Tepper,Sheri - After Long Silence Read online

  He turned to the west in a wide arc, ticking off the Presences along the horizon. Enigma, Sky Hammer, Amber Axe, Deadly Dozen, Cloud Gatherer, Black Tower, the Far Watchlings, then the western escarpment of crowded and mostly unnamed Presences. A little south of west were the Twin Watchers. The Watcher score was one of the first Passwords he had ever learned—a fairly simple piece of singing, with phonemes that were easy to get one's tongue around. "Arndaff duh-roomavah," he chanted softly, "sindir dassalam awoh," wondering as he occasionally did if there was really any meaning in the sounds. Official doctrine taught there was not, that the sounds, when properly sung and backed up with appropriate orchestration, merely damped the vibration in the crystalline Presences, thus allowing caravans to get through without being crushed. Or dismembered. Or blown away by scattering shards of crystal.

  Although ever since Erickson there had been people who believed implicitly in the language theory. Even now there were a few outspoken holdouts like Chad Jaconi, the Master Librarian, who believed that the sounds of the librettos were really words, and said so. Jaconi had spent the last forty years making a dictionary of tripsong phonemes, buying new translators from out-system, trying to establish that the Password scores were, indeed, a language. Every time old Jaconi thought he'd proved something, however, someone came along with a new libretto that contradicted it. There were still Explorer-singers out there with recorders and synthesizers and computers, crouched just outside the range of various Presences, trying endless combinations to see what seemed to work, coming up with new stuff even after all these years. Tasmin had actually heard the original cube made a hundred years ago by Ben Erickson, the first Explorer to get past the Far Watchlings to inland Deepsoil, an amazing and utterly mysterious, if not mystical, achievement. How could anyone possibly have arrived at the particular combination of phonemes and orchestral effect by trial and error! It seemed impossible.

  "It had to be clairvoyance," Tasmin mused, not for the first time. "A crystal ball and a fine voice."

  Erickson had sung his way past the Presences for almost fifty years before becoming one more singer to fall to the Enigma. During those years he had made an immortal name for himself and founded both the Order of Tripsingers and the Order of Explorers. Not bad accomplishments for one man. Tasmin would have been content to do one-quarter as well.

  "Tassy?" A sad little whisper from the stairway. "I woke up and you weren't there."

  "Just getting a little air, love." He went to her at the top of the stairs and gathered her into his arms. She nestled there, reaching up to stroke his face, whispering secret words into his ears, making his heart thunder and his arms tighten around her as though he would never let her go. As he picked her up to carry her downstairs, she turned to look out at the line of Presences, jagged against the stars.

  "You were looking at those things. I hate them, Tasmin. I do."

  It was the first time she had ever said she hated the Presences, and his sudden burst of compassionate understanding amazed him. They made love again, tenderly, and afterward he cuddled her until she went back to sleep, still murmuring about the concert.

  "He really is your brother? He'll really give us tickets?"

  "I'm sure he will."

  In the morning, Tasmin wondered whether Lim might indeed make some seats available as Tasmin had promised. To be on the safe side, he bought a pair, finding himself both astonished and angry at a price so high as to be almost indecent.

  The streets of Splash One were swarming with lunch-seekers and construction workers, military types, and bands of belligerent Crystallites, to say nothing of the chains of bewildered pilgrims, each intent on his or her own needs, and none of them making way for anyone else. Gretl Mechas fought her way grimly through the crowds, wondering what in the name of good sense had made her decide to come down to Splash One and make the payment on her loan in person. She could have sent a credit chit down from the priory in Northwest City by messenger, by comfax, by passenger bus—why had she decided to do it herself?

  "Fear," a remembered voice intoned in answer. "Debt is a terrible thing, Gretl. Never get into debt." It was her father's voice, preserved in memory for Gretl's lifetime.

  "Easy for you to say," she snarled. Easy for anyone to say. Hard to accomplish, however, when your only sister sent an emergency message from Heron's World telling you that she'd lost an arm in an accident and couldn't pay for her own regeneration. In advance, of course. No one did regeneration anymore unless they were paid in advance. And equally, of course, if you needed regeneration, no one would lend you any money either, except on extortionate terms that sometimes led to involuntary servitude. The stupid little twit hadn't thought she'd need regeneration insurance. Naturally not, when she had Gretl to call on.

  "Shit," she said feelingly, finding her way through the bruising crowds to the door of the BDL building, ignoring the looks that followed her. People had been looking at Gretl since she was five, men particularly. Perhaps it was her skin, like dark, tawny ivory. Perhaps it was her hair, a mahogany wealth that seemed to have a life of its own. Perhaps it was figure, or face, or merely some expression of lively unquenchable interest in those wide, dark eyes. But men always looked. Gretl didn't look back, however. Her heart was with a certain man back on Heron's World, where she'd be, too, as soon as this contract was over.

  "What was that name again," the credit office clerk asked, mystified. "Here, let me see your code book."

  Gretl handed it over. One got used to this on Jubal. It cost so much to bring in manufactured materials that everything on Jubal was used past the point of no return. Nothing ever worked quite right …

  "It's been paid," the clerk said with a look of knowing complicity.

  "Paid?" she blurted in astonishment, only half hearing the clerk. "What do you mean, paid?"

  "Your loan has been paid in full," the clerk said, glancing suspiciously from under her eyelashes. "You didn't know?"

  "I sure as hell didn't. Who paid it?"

  The clerk fumbled with the keys, frowning, then shaking her head.

  "Well?"

  "Justin," the clerk whispered.

  "Who?"

  "Oh, come on, lady." The whisper was angry.

  "I asked who that was. For God's sake, girl, tell me. I've only been on this planet for a few months, and I haven't any idea … "

  The clerk nodded, a tiny nod, upward and to the right. Gretl looked up. Nothing there but the glass-enclosed offices of the Brou Distribution Ltd., or BDL, hierarchy. In one of them, a curtain quivered. "Him," whispered the clerk, suddenly quite pale. "Harward Justin."

  "The Planetary Manager?" Gretl fell silent, full of a sick uneasiness. She had met him. When she was here to arrange the loan, and only for a moment in passing. He had stopped at the desk where she was waiting, introduced himself, asked her to have lunch with him. She had refused.

  A man with no neck, she recalled. Greasy rolls of fat from his jaw to his shoulders. Eyes that looked like half frozen slush peering at her between puffy lids. A drooping, sensual mouth. Wet, she remembered. He had licked his lips continually.

  Abruptly she asked, "Do you have an envelope?"

  The clerk gave her a curious glance as she passed one over. Gretl inserted the payment she had been about to make, scribbled a few words on the outside, then handed it to the clerk.

  "I am not interested in other people paying my debts," she said. "I'll repay my loan on the terms I specified. See that Mr. Justin gets this."

  She turned and strode away, the inner queasiness giving way to amazement and then anger. Wait until Don Furz heard about this! Unbelievable! The gall of the man!

  She had almost reached the door when the hand fell on her shoulder.

  He was a tall man, an expressionless man, an uninterested man. He did not look at her as other men usually looked at her. It was almost as though he did not see her as a person at all. He said very little, but he did not release her as he said it.

  "My name is Spider G
eroan. I work for Harward Justin, and he'd like to see you. Now."

  2

  During Tasmin's orchestral effects class, it turned out that the air pump had been rigged to make farting noises, always good for a laugh. Practice for the neophytes shuddered to a halt while Tasmin dismantled the instrument.

  "That particular sound is used, so far as I'm aware, only in the run through the Blind Gut," he remarked to the class. "The only instructive thing about this incident is that there are sounds that work better when produced instrumentally rather than by synthesizer, which is why we have drums, bells, pumps, and other paraphernalia … "

  "You're running perilously close to expulsion, Jamieson," he growled when the class was over. "That equipment is your responsibility."

  "Some of the pre-trippers are kind of uptight," the boy remarked, not at all disturbed at the threat. "I thought a laugh might help."

  There was something in that, enough that Tasmin wasn't inclined to press the matter. As was often true, Jamieson had broken the rules to good effect. This close to robing and first trip, many of the neophytes did get nervous and found it hard to concentrate. "Sabotaging equipment just isn't a good idea," Tasmin admonished in a fairly mild tone. "Some idiot kid fooled around with a jammer drum once, seeing if he could sound like some 'Soilcoast singer, and it got put into a trip wagon just as it was. Do you need me to tell you what happened?"

  "No, sir." Slightly flushed, but so far as Tasmin was able to discern, unrepentant, Jamieson agreed. "I remember."

  "Well, double check that air pump. Be damn sure it does what it's supposed to do before you leave it."

  Jamieson moved to change the subject. "Are we taking any of the first trippers out, Master?"

  "On first New Moon, yes. There are only three I'm a neutral preceptor for, three I haven't had in my own classes—let's see, James, Refnic, and that Clarin girl with the astonishing voice … "

  "Renna. Renna Clarin." Jamieson cocked his head, considering.

  "Right. Anything I should know?"

  "James will fade, definitely if there's a clinch, and probably anyhow. He spends half his life wetting his pants and the other half drying himself off and asking if anybody noticed. Refnic's reliable. The tougher things are, the more he settles. I don't know that much about Renna Clarin except she looks funny bald. She transferred in."

  Tasmin ignored the impudence, as Jamieson had known he would. "Evidently female neophytes don't have their heads shaved at Northwest, and it came as a shock to her when she got shaved down here. She had excellent personal references. Her records from Deep-soil Seven choir school were good."

  Jamieson shrugged eloquently, a balletic gesture starting at his shoulders and ending at his fingertips, which twitched a little, showing their contempt for good records. Excellent choir school recommendations might mean little except that a candidate had an acceptable voice or got along well with the Choir Master. Jamieson himself had had terrible choir school grades and had set a new school record for demerits, a fact that Jamieson knew Tasmin was well aware of. Again he changed the subject. "What's the route?"

  "Oh, I think we'll do my usual first trip loop. Past the Watchers on the easy side, down through the False Eagers, along Riddance Ridge to the Startles. Then down the deepsoil pass to Harmony, stay overnight there, give them a good scary look at the Tower while you and I sing them past, then back through the Far Watchlings."

  "If it was me," Jamieson said, greatly daring, "I'd use James on the Startles. He likes that score and he can't do much wrong there."

  "Rig him to pass, that it? Then what happens the first time some caravan depends on him?"

  "Oh, I just thought a little more experience maybe … " Jamieson's voice trailed off, embarrassed. He obviously hadn't thought at all. Now he flushed and ducked his head in a hinted apology, a courtesy he accorded Tasmin but very few others.

  "Think about it," Tasmin recommended, testing the final adjustment of the air pump. He sat back then, musing. "Jamieson."

  "Sir?"

  "You're of an age to pay attention to the 'Soilcoast singers. What do you know about Lim Terrée?"

  "Oh, hey, apogee. Way up in the ranking. Best-seller cubes, last three out. The girls are brou-dizzy over him."

  "What's his music like?"

  Jamieson gave this some thought. "Kind of hard to describe. There's a lot of Tripsinger stuff in it, but he takes way off from that. Of course, all the 'Soilcoast singers bill their stuff as being real Passwords, but you couldn't get anywhere with it. I don't think you could, anyhow."

  "What do you mean?" Tasmin was really curious. He had so deeply resented Lim's misuses of Password material that he had not kept up with the 'Soilcoast singer cult, although he knew it was extensive and bled money at every pore. "What do you mean, you couldn't get anywhere with it?"

  Jamieson pursed his lips, gestured toward a chair, and Tasmin nodded permission to sit. "You know the score for the Watchers? Minor key intro, two horns, and a tuned drum. Diddle, diddle, diddle in the strings in that rhythmic pattern, then the solo voice comes in with the PJ, ah the Petition and Justification, right? Kind of a simple melody line there, pretty straightforward, not like those key and tempo shifts in the Jammer sequences? Well, Lim Terrée does a kind of takeoff on that. He uses the melody of the P, ah the Petition and Justification, but he kind of—oh, embroiders it. Trills and little quavers and runs and grace notes. Where you sing 'Arndaff duh-roomavah,' it comes out 'Arn-daffa-daffa-daffa-duh-uh-uh-uh-duhroo-duhrooma-vah-ah-ah.' " It was a marvelous, tumbling cataract of sound.

  Jamieson had a good voice. Tasmin tried briefly and without success to convince himself he was listening to an obscenity. The phrase had been hypnotic.

  "And it goes on like that?"

  "The phrase 'sindir dassalam awoh' takes about three minutes with all the cadenzas and rhythmic repetitions and stuff. If you tried that out on the Watchers … well, I just don't think it would get you very far. They'd blow and you'd be gone."

  "I see what you mean. What's the attraction then?"

  "Well, it's great music. Really. Lots of noise and what they do on stage is pretty erotic. He wears something that looks sort of like a Tripsinger robe, only fancier, open down the front practically to his downspout." Jamieson leapt up, gestured as though unzipping himself from a spraddled stance, at once potent and aggressive, making Tasmin see what he was talking about. "The orchestral stuff is wild, too. Loads of percussion and heavy power assists." He collapsed into the chair again, legs over the arm.

  "Which couldn't be used on a real trip."

  "Not unless you had a trip wagon the size of a coastal broubarge to hold the power source."

  "So, how's he going to do a concert here? He'd never get that power by the Presences. And even if the Presences would let it past, which they won't, the widest trail on Riddance Ridge barely passes a standard brou wagon."

  "Most of it'll probably be holo. He'll be live against his own recorded setup with maybe one or two live backup musicians along."

  "Why would he bother? If things are so great in the Deepsoil Coast, why come inland?"

  The acolyte shrugged, a minimal shoulder twitch. "I can't figure it. Too much exposure, maybe? I read the fanstats sometimes. There's a lot of competition among what they call the Big Six. Terree's oh, about number three, down from one or two a year ago. This new kid Chantry is a favorite with the Governor's crowd, and he's gone up like a balloon. Maybe Terrée figures he'll be more of a novelty after he comes back from an inland trip."

  "Tripsinger Lim Terrée," Tasmin quoted from an imaginary poster. "Back from a six-month tour of duty leading desperate caravans in the interior … "

  Jamieson grinned. "Something like that, yeah. Why all the interest, Master Ferrence?"

  "Oh," Tasmin fell silent. "I knew him once, years ago. He came from around here."

  "No joke! Really? Well, I guess it'll be old friends at the bar then."

  "Not really. I didn't know him that well."

&n
bsp; "I wonder why he didn't let me know he was coming?" Tasmin's mother stared toward him in wonder, though for years Thalia Ferrence had seen nothing but blurred outlines through those wide eyes.

  "It seems odd he wouldn't let me know." Her voice was aching and lost, with an agonizing resurgence of familiar pain, made strange only by renewed intensity.

  He probably didn't know you were still alive, Tasmin thought, not saying it. "Lim was probably too embarrassed, Mother. Or, maybe he didn't know Dad was gone and thought he might not be welcome."

  "His father would have forgiven him. Miles knew it was nothing that serious." She shook her head, smiling. She seemed determined to reform Miles Ferrence in memory, determined to create a loving and forgiving father where Tasmin could remember only hostility and harsh judgment.

  Not only her eyes that can't see, Tasmin reflected. Her heart can't see either. Maybe that's pan of being a wife and mother, having a blind heart. If she's blind to Lim's faults, well, she's blind to mine as well. He tried to feel generous about her warmth to Lim but couldn't. Something about it sickened him. Sibling rivalry? That would be Celcy's easy answer to everything. No, it was the senseless expenditure of emotion on someone unworthy of it that offended him.

  Or jealousy. It could be that. He could be jealous of Lim. It would be nice to have only oneself to worry about instead of juggling three or four sets of responsibilities. Celcy. Work. His mother, whose blindness could be helped at one of the 'Soilcoast medical centers if he could only get her there and pay the bills. Since Miles Ferrence had died, BDL provided no more medical care for her.

  Not that she ever reproached him. "Your wife has to come first, Tas. Just come see me when you can. I love it when you do."

  Now she leaned forward to take his hand and stroke it. "Are you going out on a trip soon?"

  "First New Moon, Mom. First trip for some recently robed singers. Be gone two days is all. I don't like to leave Celcy alone very long, not in her condition."

  "She's not still pregnant, is she?"