‘And I wish I had the power to help you. I really do. But I chose to take a different path.’
‘Yes, you chose to help others rather than our family.’
The words tasted bitter, and Tony regretted them at once.
‘I always hope that by helping others I am also helping our family regain its honour,’ Òrélolu said mildly. ‘Now, hush. Let’s not argue. He’s about to sing.’
The young man, Danilo Evangalista, had taken his place behind a small upright harmonium. Glass beads woven into the cornrows that criss-crossed his shapely skull sparkled in blue light as he bent over the keyboard and picked out a brief melody before he began to sing: an old choro standard about songs so good and true they outshone the faults of their singers.
‘So simple, and so lovely,’ Òrélolu said, when the young man had finished.
‘I told you. And you can tell Ayo. Thanks but no thanks.’
‘You feel wounded. It’s only natural. But try not to see everyone as your enemy.’
‘It is hard not to see those who would take away my ship and my work as friends. Opeyemi has no imagination, Òrélolu. He does not understand what Ayo and I are trying to do.’
‘Is that ship really more important than your home and your family?’ Òrélolu said. And then: ‘Wait. What’s wrong?’
Tony was pushing to his feet. He had recognised the introduction to the young man’s next song. ‘The Sky Has Closed Over Us.’ A bright breezy tune with lyrics lamenting the cruel separation of two lovers after Skadi had been cut off from interworld trade because of the so-called treachery of his family. After his father had been killed during negotiations with the Red Brigade. After his mother’s so-called suicide.
The singer fell silent when Tony stepped onto the stage. Someone in the audience laughed nervously. Tony mashed the harmonium’s keyboard with his fist. The squealing discord echoed in the silence at his back.
‘You have no right,’ he said. ‘You have no right to sing that song.’
‘What would you have me sing instead?’
The young man’s gaze was level and calm. There were flecks of gold in his warm brown eyes.
‘Sing something happy, goddamn you,’ Tony said. His sight swam with stupid tears. ‘Stop trying to break my heart.’
11. The Bad Trip
‘It looks like an ordinary tessera,’ Lisa told Bria. ‘But I’m pretty certain that it’ll yield Ghajar narrative code when I tickle it. Brittany kept it in the safe of the bar where she works – she’d had some jewellery stolen from her motel room. When Nevers and his Jackaroo pal came knocking, they didn’t think to look there.’
‘And then she sold it to you,’ Bria said.
‘She loaned it to me. And in return, when this is over, I’ll sell it for her on a zero-commission basis. We co-signed an agreement. One of her customers, he used to be a lawyer, drew it up. I’m not certain it’ll hold up in court, but I intend to stick to it.’
‘Drew it up on what, a napkin?’
‘Her tablet. Brittany printed out two copies, had a couple of customers witness them, gave me one. She’s smarter than she lets on.’
Lisa was at a roadside food truck near the shuttle terminal, talking to Bria on her new phone and sipping strong earthy Ethiopian coffee from a paper cup. Pete was sitting in the loadbed of the pickup truck, watching traffic scooting along the dusty two-lane blacktop. A flat-roofed factory building sprawled on the other side; beyond it, the level plain of the shuttle field stretched towards foothills shimmering in the deep orange light of the setting sun. A single ship hung above the field – a bulbous, spiny S-class scow forty storeys tall. Ghajar ships, revived and repurposed, weren’t an uncommon sight these days. Governments and private companies used them to transport people and goods between Earth and the Jackaroo gift worlds, and the worlds of the New Frontier. Anyone with a couple of thousand dollars could afford a ticket. But this one nagged
‘Yes, you chose to help others rather than our family.’
The words tasted bitter, and Tony regretted them at once.
‘I always hope that by helping others I am also helping our family regain its honour,’ Òrélolu said mildly. ‘Now, hush. Let’s not argue. He’s about to sing.’
The young man, Danilo Evangalista, had taken his place behind a small upright harmonium. Glass beads woven into the cornrows that criss-crossed his shapely skull sparkled in blue light as he bent over the keyboard and picked out a brief melody before he began to sing: an old choro standard about songs so good and true they outshone the faults of their singers.
‘So simple, and so lovely,’ Òrélolu said, when the young man had finished.
‘I told you. And you can tell Ayo. Thanks but no thanks.’
‘You feel wounded. It’s only natural. But try not to see everyone as your enemy.’
‘It is hard not to see those who would take away my ship and my work as friends. Opeyemi has no imagination, Òrélolu. He does not understand what Ayo and I are trying to do.’
‘Is that ship really more important than your home and your family?’ Òrélolu said. And then: ‘Wait. What’s wrong?’
Tony was pushing to his feet. He had recognised the introduction to the young man’s next song. ‘The Sky Has Closed Over Us.’ A bright breezy tune with lyrics lamenting the cruel separation of two lovers after Skadi had been cut off from interworld trade because of the so-called treachery of his family. After his father had been killed during negotiations with the Red Brigade. After his mother’s so-called suicide.
The singer fell silent when Tony stepped onto the stage. Someone in the audience laughed nervously. Tony mashed the harmonium’s keyboard with his fist. The squealing discord echoed in the silence at his back.
‘You have no right,’ he said. ‘You have no right to sing that song.’
‘What would you have me sing instead?’
The young man’s gaze was level and calm. There were flecks of gold in his warm brown eyes.
‘Sing something happy, goddamn you,’ Tony said. His sight swam with stupid tears. ‘Stop trying to break my heart.’
11. The Bad Trip
‘It looks like an ordinary tessera,’ Lisa told Bria. ‘But I’m pretty certain that it’ll yield Ghajar narrative code when I tickle it. Brittany kept it in the safe of the bar where she works – she’d had some jewellery stolen from her motel room. When Nevers and his Jackaroo pal came knocking, they didn’t think to look there.’
‘And then she sold it to you,’ Bria said.
‘She loaned it to me. And in return, when this is over, I’ll sell it for her on a zero-commission basis. We co-signed an agreement. One of her customers, he used to be a lawyer, drew it up. I’m not certain it’ll hold up in court, but I intend to stick to it.’
‘Drew it up on what, a napkin?’
‘Her tablet. Brittany printed out two copies, had a couple of customers witness them, gave me one. She’s smarter than she lets on.’
Lisa was at a roadside food truck near the shuttle terminal, talking to Bria on her new phone and sipping strong earthy Ethiopian coffee from a paper cup. Pete was sitting in the loadbed of the pickup truck, watching traffic scooting along the dusty two-lane blacktop. A flat-roofed factory building sprawled on the other side; beyond it, the level plain of the shuttle field stretched towards foothills shimmering in the deep orange light of the setting sun. A single ship hung above the field – a bulbous, spiny S-class scow forty storeys tall. Ghajar ships, revived and repurposed, weren’t an uncommon sight these days. Governments and private companies used them to transport people and goods between Earth and the Jackaroo gift worlds, and the worlds of the New Frontier. Anyone with a couple of thousand dollars could afford a ticket. But this one nagged
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