Sheri S. Tepper - After Long Silence

AFTER LONG SILENCE

Sheri S Tepper

[06 nov 2002—scanned for #bookz]

[08 nov 2002—proofread by Wiz3]

1

When Tasmin reached for the gold leaf, he found the box empty. The glue was already neatly painted

onto the ornamented initial letter of the Enigma score, and it would dry into uselessness within minutes.

He spent a fleeting moment wanting to curse but satisfied himself by bellowing, "Jamieson!" in a tone that

was an unequivocal imprecation.

"Master Ferrence?" The boyish face thrust around the door was wide-eyed in its most "Who, me?"

expression, and the dark blond hair fell artfully over a forehead only slightly wrinkled as though to

indicate "I'm working very hard, now what does he want?"

Undeceived by all this, Tasmin waved the empty box and snarled, "One minute, Jamieson. Or less."

The acolyte evidently read Tasmin's expression correctly for he moved away in a nicely assessed

pretense of panic mixed with alacrity. The gold leaf was kept in a storeroom up one flight, and the boy

could conceivably make it within the time limit if he went at a dead run.

He returned panting and, for once, silent. In gratitude, Tasmin postponed the lecture he had been

rehearsing. "Get on with what you were doing."

"It wasn't important, Master."

"If what you were doing wasn't important, then you should have checked my supplies. Only pressure of

urgent work could have excused your not doing so."

"I guess it was important, after all," Jamieson responded, a quirk at the corner of his mouth the only

betrayal of the fact that he had been well and truly caught. He let the door shut quietly behind him and

Tasmin smiled ruefully. The boy was not called Reb Jamieson for nothing. He rebelled at everything,

including the discipline of an acolyte, almost as a matter of conviction. If he weren't almost consistently

right about things; if he didn't have a voice like an angel …

Tasmin cut off the thought as he placed the felt pad over the gold leaf and rubbed it, setting the gilding

onto the glue, then brushed the excess gold into the salvage pot. It was a conceit of his never to do the

initial letter on a master copy until the rest of the score and libretto was complete. Now he could touch

up the one or two red accents that needed brightening, get himself out of his robes and into civilian

clothes, and make a photostat of the score for his own study at home—not at all in accordance with the

rules, but generally winked at so long as the score didn't leave his possession. The finished master

manuscript would go into a ceremonial filing binder and be delivered to Jaconi. They would talk a few

minutes about the Master Librarian's perennial hobby horse, his language theory, and then Tasmin would

borrow a quiet-car from the citadel garage and drive through the small settlement of Deepsoil Five, on his

way home to Celcy.

Who would, as usual, greet his homecoming with sulks for some little time.

"This whole celibacy thing is just superstition," she pouted, as he had predicted. "Something left over

from old religious ideas from Erickson's time. We've all outgrown that. There's no reason you shouldn't

be able to come home at night even if you are copying a score."

The phrases were borrowed; the argument wasn't new; neither was his rejoinder. "That may be true.

Maybe all the ritual is superstition and nonsense, Celcy love. Maybe it's only tradition, and fairly

meaningless at that, but I took an oath to observe every bit of it, and it's honorable to keep oaths."

"Your stupid oath is more important than I am."

Tasmin remembered a line from a pre-dispersion poet about not being able to love half as much if one

didn't love honor more, but he didn't quote it. Celcy hated being quoted at. "No, love, not more

important than you. I made some oaths about you, too, and I'm just as determined to keep those. Things

about loving and cherishing and so forth." He tilted her head back, coaxing a smile, unhappily aware of

the implications of what he had just said but trusting her preoccupation with her own feelings to keep her

from noticing. Sometimes, as now, he did feel he stayed with her more because of commitment than

desire, but whenever the thought came to him he reminded himself of the other Celcy, the Celcy who,

when things were secure and right, seemed magically to take this Celcy's place. She didn't always act like

this. Certain things just seemed to bring it out.

"I sure don't feel loved," she said sulkily. He sighed, half in relief. She might not take less than a day to

forgive him for having been away for the seventeen days it had taken to orchestrate and copy the new

Enigma score—or, more accurately, the putative Enigma score since it hadn't been tested on the Enigma

yet, and might never be—but she would come around eventually. Nothing he could do would hurry the

process. If he ignored her, it would take even longer, so he set himself to be pleasant, reminding himself

of her condition, trying to think of small things that might please her.

"What's going on at the center? Something you'd like to see? Any good holos?"

"Nothing good. I went to a new one that Jeanne Gentrack told me about, but it was awful." She

shivered. "All about the people on the Jut, starving and trying to get out through the Jammers after their

Tripsingers were assassinated by that crazy fanatic."

"You know you hate things like that, Celcy. Why did you go?"

"Oh, it was something to do." She had gone alone, of course. Celcy had no women friends and was too

conventional to go with a man, even though Tasmin wouldn't have objected. "I'd heard it was about

Tripsingers, and I thought you might like it if I went." She was flirting with him now, cutely petulant, lower

lip protruding, wanting to be babied and cosseted, making him be daddy. He would try to kiss her; she

would evade him. They would play this game for some time. Tonight she would be "too tired" as a

punishment for his neglect, and then about noon tomorrow she might show evidence of that joyously

sparkling girl he had fallen in love with, the Celcy he had married.

He put on a sympathetic smile. "It's great that you'd like to know more about my work, love, but maybe

seeing a tragic movie about the Jut famine isn't the best way to go about it." Of course, she wasn't

interested in his work, though Tasmin hadn't realized it until a year or two after they were married. Five

years ago, when Celcy was eighteen, her friends had been the children of laborers and clerks, and she

had thought it was a coup to marry a Tripsinger. She had listened to him then, eyes shining, as he told her

about this triumph or that defeat. Now all their friends were citadel people, and Tasmin was merely one

of the crowd, nothing special, nothing to brag about, just a man engaged in uninteresting activities that

forced him to leave her alone a lot. He could even sympathize with her resentment. Some of his work

bored him, too.

"It's not just that she's bored, Tas," his mother had said, fumbling for his hand through the perpetual mists

that her blindness made of her world. "Her parents died on a trip. Her uncle took her in, but he had

children of his own, and they wouldn't be normal if they hadn't resented her. Then, on their way to

Deepsoil Five, there was a disaster, one wagon completely lost, several people badly maimed. Poor little

Celcy was only eight or nine and hardly slept for weeks after they got here. She's frightened to death of

being abandoned and of the Presences."

He had been dumbfounded. "I never knew that! How did you?"

She had frowned, blind eyes searching for memory. "I think Celcy's uncle told me most of it, Tas. At

your wedding."

"I wonder why she never mentioned it to me?" he had mused aloud.

"Because she doesn't want to admit it or remember it," his mother had answered in that slightly

sharpened voice reserved for occasions when Tasmin, or his father before him, had been unusually

dense. Tasmin remembered his father, Miles Ferrence, as a grim, pious man who said little and expected

much, given to unexpected fits of fury toward the world and his family, interspersed with equally

unexpected pits of deep depression. Miles had gone into peril and died at the foot of the Black Tower

the year after … well, the year after Tasmin's older brother had … Never mind. Tasmin had been

surprised at how difficult it was to mourn his father, and then had been troubled by his own surprise.

Celcy was still talking about the holodrama, her voice becoming agitated and querulous. "I couldn't see

why they didn't build boats and just float down the shore. Why did they have to get out through the

Jammers?"

He closed his eyes, shutting out other thoughts and recollections, visualizing the map of the Jut. The far

northwest of Jubal, an area called New Pacifica. A peninsula of deepsoil protruding into a shallow bay.

At the continental end of this Jut were two great crystal promontories, the Jammers—not merely

promontories but Presences. Between them led a steep, narrow pass that connected the Jut to the land

mass of New Pacifica and the rest of Jubal, while out in the bay, like the protruding teeth of a mighty

carnivore, clustered the smaller—though still very large—offspring of the Jammers, the Jammlings.

"Jammlings," he said. "Scattered all through the water. I don't think there's a space a hundred yards wide

between them anywhere. The Juttites would have needed a Tripsinger to get through there just as they

did to get between the Jammers."

"Oh. Well, none of the characters said that in the holo. They just kept getting more and more starved

until they got desperate." Her face was very pale and there were tiny drops of moisture on her forehead.

"Then they tried rushing past the Jam … the Jam … the Presences, and somebody tried to sing them

through and couldn't and everybody got squashed and ripped apart and … well, you know. It was

bloody and awful." Her voice was a choked gargle.

Well, of course it was, an inner voice said. As you should have known, silly girl. He pulled her to him

and quelled the voice sternly, annoyed with himself. Her hysteria was real. She had been genuinely upset

by the drama. Sympathy was called for rather than his increasingly habitual impatience. "Hey, forget it. All

past history and long gone. Now that you're pregnant, you need more cheerful influences." With a

flourish, he produced his surprise. "Here, something I picked up."

"Oh, Tasmin!" She slipped the ribbon to one side and tore at the paper, pulling the stuffed toy from its

wrappings and hugging the gray-green plush of the wide-eyed little animal. "It's so cunning. Look at that.

A viggy baby. I love it. Thank you." She stroked the feathery antennae, planting a kiss on the green

velour nose.

He suppressed the happy comments he had been about to make. The toy had been intended for the

baby, a symbol of expectation. He should have said something to that effect before she opened it. Or

perhaps not. She was more pleased with it than a baby would be.

He tried with another gift. "Except for a preceptor trip next month, I've told the Master General I won't

be available for any extended duty until after the baby comes. How about that?"

"I wish it was already next month," she went on with her own thoughts, only half hearing him.

"Why? What's next month?"

"Lim Terrée is coming to do a concert. Less than three weeks from now. I really want to hear that … "

Lim Terrée.

He heard the name, then chose not to hear it. Not to have heard it.

Instead, he found himself examining Celcy's smooth lineless face, staring at her full lips, her wide bright

eyes, totally unchanged by their five years of marriage. She was so tiny, he chanted to himself in his

private ritual, so tiny, like a doll. Her skin was as smooth as satin. When they made love, he could cup

each of her buttocks in one of his hands, a silken mound. When they made love his world came apart in

wonderful fire. She was his own sweet girl.

Lim Terrée.

She was pregnant now. An accident. The doctor had told them she couldn't possibly get pregnant unless

she took the hormones he gave her, but she wouldn't take the drug. Could not, she said. It made her

sick. Impossible that she could be pregnant, and yet she was. "Sometimes we're wrong," the doctor had

said. "Sometimes these things happen." A miracle.

Tasmin was amazed at his own joy, astonished at his salesmanship in convincing her it would be fun to

have a child of their own. Too soon for a test yet, but he hoped for a son. Celcy wouldn't mind his caring

for a boy, but she would probably hate sharing him with a little girl. "Fear sharing him," he told himself,

remembering his mother's words. "Not hate, fear."

He coughed, almost choking. He couldn't just go on staring at his wife and ignoring what she had said.

He had to respond. "When did you hear he was coming?"

"There are big posters down at the Center.'Lim Terrée. Jubal's entertainment idol. Straight from his

triumphant tour of the Deepsoil Coast.' I got his most recent cube and it's wonderful. I don't know

why you couldn't do concert versions, Tasmin. Your voice is every bit as good as his. He started as a

Tripsinger, too, you know."

He let the implications of this pass. It wasn't the first time she had implied that his profession was not

very important, something that anyone could do if they were foolish enough to want to.Mere Trip-singer

was in her tone if not in her words, betraying an ignorance shared by a significant part of the lay

population on Jubal. She was wrong about Lim, though. He hadn't been a Tripsinger, merl or otherwise.

Lim Terrée.

"I know him," he said, his voice sounding tight and unnatural. "He's my brother."

"Oh, don't make jokes," she said, the petulant expression back on her face. For a moment she had

forgotten her recent neglect. "That's a weird thing to say, Tasmin."

"I said he is my brother. He is. My older brother. His real name is Lim Ferrence. He left Deepsoil Five

about fifteen years ago."

"That's just when I got here! He was a Tripsingerhere?"

Not really, he wanted to say. "You were only a schoolchild when he left. And yes, he did some trips out

of here."

"Did he really do the Enigma? Everyone says he did the Enigma." She was suddenly eager, glowing.

It was hard to keep the resentment out of his voice. "Celcy, I don't know who 'everyone' is. Of course

Lim didn't sing the Enigma. No one has ever got by the Enigma alive."

She cocked her head, considering this. "Oh, people don't always tell the truth about things. Tripsingers

are jealous of each other. Maybe he went with just a small group and got through, but it was never

recorded or anything."

He made a chopping, thrusting-away gesture that she hated, not realizing he had done it until he saw her

face. "Lim Terrée did not do the Enigma trip. So far as I remember he led two caravans east through the

Minor Mysteries, one out to Half Moon and back, and one through the Creeping Desert to Splash One

on the Deepsoil Coast and that was it. He didn't come back from that one."

"Four trips?" She gave him a skeptical look, making a mocking mouth. "Four trips? Come on, Tasmin.

Sibling rivalry, I'll bet. You're jealous of him!" Then she hastily tried to undo some of the anger he realized

he had let show in his face. "Not that I can blame you. He's so good looking. I'll bet the girls mobbed

him."

Not really, he wanted to say again. They—most of them, at least the ones his own age—knew him for

what he was, a man who … better not think about that. He wasn't even sure that it was true anymore.

Dad had screamed and hammered his fist, calling Lim filthy, depraved. Was that it? Depraved?

Something like that, but that was after Lim had gone. Tasmin had only been sixteen, seventeen when Lim

left. Lim had been five years older. Memory didn't always cleave to the truth, particularly after someone

had gone. Perhaps none of what he thought he remembered had really happened.

"I don't remember," he equivocated. "I was just a kid, just getting out of basic school. But if you want to

go to his concert, love, I'll bet he has some tickets he'd make available—for his family." Which seemed to

do the trick for she stopped sulking and talked with him, and when night came, she said she was too tired

but didn't insist upon it after he kissed her.

Still, their lovemaking was anything but satisfying. She seemed to be thinking about something else, as

though there were something she wanted to tell him or talk to him about but couldn't. It was the way she

behaved when she'd spent money they didn't have, or was about to, or when she flirted herself into a

corner she needed his help to get out of. He knew why she did those things, testing him, making him

prove that he loved her. If he asked what was bothering her before she was ready to tell him, it would

only lead to accusations that he didn't trust her. One of these days, they'd have to take time to work it

out. One of these days he would get professional help for her instead of endlessly playing daddy for her

in the vain hope she'd grow up. He had made himself this promise before. Somehow there never seemed

to be time to keep it—time, or the energy to get through the inevitable resentment. Looking at her

sleeping face, he knew that Celcy would regard it as a betrayal.

Sighing, unable to sleep, he took his let-down, half hostile feelings onto the roof. It was his place for

exorcising demons.

Virtually every house in Deepsoil Five had a deck or small tower from which people could watch

approaching caravans or spy on the Presences through telescopes. He had given Celcy a fine scope three

years ago for her birthday, but she had never used it. She didn't like looking at the Presences, something

he should have realized before he picked out the gift. Back then he was still thinking that what interested

him would interest her.

"A very masculine failing." His mother had laughed softly at his rueful confession. "Your father was the

same way." And then, almost wistfully, she added, "Give her something to make her feel treasured. Give

her jewelry next time, Tas."

He had given her jewelry since, but he'd kept the scope. Now he swung it toward the south. A scant

twenty miles away the monstrous hulk of the Enigma quivered darkly against the Old Moon, a great, split

pillar guarding the wall between the interior and the southern coast. Was the new score really a password

past the Presence? Or would it be just one more failed attempt, ending in blood and death? The Enigma

offered no comment, simply went on quivering, visibly occulting the stars at its edge in a constant shimmer

of motion.

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 Geroan. 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?"

Sheri S. Tepper - After Long Silence

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: