[355] “I’ll go on,” he said. “That will give you ten minutes.”
Newland strolled onstage. Leaping more than a meter off the ground in the low gravity, the poodles followed like balls of fur on pogo sticks.
Lindy helped Mr. Cockspur sit down, then grabbed the first person she saw.
“Marcellin, can you see if Hikaru’s still in costume? Mr. Cockspur ...” She looked at Cockspur, who had staggered to a bench. “Mr. Cockspur is swooning.”
As soon as he noticed the change in the order of the acts, Sulu left his seat and headed backstage. Halfway there he met Marcellin, still in makeup, coming after him. They grinned at each other. Marcellin swept low in a courtier’s bow as Sulu passed.
“Hikaru!” Lindy said. “Can you go on? Do you know the soliloquy? I know the audience is awful, but—”
“Yes I can go on, yes I know the soliloquy—the original, I mean—and I don’t care about the audience,” Hikaru said. “It’s a challenge, right?”
He suddenly became aware of Mr. Cockspur standing behind him.
“I have recovered,” Cockspur said. He strolled past Lindy and Hikaru and took his place in the wings.
Speechless, Hikaru watched him go.
“Why, that—!” Lindy made a wordless sound of outrage. “I don’t believe it! He wanted to go on last, and he ... he ... I’ll kill him! Hikaru, I’m sorry.”
Hikaru sighed. “Look at it this way. The audience will probably kill him for you. As for me—I’m going to find out if the flying people grow tomatoes.”
Mr. Cockspur composed himself in the wings. He permitted himself only a moment’s glee that Newland Rift did not seem to be having his usual success. Cockspur could not help but admire the audience. They were the enemy, to be sure, but a worthy enemy; and clearly they understood the difference between art and mere escapism.
Rift swept offstage, balancing two pyramids of French poodles across his outstretched arms. Out of sight of the audience, he let the dogs down.
“Oy,” he said. The puppies huddled at his feet.
After his introduction, Mr. Cockspur waited a dramatic [356] few seconds before making his entrance. Onstage, he gazed into the distance above the audience and let the tension build.
And then he began Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquy.
“Shall I kill myself, or not? That’s what I keep asking. I can’t decide if it’s better to be miserable, or to end it all. If I sleep, that is to say die, all my exquisitely painful sensitivity will end. That would be wonderful! I’d like to die, I’d like to sleep. But what if I dream? Now there’s a real problem. That would keep anyone from saying ‘so long’ to life. Who wants to get old, who wants to put up with uppity troublemakers, who wants to listen to the ignorant bellyaching of illiterate critics, when he can end it all by stabbing himself with a dagger in his bare bodkin? Who would fardel a bear, and put up with all that grunting and sweating, if he wasn’t scared of going straight to hell? What if hell means having to live it all over again, or maybe even something worse, like traveling through the undiscovered universe without insurance? We all have guilty consciences, so even if we do get sick and pale, and even if we cast and pitch and heave, we keep on sailing down the current of life, because eventually we’re going to lose anyway.”
Backstage, Hikaru covered his eyes with one hand. He had not heard Mr. Cockspur’s version of the soliloquy before. “I don’t believe it,” he moaned, embarrassed, despite himself, for Mr. Cockspur.
The whole audience sat in exquisitely painful silence.
Jim applauded politely, hoping his crew would follow his lead.
Suddenly the director leaped to his feet and shrieked, full-voiced and frenzied. Forgetting his dignity, he twirled around and howled.
The fleet personnel followed his example. The amphitheater reverberated with the howls and shrieks and foot-stampings of the director’s crew. The applause continued at its peak volume for several minutes. At first even Mr. Cockspur looked stunned; then he took it as his due. He made a stiff slight bow to his new followers.
McCoy said something, but the screaming drowned him out.
[357] “What?” Jim shouted.
“Never underestimate a mint julep!” McCoy shouted back.
Mr. Cockspur left the stage, head high, still coolly in character. He came back onstage, swaggering. The audience made him come back a dozen times before their voices began to give out.
The director fell to one knee before Jim Kirk.
“Will you forgive me, captain?”
“Of course,” Jim said. “Er ... what for?”
“I impugned your civilization. I was most unfair! It’s clear to me that I misunderstood your culture profoundly—I cannot quite reconcile the witchcraft, but later you may do me the honor of explaining why you permit it. For now, I could not comprehend an intellectual discussion. My mind is overwhelmed by the sensitivity, the depth of feeling, the exquisite artistry! Captain, do you think—might it be possible—could you arrange an introduction?” Overcome by emotion, the director leaped and howled and screamed, till Mr. Cockspur returned once more and took another bow.
During the curtain calls, every performer got a wild round of applause from Enterprise personnel and fleet crew alike. The director led the cheering. It was as if he had seen the light, and now hoped to make up for his indifference of the past two hours.
When the director and his people let the company off, Lindy felt elated but confused. Her ears rang.
I guess I have a lot to learn about offworld audiences, she thought.
A few minutes later, Jim came backstage with the director, his entourage, and the captive Koronin. The director headed straight for Mr. Cockspur. He knelt before the actor—on both knees, Jim noted.
“Sir! I am dumbstruck with awe! Never has a performance affected me so deeply!”
The dumbstruck director went on like this for some minutes. Cockspur made modest noises at first, but finally succumbed to the temptation to point out the subtleties in his performance, the particularly clever and appropriate word choices.
“Tell me if I’m wrong,” Lindy said softly to Jim, watching [358] the interchange between the actor and the director. “They hated the rest of us and they liked Mr. Cockspur?”
“As far as I can tell, that’s about the size of it.”
“Sir,” the director said, “would you condescend to be presented at the court of our empress? She is renowned as a patron of the arts. Her greatest pleasure is rewarding artists who please her.”
Lindy tried to keep a straight face.
“I believe I could arrange the time,” Mr. Cockspur said.
“Director,” Jim said, “I’d like to introduce Amelinda Lukarian, manager and magician of the company.”
Lindy managed to control her laughter. She offered the director her hand.
He drew back and made a sweeping gesture between them.
“Don’t touch me, witch!”
“What? Witch?” Lindy started to laugh again, then became quite sober when she realized how serious he was. “I’m not a witch! I’m an illusionist! I told you that at the beginning of my act.”
“How clever, to conceal your diabolical powers under a pretense of fraud!”
“I’m an illusionist!”
“I don’t believe you. No one could do what you did without arcane powers. No one could escape from chains, and a locked trunk high above the ground—”
“It was a trick.”
“You lie!”
“Now just a minute—!”
Jim feared the incident would get out of hand. He broke into the conversation before the two of them could exchange any more insults. “Lindy, why don’t you show the director how you did one of your illusions? How about the trunk escape?”
“It took me months to perfect that! I’m not giving away the secret. Besides, it isn’t allowed.”
“An obvious witch’s ploy,” the director said.
“You can’t honestly believe
in witches! It takes a real bumpkin—”
Jim winced. “Lindy!—er, director, pardon us for a moment.”
[359] Koronin, surrounded by the director’s bodyguards, watched the proceedings with glee. A brawl among the commanding officers was even better than a brawl in the audience.
Jim took Lindy aside and spoke to her intently for several minutes. She returned, glowering.
“I’ll show you how I do one escape,” she said to the director. “But you have to swear you’ll never tell anybody.”
“If it involves no witchcraft, I will swear. Otherwise, I will denounce you.”
Lindy muttered something. “Come with me.”
The director turned back to Mr. Cockspur. “Honored sir, please pardon me a moment. When I return, I will write you a visa for our realm, and we may complete arrangements for your visit.”
Lindy headed toward her equipment cubicle. The bodyguards and Koronin followed the director.
Lindy stopped. “This isn’t a public demonstration. I said I’d show you.”
“My bodyguards must accompany me,” the director said in a perfectly reasonable tone, “and we cannot leave the traitor unguarded.” He considered. “If you prefer, I will blindfold her.” He twisted her veil and pulled it over her eyes. Koronin tried to draw back, but the bodyguards prevented her.
Lindy blew out her breath in frustration and flung aside the curtain. When Jim tried to come in, she stopped him.
“Uh-uh, Jim, you stay here.”
“You can’t go in there alone with them—suppose the director loses his temper again? Suppose he decides you really are a witch!”
“That’s ridiculous. And you’re not coming in. This is four too many people already.”
“I can’t let you go alone.”
This time she glowered at him. “All right, if that’s the way you feel about it.” She looked around. “Mr. Spock!”
He joined them. “Yes, Lindy?”
“Would you come with me? Jim thinks I need a bodyguard.”
“Wait a minute,” Jim said. “How come you’ll show him, but you won’t show me?”
[360] “Because he already knows how to do it.”
She disappeared into the equipment room, Spock right behind her, and dropped the curtain in Jim’s face.
Outside, Jim steamed. The demonstration seemed to take a good deal longer than the onstage illusion itself. He had just about decided to barge in and be sure nothing had gone wrong when the curtain opened and everyone came out. Koronin raised her bound hands and pulled the blindfold from her eyes.
“Are you convinced?” Jim said to the director.
“She’s no witch,” the director said. “The trick she showed me is child’s play. I would have seen it immediately, but I came expecting entertainment, not trickery. Why, anyone could do it.”
Jim saw that Lindy was about to blow her stack, and even Spock raised his eyebrow at the director.
“Now that that’s settled,” Jim said before anyone else could get a word in, “hadn’t you better finish your arrangements with Mr. Cockspur?”
“An excellent suggestion.” He looked at Lindy. “Child’s play,” he said again. He swept away, his entourage swirling in his wake.
“I knew he’d say that!” she said. “Mr. Spock, didn’t I tell you they always say that?” She hid her face in her hands. Her hair swung down like a curtain. Her shoulders shook.
“Lindy,” Jim said gently, “hey, Lindy, it’s all right. He had to save face—”
She fled into the equipment room.
Jim looked at Commander Spock. “Do you think she’s all right?”
“I have no idea, captain. I have only limited experience with emotional outbursts.”
And then Jim heard shrieks of laughter coming from the equipment room. He started to chuckle. He followed Lindy inside. As Commander Spock watched, a puzzled expression on his face, Jim and Lindy laughed till tears ran down their cheeks.
Spock considered differences and similarities; and, having considered, he went looking for his cousin. He found Stephen alone amidst chaos as the company packed up.
[361] “Stephen,” Spock said, using his cousin’s own chosen name.
Stephen glanced up from his equipment. “Quite an experience, Spock, wasn’t it?” he said. “Survive today’s performance at the beginning of your career, and no audience you ever encounter will bother you for a minute.”
“It is not my intention to make the stage my life’s work,” Spock said.
“I didn’t mean you, I meant me,” Stephen said.
“I was under the impression that you were a seasoned performer. And so, I believe, was Lindy.”
“I said I could juggle. I never said I had stage experience,” Stephen said easily. “Now I have stage experience.”
Stephen tossed Spock a lead-weighted club. Spock plucked it spinning from the air and passed it back. By the time it reached Stephen, the blond Vulcan had grabbed another club and tossed it to Spock. Spock caught it, too. Stephen continued to add items to the pattern: six clubs, a long, thick-bladed knife, an unlit torch. Spock noted, as the handle of the knife snapped solidly into his palm, that the weapon appeared unwieldy, but that it was balanced perfectly.
The clubs and the knife and the torch flew and tumbled between the two Vulcans. The pattern challenged Spock, unaccustomed as he was to juggling with a partner. He met the challenge and increased it by flinging one of the clubs in an arc high above the steady back-and-forth path of the other implements. Stephen caught the club, returned it to the pattern, and spun the torch up into the reverse of the same arc. Spock had no time for calculations. He reached up, trusting that his hand would be where he knew—where he felt—the torch would come down. It snapped firmly against his hand.
Stephen laughed. Spock wondered if anyone else could hear the faint hollowness, the artificial cheer, of his cousin’s laughter. He doubted it. Human beings generally accepted as truth whatever they saw on the surface. They could not experience, as Spock had, the resonances of Stephen’s quest, the moment of joy that Stephen had felt turning to despair, the moment that he finally had lost forever.
“We make a great team,” Stephen said. “Maybe you [362] should consider the stage. Didn’t you ever think about running away to join the circus?”
“Never,” Spock said. The clubs spun and flew between them; the solid slap of wood against palm created a satisfying rhythm. “Stephen,” Spock said again, trying to return to the original purpose of his conversation.
“If you didn’t want to be a juggler, you could start a mentalist act.”
Spock nearly flinched at the idea of opening his mind to a different random group of beings, not just a single time, but once or twice each night forever. “I think not,” he said. “Stephen, I wish to speak to you seriously.”
Stephen sighed.
“I have acted harshly toward you in the past,” Spock said. “Perhaps I will do so again in the future, for, truly, I do not comprehend the choices you have made for your life. But ... I am grateful for the risk you took for me. I am in your debt.”
Stephen regarded him across the tumbling clubs, his gaze ice-blue and steady. “I didn’t do it to put you in my debt,” he said.
“Nevertheless, you may someday need more help than your ingenuity can provide. I am not entirely without resources ...” Spock let his voice trail off as he realized that several members of the company and the crew had begun drifting nearer, attracted by the juggling. Spock had intended this to be a private talk. “Whatever your motives, I am grateful for your actions.” He spoke quickly, hoping to end the conversation before it was overheard.
“You know my motives, Spock,” Stephen said, pronouncing Spock’s name with Vulcan intonation. “I’m a thrill-seeker.” As the torch slapped into his hand, he touched the ignition switch. He flung the torch high, and it incandesced into flame.
Spock caught the blazing torch as easily now as before, but as he passed it back, he realized tha
t though he knew how to keep all the juggling implements in the air indefinitely, he had no idea how to stop so many at once, how to end the pattern. He glanced at Stephen. The flare of Stephen’s pale eyebrow, the glint of mischief in his blue eyes, hinted that he understood Spock’s [363] difficulty and found an instant of very real humor in it. This time, Spock did not begrudge it to him.
Uhura sat in the darkness of her cabin, touching the strings of her old harp in a tuneless sequence. But her fingers kept searching out the flying people’s musical patterns. She put the harp aside and sank down into the silence.
A song spun itself through Uhura’s mind. She wished she could make the patterns comprehensible, or she wished they would go away entirely. She knew she would never get either wish.
At first she did not reply to the knock on her door. But it sounded again, and then a third time. The harsh noise broke into the quiet Uhura sought.
She activated the lights. How could she explain sitting alone in the dark to any of her shipmates? They would think her ridiculous.
“Uhura?” Janice Rand said.
Uhura had been about to open the door, but now she hesitated. She could face almost anyone else, but she had very little emotional resiliency left right now, certainly not enough to offer Janice the encouragement and support she needed so badly. The citizen of Saweoure under whose “protection” Janice had lived had kept her powerless by telling her over and over and over again that she was stupid and worthless, until finally she began to believe it. Janice discounted her own strength, and so could only call on it in desperation. Eventually, with time, with help, she would learn to trust herself again.
“Uhura, please let me in. I’m worried about you. Are you all right? Are ... are you mad at me?”
“Come,” Uhura said. The door slid open. “Of course I’m not mad at you, Janice.”
Janice remained in the corridor, watching her.
“Come in, please,” Uhura said. “I was thinking about something, I didn’t hear you knocking at first.”
Janice stepped gingerly across the threshold. “I didn’t see you at Lindy’s show.”
STAR TREK: TOS - Enterprise, The First Adventure Page 40
