(eng) Marjorie B. Kellogg by Harmony

Author:Harmony [Harmony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CURFEW:

Our petition raced like wildfire through the eight apprentice dormitories. Then we took it into the workplace.

Howie signed eagerly enough. He even dragged me into the main lobby to do it in full view of the citizens lining up to buy tickets for Crossroads. But about the curfew, he just rolled his eyes.

“Ah, it’ll never stand. Wait ‘til the restaurants start feeling the loss of apprentice business at night. Wait ‘til their theatres are half empty.”

“We can’t afford the restaurants anymore, Howie. And we don’t buy our tickets.” Except for Mark’s recent difficulty at Willow Street.

“Look. You are asses in their seats, too many of which would otherwise be empty, especially at night.” Heading off to rehearsal, he threw me a wink. “Who’d pay to see some of the shit they produce in this town?”

I looked down at the petition, hanging limply in my hand.

He stopped in the sunlight flooding through the lobby doors. “Hey, tell you what. Just let me get through this show, then I’ll get out and do some campaigning for you kids. Maybe it’s time to do a play about apprentices, what do you say? There’s a good young writer working with the RoundHall I could put you in touch with. Think about it.”

I blinked into the darkness of his silhouette framed by the too-bright doorway. “I don’t think we’ve got that kind of time.”

“Relax, Gwinny. Nothing happens that fast around here.”

Louisa Pietro, freshly arrived from lighting the Ring Cycle at the Amsterdam State Opera, was not so sanguine. “You mean my assistants can’t work in the theatres after nine? Gimme that petition!”

Micah and I paced her through the lower lobby after a winey lunch in Fetching Plaza. “Songh’s off with Mark getting signatures,” I told him. “That all right?

He nodded. “Push now, while people are angry about the curfew.”

I described Howie’s response.

“Howard has no apprentice help,” replied Micah. “He sees the whole issue in the abstract. The strategy of course is to force us to fall back on our homebred assistants.”

“Never had one worth their salt,” said Louisa.

We rounded the corner into Howie’s spruced-up gallery. Properly hung and organized, the photos had an earnest, important look.

“We might be partly to blame for that, you know.” The cooling of Micah’s outrage had left him deeply thoughtful. “If we’d given our SecondGens a better chance, treated them more equally—”

“Nonsense!” Lou declared. “It’s what comes of prosperity. The pressure’s off, you realize you’re not going to starve, next thing you know, you’re bored and greedy and inventing enemies where there are none! It’s as bad as this Open Sky paranoia! I heard Ingrid Hibberd speak when I was doing Werter in Stockholm. What she said was basic common sense: now the Dissolution is under control, we should put the same brilliant resources that saved humanity to work saving the world.”

Micah eyed the walls as if they might be hiding vidcams and recording devices. He offered an arch, conspiratorial grin.

“Oh balls!” said Louisa. “It’s not sedition. Hibberd’s only asking

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