Jonathan Strahan - Eclipse Three

Mention of the enigmatic Nubian Pied Piper sent mystical frissons down Tug's spine. The story of her origin lacked no complementary mystery or romance.

"It was a dark and stormy night. Really. About six months ago, sometime in May. Ozzie announced that he was gonna power up his brane-buster for the first time. Bunch of us gathered down in his lab around midnight. Boat was rocking like JFK trying to solve the Cuban Seafloor Colony Crisis. So Ozzie straps himself in and starts playing the keys of that electronic harmonium thingy that's at the core of the device. Weirdest music you've ever heard. Flashing lights, burning smells, the sound of about a dozen popping components self-destructing simultaneously-Then the inside of the booth part of the gizmo goes all smoky-hazy-like, and out pops this naked African chick! She looks around for a few seconds, not scared, just amazed, says a few words no one understands, then runs off into the night!"

Tug's erotic imagination supplied all too vividly the image of the naked ebony charms of Pellenera-conjured up a picture so distracting that he missed the next few words from Harmon Frawley.

"-Janey Vogelsang. She was the first one Pellenera led back here, a week later. Marcello named her that, by the way. Just means 'black hide.' And you're, oh, about the tenth."

"And she never speaks?"

"Not since that first night. She just plays that demon ocarina. You ever heard the like?"

"Never."

Harmon scratched his manly chin. "Why she's leading people here, how she chooses 'em-that's anybody's guess."

"Does she live onboard?"

"Nope. Roams the city, so far as anyone can tell."

And so Tug entered the society of the Tom Pudding as one cryptically anointed.

He came now to a darkened TV room, whose walls, floor and ceiling had been carpeted with heterogenous scavenged remnants. An old console set dominated a couch on which were crowded Iona Draggerman, Jura Burris and Turk Vanson.

"Hey, Tug, join us! We're watching Vajayjay and Badonkadonk!"

"It's that episode where Vajayjay's relatives visit from India and have to go on a possum hunt!"

The antics of Kaz's animated Hindi cat and Appalachian mule, while generally amusing, held no immediate allure for Tug.

"Aren't you guys playing the part of quarks tonight? Shouldn't you be getting your costumes ready?"

"We've got hours yet!"

"We don't dance every time Ozzie pulls our strings!"

Tug moved on, past various uncanny or domestic tableaux, including the always spooky incense-fueled devotional practice of Tatang, the mono-named shorebird from the sunken Kiribati Islands.

At last he found Sukey Damariscotta, sitting all bundled up and cross-legged in a director's chair on deck, sketching trees upon the shoreline.

Only twenty-four, Sukey possessed a preternatural confidence derived from her autodidactic artistic prowess. Tug had never met anyone so capable of both meticulous fine art and fluent cartooning.

Sukey's heritage included more Amerind blood than most other Americans possessed. In her, the old diffuse and diluted aboriginal strains absorbed by generations of colonists had recombined to birth a classic pre-Columbian beauty, all cheekbones, bronze skin and coal-black hair, styled somewhat incongruously in a Dead Rabbits tough-girl cut repopularized recently by pennywhistlers the Pogues.

Tug was more than a little in love with the talented and personable young woman, but had dared say nothing to her of his feelings so far.

Dropping down to the December-cold deck, Tug admired the drawing. "Sweet. I like the lines of that beech tree."

Sukey accepted the praise without false humility or ego. "Thanks. Hey, remember those caricatures I was working on?"

Sukey's cartoon captures of the cast of the ongoing Tom Pudding farcical drama managed to nail their personalities in a minimum of brisk, economical lines. Tug had been a little taken aback when she showed him his own depiction. Did he really look like such a craggy, aged misanthrope? But in the end, he had to confess the likeness.

"Sure. You added any new ones?"

Sukey tucked her charcoal stick behind one ear and flipped the pages of her sketchbook.

Tug confronted an image of Pellenera in the guise of the enormous demi-barebreasted Statue of Marianne on her island home in New York Harbor. The statue's fixed pose of torch held aloft had been modified to feature Pellenera cradling all the infantilized Tom Pudding crew to her bosom.

When Tug had finished laughing, he said, "Hey, you ever gotten interested in bande dessinée? With an image like that, you're halfway there."

"Oh, I can't tell a story to save my life."

"Well, what if we collaborate? Here, give me that pad and a pencil, and I'll rough something out."

"What's the story going to be about?"

"It'll be about-about life in Carrollboro."

Tug scrawled a three-by-three matrix of panels and, suddenly inspired, began populating them with stick figures and word balloons.

Sukey leaned in close, and Tug could smell intoxicating scents of raw woodsmoke and wild weather tangled in her hair.

The two men stood in a semi-secluded corner backstage at the Keith Vawter Memorial Auditorium, illuminated only by the dimmest of caged worklights that seemed to throw more shadows than photons. All around them was a chaos one could only hope would exhibit emergent properties soon.

Don Rippey was bellowing at people assembling a set: "Have any of you guys ever even seen a hammer before?!?"

Janey Vogelsang was trying to make adjustments to two costumes at once: "No, no, your arrow sash has to go counterclockwise if you're a gluon!"

Turk Vanson was coaching a chorus of ocarina players. "Why the hell did I bother writing out the tablatures if you never even studied them!?!"

Crowds of other actors and dancers and musicians and crew-bosses and directors and makeup artists and stagehands and techies surged around these knots of haranguers and haranguees in the usual pre-chautauqua madness.

But Ozzie remained focused and indifferent to the tumult, in a most unnatural fashion. His lack of affect disturbed Tug. Despite Ozzie's youth and a certain immaturity, he could appear ageless and deep as a well. Now, with Sphinxlike expression undermined only slightly by the juvenile wispy mustache, he had Tug pinned down with machine-gun questions.

"You're sure you know all your cues? Did you replace those torn gels? What about that multiple spotlight effect I specified during the Boson Ballet?"

"It's all under control, Ozzie. The last run-through was perfect."

Oswaldo appeared slightly mollified, though still dubious. "You'd better be right. A lot is depending on this. And I won't be here to supervise every minute of the production."

"You won't be? I thought this spectacle was going to be your shining moment. Where are you going?"

The pudgy genius realized he had revealed something secret, and showed a second's rare disconcertment. "None of your business."

Oswaldo Vasterling turned away from Tug, then suddenly swung back, exhibiting the most emotion Tug had yet witnessed in the enigmatic fellow.

"Gingerella, do you like this world?"

Tug's turn to feel nonplussed. "Do I like this world? Well, yeah, I guess so… It's a pretty decent place. Things don't always fall out in my favor, or the way I'd wish. I lost my job and my home just a month ago. But everyone has ups and downs, right? And besides, what choice do I have?"

Oswaldo stared intently at Tug. "I don't think you really do care for this universe. I think you're like me. You see, I know this world for what it is-a fallen place, a botch, an imperfect reflection of a higher reality and a better place. And as for choices-well, time will tell."