There was a lengthy silence, a painful one. I felt guilty without knowing why, like I'd been accused of some crime…as if I were a slut waiting to fall at Alex's feet just to spite Roland. I wished Jerith would say something, anything to ease the tension.
And he did.
"You still haven't talked about Alex and the Singer," Jerith said, sounding like the words came awkwardly to him, but clearly doing his best to break the silence.
"Oh, that," said Roland. "Do you believe in possession?"
"No," I answered, though the question was directed at Jerith.
Roland laughed without humor. "I don't believe in it either. But I'll tell you, when Alex and I first started performing, we stank. I have no idea why—he had a decent voice, and I knew the songs were brilliant…" He laughed again. "We just didn't have the chemistry, that's all. Then one night in this ratty blow-bar called Juicy's…one night this woman came to see us backstage between sets. An older woman, maybe as old as thirty. Hey, I was eighteen, she was ancient. I thought she was a hooker and I was prime self-righteous the way only teenagers can be, so I made some cutting remarks and stomped out for some air. What you'd call a very pointed exit.
"By the time I got back, she was nose-to-nose with Alex, talking about ways to improve the act. That pissed me off, this woman telling us our jobs. I grabbed Alex by the arm and dragged him off toward the stage, but she called to Alex's back, 'And undo your shirt. Strut the flesh, for Christ's sake. Put some groin into it. When people watch the stage, they don't want the boy next door. They want a goddamned performer.'
"Well. We hit the stage for the next set, and Alex started trying stuff. Rolling his eyes, swiveling his hips…completely forced, and embarrassing. He wasn't that kind of guy—not a drop of sleaze in him. When he tried it, I'm telling you, he just had no clue! I told him to smarten up, but that woman was watching from a front row table, and Alex must have figured he could get lucky if he played up to her.
"The mood of the bar shifted from bored to hostile; we'd been mediocre before, but now the act positively turned your stomach. Even Alex sensed how ugly the crowd was getting. One guy, built like a tank, dressed in leather from head to toe, this guy pulled out a switchblade and started clicking it in, out, click, click, making sure we saw him. I broke into a cold sweat, and Alex, he panicked completely. Panic was the only thing that could have made him unbutton his shirt, because believe it or not, he was shy about his body, showing it in public.
"He started unbuttoning in the middle of this long instrumental break, after the chorus of 'A Short Spell of Rain'—first cut on our first album, you should know it. And with every button he undid, it was like something rewiring itself in his head. Like a puppy changing into a wolf. When the instrumental break was over and he started singing the next verse…God, my hands were shaking so bad I could hardly play. The room fell absolutely still—not a whisper, not a glass tinkling. The bouncer outside the front door came running in, pulling on his brass knuckles like he expected real trouble; but he stopped in the entranceway, just froze there, with the brass knucks dangling on his fingertips, and he listened to the rest of the song. And the next song. And the next. Until we'd run through our whole repertoire. We left the stage, we went to the dressing room, and I buttoned up Alex's shirt without looking into his eyes. Then we both had terror-fits for a few hours."
Silence. Nothing but the swish of our three brushes sweeping old grit and dirt.
"I take it the woman in the audience was Helena Howe?" Jerith asked at last.
"You got it," Roland nodded, setting down his brush. "Our very own manager, director, and ballbreaker. And yes, Alex did get lucky that night. Or unlucky, depending on your point of view. He says they're in love." Roland wiped his dusty hands fiercely on a rag he picked up from the workbench. "I've never found out whether Helena makes him unbutton his shirt in bed. Interesting question, don't you think? Alex is easier to control, but the Singer would be more…volcanic."
He threw the rag down on the workbench and strode out into the gathering twilight. He didn't look back at either of us as he let the door click shut behind him.
Jerith let his breath out slowly. "I think I need a walk," he said. "How about you?"
My first reflex was to say no—too much potential for complications. Jerith had lived alone so long, he was ripe to get soppy about the first woman to happen by. Me, I have a policy against getting soppy. Walking with Jerith, giving him hope, would only be cruel. On the other hand, I still felt bad for making him self-conscious about his beard, and he was so desperate for company…what harm could there be in a friendly stroll, if I didn't lead him on?
"Sure," I said, "let's get some air. You can show me the sights."
The dusk was already full of stars, thousands more than you see on New Earth—Caproche is a lot closer to galactic center. A few ribbons of purpling cloud streaked the sky, but all were scudding off rapidly toward the horizon. It would soon be a clear, cool evening, with plenty of starlight to see by.
"It might turn cold," Jerith said, looking at the sky too. "I can get you a sweater if you like."
"I'm fine," I said.
Jerith led me around the base of a small hill and immediately the sounds of the camp were cut off, leaving only empty stillness—the stillness of starlit hills decorated with nothing but ruined bunkers and the scars of energy blasts. A desolate silence. "Don't you ever worry about being out here?" I asked Jerith. "All alone on a planet like this?"
"What would I worry about?" He sounded surprised at my question. "Alien ghosts?"
"Not ghosts," I answered, trying to sound like a woman who never gets the creeps. "But with so much junk left over from the war…what if you stumbled onto an old minefield? Or some robot weapon that's still active?"
He shook his head. "By the time humans arrived on Caproche, every battle site had been picked through a dozen times. The Myriapods surveyed the planet only two hundred years after the war, and you know how thorough they are. Even with their best sensing equipment, they didn't find a single functional weapon, nor a working vehicle, not even a battery pack that still held its charge. No bodies either…well, nothing they recognized as bodies. Other groups came after the Myriapods—the Cashlings, the Fasskisters, five or six others—but they didn't find anything either. The races who fought here stripped the place clean when they pulled out. Nothing left but trash." He smiled. "That's why Caproche only has one loony archeologist instead of a horde of prospectors looking for alien tech."
I expected him to make one of the classic moves at that moment: casually bumping against me, or touching my shoulder to direct my attention toward something, or taking my hand to lead me across a rough patch of ground…but he kept both hands thrust firmly into the deep pockets of his work pants, and as we started walking again, he scrupulously avoided accidental contact.
That irked me.
I mean, he'd been alone and celibate on Caproche for several years. In many circles, I'm considered sexy; when I sang with the Mootikki Spiders on Trash and Thrash, the reviewer from Mind Spurs Weekly singled out "the hot brunette on the bicycle" as the high point of the album. It was insulting that this desperate man didn't even try to…
He touched my shoulder.
I turned to look at him, relieved and preparing my "thanks but no thanks" speech.