Free Angels and Exiles by Yves Meynard Page B

invective. The soloist does not pursue, probably aware that he has already been heftily fined for attempted violence and that actual assault might well bankrupt him on the spot.
    Ras: “Give it a rest, Kel. It’s his choice if he wants to take them.” Ras forebears to add that if the soloist does burn out, it will increase their own chances. He knows that his soft-hearted friend would be deeply offended by such a remark, though it is no more than the truth.
    Sumyuru’s hissing voice rises in the lobby, instantly evoking silence. She reads out the schedule for the competition. The Brothers of Enceladus will be fifth out of eleven, a good spot. They will have time to calm down, but they will not have to wait too long and risk losing their concentration.
    Everyone takes advantage of the ten-minute rehearsal period. Small side-rooms are made available to the performers, at a nominal charge. Kel groans in anguish when he sees the soloist swallow all the pills at once before going into a room. The trio chooses a room and goes through warm-up exercises. They do not evoke anything they will be using in their performance, for fear of killing the spontaneity. Instead, they work on standard effects, striving to achieve a meshing within the first few seconds, gauging each other’s mood. The ten minutes pass by quickly; at the end, they are as relaxed and comfortable as they’ll ever be.
    A bell rings, and all the dreamweavers gather, enter the auditorium. The human audience is assigned seats on the parterre, while the Eldred are seated in a single high box. No efforts have been made to conceal the box’s security equipment: sensors and weapons gleam in the lights. Exclamations rise from the human section as the dreamweaving teams make their way to their bank of seats close to the stage, separated from the rest of the parterre by five metres of empty space and a softly glowing line. Edge Nain recognizes more than a few people in the crowd, including a woman he would never have expected to see again, not after her friend was gunned down by theatre security at the Brothers’ last performance for having tried to cross the line separating performers from audience.
Sweet Jesu
, prays Edge Nain as he grasps the relayer-bar set in the armrest of his seat,
please let everyone here keep their head tonight
.
    The first group, Noncortical, steps onto the stage to the raucous cheering of their supporters in the audience. It is a quintet, with three inexperienced youngsters and only two old hands in their mid-thirties to keep them in check. Edge Nain knows one of them, Syrna; worked with her in fact, five years ago, when he was just starting out. He smiles briefly, remembering the dreams their group shaped in those days. The smile turns into a slight wince as Noncortical’s performance starts. Within a few seconds, Edge Nain is swept into an adventure within an endless jungle, along with a band of friends he has known forever. . . . The dream is brash, energetic, but it lacks focus; frequently, the thread is lost, sounds and images clash with the moods: the sense of purpose, which is so important, fades away. Five years, and Syrna’s dreams have not changed. Maybe if she allowed herself to act her age, if she went after experience instead of raw youth in her partners . . .
    The dream lasts the full five minutes allowed and concludes abruptly when the inducers power down at the command of their timing units. Noncortical leaves the stage to polite applause. Immortality will not be for them this night, and everyone knows it. Even their fans’ enthusiasm now sounds forced.
    Three more performances before it is the trio’s turn. Between each performance, they empty their heads of the others’ dream. This is the risk they all run: being contaminated by the other weavers’ material. If it echoes in their own performance, they will show themselves to be weak, easily influenced.
    Indeed, it happens to the soloist who goes fourth, just before