“That’s the spirit. Shall we?”
He drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “We shall.”
We strolled back to where the crew were milling aimlessly around.
“Right,” the director screamed. “Why are you all standing around like dummies? Don’t you know we’ve a show to do? Come on, get your arses in gear. Holy-Sanctity, where are you? Why aren’t the lights set? And where’s make-up? ”
I breathed a sigh of relief. The show was rolling again. The Chairman looked at me sourly.
“What did you say to him?”
“I was apologising. I insulted him unjustifiably. I hope you haven’t set your hounds looking for my lawyer.” From the expression on his face I knew he had. “When will you learn?” If looks could kill, my life would have ended there and then.
“You two. What are you doing? This is no time for idle chit-chat. You’re supposed to be on the stage.” Our friendly director was back.
I grinned at him and followed the Chairman to the back of the stage. We were met by an officious young woman with a clipboard. She seemed to be conducting three conversations at once, one of them into a communications device attached to her ear.
“Right. Sir Chairman, you’re on first. I’ll count you down from five. You step up to the podium and do your speech.” She consulted her clipboard. “When you say ‘I give you the thirtieth winner of the Grand Lottery, Sir Crawford MacAdam of Earth’, is that right, you…” she meant me. “…go on. Ever been on a stage before?”
“Not since a school play.”
“You’ll probably freeze. That’s okay. Let it happen. Just keep smiling. That’s the key. No matter how nervous you feel, keep that smile pasted on. Okay? Right, the Chairman presents you with the keys, purely symbolic, of course, and you step up to the podium. Ever spoken in public before?” I had but I shook my head. “Okay. Again, you’ll probably freeze but don’t let it worry you. They’ll all be cheering anyway so a few second’s silence won’t matter. Then you say your speech. No more than two minutes. That’s not negotiable. You get cut off after two minutes. If you’re in doubt, keep it short. We can always fill in. Got all that? Good.” She listened to her earpiece for a moment. “Okay, Sir Chairman, you’re on in five… four… three… two… one… now.”
The Chairman squared his shoulders, straightened his jacket, plastered a smile on his face and strode out into the lights. He was a professional, I had to give him that. His speech was very similar to Madam Great-Piousness’s had been earlier. He did his build-up and I had to admit that, if I hadn’t known better, I’d have believed he meant it. If he could be a professional, so could I. I strode out onto the stage with as big a smile as I could muster, stopped, raised my hands above my head and waved my clasped hands in jubilation then walked to meet the Chairman who was watching me with every impression of genuine admiration. We stood, facing the empty auditorium while he presented me with a pair of large, shiny keys tied up in pink ribbon. I waved them over my head and stepped forward. I hadn’t the faintest idea what I was going to say.
“I’ve never won a Lottery before,” I said conversationally, “so I hope you’ll forgive me if I get a bit lost for words.”
I paused as if trying to recall my speech then began. “Your Holinesses, Sir President, Sir Chairman, esteemed members of the Board, Sirs and Madams, the good people of Geretimal and the Galaxy, it is by the grace of all the gods, may our every thought be guided by them, that I address you tonight. I stand here in humility for, in truth, although I have won the Lottery, the real stars are the director, the performers and all the beings who have worked so hard to put on this magnificent show tonight. And I truly think this has been the best show I’ve ever seen.” There was a smattering of ‘hub, hub, hubs’ from the almost empty auditorium. “The other beings who really deserve a mention are, of course, my parents for, without them, I wouldn’t have been born and wouldn’t be standing here tonight.” This got some laughs.
“As you have been told, I come from a small primitive planet way out on the spiral arm. We don’t have many dealings with the Galaxy… none at all, in fact. I am the first being from Earth to visit Capella, Geretimal and this amazing and beautiful capital city, Bartimarmiminniandriss. I hope I said that right. I have to say that my experiences here have been astonishing. A real eye-opener to a backwoods being like me. I sincerely hope I will be able to see a lot more of it all in future. Thank you all very much for your welcome tonight. May the gods favour you. Goodnight.
The applause might have been small but it was genuine. I stepped back and posed with the Chairman, who looked somewhat relieved, as I waved the keys above my head. I was trying to remember all the other silly things people did when they won something and work out whether I should do them, too. I decided not to push my luck. After a suitable pause, we left. I looked back and waved as we did.
The director was waiting for us. He was actually smiling.
“Very well done, both of you. Good speeches. Sir MacAdam, you don’t need to mention Their Holinesses. There won’t be any present. Officially, they disapprove of the Lottery show. Unofficially, they’ll be glued to the trivee the same as everyone else. Okay, that’s it. I’ll see you again later. There’s food somewhere.”
“Can I have something delivered to my dressing room? I don’t feel like mingling.”
“Absolutely. Just ask.”
The Chairman touched my arm. “The contact?”
“As soon as my lawyer clears it… which won’t be soon if your goons are still hunting him.”
“You’re determined to be unreasonable?”
I kept my temper but only just. “You can call it anything you like,” I said shortly. “The truth is you tried to screw me and you’re still doing it. Think about this. If I don’t show up tonight, I get nothing. As I have nothing just now, I have nothing to lose.”
“Your life?”
“Sir Chairman… are you threatening me?”
“No, no. It was a slip of the tongue. Nothing more. I apologise.”
“For your information, I had an interesting chat with the President. Did you know he offered me a job? And he wants to take me druunsbak racing. Oh, and I have a formal invitation to visit the Simpissions. You know the Simpsissions? Your major benefactors?”
“Yes, yes. I understand.” He sighed. “It would seem I have no choice but to accede to your outrageous demands. A new contract will be with you in an hour.”
I smiled grimly. “And my lawyer?”
“I will call off my ‘goons’, as you call them. Can you contact your lawyer?”
“Naturally not as you didn’t see fit to provide me with any sort of communicator, never mind one that understands English.”
“Oh. Use mine.”
“Ha, ha, ha. You jest, of course. You use your communicator and call off the search. When you’ve done that I’ll try and contact my lawyer.”
He did. I left the room and went hunting. I let two or three beings pass me then pounced on a member of the event staff.
“Excuse me, do you have your communicator with you?”
“Yes, of course,” he said in surprise.
“Can it find someone if you only have a name?”
“Of course.”
“Then would you do that for me, please?”
“Do what?”
“Contact someone if I give you a name.”
“Why”
“Because it’s very important and I don’t have my communicator with me. I left it in the dressing room.”
“Oh, that’s okay, then. Who do you want to contact?”
“Honesty-in-Trust Beloved-of-God.”
“Okay. Just a moment.” He fiddled with the communicator then handed it to me.
“Hello?” came Honesty-in-Trust’s cautious voice.
“It’s Crawford.”
“Crawford? I didn’t recognise the caller.”
“Random communicator. Listen, you all right?”
“Right
as rain. Good speech, by the way.”
I realised he must be hidden nearby and laughed. “You sly devil.”
“You’re not bad yourself.” He laughed. “Random communicator. I like it.”
“Look, it’s okay. The hunt’s over. New contract in an hour. I’ll be in my dressing room. Be careful.”
“I will. Believe me, I will.”
“Good. See you soon.”
I handed the communicator back to the surprised young man.
“That sounded like something from a trivee series.”
I gave him a feral grin. “You’d never believe me. Now, if I were you, I’d make myself scarce for an hour or two.”
He looked alarmed and took off, not exactly running but walking sharply. I grinned. I found another event person to guide me to my dressing room. Honesty-in-Trust arrived a few minutes later.
“I’m glad to see you,” I said. I felt like hugging him but didn’t know if that was de rigeur so I didn’t.
“Ditto, though I knew you were fine.”
“Where were you hiding?”
“Ah. Trade secret. Now this…” he waved the papers her was carrying, “…is interesting.”
“Is it what we thought?”
“What you thought. I had little to do with it. But, yes, it’s exactly that. Very nicely worded. It has my professional admiration but, essentially, it says everything but promises nothing. For every apparent obligation there’s a nifty get-out clause. Their lawyers would have a field day if we ever tried to enforce it.”
“I hate to be proved right. It would be nice if, just this once, the bloody Commission played it straight. I’m sick and tired of all their stupid games.”
He grinned. “Keeps me in business, though.”
“I’m glad someone’s enjoying it. Now, they’ve promised a new contract in an hour. How are we going to play it?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean my nasty suspicious mind is working overtime again. How convenient would it be if the Lottery Winner was found dead in his dressing room just hours before the ceremony? What a tragedy? Such a waste and all that crap.”
“They wouldn’t…”
“You tell me. How does food poisoning sound. Poor barbarian didn’t understand Micro-bio-whatsits and ate something that disagreed with him… fatally.”
He sucked his teeth and contemplated the ceiling.
“Hmm. It’s a possibility, I suppose. Do you have any evidence?”
“None. It’s just when I finally stared down Sir Chairman, I made a comment about having nothing so I had nothing to lose. He said I still had my life. He backtracked furiously when I accused him of threatening me and claimed it was a slip of the tongue. Still…”
“Hmm.” He seemed to have a thing about ceilings, then I realised he was communicating with his ibic. “The odds have just gone up. Not a lot but enough to take precautions. What do you suggest?”
“Me? You’re the legal expert.”
“I’m not a flaming security expert.”
“There’s an idea. Could we hire one?”
“Not enough time. Wait a moment. I’m here. I can’t die of food poisoning, too.”
“No, you’re not here. Not officially. Nobody knows your name. You were just a shadowy figure who was with me. Who’s to know if you leave and are never seen again?”
He shuddered. “You have got a very suspicious mind.”
“Comes from watching too many crime thrillers on TV.”
“Well, if we can’t do it quietly, we’ll have to do it publicly.”
“I don’t follow.”
“We need witnesses… reliable, known witnesses whose presence would be missed immediately.”
“Do we know any of these?”
“Hmm. Good point.”
“What about the lady who did the press conference? Is she a Commission person?”
“No, she works for the Stadium. She might do. Anyone else?”
“How about your friend the project manager?”
“Good idea. He’s honest, too.”
“Is two enough”?
“Should be. Can you order something to eat while I try and get hold of them?”
I stuck my head out of the door and found an event person. She was amused when I explained that, as a barbarian, I couldn’t read Capellan writing.
“Wait a minute, Sir. Are you the Lottery Winner?” I confessed I was. “In that case it will be an honour. If you and your friend will give me your cards, I’ll see to it personally.”
She hurried off.
“We’re in luck. They’re both still here and are coming down.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Nothing other than the Lottery Winner would appreciate their presence on a matter of great urgency.”
“Let’s hope they get here first.”
They did. In fact they arrived almost together.
“I’m sorry to have ruined your evening,” I said. “I really appreciate you sparing the time. I assure you I wouldn’t have disturbed you if it hadn’t been important. This is Sir Honesty-in-Trust Beloved-of-God. He’s a lawyer.”
“We’ve met,” the project manager said.
“There have been some, er, irregularities in my contract with the Lottery Commission. These irregularities persist, even now. The Chairman has promised that a revised, and correct, contract will be here shortly. Up to now, it pains me to say, that the Commission has not got a good track record on keeping its promises and Honesty-in Trust and I believe we need the services of honest, independent witnesses.”
“What are we witnessing?” the project manager asked.
“That the Commission have delivered the contract they promised, that the contract was approved by my legal representative and it was signed by the Chairman and me. I would appreciate it if you would keep your communicators on and record the whole session.”
“I don’t understand,” Madam Great-Piousness said. “It’s just a contract. Why do you need witnesses?”
I glanced at Honesty-in-Trust who nodded.
“You remember at the press conference, I mentioned that I couldn’t do the tour of Capella because it would kill me? Well, I’d agreed this with the representative who visited me. When I arrived, I found that the terms we’d agreed had been deliberately ignored and the tour was back in. I only found out by accident. There were other things but I won’t go into them. In short, Sir and Madam, someone on the Commission doesn’t want me to collect the prize.”
“Incredible,” the project manager snorted.
“I can vouch for it and I’ll do it formally, if necessary. What Sir MacAdam says is nothing more than the literal truth,” Honesty-in-Trust said.
Madam Great-Piousness gasped. “The Chairman?”
“I don’t believe he’s personally involved but I do believe he’s under great pressure to make sure I don’t get a fair contract,” I said.
“I’m still not certain I understand why you need us,” the project manager said.
“This,” Honesty-in-Trust said, indicating the contract, “is one of the cleverest pieces of wording I’ve read. It appears to give Sir MacAdam exactly what was agreed and it’s only when you read it very closely you realise it actually does nothing of the kind.” He grinned. “I think I’ll keep it and use some of the ideas myself.”
“It’s hardly funny,” I said. “The reason we need you, Sir and Madam, is so that, should anything unusual happen to us… say we should mysteriously disappear, there are two independent and reliable beings who can raise the matter with the authorities.”
“You’re not likely to disappear, are you?” Madam Great-Piousness said.
I shrugged. “With you here, the likelihood of that is greatly reduced,”
“To less than 3%,” Honesty-in-Trust said.
“Remember, someone has already tried to deliberately harm me. What’s to stop them trying again? Perhaps I’m being paranoid but I don’t believe I can take any chances. Will you help
me, please?”
“I need a drink,” the project manager said.
“Me too,” Madam Great-Piousness added. “This is unbelievable.”
“I’ll do it.” Honesty-in-Trust said.
“What will happen if this new contract is also, er, ‘flawed’?”
I shrugged. “There won’t be a Lottery Winner,” I said calmly.
“What?” they exclaimed together.
“You can’t do that,” Madam Great-Piousness said. “It would mean the end of the Lottery.”
“It was almost the end of me so why should I care?”
“You have a point,” the project manager grunted.
“But… but… you can’t do that. The Lottery’s been around for three hundred years. You can’t just dismiss it like that.”
“Madam, suppose someone invited you to a shady nook. By accident you found out that a fierce animal lived in that shady nook. Would you refuse to enter it without some assurance that the fierce animal had been killed or removed?”
“Well, yes, but…”
“For fierce animal, read ‘attempted murder’ and for shady nook read ‘Lottery Commission.”
“Well, yes, I suppose you have a point. It just seems so… so… incredible really.”
“I agree completely. How do you think I, a simple man from a primitive planet, feels knowing that one of the most prestigious organisations in the Galaxy is trying to kill me? I don’t think incredible really fits the bill, do you?”
She sighed. “I’ll do it. You impressed me at the press conference as an honest being so I’ve got no choice but to believe you, unbelievable though the situation is.”
“I’m in, too,” the project manager said. “Some day Sir Beloved-of-God, you’d better bring me a case of Barellian Brandy and tell me the whole story.”
“You have a deal,” Honesty-in-Trust grinned.
We waited. Honesty-in-Trust and I nibbled the food the assistant had brought but we weren’t really hungry. There didn’t seem to be much to say so we just sat around letting the tension mount. I alternated from hoping that the Chairman would, for the first time play a straight bat and fearing that he wouldn’t. For all my outward confidence, the prospect of leaving here with nothing was not one I wanted to dwell on. It was almost a relief when the anticipated knock on the door happened.
I Won A Spaceship Page 16