rattles, the better his work must be.”
“No, odd him being there. I’m sure he told me Sean was keeping him away from the effects equipment.”
“Odd who was where?” Sam came down the hall with Moussa and Mali. He was still in his black jumpsuit, looking trim and competent, and I was very glad to see him. He moved between Cris and me, drawing me close. Pen was with them, raucous with a vermilion blossom behind his ear, a little drunk.
“That new kid Peter was in the pit. And… wait a minute!” Peter had gone toward the stage door, not the shop. “He took the remote console with him.”
Crispin laughed. “Trying to steal Sean’s secrets. As if all it took was a look or two.”
I turned, met Sam’s clear gaze. He nodded, looked to Mali.
Mali dipped his head.
“Moussa?”
“Where?”
“Onstage,” said Sam. “Pen, are you with us?”
“Back off,” Pen growled. “Just tell me where.”
“A look around up here, then the stage door.”
I led the way down the back stairs to the trap room, turning on lights as we went. Beneath the stage, a complicated scaffold of braces and posts supported the elevator mechanics and the dark bulk of the field generator, surrounding the access stair to the landing just below the trap. Construction debris had been simply pushed aside to make a pathway to the bottom step. Plastic rod and particle board were piled at random along the way. Portable work lights clamped to the cross beams lit up a hanging garden of abandoned strips of wrapping tape. Wires trailed and silvery cable looped around the slim shafts of the hydraulic cylinders.
“A little man-made jungle,” Mali observed.
/> “Don’t get underneath the stage too often, do you?” Cris grinned. “It’s always like this.”
Sam adjusted his tiny searchbeam, the size of his thumb. It produced an astonishingly bright and directed light.
“What are we looking for?” I asked.
“Anything out of order.”
I glanced around. “Order? Here?”
“That’s what’s going to make it hard to find.” He started up the stairs to the elevator access platform.
Cris went up after him, clambering around on the scaffold, following cable runs, checking connections. Mali leaned against a post, content to let Sam do the climbing. “And how is your own work coming in the midst of all of this?”
“Mine? Neglected, I’m afraid. We’ve been so busy.”
He smiled at me. “And so distracted.”
“Well, I…”
“No excuses. I love him, too, but the Work, that must not be neglected. If it is your Work.”
That’s how it was with Mali. You’d be talking, casually, you thought, and then he’d drop something like that on you, where you felt the extra weight of the capital letters like guilt or inspiration. “What do you mean, if?”
Above our heads, Cris called softly. “I don’t see anything.”
“Keep looking,” Sam replied.
Mali settled himself more comfortably against his post. “Only that you are young and may not have found your real Work yet.”
Did he mean I wasn’t good at it? “I don’t know what is, if it isn’t this!” I remembered the joy I’d felt solving my Lysistrata. I clung to that for support. “I’ve risked my life to come to Harmony, and these three years with Micah have been—”
“… worthy training,” he said soothingly. “But the path to the Work is not always a straight one. Look at Sam, how roundabout it’s been for him.”
I was sure Mali knew everything that had gone on between Sam and me, every intimacy, every detail, either because Sam had told him or because he just knew. An odd feeling, and odder that I didn’t mind it. “How do you know when you’ve found your… Work?”
“Oh shit,” Sam said quietly, as if he’d stepped into a nest of snakes.
Mali stood free of his post. “What?”
Harmony Page 42
