“I’d like the time to find out.” His reply was wistful even if the kiss he gave her was not. And her response to his embrace temporarily suspended less urgent matters, even the bath.
Fortunately, by the time Trag knocked peremptorily on the bathroom door, they were both dressed.
“Coming,” Killashandra responded in a trill, bestowing one last kiss on Lars before she hauled open the door. Sweeping dramatically into the main room with Lars a step behind her, she was delighted to see Trag, a half empty glass of beer in his hand, in the company of Thyrol, Mirbethan, and Pirinio. Facetiously wondering if Polabod had been loaned to another Quartette, she greeted them graciously, exclaiming her eagerness to attend the evening’s concert and, at long last, hear an Optherian organ.
Dinner was served in the same chamber that had charmed Killashandra. The charm was enhanced this time by the fact that Elder Pentrom was missing from the guest roster. Trag was monopolized at one end of the table by Elders Ampris and Torkes, who engaged him in very serious discussions, while Mirbethan did her best to introduce unexceptional topics into conversation at the other. Thyrol, Pirinio, and two very meek older women instructors completed the buffer between the Elders and the distinguished and newly arrived Guild-member Trag.
“Elder Torkes,” Trag said in a well-pitched voice that carried to every part of the dining room after he had sipped the beverage in his glass, “my metabolism requires the ingestion of a certain quantity of alcohol daily. What have you to offer?”
After that, Killashandra didn’t bother straining her ears to hear what information, or misinformation, might be exchanged. Fortunately the portions served them were considerably more generous, if unexciting to the palate, than her first dinner there, so that hunger was assuaged.
There was no reason to dally at the festive board so, immediately after the sweet course was finished, Mirbethan led the way to the Conservatory Concert Hall. Those already assembled rose to their feet at the entrance of the distinguished visitors.
“Like lambs to the slaughter,” Lars whispered in her ear.
“Wrong again!” she whispered back, then composed her features in a gracious expression. Until she had a good look at the seating.
The organ console, of course, dominated the blue and white stage. Golden curtains were richly draped to complete the frame which was bathed in a gentle glow of diffused light. They walked up a slight ramp to the orchestra floor where Mirbethan smilingly turned and gestured toward their chairs.
Bloody inquisition, Killashandra thought to herself. Upholstered in a mid-blue velvety fabric, the chairs were bucket shaped, semirecumbents equipped with broad arm rests, sculptured to fit wrist and hand for proper sensory input. Killashandra did not expect to find an easy repose for over each seat was a half hood, no doubt containing additional sensory outlets. As Lars might remark, the occupants of the seats were sitting ducks.
Nevertheless, and because it was consonant with the role she had adopted, Killashandra expressed delight over the “ambiance of the hall,” the charming decor, and the unusual seating. She counted fifteen rows extending up and into the shadows behind her, all of them filled. She counted the front-row seats on her side of the entrance as fifteen so that some four hundred and fifty people, the complement of the Conservatory, were about to be entertained.
She took her seat but because of the tilt and the arm rest, the only part of her that could touch Lars was her foot. She angled so that she could touch his. She felt a return pressure which gave her far more reassurance than she should need or had expected to gain from such a minimal contact.
The house lights dimmed and Killashandra was filled with a perturbation she had never experienced before at what was usually the most enjoyable, anticipatory moment of a performance.
A woman swirled out onto the stage, her robes flowing out behind her. She bowed quickly to the assembly and took her place at the organ console, her back, with its pleated draperies, illuminated by the spotlight. Killashandra saw her lift her hands to the first manual and then all the lights went out as the first chord was played.
Killashandra all but kicked Lars as she recognized the music. In most Conservatories, a man named Bach would have been credited with its composition. On Optheria it was unlikely that any sheep safely grazed. Then the sensory elements began their insidious plucking. It was well done, the scent of new grass, spring winds, tender green, soothing color, bucolic fragrances and then – Lars’s foot tapped hers urgently but she had already caught the image of the “shepherd,” a glamorized Ampris, a kindly, loving, affectionate, infinitely tender shepherd, gazing for that one moment upon members of his “flock.”
Had Trag failed? Disappointment and a keen flare of apprehension suffused Killashandra. She forced herself to recall that first glimpse of this smaller theater. There had to be a second subliminal generator behind this organ console. Indeed, there was probably one attached to every one of these insidious instruments. How would they disconnect them all? A second image, of a grieving Ampris, saddened by a misdemeanor of his flock – saddened but infinitely tolerant and forgiving – capped her disgust with the entire exercise.
Killashandra caught all of the images that were broadcast, as sharp and as clear as if a hologram had been suspended for inspection of a tri-d screen. The subliminals seemed etched on her retina. Something to do with her symbiont’s rejection of this superimposition?
When the lights came up, Killashandra elected to seem to be affected by the performance as she should have been.
“Guildmember?” Mirbethan asked in a soft eager voice.
“Why, it was charming. So soothing, such a lovely scene. I declare that I could smell new grass and spring blossoms.” Lars tried to step on her toe. She struggled up out of the clutch of her seat and peered around him. “Why. Lars Dahl, it is everything you told me it would be!” He tapped twice, getting her message.
A second performer strode out on the stage, his manner so militant that Killashandra laid a private bet with herself: one of the Germans or an Altairian, if Prosno-Sevic’s bombastic compositions had been composed before the Optherians had settled this planet.
The music was an uninspired melange of many of the martial themes, each new one buffeting the captive audience so that she found herself twitching away from the onslaught of the music, and wondering if she would survive the subliminals. She did, but her eyeballs ached with visions of Torkes and an improbably robust Pentrom urging the faithful onto the path to victory and planetarianism, defending the credo of Optheria to the death.
An audible sigh – of relief? – preceded the applause this selection engendered. So the audience was being soothed to trust, encouraged to resist subversive philosophies: now what, Killashandra wondered?
An alarmingly thin and earnest young man, swallowing his Adam’s apple convulsively as he crossed the stage, was the next performer. He looked more like a wading bird than a premier organist. And when he took his seat and lifted his hands, they splayed to incredible lengths, making the soft opening notes ludicrous to Killashandra’s mind, especially when she recognized the seductive phrases of a French pianist. The name escaped her momentarily but the erotic music was quite familiar. She held her breath against the first image and choked on the howl of laughter as the subliminal image of Ampris-the-seducer was superimposed, in reds and oranges, on the viewers’ abused senses. Fortunately, the notion of Ampris making love to her, or anyone, was so bizarre that the eroticism – even magnified by scent and sensory titillation – failed to achieve its full effect. Lars’s continual tapping – was he succumbing to the illusion, keeping the beat, or trying to distract her from the powerful sensuality – against her toe kept reminding her how perilous their position was at the moment.