The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Vistata Form

by J. Neil Schulman

  Such hostility as Vera felt for Eleanor before the performance was stored somewhere Vera didn't have to look at it. But Wendell, on the couch to Vera's right, had long ago learned that in his profession reading people was more important than reading proposed laws, and he observed that Vera's program leaflet was already reduced to shreds of twisted foil. Wendell turned his head to Vera and told her, "Cheer up. It's only a concert, not an execution."

  Vera turned to him, startled, then allowed herself a slight smile. "At least when I'm on the bench," she said dryly, "I'm the one handing out the executions."

  Wendell harumphed, then turned his head back up toward the dome. Vera turned her head leftward, to Stanton, and searched out his hand with her own. "My Goddess," Stanton whispered when she'd found it, "your hand's a puddle."

  In the box ahead of them, Joan turned to Malcolm. "That tunnel is so ghastly," she whispered. "At least when I was in there, you were waiting with me."

  "That was so I could get the quiche," Malcolm said, and they both smiled.

  Four years before, in the Malcolm Institute's annual student recital the year she was eight, Joan had made her debut at the pyradome. At the lesson before the recital, Malcolm had offhandedly told Joan that he was hungry, and somewhat abruptly had turned the discussion from pedal technique to favorite foods, discovering in the process what Joan's favorite was. It had seemed an uncharacteristic and somewhat forced familiarity for the usually no-nonsense lasemeister, but Joan had not thought about it until after she had made her debut, playing Jaeger's formidable Vistata No. 18 in Fourth. Amid thunderous applause, Malcolm had marched down the pyradome's center aisle to the Tiger Pit, where he had presented Joan with an enormous quiche Lorraine. She had, however, been much too excited to swallow more than a mouthful.

  The day glowing flickered twice, and on the couch behind His Gaylordship, Kate Seymour turned to her only redheaded grandson, five-year-old Stan Jr., and told him, "Hush up, now. Your mother's about to play."

  Also with thoughts more suited to a death house than a laserium, Eleanor Delaney Darris stood at the mouth of the tunnel leading into the pyradome's Tiger Pit from backstage, waiting for the signal light to change from yellow to green, as it had changed from red to yellow seconds before. Her palms were as wet as her throat was dry, and she was wondering at the moment how the Christ she'd ever got herself into this situation.

  Some wise and kind soul had forseen her discomfort, for right next to the entrance were a tissue dispenser and a water cooler. Eleanor mopped her palms and took a short drink, then noticed that there was a bucket as well. She preferred to think that it was only for disposing of the tissues, thought she suspected otherwise.

  She smoothed her floor-length black gown unnecessarily, then smiled as she remembered what Malcolm had said at her last lesson. "When you stand in that tunnel," he'd told her, "watching your life pass before your eyes, remember that someday you'll look back on the terror of this hour as the high point of your life." He'd then leaned back in his couch, grinned, and said, "Life really scats, doesn't it?"

  The light changed from yellow to green. Eleanor took a breath and walked into the Tiger Pit.

  She could hear the applause, but with the spotlight on her, she couldn't see the audience at all. Thank the Lady for that, at least, she thought; she knew that if she'd caught even a glimpse of Wolfgang Jaeger or Geoffrey Moulton sitting in the jury box, that would have been it for her, right then and there.

  Eleanor bowed at four, eight, and twelve o'clock to the audience surrounding her. Then she seated herself, adjusted the couch, wiped imaginary dust off the console, lowered the glowing to pitch blackness, and began to play.

  She started with the first of three pieces she would play in her hour-long showcase, Partyka's Ad Astra Suite. Written on Earth before the space habitat by that name had even been planned, it was a somewhat programmatic series of five themes- and-variations describing--as the composer had written on the score--"Human Aspirations That Will Take Us to the Stars." The themes were titled, in sequence, "Observing the Eagle Soar," "The Hot Air Balloon," "Amelia Crossing the Atlantic," "The X-15," and "The Eagle Has Landed."

  Eleanor flew beautifully through the first three sections, poured on everything she had for the devastatingly fast "supersonic" variations, then reintroduced, in a brighter key, the transformed statement of the original "Eagle" theme for the alternately graceful then rocky final touchdown.

  The audience was warmly receptive as Eleanor raised the glowing for her first bow, as they were again when she'd completed her second piece, Pfirsichbaum's Apollo and Dionysus. She lowered the glowing again as the applause died down.

  It was time for the premiere of Nocturne in First by Eleanor Delaney Darris.

  While the pale-violet shadow of the day bowed three times to him, a deep-red sunset yawned, fading into the distance. Slowly, ponderously, the blue moon stretched, shook herself, and began to awaken from her sleep. She began lumbering around--back and forth--marching a call for her sons and daughters to awaken with her.

  In a cool, clear blue voice, she summoned forth the planets and the stars--the great galaxies and clusters of galaxies--to arise with her for the Night's Great Dance.

  She asked all assembled what the night's dance should be, and all sorts of suggestions were made.

  There were calls for reels and rigadoons, one-steps and two- steps, fox-trots and turkey trots. There were factions for jigs, horas, and kazatskis; jitterbugs, bunnyhoppers, and cakewalkers argued; now there were demands for gavottes and pavanes, minuets and mazurkas, sarabands, tangos and fandangos...

  Enough! danced the moon; I will decide.

  It will be a waltz. Follow me:

  Rising: Violet, Indigo, Blue b;

  Falling: Yellow, Green, Indigo.

  Rising: Violet, Indigo, Blue b;

  Falling: Red b, Orange b, Indigo.

  Reluctantly at first, they began to waltz in the established coloratura--rising and falling, rising and falling--isolated, seconded, and answered. At first only a few began, timidly, but soon with greater confidence. Then all were waltzing--faster and more innovatively--swirling and entangling, showing off and taking grand risks...

  A burst of red, then to orange, then to gold: the planets and the stars--the great galaxies and clusters of galaxies - paused, then slowly began breaking up into smaller groups to head home.

  The moon bowed three times to the risen sun, yawned, then - with a final flash of white--retreated into darkness for her rest.

  Eleanor Darris raised the glowing to an ovation of applause and shouted bravas and bravissimas.

  Eleanor was the final contender in her catagory. The jury, though exhausted from watching lasegraphers since ten that morning and the day before also, deliberated only an hour - though it seemed forever to Eleanor and fourteen other hopefuls as they paced the greenroom, smoking joynettes. For some of the younger ones, away from their parents and governors, it was a rare chance to toke with the grown-ups.

  Just before midnight, Geoffrey Moulton--as president of the jury--called five finalists back to the Tiger Pit. Eleanor was among them. When it came her turn, he placed around her neck a fire gem set into a palladium medallion, then kissed her wetly on both cheeks.

  Eleanor had tied with a fourteen-year-old Oriental boy from Antarctic Province for a year's study with Moulton at the LASER Institute in Van Nuys, Pacifica--the academy founded by Ivan Dryer himself a century and a half earlier. On the second day of the LCAA festival, Thursday, April 22, Eleanor had tied for second place in the classical Junior Competetion.

  It was too late to hold a celebration that night, but there was some debate between Eleanor and Wendell regarding the proper night for throwing a party--above all, an excuse to play host to the top names of lasegraphy at Helix Vista for an evening. Wendell thought it should be the next night, Friday--a night the festival was devoting to roga--while Eleanor thought it might be better to wait for Tuesday the twenty-seventh, the night following the
senior competition, in which Joan was playing, and the last day of the festival.

  It was not only a question of Eleanor's wishing to share her laurels with any Joan might win, but a matter of protocol. With one exception, the celebrities they most wished to invite were not only on Eleanor's jury but on Joan's. Inasmuch as many of them were already acquainted with Eleanor and Wendell through grants from the Darris Foundation, there was the possibility that another candidate would charge that having them to Helix Vista before Joan competed was prejudicial.

  Wendell discussed the problem with the "exception," Wolfgang Jaeger, right after Eleanor's award and just before Jaeger left for his hotel. Jaeger laughed when he heard of their quandary, assuring His Gaylordship that the lasegraphic community was so incestuous already that such an affair would be a teardrop in a cloud factory--such "influences" were so common as to cancel out. Moreover, since some of the most prized guests would be leaving Newer York Monday night immediately following the Senior competition, the only chance of getting most of them was this Friday--already today.

  The celebration was scheduled for the following night.

  "Do you have anything to say before sentence is passed?"

  It was a drama that had been played out in courtrooms throughout history. The prisoner in this case, a frightened- looking teenaged Touchable girl with raven hair hanging out from her red-hooded cloak, stood in the dock. Her attorney--a portly androman looking somewhat like a manicured Rasputin in his lavender capote--stood next to her. The prosecutrix, in her pink cloak, sat at the prosecution table at the left of the chamber. The jury of six women and six andromen were in a box on the right side with a court recorder, a robot, just in front of them. The court clerk in his blue cloak--the only comman in this courtroom as an officer--sat at a desk just below the judges's bench, watching an array of video monitors and wearing a headset that permitted the judge to speak to him privately.

  The visitor's gallery was large and filled, as usual, with witnesses, spectators, and holovision technicians; several cameras were suspended at discreet--but strategic--points around the courtroom. Two burly-looking bailiffs, both in lavender, stood in opposite aisles of the visitor's gallery, each with his legs planted apart and his arms folded across his chest, looking like genies awaiting their next command.

  Her Honor Vera Collier Delaney sat at her bench, raised higher than anyone else in this chamber, the Legos, Ltd., corporate logo with its motto, "Lex Scripta, Lex Terrae," prominently displayed on the seal in front of her. She wore a black cloak. An enormous holovision monitor above her showed, at the moment, a close-up of the Touchable.

  The image on the holoscreen cut to Vera, trying to look patient waiting for the prisoner's reply to her question, then back to the Touchable once again.

  The Touchable looked at the jury, looked at the prosecutrix, looked up at the huge monitor--now showing an encompassing view of the gallery--then lowered her eyes to meet Vera's. Softly, but amplified by a pickup, she said, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."

  Vera kept the Touchable's glance and smiled slightly. "How melodramatic," she said. "How...touching. Is that all?"

  The girl in red nodded.

  "Very well," Vera said. "You grant us mercy, we grant you justice." She pressed a panel on her bench. "Court clerk will read the sentence."

  The text appeared on the clerk's monitor board. He pressed a panel on his desk, swiveling it around to face the gallery, then in a professional-sounding baritone began reading from his monitor. "Thank you, Your Honor. Touchable Number 264-7RT-399 will be taken for a last shuttle ride on TransMeridian Skylines to the Fedreation Execution Facility at Detroit, Ontario. There she'll be given a sumptuous last meal courtesy of Chez Bernie's Restaurant. Then, at midnight Sunday the twenty-fifth of April, she'll be taken into the fabulous Radarmatic Microwave Oven for her personal execution."

  The Touchable gasped deeply, and had to be held up by her lawyer.

  The clerk allowed himself a pause, as the huge holoscreen showed a recorded insert of a Touchable being led into the oven, then went on cheerfully. The holoscreen accompanied him with appropriate visual displays: "Some of the witnesses during this trial have received consideraton from, and promotional fees have been paid by, Newer York's beautiful downtown Nova Cancy Hotel - 'At Nova Cancy, there's always room for one more!'--by Trans- Meridian Skylines--'On TransMeridian, we'll fly you from morning to night!'--by Chez Bernie's Restaurant dateline to dateline - 'For the finest French cuisine you'll eat, allez vite to Bernie's suite!'--and by Radarmatic, Inc. Back to you, Your Honor."

  Both bailiffs turned to face the gallery, uncrossed their arms, and began applauding wildly, leading the spectators--with intermittent frantic waving--to applaud likewise.

  When the clapping died down, the holy zoomed in on Vera, who said, "So Mote It Be!"

  She banged her gavel. The spectators began applauding again.

  The bailiffs escorted the Touchable out of court in the brief recess--during which Vera phoned Stanton at his office for a lift to Helix Vista for Eleanor's celebration that night--and when the proceedings had come back from promo, Vera turned to her court clerk and asked, "Who do we have next, Johnny?"

  At a little past six, Stanton's company limousine called for Vera in front of her green foam house on Earth Street. The skymobile waited for her while she took her time slipping into a black evening formal, allowing her blond hair to fall loosely over bare shoulders; then she told her domestic computer where she could be reached, grabbed her overnight case, and climbed into the limousine. Vera watched a recorded summary of her day in court on the vehicle's holoscreen while the skymobile taxied up Manhattan Boulevard to the Darris Tower. She greeted Stanton warmly when he got in. Shortly, they were cleared for takeoff, and five minutes later they were climbing to 3,000 meters for their flight north, via the Hudson Corridor, to Helix Vista.

  They talked casually about work for a few minutes, then proceeded to a recapitulation of the last hunt they had gone on together and talked of the next hunt to which they looked forward. Over the past few years, Stanton and Vera had teamed for Marnie hunting parties quite a few times. Eleanor and Vera had both become Marnies, but Vera had substituted for Eleanor while she was pregnant with Collier and later Delaney, while (unbeknownst to Vera) Eleanor practiced--and largely owning to Eleanor's growing dislike of hunting. It had all been very innocent, though, and while Vera and Stanton had frequently helped the other to have sex with a Touchable, they had never committed the indiscretion of being alone together for long.

  Conversation about hunting bogged down momentarily, and there were several heartbeats of silence. A word from either of them could have broken the moment easily. Instead, neither said anything. It was long enough for Stanton to notice how much Vera was like Eleanor before she had got so preoccupied with that raping laser of hers, and it was long enough for Vera to remember how envious she had been of the Touchable she had pinned down for Stanton on their last hunt together.

  The silence lasted just a little while longer. Then Vera smiled, took Stanton's hand, and lifted it to her lips. His mouth opened, astonished. They were at 1,000 meters. She rested his hand on her knee, and moved it slowly up the inside of herthigh. They were at 1,500 meters. She ran one hand through his red hair while with her other she guided his hand to her hollows. She gasped. He hesitated only an instant longer, then grabbed her with all the frantic urgency of a fifteen-year-old satiating his starvation for the first time. They were at 2,000 meters.

  Her tongue tried to swallow his as his hands explored the textured curves of her body. They were at 2,500 meters. As they pulled clothes out of the way, their eyes stared into the other's, then shut tightly. They were at 3,000 meters.

  "I'll have you," she said, her voice like molten lead.

  "You do," he answered.

  Two bodies tried to crush themselves into one. When he thrust into her, it was an act of time-travel and of conquest--not conquest of her, but of a wife who n
o longer seemed to need him to complete herself, and of his long-dead father, who during his lifetime had measured his son's manliness by the number of women he took to bed. When she encompassed him, it was an act of theft so complete that she didn't even mind when in his moment of near- unconsciousness he called her Eleanor. His moment triggered hers -- the first time since she'd entered the service nine years before that she'd been brought to release other than by her own hand.

  It was only after they were descending into Helix Vista, as they assembled clothing and heavily breathed in each other's musk, that they realized the inevitability of their moment. Each of them knew that their act had been a statement of the same kind, born out of the same void. But each saw the future filled differently.

  Chapter 12

  THE LCAA MARK 800B chromatic laser, the model given to Joan Darris on her fifth birthday, is generally regarded as the best commercially produced instrument of its time. It was also the most expensive. Unlike the free-electron lasers used in cheaper instruments, and like the handmade instruments of the Impressionist period--such as Wolfgang Jaeger's classic Merlino -- the Mark 800B was an injection laser making use of between nine and twenty individually cut fire gems, different for each instrument LCAA made. Cutting the gems to tune them for the color wavelengths needed in lasegraphy is a delicate and expensive proposition--more than an art, less than a science. Thirty-five spectral lines--from 3,800 Angstroms in dark violet to 7,600 Angstroms in dark red, plus the thirty-sixth ultraviolet line at 2,970 Angstroms--must be located at mathematically precise wavelengths, so if there are a few extra lines at odd points in the spectrum, they can be ignored or filtered out.