We Open on Venus - Starship Troupers 2

by Christopher Stasheff

  “But we can’t get an answer before we open,” Lacey protested. “Not if radio waves can’t even go as fast as we can.”

  “Quite so; it will have to go by courier mail, as all interstellar communications do, and we certainly won’t hear back until we’ve arrived at Falstaff, if then.”

  “So we go with the line as written?” Winston sighed.

  “I’m afraid so. To do else would be to violate the playwright’s confidence. But be certain your delivery is as if the line had been rewritten to include those evidences of life, old fellow.”

  “ ‘Is as,’ rather than ‘as is,’ ” Winston sighed. “Very well, Barry. We’ll do wonders with the subtext.” He turned back to Blinker and repeated, “I see no other beings moving among those towers. Where are the millions of denizens such a city might house?”

  “Fewer dwell here than when the last of those towers was built,” Brinker admitted.

  “Oh?” Winston elevated the famous arched eyebrow. “Why?”

  “Country living became very popular,” Brinker noted.

  “Understandably. What about those who preferred the amenities of the city?”

  “They delighted in the ambience,” Brinker said evasively. “Now, let us go to find your dwellings!”

  “Everyone may start moving forward,” Barry instructed, “but Winston will hold out his arm, and Mamie will come up against it as if it were a wall. Everyone else ..

  “Will slam into each other like a train stopping abruptly,” Mamie finished for him. “Yes, Barry, we know the bit. Feed us the line, Brinker.”

  Barry frowned at her insolence, but didn’t protest. I nearly did, then withheld comment. But really, we had so little time to rehearse a full bill that we could not afford to waste time in personal acrimony.

  “Hold!” Winston cried, throwing out an arm. Mamie stepped up against it and snapped her head and arms as if running into a low wall. Larry slammed into her, and Lacey into him, and Susanne into Lacey …

  Lacey yowled. “You clumsy elephant, get off my foot!”

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” Susanne backed up hastily—-just in time for Larry to slam into her, knocking her against Lacey again.

  “I said get off!” Lacey shoved back, very hard. Susanne jolted rearward, and Larry yelped as a spiked heel drove into his toe. He yanked his foot up to cradle in his hand, just in time for Ogden to yell, “Look out!” and slam into him—floaters have difficulty with abrupt stops. So did Larry—he went flying into Susanne again, who lurched up against Lacey, who unfortunately saw her coming and pushed back before she was even hit.

  “Ouch!” Susanne cried. “Look, I said I was sorry! It’s not the easiest thing in the world to stop when—”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to be able to stop at all, dear,” Lacey said sweetly.

  Susanne’s eyes narrowed. “Spoken as one who knows, darling. Or can’t you even get started?”

  As insults went, these were from the bargain basement, and surely neither of the young ladies would have stooped to answering such crudities under ordinary circumstances— but these circumstances were scarcely ordinary, and Lacey shot back, “When the spirit moves me, dearie, not the landlord.”

  “Oh, is that why you live in hotels?”

  Lacey laughed, but it was strained. “Darling, you’re so open about your background! The Plaza is scarcely a mere hotel!”

  “What does the Plaza have to do with you?” And before Lacey could answer, “Oh, you mean near Central Park! I thought you lived in it!”

  “Ladies …” Barry murmured, but Lacey overrode him.

  “Of course not, dear, but didn’t I see you there—with the baboons?”

  “Oh, is that who you were walking with! I thought they were your boyfriends!”

  Lacey forced a superior smile, looking down her nose at Susanne. “Perhaps a person of your class has boyfriends, darling, but in my milieu, one is only seen with gentlemen.”

  Susanne smiled, amused. “Anyone seen with you, sweetheart, could scarcely be a gentleman.”

  “Indeed? I distinctly saw your last suitor, swinging by his tail.” .

  “Ladies,” Barry said, a little more loudly, “if we could return to—”

  “Of course,” Lacey said, “there’s the matter of sensitivity, darling—at least enough to tell the difference between the floor and my foot.”

  “Well, now that you mention it, dearie, they are equally flat.”

  “I wear flats because I don’t feel small, love,” Lacey purred. “Is that why you wear spike heels to rehearsal?”

  “No, it’s closer to the reason why you wear leotard and tights when there’s no dancing. Of course, dear heart, there isn’t that much to watch when you do.”

  “Quality over quantity, darling,” Lacey said, with more than a bit of an edge this time. “Don’t you ever feel top-heavy?”

  Susanne smiled, secure on her home territory. “Not in the slightest—it’s worth developing good posture. But I must admit that you’re a credit to your plastic surgeon, dear.”

  “Really? Wasn’t it you I saw on that last silicone commercial? You know, the one with the—”

  “Girls!” Mamie’s voice was the smallest of firecrackers, but Lacey and Susanne spun around toward her, wide-eyed. The leading lady advanced like a cheetah, purring, “I’m delighted to learn that you both have a minimal talent for improvisation after all—but you really must restrict it to the stage.”

  The subtext was, of course, that only the leading lady was entitled to throw tantrums during rehearsals. Lacey’s face flamed red, but she swallowed thickly and said, “Of course, Ms. Lulala. Please pardon the lapse.”

  “Yes,” Susanne said in a strange, absentminded tone. Her face was its normal tint and wore a slight frown. “I’m sorry.”

  “Of course,” Mamie said, with the tone of an indulgent empress—but she cast a quick frown at Susanne.

  The soubrette broke into a sudden, sheepish smile, gave an apologetic shrug, and turned back to her place in line. “Don’t shove quite so hard this time, Larry.”

  “We’ll bypass the pileup for the moment—” Barry sighed, “—and move along to the question. Winston?”

  “Hold! … No, we did that,” Winston said hastily, then, “Step no farther, friends, until we know the truth of it! Brinker, say—what is the true reason no more of your kind dwell herein?”

  Brinker sighed. “Because, honored visitor, there are no more of my kind.”

  Susanne began to talk in a whisper, turning from Lacey to Larry and back. “Oh! Isn’t that horrible! Really, how could he have deceived us so?”

  Marty was whispering, too. “He lied to us! Just like a human!”

  “What could have happened to all his friends?”

  “Use your imagination, darling,” Lacey whispered sweetly, and not at all in character. Larry just stared at her blankly.

  “If you will look closely at your scripts,” Barry said, with iron politeness, “you will notice the comment, ‘The characters discuss the matter in shocked and horrified tones’—known in the trade, my friends, as ‘rhubarb.’ Could you attempt a bit of improvisation, now when it is appropriate?”

  Larry flushed, and so did Lacey, but she started hissing at Susanne, “Rhubarb-rhubarb-rhubarb-rhubarb!”

  Larry took the cue from her and began reciting a whispered, “A-B-C-D goldfish? L-M-N-0 goldfish!” to nobody in particular.

  Heartened, Susanne began to whisper, too. “Such an idea! Deceiving poor simple tourists like us ..

  “Speak for yourself dear,” Lacey hissed back.

  Marty was muttering to Ogden in shocked and incredulous tones, and the huge old actor was muttering back.

  “Let it die,” Barry said.

  The whispers faded out quickly, leaving Ogden’s voice alone saying, “You mean, ‘just like an alien,’ don’t you?”

  “No, ‘just like a human,’ ” Marty answered. “Otto was assuming aliens were ethically superior.”

  �
�A fascinating insight into character,” Barry said, “but interior monologues should remain so. Not that I begrudge Ogden his curiosity, or you the benefit of discussion with so expert and experienced a member of your profession, Mr. Kemp—but could you manage it on your own time?”

  “Oh! Sure, Mr. Tallendar!” Marty turned back to Brinker. “So what happened to them all?”

  Barry stabbed at the player, and melancholy strains of music began softly.

  “They died,” Brinker mourned. “They passed away, like summer hay.”

  “Bit of an odd simile,” Ogden rumbled.

  “Like blades of hay before the scythe,” Brinker explained. “Their lives were gay ..

  Winston dropped character, frowning at Barry. “Odd choice of adjective.”

  “Perhaps not, in context,” Ogden mused. Winston turned to him, puzzled, but Brinker was saying, “Their deaths were blythe” to finish his lead-in, and the music began a sweeping progression with a syncopated beat. Brinker began to dance the old soft-shoe, chanting,

  “They lived a life of grace and ease,

  They partied, dined, as each one pleased!

  Their lives were gold-set, glittering jewels! Unbridled license, reft of rules!

  They lived in pleasure, free from cares—

  But when they died, they left no heirs!”

  I was astounded; I hadn’t known Publican had it in him. Really, the man was quite startling. How could it have taken him so long to land his first professional role?

  Perhaps he had needed to wait until his chronological age matched those of the parts that fit his gift. Physically, he was limited to character roles, of course—plump, roundfaced, and balding, he was the perfect image of a fatherly wood-carver or a country general-store keeper, but he would never have been suited to juveniles or romantic leads.

  He finished as the music did, with a flourish. Susanne waited a beat, then cried, “Oh, the poor people! Are there none of them left, then?”

  “I alone am returned to tell the tale,” Brinker pontificated.

  “What tragedy is that?” Mamie demanded. “They lived lives of joy and leisure, the sort that everyone dreams of, unfettered by the demands of squalling infants or scurrying brats! What point is there in pitying them? Do you honestly think they could possibly care about our pity? No, their ghosts are laughing themselves silly!”

  “But their race is dead!” Susanne protested.

  “Everything must die sooner or later, child,” Mamie said, with saccharine sarcasm, “so that doesn’t matter. What does, is how good a time they had while they were alive.”

  “A point,” Winston said. “Therefore, if this race wished to commit racial suicide, who are we to quibble? But that does raise a point, Brinker.”

  “I could think of several,” the alien replied with a bland smile.

  “And already have, I don’t doubt,” the captain rumbled.

  “Nor I. But the most pertinent one at the moment is: why have you brought us here?”

  “Why, so that you could find shelter. There is an abundance of it here.”

  “I should think so, in an abandoned city,” Winston said.

  “It is very kind of you and all that, Mr. Brinker,” Mamie added, “but I am nasty enough to suspect an ulterior motive.”

  “It takes one to know one,” Larry muttered.

  Mamie turned slowly, seeming to swell with outrage, and everyone braced for the blast.

  8

  Barry, though, tried to avert it. “Really quite an impertinent remark, Mr. Rash! I’ll thank you to keep your weakened witticisms to yourself in the future. Now, Mamie, if we could take it from ‘I should think so, in an abandoned city’?”

  But he was Canute forbidding the tide to roll in, and everyone knew it. Mamie continued to swell, and Larry gave her his nastiest smile, and we all waited with bated breath.

  Mamie began quite softly, turning a stony gaze on Larry and hissing, “Children should be seen and not heard, Mr. Rash.”

  Larry gave his script an elaborate glance, then looked up with a vacuous smile. “Sorry. I thought it said ‘rhubarb’ again.”

  “When there isn’t the slightest sign of a stage direction at this point in the script?” Mamie’s lips curled in cruel anticipation. “Can’t you even find the correct page, boy?”

  It was the “boy” that did it. Larry reddened and snapped back, “I may be getting ahead of the script, Ms. Lulala, but at least I’m not so advanced in age as to remember the whole text before it was written.”

  Mamie whirled and paced toward him, nostrils pinched, pale-faced. “You little curmudgeon, the only reason you can dwell on the benefits of your supposed youth is because you’re still on the pacifier—or do you think those noxious things you smoke are mature? Who is changing your nappies these days?”

  “Certainly not you,” Larry retorted. “I fairly shudder at the thought.”

  “He doesn’t mean it, Ms. Lulala,” Lacey said hastily. “He’s just feeling so —”

  “If I might interrupt—” Barry began.

  Mamie ignored him, turning her fury on Lacey Lark. “Stay out of this, young lady, or your poor little ego will be a mass of quivering jelly spread out for an audience of thousands to trample underfoot!”

  Lacey stared, shocked and affronted, but Mamie scarcely noticed her as she thrust her face within an inch of Larry’s and snapped, “You haven’t the slightest ghost of talent, young man, and I shudder to think how you went about getting passing grades in your college acting classes! A favor for a favor, was it?”

  “I would certainly never seek favors that are past history,” Larry answered.

  “Now really,” Barry cried, “this is getting out of hand—”

  But Lacey had recovered and snapped back at Mamie, “Just because you could teach Medieval Theater History from personal experience, Ms. Lulala, is no reason to vent your spleen on those of us who are still vital and fresh!”

  “Entirely too fresh,” Ogden rumbled. “Young lady, you should speak with some respect to your betters!”

  “I will, Mr. Wellesley—when I find one.”

  Mamie turned on Ogden. “I can fight my own battles, thank you, Ogden! Really, when you can’t even support your own weight, let alone pull it, you certainly shouldn’t be taking sides in a quarrel!”

  “The play—” Barry tried, but Ogden’s face darkened. “Pull my own weight? Child, you forget your place!”

  “Don’t judge me by your own condition,” Mamie snapped. “My place isn’t so long past as to be forgotten.”

  Ogden turned beet red and drew breath for a blast, but Susanne gasped, “Mr. Wellesley! Your blood pressure!”

  “Don’t worry, my dear,” Mamie said. “He hasn’t any.” Susanne stared at her, shocked in her own turn, and Barry took advantage of the lull to storm, “Now this is really the outside of too much! I demand that you all—” But Susanne had recovered from her shock, and her whole form seemed to solidify somehow. Her fists clenched, and her eyes narrowed.

  Alarmed, Ramou stepped up behind her.

  It was time, and past, that I took a hand. “Mamie, I realize you’re rather young to have acquired a true sense of professionalism, but might I ask that you set the neophytes an example by returning to the script?”

  She turned on me, ignoring the two covert compliments and subtle rebuke of Larry and Lacey. “When I need your advice, Horace Burbage, I shall know how to ask for it! Don’t patronize me by purveying so blatant a lie as to tell me I’m young!”

  “You are, to me,” I returned. “You may be a mature leading lady now, Ms. Lulala, but I’m afraid I shall never shake my initial impression of you as the razor-edged child who played the ingenue to my judge in Ten Little Indians.” Her lip curled. “A considerable amount of time has passed since then, Horace.”

  I began to feel my own temper rising. “But you have changed so little, my dear! You are still so frantically concerned with superficial sophistication, without having gained an oun
ce of the genuine article!” Really, the woman could have angered a koala.

  “Superficial!” she cried, stung, and I noticed that Lacey Lark was listening with unusual interest. “Why, you declasse old ci-devant! If you weren’t so dowdy and common in your own tastes, you might be able to appreciate true class when you see it!”

  “I can,” I said crisply, “and I don’t.”

  “Hear now, Mamie,” Ogden put in, gliding toward her on his floater. “Horace is the soul of courtesy! You’ve no call—”

  “I have no call for you, Ogden Wellesley!” Mamie turned on him with unwonted savagery—but succor appeared from a most unexpected quarter.

  Charlie Publican stepped between them and said, “Ms. Lulala, if you really are so discontented with the script, you should say so, rather than taking it out on your fellow actors.”

  Mamie jerked to a halt, eyes wide, at a total loss for a moment—and that was all Publican needed. “Surely a grande dame of your eminence is above the petty slights and clumsy insinuations of we mere beginners.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Larry began, but a hard hand clamped on his shoulder from behind—Ramou, sensing a possible resolution. Larry tried to turn, winced, saw who it was out of the corner of his eye, and subsided.

  Mamie tossed her head, a gleam of satisfaction in her eye. “Beginners at acting, Mr. Publican—or insulting?”

  “Yes,” Charles said. “Quite so.”

  Mamie took a step closer to him, head tilted to the side, the gleam in her eye changing quality. “You intrigue me, Mr. Publican. I think you have more experience than you claim.”

  “In acting? No, surely only as an amateur,” Publican protested.

  “No,” Mamie said, “in insulting.”

  Publican answered with a slow smile. “Well, I’ve never been paid for it.”

  “Noooo,” Mamie mused. “You were paid for concocting mixed drinks, weren’t you? But surely, in that capacity, you became accustomed to sustaining insults—without responding.”

  “Madam!” Publican protested. “You wound me! Surely I mixed better cocktails than that!”

  Mamie laughed and touched him lightly on the arm. “Well, then we shall return to rehearsal, as you said. Surely I would not wish to deny you the opportunity to shine in so focal a role at last. But perhaps over lunch, we might discuss the matter further?”