Hamlet turned on him. “They make you a little distant?” He gave a crooked smile. “A little inclined to be friendly to murder suspects, and to—well, to people whom you wouldn’t think of as friends?”
Horatio took a deep breath. “That’s me. I do that.”
“Fight it.” Hamlet grabbed his arm, hard enough to hurt. “Be more than yourself. Anyone can do that.”
Horatio pulled free and said, “I think that’s why Goode wanted us to watch Joe.”
“What?” For once, Hamlet was confused.
“He taught us about labs, but he’s reminding us—reminding you since you’re the bright one—what our limits are. You’re locked in place, my lord, a prisoner of your own personality. He wanted you to know that.”
Hamlet frowned. “Are you any more free?”
“Sometimes I think I am,” Horatio said.
Hamlet walked back toward the stage doors and whirled suddenly. “If he’s so certain of my limits, why doesn’t he want me to know what Capek—”
“The simula of Capek—”
“Was about to say? He cut the simula off.”
“This place has its own secrets. Remember what you said earlier: ‘Not all secrets are guilty.’”
“Yes.” Hamlet gestured for Horatio to go ahead, and they walked toward the stage. “But some are.”
13
The stones of Elsinore had turned to water-stained, cracked, yellow plaster. The rear windows looked out on a street; the ironwork of the balcony above cast curlicued shadows onto the curtains. An overweight hot dog man wheeled a cart past, shouting about red-hots; a Spanish woman had shuffled through slowly, selling flowers for the dead.
Horatio asked, “Isn’t all that distracting?” Freddy, he thought, had overdone helping Hamlet with portajet simula.
Hamlet pointed out the window to a French Quarter apartment with another couple fighting in it and laundry drying on its balcony. “It’s simula, the same as we are.” He added softly, “We need all the help we can get.”
Gertrude, in a fake tiara and ratty boa, lurched from right to left, waving her arms. “Strange,” she finished drunkenly, “that I should be called a destitute woman, when I have all these treasures locked in my heart.”
Minutes later, Laertes roared, “And with that crazy crown on! What queen do you think you are?” He punched a simula chair, wincing as he struck the rock beneath. The cast applauded wildly. Hamlet put his face in his hands.
The only other watchers were the deer and moose grazing in the shrubbery overgrowing Sheep Meadow. Central Park, filled with the offspring of the long-abandoned zoo, had been largely abandoned since the Bio Boom; the Globe Hamlet Troupe had it to themselves for rehearsal.
A Streetcar Named Desire had never looked so tipsy and excessive. Only once did it work; when Horatio came on as Mitch and said fervently, “In all my experience, I have never known anyone like you.” For just a moment he meant it.
Osric watched, sulking. He’d wanted to play Blanche or Stella—or Mitch, Stanley, Eunice, or the others. Hamlet promised that next week he could be a bevy of Sabine women.
Raggedy blues drifted through the simula windows, and a breeze that cooled nothing (because it didn’t really exist) waved the window curtains. Horatio rubbed the back of his neck. “Is it me or is it getting hot out here?”
“It’s you,” Hamlet said solemnly. “And it’s hot out. That’s why I designed a set for the park.”
“You designed—?” Horatio felt chilly. “Fast learner.”
The blues wailed; the drummer rode a cymbal that sizzled all by itself. Blanche moaned in Stanley’s arms. The set went dark, even by day.
Gertrude, Laertes, and Ophelia bowed. Laertes’s black silk pajamas were sweat-stained. “What did you think?”
Hamlet played with a blade of grass. “I think that Stanley is in love with life, as well as angry.”
Laertes tore off his pajama top. “Well, I’m not.”
Hamlet said, “I could tell.” He added as Laertes exited, “For being too loud and off-balance, it was quite good.”
“Good,” came Laertes’s roar from behind the rocks. “I’m so glad. Why didn’t you say so?’
Hamlet stood. “I was afraid you’d think I meant it.” He turned back to Gertrude. “Mother, you were a fine seductive Blanche, an excellent frightened Blanche.”
“Why, thank you.” Gertrude, who had been looking concernedly after Laertes, forgot all about him.
“You’re welcome. There was one small problem—”
“Yes?” She clutched the tattered fur piece as though she suddenly needed the warmth.
“They’re supposed to be the same Blanche.”
Gertrude bit her lip and walked briskly off.
Ophelia asked shyly, “Aren’t you going to say something terrible to me, too?”
“Oh, no. You were better than anyone expected.”
Ophelia curtsied, then frowned. “What did that mean?”
“If you were good, it means that no one thought you could be. If you were bad, it means that everyone expected you to be. Which do you think it meant?”
Ophelia, in a rare moment of lucidity, said quietly, “I think it means that you’re in a bad mood. Again.” She skipped off the New Orleans set into the grass.
Osric, his jealousy gone, said to Hamlet, “Well, I think you’re just awful,” and ran to comfort the others.
Horatio said, “Scenery off.” The rocks of Sheep Meadow returned. He stood in front of Hamlet. “Headache?”
“A spike in my skull.” He rubbed his temples. “Did you think we couldn’t get sick?”
“I’ve seen it before. Barnardo threw up this morning; he’s going to check with the Teks.”
“Maybe he’s pregnant.” Hamlet sat stiffly.
Horatio knew it was a mistake, but asked, “Now that the others are gone, what do you have to say about me?”
“About unsubtle, badly blocked, under-planned, underprofessional you?” Hamlet spoke loudly enough to frighten a mule deer. “Why should you outshine us? Why?”
“I’m human.”
“That’s not it. After all, Paulette is human.”
Horatio said evenly, “All right, it’s the Curse of Consciousness. I know when I’m doing badly and I do better. What’s eating you?”
“Lots of things.” Hamlet slumped. “For one, why haven’t we solved the murder?”
“In two days?” Horatio added, “Someone hid it well.”
Hamlet slumped forward. “And whoever did it has more control of this place than I do. It’s like he was a king.”
“Then catch his conscience. We know the crime, right?”
Hamlet refused to be encouraged. “We think we do.”
Horatio ignored him. “Then find the motive for the crime and you’ll catch him.”
Hamlet considered, then leaped up, gesturing. The rocks at their end of Sheep Meadow suddenly had stairs—not the wrought iron of New Orleans, but the grim stone of Elsinore, blending with the natural rock.
Hamlet took Horatio’s arm and walked below the throne platform where, moments ago, there had been a balcony with an iron railing. “Begin here. Behold the corpse.” He pointed to the floor. “See where it lies, still and patient, quieter than a cradle.” His voice trembled. “How can we speak so loud and it not wake? What does it know? How will we ever ask?” He shouted to the ground, “Speak!”
The apartment buildings on the West Side echoed. Horatio licked his lips, wondering how much of an act Hamlet’s madness had ever been. “I don’t see anything.”
“You see nothing and death is nothing. Death has no flesh, though he will take yours, and has no mind, though he will take yours.” He looked into Horatio’s eyes with a sanity more disturbing than all the mad talk. “You said we needed to learn the secret behind Capek’s death.”
He dragged Horatio toward the stair. “Begin here. A man is seen in the hall, walking strangely outside the murder chamber. What do you know about him
?”
Horatio didn’t answer. Hamlet said impatiently, “Why, that a man acted strangely, and since all men act strangely, that’s nothing, too.”
Again he pulled Horatio. “But begin here.” They were halfway up the rock, Horatio hanging back as much as he could while keeping his balance. “Watch everyone fight, love, argue. One of them has murdered and can’t hide it.”
Horatio said, “People hide it every day.”
“Not from us; not up here.” He swept his arm across, pointing below them. “When they kiss, when they lie, when they frown behind smiles, we’ll see them. And even better, beginning—” He tugged Horatio. Horatio stood firm. Hamlet said, “Come with me. I order you”
“You’re not my king, and you’re talking crazy.”
Hamlet took a deep breath and said, “I ask you, then.”
Horatio folded his arms tightly against his chest. “If you’re right, and we find a murderer, what will you do?”
Hamlet held his hand out. “I’m not crazy, I can’t order you, and I need your help.”
Horatio wanted to find the motive, Hamlet the killer. Once they started, they wouldn’t stop until they found both.
And when they found the murderer, Horatio would leave the stage for good and Hamlet, an android who strayed his limits, would be destroyed.
And Hamlet had already learned more than Horatio knew about thinkware and systems, enough to manipulate the simpler Globe programs and to load simulas. By the time they found the killer, what would Hamlet be capable of?
Horatio took Hamlet’s hand and ascended—and whatever Hamlet said thereafter, their real investigation began there, when Horatio surrendered control to Hamlet.
Hamlet pulled Horatio to the top of the rocks. “Now, look—and see everything at once.” He folded his arms. Horatio said, “I don’t see anything.”
“Then you have much to see.” Hamlet waved a hand and everything disappeared but the portajets. “Why are these here when they cost so much? Why has a stage been built for androids when simulas could do more? Why is so much of it secret?”
Horatio said nothing.
“Let’s find out how simulas are written, how biochips work, what Capek had that others wanted, hated, and needed. Whatever other secrets are here, he had one that someone killed for.”
Hamlet pulled his pointing hand in until it pointed at his own feet and said triumphantly, “It begins here.”
He stood, waiting for applause, but Horatio only said, “Look where you are.”
Hamlet looked behind himself. He was in front of the king’s throne—formerly a chair on a New Orleans balcony, now a throne again. “What a coincidence.”
“No. For you, it always begins and ends here, when you kill the murderer. How are you going to catch him if you can only see a murderer who sits on a throne?”
Hamlet chuckled, and Horatio envied the easy self-confidence that went with being the brilliant Prince of Denmark. “I’ll see to it that the murderer ends up on this throne. As always. Shall we go?”
Before they could leave, a shy voice below said, “My lord?”
“But soft,” Hamlet said. “Very soft. The fair Ophelia.” He slid down the rock, holding a hand out to her.
To Horatio they looked as though they were about to dance. She said, “I missed you,” but stopped just short of embracing him and bent away as he tried to kiss her.
Hamlet smiled, but sounded hurt. “Are you still angry?”
She shook her head briskly, golden hair flying. “I always forgive you.”
Hamlet winced. “I always need forgiving. Can we kiss?”
She ducked. “Horatio, could you look the other way?”
Hamlet laughed. “You feel shy in front of Horatio and you sleep with members of the audience—”
“Stop it.” She looked as though she might cry. “I don’t mind doing it, but you know I’d rather not.”
“I am sorry,” Hamlet said sincerely, “And I know that you’re as true as circumstances permit.” He added firmly, “And I want Horatio to look the other way.”
“I’ll do better than that, my lord.” Horatio made a sweeping bow, gesturing the set simula off, and exited. He carried two portajets with him.
Ophelia said, after they had kissed, “Are we alone?”
A rustle in the underbrush made them turn. A buck stumbled awkwardly from some elderberry bushes. His right antler was broken; blood ran from his nostrils. He looked dazedly at Hamlet and fell to the ground.
Eric Valentin, naked to the waist, leaped from the same bushes the deer had crashed through. His right hand made a wide arc and thudded against the deer’s skull. The deer shuddered and lay still.
Eric straightened. “I’ve longed to do that.” He held a bloody stone. He smiled at Hamlet. “Haven’t you?”
Ophelia and Hamlet knelt by the deer, fascinated by its death. Ophelia stroked it. Hamlet said flatly, “Never.”
Eric stared down at Hamlet’s bare head and fingered the stone thoughtfully. “Perhaps you’re more prey than hunter.”
“He is not prey.” They all turned as Goode stepped around the rocks used for staging. “And you are not his hunter.”
Eric’s right arm was cocked to strike. There was animal blood on his chest. “Whose hunter am I?”
Goode, weaponless, walked in front of Eric. “Do you think you’re mine?” He stood under Eric’s raised arm. “If any android dies, it will be by accident or by corporate decision. Don’t try to decide things alone.”
Eric’s arm shook. Finally he tossed the rock aside and said into Goode’s face, “I won’t—yet.” He ran back into the brush, tossing branches with much more passion than he had shown when killing the deer.
Goode sighed, then looked at Hamlet and Ophelia. “Please go back now,” he said quietly. “Even though we can trace you, you shouldn’t be out without human company.”
Ophelia left immediately. Hamlet followed more slowly, wondering why Goode permitted him and Horatio even a pretense of freedom, and why they had not been killed yet. He glanced back at the empty throne, now bare rock.
When Hamlet and Goode were gone a few seconds, Claudius mounted to where the throne had been and sat on the rocks for a long time, brooding.
14
The breakfast table had an oval track laid out with cups. Last night, an admirer, not Goode, had given Gertrude come-when-called slippers, and the cast was betting on them.
Gertrude herself raced hardest of all, dodging from end to end of the table and calling, “Slippers. Come, Yoo-hoo…” They padded toward her with all the good will that two modified guinea pigs could muster.
Horatio cheered the right shoe. Osric disdainfully encouraged the left. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern pooled their money, split their bets, and rooted angrily against each other, sure to break even.
At the finish line, Hamlet waved a napkin flag. “The winner, by a toe.” He picked the struggling victor up.
Gertrude took it away. “You don’t know how to hold them.” She hugged them to her breasts, where the slippers snuggled and lay quiet. Only Gertrude was out of breath.
Hamlet said interestedly, “Aren’t they for feet?”
“Cunning things, ain’t they?” the gravedigger said, peering at them nearsightedly. He felt quite above himself, being allowed at the main table for the race. “And so flat. Just like little longy-haired smashed rats.”
A painful silence followed. He flushed. “Sorry. I’m off. Work to do. Can’t eat today anyway. I wouldn’t hardly keep it down, milady.”
Osric said acidly, “You do look less healthy than usual, and that’s an achievement.”
The gravedigger rubbed his nose with his palm and scowled. “I got to look like the part. It’s professional, that’s what.”
Osric waved a linen handkerchief, ostensibly to disperse fumes. “You’re far too professional.”
The gravedigger grinned. “I know why you’re mad, sweetheart.” He stuck out his palm. “Pay up.”
&n
bsp; Osric scowled and passed a coin over. The gravedigger bit the coin—for effect, since it was a stage coin. “Paid up like a gentleman.” He bowed to the queen. “Thank you for amusing us, ma’am. It was—” He hesitated. “It was a divertin’ and entertainful spectacle, and the winner was an easy pick.”
The others looked mystified. Hamlet said amusedly, “And why is that?”
The gravedigger looked surprised. “I figured as you, of all of them, would of guessed, sir. Her ladyship is right-footed.”
He exited with dignity, weaving slightly.
Claudius frowned at the retreating figure. “Drunk, at this hour?”
“It would fit his part,” Gertrude said gently. “But I think he’s ill, poor man.”
The ghost drifted forward, coffee cup and all, his face a mask of self-pity. “He’s ill? I’m dead.”
Horatio, who wasn’t listening, said, “There’s something going around.” He looked up. Everyone was staring at him.
Hamlet smiled mockingly. “A fine joke.” He turned to Polonius. “Could you give us more small talk on sickness?”
“It’s just a twenty-four-hour bug,” Polonius said obligingly. “It must be something I ate. I’m not feeling up to par. I’m under the weather—”
“Could you give us less?” Hamlet asked as politely. He tapped the night’s performance notes and looked at Barnardo significantly. “Mother, your blessing.” He kissed her cheek, she his lips. “Father, your blessing.” The ghost made a sign of the cross over him and vanished. “Uncle—” He clasped hands with the king. “And Polonius, some last wisdom to speed me on in health.”
Hamlet and Horatio exited as Polonius called behind them, “Starve a cold and feed a fever. Drink plenty of fluids. Get some rest. An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
As they left, they heard Barnardo swearing.
In the hall Hamlet said, “What’s wrong with you? Nothing ‘goes around’ the labs. Our health is monitored constantly.”
Horatio frowned. “Then why are so many of you ill?”
When Hamlet finally answered, he seemed to be talking to himself. “I teased Goode the other night, saying, ‘Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?’ It’s no joke.”
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