Harmony (62 page)

Misdirection. Why? What elephant were they trying to make disappear this time?
Themselves
.

“When, Cora? When did they leave? For the love of god,
when
?”

A glimmer of secret light showed in her dark eyes. “Already twenty minutes ago. You’re too late, really.”

“No!” I whirled away from her and bolted.

I thought hard as I ran, through the silent aspen grove, past the glowing mansions. Settling my body into a steady automatic pace as Sam had taught me, I calculated times and distances. I decided they wouldn’t take the Tube. Not because Ule had such a horror of the underground or even because of the occasional breakdown that stalled you in the tunnel for minutes at a time. In the Tube you had to remain too still for too long for successful disguise, and there’d be no escape if one of them were recognized by some citizen as eager for the truth as I was.

But if I took the Tube, I might beat them to Gateway Plaza.

What was I going to do if I found them? At least then I’d have the truth. If Sam was with them, I knew I’d have no pride, but what if he wasn’t? I realized I’d taken Mark’s note very much at face value.

At Lorien station, I blessed the westbound when it arrived quickly and was a Closing Time express. I had to wedge myself in viciously to get on. I was panting and heated from my run, and wet from the rain that had begun again as soon as I left Cora’s grove. A citizen behind me muttered about rude apprentices. I didn’t care. I didn’t even remind him I was now a citizen because I’d forgotten it myself already. When we slid into Plaza station, I exploded through the doors, propelled by the pressure of the crowd and my own single-minded urgency, up the escalator into stinging cold rain.

My heart sank when I reached the crowded plaza. It must have been winter holidays in one of the African domes. Dark, nervous faces and bright colors everywhere, distorted by the deepening dusk and the dancing reflections of the lighted cafés in the puddles dotting the pavement. The damp chill encouraged extra layers of clothing, and the shadows under an awning or a hat brim were impenetrable. I was going to need luck to find them if they didn’t want to be found, and right then I wasn’t feeling very lucky.

If they were here, they’d surely split up and find their way to the Gates separately. I made myself be cold-blooded long enough to decide which one of them to look for. The women were hopeless, given the oddities of current fashion. Mali was the hardest to hide, but if he wasn’t there, I’d lose the rest while looking for him. Sam I’d never find even if he was there, no matter that I knew his every gesture and movement, every color and measurement that would describe him. He could change them all at will, and would elude me.

Cu or Moussa, I decided, as I raced up the steps to the observation deck above the Gates. Finally I settled on Cu. His beauty he could disguise, but in his ramrod back was a pride so ingrained, he’d never think to alter it.

I gained the railed platform as the Voice of Harmony began to hurry the tourists along in earnest. It was quarter to nine. Out on the busy tarmac, the field lights glared. No rain Out There. A dry, hot dusk. The ranks of hovercraft were filling fast, the usual commercial airlines, a few private or executive hovers scattered among them. A dark green one without a company logo caught my eye. It was parked a bit apart, unusually close to the edge of the field where the Outsiders pushed up against a recently installed white picket fence. It was a good two meters high but so cutely picturesque, it made my gorge rise. It was stronger than it looked, holding back the weight of the mob without giving an inch. Still, that’s a reckless pilot, I thought, parking so close when the Outsiders are obviously interested in his hover.

Two women detached themselves from the stream of boarding tourists and walked toward the dark green craft. They carried fancy shopping bags and tottered gracefully on too-high heels. They leaned into each other like laughing girlfriends, but they moved in sync like twins.
Like dancers!
By god, I’d guessed right! I screamed at them, a useless gesture behind the shell of the dome, and stupidly conspicuous if the Eye actually wanted to avoid me.

A visible shudder ran through the Outsider mob as the women passed. There was a silent massing closer to the fence. I thought those in front would be crushed, but the mob was surprisingly orderly. Children were lifted to their parents’ shoulders so they could see through the palings of the fence.

What are they looking at?
The stylish, well-fed domers going home to their well-fed domes? A masochistic pastime.

I dropped out of direct view, among some SecondGen kids playing umbrella tag on the stairs. They giggled at my blue coveralls and whispered among themselves. I stared at the plaza, praying that Lucienne and Tuli hadn’t been the last through the Gates. I was doing the biggest and most important room scan of my life. To my utter amazement, I spotted Te-Cucularit almost immediately. Leaning against the wall by the westernmost Gate, wearing a broad, curled-brim hat tilted against the rain and reading a glossy brochure in the glare of the Gate light. Waiting. For the others? For me?

I saw a superior hand in this, someone who knew who I’d look for, someone who always seemed to guess my thoughts, which as much as I loved him had never been Sam. But Mali alive might well mean Sam wasn’t.

Joy and terror ran with me down the rain-slick stairs. The final alarms were sounding, harsh blares that said,
“Get your ass out of here!”
The visitors most reluctant to forsake their Campari and soda in the shelter of the café awnings became the ones who shoved hardest in the lines at the air locks. I shoved back, moving crosswise to the traffic. I lost sight of Cu several times as anxious people with wet luggage surged around me, throwing me off course. Once when the crowd cleared a bit, I saw him nod to a woman entering a lock who, underneath her flowered hat, might have been Omea. No Sam, no Mali. The Voice now reminded everyone that all the hotel rooms in Town were booked for the evening and Harmony did not allow sleeping in the streets.

I’d almost reached him when someone grabbed my arm. A total stranger, some flush-faced damp young man whose eager grin reminded me sickeningly of Peter. “Hey,” he burbled drunkenly. “Congratulations,
citizen
!”

“Thanks!” I yanked free, but when I turned back, Cu had vanished. The alarms rang insistently. I broke through the last ranks of the crowd and threw myself against the wall in despair. Backing against it, I searched frantically, then at the last moment ran for the Gate. The Greens were preparing to close up. Cu’s brimmed hat bobbed at the entrance to the airlock.

“TeCu!” I screamed.

His head went up. He turned against the human traffic and saw me. He gave me a strange, bright look of warning and challenge, then let the traffic carry him into the lock. A final tourist hurried through behind him.

TeCu was the last to leave, I knew he was. The Green on duty lifted an eyebrow at me as I danced at the barrier. “The Gates are closing, citizen.”

“TeCu!”

Through the clear wall of the lock, I spotted Tua ahead of him, Ule and Moussa just beyond. Still no sign of Sam or Mali or anyone who could be them, but all along the boulevard, the Outsiders pressed close to the rail as the Tuatuans drifted toward the far edge of the throng. Feral eyes followed them, gray lips muttered, scrawny hands stretched between the pickets, begging for a handout. Within an arm’s length of the fence, Cu did not look at them, but hidden by the crowd to most eyes but mine, he reached out to them, his fingers grazing theirs, his clean brown hand slipping from one grimy outstretched paw to the next. They did not snatch at him. It was his touch they demanded, and Tua’s and Moussa’s and Ule’s ahead of him. A mere touch of their fingertips and the grimy paw was withdrawn in gratitude. In reverence. Worshiping eyes followed after them, lips moved in soundless longing, shaping over and over a name I recognized:
Latooea. Latooea. Latooea
.

Latooea! There!

Caught in a sudden haze of blue, I shoved the astonished Green aside as she unlatched the safety barrier and let it slide home. I skinned through the narrowing slit and pounded after Te-Cucularit, not caring whose shoulder I rammed into or how many toes I bruised. Cu did not look at me when I caught up with him, breathless. He gripped my wrist tightly and guided me toward the hover.

He was angry, but I wasn’t sure it was at me. Wonder and apprehension kept me mute.
Latooea!
the Outsiders breathed, hardly a name at all but a round and rolling murmur like oceans. The Outside summer heat hit me like a blow to the chest. The air was thick and moist and dirty, the tarmac soft and hot and very black. The floodlights glared brighter than the sun glowering above the mountains.

Oh, Micah, what have I done? Thrown away my citizenship on the very day I acquired it! For Latooea? For a patch of sky?

I followed Te-Cucularit toward the green hover, refusing to think about being Outside, or about who had lived and who had died. I let time slow and relished the few moments left when I didn’t know the truth.

At the gangway, Cu stood aside for me to ascend. Tua held back and surprised me with a quick hug. “Good work,” she said, mystifying me. At the top of the ramp, Omea met me with a maternal embrace. “Gwinn, thank the good powers. Are you all right?” Her eyes searched me as she urged me inside. My grace time was over.

The hover’s interior glowed with a softer light, cool spring greens in the carpet, richer leaf greens on the fabric-lined walls, in the velvet seats, in the silk window shades. Cora Lee’s private craft, I was sure. The ceiling was recessed and lit around the rim. It was blue, a profound and endless sky blue. I stared up into it, transfixed. For a moment I forgot why I was there.

The rest waited inside, their silly tourist outfits in rude contrast with the serene decor. Ule was already stripping off his shirt, flinging it to the floor as if to punish it. I began counting immediately. Including the three outside, nine, and the ninth was Mark. Mark, in tourist garb like the others. No Mali. No Sam. Behind me, Omea told the pilot he could retract the gangway.

Nine, plus me. The tenth? Me? Oh no, that couldn’t be. Not Sam. Not Sam too. He’d promised
I’d
be safe. I’d never thought to worry about him.

Mark put his arms around me, rocking me gently. “Gwinn, Gwinn. We were afraid you weren’t coming.”

We. Already it was we. “He’s dead, isn’t he? They’re both—”

Mark touched a finger to my lips. “Everything in good time.” He took my hand and led me to the rear of the craft. Through a green-curtained doorway was a little tassel-and-tufted-velvet observation lounge. There with his back to us, staring out the dome-side port, was Sam.

I pressed my fist to my mouth to keep from crying out. Mark squeezed my hand and left, letting the drapes fall shut behind him. I stayed where I was, just looking. Sam. Alive at least. As for well, I couldn’t say. He was in a black T-shirt and jeans. Bandages wrapped his chest and right shoulder, immobilizing his arm in a sling. A brightly patterned jacket and scarf lay shucked in a corner.

When I could trust myself to show some dignity, I went over and stood beside him, looking where he was looking, silent, not touching him for fear my crazy joy would fracture against his hard transparent shell.

Out on the tarmac, the last tourists shoved on board. The hovers retracted and closed up, taking off one by one. The field lights dimmed. The floods illuminating the stone Muses carved above the Gates flicked off. The dome was a shimmering liquid darkness swimming with stars. Along the boulevard, the Outsider mob eased away from the fence and straggled off to their shacks and smoky lean-tos. A few remained, young mostly, gazing steadfastly at the green hover with distant fire in their eyes.

“Good work, Rhys,” said Sam. “You made it. You listened better than I knew.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out my little knife, safe in its sheath. He handed it to me without looking. “You’ll need this where we’re going.”

I took it, drew the blade slowly from the dark tooled leather.

“I cleaned it for you,” he said, and that told me everything I didn’t want to know. To steady myself, I rolled up the leg of my borrowed coverall and strapped the knife in place. I’d missed it while it wasn’t there.

“I thought you were dead.”

“And you came anyway? Better and better, Rhys.”

“Then I did right, coming? He said you’d never ask.”

“Mali?” he whispered.

“Mali,” I said, and felt my heart crack wide open.

He exhaled, as if he’d been holding his breath for hours, then curled his good arm around me, and held me tight to his bandaged chest while I wept for the lack of real magic in the world to bring back the dead.

“Sam?” Omea stood in the curtained archway. “Tua’s got the Town Hall tap on the vid, if you want. It’s nine.”

He didn’t answer at first but must have felt curiosity stirring beneath my tears. He let me go and turned away from the port. “Come on, then. The farewell performance.”

In the forestgreen room, the others hunkered in front of the big wall vid like eager, vengeful children. I started at seeing Harmony so clearly again, as through an open window, as if I’d never left it: Town Hall Plaza, the rain, and the growing throng sheltering under scattered umbrellas or jackets pulled up over heads.

“… and though we can see from our third-floor vantage,”
the vid commentator was saying,
“that the nasty weather has discouraged many from accepting this peculiar invitation in person, the crowd is still enormous, and we know you’re there at home watching…”

I sank to the rug beside Moussa. Sam stood by, unwilling to settle. Moussa folded me into the circle of his arm. “Welcome.”

“…
you can see the rain is still coming down hard and the wind has been picking up all afternoon, but Mayor von Hirsch has asked us to announce that Maintenance is hard at work searching out these temporary glitches. Also, those citizens concerned about the strange restlessness among Harmony’s bird population should understand that this is a natural response to an abrupt change of climate and is also temporary
…”