“I’ve gone sort of numb about it.”
He smiled fondly. “Nah, you’re just steady. Really. A rock.”
“No. That’s Mali.”
We both giggled and felt a little better, until Cris came back from BardClyffe to report that nobody had seen Jane at meals and her bed didn’t look slept in. “Maybe the Admin took her.”
“Her term isn’t up for another two weeks,” I protested. “Besides, they don’t leave behind a whole roomful of your stuff.”
“Yeah,” seconded Mark faintly.
I’d seen Bela’s room after. Gone without a trace, as if he’d never been there. “We’d better tell Micah.”
* * *
“Missing for two days?”
I was appalled myself. “We just now put it together.”
Micah dropped his brush into water. “I’m in Howie’s office if you need me.”
Liz Godwin paged me in the shop just before noon. “Micah’s gone off and they want to test the trap. Come and play designer.”
I debated rousing Micah from the office, but I hoped he was on the phone to the Apprentice Administration. I trotted out onstage. The crew had cleaned up and broken for an early lunch. Sean straddled the spot where the hole had been, explaining the mechanism to Howie and Sam. The pliant decking material between his feet gave softly as if full of water. The trap looked more like a tear in a taut stretch of fabric than the gaping hole I knew it to be underneath. Mali and Ule stood by listening. Howie was being conciliatory. Sam was being bristly, asking questions.
Sean pushed off one foot and regained solid ground. “Watch this now.” He signaled the booth, and the rent in the fabric of the ground tightened like sheet elastic and sealed itself without visible seams. Sean stepped onto the spot where the hole had been.
Liz drooped against me in relief. “Damn thing works.”
Howie applauded. “Bravo!”
“What tells you he’s through the trap before it closes again?” Sam asked.
“Got a little beam gate in there.”
“Is there a fail-safe?”
“Sure.” Sean glanced at Liz as if to say, Who is this asshole?
“Let me,” said Ule. Sean shrugged and moved aside. Ule whirled and leaped, landing full center on the trap. It held.
“A slider moves in under after the tension’s turned off,” Sean told him lazily. “It’s rated for a ton. Don’t be worrying about the weight.”
“What should we be worrying about?” asked Sam.
“Acting,” said Sean levelly.
Liz moved between them. “Well, I’d like to know a little more, since I’m going to be presetting the thing.”
Sean was like a dog with its hackles raised. He turned his back on Sam and showed Liz the tiny pinholes ringing the trap. They formed a circle about a meter in diameter. “The reflector field is weak, but I wouldn’t want to get my ass caught in it too often.”
“How about a demonstration?” said Sam.
“No problem.” Sean draped his headset over his ear and murmured into it. “Stand back a little, eh? This part’s never been tested, but what the hell.” He stepped into the center of the circle of pinholes. He grinned at his men, winked at me, and for a moment was the jaunty old Sean again. “Good-bye cruel world!”
The field switched on with a bright hum. A dancing column of not-quite-visible force shot up around Sean’s body. His image wavered and vanished. The field shut off. The hole in the floor had not quite finished sealing. I looked up to find Micah watching from the house, looking pensive.
“Could have done that with light and flash powder,” Sam muttered disgustedly.
“But that wouldn’t be invisible,” said Howie.
“Is this?”
The trap gaped again. Sean peered up at us, hands on hips. “Well?”
“Needs a little work,” said Howie. “It’s noisy, you know?”
“It’s not worth it,” said Sam.
“Well, now,” countered Howie, “I can see the potential.”
Sam eyed the hole stubbornly. “What do you think, Mal? You’re the one who’s got to ride it.”
“I think we give it a try, bro.”
“Damn straight.” Sean stood aside for him. “Right over here.”
Mali shook his head. “I’d rather run it in rehearsal.”
Sean shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Howie let out the breath he’d been holding. Liz clapped her hands. “All right, everybody. This is your fifteen-minute call for Act One.”
I joined Micah in the house. “Looks like it’ll work. Any word on Jane?”
“They’re looking into it.”
* * *
When the light came up on the set that afternoon, Micah sat up energized. “Ah, Louisa, marry me. You’ve done it again.”
Lou nodded from her console. “It’s going to work, Mi. At least our part of it.”
The light fell into the space like mist. It touched life into the sculptured contours like an Impressionist’s paintbrush. Metal, plastic, and wood breathed in the darkness, coiling out of the shadowed corners, steaming in the green jungle air.
I caught my breath and shivered. This was Micah’s magic.
“Looking good, Mi!” Howie strode down the aisle from the lobby, Kim Levin hot at his heels. He bent to Louisa’s ear. “Make it brilliant, darlin’. We’ve got visitors.”
Across the house, Cam Brigham bulked into an aisle seat with an audible grunt. Rachel Lamb and Reede Chamberlaine followed with an entourage of secretaries and assistants. Rachel looked nervous. Chamberlaine looked like polished steel.
Micah shook his head.
“He wasn’t supposed to be back ‘til opening night,” I whispered.
“Come to check on his investment. Somebody’s been telling tales.”
“Oh, Reede,” scoffed Louisa. “He ought to be outlawed. Always putting these high-toned projects together, then bitching when they turn out to cost him some small percentage of his profit. I’d sworn never to work for him again, but you talked me into it.”
Micah sniffed. “I heard he sent a star package on the road in black velours last year because he wouldn’t pay overtime to get the set built.”
Through the headset waiting on my shoulder, I heard Liz calling places. I put it on, to be in touch with the prop and automation crews in case of a cuing screwup.
Lou hooked the slim curl of her own wire over one ear. “Well, here we go. Remember that old vid, Mi?” She let her voice get husky as the houselights faded, drawling, “ ‘Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.’ ”
A breeze whispered through the darkened theatre, the scent of salt and damp undergrowth. Micah had been unable to resist these very simplest of effects. The first sound swam up through the blackness like a dream melody: the trill of No-Mulelatu’s pipes, followed by an earthy rumble of drums. Light glowed on a seated figure house left, Moussa on his “hill.” He wore only a loincloth. His oiled skin caught the light like a prism. Elevated on his narrow promontory, he loomed like a giant out of myth, a jungle god.
“Clever Micah,” Louisa murmured.
Downstage center, light burst around Te-Cucularit in full-body paint. Micah sighed and sat forward in his seat.
Cu was zebra-striped in red and yellow. As he moved through the light, his darker skin became the negative space. The vibrant stripes seemed to turn in the air disembodied. He brandished a bright, plume-tipped Puleale in either hand. Floor-length orange feathers trailed from a headdress of brilliant red. With a thrill I recognized Moussa’s totem. Akeua the bird of power stalked the stage of the Arkadie.
With a soft explosion of wing sound, a cloud of tiny shadows fled across the stage, vanishing in the darkness overhead.
“What was that?” Micah demanded. “Was that one of yours, Lou?”
I squeaked with awe and delight. Over the headset I heard Sam’s background murmur: “That oughta wake ’em up out there.”
* * *
; The show moved along well for a while, through the magical opening music-and-dance ritual at the secret shrine of the Ancestors and through the introductory scenes in the village, the clansman and his wife worrying over the harvest, the clandestine meeting of the young lovers and the visit of the planter to announce the clearing of new fields. Neither Mali nor Omea was in costume, though Omea had worn an appropriate blouse and skirt-wrap from her own wardrobe. Mali slouched around in black sweats, which combined with his own darkness to render him nearly invisible. He was a disembodied voice floating within the deep earthy colors of the set. Lou made rapid adjustments at her console. A moment later, we could see his face.
Marie hurried over. “Don’t worry, what he’s really wearing is this kind of washed-out gray shirt with a little stripe and mossy green work shorts. They wouldn’t give me the dyers until this morning, but we’ll have it by tonight. Omea’s in dirty pink with a little lemon and his same green.”
Lou nodded. “What about whatsisname, the one with the tricks?” Whenever Sam came on, his shiny-new khakis practically blinded you.
“Oh I know, it’s awful! He looks like a tourist in the Serengeti Safari Dome! I’ve scheduled him for tomorrow.” Marie shoved her billowy sleeves up to her elbows. “Maybe I’ll do it over dinner break.”
Their whispered chatter broke off as the first of the tracking units glided onstage.
It was the public bar unit, a raunchy, broken-down hovel crammed in the most naturalistic way with the sort of dressing Hickey normally threw into the recycler. It came in smoothly, quietly, and on cue. I heaped approval on Automation over my headset as the unit breathed to a clean halt just as Ule and Cu arrived at the door. Cu, out of body paint, looking… mortal again. But the bar’s perfect entrance was the only thing right about it. Once it stopped moving, it sat there like a lump, a fussy, literal-minded intruder in an alien landscape. Beside me, Micah groaned softly.
The actors sensed the change. Ule dropped a line and asked to start over. Liz made the crew reset and run the cue again. This time Ule and Cu kept the scene going gamely, but the tension had gone out of it. Howie stood up, shaking his head.
“Stop, please,” Liz intoned into her mike.
Howie bustled onstage, beaming encouragement.
Louisa sat back, flopped an arm over the back of her seat. “He made you add that monster, didn’t he?”
Micah shifted uneasily. “Anything you can do to help would be appreciated.”
“At least the entrance timing was nice,” I said.
“Perfect,” Micah agreed.
Howie turned from his conference with the actors. “Liz, can we get this damn thing onstage any faster?”
That set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. Every excuse for stopping was seized upon, every chance to go back and redo, to fuss with a prop, a costume, an entrance, an exit. After less than an hour, Reede Chamberlaine got up and left, quietly but for the noise his entourage made following him out. Cam Brigham let his seat close up behind him with a sharp report, causing a heartbeat of silence onstage. Mali froze in the middle of a line, Omea’s head whipped around, Tuli and Lucienne came to full alert upstage. When they’d relaxed and moved onward, Rachel Lamb watched a moment more, then slipped out after Brigham.
Over the headset, I heard Automation mutter, “It’s the tall one holding things up. Dragging his ass so he doesn’t have to try out the trick.”
* * *
Sam slid into the seat beside me during a break. “Any sign of Jane?”
“None.”
Micah said, “The usual practice is to inform the craftmaster of a termination at least a day ahead of time.”
“They didn’t tell Marie about Bela,” I pointed out.
“No. They didn’t.”
“Could the Admin be terminating people early without telling anyone?”
“Terminating,” Sam remarked. “What a way to put it.”
“That’s what it amounts to,” said Micah.
Sam did not dispute him. He twined his fingers in the hair at the nape of my neck, massaging gently. “How’re you? Stiff yet?”
“Not yet.” I could feel Micah’s interest even as he gazed pensively at the stage. How would he feel about his chief assistant learning self-defense with a knife? An Outsider’s knife. I pinched the starchy beige fabric of Sam’s sleeve between two fingers. “This sure needs some softening up.”
He laughed softly. “I don’t know. I’d hate to get too comfortable in the enemy’s clothing.” His lips brushed my ear, the tip of his tongue curling deftly around my earlobe. I clamped my mouth shut so as not to make a lustful spectacle of myself, then he was up and trotting down the aisle as Liz called places to resume.
“I have missed a few things lately,” Micah observed.
I laughed, embarrassed and delighted. I tried to mimic his ironic tone. “I’m afraid it’s all very sudden and hopeless.”
“It usually is,” he replied, and then the scene started.
“What is?” I whispered.
“Life,” said Micah. “Ssssh.”
When it came time to sequence the trap into the action, Howie stopped rehearsal and summoned the entire running crew to the stage.
I murmured to Micah, “Backstage they’re saying Mali’s afraid of the trap.”
Our crew was mostly young, entirely SecondGen. They eyed Howie with the dubious sort of respect that mellows with experience into the cheerful cynicism endemic to stagehands.
“The success of the whole play turns on this scene,” he lectured them. “This moment is the mystical core of the evening.”
“Why doesn’t he just let them get on with it?” muttered Louisa irritably.
“All right, then,” Liz intoned. “From the top of five.”
Act Two, scene five: Cu and Ule as the village elders began their ritual, calling on the spirits of the Ancestors to punish the revelation of tribal magic to an infidel planter.
Their conjuring isolated Mali downstage center in a diagonal shaft of light. His profile was edged in silver, his eyes were bright with tragic comprehension. He welcomed death as an end to the disillusionment and remorse he felt for his wasted sacrifice of the clan’s most precious secret. From the surrounding darkness the green and gold of the Matta shimmered into life. Indefinable shapes circled and hovered. A voice spoke, low and inexorable. The clansman knelt as the Matta flowed around to envelop him, seemingly of its own volition.
“Hold it, hold it,” Howie yelled. “Do it without the Matta first. I don’t want him strangling in the pit!”
Eighty feet of fabric rustled to the deck. Lucienne and Tuli marked through their winding dance without it. The voice—Sam’s, though I barely recognized it—chanted while Moussa beat a quiet fury on his lap drums.
Micah was as still as a rock.
Over the headset, I heard Liz cue the booth, a little nervous, a little loud.
A hum, a snap-flash in the reflector field, then nothing. Mali was still there, kneeling on solid ground.
Muttering over the headset. “What happened?” demanded Liz.
Mali stood up, shading his eyes and squinting out into the house.
“Stand back from there, Mal,” ordered Sam from the darkness.
“Where the hell’s Sean?” Howie complained.
The running crew drifted into view around the edges of the stage. The show carpenter padded down to the trap area, talking to the booth over her headset. “Yeah, try it again.” She tested the deck with her boot. “Looks like it’s not getting power. Must have jogged a connector loose somewhere.” She turned to Howie. “You want to stop and fix it now?”
Howie grumbled and paced. “Liz, how long ‘til dinner?”
“Thirty minutes.” She handed him a folded paper.
“Fuck it, we’ll break early. Everybody back at seven.” He unfolded the note, made a face at it. “Reede wants a meeting? Fine. Get him in here.”
Chamberlaine arrived with Cam Brigham still in tow. Trustees rarely
hung around so much unless they were worried about something. Rachel Lamb followed, nearly hidden among the Londoner’s entourage.
Chamberlaine got right to the point. “All the technical delays have taken their toll, Howard. This cast is not ready. Time you thought seriously of canceling previews.”
“All our preview performances are sold,” said Rachel. “With the extra money we’ve put into this, we can’t really afford to cancel.”
“Postpone, then. Reschedule the opening.”
“We’re on a subscription season,” she reminded him. Her hands were tightly clasped in front of her as if she felt herself on the brink of terrible danger. “We’re locked into our schedule.”
The producer smiled patiently. “If you go before you’re ready, you risk bad reviews and your box office will suffer anyway.”
“Better not to open it at all than risk bad reviews,” put in Brigham.
“And bad reviews could hamper the tour,” Chamberlaine added.
“We’re not going to get bad reviews,” said Howie impatiently, “and we’re not going to cancel. We’ll be ready. Don’t worry.”
Chamberlaine smiled again. “Well, let’s give it another day.”
From our remove at the production table, Louisa muttered, “Where’s Sean when he should be listening to all this?”
The running crew opened up the trap with a manual override, then left it gaping while they went to hunt up Sean and grab a quick bite from the machines. Crossing the stage to Sam’s dressing room, I heard knocking and puttering down in the hole. I peered in. Peter was nosing around underneath with a flashlight. His tool belt clinked as he moved among the forest of deck supports.
“Don’t you ever go home?” I called.
He glanced up, startled, then grinned like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Oh, hi. Pretty amazing down here. I’m gonna give Sean some mean competition when the time comes.”
“You working tonight?”
“Nah, we’re on a day schedule starting tomorrow, to finish up.” He thumbed off his light. “Well, I’m off. Hope Sean can get this working okay. It’s a great idea.” He waved and ducked away under the deck and down the escape stairs into the below-stage trap room.
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