Homefall: Book Four of the Last Legion Series
Page 7
“I say again my last about pilots,” Penwyth said. “Except p’raps, I was overly kindly about their intelligence being low-normal.”
• • •
“Hit it, maestro, it’s doors, and the crowd’s a turnaway,” Garvin shouted. He was resplendent in white formal wear of ancient times, including a tall white hat, black boots, and a black whip.
Aterton obeyed, and music boomed through the hold, and Garvin touched his throat mike.
“Men, women, children of all ages … Welcome, welcome, welcome, to the Circus of Galactic Delights. I’m your host for the show. Now, what we’ll have first …”
Half a dozen clowns tumbled into view, began assaulting Garvin in various ways, some trying to drench him with water, others to push him over a kneeling clown, still others throwing rotten vegetables. But all missed, and he drove them away with his whip.
“Sorry, sorry, but we’ve got these strange ones who’re completely out of control with us …” Garvin lowered his voice, cut out of his spiel. “When we get a full complement, we’ll have carpet clowns working the stands. Next will come the spec, with all kinds of women on lifts, on horses, on elephants if we get elephants, the candy butchers working the stands, the cats coming through …
“Maestro, sorry to put you through this, but we’ll need bits for each act as they enter.”
“Of course,” Aterton said haughtily. “I, at least, know my business and am hardly a first-of-Mayer.”
Garvin made a face, decided to let it pass.
“Then, after the spec goes out the back door of the tent, or the hold, or the amphitheater … I don’t have the foggiest where we’ll be playing … then we’ll have the first act, which’ll be something I haven’t decided on, maybe some flyers, maybe have some little people working the ground, maybe some pongers, ‘though I haven’t seen nearly enough acrobats.”
He seemed quite at home amid the confusion.
• • •
“Earth cats?” Garvin asked.
“At one time,” the chubby, rather prissy man with a moustache said, a bit mournfully. “Since then, they’ve apparently mutated … and the perihelion of the species are with Doctor Emton’s Phantastic Felines, Who’ll Make You Wonder If You’re Really Superior and Dazzle You. A Fine Act for the Whole Family.”
Garvin looked skeptically at the six lean but well-brushed animals sitting on his desk. They regarded him with equal dispassion.
“Ticonderoga,” Emton said. “Insect. On picture. Catch it for him.”
He pointed at Garvin, but made no other move.
A cat leapt suddenly from the desk up to the mounted holo of Jasith, caught a bug, bit once, and dropped it daintily in Garvin’s lap.
“Interesting,” Garvin said. “But more suitable for a sideshow. Which we aren’t.”
“Pyramid,” Emton said, and three cats moved together, two more jumped on their backs, and the third completed the figure.
“Play ball,” he said, taking a small red ball from his pocket, and tossing it at them. The pyramid disassembled, the cats formed a ring, and began passing it back and forth.
“Hmm,” Garvin said. “We will have projection screens so the audience can see what’s going on … maybe something with the clowns?”
“Clowns,” Emton said, and the six cats stood on their paws, walked about, then sprang cartwheels.
“I’m afraid not,” Garvin said.
“Oh. Oh. Very well,” Emton said, and got up. His cats sprang back into the two carriers he’d brought in.
“Oh … one other thing … I, uh, understand that tryouts are welcome at your dukey?”
“Certainly,” Garvin said, and noted a slight look of desperation about the man. It must’ve been his imagination, but it seemed the cats had the same expression. “We’re happy to feed you. And your animals.”
“Well … thank you for your time, anyway,” Emton said as he fastened the carrier closers.
Garvin, feeling every bit a saphead, said, “Hang on a second. Can I ask you a personal question?”
Emton’s expression was a bit frosty, but he said, “You may.”
“Can I ask what your last performance was?”
Emton looked wistful.
“Last time we were on a show … just one going back and forth, a mud show really, more to keep from getting rusty … actually, was, well, almost an E-year ago.”
Garvin nodded.
“I said something about clowns. Do you have any objection to working with them?”
“Of course not,” Emton said eagerly.
“Perhaps I’m not seeing your act’s full potential, or maybe you could use some new material,” Garvin said. “I’ll buzz our Professor Ristori to meet you at the main lock in, oh, thirty minutes or so.” He hastily added, seeing Emton’s expression, “Sorry, an hour. Time enough for you and your troupe to get fed at the cook tent.”
“Thank you,” Emton said eagerly. “I promise, you won’t be sorry.”
“I’m sure I won’t,” Garvin said, thinking that Jasith wouldn’t mind spending a little of what had been her money this way.
Besides, the creatures might be useful somehow.
• • •
Clowns and more clowns inundated Big Bertha until Garvin had more than thirty signed up. He made Ristori clown master, gave Njangu other duties.
• • •
“All right, all right, break,” Garvin shouted. The robot bears’ handler looked sheepish, and the aerialists overhead went back to their pedestal boards.
“People, we’re trying to hit some kind of rhythm here. Let’s take it back, to where the bears just come on.”
• • •
“This much better,” the ra’felan told Monique Lir. “Used to be, was real rope nets. If a human not land right … on back of neck … could get hurt. Break leg. Maybe bounce out and no catcher. Bad, very bad.”
The circus “net” was composed of a series of antigrav projectors, all pointed up and inward, now set up in the tent’s center ring. Anyone falling from a trapeze above would be slowed, then stopped two meters above the ground. The net also had the advantage of being almost invisible. Only a small blur could be seen from the projector mouths, so the audience could get the thrill of thinking the performers were chancing death every time they went aloft.
The being rolled an eye at Lir.
“Why you want to learn iron-jaw act?”
“Why not?”
The ra’felan reached up with a tentacle and pulled down the rope with the metal bit at its end.
“Good. You put in mouth, just clamp teeth. Hold firm. Now, we pull off ground. Just little.
“You see how easy? Human jaw strong. Now, we teach how to spin, turn, maybe … you look like strong woman … do kicks and things.”
• • •
Njangu eyed the animals skeptically. They looked at him with interest. Not to maybe mention hunger.
There were a round dozen of them, identified by their trainer as lions, tigers, leopards, and panthers.
“You know,” he said, “I’d be a lot happier, a whole lot happier, if the bars were between me and your friends.”
“Ah, there’s nothing to worry about,” the tall handsome man with the scarred face said.
Njangu remembered Garvin telling him once, when they thought they were about to die, why he’d ended up joining the Force — the circus he’d been ringmaster for had turned out to be crook, and the locals had realized the hustles and started a riot. Jaansma saw someone about to torch the horses’ enclosure, went, as he said, “a little ape shit,” and turned the big cats loose on the crowd.
“Yeh,” he said doubtfully.
“Not that the diddlies’ll ever realize how tame m’pussies are,” the slanger — trainer — said. He cracked a big whip, and instantly the inside of the huge enclosure, a huge birdcage almost twenty meters in diameter, was furry chaos, as cats roared, screamed, clawed at the air, sprang from stand to stand, and the trainer was firing blanks f
rom an old-fashioned pistol into the air as he tossed rings through the air, and the animals plummeted through them.
Then all was still again.
The trainer, who said his name was Sir Douglas, grinned, his scar standing out against his near-ebony complexion. “See what I mean?”
“Maybe,” Njangu said. “Uh … where’d you get the scar, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Muldoon … that’s the leopard over there … gets moody first thing in the mornings. And I was being a little pushy.” He gestured. “Accidents do happen, don’t they.”
“They do,” Njangu said, moving toward the cage door. “By the way, what do these fine friends of yours eat?”
“Meat,” Sir Douglas said with a ferocious grin. “As much as I’ll let ‘em have.”
“Have they figured out yet, that we’re meat?”
“No,” the trainer said. “But they’re working on it.”
• • •
Njangu noticed Garvin’s habits were changing. Now he would sleep all day, waking at nightfall for a light meal, then doing business all night long, breaking frequently to visit various acts around the ship. At dawn, he’d have a big meal and half a bottle of wine, and retire.
Njangu caught him eyeing Darod Montagna, but so far nothing had happened.
So far.
Besides, Njangu had other business to take care of, with two Intelligence Section assistants. He was interviewing, as subtly and thoroughly as he could, everyone who joined the circus about where they’d come from, what they knew of the collapse, and their own personal travels.
A problem was that circus people don’t especially like to get personal. They were reluctant to say where they came from, but would say “I was with the Zymecas,” or “I came from Butler and Daughter.”
Njangu, so far, was amassing confusion. Some worlds or sectors seemed to have made a decision to declare their independence from the Confederation. Nobody seemed to know what happened to the Confederation officials assigned to those areas.
Other worlds, Njangu found, seemed to have lost contact. Their freightliners went out and didn’t come back, ordered cargoes never materialized, troops were never replaced, and so forth.
A few troupers had specific stories — of expecting an act or a relative to arrive, and no ship ever appeared in their skies, or contracts had been signed, but the transport never showed up.
There didn’t seem to be any single crash, just a series of crumblings.
Njangu had no theories whatsoever.
• • •
“Great gods playing feetball,” Dill said. “They’re goddamned enormous!”
“Nobody really realizes how big an elephant is until they get close to one for the first time,” Garvin said. “Isn’t that right?”
“We would not know,” one of the slim brown-skinned men said.
The other man nodded. “We have been around our friends since … since we were born.”
One of the men was named Sunya Thanon, the other Phraphas Phanon. They had sixteen elephants, all named, plus two babies, no more than an E-year old, Imp and Loti.
“Do you wish us to display our friends’ skills?”
“Not necessary,” Garvin said. “I watched the holo you sent me. You are more than welcome.”
“Good,” Sunya said. “Feeding our friends on our small budget becomes wearisome.” He, like Phraphas, spoke careful, unaccented Common as if he were more familiar with another language.
“But we must caution you.” Phraphas said. “We are searching for a place, and if, in our travels, we find a way to reach it, we must insist on being allowed to leave the show instantly.”
“I suppose that can be arranged,” Garvin said cautiously. “And that place is?”
“Have you ever heard of a planet named Coando?” Sunya asked.
“No,” Garvin said. “Not that it means much, for I’m not an astrogator.”
The two looked disappointed.
“We do not know its location either,” Phraphas said. “But we heard of it once, and determined we must make it our life’s work to go there with our friends.”
“Why is it so special?” Dill asked.
“The legend is,” Phraphas said, “that men of our culture left ancient Earth … with the elephants they had always worked together with … to make their home on a planet that was jungled, hot, like the land they came from.
“But here, no one would hunt their friends for their skins, for the ivory of their tusks, or … or just for the monstrous pleasure in killing something bigger than they were.
“The tale is, they found such a world, and named it Coando, and, as they developed this world, being careful to keep it as it was, as their homeland had been before it was despoiled, and then sent expeditions back to Earth, to bring wild elephants to join them.
“That, the tale goes, is why elephants are so rare, with only the friends of the circus, who choose to work with us, and some others around what was the Confederation.
“That is the world we seek, the world we have been seeking, as our parents did before us, and their parents before them.”
Dill thought of saying the obvious, then realized he wasn’t that much of an asshole. He and Garvin exchanged looks.
“I assume,” Garvin asked, “that you’ve asked since you’ve been here on Grimaldi?”
“Asked, and consulted star charts,” Sunya said. “But without success.”
“That’s all right,” Dill said, surprising both Garvin and himself. “Coando’s out there … and we’ll find it or, anyway, find where it is. Maybe when … if … we reach Centrum, we can see if the old Confederation master records still exist.”
Sunya looked at his partner.
“You see? I knew we had luck when we first saw this ship approach from the skies.”
Garvin and Dill turned the beasts and their handlers over to Lir, started back for the ship.
“Anybody ever tell you that you’re a sentimental slob?” Garvin asked.
“And, of course, you’re not?” Dill asked.
• • •
Garvin and Montagna watched the horses pour through the hoops and around the ring like milk, liquid grace, while two long-haired women and an impressively moustached man with equally long hair sat, rolled, tumbled on their mounts’ backs as if they were standing still.
“I am going to learn to do that,” Montagna said firmly. “No matter how hard it is.”
“You’ll do fine,” Garvin said absently. She smiled at him, reflexively moved a bit closer. They caught themselves, and stepped back.
The man, Rudy Kwiek, leapt from the back of one, did a double roll in midair, and landed in front of the pair.
“Are my vrai not wonderful?”
“They are,” Garvin agreed. “What’s the gaff?”
Kwiek looked injured.
“There is no gaff. My horses, my vrai, are from a very special, very sleek family, bred only by a few Rom on isolated worlds, and almost never allowed to be seen in public.
“And I have the best of the breed, an attraction so special and so highly trained your circus should not only count itself lucky to have the chance to sign us, but it will double, nay triple your bunce.”
“Yeh,” Garvin said flatly.
“Maybe,” Montagna said, “you wouldn’t mind having one of your horses lift a foot?”
“Ah,” Kwiek said. “The lady is not only beautiful, but bright.”
“No,” Montagna said. “I just thought I saw metal gleam when your horse jumped that stand.”
“Ah once more,” Kwiek said. “I must work with the animal. I must confess that I have made my poor horses’ task a bit easier.”
“What?” Garvin asked with a grin. “A little antigrav unit in each shoe?”
Kwiek bowed.
“I can see I will have no secrets with you, Gaffer. Perhaps we should adjourn to your office and taste a bit of the raki I have brought with me, and discuss in what manner my wives and I shall be a
ble to work together.”
Garvin nodded.
“Sorry about that dinner invite in town, Darod. It’s going to be a hard night’s bargaining.”
• • •
“I am not going to sit on that beast,” the young woman stormed.
“And why not, my temperamental little one?” the circus’s choreographer, a tiny and somewhat effete man named Knox said. “We’ve been promised they do not eat people.”
“I won’t, because … because they’ve got hairy little spikes all over them, and I don’t want my bottom to be a pincushion.”
Monique Lir, standing near the hull’s gangway, muttered to Garvin: “They’re all like that. All goddamned thirty of those goddamned showgirls. They won’t do this, they won’t do that, they don’t care what their contracts say, their room’s too hot, it’s too cold, it’s too close to the horses, it’s too … aargh. Boss, please. Give me all thirty of them for a week, and I promise, those that’re left won’t be doing any more of this frigging sniveling.”
“Now, now,” Garvin soothed, hiding a grin. “We must allow for artistic temperament.”
“Temperament my left tit,” Lir snarled. “All they’re supposed to do is wave their pretty little asses about, smile like they’ve got an idea what day it is, and be frigging foils for the clowns.”
“Speaking of which,” Garvin said.
“Now, Adele,” Knox said, still calm. “I really don’t want to put pressure on you … but if you won’t take that assignment, I’ll have to find you another.”
“Anything!” the blonde stormed. “Anything but that!”
“Heh … heh … heh … anything?” and suddenly Professor Ristori slunk into view, wearing a long black raincoat and hat. “We have, ho-ho, we have, a little sketch …” and extended one leg, with a baggy pair of pants on it. He pulled on the other leg, and the pants leg was revealed as no more than the cuffs, and a pair of suspenders going upward.
“A sketch, a sketch,” he said, “most funny, perhaps a little adult, a little adult, a little adult for our younger sort, where you and I are wedded, wedded forever, for eternal bliss.
“I roll you onstage, in a wedding bed, and then, after I make my ablutions, abluting, abluting, then I climb into bed with you, singing, and we embrace. Then you discover, somehow, in the bed with us, are two, perhaps three of my friends … little people … who I’ve invited — ”