“Me too.”
When he was gone, Micah waited while I blotted my eyes with the sheet, then said, “What he conveniently forgot to tell you is that he quit this morning.”
“Quit?”
“His job. At the Arkadie.”
“Sean?”
Micah nodded, somewhat enviously. “He said—and I quote—‘A man’s gotta know when he’s hit burnout.’ Howard’s trying very hard to figure out some way to blame it on me.”
“Quitting’s a brave move, but it’s true, he could use a rest.”
“Rest? Not Sean. He’s decided to run for his village’s vacating Town Council seat in November. Says he’s doing his politicking in public from now on. After last night I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t a landslide in his favor.”
Micah paced a little, enlivened by the memory. “You should have seen him up there! He really was magnificent: outraged, emotional, personal, obscene, funny, everything you could want in a politician!” He sighed. “Except the right politics. Sean’s a Harmony-firster, dyed in the wool. I don’t understand how I can like and admire him so much, given how differently we view the world… as it turns out. But it won’t hurt to have someone official raging against overpopulation and excess development. Tourists are population, after all. Cora Lee thinks Cam Brigham wasn’t worried about the OAP at all, but was just using the issue to distract the CDL from his big plans with Francotel.”
“And using Jane.” I toyed with the precious paper in my hand.
“Yes. But even she would applaud the result, which is: welcome to Harmony, Citizen Rhys.” Micah held out his hand.
I shook it. “Now I’m a citizen, will they let me out of here?”
“Are you sure you feel up to it?”
“I think so. Why? What’s all the fuss? What do they think’s wrong with me?”
“The official story is nervous collapse brought on by over-exhaustion and stress. That’s what Jaeck told the Chat.”
I peered at him. He was trying to tell me something. “And unofficially?”
“Concussion.”
The room lurched. I saw myself again flying through the air, the white wall rushing at me. I covered my eyes, moaning in horror.
He came over and put his arms around me.
“Oh, Micah… I’m so afraid.”
“Tell me exactly what you saw.”
I told him what I’d seen, and what I thought I’d done. He held me, smoothing my temples like a mother while I forced the words out. When I was finished, he let me go and slumped aside, organizing his own apprehension into coherent form. “The worst of it is, it could be true. In all the chaos—you, Sean, Town Meeting… Omea said everyone was fine and we were too distracted to question.”
“Cris said everybody saw them. I saw them, on the vid!” Now I didn’t want to credit it. “Two bodies, Micah?”
“Three, if your aim was true.”
“Has anyone searched the theatre?”
“Thoroughly. Looking for Peter.”
“Oh! Mark! Talk to Mark! He was there!”
Micah chewed his mustache. “Mark wasn’t at the theatre today. Songh was looking for him. We’re also looking for the Matta. You don’t know where that ended up, do you?”
“The Matta! Oh god!” I wrapped my arms around my chest, rocking miserably. “It’s gone, of course it’s gone! It had blood all over it! Micah, where are they? Why isn’t he here? Why are they doing this to me?”
Why the charade? If it was one.
Micah fidgeted, trying to set an example of calm. “I expect there’ll be some answers at their big event tonight.”
“Not soon enough!” Urgency seized me. “Micah, please get me out of here. I’ve got to go to Cora’s. I’ve got to know!”
“Gwinn. Wait.” He captured my flying hands. “Before you go. I’m… going to betray a confidence. I just came from Cora’s. Omea received me alone, looking exhausted. She offered the rest of the troupe’s excuses and thanked me for my work and my concern. Then she swore me to secrecy, saying she wanted to be sure I understood why they had decided not to finish out their run in Harmony, that in fact, they would not be playing the first preview.”
“They’re leaving? They’re leaving!”
He nodded. “A gesture of protest, the safety of the troupe, many other reasons which we went into at length. I even agreed with a few of them. But listening to you now, I fear the real one is that they can’t play that preview.”
“Without Mali.”
“Or…”
I whispered, “Without Sam.”
“Without both of them.”
“No!” I flung the bed covers aside so violently they fell in a pile in Micah’s lap. “No!” I lunged out of bed, tottering, searching for my clothing, muttering. “If they’re not going to play the preview, they’ll leave before tomorrow night!”
“She wouldn’t say. At least it can’t be tonight. It’s past six. The Gates are closed and they have their Town Hall event at nine.”
I pushed the plastic curtains aside, felt around wildly under the bed. “I’ve got to get to Cora’s.”
Micah bent to the bedstand. “Here.”
I took the folded coverall from him It wasn’t mine. “What’s this?”
“What you were wearing when we brought you in.”
Chilled, I shook it open, checked the label inside the neck: MARK BENEDICT.
Of course. Mine would have had Peter’s blood all over it.
I pulled the coverall over my hospital gown, clumsy with dread. It fit well enough, not that it mattered. I stuck my hands in the pockets and my fingers closed around a small, rough-surfaced sphere on a leather thong. My necklace. The thong had been broken, perhaps torn. I knotted it crudely and put it on. “It’s true, it’s all true,” I muttered. Piece by piece, the evidence mounted. In the other pocket, a scrap of paper: “Come if you will. You are needed. M.”
I showed it to Micah. “Mark’s with them. That’s why you haven’t seen him.”
“All right,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.”
He had to pull rank to do it, a complex process of subtle intimidation in Harmony, where the only rank is citizen or non-citizen. But Micah was very good at it and the night staff a little lax. We prevailed. The hospital was in Underhill, north across Founders’ Park from Cora’s house in Lorien. We avoided a Chat reporter dozing in the lobby and sprinted through the rain for the Tube. I stopped at a public newsbox to grab the latest edition. Under a color pix of the Eye in rehearsal, the headline, Is HE OR ISN’T HE? I crushed it in frustration but shoved it in my pocket. Sam’s face was clearly visible in the background. As we hurried for the Tube, I heard a low rumbling overhead. I slowed, glanced upward.
“No,” said Micah. “Don’t suppose you would have heard thunder before, would you?”
“In the vids. Thunder?”
“There’s been talk that the weather program’s developed a serious glitch.”
Or the Preacher’s stormsongs. I found myself grinning unaccountably. How could they be dead? They were magic, weren’t they?
At the station Micah stopped at the Silvertree-BardClyffe line.
“You’re not coming with me?”
“I think,” he said gravely, “that this journey you are meant to make on your own.”
“Micah, I meant to Cora’s.”
“Even that far. When you know what’s happened, you’ll tell me.”
I hugged him tightly, kissed his cheek. “Thank you for believing I’m not a crazy person.”
“Pray God you don’t end up wishing you were.”
“Yes. Micah, are you really going to cancel Marin?”
“Yes. Now be off. Here comes a southbound.”
“Tomorrow!” I called as the doors slid shut between us.
The ride felt like forever. I wanted instantaneous transport. Though it was after six, there were a lot of tourists in my car. Lately, with the new hotels opening, there seemed to be tourists everyw
here, all the time. These were wet and anxious, complaining about the rain and chill while debating the events at the Arkadie. Sean’s Town Hall speech was even being quoted.
I was startled from my eavesdropping when a party of apprentices I didn’t recognize gave me a hearty thumbs-up sign. Was the Chat spreading my face around Town as well? No, rain-drenched as they were, they were exchanging victory acknowledgments with every apprentice in the car. The reality of the Town Meeting began to penetrate. Even more convincing than the fancy parchment folded away in my breast pocket was an older woman offering her hand as we rode the escalator to the surface. “Welcome, citizen!”
I smiled a proper thank-you, seething inside for Jane’s sake. People had to die to make you willing to say that! And then I knew I didn’t belong in Harmony anymore. I shivered in my borrowed apprentice coverall. Ah, Micah, I risked everything to come to Harmony, to learn to make Art… but I can’t do it here, not now, not anymore.
The dome was deep lavender when I came out of Lorien station. The crowds had thinned. From the village to Cora’s was a ten-minute walk: I ran it in five, down the smooth wet tree-lined streets, so seemingly benign, past sugarplum bungalows becoming houses becoming august mansions set far back on misty velvet lawns.
It was night in the empty aspen grove and Cora’s gate was shut. The ground was damp, but here it did not seem to be raining. I peered through the ironwork and rang the bell. The tall, arched windows of the great-hall were dark. The only light visible was in an upper room. I walked the ground plan in my head: Cora’s sitting room. I rang again.
Cora had no entry monitor at her gate, no intercom. Just the old brass bell plate and silence. People always called ahead before they came to Cora’s. I rang a third time, many desperate presses of that ungiving antique, then I stood back and shouted.
I shouted Cora’s name, I shouted Sam’s. I was sure Security would be down on me in a minute for disturbing the rich folks’ rest, but I paced back and forth before the gate and shouted all their names, one by one, and when I got to Mali’s last of all, it came out in a choked cry of pain. I’d remembered the Station Clans’ mourning chant and could not bear the implacable silence that answered my every call.
Light appeared in the great-hall windows, a slim golden crack between the tapestry drapes. Cora Lee hurried down the entry steps. Her small slippered feet clicked across the drawbridge. Without makeup, she was as pale as the porcelain of her ancestors.
“Cora…?” I hardly knew where to begin. “Are they all right?”
“Of course, dear.” Her face was closed. She was not going to tell me anything. “They’re preparing for tonight.”
“Can’t I come in? Doesn’t he… don’t they… Cora, won’t you tell me what happened? Mark said I should come!”
Pity was softening the mask. “Gwinn, I know this has been hard on you.”
“Hard? I don’t know if they’re dead or alive. I don’t know what’s real anymore! You’ve got to let me in!”
“Gwinn, dear, they’re not here. They’ve gone already.”
“Gone?” I said stupidly. “All of them?”
“Of course… to Town Hall Plaza. It’s nearly nine.”
Her hesitation was like an alarm going off. She said all of them, but her eyes said otherwise. They wouldn’t do a performance without… would they? And why had they chosen nine o’clock? Because the curfew had been nine o’clock, but also… then I remembered it was Friday. The Gates were open until nine and thronged with tourists. The perfect crowd for adepts at disguise to lose themselves in. No ceremonious leave-taking for the Eye. No funerals or celebrations. They were simply going to vanish, and leave the entire Town of Harmony in Town Hall Plaza waiting for them.
Misdirection. Why? What elephant were they trying to make disappear this time? Themselves.
“When, Cora? When did they leave? For the love of god, when?”
A glimmer of secret light showed in her dark eyes. “Already twenty minutes ago. You’re too late, really.”
“No!” I whirled away from her and bolted.
I thought hard as I ran, through the silent aspen grove, past the glowing mansions. Settling my body into a steady automatic pace as Sam had taught me, I calculated times and distances. I decided they wouldn’t take the Tube. Not because Ule had such a horror of the underground or even because of the occasional breakdown that stalled you in the tunnel for minutes at a time. In the Tube you had to remain too still for too long for successful disguise, and there’d be no escape if one of them were recognized by some citizen as eager for the truth as I was.
But if I took the Tube, I might beat them to Gateway Plaza.
What was I going to do if I found them? At least then I’d have the truth. If Sam was with them, I knew I’d have no pride, but what if he wasn’t? I realized I’d taken Mark’s note very much at face value.
At Lorien station, I blessed the westbound when it arrived quickly and was a Closing Time express. I had to wedge myself in viciously to get on. I was panting and heated from my run, and wet from the rain that had begun again as soon as I left Cora’s grove. A citizen behind me muttered about rude apprentices. I didn’t care. I didn’t even remind him I was now a citizen because I’d forgotten it myself already. When we slid into Plaza station, I exploded through the doors, propelled by the pressure of the crowd and my own single-minded urgency, up the escalator into stinging cold rain.
My heart sank when I reached the crowded plaza. It must have been winter holidays in one of the African domes. Dark, nervous faces and bright colors everywhere, distorted by the deepening dusk and the dancing reflections of the lighted cafés in the puddles dotting the pavement. The damp chill encouraged extra layers of clothing, and the shadows under an awning or a hat brim were impenetrable. I was going to need luck to find them if they didn’t want to be found, and right then I wasn’t feeling very lucky.
If they were here, they’d surely split up and find their way to the Gates separately. I made myself be cold-blooded long enough to decide which one of them to look for. The women were hopeless, given the oddities of current fashion. Mali was the hardest to hide, but if he wasn’t there, I’d lose the rest while looking for him. Sam I’d never find even if he was there, no matter that I knew his every gesture and movement, every color and measurement that would describe him. He could change them all at will, and would elude me.
Cu or Moussa, I decided, as I raced up the steps to the observation deck above the Gates. Finally I settled on Cu. His beauty he could disguise, but in his ramrod back was a pride so ingrained, he’d never think to alter it.
I gained the railed platform as the Voice of Harmony began to hurry the tourists along in earnest. It was quarter to nine. Out on the busy tarmac, the field lights glared. No rain Out There. A dry, hot dusk. The ranks of hovercraft were filling fast, the usual commercial airlines, a few private or executive hovers scattered among them. A dark green one without a company logo caught my eye. It was parked a bit apart, unusually close to the edge of the field where the Outsiders pushed up against a recently installed white picket fence. It was a good two meters high but so cutely picturesque, it made my gorge rise. It was stronger than it looked, holding back the weight of the mob without giving an inch. Still, that’s a reckless pilot, I thought, parking so close when the Outsiders are obviously interested in his hover.
Two women detached themselves from the stream of boarding tourists and walked toward the dark green craft. They carried fancy shopping bags and tottered gracefully on too-high heels. They leaned into each other like laughing girlfriends, but they moved in sync like twins. Like dancers! By god, I’d guessed right! I screamed at them, a useless gesture behind the shell of the dome, and stupidly conspicuous if the Eye actually wanted to avoid me.
A visible shudder ran through the Outsider mob as the women passed. There was a silent massing closer to the fence. I thought those in front would be crushed, but the mob was surprisingly orderly. Children were lifted to their parents�
�� shoulders so they could see through the palings of the fence.
What are they looking at? The stylish, well-fed domers going home to their well-fed domes? A masochistic pastime.
I dropped out of direct view, among some SecondGen kids playing umbrella tag on the stairs. They giggled at my blue coveralls and whispered among themselves. I stared at the plaza, praying that Lucienne and Tuli hadn’t been the last through the Gates. I was doing the biggest and most important room scan of my life. To my utter amazement, I spotted Te-Cucularit almost immediately. Leaning against the wall by the westernmost Gate, wearing a broad, curled-brim hat tilted against the rain and reading a glossy brochure in the glare of the Gate light. Waiting. For the others? For me?
I saw a superior hand in this, someone who knew who I’d look for, someone who always seemed to guess my thoughts, which as much as I loved him had never been Sam. But Mali alive might well mean Sam wasn’t.
Joy and terror ran with me down the rain-slick stairs. The final alarms were sounding, harsh blares that said, “Get your ass out of here!” The visitors most reluctant to forsake their Campari and soda in the shelter of the café awnings became the ones who shoved hardest in the lines at the air locks. I shoved back, moving crosswise to the traffic. I lost sight of Cu several times as anxious people with wet luggage surged around me, throwing me off course. Once when the crowd cleared a bit, I saw him nod to a woman entering a lock who, underneath her flowered hat, might have been Omea. No Sam, no Mali. The Voice now reminded everyone that all the hotel rooms in Town were booked for the evening and Harmony did not allow sleeping in the streets.
I’d almost reached him when someone grabbed my arm. A total stranger, some flush-faced damp young man whose eager grin reminded me sickeningly of Peter. “Hey,” he burbled drunkenly. “Congratulations, citizen!”
“Thanks!” I yanked free, but when I turned back, Cu had vanished. The alarms rang insistently. I broke through the last ranks of the crowd and threw myself against the wall in despair. Backing against it, I searched frantically, then at the last moment ran for the Gate. The Greens were preparing to close up. Cu’s brimmed hat bobbed at the entrance to the airlock.
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