Party at Roare's to celebrate!
She snorted. They'd all know. Let them chortle over her downfall. She'd not play the bravely smiling, courageous-under-adversity role tonight. Or ever.
Exit Killashandra, quietly, stage center, she thought as she ran down the long shallow flight of steps to the mall in front of the Culture Center. Again, she experienced both satisfaction and regret that no one witnessed her departure.
Actually, she couldn't have asked for a more dramatic exit. Tonight, they'd wonder what had happened. Maybe someone would know. She knew that Valdi would never disclose their interview; he disliked failures; especially his own, so they'd never hear about it from him. As for the verdict of the examiners, at least the exact wording handed her would be computer sealed. But someone would know that Killashandra Ree had failed her vocal finals and the grounds for failure.
Meanwhile she would have effectively disappeared. They could speculate all they wanted – nothing would stop them from that – and they'd remember her when she rose to prominence in another field. Then they'd marvel that nothing so minor as failure could suppress her excellence.
Such reflections consoled Killashandra all the way to her lodgings. Subsidized students rated dwellings – no more the depressing bohemian semifilth and overcrowding of ancient times – but her room was hardly palatial. When she failed to reregister at the Music Center, her landlady would be notified and the room locked to her. Subsistence living was abhorrent to Killashandra; it smacked of an inability to achieve. But she'd take the initiative on that, too, and leave the room now. And all the memories it held. Besides, it would spoil the mystery of her disappearance if she were to be discovered in her digs. So, with a brief nod to the landlady, who always checked comings and goings, Killashandra climbed the stairs to her floor, keyed open her room, and looked around. There was really nothing to take but clothing.
Despite that assessment, Killashandra packed the lute that she had hand crafted to satisfy that requirement of her profession. She might not care to play the thing, but she couldn't bear to abandon it. She packed it among the clothes in her carisak, which she looped over her back. She closed the door panel, skipped down the stairs, nodded to the landlady exactly as she always did, and left quietly.
Having fulfilled the dramatic requirement of her new role, she hadn't any idea what to do with herself. She slipped from walk-on to the fastbelt of the pedestrian way, heading into the center of the city. She ought to register with a work bureau: she ought to apply for subsistence. She ought to do many things, but suddenly Killashandra discovered that “ought to” no longer ruled her. No more tedious commitments to schedule-rehearsals, lessons, studies. She was free, utterly and completely free! With a lifetime ahead of her that ought to be filled. Ought to? With what?
The walkway was whipping her rapidly into the busier sections of the city. Pedestrian directions flashed at cross-points: mercantile triangle purple crossed with social services' circle orange; green check manufactory and dormitory blue hatching, medical green-red stripes and then airport arrow red and spaceport star-spangled blue. Killashandra, paralyzed by indecision, toyed with the variety of things she ought to do, and was carried past the cross-points that would take her where she ought to go.
Ought to, again, she thought, and stayed on the speedway. Half of Killashandra was amused that she, once so certain of her goal, could now be so irresolute. At that moment it did not occur to her that she was suffering an intense, traumatic shock or that she was reacting to that shock – first, in a somewhat immature fashion by her abrupt withdrawal from the center; second, in a more mature manner, as she divorced herself from the indulgence of self-pity and began a positive search for an alternate life.
She could not know that at that very moment Esmond Valdi was concerned, realizing that the girl would be reacting in some fashion to the demise of her ambition. Had she known, she might have thought more kindly of him, though he hadn't pursued her beyond her study nor done more than call the Personnel Section to report his concern. He'd come to the reassuring conclusion that she had sought refuge with a fellow student, probably having a good cry. Knowing her dedication to music, he'd incorrectly assumed that she'd continue in the study of music, accepting a choral leadership in due time. That's where he wanted her, and it simply did not occur to Valdi that Killashandra would discard ten years of her life in a second.
CHAPTER 2
Killashandra was halfway to the spaceport before she consciously decided that that was where she ought to go – «ought» this time not in an obligatory but in an investigative sense. Fuerte held nothing but distressing memories for her. She'd leave the planet and erase the painful associations. Good thing she had taken the lute. She had sufficient credentials to be taken on as a casual entertainer on some liner at the best or as a ship attendant at the worst. She might as well travel about a bit to see what else she ought to do with her life.
As the speedway slowed to curve into the spaceport terminal, Killashandra was aware of externals – people and things – for the first time since she'd left Maestro Valdi's studio. She had never been to the spaceport before and had never been on any of the welcoming committees for off planet stellars. Just then, a shuttle launched from its bay, powerful engines making the port building tremble. There was, however, a very disconcerting whine of which she was almost subliminally aware, sensing it from the mastoid bone right down to her heel. She shook her head. The whine intensified – it had to be coming from the shuttle – until she was forced to clamp her hands over her ears. The sonics abated, and she forgot the incident as she wandered around the immense, domed reception hall of the port facility. Vidifax were ranked across the inner segment, each labeled with the name of a particular freight or passenger service, each with its own screen plate. Faraway places with strange sounding names – a fragment from an ancient song obtruded and was instantly suppressed. No more music.
She paused at a portal to watch a shuttle off-loading cargo, the loading attendants using pneumatic pallets to shift odd-sized packages that did not fit the automatic cargo-handling ramp. A supercargo was scurrying about, portentously examining strip codes, juggling weight units, and arguing with the stevedores. Killashandra snorted. She'd soon have more than such trivia to occupy her energies. Suddenly, she caught the scent of appetizing odors.
She realized she was hungry! Hungry? When her whole life had been shattered? How banal! But the odors made her mouth water. Well, her credit ought to be good for a meal, but she'd better check her balance rather than be embarrassed at the restaurant. At a public outlet, she inserted her digital wristunit and applied her right thumb to the print plate. She was agreeably surprised to note that a credit had been added that very day – a student credit, she read. Her last. That the total represented a bonus did not please her. A bonus to solemnize the fact that she could never be a soloist?
She walked quickly to the nearest restaurant, observing only that it was not the economy service. The old, dutiful Killashandra would have backed out hastily. The new Killashandra entered imperiously. So early in the day, the dining rooms were not crowded, so she chose a booth on the upper level for its unobstructed view of the flow of shuttles and small spacecraft. She had never realized how much traffic passed through the spaceport of her not very important planet, though she vaguely knew that Fuerte was a transfer point. The vidifax menu was long and varied, and she was tempted several times to indulge in the exotic foods temptingly described therein. But she settled for a casserole, purportedly composed of off-world fish, unusual but not too highly spiced for a students untutored palate. An off-world wine included in the selection pleased her so much that she ordered a second carafe just as dusk closed in.