Orson Card - Songmaster

Dreams, dreams, dreams, she said. You've never grown up.

Yes I have, he said, and the pain in his voice was painful to hear.

Drink? she asked.

Water, he said.

It's all I have, she answered. So it's a good thing that's what you want.

She came back in with two glasses, and Josif sipped it as reverently as if it had been wine dedicated on some altar. His eyes were grave as he said to her, I cheated.

She raised an eyebrow.

I changed the subject.

When? He had been through many subjects that night. She glanced at her wrist. It had been more than two hours.

Right at the first. I started talking about childhood and dreams and history and my private madnesses. While all you wanted to talk about was perversion.

She shook her head. Don't want to talk about it.

I do.

No. I've enjoyed this. I don't want it wrecked.

He drank the rest of the water quickly.

Kyaren, he said. They make it ugly, and it isn't.

I don't want to know if it's ugly or not.

They call me a whore, and I wasn't.

I believe you. Let's leave it at that.

No, dammit! he said fiercely. What do you think I've been going through the last couple of hours? You think I go to parties and tell people my life story? I'm attaching to you, Kyaren, like a bloodsucker to a shark.

I don't like the analogy.

I'm not a poet. I don't know what kind of pain you've gone through in your life to turn you into what you are, but I like what you are, and I want to be with you for a while, and when I do that I don't just play around at it. I become ubiquitous. You won't be able to get rid of me. I'll be there whenever you turn around. You'll trip on me getting out of bed in the morning and whenever you feel someone tickling your feet at work it'll be me, hiding under your desk. You understand? I plan to stay here.

Why me? Kyaren asked.

Do you think I know? A stuck-up Princeton graduate like you? He hazarded a guess. Maybe because you listened to me all the way through and didn't fall asleep.

I thought of it a couple of times.

I came here as Bant's lover.

I don't want to hear this.

Bant loved me and I loved Bant and he came here and brought me with him because he didn't want to be without me and so he got me a job in Death while he was in charge of Vitals. I didn't want to come here. All I wanted to do was stay near a library and read. For the rest of my life, I think. But Bant came here and I came, and then after a year Bant got bored with me. I get boring sometimes.

Kyaren decided not to try to be humorous.

I got boring, and so he didn't bring me with him when he transferred over to be head of Employment. And he didn't notify me when he moved to better rooms. But he didn't take away my job. He was kind enough to let me keep my job.

And Josif was crying and suddenly Kyaren understood something that nobody had ever bothered to explain to her in all the explanations of homosexuality that she had heard. That when Bant left it was the end of the world for Josif, because when he attached to somebody he didn't know how to let go.

Yet Kyaren was unsure how to react. Josif was, after all, nearly a stranger. Why had he poured out his heart to her tonight? What did he expect her to do? If he thought she was going to respond by baring her soul to him, he was wrong-Kyaren kept all her memories hidden. She didn't want to start talking about her childhood in the Songhouse. What could she say? I was miserable for years because I simply didn't have the ability to measure up to the Songhouse's minimum standards? She didn't want pity because of her childhood inabilities. She wanted respect because of her current competence.

Respect didn't enter into this situation, with the man crying softly, his face pressed into his knees as he sat on the floor leaning against the bed. She could think of only one reason for his emotional outpouring. He obviously didn't want to seduce her; therefore, he could only be trying for friendship. She knew how painful her isolation had been. If his had been half so bad, no wonder he was grasping at the first person who showed any sign of liking him.

For that matter, she wondered, why don't I feel any desire to take hold of his offer of friendship?

Because she didn't quite trust him, she realized. She was instantly ashamed of her suspicions. She knelt and then sat beside him, put an arm over his shoulders, tried to comfort him.

Fifteen minutes later he started undressing her. She looked at him in surprise. I thought-- she said, and he interrupted.

Statistics, he said. Trends. I'm sixty-two percent attracted to men, thirty-one percent attracted to women, and seven percent attracted to sheep. And one hundred percent attracted to you.

She had been right to mistrust him, the cynical, beaten part of her mind said sneeringly. It had all been a line.

But she clung to the line and let it draw her in. Because there was another part of her that hadn't had much play lately: she needed his gentle hands and quiet tears, his lies and his affection. And so she pretended to believe that he really did need her even as she said, I thought it would come to this, eventually. She didn't say that she hadn't thought that when it happened she would be longing for it, that it would not be a question of fun but rather a question of need, that this half-man would be able to do in one night what no one had been able to do in her life- win enough of her trust that she was willing, even for a moment, to let herself want him.

So she comforted him that night, and, strangely enough, she was also comforted, though she had said nothing to him of her loneliness, had told him nothing of her dreams. As she ran her hands over his smooth skin, she remembered the harsh cold stone of the Songhouse and could not think why the one should have reminded her of the other.

2

I will tour the empire next year, Riktors announced at dinner, and the two hundred prefects gathered at the tables cheered and clapped. It struck Ansset, from his place beside Riktors at the table, that the outburst was largely sincere, an unusual event in the palace. Ansset smiled at Riktors. They mean it, he said, for Riktors's ears only. Riktors's eyes crinkled a little, enough of a sign that he had heard, had understood. And then the tumult died and Riktors said, Not only will I tour, and visit at least one world in every prefecture, but also I will bring my Songbird with me, so that all the empire can hear him sing!

And the cheers were even louder, the applause even more sincere. Riktors looked at Ansset and laughed in delight-the boy looked completely surprised, and Riktors loved to surprise him. It wasn't easy to do.

But when the room was quiet again, Ansset said, softly, But I won't be here next year.

Enough people heard him that a whisper began along the head table. Riktors tried to keep his expression bland. He knew immediately what the boy meant. It was something that Riktors had forgotten without forgetting. He knew that Ansset was nearly fifteen years old, that the contract with the Songhouse was nearly up. But he had not let himself think of it, had not let himself plan for a future without Ansset beside him.

Riktors looked at Ansset and patted his hand. We'll talk about it later, Riktors said. But Ansset looked worried. He spoke louder this time.

Riktors, the boy said, I'm nearly fifteen. My contract expires in a month.

Some of the prefects in the audience moaned; most, however, realized that what was being said at the head table was not according to plan. That Ansset was doing what no one dared to do-reminding the emperor of something the emperor did not want to know. They kept their silence.

Contracts can be renewed, Riktors said, trying to sound jovial and hoping to be able to change the subject immediately. He did not know how to react to Ansset's insistence. Why was the boy pushing the matter?