Orson Card - The Memory of Earth

But none of these held any particular charm for Nafai-it was all the same to him, after passing through the market with little money for so many years. To him all that mattered were the many booths selling myachiks, the little glass balls that carried recordings of music, dance, sculpture, paintings; tragedies, comedies, and realities, recited as poems, acted out in plays, or sung in operas; and the works of historians, scientists, philosophers, orators, prophets, and satirists; lessons and demonstrations of every art or process ever thought of; and, of course, the great love songs for which Basilica was known throughout the world, combining music with wordless erotic plays that went on and on, repeating endlessly and randomly, like self-creating sculptures in the bedrooms and private gardens of every household in the city.

Of course, Nafai was too young to buy any love songs himself, but he had seen more than one when visiting in the homes of friends whose mothers or teachers were not as discreet as Rasa. They fascinated him, as much for the music and the implied story as for the eroticism. But he spent his time in the market searching for new works by Basilican poets, musicians, artists, and performers, or old ones that were just being revived, or strange works from other lands, either in translation or in the original. Father might have left his sons with little money, but Mother gave all her children-sons and nieces no more or less than mere pupils-a decent allowance for the purchase of myachiks.

Nafai found himself wandering toward a booth where a young man was singing in an exquisitely high and sweet tenor voice; the melody sounded like it might be a new one by the composer who called herself Sunrise-or at least one of her better imitators.

"No," said Issib. "You can come back this afternoon."

"You can go ahead," said Nafai.

"We're already late," said Issib.

"So I might as well be later,"

"Grow up, Nafai," said Issib. "Every lesson you miss is one that either you or the teacher will have to make up later."

"I'll never learn everything anyway," said Nafai. "I want to hear the song."

"Then listen while you're walking. Or can't you walk and listen at the same time?"

Nafai let himself be led out of the market. The song faded quickly, lost in music from other booths, and the chatter and conversation of the market. Unlike the outer market, the inner market didn't wait for farmers from the plain, and so it never closed; half the people here, Nafai was sure, had not slept the night before, and were buying pastries and tea as their morning supper before going home to bed. Meb might well be one of them. And for a moment, Nafai envied him the freedom of his life. If I am ever a great historian or scientist, will I have freedom like that? To rise in the mid-afternoon, do my writing until dusk, and then venture out into the Basilican night to see the dances and plays, to hear the concerts, or perhaps to recite passages of the work I did myself that day before a discerning audience that will leave my recitation abuzz with discussion and argument and praise and criticism of my work-how could Elemak's dirty, wearying journeys ever compare with such a life as that? And then to return at dawn to Eiadh's house, and make love to her as we whisper and laugh about the night's adventures and triumphs.

Only a few things were lacking to make the dream reality. For one thing, Eiadh didn't have a house yet, and though she was gaining some small reputation as a singer and reciter, it was clear that her career would not be one of the dazzlingly brilliant ones; she was no prodigy, and so her house would no doubt be a modest one for many years. No matter, I will help her buy a finer one than she could afford on her own, even though when a man helps a woman buy property in Basilica the money can only be given as a gift. Eiadh is too loyal a woman ever to lapse my contract and close me out of the house I helped her buy.

The only other thing lacking in the dream was that Nafai had never actually written anything that was particularly good. Of course, that was only because he had not yet chosen his field, and therefore he was still testing himself, still dabbling a little in all of them. He'd settle on one very soon, there'd be one in which he would show himself to have a flair, and then there'd be myachiks of his works in the booths of the inner market.

The Holy Road was having some kind of procession down into the Rift Valley, and so-as men-they had to go all the way around it; even so, they were soon enough at Mother's house. Issib immediately left him, floating his way around to the outside stairway leading up into the computer room, where he was spending all his time these days. The next younger class was already in session out on the south curve of the pillared porch, catching the sunlight slanting in. They were doing devotions, the boys slapping themselves sharply now and then, the girls humming softly to themselves. His own class would be,. doing the same thing inside somewhere, and Nafai was in no hurry to join them, since it was considered vaguely impious to make a disturbance during a devotion.

So he walked slowly, skirting the younger class on the porch, pausing to lean on a pillar out of sight as he listened to the comfortable music of small girlish voices humming randomly, yet finding momentary chords that were lost in the moment they were discovered; and the staccato, broken rhythms of boys slapping their trousered legs, their shifted arms and chests, their bare cheeks.

As he stood there, a girl from the class suddenly appeared beside him. He knew her from gymnasium, of course. It was the witchling named Luet, who was rumored to have such remarkable visions that some of the ladies of the Shelf were already calling her a seer. Nafai didn't put much stock in such qjagical stories-the Oversoul couldn't know the future any more than a human being could, and as far as visions were concerned, people only remembered the ones that by sheer luck happened to match reality at some point.

"You're the one who's covered with fire," she said.

What was she talking about? How was he supposed to answer this kind of thing?

"No, I'm Nafai," he said.

"Not really fire. Little diamond sparks that turn to lightning when you're angry."

"I've got to go in."

She touched his sleeve; it held him as surely as if she had gripped his arm. "She'll never mate with you, you know."

"Who?"

"Eiadh. She'll offer, but you'll refuse her."

This was humiliating. How did this girl, probably only twelve, and from her size and shape definitely not a young woman yet, know anything about his feelings toward Eiadh? Was his love that obvious to everyone? Well, fine, so be it-he had nothing to hide. There was only honor in being known to love such a woman. And as for this girl being a seer, it wasn't too likely, not if she said that Eiadh would actually offer herself to him and he would turn her down! I'm more likely to bite my own finger off than to refuse take the most perfect woman in Basilica as my mate.

"Excuse me," Nafai said, pulling his arm away. He didn't like this girl touching him anyway. They said that her mother was a wilder, one of those filthy naked solitary women who came into Basilica from the desert; supposedly they were holy women, but Nafai well knew that they also would sleep with any man who asked, right on the streets of the city, and it was permissible for any man to take one, even when he was in a contract with a mate. Decent and highborn men didn't do it, of course- even Meb had never bragged about "desert worship" or going on a "dust party," as couplings with wilders were crudely called. Nafai saw nothing holy in the whole business, and as far as he was concerned, this Luet was a bastard, conceived by a madwoman and a bestial man in a coupling that was closer to rape than love. There was no chance that the Oversoul really had anything to do with theft.