Engineman - Eric Brown [221]
I had seen an identical vanishing act somewhere before - in Ralph's studio, just yesterday.
I looked at Bartholomew, and saw his face register at first shock, and then sudden understanding.
He stood and turned. "Standish..." he cried, more in despair than rage at the deception. "Standish!"
But by this time Ralph, along with the other flesh-and-blood actors in his little drama, had taken the Mercedes and were speeding along the road towards Sapphire Oasis.
Which was not quite the end of the affair.
I drove Bartholomew back in the truck, and we unloaded the continuum-frame and set it among the other works of art on the concourse. Evidently word had got back that something had happened in the desert. A crowd had gathered, and artists watched from the balconies of the domes overlooking the concourse.
Bartholomew noticed nothing. He busied himself with the keyboard set into the frame. "There still might be something in there I can salvage," he told me. "Something I can build on..."
I just smiled at him and began to walk away.
I was stopped in my tracks by a cry from a nearby dome.
"Daddy!"
Bartholomew turned and stared. Elegy Perpetuum, radiant in a bright blue dress and ribbons, walked quickly across the concourse towards her father, as upright as a little soldier. She ran the rest of the way and launched herself into his arms, and Bartholomew lifted her off the ground and hugged her to his chest.
She was followed by a tall, olive-skinned woman in a red trouser-suit. I recognised her face from a hundred art programmes and magazines - the burning eyes, the strong Berber features: Electra Perpetuum.
I was aware of someone at my side.
"Ralph!" I hissed. "How the hell did she get here?"
"I invited her, of course - to judge the contest." He smiled at me. "I've told her about everything that happened out there."
Electra paused at the centre of the concourse, three metres from Bartholomew. He lowered his daughter to the ground and the little girl ran back to her mother's side.
"I know what you did, Perry," Electra said in a voice choked with emotion. "But what I want to know is, do you think you made the right decision?"
I realised, as I watched Perry Bartholomew regard Electra and his daughter for what seemed like minutes, that what Ralph Standish had created before us was either the last act of a drama in the finest of romantic traditions - or a tragedy.
It seemed that everyone in the Oasis was willing Bartholomew to give the right reply. Beside me, Ralph clenched his fist and cursed him under his breath.
Bartholomew stared at Electra, seemingly seeing through her, as he considered his past and contemplated his future.
And then, with a dignity and courage I never expect to witness again, Perry Bartholomew stepped forward, took the hands of his wife and daughter and, between Electra and Elegy, moved from the concourse and left behind him the destitute monument of his continuum-frame.
Acknowledgements
"The Girl Who Died for Art and Lived"
first publised in Interzone 22, 1989
"The Phoenix Experiment"
first published in The Lyre 1, 1991.
"Big Trouble Upstairs"
first published in Interzone 26, 1988.
"Star of Epsilon"
first published in REM 1, 1991.
"The Time-Lapsed Man"
first published in Interzone 24, 1988.
"The Pineal-Zen Equation"
first published as "Krash-Bangg Joe and the Pineal-Zen Equation" Interzone 21, 1987.
"The Art of Acceptance"
first published in Strange Plasma 1, 1989.
"Elegy Perpetuum"
first published in Interzone 52, 1991.
Eric Brown would like to thank the editors of the above publications: David Pringle, Ian Sales, Nicholas Mahoney, Arthur Straker, Steve Pasechnick.
About the Author
Eric Brown's first short story was published in Interzone in 1987, and he sold his first novel, Meridian Days, in 1992. He has won the British Science Fiction Award twice for his short stories and has published thirty-five books: SF novels, collections, books for teenagers and younger