by Jack Vance
From somewhere deep inside the thorax came a rumbling voice. “Maybe okay. Friend ’zants scared.”
Dame Isabel stepped forward. “You need fear nothing. We are a legitimate grand opera company, we will perform a program we are sure you will enjoy.”
“Maybe okay, we go to look for yellow no-good ’zants. Maybe not scared.”
Boltzen explained. “He’s not literally afraid, it’s only that they dislike to come up from their tunnels any more than necessary; they feel that it’s demeaning.”
“Interesting! But why should this be?”
“It’s a matter of social standing. They eject their criminals and nonconformists upon the plain where they become either rogues or bands of what might be termed psychotics. So you see the plain represents an undesirable environment to the ’zants.”
“I understand fully,” said Dame Isabel. “Well, the performance will take place inside the ship, and they will be spared the indignity of watching from the plain.”
Boltzen turned to the elder. “You hear sky-talk? He show pretty things, pretty noise, not on plain, but inside ship. You and friend ’zants run over plain and go inside ship to look. Okay?”
“Okay. I go down, talk to friend ’zants.”
Bernard Bickel remained with Commandant Boltzen to talk over old times, while the rest of the group returned to the Phoebus. A transformation already had taken place. Under the guidance of Captain Gondar a tall pole had been erected in the center of the pentagonal space enclosed by the tubes and globes. Guy-wires were now strung, and over all were drawn sheets of a metalloid fabric, creating a tent. The stage had been opened, the orchestra pit extended, and when Dame Isabel came to make an inspection she found Madoc Roswyn carefully arranging the collapsible benches around the area. “Hmmf!” said Dame Isabel to herself. “Trying to make herself useful, so that I won’t put her ashore.” She chuckled grimly, and looked about for Roger, but he was nowhere in sight.
Bernard Bickel presently strolled up. “I’ve had an interesting chat with Commandant Boltzen, and I think I was able to put across our point of view. He still is a trifle dubious, but he agrees that no harm can be done and quite possibly some good.”
Dame Isabel snorted. “Indeed I should think so!”
“He also asks that you, I and Captain Gondar join him for dinner, when perhaps he’ll be able to give us more information regarding the byzantaurs.”
“That is exceedingly gracious of him,” said Dame Isabel. “I shall be glad to go.”
“I assumed as much and accepted the invitation for all of us.”
Three hours later Sirius hung close above the horizon, its lower edge touching a bank of soft white mist at the far edge of the plain. The company had gathered outside to watch the coming of twilight and a very impressive sight it was, as Sirius drifted into the clouds, which immediately became suffused with nacreous pinks and greens.
Dame Isabel, Captain Gondar and Bernard Bickel set off for their dinner engagement. Roger, who wandered morosely off across the plain, now returned to the ship where he became an unintentional eaves-dropper. He had stopped to watch the Sirius-set beside the off-ramp, unaware that Madoc Roswyn and Logan de Appling were sitting on the bottom step, with a canvas panel hiding Roger from their view.
Roger recognized Madoc Roswyn’s slightly husky voice and stood transfixed. “Logan, please don’t speak like that — you’re really quite wrong.”
“No, I’m not wrong!” De Appling’s voice quivered with the intensity of his emotion. “You don’t know him as I do!”
“Captain Gondar has been more than kind to me; he’s treated me with complete consideration, and never tried to force himself upon me, like that unmentionable Roger Wool.”
Roger’s ears burned and his skin felt crisp and brittle as if a chill wind were playing across his face.
“He’s just softening you up,” argued de Appling. “He’s a hard man, my darling —”
“Please don’t call me that, Logan.”
“— he’s self-centered and unprincipled. I know! I’ve seen him in action.”
“No, Logan, don’t say things like that. He’s helping me stay aboard the ship, he’s promised Dame Isabel won’t put me off. What more could he do for me?”
There was a short silence as de Appling mulled over what she had said. Roger did the same.
Logan de Appling spoke in a neutral voice: “Why is it so important that you make the trip?”
“Oh — I don’t know.” And Roger could visualize the charming little twist of shoulder, the tilt of head and curve of mouth. “I just want to, I suppose. Would you like me to get off?”
“You know better than that. But tell me, tell me, please, that you won’t —”
“Won’t what, Logan?” asked Madoc Roswyn sweetly.
“Won’t let Adolph Gondar take advantage of you!” de Appling exclaimed fiercely. “The thought gives me the cold shudders. I think I’d kill him, or myself, or do something terrible … Wreck the whole ghastly ship …”
“Now, Logan, don’t be impulsive. Let’s just watch the lovely Sirius-set. Isn’t it magnificent? And so strange and eerie! I’d never imagined that one sunset could be so different from another!”
Roger took a deep breath, walked quietly away, around the entire circumference of the ship.
Dyrus Boltzen provided an unexpectedly good dinner, due, he admitted, to the fact that the supply ship had departed Sirius Settlement only about three weeks previously. “We’re close to Earth here — relatively of course — yet this is a lonely planet. Very few casuals like yourself put in. None of them, naturally, with an ambitious program like yours.”
“Do you think that we can make ourselves comprehensible to the byzantaurs?” asked Dame Isabel. “They seem completely non-human in their attitudes.”
“In certain ways, yes, in other, no. Sometimes I wonder at how closely our judgments mesh. Other times I’m just as astonished that we could view the same simple act from such different angles. I’ll say this much: if you want to present a program that the byzantaurs can relate to their own existence, you’re going to have to take them on their own terms.”
“Naturally,” said Bernard Bickel. “We are prepared to do so. Can you offer us suggestions?”
Boltzen poured wine all around. “I believe I can. Let me see. An obvious matter is color, to which they are highly sensitive. Yellow is the color of rogues and outcasts, so the unsympathetic characters should wear yellow, the hero and heroine blue or black, and those in supporting roles gray and green. There is the matter of sex: love, romance, whatever you want to call it. The ’zants have peculiar reproductive habits; in fact there are three sex processes, and each of the ’zants is capable of performing two of them, so you can see that an untold number of misunderstandings might ensue unless a certain allowance were made for this fact. They do not demonstrate affection by hugging or kissing; their sex play is a matter of spraying the intended mate with a viscous liquid. I doubt if you wish to carry similitude to quite this extent.”
“Probably not,” agreed Bernard Bickel.
“Well, let’s think further … as I recall Fidelio — are not certain scenes played in a dungeon?”
“Quite correct,” said Dame Isabel. “Almost the whole of Act Two.”
“You must remember that a dungeon is a cherished home to the ’zants. The deranged, the troublemakers are expelled to the plain, where they roam in bands: incidentally, warn your company not to wander off by themselves. The rogues are not automatically savage, but are highly unpredictable, especially when they carry their flints.”
“Well, well, well,” said Dame Isabel slowly. “I suppose we can make scene changes easily enough: perhaps play Act One in the dungeon and the first scene of Act Two in the open.”
“If you’re trying to get your point across, I suggest something on this order.”
“Oh indeed we are,” declared Dame Isabel. “Why come all this way merely to confuse our audience?”
&nb
sp; “Why indeed?” echoed Bernard Bickel.
“Then there’s also costuming. Do you know what the ’zants call us in their own language? Sky-lice. Exactly. Their feelings toward us are, as closely as I can gather, amiable contempt. We are a race to be exploited, a set of eccentrics who will trade intricate metal devices for fragments of polished rock!”
Dame Isabel looked rather helplessly toward Bernard Bickel, who fingered his mustache. “I hope,” she said uncertainly, “that the performance will do something to alter their view.”
“Again — and I don’t know if you care to go this far — but from the standpoint of your audience the production would make more sense if they could identify themselves and their own lives with the actors and the course of action.”
“We can’t rewrite the opera,” complained Dame Isabel. “We wouldn’t be presenting Fidelio, which of course is our intent.”
“I appreciate this; I am making no recommendations, only supplying information on which you may or may not choose to act. For instance, if you costumed your ‘sky-lice’ players to resemble byzantaurs, you’d command a much higher degree of attention.”
“This is all very well,” protested Dame Isabel, “but where in the world would we scrape up such complicated costumes? Impossible!”
“I could help to some extent,” said Dyrus Boltzen. He poured more wine and ruminated, while Dame Isabel and Bernard Bickel watched him attentively. “I have in the warehouse,” he said at last, “a number of tanned byzantaur pelts which are destined for the British Museum. They would serve quite well as costumes, or so I would think. If you like I’ll have them brought to your ship. All I ask is that you take good care of them.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Dame Isabel. “Mr. Bickel, what is your opinion?”
Bernard Bickel blinked. “Well — I certainly agree that if our object is to interest the non-Earthly folk of the cosmos in music — specifically, our Earthly music — then we’re going to have to make very earnest and whole-hearted efforts.”
Dame Isabel nodded decisively. “Yes. That certainly is what we must do.”
“I’ll send the skins over to your ship,” said Dyrus Boltzen.
“One more matter,” Dame Isabel put forward. “I have set curtain-time for tomorrow at three hours after noon, whatever this is called by your local time.”
“Three o’clock,” said Dyrus Boltzen. “Our day is twenty hours and twelve minutes long, so noon and midnight both come at six minutes after ten. Three o’clock should do very nicely.”
“I trust that you will do your best to see that the byzantaurs come to the performance?”
“I will do my best, indeed I will. And I’ll get the ’zant skins over to your ship first thing in the morning.” And Dyrus Boltzen raised his glass. “To a successful performance!”
The night was dark. From over the plain and down from the mountain came strange noises: soft hoots, occasionally a far jarring screech, once or twice a mournful fluting. Neither Bernard Bickel nor Captain Gondar could positively identify the source of the sounds, and agreed in ascribing them to lower life-forms of the planet.
No one wandered far from the ship, though there was an undeniable thrill in moving fifty or a hundred feet away from the off-ramp and standing in the night of Sirius Planet, looking up at the distorted constellations, and listening to the eery sounds.
Shortly after four o’clock the sky lightened and at five Sirius, a blazing white pellet, rose above the Trapezus Mountains. An hour or two later Commandant Boltzen, true to his word, delivered a jeep-load of byzantaur skins.
Hermilda Warn, who took the role of Leonore in Fidelio, emitted a gasp of dismay. She turned to Dame Isabel. “You surely do not expect us to wear those things?”
“Yes, of course,” said Dame Isabel calmly. “It is a concession to the social sensibilities of our audience.”
Herman Scantling, who sang Pizarro, threw his hands in the air. “Perhaps you will inform me how I can express myself with four arms? And which of the two heads I should use to cover my own? And how, conceivably how, can I achieve a projection behind these wads and folds?”
“The skins smell quite badly,” said Otto von Scheerup, who sang the part of Florestan. “I think the idea is absolutely ridiculous.”
Dame Isabel’s mouth became a thin white line. “There will be no argument. There are the costumes for this afternoon’s performance, and I will brook no insubordination. Your contracts are quite specific on this point. You are not required to risk your health; but a certain amount of discomfort must be expected and tolerated cheerfully. I will not put up with temperamental outbursts, and that is all there is to be said on the subject.” She turned to Roger, who stood nearby. “Here, Roger, is an opportunity to make yourself useful. Take these pelts to Mr. Szinc in the dressing rooms and help him fit them to those persons taking part in today’s performance.”
Roger, grimacing fastidiously, approached the pelts. Hermilda Warn heaved an outraged sigh. “I have never known such outrageous circumstances!”
Dame Isabel ignored her and walked over to confer with Dyrus Boltzen.
Herman Scantling asked, “Has there ever been anything so fantastic?”
Otto von Scheerup shook his head in a surly fashion. “Wait till we report this to the Guild! All I can say is, just wait! Fur will fly!”
“But — in the meantime?” asked Ramona Thoxted, who sang Marcellina. “Must we wear the odious things?”
Herman Scantling gave a sour grunt. “She’d put us off on this God-forsaken ball of rocks, without salary, without tickets home, without anything.”
“We could sue,” asserted Julia Biancolelli, somewhat feebly.
Neither Herman Scantling, Hermilda Warn, nor Otto von Scheerup made reply, and Ramona Thoxted said, “I suppose that on a tour of this sort we must be ready for almost anything.”
The morning passed, and at six minutes after ten became afternoon. At one-thirty Dyrus Boltzen and his aide flew down in a platform flyer. Dyrus Boltzen wore whipcord breeches, heavy boots, a hooded jacket. At his belt hung a weapon. He went to where Dame Isabel sat making last minute alterations in the libretto: “Sorry, but I’ll have to miss the performance. We’ve got to look to some unpleasant business. A band of very uncertain rogues has been seen heading this way, and we have to turn them aside before they make trouble on the terraces.”
“That’s a shame!” declared Dame Isabel. “After you’ve done so much to help! You did arrange that the local folk should come to the performance?”
“Oh yes. They know all about it, and at three o’clock they’ll be here. With luck I’ll be back to catch the last act!” He returned to the flyer, which slid off to the north.
“A shame he must miss the opera, but I suppose there’s no help for it,” said Dame Isabel. “Now then, everyone. The word ‘dungeon’ is not to be used. We substitute the word ‘desert’!”
“What difference does it make?” inquired Herman Scantling. “We sing in German which the local beasts can’t understand in the first place.”
Dame Isabel spoke with the mildness that warned the more knowing of her associates. “Our aim, Mr. Scantling, is for faithfulness, for a basic intensity. If the scene represents a desert, as it now does, then a falsity is committed in referring to this desert as a dungeon, even in German. Do I make myself clear?”
“The meter is changed,” growled Otto von Scheerup. “‘Die Wüste’, ‘das Burgverlies’.”
“You must do your best.”
Three o’clock approached. The musicians assembled in the orchestra pit, Sir Henry Rixon appeared, glanced briefly through the score. Back-stage, amid objurgations, muttered obscenities, exclamations of distress, the byzantaur pelts were donned and costumes fitted as well as possible.
At five minutes to three Dame Isabel went to look across the plain. “Our audience certainly should be on its way,” she told Bernard Bickel. “I do hope there hasn’t been some misunderstanding as to time.”
“Damned nuisance that Boltzen was called away,” said Bickel. “Maybe the ’zants are waiting for someone to bring them over, or something of the sort. They’re a bit dubious of the open ground, if you recall what Boltzen told us.”
“Quite true. Perhaps, Bernard, you had best stroll over to the caves and see what may be the matter.”
Bickel frowned, sucked at his mustache, but was able to evolve no counter-proposal. He set off toward the station, and Dame Isabel went back-stage to make sure that all was proceeding properly. She shook her head in dismay. Where was the dignity, the easy elegance she had envisioned? Certainly not here among these angry tenors, sopranos and basses. Some wore caps on one of the heads, others had thrust two of the four arms through the sleeves of their capes, with the others hanging over their shoulders. Dame Isabel turned on her heel and departed.
At quarter after three Roger came to tell her that Bernard Bickel had returned with the byzantaurs.
“Excellent!” said Dame Isabel. “You will kindly assist with the seating, Roger. Remember, the longer the fringe of that little shawl, the more exalted the personage.”
Roger nodded, hurried out to make himself useful. Bernard Bickel came in to report to Dame Isabel. “They were on their way, just coming in from some kind of walkabout, probably why they were late. I dragooned them along and here they are.”
Dame Isabel looked through the peep-hole and saw that the auditorium indeed was full of byzantaurs. In large numbers they seemed even more strange and inhuman than before — even somewhat alarming. Dame Isabel hesitated, then stepped out before the curtain to make a welcoming address.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to our little performance. You are about to see the opera Fidelio, by Ludwig van Beethoven, one of our most accomplished composers. We bring you this program in the hope that some of you may wish to learn more about the great music of Earth. And now, since I am not sure just how much of what I say is comprehensible to you, I now will retire and let the music speak for itself. We bring you: Fidelio!”
