by Bill Adams
Arturo had also worked with the Pretender on the Bolivar production—apparently a touched-up version of the anti-Column play I’d left in manuscript with Summerisle when I fled Nexus. How the Pretender had ever gotten his hands on it, since Summerisle had died resisting the first wave of Columnards ninety-odd years before, I couldn’t imagine. It was a highly political play, and apparently it was its uncompromising view of liberty, and not Larkspur’s fashionableness, that had originally drawn Arturo in. He still had the Pretender’s ear on political matters, or so he claimed, and over drinks one night he confirmed that Malatesta and the bodyguards were a separate faction within the vague movement the Pretender headed.
“The Hard Men, they like to call themselves,” he said. “And while I doubt them between the sheets, they’re plenty hard between the ears. Criminals, cashiered navy types like Malatesta, ex-mercenaries from the Iron Brotherhood, or worse. Some of them have my sympathy; they’re from worlds like Scandia or Cathay, where the Column has really wiped its boots. But even those share the same dream—bloody assaults on the puppet governments from planet to planet. Plenty of loot to collect, and then overlordship of the popular revolts to follow. Every Hard Man the strongman of some new ‘democracy.’ I understand the Boss’s need for bodyguards, but he humors these thugs entirely too much. The one with a brain is the one I fear—Malatesta. Sometimes I think he’s an agent provocateur for the Column, trying to lure the Boss into a shooting war he can’t win.”
“They sound like losers,” I agreed. “But in the long run, how can the underground win without fighting?”
He blinked, and discretion returned. “Perhaps we’ll talk of that another time.”
Watching the Pretender the next day, I wondered if he was really just humoring Malatesta. Arturo was smart, but it’s hard to be impartial about someone you’re in love with. On the other hand, I never saw any sign of petty jealousy in Arturo, and the Pretender’s conquests—all female, so far as I heard—were everywhere. Even Olivia had had her fling, and it was not half bad, by her account. “Let’s just say he’s good at whatever he does,” she said. “But he drinks too much. And he’s so young. I think for him, it must always be either a laughing romp or else grand passion, the Love-Death, you know? Nothing in between. This is too wearing for me.”
The whole company, as theater folk, were inclined to indulge the Pretender in his pursuit of Julia. To us the mating dance of director and ingénue was an ancient one. The Pretender certainly knew all the steps. He hadn’t even asked her to dinner yet; instead, he concentrated on her performance, coldly making vague and impossible demands until she was at the point of distraction, then letting the sun of total approval break through. She was “growing into the part,” he told her; she was learning to equate pleasing him with flowering as a woman.
In fact, her part—though a double role—was a small one. She pointed this out herself one afternoon when he’d driven her nearly to tears over her “motivation” in a scene.
“I’m not even Astarte at this point,” she said. “I’m just a witch who’s taken on Astarte’s form.”
“Exactly,” the Pretender said. “You have to make us feel the difference. You have to feel it yourself!”
“I just don’t see how it—I mean, you don’t spend nearly as much time on Christopher, and he’s the lead.”
“Oh, well, but that’s a meat-and-potatoes part.” He took a sword from the props and balanced it on end, like a juggler, against the palm of his hand, while the fluent phrases came: “Manfred is a much simpler character to play. He’s a creature of pure will. If he desires his sister Astarte, he sleeps with her. If his father the Emperor thwarts him, he kills his father. Whatever he wants to know, he learns; whatever he wants to master, he masters. And now the whole world revolves around him, and he has nothing to look forward to but an eternity of that. He’s a burned-out case. His motivation is simple because there’s only one thing left that he wants.” He spun the sword upward and caught it again so that it was pointing at me. “And what does he want the infernal powers to grant him, Chris?”
“ ‘Forgetfulness,’ ” I quoted.
“Oblivion!” he agreed, with passion. “Death. But on his own terms. It’s one of those parts like Cyrano de Bergerac; the audience is impressed by the depth of the emotions, little realizing how close to the surface of every actor they are—I mean self-love and self-pity.” He got chuckles from Olivia and Arturo. “The audience does not have to understand, only admire. But your part, Julia, is different. As Astarte, you have let your brother seduce you, though it means your death. And from beyond the grave, you will still forgive him, and grant him the oblivion he desires. You love something outside yourself. That is much harder to understand. Manfred is all self; everyone secretly understands that. Even his death wish is at the bottom of every soul.”
I couldn’t tell if he meant a word he said.
“Is it me?” Ishigara whispered at my side. “Or is there some significance here I can’t see?”
But the only word that hung in the air afterward was oblivion.
Chapter Nine
“Welcome to the Bucentaur, Freeman Sly!” the Doge said, with a basso profundo surprising in one so thin. He was also tall, and his elaborately cut white beard and mustache were vividly set off by his skin color, brownish black with blue highlights. “Evan tells me you’re a newcomer to the city. What do you think of our discos?”
I took a backward glance at the two dozen pleasure boats circling the Doge’s ceremonial barge. They were all hovercraft, like the barge itself, essentially circular. “Disco” had nothing to do with discotheque, but was short for disco volante, or “flying saucer.” They were spinning around the flat sea like eggshells on a wet china plate, a cocktail party on each polished wooden deck. Head-high windscreens and overarching propeller housings rotated fretfully in outer rings around the stationary decks, adding to the crazy swirl of motion. Dancers and drinkers occasionally jumped from one deck railing to another, their shrieks of laughter soon lost in sea wind or prop wash.
“As gorgeous and frivolous as anything Venezian, Your Highness,” I said.
He laughed at my diplomacy. “I suppose you think my title is frivolous, too. But, like our boats, it serves our purposes. Don’t hesitate to ask my servants for anything you require, and please—no revolutionary scruples, they are more highly paid than any of the guests.”
I stepped out of the receiving line and along the perimeter of the dance floor. The Bucentaur wore a tall gondola-like bow and stern for traditional reasons—at the moment a string of flags representing Venezia’s guilds and churches flapped between them—but it was basically the same as the little “manta” craft I occasionally saw on the canals of the city. A fan beneath the circular body kept all but an air-containment skirt and a few fins from touching the water, while the shifting ring-propellers pushed it wherever it wanted to go, with little drag from the big bubble of air that rode the water.
The two-person canal version was a fast sport boat, but the ten-meter discos and the Doge’s huge barge were merely ways of carrying a house party onto the Grand Canal. With hardly any superstructure, they could stand neither heavy waves nor bad weather, and when their rubber fenders bumped each other it spilled every drink in the party. But the Doge’s supply of sparkling wine seemed limitless. I took a glass from a liveried servant just before the silver tray was nearly dashed from his hand by an overtaking seagull.
“Nice party, but I hope we get back by nightfall,” some tourist in shorts said to his wife. One starfish arm of Venezia receded behind us; ahead, the horizon slowly filled with the green coast of Dreeland, the agricultural continent. Between them, we traversed a vast shallows, pale aqua, sand-colored, or occasionally striped with coral reefs that might have caused trouble if our boats hadn’t been made to glide upon the surface. Not the place I would have chosen to celebrate the deeps of the ocean, but maybe I didn’t understand today’s ceremony.
And then a squ
adron of flying fish broke the surface nearby, a glistening testament to the life-bombers’ success in stocking this world with Earth strains—and a reminder that the bright shallows and hidden depths are all one ocean, full of surprises.
I pulled at my glass, an actor waiting for a cue. Go spy on something—anything. Arturo, who came from a rich family, had provided transportation for the Manfred contingent—just Arturo, the Pretender, Julia, and myself—in his own ten-meter disco, the Capriccio. Then he’d shooed us aboard the Bucentaur to meet the Doge while he set up his bar and buffet for later. Aboard the Bucentaur the Pretender had immediately spun off his own crowd, even though he was not in an entertaining mood; I could see him sneering out one-word answers to long tourist questions and frowning like a thundercloud. Julia soon found her way back to me, holding a glass and tasting the wine gingerly. “It’s not very good, is it?” she asked.
I gallantly took her glass and drained it. “Something tells me that you don’t really drink,” I said. “Just as well, if you’re going to be keeping company with the Boss.”
“I’m not really with him,” she said. “I mean, I knew you’d be along, too.”
“And Arturo—another threat to your maidenhead.”
“Oh, you mustn’t make fun of Arturo!”
“I’m not. He’s the only man in the company I’d trust with any sort of business—but especially with you.”
“This is my fault,” she said smiling. “I’ve encouraged you to think of me as a child, and now you’re playing the old guardian in a melodrama.”
“Okay. But if you can see that much, you ought to see that the Boss is no good for you.”
“I don’t know. I think it’s that he’s no good for himself. There’s a melancholy eating at him…Who’s to say he wouldn’t be a good man if he were happy?”
“Kid, he is exactly as happy as women can make him. How did your mother come to leave you on a fleshpot like Venezia?”
“We were making what she calls a ‘tour of inspection’ and she was called away suddenly to another planet—someplace where I couldn’t stay with her.” I must have looked quizzical. “My mother dabbles in politics. She is always flitting from Senator Mehta to Governor Rodriquez to the High Commissioner on Thus-and-So to ‘influence their views.’ ”
“Their views on what?”
She shrugged. “Whatever concerns ‘established interests’ like my father. He’s over a hundred and twenty, and the most reactionary sort of Columnard, I guess—”
“Don’t you know?”
“I’ve barely seen him since I was a child—a little old man who hides behind defense screens. I think he knows the galaxy is changing, and he’s terrified of it. Of course, some people think Mother has her own agenda. You know how people talk. A beauty married to an older man for his wealth and his title. Who follows her own desires in all things.”
“Is that how she looks to you?”
“No, she loves me too much for me to hate her. Even keeping me ignorant of her affairs; I know she thinks that protects me from something. I just wish there were…less of her. You’ll see, tonight.”
“What, is she expected back?”
Julia nodded. “She came through the sun this morning—got a radio message from the immigration station.”
“Is this going to mean the end of your dramatic career?”
She lifted her chin defiantly, one of those mysteriously half-winning, half-repulsive gestures of hers. “I intend to play the part. Mother can stay until the premiere. I think she will. She seemed interested in the Free City movement and Ev—the Boss. And you could put in a good word for me.”
“I’d love to meet her.”
“That’s what you think,” she said mischievously. “She’s older than you are.”
“Don’t be so sure.” But she hadn’t heard me; she was already swaying gracefully back through the crowd to join the admirers surrounding the Pretender.
I drifted back toward the Doge. He was holding court, with admirable good humor, for thirty or forty tourists. You could always tell an offworlder on Venezia, for they were strongly encouraged to maintain their national dress, which would be treated as exotic and fascinating by their hosts. Those who essayed Venezian fashion, however, had to get it right the first time, or they’d soon find it hard to get a decent table or even a room. The trick, I’d discovered, was to keep it simple.
Venezian women loved fancy dresses and gowns, but usually saved them for nightfall or festivals; pants were more practical for stepping in and out of boats all day. When in pants, both sexes favored high-topped deck boots called scarpe and made from a wide variety of hides. They wore extremely full cut blouses, usually white. Tunics tended to be thigh-length and of soft leather or stiff fabric, and might display a sash or cross-belt, frogging, epaulets, medallions, or watch chains. Hats and caps also varied wildly by wearer and occasion.
But the combinations only looked random, and simplicity was at least as common as extravagance; offworlders offended the locals when they mistook the city for a Renaissance theme park, put on costumes instead of clothes, and smirked at each other. Venezians sometimes dressed up and sometimes dressed down, but always with dash, and never for the tourists.
But that was the charm of the place. They sold no mementos of your Venezian visit, no fake-local curios, no hologram views of the city. The only shows or spectacles they sponsored were those they enjoyed themselves; nothing in their lives was “put on” for the tourists. Their visitors were treated as houseguests and encouraged to join in the normal life of the city to whatever extent they shared its spirit, which ought to have been hedonistic enough for any sane vacationer.
This attitude did lead to surprises and disappointments sometimes. Today’s tourists had clearly expected to see more locals. A woman dressed in the jodhpurs and white jacket of a central-worlds bureaucrat asked the Doge, somewhat peevishly, if the Wedding to the Sea celebration wasn’t supposed to be the biggest festival of the Venezian year?
“Used to be,” the Doge admitted, nodding. “When I was a boy the channel was so crowded with discos on Wedding Day you could walk from Bianca Dock to Dreeland without getting your feet wet, and the occasion wasn’t complete without a few boats being jostled into the Mill Stream and lost with all hands. But so few people could actually see the ceremony itself…Venezians aren’t watchers, we like to do. And then the Green Church moved their Lactation Festival to last week, and most of the city seems to need a good ten days to recover from that…Wouldn’t be here myself, in fact, but I’m sure it would be terrible luck to flout the tradition, and I have a feeling the city will need its luck soon.”
But he thought better of that last remark, and deflected a followup question. I thought I saw a knot of people in native clothes on the far side of this group, and began to gently elbow my way in that direction. I soon made out some familiar faces, Hard Men from the Pretender’s circle; I wondered if he’d arranged to have them show up as bodyguards. And that slender guy—if his long red hair was so familiar, why couldn’t I place him? His face was turned away from me.
The Doge was holding forth again: “…not even the first one. In fact, no city had been copied more often than the Venice of old Earth. Why our Republic has been more successful than the others, I am not sure. Certainly, it was fortunate in finding a colony world that welcomed it and meshed with it. But Venezia and the land continents are each other’s safety valves, you know. It happens that the personality types that are unhappy here do very well on the continents, and vice versa.”
I could now see Malatesta, looking even more contemptuous of his surroundings than usual. I told myself that a good spy would cultivate the bodyguards, or at least try drinking with them, and kept jostling my way through the tourists, only half listening to the Doge.
“—to found not just a city, but a whole way of life. A huge part of the initial population was in fact of Italian descent, from Terranova. Many of their words and names have wide curr
ency, and Italiano is still a living language in the old quarter. I am told that the Californian and African strains of immigration have also left their marks, although to me it is all one Venezia.”
But now the tall redhead had turned to say something to Malatesta, and I stopped moving toward them so abruptly I spilled my drink. Familiar, sure!—once I saw she was a woman.
It was Foyle, the archaeologist who had discovered the great initiation maze of the first Kanalists. Her black leather flight suit did not seem out of place among the Hard Men’s castoff military outfits.
Two years before, disguised as a Column Sub-Commissioner of Non-Human Artifacts—don’t ask—I’d helped her keep the birthplace of Kanalism from being destroyed in a fringe-world power play. In the process, I’d inadvertently given away my true identity, and I’d then bought her silence by telling my full story, more or less. Uncovering the truth of Kanalism’s ancient origins had reawakened Foyle’s faith in the Old Rite. She had been hoping to get Column permission to take some of the founders’ relics on tour. But I’d thought the Grandmaster’s ring belonged to me, as oldest living Kanalist and Summerisle’s heir, and had appropriated it. That’s when I’d picked up her diary, mistaking it for the documentation that would prove the ring’s authenticity. Neither theft would have endeared me to her rather prickly personality.
Not that I felt guilt. She obviously shared everyone’s opinion that Evan Larkspur had a right to lead all true Kanalists against the Column. It followed, then, that I needed the means to prove my identity to others, and that I must hang back now, however underhandedly, until I was absolutely sure of that identity myself—until I knew whose revolution this really was.