Harmony Read online

  Suddenly they broke rank and danced in among the confused but delighted tourists. Flowers and colored feathers and shimmering silver balls materialized in twirling gloved hands, brilliant flashes against the black, tossed and juggled, then presented into eager tourist paws. The throng cheered and applauded, soundlessly to us behind the dome, giving their flapping hands and mouths a surreal quality, like watching the vid with the sound off. Meanwhile, the Eye moved around and through them, but ever toward the edge.

  Cris was beside himself with admiration. “Now, that’s what I call working a crowd!”

  “Upstaged Chamberlaine, all right…” Jane murmured.

  “I knew they’d be great!” Songh leaned so far over the observation rail that I feared he’d brush the force field, and I wondered how I’d explain it to his father if that smooth, young face were scarred for life. I hauled on his arm to pull him back.

  “Look!” cried Cris.

  Songh broke free. “What are they doing?”

  The Eye danced now along the edges of the boulevard, five on either side. Their flowers and feathers had become bread and fruit, which they were tossing to stunned Outsiders as fast as they could produce them, seemingly out of the air. The Outsiders stirred from their apathy and pressed forward in response. Sooty, grasping hands walled both sides of the boulevard. The tourists drew together like herd beasts, gaping. Even from our elevated perch inside the dome, I sensed the heartbeat of the crowd quickening in fear.

  “Well, this is a fine way to start!” Jane reconsidered her approval.

  “They don’t come from a dome,” I reasoned. “They don’t really know about Outsiders.”

  “They’ve been on tour around the world.”

  “Then it’s a gesture of greeting. They don’t know how dangerous it is here.” Surely this feeding of Outsiders was too grossly obvious to be meant as a political statement, especially in a place like Harmony, where charity laws were written into the constitution along with taxes.

  “Or maybe they do…” Crispin put on a wolfish grin.

  I could see Reede Chamberlaine clearly now as he strode toward us, almost at the Gates. His pale face was aquiline and arrogant, still impassive, but his head was cocked back ever so slightly to monitor the goings-on behind him and his eyes seemed to be searching ahead of him, imperiously, showing no fear.

  Sure enough, a fresh brace of green-uniformed Security appeared beneath us, easing themselves quickly but unobtrusively through the press of onlookers. Their obvious skill made me suddenly wonder who made up Harmony’s Security force, and how or where they were trained, and also why hadn’t I asked myself that before.

  Songh and Crispin whooped again in delight. I turned back to see four of the Eye leap into the center of the boulevard, their robes billowing around them like pirate sails. In precise and grandly gestured unison, they unfurled a silken banner painted with a giant eye.

  Distracted, the crowd relaxed, applauding like happy children. Two more dancers joined the four. Six, then eight black-clad bodies leaped and twisted with the rainbowed silk held high, and the banner grew with each pair who joined it, ten, twenty, thirty feet long, increasing again as the final pair took hold. Behind the giant eye unfolded blocks of smaller painted symbols, dark and mystical against the shimmering silk.

  “Even the Outsiders are applauding,” Jane noted with awe.

  Which they were, if only sporadically. I saw that day my first Outsider smile, on the face of a young boy with a ripe mango in one hand and a mirrored ball in the other. Rapt, he gazed from one to the other as if unable to decide which was the greater prize.

  A flash of light caught my eye, like a sudden reflection off polished chrome. One of the smaller dancers seemed to stumble. The flash came again.

  Cris leaned abruptly into the rail. “Omigod.”

  The tourist throng still laughed and clapped, but the Eye dropped their banner and the Outside Security bolted straight at them. A fresh block of guards spilled out of the air locks, stunners at ready. Scattered panic broke among the crowd, and a surging backward toward the Gate. I saw Reede Chamberlaine hustled inside by a pair of guards. Another half dozen pushed in behind, herding the shifting cloud of black that was the Eye. The rest moved out to quell the rising pandemonium and train their stunners on aroused Outsiders already reaching for clubs and rocks. The last outgoing tourists were hurriedly cycled through the locks, and the iron grilles swung shut. Seconds later, the secondary field snapped on.

  The boulevard was cleared with astonishing speed. The loader crews sprinted over to bundle the frightened tourists into orderly lines and urge them across the tarmac into the waiting hovers. No wounded were revealed lying on the pavement, only scattered flowers. There was no discarded laser rifle. Even the silken banner had disappeared. The only signs of disturbance were the burly squads of Security guards ranking either side of the boulevard and the dying stir among the Outsiders.

  “What happened?” I gasped, when I could breathe again.

  Cris whirled away from the rail. “Come on!”

  We tumbled down the stairs, ducking clear of a red police hover, the only motored craft beside the ambulances allowed inside the dome. It settled among the vendors’ carts and the cleanerbots already working the emptied plaza.

  Across the square, a knot of Security stood alert around the café where we’d left Howie and Micah. Reede Chamberlaine’s silver head nodded among the green uniforms and the black robes of the Eye. We started for the café, but the Security knot reformed around the Eye and hurried them toward the hover. I’d never seen so many bared stunners in my life. Between the stout backs of the guards, I saw that one black-robed figure was lagging a bit, supported by two others.

  “Somebody was hurt,” said Crispin avidly.

  Then they were inside the hover and gone.

  We rushed the café with a babble of questions. Howie leaned against a wall, looking shattered. Kim and Reede Chamberlaine conferred with a Security guard. Still seated, Micah silenced us with a calm, dark look of reproof.

  “But are they all right?” I whispered.

  “Nothing serious. A flesh wound.”

  “Was it a gun?” asked Crispin.

  “They shouldn’t have done that stuff!” Jane burst out. “With the Outsiders!”

  Crispin rounded on her. “You’re saying it’s their fault?”

  “Perhaps they should not have,” agreed Micah pensively.

  “Where are they taking them?”

  “The hospital, then quarantine.”

  “Was it a gun?” Cris repeated.

  “A gun, yes. It would appear so.”

  “But where would an Outsider get a gun?” I asked. I naturally assumed an Outsider was responsible.

  “Indeed. Especially a laser weapon small enough to conceal in a crowd.”

  No one asked why an Outsider would try to kill a total stranger.

  Inside the café, Howie had recovered enough to be drawn into animated debate with his silver-haired co-producer. Rachel Lamb stood a bit apart, studying Chamberlaine with clear misgivings.

  Micah rose, moving out into the open. “The first thing Reede wanted to know was why we didn’t have more Press around.” He shook his head and walked away toward the Tube.

  Crispin laughed excitedly when Micah was out of hearing. “Press? Who needs the Press? We just got all the publicity we need!”

  HARMONET/CHAT

  06/24/46

  ***Just keeping you up-to-date, friends and neighbors, and we know you’re desperate to be up-to-date when Ms. NeoRealist CARMICHAEL, who just sold for fifty million, is trapped there right beside you in the Tube.***

  ***So do we care, we mean *really* care that GEORGE PEERZADA won’t sing Don Giovanni at matinee performances, and that SILVERTREE OPERA is suing for breach of contract?

  ***No! Because the *only* thing we want to know is: just what went on at Gateway Plaza last eve at Closing? *SOME ENTRANCE, HOWIE BABY!*

  ***“A freak *OUT*bre
ak of *OUT*sider resentment,” says our suave friend from LonDome, REEDE SCOTT CHAMBERLAINE. We wanted to buy his suit, but he swore he has only the one. Then he invited us to get in line at the Ark box office.

  ***Well, that didn’t set our heart at rest about armed bandits Outside our Gate maybe thinking of taking a bead on any ole unsuspecting visitor… or returning citizen! Ms. ROLLY DINOPOLIS of Security Task Force Four agrees. She was doing Outside duty at the time and confirms reports of strange Outsider activities just moments before the *Incident.*

  ***And of course the usual channels were unable to uncover an *official* medical report, but the Chat is, a doctor was called in.

  ***So remember a little place called *Tuatua*? What about these exotic dancer folk? We hear we have to be *really* careful we don’t offend or they might turn us into FROGS or something. Madame Mayor, do we *really* have to wait THREE WEEKS to find out? Chat is, WorldNet’s being besieged with demands for better coverage of rumored troubles back on our mystery guests’ bizarre little island home. Come on, WorldNet! We have a right to know!

  ***And first thing we’re going to ask when they come out is, what’s this elusive fun fellow the CONCH *really* like?

  ***Remember, you DIDN’T hear it here!***

  WAITING:

  If their three-week quarantine was painful for the Eye, it was excruciating for us, awaiting their reappearance before the full story could be told.

  Advance sales soared at the Ark’s box office. Both WorldNet/News and WN/Commentary developed a belated interest in Tuamatutetuamatu, where the Enclosure dispute appeared to be boiling toward open civil war. As strikes and demonstrations rocked the island, WorldNet actually reported them. Maybe it was the abrupt availability of news that made the crisis seem so sudden.

  So politics intruded into Art, the world rediscovered Tuatua, and Howie had his hands full with the Town Council, who were ready to send the Eye packing.

  “What the hell’s wrong with airing the plight of the dispossessed,” he demanded at a midweek design session. “Especially in a politically stable environment like ours? But I said, hey, look at the figures: tourism increased after the Eye arrived, and then again when WorldNet decided to cover Tuatua.”

  “WorldNet’s coverage is totally one-sided,” insisted Cris, who was showing a minor genius for coaxing data out of hidden files. “They only report anti-domer riots and sabotage, never mentioning the police brutality and unlawful detentions, or the firing and evictions of Station Clan workers without cause.”

  Howie nodded sickly. “There’re always two sides. Thank god most of my Board’s behind me on this.”

  With his Board’s help, Howie flattered the Town Council into submission with reminders of their superior enlightenment, convincing the required number that visiting artists should not be made to answer for the political troubles of their homelands. He retained the Eye’s work visas and gained entry permits for their props and costumes as “artworks.” In the halls of the Arkadie, he was congratulated on a major political triumph.

  The Chat got a few days’ worth of good material out of the Incident, but the Eye’s arrival grabbed first place on the apprentice gossip roster and stayed there. Not only the question of what had actually happened, but a debate about what had been intended by it.

  “Street theatre!” Cris held forth at top volume as we sailed our bikes along the empty lanes, a morning exercise detour on the way to work. A grove of tall, old trees marked the border between BardClyffe and neighboring Lorien. Our raucous passage violated the reverent silence of their ancient shade, but Crispin was in oblivious high gear. “They were making a piece of Art!”

  “They were making an entrance!” Jane replied. “A dangerous, exhibitionistic, stupid entrance!”

  “True art must be truly dangerous,” Crispin sneered.

  “Jane, they’re actors,” I soothed. “They’re supposed to make entrances!”

  “Inside the theatre! Not Outside and scaring everybody to death!”

  “And getting actually shot!” panted Songh from behind.

  “Right on cue,” Cris pointed out.

  Songh’s eyes ballooned over his handlebars. “You mean they maybe meant to…?”

  “Genius is the willingness to risk!” yelled Cris airily as he bent to his pedals and pulled ahead.

  We sped out of the grove and swooped down among the stucco and glass mansions of Lorien’s high-rent district, home of agents and gallery owners. I tossed Jane a look of complicity. “Great with the epigrams, isn’t he?”

  But she was staring straight ahead, jaw tight and her knuckles white on her handgrips.

  I figured now was not the time to ask if Songh had heard anything further about the Closed Door League.

  THE SHOP:

  Despite the controversy, or perhaps spurred on by it, the design progressed. Micah’s charcoal fantasies for The Gift became strong-lined pencil sketches, and a rough paper model was developed. A rough model is a working tool, not always an articulate expression of the design—a declaration of intent, Micah called it. We spent several days tearing this one apart and sticking it back together again. Finally the Master said, “Meet me at the shop tomorrow morning. Time to check in with Sean.”

  “With this?” I said in dismay.

  He cocked his head fondly at the ragged little construction of paper and tape. “Sean knows how to read my shorthand.”

  The maintenance workers were busy again when I rode into Fetching Plaza the next morning, a crowd of them down on hands and knees scrubbing at the pavement. Howie and Rachel Lamb looked on from the steps of the Arkadie.

  “How’s it going, Ike?” he called to one of the scrubbers as I parked my bike.

  A balding man shook his brush sourly. “The creep used some nasty high-tech paint this time! Goddamn bonded with the marble!”

  “They painted on the street again?” I asked.

  Micah arrived with the model wrapped in plastic. “It’s been awhile. I was sure our street artist had moved on to other projects.”

  Howie grinned. “This time they’ll have to bleach it out. Or repave! Ha!” The desecration of Fetching Plaza actually amused him. “Sort of an ongoing conceptual work, I’d say. Remember when we thought this kind of stuff was Art?”

  “It’s more about Art than it is Art,” said Micah.

  “And that’s okay, too. Heading for the shop?”

  Micah nodded. “Want to come along?”

  “Not just yet.”

  We climbed the steps to Rachel’s side. This neat, coffee-colored woman was not as sanguine about the graffito as her boss. The scrawly red letters were at least two meters tall and only a few shades paler where the cleaners had worked on them.

  “That’s weird,” I muttered.

  Howie squinted into the bright sunlight. “Can you make it out?”

  “Yeah.” I could read it just fine.

  “And we have an audience tonight,” Rachel mourned.

  Does she know? I wondered.

  Clearly Howie did not. “They’ll love it,” he boomed. “A little something new in the old plaza! Course, it’d help to have the artist around to interpret the work!”

  Meanwhile, I’m thinking, These guys are getting serious.

  The lettering read: Close the Door.

  * * *

  The long, three-story shop was sandwiched between the unequal half-moons of the Arkadie’s two theatres. Railed galleries ran around three sides. The fourth was occupied by a movable paint frame wide enough to hold three eighty-foot drops, hardly big enough for a theatre producing as much and as often as the Arkadie, but better than most theatres could offer. Carpentry, sculpture, and metal-working were spread across the main floor. Plastics was one flight down in a series of rooms that vented the noxious byproducts of that work into holding tanks to be shipped out of the dome.

  The props, sound, and electrics shops were next door, squeezed into three rooms that would have done better as one. A plan to find new space was offere
d at the beginning of each season, always without results. Below Plastics lurked several filled-to-bursting levels of warehouse sunk into the Green Mountain granite. The costume shop sweltered in the attic space above the ceiling of Theatre Two.

  The horn had just blown for afternoon coffee break. The saws were quiet. A tall stack of shrink-wrapped lumber waited to be moved out of the open bay of the vacuum tube terminal. Sean was very proud of that terminal. Not all theatres had their raw materials delivered directly to the shop.

  The crew hailed Micah like a long-lost brother and shoved hot cups and giant sugared pastries into our hands.

  “Gonna bust our balls this time? Gonna keep us up nights?”

  “Naw, we won’t have to sink a screw! Those tribal guys’ll voodoo the friggin’ scenery onto the stage!”

  “You think they do love potions? I could really use one.”

  The men laughed. “Can ya help him, Mi? The boy’s in need!”

  “Old Howie, stirrin’ up trouble,” an older hand remarked.

  “The hell, let ‘im!” roared a tall redhead. “Christ, we’re fuckin’ sick and tired of Easy Street down here!”

  I loved watching Micah go into action in the shop. This man who had no patience for the usual social trivia knew every crew member by name, knew their spouses, knew the names and ages of their kids. He admired their craftsmanship, he asked about their current projects. He worked the floor of that shop, any shop, like Howie worked an opening-night crowd. He loved it, and so did they.

  While I stuffed my face with unneeded sugar, Micah strolled among the worktables with the shop foreman, Ruth Bondi, to inspect a new material she was eager to show off. The carpenters joked with me, but their eyes followed Micah possessively. The crew felt they could bitch with him about the administration and tell funny stories in Max Eider’s accent, and know that Micah would return their fraternity by never repeating what he heard or naming names to the front office. Crispin slipped once and called him the Badger in public, and the nickname raced like wildfire through every shop in Harmony, though like us, none of them would think to call him anything but Micah to his face.