“I hear that you and that red-head had the bar rocking last night,” she said, bringing Kati a mug of the chocolate-like drink that apparently was popular with Vultairians in the morning. “Marita left word that we’re to treat the two of you with kid gloves; feed you and ply you with refreshments. I think she wants to keep you; she doesn’t want you jumping off to play at a different bar because you’re unhappy here.”
Kati laughed as she accepted the hot beverage and sat down at the table.
“If she’s making as much of a profit as we, the entertainers, did last night, I can quite understand her concern. I admit I was surprised by the audience response. I knew my song was a crowd-pleaser—it has been whenever I have sung it—but last night’s crowd joined into the fun with absolute abandon. You’d think they hadn’t been to a sing-along in ages.”
“That’s just it,” Leni said, crossing her massive arms beneath her breasts. “They haven’t. The local entertainers tend to be snooty; they play down to their audiences. Probably has to do with the influence of the Exalteds; lots of ordinary Vultairians try to act like them when they get a chance, and that means being arrogant. Marita usually avoids hiring the locals when she can, but she’s expected to give them the stage every so often, otherwise she could lose her permission to run this outfit.”
“Mathilde didn’t strike me as snooty,” Kati objected.
“She’s not. That’s why she’s welcome to play here any time she wants to, even though her music is not exactly of the kind that drinkers love. But many Vultairian performers do stuff that they consider arty, but which bores the drinkers, so Mathilde’s great in comparison. The early shift is one of Marita’s innovations; that way she can have Mathilde playing the same evening as off-world entertainers who are better at crowd-pleasing.
“I hear that you and Joaley shared your profits with Mathilde, and Darce and Wen. A smart move that.”
“Don’t tell me that the word about that has already spread,” Kati protested. “Is this one of those worlds were the rumour-mill makes sure that nobody gets to keep any secrets?”
“Not really,” Leni replied with a chuckle. “Vultaire is full of secrets. But our morning waitress lives in the same building as Mathilde and her brother. She had spoken with Mathilde, and Mathilde had said that she was awfully happy with the way the new off-world duo were treating her.”
“What’s the situation with them, anyway?” Kati asked, keeping her voice as casual as possible. “Last night Mathilde mentioned that she was looking after her brother, and that life had been tough for them, but she didn’t give any details. It occurred to Joaley and me to wonder if we could help in some way.”
“I think that you two have already helped her a lot.” Leni stared at something beyond Kati’s head, her features gone serious. “If you allow her to be part of the performing group for a while at least, that’ll help her and her brother even more. But as to what their situation is, it’s not for me to tell you.” She turned her eyes back to Kati and grinned. “This would be one of those Vultairian secrets, and it’s for Mathilde and Zass to talk about it, if they will.”
She turned to return to the kitchen, and Kati knew that she would get no more information on the topic from Leni.
“I’ll get Didi to bring you breakfast as soon as I’ve cooked something fresh,” the large woman added as she went. “She is eager to talk with you, wants to know all about the show last night.”
“Oh dear,” Kati muttered to Leni’s retreating back.
*****
Marita’s was crowded by suppertime that evening. Mathilde, Darce and Wen had all arrived early, and in high spirits. Mirry and her Mother looked happy, and even the bartender, a normally sour-faced Shelonian named Vandors, was smiling. Sam in the kitchen was working as fast as he could, and keeping his undercooks and the servers busy.
“This is good for Marita and Sam,” Mathilde told Joaley and Kati while the performers enjoyed a beer while waiting for the kitchen to find the time to feed them. “The restaurant and the bar are making money, way more than they normally do, and the Warrions are not going to shut down or try to change a business that’s doing well. That means better job security for everyone involved—the Warrions take their cut, of course.”
“Mathilde, are these Warrions going to come after us for a share of our spoils?” Darce asked.
“You mean you and Wen? Kati and Joaley? Me?” Mathilde grinned. “If you’re planning to take your ‘loot’, as Kati calls it, off-world, they’ll take a big cut when you convert it into Federation chips. If you spend it here, artistic profits are not taxed in Port City. Most of the time they’re pretty scarce.”
“I suppose that we can arrange to pay for our passage off-world with Vultairian coin,” Wen said. “I know that there are vessels that accept that—I’ve already looked into it.”
“You’re not in a rush to get away from here or anything, are you?” Joaley asked, nailing Wen with her eyes.
Wen looked a bit embarrassed.
“There’s a girl I made promises to, waiting for me at The Marrachat Station,” he said. “I don’t want her to take the notion that I don’t keep my word. We would have been there already if....”
“If your companion hadn’t gotten into a dispute with the Second of the ship that we had passage on,” Darce finished for him. “We’d agreed to pay our way by helping in the galley and entertaining the crew, but the guy I ended up in a fight with expected to be waited on hand and foot. He wanted us to serve him breakfast in bed, for crying out loud! No-one eats breakfast in bed on a space vessel! But he wanted it, and the Captain was a woman, and he was her boy-toy by the looks of things, and what he wanted, he got!”
“I offered to serve it to him, just so we’d get our passage, but Darce went kind of nuts,” Wen said. “He wouldn’t let me, and would have beat the guy up if another crew member and I hadn’t intervened. So they dropped us off at the next stop which was here.”
“Good grief,” groaned Joaley. “Is that the way everybody ends up here? Kati and I had a similar deal for passage, and then the Captain of the Trader we were on decided that he wanted me to warm his bed. Had a thing about red-heads. I wasn’t going anywhere near that bed; he was adamant, and we ended up being dropped off here. It was that, or whore it with the Captain, and I have no talent for whoring!”
“One of the crew told me that in this stretch of the Space Lanes that sort of a ploy is pretty common among a certain brand of ship captains,” said Wen. “They know that nobody wants to be dropped off here; it’s hard to get off again, if you have no local resources. Even getting hold of parents, assuming that’s an option, can be tough. The Oligarchs here want you to pay good coin to transmit messages across the void, and if you have it, you’re usually not stranded here in the first place.”
“I’m afraid that my home world is not a popular place with the travellers of the Space Lanes,” Mathilde commented with a small, wry smile. “Although, we’re not all completely uncivilized.”
“Kati and I have been discussing the possibility of doing a little bit of travelling, since we’re stuck here,” Joaley broached, carefully. “Maybe we could pay our way by staging entertainments such as last night’s. I know that Darce and Wen wouldn’t want to come along, but maybe it’s possible to pick up replacements for them, once they’ve earned their passage money, and perhaps you’d be willing to join us, Mathilde?”
“Hm. It’s a thought,” answered Mathilde, a considering look crossing her face. “Let me think about it for a day or two before I decide.”
“There’s no rush,” Kati assured her. “We should be the latest fad right here for a while yet. Which means that we can help Wen and Darce earn their passage money, and then we’ll need to find replacement comedians. So ponder all you want, and let us know when you’re done.”
“That reminds me,” Joaley said. “We could put all the Federation credit chips that come our way into Wen and Darce’s share. The rest of us can live without them, but
the boys’ll find them handy when they get off-planet.”
“I’m good with that,” Kati agreed immediately.
“I never expected to get any Federation credit chips,” Mathilde said with a laugh. “And I don’t have a use for them, so I have no objections.”
“You ladies are very generous,” Wen said solemnly.
“I’m thinking of that girl who is waiting for you,” Joaley said, grinning. “She will probably need a big bouquet of flowers by the time you get to The Marrachat.”
“She’ll deserve it,” Darce commented. “She really is a nice young woman, and I don’t want Wen to lose her. Besides, maybe I’ll get to be a godparent to their kid someday.”
Wen gulped at his beer with an air of someone who wasn’t sure where it was safe to look. Fortunately for him, Mirry arrived with a tray that had their dinners on it, and plopped it on the table.
“I’m sorry guys that I’m late with this. And I’m going to have to ask you to fetch your own plates and utensils from the sideboard. I told Vandors to pour you more beer if you take your mugs to the bar. We’re so busy that I’m not sure how we’re going to manage without pissing some of the customers off! So you’ll have to help yourselves—please!”
“Not a problem.”
Kati got up and shooed Mirry back to her job.
“Guys, please refill our mugs at the bar—and try to keep them straight, which is whose, that is. Mathilde, maybe you can start moving the platters onto the table while Joaley and I fetch the plates, forks, and knives.”
“Ah, lucky us. We’ve got Kati to organize our lives for us,” Joaley cried as she rose to do as bid.
*****
This night, too, was a great success.
Once again Mathilde started the program, with her ballads. Kati noted with interest that there was something new in her music tonight, something subtle which had been missing the previous evening. Kati queried The Monk about it, and he confirmed her impression: yes, subvocalized the old reprobate, it was real, there was a touch of new energy in Mathilde’s singing and playing.
“You’ve influenced her,” the Granda subvocalized. “I think it makes her a better performer. With more exposure to you and Joaley, she will improve further.”
Darce and Wen had altered their set slightly, taking out pieces that had not found the audience receptive, and replaced them with others apparently culled from copious stores of material. The comics were well received; nevertheless, all through Mathilde’s set, as well as the boys’ stand-up, there was a feeling that these were mere preliminaries. Everyone was waiting for the real show to begin. Kati was somewhat disturbed by this; too much was riding on her and Joaley’s shoulders, but when she broached the topic, the red-head laughed at her.
“We’ll be fine—you’ll be fine,” she said. “This bunch will eat out of your hand, Kati of Terra. Think of them as the children whom you used to entertain, anxious to be drawn into the fun. My rikah and me, we’re pretty much forgotten once you start doing your sing-along thing, Kati.”
“Don’t you dare desert me,” Kati protested. “You’re the one with the voice. Me, I can lead the singing, but the sounds that I make in my throat are pretty mediocre, and, I’m far from an expert guitar player. About all I can do is infect the crowd with my enthusiasm.”
Joaley raised her eyebrows and looked at Mathilde who sat across from her. They were ignoring Darce and Wen’s repartee—not a loss, since the two were doing a repeat.
“You heard her, right, Mathilde?” she asked rhetorically of the giggling Vultairian. “About all she can do.... A pretty impressive ‘about all’ I would say!”
“In any case, Joaley, I need your voice and your rikah on the stage. ‘The Mudball song’ is good for only about a half-an-hour of the set, even if we teach it all over again for the benefit of the newcomers. For the rest, your voice carries the show.”
“Don’t worry, Kati, I’m not about to bail out on you. I like playing and singing with you. Had I been one of the kids you entertained I would have been in the front row, singing louder than anyone else!”
*****
The last two-and-a-half hours were a smash. The crowd was primed for fun, and Kati and Joaley delivered, singing every sing-along song that they had been able to dredge up from their node-enhanced memories. After the first hour had passed, some of the patrons, ones who had been at the bar the night before, began calling for “The Mudball Song”. For a few minutes Kati and Joaley ignored the requests, but soon they relented, and called Mathilde, Wen and Darce on to the stage before launching into “The Ode to a Mudball”.
The clientele picked up the beat and the words to the song very quickly, almost too quickly, Kati thought.
“We’re going to have to come up with other rousing sing-alongs,” she muttered to Joaley in an aside in a break between renditions. “Once everybody knows this one it won’t take up nearly as much of our set as it does now.”
“I’ve a thought,” Joaley whispered back. “Tell you later.”
Kati was glad when Mirry came to say that the bar was closing in thirty minutes, and she could wish the audience good night, inviting them to return the next day. Mirry told the performers that she had taken their evening snack and the beers that a customer had paid for, to Kati and Joaley’s room so they could eat while dividing up the spoils.
“Thanks, Mirry. That was thoughtful of you,” Kati told her.
“Actually it’s a good practise,” Mirry said with a grin. “Once you guys are gone from the bar it’s easy to get the customers to leave. There’s nothing left for them to gawk at.”
“I’m not sure that was a compliment,” Joaley muttered to Mirry’s retreating back while Kati chortled.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Darce. “They can gawk all they want to, so long as they keep paying for the privilege.”
*****
“If we can get to a communications console,” said Joaley to Kati late that night, “we could access records of the music of Tarangay, that’s Lank’s home world. They have tons of songs suitable for sing-alongs; it’s a world in love with music, and some of the folk really went in for the participatory stuff.”
“If we can get access to a communications console...that’s a pretty big if on this planet, it seems,” Kati sighed. “Of course, once Lank gets here, he can teach us, but it might still be a couple of weeks before he and Rakil arrive.”
“What about that contact person Cary gave us?” Joaley asked. “Maybe he could help?”
Kati turned this over; then shook her head.
“I don’t know. I think he’s more of an underground operative who can help us with connections to local revolutionaries, and such. The Oligarchs probably keep the communications consoles for themselves, since they’re only good to people who have nodes, and the common Vultairians have been denied that privilege.”
“Still, the pooh-bahs may be pretty careless about access to consoles precisely because the locals can’t use them,” Joaley mused. “Think of the one the bureaucrat at the Customs was staring at. He could have looked at anything his heart desired, but he would not have understood much without a node to translate for him.”
“You should question Marita about console access,” The Monk interjected. “The non-Vultairians, unless they were born here, have translation nodes. They would know about unofficial access, if it exists.”
“What?” Joaley had picked up on the moment of distraction which indicated that Kati was communicating with the Granda.
“The Monk suggests that we ask Marita what she knows about communications console access,” Kati responded. “After all, she’s an off-worlder and therefore able to make use of the technology.”
“Hm. It’s worth a try. Unless the Oligarchs have the strangers among them running scared.”
“I have the impression that Marita doesn’t scare all that easily.”
*****
“The Warrion Family will let you access a communications console—for a price,” Marita
said carefully, when Kati and Joaley brought up the subject the next day.
“Didn’t Darce say something about that when he talked about how he and Wen ended up on Vultaire?” Joaley asked Kati.
“Yeah,” Kati replied, scrunching up her brow. “He said that the Oligarchs wanted good coin to transmit messages across the void. It would take access to a communications console to send messages to other worlds.”
“All we really need to do is access the music archives on the Federation Space Station,” Joaley said. “It would only take a moment for Kati’s node to download what we need. Then we can share, node to node, and we’ll be in business.”
Kati shuddered at the thought of passing information directly from the Granda to another person’s node, using the connector spots on the left thumbs. She had done it once, when it had been imperative to share images with Mikal, but the experience had been worse than uploading from, or downloading to, a machine. Yet Joaley, another Wilder, seemed to casually accept it.
“Even at that, they’ll soak you,” Marita said, sighing. “What’s worse, those consoles that they rent to off-worlders, are bugged. If they’re curious about you, and paranoids are curious about everybody, they can trace your communications history once you’ve used such a console. They’ll be able to get a list of every scanner that has ever looked at your connector spot. That’s like reading a book about your life.”
“But that’s illegal!” Joaley sputtered. “It’s against the most basic Federation law!”
“Federation law doesn’t mean much around here, except in places that Federation inspectors actually run random checks.” Marita looked tired and frustrated as she spoke. “Don’t mention to any Vultairian that I told you about this. It could get me stripped of my business licence—but I couldn’t allow you to naively walk into that trap.”
On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted Page 13