the rest of his extended entourage, brought along as a trophy, a walking medal denoting his commercial victories; she ought to be able to remember. All she could recall was being sourly impressed by the scale of everything: the brightness, depth and working complexity of the scenery; the physical effects produced by trapdoors, hidden wires, smoke machines and fireworks; the sheer amount of noise the hidden orchestra and the strutting, overdressed singers and their embedded microphones could create.
It had been like watching a very convincing super-size holoscreen, but one comically limited to just this particular width and depth and height of set, and incapable of the sudden cuts and instant changes of scene and scale possible in a screen. There were hidden cameras focused on the principal players, and side screens at the edge of the stage showing them in 3D close-up, but it was still — perhaps just because of the obviously prodigious amount of effort, time and money spent on it all — a bit pathetic really. It was as though being fabulously rich and powerful meant not being able to enjoy a film — or at least not being able to admit to enjoying one — but still you had to try to re-create films on stage. She hadn‘t seen the point. Veppers had loved it. “Four!”
Only afterwards — mingling, paraded, socialising, exhibited — had she realised it was really just an excuse and the opera itself a side-show; the true spectacle of the evening was always played out inside the sumptuous foyer, upon the glittering staircases, within the curved sweep of dazzlingly lit, high-ceilinged corridors, beneath the towering chandeliers in the palatial anterooms, around fabulously laden tables in resplendently decorated saloons, in the absurdly grand rest rooms and in the boxes, front rows and elected seats of the auditorium rather than on the stage itself. The super-rich and ultra-powerful regarded themselves as the true stars, and their entrances and exits, gossip, approaches, advances, suggestions, proposals and prompts within the public spaces of this massive building constituted the proper business of the event.
“Enough of this melodrama, lady!” Veppers shouted.
If it was just the three of them — Veppers, Jasken and Sulbazghi — and if it stayed just the three of them, she might have a chance. She had embarrassed Veppers and he wouldn’t want any more people to know about that than absolutely had to. Jasken and Dr. S didn’t count; they could be relied upon, they would never talk. Others might, others would. If outsiders had to be involved they would surely know she had disobeyed him and bested him even temporarily. He would feel the shame of that, magnified by his grotesque vanity. It was that overweening self-regard, that inability to suffer even the thought of shame, that might let her get away. “Five!”
She paused, felt herself swallow as the final clap resounded in the darkness around her.
“So! That’s what you want?” Veppers shouted. Again, she could hear the anger in his voice. “You had your chance, Lededje. Now we—”
“Sir!” she shouted, not too loudly, still looking away from him, in the direction she was shuffling.
“What?”
“Was that her?”
“Led?” Jasken shouted.
“Sir!” she yelled, keeping her voice lower than a full shout but trying to make it sound as though she was putting all her effort into it. “I’m here! I’m done with this. My apologies, sir. I’ll accept whatever punishment you choose.”
“Indeed you will,” she heard Veppers mutter. Then he raised his voice, “Where is ‘here’?” he called. “Where are you?”
She raised her head, projecting her voice into the great dark spaces above, where vast sets like stacked cards loomed. “In the tower, sir. Near the top, I think.”
“She’s up there?” Jasken said, sounding incredulous.
“Can you see her?”
“No, sir.”
“Can you show yourself, little Lededje?” Veppers shouted. “Let us see where you are! Have you a light?”
“Um, ah, wait a moment, sir,” she said in her half-shout, angling her head upwards again.
She shuffled a little faster along the ledge now. She had an image in her head of the size of the stage, the sets and flats that came down to produce backgrounds for the action. They were vast, enormously wide. She probably wasn’t halfway across yet. “I have…” she began, then let her voice fade away. This might buy her a little extra time, might keep Veppers from going crazy.
“The general manager is with Dr. Sulbazghi now, sir,” she heard Jasken say.
“Is he now?” Veppers sounded exasperated.
“The general manager is upset, sir. Apparently he wishes to know what is going on in his opera house.”
“It’s
“Shit!” Lededje breathed. She tried to move even faster, felt the wooden ledge beneath her feet bounce.
“Lededje,” Veppers shouted, “can you hear me?” She didn’t reply. “Lededje, stay where you are; don’t risk moving. We’re going to turn on the lights.”
The lights came on. There were fewer than she’d expected and it became dimly lit around her rather than dazzlingly bright. Of course; most of the lights would be directed at the stage itself, not up into the scenery inside the fly tower carousel. Still, there was enough light to gain a better impression of her surroundings. She could see the greys, blues, blacks and whites of the painted flat she was pressed against — though she still had no idea what the enormous painting represented — and could see the dozens of massive hanging backgrounds — some three-dimensional, metres thick, sculpted to resemble port scenes, town squares, peasant villages, mountain crags, forest canopies — hanging above her. They bowed out as they ascended, held inside the barrel depths of the carousel like vast pages in some colossal illustrated book. She was about halfway along the flat, almost directly above the middle of the stage. Fifteen metres or more still to go. It was too far. She would never make it. She could see down, too. The brightly shining stage was over twenty metres below. She tore her gaze away. The creaking sound beneath her desperately shuffling feet had taken on a rhythm now. What could she do? What other way out was there? She thought of the knives.
“I still can’t—” Veppers said.
“Sir! That bit of scenery; it’s moving. Look.”
“Shit shit shit!” she breathed, trying to move still faster.
“Lededje, are you—”
She heard steps, then, “Sir! She’s there! I can see her!”
“Buggering fuck,” she had time to say, then heard the creaking noise beneath her turn into a splitting, splintering sound, and felt herself sinking, being lowered, gently at first. She brought her hands in, unsheathed both knives. Then there was a noise like a gunshot; the wooden ledge beneath her gave way and she started to fall.
She heard Jasken shout something.
She twisted, turned, stabbed both knives into the plasticised canvas of the flat, holding on grimly to each handle as she pulled herself in as close as she could, her gloved fists at her shoulders, hearing the canvas tear and watching it split in front of her eyes, the twin blades slicing quickly down to the foot of the enormous painting where the jagged remains of the wooden ledge sagged and fell.
The knives were going to cut right through the bottom of the canvas! She was sure she’d seen something like this done in a film and it had all looked a lot easier. Hissing, she twisted both knives, turning each blade from vertical to horizontal. She stopped falling and hung there, bouncing gently on the torn, straining canvas. Her legs swung in space beneath her. Shit, this wasn’t going to work. Her arms were getting sore and starting to shake already.
“What’s she—?” she heard Veppers say, then, “Oh my God! She’s—”
“Have them rotate the carousel, sir,” Jasken said quickly. “Once it’s in the right position they can lower her to the stage.”
“Of course! Sulbazghi!”
She could hardly hear what they were saying, she was breathing so hard and her blood was pounding in her ears. She glanced to one side. The now broken length of wood she’d been sidling along had been attached to the
