Hamlet considered. “We know that the lab facilities are expansive for one building, and that something more important than theater is going on.” He sounded eager again, in spite of what they had seen.
Horatio said, “My lord, what will you do if you aren’t made for anything wonderful after all?”
“Do you know that is your third question? Again. We’d better get to the theater.” The train doors opened and Hamlet leaped out. Horatio followed, wondering whether, in emergencies, a slow thinker could save a fast one.
7
By midafternoon, Horatio was as sleepy as though it were midnight. Hamlet, as always, was restless. Rehearsal was not going well.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sprawled on stage, listlessly tossing coins. Ros tossed one, then glanced at his scrollscreen for his next line. “Heads.”
Guil handed him another coin. Ophelia yawned, then looked guiltily at Hamlet.
Ros checked his screen, tossed another coin, checked again, and announced annoyedly, “Heads.” Ophelia giggled. Guil handed Ros another coin.
Ros tossed a coin, checked his screen, and opened his mouth as Hamlet called, “Could we pick up the pace?”
Guil sighed. “Who writes this stuff?”
“A man named Stoppard, decades ago. It’s called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. It gives you both leading roles.”
Ros, with a great effort, said, “Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Toss coins and pay. Those are leading roles?” Guil was as jealous as any human actor. “In the real play, my lord, you get to kill people.”
“And die. Don’t forget dying,” Ros added.
Hamlet rubbed his eyes. “Guil, in this very real play, you kill someone—or think you do—and Rosencrantz, you die, as does Guildenstern. You’re reading the first act. I don’t kill anyone or die in the first act either.”
Hamlet muttered, “Some night I may. It would have them on their feet.” He said it as Stoppard’s Guildenstern might have.
Gertrude bustled on, in a checkered apron that said in badly cut-out letters, “KISS THE QUEEN.”
“How are you boys? Have some brownies; they’re fresh.”
Ros and Guil grabbed two each. Hamlet put his face in his hands. Horatio took one for himself and one for Hamlet—or for later.
Gertrude set the tray down and ruffled Hamlet’s hair. “Don’t look so serious.”
He smiled. “Mother, rehearsal is always serious.”
“I thought you said this thing was a comedy.”
“It’s a play, not a thing, and it’s often funny. You made that apron, didn’t you?”
She smoothed it. “I asked Theater Access for the cloth, just like you showed me, and sewed it myself.”
The stitches were uneven, and the seams puckered. Horatio, never having seen handicrafts, was appalled.
Hamlet patted it. “Very nice.” He took the brownie from Horatio and munched gloomily. “We act poorly, but thanks to you, Mother, we’ll dress and eat well.”
She blushed, pleased. “Well, I like to be sure.” She walked to the side stairs and descended. “Could I watch?”
Claudius, appearing from the wings, said suddenly, hungrily, “An audience.” Horatio and the others jumped.
Hamlet said happily, “Hello, Your Majesty. Your scene’s coming.”
Claudius wore dark trousers and a plain dark top, like a minimalist Hamlet himself. “I can’t wait. I’m Stoppard’s Player, and I crave my audience.” He kissed Gertrude as he took a brownie. “Watch me, my dear—carefully. You’ll see a great deal.”
But the king was watching Horatio, who remembered that Claudius was suspicious of him.
Hamlet thumped the stage. “We’ll show them, you and I—and Horatio.”
“Coming, my lord.” Horatio hurried, trying not to hesitate in front of Claudius. The Curse of Consciousness was suddenly strong. “Being your slave, what should I do but tend—”
“Upon the hours and times of my desire, yes.” Hamlet finished the line offhandedly. Apparently, he had Shakespeare’s sonnets, as well as Shakespeare’s plays, in memory. “Start from your line: ‘I heard—I thought I heard—music.’”
Horatio quickly dropped into the part. Claudius strode on, all melodrama and half-concealed poverty. “An audience,” he said, so naturally that Horatio scanned the seats automatically. Gertrude was in the third row, rapt. Rosencrantz and Guilden-stern watched, mouths slightly open.
Claudius easily and capably acted Stoppard’s decadent but polished Player. Everyone on stage and off marveled as he spoke to the empty seats, which seemed full while he spoke: “Tragedy, sir. Deaths and disclosures, universal and particular, denouements both unexpected and inexorable…”
Then he turned to Horatio. “Getting warm, am I?”
Horatio fumbled his line. Hamlet, eyes shining, said, “Oh, well done, Your Highness.”
Gertrude applauded. “Very nice.”
“Thank you, my dear. Horatio, shall we go on?” He raised an eyebrow. “Or are you having trouble with your lines again?”
Hamlet said, “He needs to rehearse more with strange materials. We all do, Majesty.” He clapped his hands twice sharply. “Start from where you left off.”
Claudius shrugged and dropped back into the Player effortlessly.
They read through Guil’s and the Player’s confrontation about chance and fate. Hamlet and Claudius, trying to stare each other down and pretend nonchalance at the same time, enjoyed themselves.
Hamlet/Guil: “Chance, then.”
King/Player: “Or fate.”
Hamlet/Guil: “Yours or ours, then?”
King/Player: “It could hardly be one without the other.”
Hamlet/Guil: “Fate, then.”
Claudius turned back to Horatio. “Which do you think it is?”
This time Horatio was ready. “Yes, Highness.”
“Never mind that, I’m a player just now.”
The king said, “We’ll try again. Chance or fate?”
“I hardly know.”
“Makes it hard to play the end, if you don’t know. Do they?”
Horatio was straining to avoid The Curse of Consciousness. “Play the end?”
“Need to know, for the end.” Claudius stared coldly.
“Not that I could see,” Horatio said finally.
“Ah. Then you’ve read the end. When?”
In the silence that followed, Horatio remembered that Hamlet had passed out the chips just before rehearsal and that Horatio was supposedly only a few days old.
Hamlet said casually, “I showed it to him this morning; that’s why he did so well just now.” He added, “Maybe next time I could give you a chip in advance, too.”
Claudius said, “That’s all right.” He was still staring at Horatio. “I don’t need to memorize anything.”
* * * * *
Ros and Guil waved their arms and died enthusiastically. Hamlet clapped his hands once—not applause—and said, “That’s enough.” He added dryly, “Thanks for auditioning; we’ll call you.”
The others left. Horatio said, “Why that play?”
“Instead of rehearsing Hamlet?” He was pacing back and forth as though the stage were his cell. “We don’t need to rehearse the play, except for new blocking. We did before because you were new.”
“And now?”
“Now,” Hamlet said determinedly, “I’m making them into actors.” They walked into the lobby together.
In the lobby a trembling voice stopped them. “Excuse me?”
Hamlet sighed. “Excused,” he said loudly.
The pudgy man in the black doublet flinched. “I was speaking to your friend.” He turned to Horatio. “I liked the play the other night.”
Hamlet said suddenly, “Excuse me,” and returned to the theater.
Horatio said cautiously, “I’m glad you liked it.”
“And I wanted to talk to you” The man wouldn’t meet Horatio’s eyes.
Horatio spoke softly, non
-threateningly. “About what?”
“Oh, things.” He pretended to stare at the Spanish moss. “I was wondering if you’d go with me—just to talk.”
When Horatio didn’t answer the man looked up defensively. “I know what you’re thinking I want, and I don’t. Not from you, anyway. I’m sorry. I hope that didn’t sound rude.”
Hamlet returned as Horatio’asked, “What’s your name?”
“Everybody calls me Billy.”
Hamlet said solemnly. “One hopes, then, that it’s your name.” His sounded edgy. Horatio had no idea why.
Billy blushed. “It’s William. But Billy is fine, honestly.” He added to Horatio now, “If you’d only come with me and just talk—not anything more—please.”
Horatio knew it was not a good idea. He knew that harmless-seeming people are often dangerous, that sex and promises don’t go well together, that a human being passing for an android had best not take chances.
But this little man had the hungry loneliness, the haunted look, that Horatio and Paulette had in common. And he sounded so desperate. “Could you wait here briefly?”
“Yes,” he said with a quick sigh that made Horatio regret consenting. “Oh, yes. Tea and talk… this will be wonderful.” He actually clapped lightly. “I’ll wait here.”
Hamlet said as they exited, “You’ve made a conquest.”
“I hope not. Where are we going?”
“First to the stage, then to my room.” He added, imitating Billy, “Just to talk—not anything more—”
“Don’t do that. He’s sad.”
Hamlet stopped. “Is that why you’re going? Because he’s sad?”
Horatio said suddenly, “I think you’re jealous.”
Hamlet said, “Just because you’re going with him? Never. But I’m concerned.” He called to the stage, “Ghost?”
A skeleton in armor flashed into view a foot from Horatio, who yelled, “Jesus!” and backed off.
The ghost said, “Sorry. Couldn’t resist. My lord, you’re right. He’s the man I saw on the night of the murder.”
* * * * *
Hamlet opened the door to his room. “Two statements.” He smiled thinly. “One: I doubt if you’ll learn anything this afternoon about Capek’s murder, but you might, if you keep alert. Billy visits the theater quite a bit. Perhaps he has heard gossip or witnessed actions.”
Horatio said, “I doubt it, too. I’ll watch.”
“Watch, listen, touch, smell. Avoid taste; it’s unsafe. Which brings me to two: Be careful of Claudius.”
“You don’t trust him?”
Hamlet’s smile was warm and a little sad. “I love him. We talk, we trade novels and plays, we play too much chess and offer too much of our own opinions. He’s the only cast member intelligent enough to put up a good argument.”
“Then why warn me?”
“Because he was also made to be a much more efficient murderer than I am—and he’s watching you. Which brings me to statement three.”
“You said you’d make two.”
“You always ask three questions; I make three statements. We’re watching for a murderer, and you’re being watched. Try very hard to find a safe place for yourself.”
“I’ve spent my whole life in safe places.” But even as he said it, Horatio knew that it wasn’t true anymore.
Hamlet said, “Then you’ll know a safe place when you see it. Come in for a moment.”
As he stepped into Hamlet’s room, Horatio looked back over his shoulder toward the theater lobby, wondering whether or not he would still know a safe place.
8
“Don’t stare. Come in.”
Horatio couldn’t help staring. Only in museums had he seen a room like this.
The walls were age-darkened deadwood. Brass candle-sconces with reflecting shields lit the room surprisingly well.
A multi-panel wooden door at the room’s end led to a closetlike bedroom, a simple white chamber with a single bed, no pillow, and a footstool. Over the bed was a copy of the First Folio portrait of Shakespeare.
In the main room was an oak table littered with paper and stacked with the kind of books that one could only special order now. Horatio glanced at the bookshelves around the walls, astonished at the wealth: An ancient King James Bible. A copy of Chapman’s Homer. The bound works of Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Webster. A collection of poetry in memory of Lady Someone-or-other. He peered at the last title carefully, moving forward.
He bumped into one of the heavy-looking antique chairs. It skittered aside easily.
Hamlet smiled crookedly. “‘Tell me where is fancy bred?’ That’s from The Merchant of Venice.” He lifted one of the chairs. “Neobalsa. Light, strong, and inexpensive.”
“And the walls?” Horatio blew at a candle. The flame stayed straight.
“Screenjets and simula. They wouldn’t waste real wood on me.” He added, when Horatio looked disappointedly at the bookcases, “But the books on my desk are real.”
“Let me see.” Horatio was surprised at the want in his own voice. After all, he’d seen paper books many times before. He’d even used a few.
But here—he looked at the books, piled as though they were careless possessions: Wilson’s What Happens In Hamlet. Levin’s The Question of Hamlet. Joseph’s Conscience and the King. Gwin’s and Salvaggio’s The Tragedy of Gertrude.
Hamlet smiled. “You may borrow any of them.”
He thought of his own cubicle, omnilit and so bare that he’d missed life, pilfering some bromeliads from the lobby for it. “No. My room probably has insects. You know what’s happened to paper books?”
“I know that most of them published in the past sixty years dissolved in their own pulp acid, and that the rest were eaten by tiny, crawling literary critics.” He added severely, “Humans are better at preserving their own remains; since half a century ago, more books than people have been eaten by worms.”
“In America and Europe anyway.” He turned a page in What Happens in Hamlet, enjoying the page-break between ideas. “Are all your books about Elizabethan England?”
“A few aren’t.” He gestured at a battered copy of Pinocchio. “We need to talk about other things. Have you thought about what the ghost said?”
“I’m still thinking about it.”
“Do you still want to go? I know that catching criminals is your job—” He let the sentence hang, watching Horatio. Horatio said flatly, “Even if it weren’t, you’d want to find the murderer—and find out why he murdered Capek.”
Hamlet nodded and said shyly, “You know, I would like you anyway, since I was made to, but I think I also do by choice. Do you know much about androids or about the biochemicals that Claire Mulvaney mentioned?”
“Nope.”
“God, what do you know about?”
Horatio deliberately leaned through the simula woodwork until he was leaning against the solid wall. “I know more about reality than you do”
Hamlet leaned forward. “Teach me about real things”
“Such as?”
Hamlet waved an arm down himself. “All the things I’m made of. And how they can be used for killing people, and why anyone would want to.” His smile took on an edge. “Maybe you’ll teach me why I’d want to.”
Horatio thought about the end of the play: corpses everywhere and Hamlet himself a murderer. “You know I don’t know about Tek things. What would you want all this for?”
Hamlet said, “To prove that Alan Goode murdered Capek.”
“Maybe he didn’t.”
“Someone did. Why not he?”
“You’re asking the wrong question, my lord. Why anybody?”
Hamlet said sullenly, “You’d rather find out why Capek was killed than find out who killed him.”
Horatio said cautiously, “Is there any other way to find out who killed him?”
Hamlet looked at him in surprise. “If there is, shouldn’t you tell me?” He considered. “But I need to give you so
mething in return. A pact.”
“A deal?”
“A bargain. I’ll work with you, think with you, help you all I can. In return, you will make me—” He stopped.
Horatio looked at the copy of Pinocchio. “I’ll make you a real, live boy.”
“And you’ll teach me about your world.”
Horatio smiled. “A pact. ‘Oh, brave new world, that has such people in it!’”
Hamlet said, “A nice phrase. A quote?”
Horatio was astonished. “You need to read more, my lord. Perhaps we can trade chips and books.” He stood. “I’d better go”
Hamlet raised an eyebrow. “With Billy? Be careful.” Horatio nodded, then bowed awkwardly. Hamlet jumped up and extended a hand. “Not between friends, Horatio. Never between friends.”
Horatio, leaving to find Billy, felt good about that.
9
The apartment was small. Billy, who worked, couldn’t afford a loft the size of Paulette’s, who didn’t. It felt and smelled strange in a way that stirred and retrieved memories from Horatio’s childhood.
Billy limped hastily to the sideboard and lit the burner under the bronze samovar. “I always have this set up for when I get home, water and all.” He gave it a pat, then polished the finger-marks with his sleeve. He rubbed his sleeve on the oak surface—
And Horatio recognized the smell: furniture polish. There was an oak sideboard, a cherry letter-writing desk with a concealed screen, a pine table, and a massive chair that was dark with age. They were all deadwood. The dents, scratches, and scars, polished though they were, hadn’t healed. A cracked leg had been mended instead of grafted.
Billy watched Horatio. “I looked all over for them. Do they make you uncomfortable?” He offered Horatio a live bentwood rocker—intertwined saplings with discreetly inset life-support capsules. “I’ll bring your tea.”
Horatio stared at the oak chair. It had a back, of three panels, as high as a seated man’s head; the armrests were worn from elbows but were each as thick as an arm; the cushion was framed with dark wood strips. It looked permanent: here today and here tomorrow. It made Claudius’s stage throne, darkened live neobalsa, seem transitory.
It made Hamlet’s study seem an elaborate sham.
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