‘I’m beginning to think I talk to myself only in skin quieters, Bondri. What I say isn’t necessarily what I mean. It isn’t even the truth. It just gets me by….’
‘Ah,’ sighed Bondri Gesel. ‘It’s important to you? You really want to sing your Celcy, Tasmin Ferrence. Sing your Celcy as we would sing one of ours?’
Tasmin put his head in his hands, wetting his palms with tears. ‘Yes. I would like to sing the truth of her, Bondri. Because how do I know what happened to her until I know what she really was? I can’t believe she went there because of me….’
Bondri shook his head, an astonishingly human gesture. ‘Don Furz should not have tried to sing her to you alone, Tasmin Ferrence, because she did not know her. Even you should not sing her alone, Tasmin Ferrence. Who else was there, Tasmin Ferrence? She had no children. From what you say, your males saw only her quality of tineea. You have a word, flirtation. It is the same. It is a little dance the females do when they are too young to mate. The tineea. It says, admire me. Flatter me. Sing pretty things to me. Expect nothing from me, for I have nothing yet to give. It is this quality of tineea I hear in your song of her.’
‘There was more to her than that!’
‘Yes. There is always more.’
‘She was going to bear my child.’
‘Is this difficult or dangerous among humans?’
‘Not particularly, no. But she didn’t want to do it. She was doing it only for me.’
‘Ah. Well, then, we might sing the song of a child who reluctantly began to grow up for love of her mate. It is already a better song than tineea alone.’
‘She went to the Enigma, even though she was terrified of the Presences.’
‘You speak often of terror when you speak of her. Was she often frightened?’
‘She was always frightened. Her parents died when she was little. She was abandoned. Her uncle raised her, but he had children of his own. I was the first person she ever had that she belonged to – that belonged to her. She was afraid she would lose me, terrified, of that – of everything.’
‘Ah. Well. This is a different matter. Now we will sing of her valiance, of her courage, to be so afraid and yet to try to conquer it.’
‘She gave Lim what he needed when I refused it.’
‘We will sing of generosity.’
‘She loved me. If Don’s right, she died because she loved me.’
‘We will sing of devotion.’
Courage. Generosity. Devotion. They were not words he would ever have picked for Celcy, and yet he could not say they were not true. ‘I kept saying to myself that I would find the time to be with her more, time with her enough to reassure her that she wouldn’t lose me, enough so that she could start to grow up. She might have become a person quite different from the one people saw.’
‘We will sing of possibilities, Tasmin Ferrence. We will sing of what she might have become, given time.’
Tasmin sighed, a breath that filled him completely, that left him completely, suddenly aware of truth. ‘Sing what she might have become. That’s it. That’s the part that hurts so. That I didn’t give her time to become it before she died.’
‘So we will sing.’
Tasmin cried, then laughed, weakly, wiping the tears away. ‘Is it true, what you sing, Bondri? Are your songs true?’
‘Truth is what we sing, Tasmin Ferrence.’ On Tasmin’s arm the viggy fingers lay, four of them, three and a thumb, petting him. ‘You did not know her well enough, Tasmin Ferrence. And then she died. All things die. You did not know her as you should have, as you would have done. You cannot sing her now. You blame yourself. So, that becomes your song. You can sing that you blame yourself for not taking time. Bondri’s troupe will listen and help you sing. “He blames himself,” we will sing, “but it is not his fault. He did what he could do.” It is not fault. It is a debt you owe. You cannot pay it to her, but her child lives. You can learn to sing that child. And to that child, if you will sing devotion and courage and generosity long enough, that, too, will be true. If you will sing what she might have become, then the child will grow, knowing these things about his mother. And what starts now as a song full of time that never was, becomes, in time, the truth.’
Tasmin thought about it, slowly nodding his head. So. So. So. What starts as an enigma score, becomes the truth.
‘Think about it, Tasmin Ferrence.’
‘I’ll think about it, Bondri. When Jamieson gets back, I’ll talk to him about it. He knew Celcy. And he knows me so well….’
The viggy gasped as though hurt. It was a very human sound, full of a deep and abiding pain.
‘Tasmin, my friend. This morning I was told of something very sad and grievous that now I must sing to you….’
Thyle Vowe asked Tasmin to speak for the Tripsingers in negotiations with the Presences. Donatella was invited by her colleagues to represent the Explorers. After thinking about it only briefly, Don declined.
‘Let Tasmin represent us,’ she said to her colleagues. ‘I can’t do anything for you that he won’t do. And I have something else I have to take care of.’
As soon as services were reestablished, she withdrew a good part of her savings from the BDL credit authority and
