In Dark Corners (3 page)

The crowd, stunned by the unique event, remained silent for several more moments, then began to applaud, politely at first, followed by sporadic shouts of appreciation, and soon a burst of clapping, whistling, and shouting that rocked the dome.

***

In a week, Mikel became the featured attraction, the great performance dome filled to capacity every night. The maestro even added five more matinees to complement the Saturday and Wednesday day performances. The City's media was full of the special attraction; and after every performance Mikel was pestered with questions from journalists about his wingless condition, background, origin, and opinions on a variety of unrelated topics.

"I am only a simple stonecutter from the coastal mountains up north," he replied, "so I know little about
that
."

The maestro helped with the media and screened the multitude of requests for personal appearances and such, Mikel able to maintain a relative degree of privacy—no one really aware that he lived and spent most of his free time in the guest room at the performance dome.

He called home after that first busy week.

"Things are really going well, but I miss you," Mikel said to Aylin, "and I love you…" He wanted to explain more, what all this meant to him. Not anything about the money or fame or glamorous people he had met, but the fact that he was really himself, now.
Not
a wingless freak, but a legitimate performer at the Circus. A groundling dancer. And he wanted to share the things he was learning about the old race, from discs Taj brought him from the library. But he lacked the right words to match his feelings.

"I love you, too," Aylin said, her usually calm expression animated with excitement. "And I am so proud of you…"

He could tell there was something more she wanted to add. "What is it?" he asked.

"Well, things have really changed here in the village," she said. "For the better."

"What do you mean?"

"Everyone has seen you on the holoviewer, and I think they understand now what you have accomplished despite your loss," Aylin answered.

Loss? In just a week he had almost forgotten how miserable and isolated and different he'd felt back in the village. And no support from anyone, except for Aylin.

"So no one is bothering you anymore?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No. Everyone is really good to me. They all ask about you…And I can hardly wait to see you." Then she was off on village life and gossip.

Mikel only half listened. Her good news had only dampened his enthusiasm about how he felt about all that was happening to him in the City. So he mentioned none of it.

***

After Mikel's twenty-fifth performance, the maestro called him to his office. "We want you to go on tour with the Circus, become a permanent member," he announced. "Before I offer another contract though, I suggest you call your wife, discuss it. Get her approval. We will be gone two months on this tour. A long time. Then, maybe after we get back, you'll be able to bring her here to the City of Towers to live?"

"Of course," Mikel said. "I'm sure Aylin will be thrilled." But would she really? He had not even mentioned the possibility of staying longer than five weeks to her. She was already counting the days until he came home. And what would she think of the City? Would she fit in? It was all so different from their village. No one here even wore guild tats.

The maestro was standing, offering his hand.

On his way out of the office headed for his room, Mikel was so preoccupied, he didn't notice Taj step from the shadows in the hall, until she was directly in his path.

"Hello," she said, smiling apologetically. "I didn't mean to startle you." She had a special glint in her eyes, like a child anxious to spill a secret.

He laughed at her excited expression. "What is it?"

"I have something to show you," Taj said. "It's a new costume design I've made up from my research. A set of clothes resembling what a groundling may have actually worn in the past before The Great Flood. I want you to try them on."

"Really?" he said, intrigued.

Mikel followed her down the hall to her office and studio.

In the work area, Aylin proudly showed him the costume. "Groundlings wore different pieces for different parts of their body," she explained, holding up a pair of matching blue garments. "Pants for your legs and shirt for your upper body."

Mikel stripped off his one-piece nutrend garment, and with her help, he slipped into the groundling costume. He closed his eyes and stretched. Then he moved about the studio, darting around Taj's cluttered work area, bending, turning, and twisting. The shirt and pants were loose, comfortable, allowing him ample freedom of movement. Finally, he stopped testing the new costume and grinned at her.

"What do you think?" she asked anxiously.

"You've done a terrific job," he answered, unexpectedly swooping her up in his arms for a hug and kiss. "They feel just right, look authentic I'm sure, and they don't hamper my movement at all."

Taj lingered for a moment in his arms, as if expecting something more…but Mikel released her, feeling embarrassed. And in the awkward silence, he quickly redressed in his nutrend.

He cleared his throat and said, "I need to call Aylin tonight about the possibility of going on tour. And, of course, I'm going to tell her about your research and terrific new costume design, too."

She just nodded as he quickly left the studio.

***

Mikel was halfway through his routine during the Friday matinee, when he stumbled, almost falling flat on his face. He recovered and finished smoothly. But he knew then something was wrong with his legs—it was like they weren't responding properly.

***

Another clumsy performance Friday night.

Afterwards, the maestro looked worried and wanted to take Mikel to a small, private medcenter for an examination. But Mikel put him off, suggesting he was just tired, not used to the physical demands of two performances a day.

***

Saturday morning Mikel awakened to find the skin of the wing nubs splitting on his back.

A hurried visit to the private medcenter confirmed his suspicion: His wings were indeed beginning to grow back; and at the same time, he was losing leg strength.

***

Sunday, Mikel stumbled awkwardly through the entire matinee performance. The audience was subdued, sensing something very wrong, the applause only polite.

Before the evening performance, Mikel reluctantly went to see Maestro Tuvlo. He could no longer hide his developing wings and the change in leg strength.

It was over.

***

Stepping off the hummer, Mikel saw Aylin first and was immediately struck by her plain, provincial appearance—her drab nutrend, her guild tat, the gray wings. But he had no time to dwell on the difference between his wife's looks and the people in the City of Towers.

Music, applause, people laughing
.

The whole village had turned out to greet his return. Shy children on their father's shoulders pointed at him across the crowded plaza.

During the party, all his old friends managed to come by and say hello, pounding his back. The president of the Stonecutters Guild personally returned his card. It was indeed like old times, maybe even better.

And Aylin was very happy.

***

The next morning at Aylin's insistence, Mikel made an appointment at the medcenter, where he underwent another thorough examination, including an ultra scan of his wings, nubs, and back.

Later in the afternoon, seated at his desk, the Chief Medtech just shook his head, chuckling wryly, before reviewing the results with Mikel and Aylin.

"See here, this is your original ultra scan," the Chief said. "Your wing nubs actually contained another set of wing buds. These tiny shadows, right here. See? We just missed them, never suspected they were there." He pointed at the old scan, shaking his head. "You are a unique case, Mikel. But we think your wing loss and regrowth is analogous to losing baby teeth, then eventually growing adult teeth back." Then he tapped the new scan that contained no shadowy hidden buds in the wing nubs. "But, like adult teeth, these will be your last set of wings."

***

Later, leaving the medcenter, Aylin said, "Mikel, you are really fortunate, you know?"

He nodded, not sure how he really felt.

***

Mikel knew he should be thankful for the regrowth of his wings, to get back to work at the stone quarry, to re-establish his old routine, and forget the circus. But he couldn't go back to work yet, and he couldn't help trying to revisit the past.

Early the next morning he returned to the village square, trying to practice his old exercise routines around the hummerpad…But it was no use. He wasn't able to leap, bound, or even run. The strength and agility were gone. He was just like all the other villagers, able to do only a little more than hop around on his legs and feet, like a bird.

As the days passed, his wings grew stronger, his legs even weaker; and Mikel couldn't help daydreaming of his time in the spotlight at the aerial circus. He spent less and less time in the village, the villagers' plain brown wings and facial guild tats only reminding him how far away he was from the City of Towers and the Aerial Circus. He even avoided his friends. And he didn't feel ready to return to work, not quite yet. Instead, he flexed and exercised his new wings, flying on the early morning updrafts, but brooding on the sudden and ironic turn of fate, growing more depressed as the days passed.

***

Then, two weeks or so after returning home, Mikel received a hologram from the City of Towers. Holding the cube in hand he clicked it on, and watched a shimmering image coalesce into familiar clarity.

It was Taj.

"Greetings, Mikel," she said, smiling kind of shyly. "I tried to call, but you were always out, so I sent the 'gram. We all miss you here at the Circus. I'm working again with the aerial dancers, and it's going well, but…you know. It's not quite the same as our work together, which I will always remember as a very special time. We did something quite extraordinary, I think. Anyhow, the maestro asked me to tell you that twenty tickets will be available for you, family, and friends at Will Call when we play Seaside next Sunday night. Hope to see you then." Her image faded abruptly.

The circus here this Sunday?

It was only five days away.

He felt excited, choked up, just thinking about it. Then Mikel remembered, he would be going
only
as a spectator, and the thought saddened him.

***

Thursday morning Aylin flew with him.

"Mikel, something isn't right," she said, after gliding next to him for a few minutes. "You haven't returned to work. You seem unhappy, to be brooding about something. Can you tell me what is wrong?"

He nodded.

Then they were suddenly pushed up about fifty feet higher, where they hung suspended like a pair of kites, as Mikel tried to explain his feelings.

"The old groundling race was real," he began. "They didn't have wings, but moved on their legs. They developed dance to a high art form. It was an important part of their culture." He paused, searching for the words. "Dance is very important to me, too. In the performance dome in the City of Towers, I felt…real, natural, in
my
element, doing something important." He held up his hand, as they hovered, to prevent her interrupting and continued, "I need to finish this now, Aylin, explain what I've lost." He took a deep breath, and said, "When I was on…after a few performances, not at the end. But when I was
good
, I felt like an extension of the music. It was like I was exposing some important inner part of myself. Like I bared my soul, and the audiences responded to this. It was exactly right. Even without wings, I was still something special, something more than a stonecutter. I was a groundling dancer, the only one left, last of a kind, a link with the past." He stopped and reached out and held her hand, as they hung suspended in space and time. "Do you understand me, how I feel? What I've lost. Even though I love you, I belong with the Circus, Aylin. Here, I'm just a freak,
a groundling with wings
."

A gust suddenly pushed them a few feet apart.

Aylin glided silently for a few moments, looked at him directly, then she shifted her wings, and dove away, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

***

Mikel awakened before dawn, rising carefully so as not to disturb Aylin. Then he tiptoed into the bathroom. He had made a decision. Sucking in a deep breath, he steeled himself and withdrew the laser scalpel from his wife's medkit…

The blast of a high-pitched whistle momentarily quieted the noise in the bar.

Ian Sullivan glanced left past the Coors sign in the large picture window facing the Yard, then down at his watch: 4:10. "End of the day shift," he announced absently, thinking that for most of the twenty-two years he'd spent on the Yard his life had been governed by that whistle: Five minutes until work—Work—Lunch—Five minutes until work—Work—End of Shift. Sometimes he awoke at home dreaming he'd heard the whistle. As the noise in the bar resumed, he slipped off his stool and pushed his nearly-full Bud and empty shot glass closer to his companion, Denny Rucker.

"Be back in a minute, pal, watch my beer." Then Ian made his way through the small crowd around the pool table and stepped out of Tug's Bar into the fresh February afternoon, pulling up the collar on his Raider's windbreaker. He sucked in a deep breath and shuffled a little closer to the old ferry pier and the dark water, the hundred yards or so of strait that separated the city of Vallejo from Mare Island Naval Shipyard.