We Open on Venus - Starship Troupers 2

by Christopher Stasheff

  Publius drew circles in the moisture on the table. “I can only guess, Mr. Tallendar.”

  “Then do,” Barry urged. “Conjecture for us.”

  Publius looked up into his eyes, suddenly earnest. “It’s ideas, you see, Mr. Tallendar. You can’t do a play without ideas—no one will come to see it.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” I said. “If it’s all froth and no substance, the audience will feel cheated. Even the most superficial farce has to offer some insights into human character, or the word will get around, and the audience won’t come.” Publius nodded, making his jowls quiver. “That’s right, Mr. Burbage, that’s right! But if there’s ideas, you see, they might be ideas that the management doesn’t want labor to hear—maybe heretical notions about individuality or human rights, or even some nonsense about people wanting a voice in their own government. At the worst, it might make them think—and you never can tell what may happen when people begin to think for themselves.” He glanced about furtively, then leaned close—Barry winced at the reek—and confided, “Then there’s the union.”

  “Union?” I frowned. “Surely there are no unions on this planet; they must be illegal!”

  “Shhh! Not so loud.” Publius glanced about frantically, but no one seemed to be listening. He relaxed and leaned closer, confiding, “Illegal it is, but it’s there nonetheless.” My eyes widened as I realized the implications. On a company world, in which management is government, then surely a union must be a subversive organization.

  “All well and true,” Barry said, “but why should the union not want us seen?”

  “A man came up to me when I’d been here a week,” Publius said. I wasn’t clear as to whether he meant on New Venus a week, or in that bar for a week, the more so as he went on: “He came up and sat beside me as I was drinking and hissed at me that this ‘thee-yater’ was just a capitalist plot to rob the poor working man of a few more of his hard-earned BTUs.”

  “Not really!” I said, but Publius nodded, with a sardonic smile.

  “Surely you can place broadcast advertisements,” Barry protested. “Surely this benighted planet does have 3DT!”

  “Oh, they have it, all right,” Publius said, “but the network’s run by the Company, too—everything is, here—so they won’t touch anything that’s not approved by the censors.”

  “The very censorship that we fled Terra to escape!” Barry said in disgust.

  “The urge toward total control festers eternally in the insecure breast,” I replied, then turned to Publius. “Why, then, are we being allowed to perform at all?”

  “Because they gave permission in writing before Rudders’ message reached them,” Barry said, “and perhaps also because trying to shut us down would be too obvious a contradiction of free enterprise, which is the cornerstone of their philosophy—or, rather, of the philosophical system to which they pay lip service. It is far less troublesome to let us perform, but virtually guarantee that we shall have no audience.”

  “I see.” I nodded. “In that manner, they preserve the appearance of free enterprise, without risking the substance.”

  “Well put,” Barry agreed. “Then, too, if the show folds and we are all stranded here without the price of the fuel we need to lift off, the Company will have the benefit of a few more unwilling workers.”

  I sat rigid, chilled by the thought of spending my declining days on so barren and bleak a dust ball, dipping oil— not to mention the fact that I was far too old for the arduous manual-labor positions that would be all that would be available to a newcomer without status. “Surely it will not come to that!”

  “Oh, certainly not!” Barry waved the thought away. “Valdor and I had anticipated that we would operate at a loss for the first season, possibly even for the second—so I came well equipped with sufficient funds to buy enough fuel to lift off of a dozen planets.”

  “Your power plant is fusion, right?” Publius asked.

  “Of course.” Barry frowned. “Aren’t they all?”

  “Then it needs water for its raw fuel.”

  “Certainly, water, which is broken down into oxygen for breathing, and hydrogen for fusion—water, which is in copious supply on any Terrestrial world, in teeming abund—” Barry’s voice ran down as he realized the implications of what he was saying.

  Publius nodded. “New Venus isn’t all that Earth-like, Mr. Tallendar. There’s no natural water; they have to synthesize it all, or import it from the asteroids.”

  “Alpha Centauri has asteroids?” I asked.

  “No, but Proxima does, and it’s only a short haul, in H-space. But the water’s expensive.”

  “Yes, I see that it would be.” For the first time, Barry looked worried. “That could throw off our financial planning a bit. Oh, no, not enough to keep us on New Venus …”

  “But management doesn’t know that,” I interpreted.

  “Let us not seek to enlighten them, then.” Barry stirred restlessly. “But let us do all we can to attract a large crowd—in spite of their discouragements.”

  “I’ll get full houses for you, Mr. Tallendar,” Publius promised. “I don’t know how, but I’ll do it.”

  “So good of you,” Barry murmured. “Speaking of the house, Mr. Promo, I don’t suppose you’ve rented a theater? Or some kind of performance space, at least?”

  Publius lapsed into another fit of gloom. “They’re all owned by the Company, Mr. Tallendar.” He gazed down into his glass again, shoulders shaking.

  “Come, man, buck up!” Barry slapped him on the back. “It’s just red tape, after all! What did they say?”

  “Not a word.” Publius gasped and lifted his head, blinking away tears. “They won’t even talk to me. Mr. Tallendar, and that’s the truth! Insisted on talking to you, in person!”

  Barry gazed at him for a long moment, then sighed. “Ah, the price of fame! Well then, I shall talk with them, Publius. Who are ‘they’?”

  “The city fathers,” Publius said. “The planetary government. Which, on a planet that’s just one big company town, means: the management.”

  13

  “The management,” as it eventuated, was a committee.

  “Of course,” Barry murmured to me as we rode up in the lift—the old-fashioned kind, in which the car rode on a hydraulic column. The colony planets tend to have more primitive technology, since they lack the capacity for producing spare parts for sophisticated machines—and New Venus certainly did not lack for hydraulic fluid.

  “Why ‘of course’?” I asked, somewhat nettled. “They could at least accord us a single individual to speak with!”

  “Ah, but a committee is far more intimidating,” Barry reminded me, “and makes it possible for no single person to have to accept the responsibility, should anything go wrong.”

  I felt anger beginning to rise. “They will not find we are easily intimidated!”

  “To be sure, they will not,” Barry agreed, “but we must be courteous, my good Horace. After all, we are guests.”

  ‘True.” I sighed and did not state the obvious—that the committee had the authority to refuse us an opportunity to perform. “Still, it would be much more effective to deal with a single person.”

  “And I don’t doubt that we shall,” Barry assured me, “though not until we have run the gamut of the committee’s interrogation.”

  He was right, of course. He must have picked up some hints of business procedure from Valdor. What the true pur-

  poses of the Committee on Cultural Resources were, I can only conjecture—giving junior executives a feeling of importance, or an opportunity to curry favor with the upper management wives, or a sinecure for executives who had already reached a dead end in the Company, or for those who had been passed over for promotion and needed the illusion of importance without the substance—it would have been difficult to say. Their real purpose was plain—to impress the famous visitors from off-planet with their own importance, to make clear in their own minds that they were mo
re important than two famous actors, to make clear to us where the true power lay, and to make absolutely certain that we would not present any hazard to the Company or the existing social order. Barry bore it all with stoic grace, smiling where necessary, looking deeply serious when appropriate, and flattering their miniscule egos, never too obviously, whenever the opportunity presented itself. The upshot of it all was their reluctant approval—I rather thought they overdid the reluctance—and their assigning of us to the civil servant who was in charge of actually getting things done.

  ‘The high school?” I said, as soon as the lift doors had closed behind us. “Why on earth would they assign us to the director of the high school?”

  “You heard their rationale,” Barry sighed. “Their primary concern is the welfare of their children and youth .. ”

  “Also incidentally insuring that the adults are not exposed to rebellious notions,” I clarified, “since if our plays cannot be presented due to ideas that are questionable for young people, they also cannot be seen by their parents.”

  “Of course,” Barry said, “they could arrange separate performances, to which youths are not admitted—but I am certain they have their reasons for not wishing to do so.”

  “Yes,” I said darkly, “and you and I both know what those reasons are. Barry, this is unabashed censorship!”

  “It is,” Barry admitted, “but let us try to see the issue from their point of view. In fact, let us see the issue from the point of view they claim, which is even more demanding than the one they actually hold: that they do not wish to have their young people exposed to ideas that might trouble them, frighten them, or reinforce antisocial impulses—and who would be more aware of what is good and bad for youth than the director of the high school? Especially since, as senior education official, he is also director of all the schools. It is simply that his office is at the high school.”

  “Wonderful,” I grumbled.

  “Now, Horace,” Barry soothed, “look on the bright side. If he is a dedicated official who is sincerely devoted to the welfare and mental enrichment of his students, he could welcome us with open arms, as the greatest cultural resource ever made available to him.”

  “In which case, he will no doubt wish us to delete only the more scurrilous lines and omit Didn’t He Ramble?” I muttered. “Of course, he could be a self-serving career bureaucrat whose only true dedication is to himself and his own advancement, and his interest in his students might be limited to keeping them off the streets and teaching them to submit to authority—but let us not consider that.”

  “Why, as you say, old chap,” Barry murmured. “I shan’t.”

  The taxi driver of course had no need for directions; everyone in town knew where the high school was.

  “There is only the one?” Barry asked.

  “Course, mister,” the driver answered. “If you’d wanted the academy, you would’ve said ‘the academy.’ ”

  Which left me wondering what the academy was.

  I might have been only well known within the trade, and to the truly dedicated theatergoers—but Barry had been a star, and was still famous, and was certainly deserving of honor. He was certainly not deserving of arriving at the school unheralded, with no one waiting to welcome him, nor of having to walk in unannounced like any common salesman or deliveryman.

  On the other hand, give them their due; perhaps they could not believe that a truly famous person would come to their out-of-the-way school; perhaps they believed it was all a hoax.

  Or perhaps the committee had not phoned ahead and told them of our arrival—but I don’t believe that for a second. I believe, quite thoroughly, that the director knew Barry was on his way over and chose to make him go through channels like any common deliveryman, to make clear that here, at least, Barry was not important, and the director was.

  I could see that Barry knew this, too, by the curl of his lip and the set of his jaw; but all he said was, “Shall we enter, Horace?”

  We went inside; the door hissed shut behind us, and the lock cycled through. The inner door opened, and we took off our breathers as we stepped in, slipping them into our inner pockets.

  A sign glared at us, fixed to a pillar directly in front of the door:

  ALL VISITORS MUST REGISTER AT FRONT DESK.

  As if they hadn’t known we were coming! But one look at Barry’s face, and I held my peace. He stood a moment, very still, staring at the sign, then turned away to search the lobby for the front desk, his face immobile.

  An electronic tone sounded.

  Instant babble! A horde of noise, remotely identifiable as comprising youthful voices, assaulted our ears. A second later, their bodies assaulted our space. We had to step back against the pillar to avoid being crushed; even as it was, one young man with a pompadour and some very colorful clothing jostled me as he passed, snarling, “Outa the way, duffer!”

  I pulled myself very upright, feeling my face grow hot. Barry’s hand fastened on my shoulder. “Steady, old fellow, steady! After all, they’re too young to remember you as Morty the Milkman.”

  I tried to allow for their ignorance, though from the look of them, I couldn’t allow for much innocence. We took our station in the lee side of the pillar, letting it break the flow for us, and waited it out as teenagers streamed past on each side of us, reuniting in a single flow a meter beyond.

  Then another tone sounded and, as suddenly as it had begun, the flood was over. A few stragglers sprinted by, late for class; then the hallway was clear.

  Barry stepped away from the pillar, a hard glint in his eye. “Come, Horace. Let us comply with regulations.”

  Apparently, during the barrage, he had identified the front desk, for he stepped over to a long, high counter without the slightest hesitation and waited for the old dragon behind it to look up and inquire as to our business.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  A pretty young thing in a cheerleader’s uniform bustled in behind the counter and handed a cube to the old dragon. “Here’s batch file on the freshman boys, Ms. Turpentine.” Of her uniform, the less said, the better—because the less is what it was.

  The old dragon gave her a curt nod, stuffed the cube into the ROM slot, and fixed her gaze on her screen.

  The cheerleader sat down behind the other desk, its surface strewn with hard copies and cubes.

  I stared. What could they be thinking of, using students as office help?

  Barry must have had a similar reaction, but he recovered more quickly than I and cleared his throat.

  The PYT looked up. “Did you need something?”

  “I would like to speak to the secretary,” Barry said. “I’m the secretary.”

  Barry stared. “A student, the school secretary?!”

  A ripple of annoyance passed across her face, leaving it as expressionless as before. “I’m the morning secretary”

  “Morning?” I realized I was staring and gave myself a shake. “What do you do during the afternoons?”

  “I go to class, of course! Literature, math, history, science, and phys ed. I just get one hour of credit for being secretary—and a paycheck, of course. The director calls it maximal utilization of personnel resources.”

  “Fascinating,” I breathed. “What do the students who go to school all day learn?”

  “Oh, the same, of course, plus electives. I have to give up my electives for this job.”

  I couldn’t help wondering what the electives were. Household Maintenance? 3DT Appreciation? Contemporary Verse and Music? But I forebore to ask, saying only, “Your uniform …”

  “Oh, this?” She gave it a scrap of a glance, which was appropriate. “I didn’t design it. Now come on, tell me whatever you have in mind! I’ve got a lot to do.”

  I wondered if learning manners was on her list, but Barry managed to absorb the shock and be all urbane politeness again. I wondered if he was regretting leaving his milieu, but he showed no sign of sensing the humiliation. “We hav
e come to see the director.”

  She glanced at a smaller screen inset on her desk top. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “I assume so; my name is Barry Tallendar.”

  She shook her head. “Doesn’t say so here.”

  Barry took a deep breath. “We were referred to him by the Committee on Cultural Affairs.”

  She frowned, but touched a key on her desk. “Ms. Turpentine, do you know anything about the cultural committee sending someone over to talk to Mr. Seeholder?”

  Her voice repeated, echolike, over Ms. Turpentine’s desk. The old battle-ax looked up, pressed another key, and said, “Oh, yes, Flippie, they called over twenty minutes ago, said for the director to squeeze him in. I asked what about, and they said he knew.”

  Flippie looked up at us with a dubious frown. “Well, I guess you can go in.” She turned back to her desk.

  “Thank you,” Barry breathed. “In where?”

  She looked up, annoyed, and pointed at a door to our right, opposite the lobby. “In there.”

  “In there” turned out to be a warren of offices that must surely have been laid out by a drunken rat on an off day. Several cold glances speared us as we wandered from one waiting room to another, accidentally stumbling into several cubicles inhabited by people gazing at screens, then backing out again. Barry said nothing, but he was growing more pale, and his face more taut, the farther we went.

  Finally, we stumbled into the last waiting room. It was not large, but the carpet was thick and the lighting was muted. There was a secretary off to the side—it was typical of the colony planets that they had as a matter of course what would have been the highest order of luxury on Terra: a live receptionist. On the frontier, people were cheaper than machines.

  But this one might as well have been a machine, for all the courtesy she gave us. No, let me amend that—I’ve encountered machines that were far more accommodating. She gave us a disinterested glance and pointed to a few straight chairs lined up against the wall. “Sit down. It’ll be a while.”

  We sat.

  I suppose my mounting anger must have been showing in the color of my face, because Barry leaned over to me and said, “Remember, Horace, we need his approval.”