But Pan was coming for her, taking her hand, pleading with his eyes, pulling her gently toward the piano. She stumbled forward, trying to hold back. He put an arm around her shoulders and waited for her to say something. "Samson," was all she said.
"I know," he said. "I was just hoping. You always loved to sing. The old memories made me do this! Also, Admiral Etrhnk is in the audience, expecting you to do something unbelievable."
It seemed obscene, to have to think of Etrhnk after thinking of Samson. Also, she felt too strange, and almost naked, imagining herself performing in front of the Navy commander, giving him too much of herself.
In the end, after a long moment trying to balance her emotions, she let Pan lead her to the center of the stage, in front of hundreds in the audience, and in front of billions who would view the event live or by recording. She didn't know why she acquiesced, unless it was because she had her own fair share of human perversity.
"This is Ruby Reed," Pan said to the audience, still holding her hand. "Or, this was Ruby Reed, a great but little known blues singer. That was in another life. But she can still sing, and although she is no longer a professional singer, I think she will surprise you. She is a personal friend and has very graciously consented to perform. Please be kind to her."
Pan sat down at the piano and Fidelity stood behind him, looking anywhere but at Admiral Etrhnk, highly visible in the first row of seats.
"Remember this one, Ruby?" Pan played an informal introduction to the same blues ballad Rafael had made her sing.
She was gratified Pan had chosen the song, because she was confident she could do it well. It also fit her mood. She sang it with extra feeling, always thinking of Rafael and, of course, Samson. It was over before she knew it and people were applauding, even though it was not the kind of song that singers performed on this stage. She was gratified to receive any applause at all.
"Not too bad," she said softly to Pan.
"It was perfect!" Pan assured her. "Do you want to try something more challenging?"
"No!"
He ignored her response and played a few notes of a song she recognized. Despite resisting it, she was transfixed by a memory in which the song appeared in a set of five songs, all of them difficult because they weren't so beautiful and were technically complex. Five different songs, five different languages, lengthy melodic phrases, wide tonal ranges. She remembered trying to sing them and make them beautiful, but failing, lacking the will and stamina to conquer their cruelty to her sense of aural and emotional aesthetics. Pan was there in the memory, urging her to reach beyond her old limits. It was near the end of their life together, perhaps part of its reason for ending. She had been old and sad and not up to the rigor and precision of the songs, either physically or mentally. It was still impossible for her! She had been rejuvenated more than once since that lifetime. She didn't even have the scores to follow in her ocular data terminal. Or did she? She did!
"You have the scores in your data augment?" Pan asked. "I can get them for you."
"Yes. But-"
"You rehearsed them often enough."
"You do realize what you are asking of me?"
"I've found that I can remember much of the cycle myself," he said. "It's amazing. Even if you can't do it perfectly, it will be a treat for them. Old songs that deserve to be heard again."
She scanned through the measures of the songs, finding that she did remember them extremely well, as though she had, at some point, marked them as special to her, and the Mnro Clinic had found some way to keep them so well preserved. Of course, it was the Mnro Clinics... Then she saw the final song and remembered the nature of it as a concluding statement, and she knew she could not sing it, not while she knew she may have lost Samson and Rafael.
"The last one," she said to Pan. "I can't do it. I can't!"
"I see what you mean," he said. "No, don't sing it. I'll play it without you, because it belongs there. Ready?" Pan began playing a short medley that introduced the song cycle. Then it was time.
She sang. She closed her eyes and sang. She sang!
She hardly thought about how she ought to sing such unforgiving songs. She was grateful to make it through the first one without any technical errors. She was pleased to remember how to segue into the second song and never hesitated. Then she stopped caring how perverse the melodies were, and made them play against themselves and sound better than they were. It was something a blues singer knew by instinct. It became easier for her. She allowed her voice to soar, unafraid. She loved to sing!
Toward the end of the fourth song Pan made an error in his playing, causing Fidelity to turn toward him. In turning, she glimpsed Freddy in the wings and standing next to him was Samson!
She raised her hand toward Samson, falling silent, and trying to unglue her feet to go to him. She started but Pan caught her hand.
"Now you can sing the last one," he said, playing a sketch of the melody with his free hand. He released her and filled her ears with notes that hinted at the emotion waiting for her voice in the final song of the cycle.
She clasped her hands together and gave Samson every caring feeling she could impart to him from that distance, before her tears took away her sight of him. She wiped her wet cheeks even as she began the quiet lyrics which set up the final song's progression toward a bittersweet climax of hope and victory.
She ran to Samson and gathered him into her arms and squeezed him and kissed him and wept. Never again would she place him in harm's way! Never again would she withhold the care and affection he needed and deserved!
Aylis and Jon tried to talk to her, Samson was saying something, but Zakiya couldn't hear them. Applause overwhelmed even their shouts. Then the noise of hands clapping declined, and she would later realize the audience had seen Samson's injury from images projected for them in the concert hall.
Pan was then able to call and gesture for Zakiya to return to the stage. She started to put Samson down.
"No, take him with you!" Aylis shouted. "Someone may identify him!"
She carried him into the lights, and the applause rose up and buffeted them, until Pan pleaded with hands pressing downward for it to stop.
"Welcome back, Samson!" Pan still needed to speak loudly. "Are you alright?"
Samson nodded his answer but buried his head against Zakiya's neck, obviously disturbed by the noisy audience.
"Will your throat do one more song?" Pan asked Zakiya, putting his mouth close to her ear. "Maybe that will quiet them."
For the moment, her throat felt good. "What do you want me to sing?"
Samson spoke into her other ear. "A lot of them died, keeping me safe. Please sing for Olivier and the Broken Ones."
Zakiya set Samson on the piano bench next to Pan and told Pan the name of the song.
She sang Un Bel Di. A full orchestral recording accompanied her.
One beautiful day her husband would return to her. She would find him.
She would find him.
She would find him!
1-32 Feathers and Stripes
"You saw him."
He started. Normally the sound of that pure voice with its strange accent was too expected to bother him, but he was so deeply lost in thought that he had forgot to anticipate her visit.
"Constant," Etrhnk said simply as greeting, turning to the Golden One.
"Answer my question," she demanded, but not seriously.
"I saw him."
"He seemed well?"
"You saw the televised images and could probably judge better than I."
"We don't watch current news and entertainment," Constant said, "but I chanced to notice it in an automated report. Yes, I did view it. You didn't meet the child after the telecast?"
Etrhnk shook his head. He avoided her eyes.
"What's wrong?" she asked, concerned. She unsealed the seam of her blouse. Loose as it was, he knew it irritated her body.
"I don't know," he answered. He tried not to look at the gold beneath her blouse.
"You attended in person, and I think just to hear her sing."
"Yes."
"You quite enjoyed her performance. I know. I saw you applauding. I was jealous."
"I'm sorry." He was sorry. He had felt something but his applause was only a customary function, not really connected to what he felt. But he understood Constant desired to have him feel something for her, even if he could not fathom why. He was sorry if she was misled by what she saw him do. Yet, he knew Admiral Demba deserved his applause.
"You wanted to learn something about her," Constant said with a quiet impatience. "If I know nothing else about you it's that you're always curious. She's a mystery. As is the boy. Am I so less a mystery to you?"
He shook his head, not really answering her question. But, yes, Constant was a great mystery, but of a different kind, an obvious kind: alien. Demba was a mystery of an unknown kind.
Constant discarded her blouse, flinging it to the floor. Then she turned away from him, covering herself with her arms, as if regretting her act of exposure. She seemed less than an immortal, magical, and omnipotent alien creature. She seemed fragile, uncertain of herself, vulnerable. For the first time Etrhnk felt strangely excited by this most beautiful of creatures. For the first time he felt Constant was truly female, and all that implied. What was happening to him that he could feel? He couldn't afford to feel. But he did. Most troubling of all was how he felt about Admiral Demba. It had been a mistake to listen to her sing. It had changed him.
"I always think you're hiding delicious personal thoughts