2
During Tasmin’s orchestral effects class, it turned out that the air pump had been rigged to make farting noises, always good for a laugh. Practice for the neophytes shuddered to a halt while Tasmin dismantled the instrument.
‘That particular sound is used, so far as I’m aware, only in the run through the Blind Gut,’ he remarked to the class. ‘The only instructive thing about this incident is that there are sounds that work better when produced instrumentally rather than by synthesizer, which is why we have drums, bells, pumps, and other paraphernalia …’
‘You’re running perilously close to expulsion, Jamieson,’ he growled when the class was over. ‘That equipment is your responsibility.’
‘Some of the pre-trippers are kind of uptight,’ the boy remarked, not at all disturbed at the threat. ‘I thought a laugh might help.’
There was something in that, enough that Tasmin wasn’t inclined to press the matter. As was often true, Jamieson had broken the rules to good effect. This close to robing and first trip, many of the neophytes did get nervous and found it hard to concentrate. ‘Sabotaging equipment just isn’t a good idea,’ Tasmin admonished in a fairly mild tone. ‘Some idiot kid fooled around with a Jammer drum once, seeing if he could sound like some ’Soilcoast singer, and it got put into a trip wagon just as it was. Do you need me to tell you what happened?’
‘No, sir.’ Slightly flushed, but so far as Tasmin was able to discern, unrepentant, Jamieson agreed. ‘I remember.’
‘Well, double check that air pump. Be damn sure it does what it’s supposed to do before you leave it.’
Jamieson moved to change the subject. ‘Are we taking any of the first trippers out, Master?’
‘On first New Moon, yes. There are only three I’m a neutral preceptor for, three I haven’t had in my own classes – let’s see, James, Refnic, and that Clarin girl with the astonishing voice….’
‘Renna. Renna Clarin.’ Jamieson cocked his head, considering.
‘Right. Anything I should know?’
‘James will fade, definitely if there’s a clinch, and probably anyhow. He spends half his life wetting his pants and the other half drying himself off and asking if anybody noticed. Refnic’s reliable. The tougher things are, the more he settles. I don’t know that much about Renna Clarin except she looks funny bald. She transferred in.’
Tasmin ignored the impudence, as Jamieson had known he would. ‘Evidently female neophytes don’t have their heads shaved at Northwest, and it came as a shock to her when she got shaved down here. She had excellent personal references. Her records from Deepsoil Seven choir school were good.’
Jamieson shrugged eloquently, a balletic gesture starting at his shoulders and ending at his fingertips, which twitched a little, showing their contempt for good records. Excellent choir school recommendations might mean little except that a candidate had an acceptable voice or got along well with the Choir Master. Jamieson himself had had terrible choir school grades and had set a new school record for demerits, a fact that Jamieson knew Tasmin was well aware of. Again he changed the subject. ‘What’s the route?’
‘Oh, I think we’ll do my usual first trip loop. Past the Watchers on the easy side, down through the False Eagers, along Riddance Ridge to the Startles. Then down the deepsoil pass to Harmony, stay overnight there, give them a good scary look at the Tower while you and I sing them past, then back through the Far Watchlings.’
‘If it was me,’ Jamieson said, greatly daring, ‘I’d use James on the Startles. He likes that score and he can’t do much wrong there.’
‘Rig him to pass, that it? Then what happens the first time some caravan depends on him?’
‘Oh, I just thought a little more experience maybe …’ Jamieson’s voice trailed off, embarrassed. He obviously hadn’t thought at all. Now he flushed and ducked his head in a hinted apology, a courtesy he accorded Tasmin but very few others.
‘Think about it,’ Tasmin recommended, testing the final adjustment of the air pump. He sat back then, musing. ‘Jamieson.’
‘Sir?’
‘You’re of an age to pay attention to the ’Soilcoast singers. What do you know about Lim Terree?’
‘Oh, hey, apogee. Way up in the ranking. Best-seller cubes, last three out. The girls are brou-dizzy over him.’
‘What’s his music like?’
Jamieson gave this some thought. ‘Kind of hard to describe. There’s a lot of Tripsinger stuff in it, but he takes way off from that. Of course, all the ’Soilcoast singers bill their stuff as being real Passwords, but you couldn’t get anywhere with it. I don’t think you could, anyhow.’
‘What do you mean?’ Tasmin was really curious. He had so deeply resented Lim’s misuses of Password material that he had not kept up with the ’Soilcoast singer cult, although he knew it was extensive and bled money at every pore. ‘What do you mean, you couldn’t get anywhere with it?’
Jamieson pursed his lips, gestured toward a chair, and Tasmin nodded permission to sit. ‘You know the score for the Watchers? Minor key intro, two horns, and a tuned drum. Diddle, diddle, diddle in the strings in that rhythmic pattern, then the solo voice comes in with the PJ, ah the Petition and Justification, right? Kind of a simple melody line there, pretty straightforward, not like those key and tempo shifts in the Jammer sequences? Well, Lim Terree does a kind of takeoff on that. He uses the melody of the P, ah the Petition and Justification, but he kind of – oh, embroiders it. Trills and little quavers and runs and grace notes. Where you sing “Arndaff duh-roomavah,” it comes out “Arn-daffa-daffa-daffa-duh-uh-uh-uh-duhroo-duhrooma-vah-ah-ah.” ’ It was a marvelous, tumbling cataract of sound.
Jamieson had a good voice. Tasmin tried briefly and without success to convince himself he was listening to an obscenity. The phrase had been hypnotic.
‘And it goes on like that?’
The phrase “sindir dassalam awoh” takes about three minutes with all the cadenzas and rhythmic repetitions and stuff. If you tried that out on the Watchers … well,
