Harmony (18 page)

The applause from the Arkadie staff was prolonged and genuine. Howie raised his hands for silence, turning back to the model. We awaited the traditional director’s overview of the play, using the scenery as specific illustration, often including a short recap of the design process, and certainly an explication of how the choices supported and expressed the director’s intentions. This was the moment that introduced the whole concept of the production.

Instead, Howie gazed at the model briefly, then offered Micah a big, encouraging smile. “Well, Mi, you want to tell us something about your work?”

Your?
I nearly screamed at him.
What happened to our?
I must have moved threateningly, because Crispin grabbed my arm and shook his head.

Micah returned Howie a level gaze, looked thoughtfully at the model for a few seconds, and began to talk. And because he was Micah, he did a creditable job out there on the limb by himself, though he was no public speaker and there were few things he loathed more than having to explain to people what he’d just spent weeks, often months trying to make self-evident.

But he could do it, because his intellect was as sharp as his instincts, and he’d come prepared. “Mostly they don’t want to work it out for themselves,” he’d said to me once. “The audience is often less lazy than your own colleagues.”

When he finished talking about encouraging a new focus on the actor, and how the simplicity of the line should complement the universal truths of the story, he smiled graciously and asked for questions.

There weren’t any. The shadings between convinced and dubious were impossible to read on all those faces trying so hard to remain safely noncommittal.

(“What’s the matter with them?” I raved at Crispin later, after I’d gone on about Howie’s cowardice for at least an hour. “Does everything have to be proven before they’ll get behind it?”

“Of course,” he replied, as if my outrage was just too innocent to be believed.)

So Howie said, “Well, take a good look, everybody, then we’ll sit down and read it through.” Then he came back with that big bullshit smile. “You’ve done it again, Mi.”

“I’m glad you like it, Howard.”

“It’s beautiful. Really.”

“Thank you,” Micah replied. I could see him taking into consideration everything that Howie had to deal with, and finding patience with him. But when Howie turned that bullshit grin on the four of us, he got back two stony faces, Jane’s neutral mask and one wide-eyed glare of accusation that Songh didn’t have the wit to hide before dropping his eyes to the floor in confusion.

Howie didn’t even notice.

Meanwhile, Reede Chamberlaine hadn’t given the model so much as a glance, being fully occupied off in the corner with the business end.

And there was still the Eye’s reaction to get past.

Omea was first, bringing her spokeswoman’s graciousness and the magician Sam at her elbow. They showered Micah with compliments on work of his that they’d seen, omitting comment on the present one but casually, as if comment wasn’t required. The stunning African musician Moussa stared into the model, engaging Ule the little choreographer in a low-voiced discussion about the placement of instruments and whether it would be comfortable where he was going to sit. Ule played with the little rocks and tweaked Micah with a humorous comment about the unevenness of the floor surface and dancers’ clumsy feet. The rest offered public smiles and nods and wandered off to find seats around the reading table.

When they’d all moved on, the tall, thin one, Mali, lingered, studying the model with hands clasped behind his back, his shoulders at a slipping, pensive angle.

This man charges the very air around him, I thought. Not with anger or pain, exactly. Something like both.

Micah waited in silence. When Mali looked up, there was challenge in his eyes as well as understanding. But then he smiled, and the smile was profound and genuine, a total transformation of his face from darkness to light. I stared at him covertly, trying to understand why anything about him should seem so familiar.

“This is good work,” he rumbled.

Micah nodded gravely, but I could see he was thrilled. We apprentices glanced our relief to one another. At least we’d gotten through to one of them.

PROPS:

Of course, we never did get the “true” story.

“But was she shot or wasn’t she?”

This mattered more to Songh than to the rest of us. I’d have thought Jane, but she’d already decided the answer was yes, and that Outsiders were responsible. Cris and I were more interested in the mechanics: if it was Reede Chamberlaine, how did he manage it? How did you make deals with Outsider assassins to stage a shooting?

At breakfast, the long dining room was full. The wooden barracks-style tables, stained and scarred by forty years of apprentice abuse, rang with the usual catcalls and chatter. At the serving counter, Mark loaded up his tray to eat upstairs alone.

“Why don’t you just walk up and ask her?” Crispin lunged into his boardinghouse reach for the sugar bowl. Like most of our dishes it was a hand-thrown reject from a local potter’s studio. “Oh, miss, you’re very lovely and I’d like to see your scar…”

Songh blushed. “Oh, I’d never dare
speak
to one of them!”

Songh’s new habit was showing up outside the apprentice dining room at breakfast so we’d invite him in for coffee with the rest of us. When teased about it, he’d stammer a bit and say it made him feel more a part of “the process.” I wasn’t sure if he meant the studio process or the apprenticeship process. Whatever his reasons, his work in the studio was improving. He was concentrating much better, as if he’d suddenly decided to take life seriously.

“Then write her a note,” drawled Cris.

“You’re making fun of me.” Songh’s eyes were round and reproachful.

“You finally noticed,” said Jane with grudging sympathy. However she envied the security of his inherited citizenship, she was never as hard on Songh as the rest of us, who considered SecondGen hazing to be part of
our
process. “Now that you’re onto him, maybe he’ll lay off for a while.”

“Oh, he’s such a damn wimp all the time,” Cris grinned. “How can I resist?”

“Unrepentant to the end,” I remarked into my oatmeal.

Crispin’s spoon became a battle flag. “It’s good for him! You think you can afford to be a wimp in this business? In this world?”

“You can,” replied Jane, “if you were born in Harmony.”

“No, you can’t!” With more heat than I thought him capable of, Songh shot hurt looks at both of them. “I mean, I’m not. You’ll see!”

“With bated breath, I wait.” Crispin always assured me there was benign intent behind his mockery when I scolded him about it in private. Occasionally I even believed him. But right then it didn’t seem so benign to Songh, who stared into his coffee cup with beetled brows and tried not to pout.

* * *

Events took on a strangely heightened quality after the Eye arrived. Maybe it’s just my memory adding hindsight significance. Cris and I fought a lot, then made up equally spectacularly. In the studio, we seemed to pass from one extreme to the other, from high hilarity to deep despair, neither particularly warranted by the given moment.

For instance: a routine morning prop meeting with Liz Godwin occasioned vast excitement. Even Micah put down his brush when she walked in.

“Is it my perfume?” she laughed. “I don’t usually rate this warm a welcome!”

Hickey leaned against the wide front door, looking patient and disregarded.

“How’s it going?” asked Micah lazily.

Liz was not fooled. “How’s it going with them, you mean.”

Micah shrugged, smiled. “We are naturally curious.”

“Yeah! Songh especially!” Cris called from his terminal.

Songh squirmed. “I am not!”

“He’s dying to know, was she really shot?”

Liz’s sigh said she’d heard this one before. “Don’t know. They’re not talking about it. It’s as if it never happened.”

“They made it un-happen,” said Hickey blandly. “They can do that.”

I could stand it no longer. “Liz, Liz, what are they like?”

Liz considered. “Have you got about a week?”

“Abbreviate,” I pleaded.

“Give them every tenth word,” Hickey suggested.

“Well, they do keep you guessing.” Liz laughed at our avid faces. “Okay, it gets pretty weird in there from time to time, like when we stop for the occasional song or chant, but at least Mali and Omea have stopped telling Howie what was done in the original production, and Howie’s stopped asking Sam how he does his magic tricks. So far, the biggest problem is they’re not real happy with their housing.”

“Where are they staying?”

“The Fetching dorms. They say they feel like they’re in jail.”

“I’ve often felt that,” muttered Cris across the room.

“I don’t see what’s wrong with the dorms,” said Jane primly. “It’s not like they’re used to luxury…”

“Who says?” I objected. “We don’t know what they’re used to.”

“What they’re used to is more open space,” Hickey volunteered. “The little dance man, Ule, told me the thing he hates most about touring is having to sleep indoors all the time.”

“They want to sleep outdoors?” Songh gasped. “What if it rains, or someone steps on them?”

Crispin rose, retrieving a fresh print run from the slot further down the console. “And he means OUTdoors. No roof, no dome…” He stretched his long arms in an arc and the printout fluttered like feathers. “Only the great
open sky
.”

“Ughh,” said Jane.

Hickey grinned. “Them’s fightin’ words.”

“He’s just tormenting Jane,” I told Liz. WorldNet was keeping domers well informed of the growing threat of Open Sky anarchists while supplying very little actual fact. As a result, they were Crispin’s latest research project.

Liz avoided the issue. “Well, we’re looking for someone with a big house who’s out of town for three months. Reede’s staying an extra day or so to try to pull some strings.”

“A Londoner can pull better strings in Harmony than Howie?”

“Different strings. The retired successful that don’t do Art anymore, just sell it.” Liz touched Micah’s arm as he turned back toward his corner. “Howie hopes you’ll come down and watch now and then. The cast complains about being isolated over in the Barn. Omea says they’re used to having people around while they work, friends, family, I don’t know. Whoever walks in off the street, I guess. Except the Press—they won’t let the Chat reporter inside the hall. But you should come. They’re up on their feet now and it’s getting interesting.”

“I’ll get there. Tell him I will.” Micah gestured at the pile of sketches on his desk. “I’m trying to get a bunch of work out of the way so I can concentrate on him again.”

She smiled at him winningly. “It means a lot to him, Mi.”

“I know. I know. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

I hauled Liz off to the conference room to talk props.

“It really has been crazy around here.” I dragged scattered folding chairs up to the table. “We got way behind during the
Gift
push, then Micah had to take a few days in Paris with
Deo Gratias
.” I shoved aside a stack of Marie’s costume sketches and two piles of multicolored fabric swatches, bright florals, and exotic batik prints. “Now the bids are back on this giant project for the Marin Sea Dome and Micah’s got to cut it, which always gets him nuts, plus he’s got—”

“Whoa! It’s not an emergency.” Liz plopped down, finger-combing her red curls back from her face. “Howie’s just extra-nervous. This piece has to be as special to everyone else as it is to him.”

Then he should stand up for the design in public, I thought. “It’s very special to Micah, believe me it is.”

Hickey and Crispin came in, a matched set of tall and dark, except that Crispin rarely slouched and Hickey rarely didn’t. I once heard Marie ask Hickey, as earnestly as a vid reporter, if he bought his clothes two sizes too big on purpose. He growled that no audience was staring at him while he worked and he saw no reason why he shouldn’t be comfortable.

“You’re keeping tabs on Tuatua?” Hickey was saying. “Whatever for?”

“C’mon, Hick—it’s interesting!” Cris handed me the top sheet on his stack of papers. “The latest from the Crispin Fox Tuatuan Remote News Service, Inc. Wait ‘til you see the last. Those planters’d be smarter not to record their meetings…”

Hickey peered over my shoulder. “Does he do sports?”

I scanned the WorldNet release on top. “Left the island?”

Cris raised a brow. “If you can believe their sources.”

“The planters want the people to think he’s left?”

“Cuts him down to size,” he agreed.

“Who?” demanded Liz and Hickey simultaneously.

“Latooea,” Cris supplied.

When they both looked blank, I realized that our favorite Tuatuan hero was a household word only among ourselves. “The Conch.”

“Oh yeah, the Conch.” Liz nodded. “The Eye talk about him sometimes.”

“Like he was God,” said Hickey.

“The symbol of the anti-doming revolution!” Cris enthused, like the twelve-year-old his passion for the Conch recalled in him.

“Actually,” I pointed out, “the anti-domers are only trying to maintain the status quo. And no one’s sure the Conch is a he.”

Cris mistook my meaning. “Naw, he’s real. He’s some amazing charismatic guy, and they’re trying to kill him off!”

“They?” Liz and Hickey spoke again as one.

“Jeez, don’t you guys do any research? Look, never mind, hey?” Cris tossed the rest of his papers on the table. “Here’s the info you wanted, Hick. Gwinn, read the bottom sheet. Check you later.”

He stalked away and Hickey groaned into a chair. “Well, we finally got the Eye’s prop crates opened, under that Cu fellow’s gimlet-eyed supervision. Can you believe, he actually would not let the women on my crew touch anything? I mean, he stood over them until they backed off. Except with the Matta. He said that was okay because it’s traditionally woven and painted by women.”

“What is a Matta, anyway?” In the script, the Matta was used by the avenging ancestor-god to effect the miraculous disappearance of the tribesman.