Harmony (58 page)

“I’d say it was out of your hands, Howard, unless you’ve more control over this headstrong company than it appears you do.”

Howie looked after Mali helplessly as the Tuatuan began a long slow circuit of the room.

“While we perform at the Arkadie, we abide by the decisions of its artistic director,” Omea said. “But the future of our company must remain in our hands.”

Mali’s tiger walk took him along our wall. Sam touched his arm. “Back off, Mal. The man is baiting you.”

Mali brushed past abruptly.

Uh-oh, I thought.

“I would never argue with autonomy,” Howie argued, “but—”

“The future of a company is in the individual success of its members,” said Reede. “You hold one back, you hold back everyone.”

“No, Reede!” barked Mali from the back of the room.

“Ah shit,” Sam muttered, “here it comes.” Ule sat up. Omea’s mouth tightened warily.

“Ignorant savages, hah?” Mali sneered. “Just don’t understand the grown-up world of business? Listen to yourself, Reede! You sound like a fucking cliché!”

Howie’s glance to Omea asked, Should you stop him or should I?

“Now, Mali, there’s no need for raised voices.”

“This is a need, Reede, because I’m likely to puke if I sit here listening to you another second! How about you listening to me for a change!”

“With pleasure.” Chamberlaine resettled himself in his chair. “I’m all ears.”

Mali did not bother to conceal his loathing. “We have put, some of us, fifteen years into evolving a working company consciousness. That rare and precious understanding is what allows us to create work like
The Gift
. Do you think we’d throw all that away like the foolish virgin on a promise of fortune? Do you understand anything about us at all? Do you think we are like
you
?”

Howie stood. “I’d like to say something here—”

“I understand one thing very clearly,” Chamberlaine drawled. “Your ingratitude. This company was the ten
A
.
M
. booking at mass admission dance festivals when I picked it out of the gutter! Four months later, I’ve got you a production in Harmony and two-week exclusives at the best theatres in the world and you can’t shake yourself free of your mystical claptrap long enough to keep your part of the bargain!”

“
Our
bargain, Reede, and
we
have kept it!”

“I don’t need your ‘company consciousness’! I live in the modern world and I need a star! I need you, out there acting!”

“You want a star performance?” Mali yelled. “I’ll give you one, right now. You alter a single term of our contract and I, Sa-Panteadeamali, the individual, will consider it null and void. You can take your tour and your fucking domer contempt and shove it! I will not perform under such conditions.”

“Well, well, well,” murmured Chamberlaine. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”

“He doesn’t mean it,” said Howie quickly.

The producer slid his hands into his pockets and regarded Mali with satisfaction. “I’ll need to hear that from him.”

Omea rose, just managing to keep resignation out of her voice. “If you cancel
The Gift
, I will not perform, either.”

“No, I expect not,” Chamberlaine allowed.

“Nor I,” said Moussa.

“Me neither.”

“Nor me.”

When the rest had added their agreement, Pen shook his head. “And I gave up good money for this.”

Te-Cucularit said, “This is what comes of domer dealing.”

Chamberlaine surveyed them calmly. “So it’s unanimous, then? Follow the leader?”

The Eye stared back at him stonily.

“Guys…” pleaded Howie. “He’ll do it, you know. He’ll cancel the tour right out from under us. Reede, look, we’ve got a whole month here. We’ll work on the piece in performance. It’s the best way to evolve material like this… organically.”

“What they don’t want, we can’t force,” said Chamberlaine. “It’s a shame, but…” He shrugged. I really hated the smug gleam in his eye.

“We’ve been outmaneuvered,” said Sam disgustedly.

“I don’t believe this!” Howie exclaimed.

“There, there, Howard. Don’t take it personally. They’re not refusing to play out the run here.” Reede smiled down at Omea. “Perhaps it’s all for the best, my dear. We’ll agree on a little statement for the press citing irreconcilable artistic differences and hope to work together another time. When the climate is more favorable, eh?” He raised her hand lightly to his lips, turned away, then turned back as with an afterthought. “And, Mali, when you come to your senses later and want a proper high-power agent, call me. I know just the man.”

“Fuck you, Reede.”

Chamberlaine gathered his staff, champagne glasses, trays, and all, then took Howie!s arm and steered him toward the door. “Now we’ve settled this issue, let’s leave these hungry people to their dinner and have that little chat in your office. I’d like to lay out for you the plan Rachel and I have put together for a world tour of
Crossroads
.”

FINAL DRESS:

“
Crossroads
??” Mali spat.

Howie threw back a despairing glance. “I’ll deal with this!” The last of the retinue oozed out and shut the door behind them.

“Sure you will!” Pen hurled his champagne glass at the door. “You could have left the fucking bottle!”

“Sonofabitch!” Mali’s regal posture collapsed. He looked to Sam. “You did warn me.”

“I did,” Sam agreed.

Mali sagged into the nearest armchair. “What have I done?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Omea replied. “Let me think about it.”

Sam pushed away from the wall. “If it were only local politics, he wouldn’t care. When they start connecting us to Open Sky, it gets too radical for Reede. Even if you hadn’t given him the excuse, he’d have found some way to dump us.”

“Poor Howie,” said Omea. “He goes partway down every road, then retreats in confusion when he runs into real resistance.”

Ule nodded. “All show and no go. Harmony in a nutshell.”

Liz and the assistant stage managers emerged from their back corner. I’d forgotten they were there. One of them went straightaway to clean up Pen’s shattered glass. Liz said heartily, “We still have a show tonight, so let’s get you guys fed.”

She was blocked at the door by a dolly full of vid equipment. Liz held the door open. “What’s all this stuff?”

“We need an extra monitor in here tonight,” Cris announced from behind the pile. “For Town Meeting.”

“Oh, no. The first cue that gets missed in
Crossroads
, Wendy’ll yell at me for allowing distractions in the greenroom.”

Cris straightened, with Mark alongside him. “Liz, don’t you think this meeting tonight might be a little more important than
Crossroads
?”

She thought about it but not for long. “Sorry. Of course it is. Bad enough any citizen has to work tonight.”

Mark left Cris to do the hookup and came over. “Something’s up,” he guessed.

I groaned. “Reede just canceled the tour.”

“What? After a performance like that? Is he crazy?”

“No. Only greedy,” said Tua. “We’re the crazy ones.”

Mark threw his head back. “What, he’s afraid he’ll ruin his rep if he’s associated with real Art for a change?”

Omea laughed. “Nice, Mark.”

I knew it wouldn’t do to demand how they could take it all so calmly. “What are you going to do?”

Ule chuckled. “Hey, we’ve been out of work before.”

“Rest easy, child,” Omea said. “Perhaps we understood the risk of Reede Chamberlaine better even than Howie.”

“Didn’t expect it to happen quite this fast,” admitted Moussa.

“What it really is,” Omea sighed, “is the fortune he’ll make touring
Crossroads
. Too much for him to resist.”

I was glad when the food arrived to distract them. The stage managers set up folding tables and set out trays of fruit and bread and cheese. Sam and I took our plates to a corner sofa.

“If you saw what Reede was doing,” I ventured, “why didn’t you stop Mali before he blew?”

“I can’t ‘stop’ Mali. Mali does what Mali does. I can try to convince him, but I can’t stop him.”

“You could if—”

“No,” he said sternly. “That way lies tyranny. You don’t try to make somebody else’s decisions for them.”

“It was your decision, too. What he’s done affects all of you.”

“And we’ll all deal with it, individually and together.”

What Mali had said homed in on me.
He’d never ask
. But if he wouldn’t ask, how would I know if I had a decision to make? I’d have to do the asking myself, or lose him without ever knowing.

“What is it?” he asked, so gently that for a moment I thought he knew. “The tour? It’s nothing. The real proof of our success here is what happens tonight at Town Hall.”

I was too preoccupied to think of challenging his obvious inconsistency. For if coercing your friend into risking his life once a performance wasn’t making a decision for him, I didn’t understand Sam’s definition at all.

Songh barreled into the greenroom. “There you are! Micah says if there’s enough food, will you bring him some?”

“You don’t do food?” I teased.

He stopped at Mark’s elbow, his dark eyes bright and nervous. “I’m going home. I’m going to talk to my parents before they leave for Town Meeting.” He turned back to me. “Mark says I was maybe staying away to avoid confrontation, but now I’m going to tell them everything about how I feel and I’m going to make them listen!”

Mark smiled down at him. He gave the boy a quick, supportive hug. “Good luck.”

“Yeah,” I seconded. “Don’t be too hard on them.”

“Do it for us,” called Cris, as he tuned the new monitor to Video Town Hall.

“For Jane!” Songh hunched his shoulders tight around his neck and let them drop. “Well, see you later, if they ever let me out of the house again!” He winked and sprinted away.

“How long since he’s been home?” asked Sam.

“Oh, about a week.”

He nodded. “He’ll do all right in life, that kid, once he grows a little.”

“Grows, or grows up?”

“Well, in his case, it’d better be both.”

“You’re very cheerful for someone who just lost a job.”

He smiled sleepily. “Must be the company I keep.” He leaned in and kissed me, and for a moment we both forgot where we were, until I nearly lost my plate off my lap. Sam caught it, laughing, and we looked up to find Mali watching us, both critical and possessive, as if we were a work he was still in the middle of creating.

I left reluctantly to take Micah his dinner, then got caught telling him about the cancellation of the tour. I couldn’t get backstage again before curtain. Micah and Lou were running cues so he could man the lighting computer during the dress, leaving Lou free to go to Town Meeting. Marie had already gone, declaring that Mark took all her notes anyway, so why sit useless in the theatre when she could be yelling at the mayor? Lou left soon after with Micah’s proxy, in case it really did come to a vote. I didn’t see Hickey around once the preset was in. I hoped he was keeping his promise.

Then it was Micah and me, alone behind the production table as the theatre filled for the open dress rehearsal.

“Not much of an audience tonight, with everyone at Town Meeting.”

“The dregs.” Micah surveyed the house. “Tourists with shopping bags, SecondGens too young to vote, and all the geriatric subscribers who wouldn’t miss a paid-for ticket if it were doomsday tomorrow.”

He was right, and the shopping bags were going to be a particular problem. I let myself be transfixed by the amber numbers glowing in the bank of tiny monitors on Lou’s console, as if they were the excuse for my silence.

“You’re worried about tonight?” Micah asked kindly.

“Micah, you’re worried. How could I not be?”

He smoothed the ends of his mustache, gazing into the emptiness downstage center. “There are so many things to worry about.”

We sat in silence a bit longer.

“Do people ever leave Harmony?” I asked him finally. “Willingly, I mean. On their own?”

“Some do, if assured of a welcome in another dome. Harmony is not everyone’s idea of utopia, no matter what we try to tell ourselves.”

It was mine, I thought sadly, once upon a time. “Why do they leave?”

“They’re seeking a plainer life-style, or they can’t stand the tourists. It’s the tourists, mostly. Writers especially find the open studio policy intolerable.” He chuckled privately. “Rosa’s forever finding places she thinks we might like better than here.”

“What would you do if she found one?”

Micah’s look was a gentle warning.

“Sorry.” I glanced away. “It’s just, well, these people who leave… do you ever hear from them again? Do you see their work?”

“Do they manage to succeed, do you mean? Certainly. Harmony is not the only place to build a career. London is a thriving theatre town, so is Beijing. But none of them have our apprentice program, and as you know, there’s a problem getting residence in a dome if you’re not born there. Once you’ve won citizenship in Harmony, it’s barterable at any of the arts-conscious domes.” He looked at me closely. “Why? Are you unhappy here?”

“I am not welcome here.”

“A minority opinion. We hope this is being resolved as we speak. When it is, I’ve little doubt you’ll win your citizenship.”

I fidgeted in silence.

“There’s more to this…”

There is an expanse of blue
, I thought, and like walls falling away it surrounded me, sucking my breath into its vastness. Always before, some power in Mali’s presence had brought this vision, but Mali wasn’t here now and the sky was inside me. Blinded by light and blueness, seized by inexplicable longing, I buried my face in my hands to hide the evidence of my madness from Micah’s kindly inquiring eye.

“Do you ever feel cheated?” I blurted. “Does it ever bother you that your movements are so circumscribed? Do you ever want to just walk out of Town and over the next hill to see what’s there?”

“Always,” he replied after a while. “Therefore I invent the other side of the hill in my work, every day.”

“It’s not the same!” I replied, harsh with frustration, not meaning to be cruel.