We found most of the set piled just inside the gym door. I stared in surprise, then sidled over to my boss and muttered, “Thought the stevedores couldn’t set foot inside the theater.”
“Yeah,” Merlo said, “but this is no theater.” He looked up as the floater drifted in with the final load. “Thanks, guys.”
“Just part of the job,” one of the men grunted as he hauled the big platform in.
Chovy sauntered up behind him, hands in his jacket pockets, grin on his face. “All unloaded, Merlo.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Chovy.” Merlo shook his hand, and I caught the glitter of a five-kwaher note in the middle of the handshake. “You boys available when we need to move out?”
Chovy’s hand slid smoothly back into his pocket, and the easy grin widened. “Sure, Merlo. Glad to help.” He nodded to me. “Thanks for putting me on to him, Ramou.”
I swallowed and shrugged. “Like you said, Chovy—glad to help.” I shook with him, too, and noticed that Merlo was busy giving his paper-holding handshake to each of the stevedores, who were grinning and also telling him they were glad to help and would be glad to come back.
Then the three of them were strolling away, comparing reminiscences of high school days as they looked at the nostalgic sights around them, and Merlo nodded complacently and said to me, “Good contact you made there, Ramou.”
I swallowed and shrugged again. “Pure luck, Merlo. Like they said—glad to help.”
We had just finished laying the light rails down when a short, bald guy came storming up to us. He wore a business complet and definitely needed to lose some weight. “Just what the hell do you two think you’re doing?”
Merlo looked up in surprise. “Who’re you?”
“I’m Seeholder, and this is my school! What do you think you’re doing to my floor?”
“Laying the rails,” Merlo said slowly.
“Not right on my floor, you don’t! We just had it refinished last summer!”
I looked up, frowning. It was spring on this planet; the year was almost over.
“Cost us a hundred kwahers!” Seeholder snapped. “No way are you going to put a single scratch on it!”
“No, we’re not,” Merlo said slowly. “The rails have rubber feet.”
“Rubber feet? The whole damn thing better be rubber! Or you put pads under ’em! Heat-proof pads, mister! I don’t want any holes where you’ve melted my varnish!”
The synthetic coating we call “varnish” doesn’t melt until a thousand degrees Kelvin, and the light rails never got above a hundred. I bit my lip, though, and let Merlo do the talking. But I could feel the old eager smile tugging at the comers of my mouth.
“Okay, pads.” Merlo sighed. “Ramou, go get the asbestos strips, will you?” He pointed at the pile of scenery units in the comer. “We brought along plenty.”
Seeholder stared at the mountain of gleaming white. “You’re gonna stand that stuff on my floor?”
“It won’t even mar the finish,” Merlo assured him. “It’s just foam. Very strong foam, but just foam.”
“I want pads under it!”
Merlo nodded. “Will do. I brought along plenty.”
“Then why weren’t you laying them down under your rails?” Seeholder shot back.
“Because there is no way the rails could damage your floor, even as much as a gym shoe,” Merlo sighed.
Seeholder gave him a narrow glare. “I don’t like your attitude, mister!”
I was back with the pads by this time, and I couldn’t help it—the smile lazed loose, and I looked up, bright and eager.
Seeholder noted, and his face turned into a mask. He turned to face me, feet apart, hands hanging loose, every muscle tense. He wasn’t any taller than me, but he was six inches wider in the shoulders. He might have been a tough opponent ten years earlier, but he’d been sticking to his desk too long—now, he just looked like a bowling pin waiting for a ball to knock his feet out from under him.
Of course, I didn’t kid myself. Never underestimate an opponent; pride goeth before the fall—and before the broken bone, too. For all I knew, he could have been a black belt, too.
Merlo gave me a warning glance, then turned back to Seeholder. “How long have you been running this school?” That pulled his attention; Seeholder scowled at him. “Ten years. What difference does that make?”
“Sounds like you know your job,” Merlo commented. “You damn well bet I know my job!”
“Well, I’ve been putting up sets for fifteen years,” Merlo said, “and I know my job. I’ve never seen any damage from light rails in all that time—they don’t carry enough power, and they don’t get hot enough. Damage to them, maybe— but never damage from them.”
A crack of uncertainty appeared in the armor of Seeholder’s hostility. “I want pads under ’em anyway!”
“Pads there will be,” Merlo promised. “Come on, Ramou. I’ll lift, you slip the pad in.”
“And don’t think you’re going to go hanging any of your damn lights on any of my bars, either!” Seeholder pointed up at the pipes that supported his climbing ropes and backboards and air-hockey goals.
“Wouldn’t think of it,” Merlo assured him. “They’re too far away. We brought our own booms.”
“Booms?” Seeholder glared like a mother bear defending her cubs. “What’s a boom?”
“A big long pipe,” Merlo explained. “Ramou, bring us a boom.”
Now, the bases on those things are heavy—they have to be, to make sure the weight of the lights doesn’t topple ’em—so the usual way of moving them is to pull the pole down sixty degrees and roll the base along the floor. I could just hear what Seeholder would say about that, though, so I slung a pad over my shoulder and picked up the pole by the pipe, right next to the base, and brought it over.
“You’re going to put that on my floor?” Seeholder yelped.
“It’s rubber,” Merlo assured him, “and we’ll put a pad under it, too.”
“Damn right you’ll put a pad under it!” Seeholder glared at the long pole in my hand. “Stand that up.”
I flipped the pad down, lowered the base carefully onto it, and stood it up. Then I stepped back, flexing my arm—it was a little stiff from all that weight.
Seeholder looked up at the length of the pole. “How many lights are you going to put on this thing?”
“Sixteen,” Merlo said.
“Sixteen! It’ll fall over!”
“It’s weighted,” I pointed out.
“It can’t be weighted that much!” Seeholder stepped up and wrapped his hands around it. “Not the way your kid carried it over here!” He lifted.
It was very gratifying to see his biceps bulge, the veins stand out on his temples, and his eyes widen as the implications hit him. He did manage to get it off the ground, I’ll say that for him. Of course, he was at a bad angle.
“Besides,” Merlo said, “it has a gyroscope built in; that’s why the base is a meter high. Not turned on yet, of course, or Ramou wouldn’t have been able to tilt it.”
That saved Seeholder’s face, a little. He put down the pole and turned back to us, narrow-eyed. “All right, I can’t really complain—but if it does fall over, I’ll have your hide!”
“The horns go with it,” I told him.
This time the glance was pure venom, and he spun on his heel and stalked away.
I rounded on my boss. “Why did you let him push you around like that, Merlo? You should have told him to go push his grade book and leave the skilled stuff alone!”
“Because it’s his gym, and we need it,” Merlo said, his tone absolutely level. “I wouldn’t want to bet that he couldn’t have us shut down in an instant. We’re guests, Ramou, no matter how much we’re paying—and if we aren’t good guests, we won’t be invited back when we want to play New Venus again.”
“I can’t dream of ever wanting to play New Venus again,” I grumbled. “Couldn’t he think of being a good host?”
“We we
ren’t invited,” Merlo said simply. “Now, the cables have to go up the wall, to the press box; that’s where they told us to set up the surveillance camera for our lighting cues. Then the light board and scene boards plug in back there ..
We were just attaching the control cables to the camera as the actors began to drift in, looking about them and standing stock still in horror. Then the gestures began, and I could almost hear them exclaiming in dismay and demanding to know how they were supposed to play in a barn like this.
“Almost” because the press box was soundproof. Why, I don’t know. “What was this box built for, Merlo?”
“Putting in 3DT camera controls and audio boards, when there’s a game,” Merlo answered. “High school sports are very big, on a planet like this.”
I nodded. “Makes sense—there’s no college on New Venus, and I can’t see the Company putting out the money for a professional team.”
Merlo looked up with interest. “Where’d you learn all that?”
“Chovy. He’s a font of information. So if all they do up here is set up cameras and controls, why do they call it a ‘press box’? What are they pressing, anyway?”
“Dunno.” Merlo shrugged. “I used to think it was like a penalty box, where they put players who have been naughty boys—‘press’ short for ‘impressed,’ meaning ‘pushed into’—but I had to set up lights in a field house once, and the engineers there said no.”
I frowned. “Don’t they call news reporters ‘press’?” Merlo nodded. “Way back in the dark ages, they used to make hard copies with a gadget that actually pressed the letters onto the paper. They called ’em ‘newspapers’—so news reporters were ‘the press.’ ”
“Maybe they put news reporters up here?” I ventured. “Why?” Merlo said simply. “Who’d put stories about sports events in a newscast, when the games have programs of their own? No, the term just doesn’t make any sense, Ramou, but we’re stuck with it.” He stood up, stretched, and pulled up a high-backed stool. “Okay. Let’s go back down to the control boards and check out our systems.” And the light show began.
“Barry, I’ve heard of actors having to perform in a barn,” Mamie said, “but this is a rocket hangar! Honestly, what could you have been thinking of!”
“Nothing at all,” Barry said grimly. “The committee did my thinking for me. We play here, or nowhere.”
“Why did you even consider coming to this pestiferous hole!”
“Because we needed a short trip to accustom everyone to space travel—” Barry sighed, “—and if we made planetfall, the landing had to pay for itself. Quid est—or there will be no quid at all.” He turned to me. “Ramou, will you run down to whatever room Grudy has assigned the spear carriers? I’d like you to make certain they’re cooperating with her.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, “but what authority do I have if they’re not?”
“A good point—we need a stage manager,” Barry said, “and Merlo is stuck in the booth. Horace, will you take charge of the position for this production?”
“Of course, Barry.” And that easily, Horace became stage manager as well as supporting actor. I found out later that the stage manager belongs to Actors’ Equity, the actors’ union, so that he can take bit parts when he needs to. Of course, his part was considerably more than a bit, so obviously Barry wasn’t expecting the stage to need much managing.
And the biggest task, they were leaving to me. “I hereby appoint you assistant stage manager, Ramou,” Horace told me, “with full authority over the extras—not that I expect you to need to pull rank.”
“No, sir.” I grinned. “How does this work with Equity?”
“You’re drafted,” Horace said simply. “It’s not unknown for a man to have dual union membership, and you’re still working on your points for both unions in any case.”
“And his competence,” Larry sniffed.
“That will do, Larry, or I’ll delegate him authority over all male members of the cast under the age of thirty.”
Larry paled. Marty grinned.
“Now, go take care of your new charges, Ramou,” Horace said.
“Yes, sir,” I said, and headed for the locker room.
“Extras?” Winston frowned. “I wasn’t aware we had hired extras, Barry.”
“Oh, yes, Winston, for the army. We had planned to, all along—and a local boy, to play MacDuff’s son. We found an energetic lad who proved to be a quick study.”
“So easily?” Winston said, surprised. He turned to me. “How, Horace?”
“Ramou found a cab driver who has a little brother—the driver for the young folk, ‘Chovy’ is his name.”
“Isn’t he the one who found them transport for the scenery?”
“Ah, I see you’re alert as always, Winston. Yes, Chovy seems to be taking care of us quite nicely.” I smiled. “He told Ramou that if he needs anything, he is just to call for ‘Uncle Chovy ..”
“Or if he’s short on time, to just cry ‘uncle,’ ” Winston said with a wry grimace. “Odd how the oldest jokes go wherever there are people, isn’t it, Horace?”
“Merely part of the cultural tradition that binds the human race together, Winston,” I assured him, and to Barry, “Perhaps Shakespeare will play here better than we thought.”
16
We had to dress in the locker room, of course—a gymnasium has no dressing rooms. We were each assigned an archaic thumbprint lock, and we impressed our prints on them immediately; we heeded the sign on the wall that advised us that, if any of our valuables were lost to theft, it was due to our own failing, and the school could not be responsible.
“How absurd, Horace!” Ogden protested.
I could only nod in agreement. “Surely burglars could not open a thumbprint lock!”
“I think that’s rather the point of it,” Winston put in. “So long as the lock is on and fastened, the students have nothing to fear.”
“Except for management deciding to search their lockers.” Marty pointed to the slot in the center of the thumb patch. “See that? The coach just has to stick a key in, and bingo! Lock’s open!”
“Yes, I seem to remember something of the sort from my dim youth,” Winston agreed. “Surely no one could open it without the key.”
“Oh, couldn’t they?” Larry pulled a slender instrument out of his pocket, stuck it in the nearest lock—and it sprang open.
We all stared—except Marty. He only sighed. “Showing off again, huh, Larry?”
“Just because you have no technical skills, Marty, is no reason to denigrate those of us who have.” Larry opened the door and wrinkled his nose. “Athletic shoes, gym clothes … singularly unimaginative student, here.”
“Larry!” I cried, shocked. “That is someone else’s personal property!”
“And very uninteresting it is, too.” Larry shut the door and stuck his pick in the next lock. “Let’s see if his neighbor has a bit more imagination.”
“Let us see if you can discover a notion of ethics! How did you ever develop such a criminal trait?”
“I worked one summer for a locksmith.” Larry rifled through the locker’s contents. “Well, now! This fellow, at least, has a pornographic magazine secreted away!”
“Larry, stop that!” I cried. “You have absolutely no right to go peering into other people’s personal—”
“This one has a small bottle.” Larry had opened another locker, and another. “Aha! A packet of tobacco! And they had the gall to tell me it was a criminal offense!”
“I have no doubt it is, and we should report it instantly.” I went along behind him, slamming locker doors. “However, if we were to do so, we might find ourselves up on charges of burglary! Larry, stop it!”
“Barry will take a very dim view of this, if he learns of it,” Winston said, “and you may be sure there are those among us who would tell him.”
Larry paused.
“And tell Ramou, too,” Marty said. “I happen to know his roommate. He has a
very old-fashioned sense of honor.”
“My amusements have nothing to do with him!”
“I don’t know if he’d see it that way. After all, we’re all from the same company, so your reputation affects his.”
“It most certainly affects Barry’s.” Winston stepped up behind Larry—very closely behind. “We really must ask you to desist.”
“Yes, we truly must.” Ogden stepped close, towering over the slight young man.
“For the last time, Larry, please!” I stepped quite close on his other side.
“Oh, very well, Mr. Burbage!” Larry slammed the last door shut and jammed the pick back into his pocket. “I can see there will be no chance of fun in your presence!”
“We are here to work, not to amuse ourselves,” Winston said severely. “Acting can be immensely satisfying, young man—but only after the tedium and stress of rehearsal is done. If you wish to ‘have fun,’ I suggest you discover a rich uncle and do your best to ingratiate yourself, for there are very few gainful occupations that consist of play.”
“Hey, I thought we were players,” Marty protested, taking the pressure off Larry for a moment.
“Quite so—which is to say that we are the only human beings for whom play is work,” Winston rejoined.
I couldn’t quite agree with him. When all is going well in a comedy, the line between play and work blurs to the point that the distinction ceases. In drama, of course, it is quite another matter—and as Winston had pointed out, rehearsals are simply work, plain and simple. Satisfying work, when all goes well—but it frequently doesn’t.
Then, of course, there are tragedies—such as the Scottish play. I could only hope that it would not prove to be too tragic, indeed.
We Open on Venus - Starship Troupers 2 Page 24