by John Varley
I'm as superstitious as any actor—a notoriously twitchy lot. I didn't know what to make of it. I know my father would never have set foot aboard either vessel. He made many an astrologer rich during his lifetime. He believed in hexes, hoodoos, and bad karma of any description. My own life seems more like Violet's: depressingly regular disasters followed by perilous escapes that made Pauline of the silent melodramas seem tame.
* * *
Two flights of spiral stairs took me a bit closer to the engines, which I had expected to throb but instead made a deep humming sound. Pluto White Star's devotion to authenticity didn't extend to coal-fired steam engines. I gathered the vessel was propelled by some infernal nuclear contrivance, probably generating a pure sleet of insalubrious particles to careen through my unprotected body every instant I spent in my dressing room. However, I try not to think about things I can't see, and the dressing room did have a star on the door.
I kicked it open and edged in sideways because of the sousaphone still slung over my shoulder. The big silver horn had to be the most awkward single object ever invented by man, and for a week now I'd been stuck with it between shows. The property manager said there simply wasn't space in the narrow flies of the shipboard theater for all the gear needed for our two shows, so would I just be a dear and pitch in...? I'd foolishly agreed, not yet knowing there is absolutely no good place to store a sousaphone.
I nudged the door shut with my knee, and put my lips experimentally to the mouthpiece, puckered my lips, and blew. All I got was the same merry flatulence I'd produced on my first attempt. It had been days before a guy from the ship's band had played a tune for me on it... and I'd been amazed to discover it was supposed to sound like that. Now I shrugged it off my shoulders and attacked the screws that held the monstrous bell onto the loops of silver tubing, wondering once again where they had found such a ridiculous item. The flea market of Hell, no doubt. It was supposed to nest inside a case that might have held two moose heads side by side, but there I had put my foot down. It actually took up less of my limited space if I hung the bell on a clothes hook above the door, then put the rest on the bed. When it came time to sleep, the instrument was propped against the door, where it made a nice informal burglar alarm. You never know, with all the crooks around these days.
In addition to the bunk there was a makeup table with lighted mirror and a chair mounted on casters. And there you have the catalog of my furniture. In the wall opposite the table were two doors, one leading to a coffin-sized head, the sort where you stood on the toilet to take a shower, and the other to a locker where I stored my costumes between shows. The architect hadn't planned on the occupant bringing something the size of the Pantechnicon with him. I had to roll it in front of the head to get in the closet, and vice versa. Three people in this cabin was a considerable crowd. Add a fourth and you had the stateroom scene from A Night at the Opera.
I was glad to have it. The chorus bunked together in a room not much larger than this. If they all inhaled at once the door burst from its hinges.
I pulled the chair around and opened a desk shelf on the side of the Pan-tech. Speaking a pass phrase—which I don't think I'll mention here, thank you very much—caused a small drawer to spring open. I took out the thin stack of large bills inside the drawer and thumbed through them. Sadly, they had once more refused to mate and multiply. I took a dinner menu and an eyebrow pencil and a well-thumbed booklet of interplanetary rates and schedules, shoved my straw boater back on my head, and once more tried to make my bankroll add up to a trip to Luna before October. Improvise! I told myself. Rhapsodize! Steerage is fine, no problem, but the ships had to be reasonably fast.
It just didn't compute. I had enough for passage, but not in any reasonable time. Or, I could get as far as the Jupiter trailing Trojans by early May, only to arrive dead broke.
I took the little netsuke frog from the drawer and set it beside the stack of money. I sighed. It just didn't make sense to keep the thing. Not that selling it would get me to Luna in time, but it would provide me with some walking around money when I reached the Trojans. Perhaps something would turn up there. I really had no choice. Time was the operative factor.
There was a knock on the door, and I hastily stowed my valuables back into their hiding place and sealed it up. I put on my dressing gown and opened the door to find a man standing there, looking up at me with a faint smile.
"Mr. Valentine?"
"Yes?"
"You wouldn't happen to be Sparky Valentine, the guy I used to watch on Sparky and His Friends?"
"Careful," I said. "You're dating yourself."
"You are? Really?"
"Guilty."
"I knew it, I just knew it," he said, his grin growing wider. "I told my wife, 'That's just got to be Sparky Valentine,' I said, but she didn't believe me. Isn't she going to be surprised? She said everybody knew you died years ago."
"Those rumors were greatly exaggerated."
"That's what I told her. But no, she insisted you'd been murdered in some back alley in Luna forty, fifty years ago." His smile faded a little. "To tell you the truth, I'd heard that story, too."
"I'm not surprised. I've heard it as well. Once these stories get going they turn into urban legends. Who knows how they start." Well, this one started because I got it going myself, having a great need at the time to avoid a certain party who just wasn't going to stop looking for me short of the grave... but that's another story.
There followed an awkward moment of the sort I used to be quite familiar with, but which had become infrequent. I used to be recognized all the time, stopped on the street, buttonholed, quizzed, importuned. Mostly complimented, because Sparky was beloved to a whole generation of children. You never become completely comfortable with it. Somebody is standing there telling you how much he admires you, or your work. Sometimes, it's that he frankly idolizes you, that you've changed his life. Even saved his life. I'm not going to try telling you it isn't enjoyable to be told things like that. If you hate compliments you should never get into show business. But it is awkward, and soon you find yourself standing there with a false smile on your face listening to the fan extol your virtues and wondering how quickly you can gracefully get away. The more effusive the praise, the tougher this is. I soon begin to wonder, if my work in that long-ago series changed your life, what sort of pitiful life do you have? Are you going to bend my ear all day long? And most important, are you stalking me?
I'd stopped really worrying about stalkers years ago. I had plenty of more concrete things to worry about. So I wasn't really uneasy as I stood there in the doorway, listening to him gush about how much he'd enjoyed the show, how he still caught it every chance he could in reruns, how he'd loved me and all the other characters in Sparky's Gang. I figured the nicest way to give him the bum's rush was to offer an autograph, and was trying to figure how to slip the offer into the stream of words, when he said, "Say, would you mind? I went back to my cabin and got this. I found it in the Tokyo gift shop and I'm going to give it to my son. Could I get your autograph on it?"
He was holding out a book. I took it and flipped through the pages. It was a reprint edition of Sparky and His Gang, something I hadn't seen in decades. I quickly sought the copyright page, only to discover no date or copyright information. Printed in Brementon, it said.
The nerve of the guy! This was a pirated edition, printed by convict labor, of a book to which I still, theoretically, owned the rights—for all the good it had done me the last seventy years.
...But what the hell. The guy probably had no idea I'd written the thing (well, ghostwritten, but I'd paid the ghostwriter, and now it was mine). Trying not to clench my teeth, I took the book and pencil from him.
I guess I bore down too hard, because the point broke off. He started patting all his pockets, looking for a pen. I knew that to get rid of him I'd better find one myself, so I turned around, and the back of my head exploded.
* * *
The thought proces
ses must keep going during unconsciousness. As I swam my way up through sluggish depths toward a distant light, it all came clear to me, so that when I opened my eyes and saw that my straw hat had landed on what looked like a dead cat, I knew exactly what it was. I knew just what had happened, and it's hard to say if I was more frightened or disgusted.
He just happened to have bought a copy of Sparky and His Gang, which he just happened to have in his room? Unlikely. That should have alerted me. His rubicund complexion I had taken for the flush of too much liquor. But it was the wig that should have tipped me, should have warned me never to turn my back on him.
I reached for the straw hat with an arm that had grown to be six meters long. The crown was crushed where his cosh had hit it. It just might have cushioned the blow enough that I only stayed out for a few minutes, instead of the several hours he had intended.
And that could be the difference I needed, if I could take advantage of it. I took a deep breath. I didn't want to look up, but I had to, so I did.
Sure enough, he had a dazzling red head of hair. Mister Carrot-top. The wig had come off as he swung the blackjack, and my hat had landed on it.
Unforgivable! Incredible stupidity. I had known it was a rug from the first moment I opened the door. Civilians don't know how to wear toupees, they always get it wrong. This one had not even been gummed down around the edges; he had worn it so loosely that simply swinging his arm overhead had knocked it off.
"I really did enjoy Sparky and His Gang," said the diminutive agent of the Charonese Mafia. He had moved my chair in front of the door and was sitting in it, feet flat, back straight, bright and alert. He had a pistol of some sort, and it never wavered. I had no doubt he could pick which of my eyeballs to hit, shooting from the hip.
"I'd like to get up and give you the frog," I said.
"Just stay where you are. I'll take care of everything."
That's what I was afraid of. With the Charonese there were usually only two options: a quick bullet, or prolonged torture.
"Should I order a drink?" I sighed. Don't imagine I was as cool as I sounded. The line and the attitude belonged to Nick Charles, from The Thin Man's Last Stand. ("...nobody could be quite so cool as Mr. Charles in the face of the many dangers he stares down, but Casey Valens had a grand old time making us believe it."—JMMT Channel 70 Minute Reviews).
"Just wait awhile."
"Don't want to make a scene?" I asked.
"It's best to keep these things quiet. When we dock at Honolulu a friend of mine will be coming aboard. You'll leave with us. I can give you a drug to keep you docile if you make it necessary. But I hate to use it. It's annoying. When I'm annoyed, I do things you wouldn't like."
"It won't be necessary," I said. "I'm... say, you never told me your name. Or is that an annoying request?"
"Comfort," he said.
"Beg pardon?"
"Isambard Comfort."
I looked at him dubiously, but he gave no sign he was kidding. I'd asked his name not so much because I wanted to add him to my Christmas card list, but in hopes he would refuse to tell me. Traditionally, if they don't care about you learning their names, it means they plan to kill you. "He can identify you in court, Rocko. Better wax him." However, this was Pluto and the Charonese Mafia, who did more or less what they pleased. His distaste for taking and disposing of me publicly had more to do with decorum on the part of the ferrymen.
But I had a plan.
"I'm going in there and splash some water in my face," I told him. He made the slightest of shrugs, so I struggled to my feet. I stood there swaying, looking down at the hat in my hands, then set it on my head. The impression I wanted to give was of someone still woozy from the blow. Part of my tortured mind was howling in pain and I was keeping it rigidly under control. I knew how to do this since I once did the last two acts of Hamlet with a broken arm, sustained in a fall backstage. ("The Prince of Denmark is one of the more tortured figures in the theatrical canon, but never have I seen so much naked pain brought to the stage as in Mr. K. Valentine's portrayal last night at the Metro Forum. As he lay dying, poisoned, I wanted to leap from my seat and call for medical attention. Bravo, Valentine!"—Liz Harcourt, The Oberonian.)
I washed my face in the tiny sink in the head, then staggered back out toward the dressing table mirror, where I leaned forward and studied myself.
"God," I said. "I look like Macbeth in the last act. After Macduff cuts off his head." I prodded around my left eye, which seemed to be swelling up. I must have hit something on my way down. " 'Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests,' " I quoted. " 'I bear a charmed life, which must not yield to one of woman born.' "
He knew little of the theater, apparently, but he was sharp. Oh, so sharp. I saw his eyes narrow and dart around quickly. I suppose they teach them, in Charonese survival schools—of which there are no better in the solar system—to beware the inconsistent, the unexplained, the unexpected. Something about my lines must not have rung true to his predatory ear.
I didn't give him a lot of time to chew on it, though. Nor did I betray, I trust, the rising tension in my body as I looked down at my crumpled hat, sighed, and tossed it on the bed.
Sharp? Hell, yes. And fast!
I didn't even see the tanglenet as it flew from the tiny hole in the Pantechnicon. I did see the line of red laser light that hit his weapon. Saw it, heard it sizzle, and pretty soon smelled it in the form of ozone and the stink of crisping flesh.
Nothing went quite the way it was supposed to. He was so damn fast!
The laser shouldn't have been on more than a fraction of a second. It's supposed to locate a weapon, hit it, heat it very quickly, and that's that. It would melt the lead in a bullet. I could see his finger pull the trigger until the finger was sliced off as the laser ray passed through it.
He was trying to rise from his chair. He got halfway out of it, but the force of the expanding tanglenet hitting him threw his body back against the door... with one arm still free. The net was supposed to hit him so quickly that both arms would be pinned to his sides, but that snakelike speed had enabled him to keep his gun arm out of its clutches. Now that free hand was a blackened mess, all his fingers off, only the thumb intact.
That's when I got a bit of luck. The force of his impact knocked the sousaphone bell loose and it fell over his head. He stumbled and went down tangled up with his chair.
I knew it wasn't over yet. Casting about for a club of some sort, my hand fell on the other part of the great horn. I grabbed it and turned around, in time to see him shrugging off the bell, his free hand at his side ready to lift him to his feet. I swung the heavy metal tubing over my head and brought it down around his shoulders.
And it still wasn't over. I could have wished for a tighter fit of horn and body. The only way I had to keep him within the circle was to move in close and keep it jammed down around him. That gave him a chance to use his feet and his knees, and to gnash at me with his teeth, which had been filed sharp. I will never forget that sight: those teeth snapping closed inches from my nose, and those eyes, showing no pain, no fear... no emotion at all but a determination to do his job, to kill me.
What we did then was a violent close-quarters ballet, a road-show version of the famous fight in the cabin of the Quantum Belle from The Pusher's Return. It's thirty seconds of mayhem in a five-sided shoe box, based on a similar situation on the Orient Express from a much earlier movie, and they said it could never be done on boards until Dixon de la Nash and I made it the spine-tingling centerpiece of that year's smash hit of the Alameda season. ("Look for the names Sparkman and de la Nash when they draw up the list of this year's Alley nominees. Their incredible fight in the cabin has to be seen to be disbelieved, and is merely the capstone of two of the best performances of this or any other year. If there's any justice, they should both get the award."—The Alamedan)
Friends, Pusher ran six months, eight shows a week, and if I hadn't been there for the whole run I don't think I'd have c
ome out of that Brittanic cabin alive.
With one hand almost off, one arm stuck to his side by the tanglenet, the other arm held by the ring of brass tubing, six inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter than me... even with all that about the only edge I had on him was the weight. I could horse him around by tugging on the horn, while at the same time being sure it stayed down around him. I wrestled him to the bed, all the time soaking up a punishing series of kicks to the shin and a jackhammering of his knees to my crotch. I scrambled among the bedclothes, meaning to strangle him if possible, managing only to jam a sheet down over his head and shoulders. His kicking lost some accuracy, but never let up. I hurled him face-first into the makeup mirror, pulled him away, and then did it again now that it was broken and jagged. The sheet over his face turned red. I searched for his eyes with my thumbs and felt something squish, but that gave him a chance to shrug the tuba up over his free shoulder and he began flailing at me. He used the arm as a club, getting in one ringing blow that almost broke my collarbone, then another to my side, before bringing his forearm down like a swung baseball bat on the edge of the makeup table. Face powder blossomed into the air, and both bones in his forearm snapped like dry spaghetti. I thought I heard him grunt a little from that, but it never slowed him. He kept swinging the arm, which now bent in three places, the mangled and blackened remains of his fist like a grisly mace at the end of a bloody rope.
But I managed to jam the horn back down over him. Fumbling behind me, I came up with a big jar of cold cream and swung it up and over and down, as if trying to pound a stake into the ground. I heard something crack, and he stopped moving for a moment, staggered, and almost fell down. Then he began moving toward me again, blind, almost immobilized. I heard a high, shrill sound that I thought was some sort of Charonese war cry, then realized it was me. I couldn't stop making the sound. I hit him again and he went to his knees but still wouldn't fall over. I hit him a third time.