The old magus stepped out of a niche in the rocks. "You're wearing a full combat suit, my young friend. Did you expect to find me armed?"
Harman smiled. "I'll never find you without weapons."
"If one counts wit as a weapon," said Prospero.
"Or guile," said Harman.
The magus moved his veined old hands as if in defeat. "Ariel said you wished to see me. Is it about the situation in China?"
"No," said Harman, "we'll deal with that later. I came to remind you about the play."
"Ah," said Prospero, "the play."
"You've forgotten? Or decided not to come?" said Harman. "Everyone will be disappointed except your understudy if you're not coming."
Prospero smiled. "So many many lines to learn, my young Prometheus." lines to learn, my young Prometheus."
"Not so many as you gave us," said Harman.
Prospero opened his hands again.
"Shall I tell the understudy that he has to go on?" asked Harman. "He'll be thrilled to do so."
"Perhaps I would like to attend after all," said the magus. "But must it be as a performer, not as a guest?"
"For this play, it must be as a performer," said Harman. "When we do Henry IV, Henry IV, you can be our honored guest." you can be our honored guest."
"Actually," said Prospero, "I've always wanted to play Sir John Falstaff."
Harman's laugh echoed off the crags and cliff face. "So I can tell Ada that you'll be there and will stay for refreshments and conversation afterward?"
"I look forward to the conversation," said the solid hologram, "if not to the stage fright."
"Well..." said Harman, "break a leg." He nodded and freefaxed away.
At Ardis House, he checked in his weapon and the combat suit, pulled on canvas jeans and a tunic, slipped on light shoes, and walked out to the north meadow where final preparations were going on at the playhouse. Men were rigging the colored lights that would hang over the rows of freshly sawed wooden seats and over the beer gardens and in the trellises. Hannah was busy testing the sound system from the stage. Some of the volunteers were slapping a final coat of paint on backdrops and someone kept drawing the curtain to and fro.
Ada saw him and tried walking with their two-year-old, Sarah, but the toddler was tired and fussy, so Ada swept her up and carried her up the grassy hill to her father. Harman kissed both of them, and then kissed Ada again.
She looked back at the stage and rows of seats, pulled a long strand of black hair out of her face, and said, "The Tempest? Do you really think we're all ready for this?" Do you really think we're all ready for this?"
Harman shrugged, then put his arm around her shoulders. "It was next."
"Is our star really coming?" she asked, leaning back against him. Sarah whimpered and shifted position a little bit so that her cheek was touching both her parents' shoulders.
"He says he is," said Harman, not believing it himself.
"It would have been nice if he'd rehearsed with the others," said Ada.
"Well...we can't ask for everything."
"Can't we?" said Ada, giving him the look that had typed her as the dangerous sort to Harman more than eight years ago.
A sonie rocketed low over the trees and houses, sweeping low toward the river and the town. "I hope that was one of the idiot adult males and not one of the boys," said Ada.
"Speaking of boys," said Harman. "Where's ours? I didn't see him this morning and I want to say hello."
"He's on the porch, getting ready for story time," said Ada.
"Ah, story time," said Harman. He turned to walk toward the dell in the south meadow where story time usually took place, but Ada gripped his arm.
"Harman..."
He looked at her.
"Mahnmut arrived a while ago. He says that Moira may be coming to the play tonight."
He took her hand. "Well, that's good...isn't it?"
Ada nodded. "But if Prospero is here, and Moira, and you said you invited Ariel, although he wouldn't play the part...what if Caliban comes?"
"He's not invited," said Harman.
She squeezed his hand to show that she was serious.
Harman pointed to the sites around the playhouse, trellised beer gardens, and house where the guards would be posted with their energy rifles.
"But the children will be at the play," said Ada. "The people from the town..."
Harman nodded, still holding her hand. "Caliban can QT here any time he wants, my love. He hasn't done so yet."
She nodded slightly but she did not release his hand.
Harman kissed her. "Elian has been rehearsing Caliban's moves and lines for five weeks," he said. "Be not afeard. This isle is full of noises,/Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not." "Be not afeard. This isle is full of noises,/Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not."
"I wish that were always so," said Ada.
"I do, too, my love. But we both know-you better than I-that it's not the case. Shall we go watch John enjoy story hour?"
Orphu of Io was still blind, but the parents were never afraid he'd bump into something or hit anyone, even as the eight or nine boldest children of Ardis piled on his huge shell, climbing barefoot to find a perch. The tradition had become for the kids to ride Orphu down to the dell for the story hour. John, at a little over seven one of the oldest, sat at the highest point on that shell.
The big moravec proceeded slowly on its silent repellors, moving almost solemnly-except for the explosion of giggles from the children riding and the shouts from the other children trailing behind-carrying them from the porch down past the old elm to the dell between the bushes and the new houses.
In the shallow depression, magically out of sight of the houses and other adults except for the parents of some of those here, the children clambered off and sprawled on the banks of the grassy bowl. John sat the closest to Orphu, as he usually did. He looked back, saw his father, and waved but did not come back to say hello. The story came first.
Harman, still standing with Ada, Sarah snoring in his arms now-Ada's arm having almost fallen asleep-noticed Mahnmut standing near the line of hedges. Harman nodded but the small moravec's attention was on his old friend and the children.
"Tell the Gilgamesh story again," shouted one of the bolder six-year-old boys.
The huge crab-monster slowly moved its carapace back and forth, as if shaking its head no. "That story's finished for now," rumbled Orphu. "Today we start a new one."
The children cheered.
"This one is going to take a long time to tell," said Orphu, his rumble sounding reassuring and engaging even to Harman.
The children cheered again. Two of the boys tumbled and rolled down the little hill together.
"Listen carefully," said Orphu. One of his long, articulated manipulators had carefully separated the boys and set them gently on the slope, a few feet apart. Their attention turned immediately to the big moravec's booming, mesmerizing voice.
"Rage-Sing, Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles, murderous, doomed, sing of the rage that cost the Achaeans countless losses, hurling down into Hades' Dark House so many sturdy souls, great fighters' souls, heroes' souls, but also made their bodies carrion, feasts for the dogs and birds, even as Zeus's will was done.
Begin, O Muse, when the two first argued and clashed, the Greek king Agamemnon, lord of men, and the brilliant, godlike Achilles..."
Acknowledgments.
I would like to thank Jean-Daniel Breque for his permission to use the details of one of his favorite walks down the avenue Daumesnil and the rest of that Promenade Plantee. Promenade Plantee. A full description of this delightful walk can be found in Jean-Daniel's essay "Green Tracks" in the A full description of this delightful walk can be found in Jean-Daniel's essay "Green Tracks" in the Time Out Book of Paris Walks, Time Out Book of Paris Walks, published by Penguin. published by Penguin.
I also would like to thank Professor Keith Nightenhelser for his suggestion of the Renoir-as-Creator quote from The Guermantes Way. The Guermantes Way.
Finally, I would like to thank Jane Kathryn Simmons for permission to reprint her poem "Still Born" as it appears on p. 571.
About the Author.
DAN SIMMONS is the author of the critically acclaimed suspense novel The Crook Factory The Crook Factory, as well as the award-winning Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion The Fall of Hyperion, their sequel, Endymion Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion The Rise of Endymion. He is also the author of Song of Kali Song of Kali, Carrion Comfort Carrion Comfort, Fires of Eden Fires of Eden, and several other respected works. A former teacher, Mr. Simmons makes his home in Colorado.
By Dan Simmons
Song of Kali
Phases of Gravity
Carrion Comfort
Hyperion
The Fall of Hyperion
Prayers to Broken Stones
Summer of Night
The Hollow Man
Children of the Night
Summer Sketches
Lovedeath