Yet he was now too old to play Hamlet, the role his father had owned and in which this younger Burbank had also excelled. There was something about the Prince’s dithering and indecisiveness and self-pity that perfectly fit Burbank. Still, it was a frustrating time for Burbank and he marked it by getting hammier and hammier in the roles Kemp allowed him and by screwing Kemp’s much younger wife every chance he got.

Alleyn was our young Hamlet now and a wonderful one at that, especially when set against Burbank’s Claudius and Kemp’s Polonius. For villains we had Heminges. Kemp once said to me after a few drinks that our real Heminges out-Iagoes Iago on and off the stage. He also said that he wished that Heminges had Richard III’s hump and personality just so things would be more peaceful aboard the Muse.

Coeke was our Othello and was perfect in the role for more reasons than his skin color. Recca, especially adept at playing Kate the Shrew, was Heminges’s wife and Coeke’s mistress—when she felt like it—and her easy infidelity had done little in recent years to improve Heminges’s personality.

Heminges was also our only revolutionary.

I should explain that.

There were a few men or women out of the billions scattered among the Archon and other alien stars who believed that humans should revolt, throw off the yoke of the Archons and reestablish the “human era.” As if that were possible. They were all cranks and malcontents like Heminges.

I was about fifteen and we were in transit in the Pleroma when I first heard Heminges mutter his suicidal sedition.

“How could we possibly ‘rise up’ against the Archons?” I asked. “Humans have no weapons.”

Heminges had given me his Iago smile. “We’re in the most powerful weapon left to our species, young Master Wilbr.”

“The Muse?” I said stupidly. “How could the Muse be a weapon?”