Powers, Richard - Orfeo

The fuck is this? Bonner snarls. Summer of Love? What are you supposed to be — the three whosits?

Isn’t he adorable? the short one asks Peter.

The oldest of the Graces frowns at Els and taps her temple. I know you from somewhere .

The middle one takes her wrist. No, you don’t, Jean .

Did you grow up in Glencoe? Did you go to New Trier? You look so familiar.

Els grins and shakes his head.

Let’s go, Jean, the middle one says. Come on, babe .

Were you in the Peace Corps, by any chance?

Richard ambles away, singing, Good night, ladies . Els tags along in his wake.

O, how I love thee! the short Grace calls after them from down the hall. How I dote on thee!

Richard waves without turning, over his shoulder.

Jean shouts at Els from down the hall, Are you a musician or something?

They meet more subjects in the central lounge. The talk is all variations on their one shared theme: Is the stuff working? They’re bound together in a fierce pharmaceutical camaraderie. The whole facility feels like one of those sci-fi stories set on an interstellar craft, with generations of travelers who are born, live, and die in transit, creeping across the galaxy in search of a new star system. Everyone greets Richard like a long-lost friend, and Richard greets them all in return as if he’s just discovered, too late in life, that friendship may be a comfort to a man. The disease has gentled him.

They duck out together on the back deck. Richard paces. You see how it goes here. We work out. Take tests. Play games. Every twitch monitored. Memorize whatchama. . Shakespeare. We’re doing a little run-through next week.

He shakes his head, dismisses his bottomless despair with a flick of his fingers.

And we wander around trying to guess who’s getting what dose. Watching for a sign that we’re not hosed for eternity. The damned and the saved. Every day it gets a little more obvious. I know what they’re giving me, anyway. And there’s no placido effect, I can tell you.

Placebo, Els says.

Placebo , Richard drawls. The natural Texas accent he spent a lifetime suppressing. My father wanted me to lead a normal life. He just couldn’t pronounce the word normal. He thrusts his hands into the pockets of his sagging jeans and nods, nods again— Placebo, placebo— turning in tight circles on the redwood deck, a philosopher at last, a Peripatetic, spiraling into enduring dusk.

Give it time, Els says.

Got no time .

But if the drug is working for these other. . if nobody’s getting sick. .

On my bad days? I hope someone strokes out, so no one gets what I can’t have.

But once the test is over. .

Phase Two , Richard says. Then Phase Three, and Phase Four. Final approval by the FBI — the whatnot.

Els can’t think of the agency’s name, either.

Then they have to set up factories for making the stuff, big time. I’ll be drooling on myself years before it comes to market.

He grabs Els by the wrist, pulls him under the halogen deck light. Hell of a finale, isn’t it? Yours is better. We need to work on yours.

He drops Els’s hand and signals him to wait. He ducks back inside the facility and is gone for a long time. Els can’t say how long. His metronome is shot by stress and three days of driving. At last Richard comes back, carrying a telescope as if it were a large Torah. He pats the instrument. My alibi .

A tripod dangles under his arm; Els grabs it as it slips.

They hate when we leave without signing out , Bonner says . They think we’re going to wander off and forget where we live. Can you imagine?

He stumbles down the deck stairs, arms full of optics, gleeful again, getting away with something. Call it art.

Come on. Star party. Once you hear the music of the spheres, the stuff you earthlings make is a bore.

Bonner leads the expedition across the back parking lot, down half a block, into a parkway a tiny bit darker than the surroundings. There’s a ring around the moon tonight — cold and huge and blue, a halo against the gauzy black. Els can’t stop staring at it, monstrous and beautiful. Richard wrestles the telescope up onto the spread tripod, to a running commentary.

I’m going fast, Peter. Like a sugar cube in water. I write myself notes in a little notebook. To remind me of things. Then I can’t figure out the note.

Els stands by helpless, understanding the man at last.

That’s why you had to come now, Bonner says. While there’s still time to do this.

Els asks, Do what?

Richard hoists the scope and secures the mount clamps. He swings the sighting scope into place, inspects the objective, and bends down to peer into the eyepiece. The long day wanes, he recites, singsong. The slow moon climbs. He hunches next to the tube, his eye to the cosmic keyhole, and peers into the universe. He might be waiting for a bus that comes around to this part of the galaxy once every epoch. Come, my friend, it’s not too late to seek a newer world.

Now and then, Richard tweaks the right ascension control knob. He almost looks like he knows what he’s doing. A massive sigh escapes him, as wide and filmy as the night sky. He straightens and steps back. Have a look.

Els does. The field of view is black.

Once you hear the music of the spheres, Bonner says, as if the idea has just occurred to him, the stuff you earthlings make is a bore.

What am I looking at? There’s nothing there.

Look harder.

Els does. There’s still nothing there. There’s nothing there for a long time. Then there is.

From behind him, in the dark parkway, Richard says, So tell me what you have.

Els pulls his face from the eyepiece. Seconds pass. What do you mean?

What’s the piece?

What piece? Els says.

Richard smirks at the evasion and won’t be taken in. You’re saying you were doing real genetic engineering? Trying to create a new form of life?

No, Els says.

So out with it. What do you have for me?

Too many miles have passed since home for Els to be sure.

I didn’t get very far.

That’s where your collaborator comes in.

I was trying to put music files into living cells.

A pause, a last flare-up of telepathy, and Richard laughs like a hyena.

What’s wrong with eight-tracks? So what does it sound like?

Richard. There is no piece. This was all proof of concept. They raided me before I could learn how.

Bonner scowls, puzzled by how a smart man can have such trouble with the obvious. There is. There is a piece.

No.

You’re not listening.

Bonner gazes through the scope again. Els stands nearby. He tunes in to the night, the cars and air conditioners. He listens, a little quieter, a little harder. Sounds everywhere, but still no piece. There’ll be no piece forever.

Then there is.

Oh, he says. Oh. You’re saying. . You mean. .

But Bonner, like music, doesn’t mean things. He is things. Things that can never be unmade.

The two of them start in again, like they’d only paused the old project for a moment, long enough for it to ripen. Bonner has been tinkering with an idea since first hearing of Els’s flight. Els has been working on the thing since childhood, his chance encounter with Jupiter . They talk, Els to Bonner, Bonner to the stars, through his lensed tube. They hum to each other, and the piece takes shape. Richard dials the pitch and yaw and roll of the scope in tiny increments, checking the eyepiece after each minor adjustment.