"We Charonese are the only broad authority beyond Pluto. We're the only ones with enough discipline to maintain strict standards over such a vast region. Each enclave has its own rules and its own enforcers, but when someone flees a jurisdiction, as you did, we are called in. We work only by contract, and the governor's policy with us sets out prescribed remedies for different situations. First, we guaranteed to hunt you down. As I'm sure you have learned from your researches, we always get our man."
"Hunt me down and kill me," I said.
"Hunt you down. The governor was a bit cheap, though, and didn't pay for death in this instance. I'm not sure we would have written such a policy, anyway. We tend to operate more on an eye-for-an-eye basis. Almost Biblical, you might say."
"Biblical."
"Exactly. Since there was no way for us to take your virginity and ruin your marriage prospects, of course, we would have used other methods. The usual penalty would be three days of pain, followed by a year's incarceration."
"So you never intended to kill me."
"I blame myself, really," he said. "I assumed you knew that, back on the Britannic. I assumed too much. I expected resistance—three days of pain is certainly memorable to a non-Charonese, and something you surely would try to avoid—but I wasn't prepared for the tenacity of your assault.
"Of course, things are different now...."
"You do me wrong to take me out of the grave," I said. "Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears do scald me like molten lead."
Things were indeed different now. If, in some ways, my last scenes of madness were not acting at all, then how to judge the end of the fourth act, when Lear is returned to sanity, temperance, even a sort of tranquillity in the arms of his faithful daughter Cordelia, while within me, poor actor, raged all the tempests of folly?
Considering all that, it might have been my greatest moment on the stage. No one would ever know just how great.
Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, and we play it at cross purposes.
My one and only chance of escape was coming, and I did not feel up to it. I wanted to lie down with Lear, return to my comfortable grave.
But did it matter? What would have been different if I had given Comfort more time to speak, back there in my tiny cabin aboard the Britannic? Or if he hadn't been so unnaturally quick? The tanglenet was supposed to have immobilized him, then I could have listened to what he had to say.
Three days of pain. A year at what I had to assume would be very hard labor and solitary confinement. Would I have surrendered, knowing escape was, in the long run, impossible?
No.
It was as simple as that. I can't do jail time. I'd rather die. I'd rather spend the rest of my life on the run. I once did three days in jail, waiting for arraignment. Every time I went to sleep I found myself back in the airlock, facing the Daewoo Caterpillar. Awake, I spent all my time watching the walls, because every time I turned my back on one it began to move in on me. Very hard work, since you can't watch six walls at once. As soon as I made bail, I jumped, and have never regretted it.
So I would have fought the man from Charon. But I might not have tried so hard to kill him.
It didn't matter now. He'd explained it all to me, before my entrance. I had killed a Charonese. That simply was not allowed. The penalty was death, and a death that would be a long, long time coming.
"Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray, weep not. If you have poison for me I will drink it." I reached up and touched the tears on Cordelia's cheek. Real tears, not glycerine, as in rehearsal. I was so far gone in the part that I couldn't remember her real name.
I didn't return to my dressing room for the beginning of the fifth act. Cordelia and I waited in the wings, not speaking, not wanting to chance anything wrecking the mood. Soon we were onstage again, captured by our enemies, reconciled. It's my favorite scene in the play. The foolish old King at the end of his folly, granted one moment of happiness before the end. We were led away to what we thought would be our imprisonment, not knowing the plans of the evil Edmund.
I was going to my dressing room when Polly appeared and took my arm. She looked up at me, and I saw concern in her eyes.
"Bear up, old friend," she said.
"How am I doing?" I asked her.
"I think you know how the performance is going. But I'm a little worried about you. Is something wrong?"
"Wrong? What are you talking about?"
"I'm not sure. I sense something. I don't think anyone else would notice. God knows you're giving it your all. Is there anything I should know?"
Anything she should know. The mind reeled. I knew what she was talking about, Polly being the only one who knew who was after me. And I wouldn't get her involved in it.
Anything she should know. Yes, Polly, my dear. After the final curtain I'm going to vanish, one way or another. Either under my own steam, or in the custody of a man from your worst nightmares. There will be only one performance of this Lear, one perfect moment on the stage. You close tomorrow.
Oddly, I knew she wouldn't mind that part. I felt sorry for the rest of the cast, who had a right to expect a long run from such a night as this, but for Polly, the work was done, in the heavenly books. She had created a masterpiece that would last for the ages. As for the cast, well, that's show business.
So I lied. It wasn't my best work, I could tell, and even my best might not have entirely fooled her. But there were distractions. The final duel between Edmund and Edgar was getting under way on stage, and she had made quite a production out of it. "Edgar" and "Edmund" were the two finest stage swordsmen on Luna at the time and they were pulling out all the stops, giving the audience an exhibition of derring-do that would leave them breathless for my entrance. So she didn't question me, and I managed to slip away.
And immediately ran into the head of makeup, in a hissy panic.
"Where is Cordelia!" he said. "We have to get the rope burns on her neck!"
I shrugged helplessly, and as soon as his back was turned I ran to my dressing room.
As soon as I slammed the door behind me I saw Isambard on one knee beside Cordelia, who was lying on the floor.
"My God! What have you done to her? You've killed her."
He stood up. Toby was still cradled in his left hand.
"Contrary to what you might think, I don't kill unless it's necessary. She's unconscious."
"But you said—"
"She came in here and was asking too many questions. She was about to leave to get security, so I had no choice."
I lifted her and put her down on my cot. A bruise was forming on her temple. And damn her, anyway! She had decided to sneak in here at the last moment. There would have been no time for sex, but Jennipher was a cuddler. She wanted to hug and kiss before our last scene, in preparation for a memorable night of celebration.
Well, Cordelia was "dead" in our last scene. All was not lost.
"And I'm afraid we'll have to go now," Comfort said.
"Excuse me?"
"Yes. Things have gotten too dangerous. I have a safe route plotted to the rear entrance; no one will see us." He smiled. "Did you really think I was going to give you a chance to escape during the curtain calls?"
I stared at him, stunned at this treachery.
"I thought we had a deal," I said.
"Deal?" He laughed. "I made no deal, and I made no promise."
"It was implied."
"You've never really grown up, have you, Sparky? Did you expect me to behave like a gentleman?"
"No, but I... yes, I guess I did. I thought we had an understanding. I thought you were liking my performance." My voice was rising. Toby heard the tension, and began to bark.