Harmony Page 5

  Now he stretched as luxuriantly as he could in my narrow bed. I thought he looked very beautiful, all smooth and golden in the dusk light that squeezed through the single window, heating the beige walls to salmon. He ran his fingers negligently through his hair, letting the ends coil along his collarbone. “If Jane didn’t have stuff to worry about, she’d invent it. If she gets thrown Out, it’s not going to be because of Howie Marr’s politics. I mean, c’mon—this isn’t some proto-marxist enclave like Chicago.”

  I let that pass. “Micah does need her. That’s got to be some kind of insurance. She’s the ideal studio assistant. She’s earnest and diligent, she’s a skilled and experienced draftsman, and a total obsessive crazy when it comes to details. She has patience with stuff that drives me up the walls. She’s passed four reviews so far just fine. No reason why she shouldn’t make the next one.”

  Cris yawned. “Except that after nine years, she’s still not so hot when the shit hits the fan in the theatre or if Micah’s not around to make decisions, and the only show she’s ever done on her own was that little workshop Gitanne got her at Images.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “ ‘The applicant’s potential as an independent artist remains undeveloped’…”

  “They do say ten years is the cutoff point. If you’re not made journeyman by then…”

  Cris grinned and drew his forefinger across my throat.

  “Jane’s afraid Howie’s show might tip the balance against her.”

  “Do we have to talk about Jane?” Crispin did not feel responsible for Jane as I did, or had come to, upon my elevation to the position of her superior.

  “But it’s not fair! There should be a place for skilled technicians.”

  “Who do you think builds our scenery? You just got to make citizen first.”

  “Or be born here.”

  Cris shook his head impatiently. “If Jane can’t accept the risk, she shouldn’t have come to Harmony. Not everyone can make it here.” He sat up, dragging the sheet away. “What’ve you got to eat?”

  “You should have thought of that before you turned your nose up at dinner.”

  Jane’s worry had dampened my mood. Even in the flush of victory from my recent promotion, my own sense of vulnerability was easily awakened. Not all the rumors I’d heard in Chicago had been true. Harmony was indeed proud of its unique Outside Adoption Policy, but even Micah had once remarked that the intent of the OAP had never been to add to the day labor pool. As I learned soon after arrival, there were plenty of ungifted sons and daughters of Harmonic citizens to fill those posts. SecondGen, we called them. Like Songh. A sweet kid, but not exactly on the ball. As an experiment in eugenics, Harmony had not totally succeeded. As a result, an odd double standard prevailed. Songh, a native son, did not have to earn his citizenship as we did. He’d have to commit a very serious crime to be put Outside.

  And there were more and more of him every year. Citizens in Harmony were law-abiding and there were few unlicensed births. But in the newly healthy environment of the dome, there were far fewer deaths than the Founders had counted on. And many applicants for residence who were already too famous and successful to pass up.

  So Jane did have cause for worry. Many did, whose birth-domes would not take them back. If we didn’t measure up as artists who could add appropriately to the GNP, Harmony didn’t need us hanging around. I pictured Jane, bone thin in rags, stirring a stew pot in the perimeter slums. In the dorms, Jane made sure never to miss a meal and still she was as thin as a fever victim. Outside, starvation and disease would fell her within a month.

  Cris slid down beside me, ready for another round of fun and games. “Now me, I’m going to be famous before I’m a journeyman. You too, if you let me send your file out.” He tugged at the braid and bead around my neck. “This thing’s really in my way.”

  I nudged him warningly. “Pride goeth before…”

  “Pride is exactly what Jane is lacking,” he replied seriously. And I could not disagree.

  VTH/TOWN HALL REPORT

  TOWN MEETING: 05/15/46

  ATTENDANCE: 43%

  TOWN COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Addison [Amadeus], Topa [BardClyffe], Lazarevna, Kata [Eden], Aftuk [Fetching], Lee [Lorien], Morales [Silvertree].

  SPEAKERS: Healey, T. Boeck, Yoshimura, Valkenberg, C. Brigham, Ho, Chiovaro, Roskelly, S. Reilly, Stulir, V. Gogolen, Beadle, Rand.

  MOTIONS PASSED: 3

  MOTIONS TABLED: 2

  MOTIONS DEFEATED: 2

  MAYOR’S AGENDA: Proposal to increase appropriation for OutCare due to falloff in private and corporate donations. Her Honor singled out recent reports of unrest Outside other domes as reason enough to keep OutCare afloat.

  TOWN COUNCIL AGENDA: Counterproposal re: last week’s motion to extend Friday visiting hours. Mr. Addison suggests: “Open the Gate at ten in the morning instead. Save energy not having to light the damn place up all night.”

  DISCUSSION:

  19:35 Mr. Rand spoke in favor of the extension of Friday visitor hours until 21:00. Projected figures estimated increased box office revenues and gallery sales.

  19:52. Ms. Roskelly expressed the concern of the Crafts Merchants Association about the apparent increase in unlicensed peddling in the village markets by foreigners gaining entry via day-visitor visas. A more thorough screening of visa applications was suggested.

  20:18. Arguments were heard for the proposed construction of a Francotel-financed luxury hotel in BardClyffe Village. Arguments against were scheduled for next week. A complaint was filed citing the BardClyffe Chamber of Commerce for opening negotiations with Francotel without making their intentions known at Town Meeting.

  21:50. The issue of population pressure was raised again. Because so many citizens spoke over their allotted three minutes, this topic will be taken up early in next week’s meeting.

  SEAN:

  The morning after Howie’s paean to “elegant simplicity,” Micah hated everything he’d done for the Marin project. Even the ideas the writers and director had creamed themselves over the afternoon before.

  Disquiet reigned in the Badger’s den. Mutters of “over-complication” and “the essential purity of the line” accompanied the sound of X’s being hand-drawn through vast portions of my neatly drafted and freshly printed-out ground plans. I finally saved the third-floor plan I’d been revising, closed the Marin file, and called up the full-scale details for Deo Gratias. No point bothering with Marin until the Master’s malaise had run its course.

  This went on for three days. Somewhere around mid-morning Friday, Micah emerged from his storm cloud. “Sean’s coming to lunch.”

  “Thank god,” I whispered to Jane. “Sean’ll calm him down if anyone can.”

  “Mr. Marr’s sending him over to convince Micah to do the play.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said, though Micah had been unavailable to several of Howie’s phone calls, and she was probably right.

  The Master punched Wagner into the sound system, rolled his sleeves higher, and returned hell-bent to his destruction. Crispin by manly effort concentrated on the Tuatua research Micah had requested while two weeks of preliminary Marin programming went down the drain in megabyte-sized pieces.

  Micah’s agent had convinced him to take the Marin job to make up for the financial losses on his higher-minded projects. Such a client could not normally hope to lure Micah Cervantes. The concept was a multilevel, walk-in environmental entertainment for the Marin sea dome, grand and gaudy on a medieval fantasy theme, without even pretensions to being art. Its greatest challenges were technical, such as involving the audience in the action without seeming to control their movement or their responses. The producers were young and greedy, the writers were laughing up their sleeves: the design process should have been fun and breezy. But the director was still trying to convince herself that there were reasons other than money to do the piece, encouraging Micah to indulge himself likewise.

  And now with Howie’s bee in the Master’s bon
net, the Marin job lay on his desk in a shambles.

  I longed for lunchtime as if it were the Second Coming.

  Sean could tell something was up the minute he walked in, with the Wagner blaring before noon and Micah not favoring him with an immediate greeting. He browsed quietly among the tables, leaned over Jane’s shoulder to peer at the Deo Gratias model. She was building the triple-arched facade of a Romanesque cathedral, with carved portal figures of stern and saintly glance, and a detailed Last Judgment frieze on the tympanum. It was beautiful. You could practically hear the grim monks chanting in the background.

  “Ah, Janie, me gerl. You do one hell of a model.” Sean eyed it with an exaggerated squint. “Too bad I’m not building the show.”

  “We wish you were.” Jane gave him a shy smile. She was quite taken with Sean, but hoped that no one noticed. She wouldn’t want anyone to think she’d look twice at a married man.

  Sean Reilly was Master Carpenter at the Arkadie. He was a native son of Harmony, but one of that first generation born beneath the dome, when Harmony’s survival was still a question. “Fourth kid born after they raised the lid,” he’d remind you proudly. Sean was no wimpy SecondGen. His very special kind of genius lay in being midwife to the genius of others.

  His father was a sculptor who had favored Art over Religion, and left Dublin in disgust when it Enclosed as a Catholic theocracy. Sean had been born with a cutting torch in his hand, and had all the other usual shop qualifications as well: an organizational mind, an attention to detail, an encyclopedic knowledge of materials, the stamina to work long hours, and the incipient beer gut of a onetime athlete spending too much time at a desk. Micah had brought him to the Arkadie and thought him a treasure, a standard to which all others in his profession should aspire, and a well of sanity in an increasingly irrational business. We all agreed, mainly because he had such a good effect on Micah.

  Sean winked at Jane, tossed a jaunty nod to Crispin and Songh, and wandered over to lean into the faint glow of my desktop. His forefinger traced the bowed outline of a flying buttress with absentminded sensuality. “Hell of a crowd out there today.”

  “Every day,” said I, like the old hand I was beginning to feel.

  He leaned in closer, as if murmuring little seductions. “What the hell’s got Micah so worked up?”

  He smelled of fresh sawdust and after-shave. I sympathized with Jane. Sean at forty was going soft around the edges, but he had what the Irish call laughing eyes and his body still remembered how to move with confidence and grace.

  “It’s Howie,” I whispered.

  “Ah. I know that problem.” He moved on to the Master’s corner. “Say, buddy, didn’t you invite a guy to lunch?”

  “Invited yourself, as I recall,” Micah grumped. “And you’re early. The lunch hasn’t arrived yet.” But he offered up a weary grin and turned down the Wagner.

  Sean nodded at the chaos on the drawing board. “So, Mi. Whatcha up to?”

  Micah raked both hands through his bristly hair. “I’m trying to…” His shoulders sagged. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Hey. Try me.” Through some kind of companionable magic, Sean inserted himself between Micah and the drafting board. “Hmm,” he said over the drawings. “Hah! Dragons! We could use a few o’ them at the Ark right now. Things have been pretty dull lately.”

  Micah regarded him skeptically, then shrugged. “Well, since you’re here, there is one thing you might take a look at…”

  But then the lunch arrived, and Micah never did have the chance to pick his favorite technician’s brain for free on the subject of the Marin project.

  Lunch at Micah’s was a major event. Because the studio lacked a kitchen and the village restaurants were priced for tourists, too dear for the likes of us poor apprentices on any regular basis, and because Micah loved to eat but hated to eat badly, he had lunch catered every day and encouraged friends and colleagues to drop by. It was his homage to the social contract, his attempt to further communications within the field, his substitute for family dinners, his (and our) one moment of relaxation.

  The mess hall was our little conference room. Often, Marie Bennett-Lloyd, the costume designer who had the other studio in the suite, joined us with her apprentices Mark and Bela, whom we called the Blond Twins. With guests and tall Josie who brought the food and the food itself and the bookcases and filing drawers lining three walls, it was quite a crowd and altogether the break one needed after a morning of intense concentration. The one thing it rarely was, was quiet.

  Marie and the Twins were on location that day, so there was more room than usual. Sean canvassed the food avidly, grinning at Josie as she passed around tumblers of iced tea.

  “You weren’t at Town Meeting last night,” he scolded. He wagged a stubby finger at Micah. “You either. Bet you didn’t even watch it on the vid. Christ, democracy in action.”

  “I was working,” said Micah. Josie shrugged and smiled.

  “It’s an election year, Mi! Don’t you care what’s happening? The population issue’s heating up again. Did you know it’s a fact we’ve been letting in some fifty people every year for the last forty just ’cause we like their looks?”

  “Their talent,” Micah amended sternly. “Artists of world stature.”

  “Yeah, and Cam Brigham says proven salability, but pal o’ mine, we got no more place to put ’em! And here’s the kind of solutions being offered: some asshole running for T.C. from Amadeus says, hey, start a program to encourage expatriation to other domes.” Sean eyed me slyly. “So, whadda ya say, let’s all move to Chicago!”

  I laughed. “They could use you in Chicago, Sean.”

  “Are all the women as sexy as you? I’ll go.” He threw himself into a folding chair and stretched his legs. “So. I hear Howie’s been exercising his particular neuroses around the premises.”

  Jane’s look to me said I-told-you-so. I shrugged and watched Sean stir three heaping spoons of sugar into his tea. He did it with coffee, too. Every time, I wondered what he had left for teeth.

  “Howard has a lot of damn nerve sometimes,” Micah grumbled.

  Sean chuckled. “Told me he’s gonna direct this one himself.”

  “Ummm.”

  “Been awhile for Howie. Do him good to get back to it.”

  “Umm-huh.”

  “Tuatua, huh? You gonna do it?”

  “Haven’t read it yet. He hasn’t seen fit to grace me with a script.”

  “Me neither. They choose ’em without running ’em by me first, then they bitch when the damn shows go over budget!” Sean leaned in to grab a plate. “They’re talking the July slot in Theatre Two.”

  “I know.”

  “Max Eider’s Crossroads for the mainstage’ll be in the shop then. It’ll be tight. You know Max, always gotta be on the cutting edge of technology.”

  Micah nodded without noticeable sympathy.

  “Hey, c’mon!” Sean spread his arms, plate in one hand, fork in the other. “You know I’m the first one to jump on a problem that wants a new solution. That’s where the fun comes in. But sometimes a thing’s best done tried and true, instead of wasting your time tryin’ to reinvent the friggin’ wheel!”

  “I thought Howard sent you over to be encouraging.”

  “Hell, no. I’m just here for the free lunch.” Sean took a bear-sized bite of chicken in basil cream. “Bringing in real Tuatuans, eh? That oughta be something. Some pretty weird stuff got aired when that place was rediscovered. Hoodoo, and magic…”

  Micah laid squares of cheese on dark brown bread. “Crispin might be able to offer us more than rumor and conjecture, after three days in the library files.”

  Cris swallowed eagerly. “Yeah! Don’t have much on the Eye yet, but there’s great stuff on the island. Its real name is Tuamatutetuamatu.”

  Yes, I thought. That’s what she called it. Tuamatutetuamatu.

  “That a name or a mouthful?” snorted Sean, with his mouth full.

 
; “It’s east of the Fiji Domes, just about where it starts to look like open ocean on the maps. It’s a caldera, what’s left of a big volcano that blew up a hundred thousand years ago, so the island’s actually a ring eighteen miles in diameter with a nice lagoon in the middle.” He looked to Micah. “I could show you if…”

  Micah nodded. “Anyone mind eating in the dark?”

  Cris rescued the conference table’s remote keypad from between the avocado salads and the cheese plates. The walls of the room disappeared, replaced with a vista of turquoise water, black sand beaches lined in palm, and toothy green mountains behind. Rolling surf sighed beneath the sharp cries of seabirds. Salt tang mixed with smells of heat and vegetation. A breeze ruffled the soft fall of hair across Sean’s forehead.

  A soft “But…” escaped me. No smoke? No gray? No ruins? This couldn’t be Outside.

  “Welcome to Tuatua,” Cris announced smugly.

  “Why would they ever leave home?” remarked Micah, though he knew better. No eighteen-mile atoll could provide a big enough audience to support a theatre company. The Eye, whoever they were, had to tour in order to make a living.

  “There’s more,” said Crispin. A roar of water shuddered the room, silver strands falling out of darkness into leaf-ringed pools. Rain forest trees clung to green cliffs wreathed in fog. I shivered in the sudden damp. The violent death of its volcano had bequeathed Tuamatutetuamatu a rugged siren beauty that quite belied the island’s diminutive size. I’d seen pictures like this, in books about Before, but it was hard to believe this existed undomed, now.

  A flight of rainbowed birds shot past to dazzle our ears and eyes.

  “Kinda empty, isn’t it?” murmured Sean.

  “Before Dissolution,” Cris continued, “nobody much bothered with the place but missionaries. Development wasn’t cost-effective. The world just sort of lost track of it for forty years or so, during the worst of things. But now…”

  The mists cleared and we sat in neatly tended fields on a terraced hillside, acres of shiny-leafed shrubs bright with clusters of red and green berries.