Will the next ones laugh too?
As long as we do the act right. Pausert kept part of his attention on the barker outside as he cleaned up and replaced all of his props. For a while, he had been unhappy with this act, until he'd hit on the idea of creating a kind of character to play. It might have been silly, but once the audience was laughing at the pompous character, rather than at him, it became a lot more enjoyable to put on the shows.
Then we have to do the act right. The vatch sounded quite determined on that score. Can we change it when we get tired of doing the same thing?
I think that's a good idea, he told it, cautiously. But you need to talk to me beforehand about the changes you want to make, or they might not laugh when you do them.
He sensed its agreement, and then the light flashed and it was time to do the show again.
Three shows an hour, with a break for fifteen minutes, for four hours; that was his shift in the stall, and every show was full up. The tent stall held fifteen or twenty people at a time—probably fifteen the size of the miners he'd been seeing—and it seemed as if the audience was completely new each time. It was astonishing. Even without tips or accolades, he was earning a good pile of cash this afternoon. His talker (with whom he split the take, since the talker was as important in a way as the act) had never, ever been able to fill the stall at every show before!
Every time the audience laughed, the vatch giggled with pleasure; the little thing was actually enjoying performing! By the third hour it was suggesting small, cosmetic changes—like holding the drape down when he'd freed his hands so that he had to "fight" his way out of it—that increased the comedic impact of the blow-off. When his turn in the stall was finally over, and he made way for an exotic dancer who was one of the glamour-riders with the fanderbag act, the vatch was practically glowing with happiness as it popped away.
And it was a little—just a little—bigger.
Now that was interesting. He hadn't fed it. So how had it gotten bigger? Could it be that something about strong human emotions also fed it?
He was going to ask Goth about that when they met for dinner, but the four little, heavy knots of scrap cloth that the Leewit thunked down on the table in front of him drove the question right out of his head. "Lookee here, Captain!" she crowed. "Tips!"
"We aren't the first to get them—the dancers are starting to get a lot," Goth added, judiciously. "But a couple of the miners got all sentimental about our sibling-rivalry business. I guess sentimental will work, if you don't have a pair of big—"
"Fewmets!" exclaimed Hantis, plopping herself down in her usual place at the table. "And here I thought I was going to be the one to surprise you!" She added a couple of knots of her own to the small pile. "The buzz is that the merchants are doing all right, and that those benighted fishing poles and cloaks are about half gone already. What passes for fish around here concentrates metal in its skeleton! It's only copper, iron, and some sulfur, but it's pretty, like peacock ore. Some of the engineers are trying to figure out how to clean the meat from the bones and use the things for jewelry. No point in trying to peddle it here, but maybe our next stop."
"The Big Top was full, and everybody seemed to be enjoying the show a lot," said Goth. "Makes me wonder what these miners are going to think about the play."
Pausert had been wondering that, too. Were their tastes as sophisticated and eclectic as Mannicholo seemed to think? Or would the Old Yarthe plays be beyond them?
But as he opened his mouth to ponder the question aloud, Hulik appeared—
And her agitation caught the attention of everyone around their table.
Pausert couldn't recall ever having seen her look this way—it wasn't "upset," exactly, but it was disturbed, and excited, and—unsettled.
Enough so that everyone stared at her, until Hantis broke the little pool of silence at their table by asking the obvious.
"Hulik!" she said, urgently. "What's happened?"
"It's the Daal!" she whispered. "Sedmon! He's here!"
* * *
"Are you sure?" was all Pausert could think of to say, and he knew it was a stupid thing the moment the words were out of his mouth. Hulik gave him a withering glance.
"Of course, I'm sure, Captain!" she said. "I talked to him!"
"You what?" That came out of several mouths simultaneously, and Hulik waved at them frantically to keep them from all talking at once.
"It's all right, he's not chasing us, not exactly, but—oh, let me begin at the beginning!" She paused, took a deep breath, and settled herself. "I had no idea he was here until I got a message asking if I would meet with him, just before lunch. I wouldn't have believed it was Sedmon except that the message came with certain recognition signs."
Pausert nodded; that was only the smart thing to do.
"And I agreed to meet him at one of the public food stalls, anyway." She was regaining her composure, and now, in contrast, Pausert realized just how flustered she had looked. "We didn't have a lot of time to talk, but we both agreed that the meeting was more for the purpose of identifying ourselves. He says he has a lot of information for us, and a lot of warnings. I told him we'd already figured that virtually everyone in known space is after us again, and that our safe-conducts were worth exactly nothing right now. And we agreed to meet again after the play tonight, at the Venture."
"You think there's any chance he's setting us up?" asked Goth.
"No!" Hulik replied, indignantly. Then, as if trying to cover her vehemence, said, more calmly, "No. Firstly, he doesn't really have anything to gain by turning us over to anyone who's after us. What could they offer the Daal? He already rules an entire system!"
"That's a point," Goth acknowledged.
"And secondly, I've never known Sedmon to be in the least inclined to do anything to aggravate the witches of Karres, and I can't see that starting now. You all must admit that interfering with us and what we're doing would seriously aggravate Karres—" Hulik raised an eyebrow, and the Leewit laughed.
"Have to admit you're right there, too," Goth agreed. "But it must be something pretty pressing for the Daal of Uldune to have come after us personally!"
Hulik didn't say anything, but Pausert thought she seemed to be a little flushed. And she was staring off into the distance as if her eyes weren't focused.
A sudden, wild surmise came to him. Goth started pounding him on the back, with a look of concern.
"Are you okay, Captain?" she asked.
"Clumping stupid!" scoffed the Leewit. "Choking to death on this goop! Hadn't got a bone in it!"
CHAPTER 22
Sir Richard had debated long and hard about which of the new plays to present first. Romeo and Juliet had a strong story, of course, and was full of both action and pathos. The Scottish Play—odd, how even Pausert now could hardly bring himself to even think of it by its proper title—had plenty of fighting too, not to mention the added attraction of the magic and all those murders. Twelfth Night, on the other hand, though a "comedy," wasn't really all that funny. Of the four, it was probably the one least likely for a new audience to appreciate, which was why Cravan had added it into the repertoire last. A Midsummer Night's Dream was a lot funnier, even if you didn't altogether understand the language, and there was that ladies' mud-wrestling scene . . .
In the end, that was what had decided Cravan. Of all of the plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream was probably the most accessible. And with the mining population heavily weighted in favor of men, the mud-wrestling, much though he abhorred it himself, was probably going to please even the densest of them.
The miners proved just as pleasantly intelligent and appreciative as had been suggested. They laughed at most of the right places, oooh'd and ah'd at the fairy-lights provided by the Leewit and Goth; and, yes, were very enthusiastic about the mud-wrestling scene. Enough so that when the curtain came down and the cast came out for final bows, there was a pleasant pattering of those little knots of gold-dust on the stage at Hulik's feet a
nd those of her co-star.
Dame Ethulassia got a share of them, too, interestingly enough. Pausert had to admit that she was a regal figure in the Elven Queen's elaborate costume, and if she was more than a few years Hulik's senior, the exaggerated makeup that went with the costume went a fair way to hiding that. Mostly, though, Pausert suspected that it was The Incredible Bosom which did the trick.
Even Hantis got a knot or two. Under other circumstances, Pausert would have been the first to suggest staying to find out just how much had been collected. Not tonight, though. Hulik managed to put on a veneer of graceful modesty when Cravan asked if she wanted to stay on with the company accountant and shook her head. "If I can't trust you and Himbo Petey to deal fairly with us all, I doubt my being there in person would make much difference. Besides, it's been a very long day, and there are going to be a lot more of them ahead of us! I'd rather stare at the inside of my eyelids than an accounting page."
"And speaking of accounting," Pausert said in a low voice, as they all hurried towards the Venture, "I for one would like to find out just why our bank account was frozen. If it hadn't been for that, we might be at our destination right now!"
"I'm sure he'll have a good explanation," Hulik said, though she sounded uncertain.
"I clumping well hope so," the Leewit said ominously. "Or it just might be Sedmon of the Five Lives pretty soon."
The Daal of Uldune chose that moment to step out from the Venture's airlock—just in time to hear that pint-sized bloodcurdling threat. He smiled serenely. "Please, Little Wisdom, have mercy. That ploy was never meant to do more than create a day or two's delay, in order that we could catch up with you. You were all in grave danger, and heading into still more."
From her scowl, the Leewit was not much mollified. Neither was Pausert. "Well, by the time the trouble your 'delaying tactic' caused us was over," he said with some heat, "we'd been shot at, thrown into prison, kidnapped, shot at again, sunk into ferroplast, shot at some more, and were running short on air and fuel. With 'help' like that, who needs enemies?"
"I can explain," said the Sedmon smoothly. He gestured regally, inviting them to enter their spaceship as if it was his own palace. Oddly . . . he managed to pull it off—even after introducing his twin, once they reached the ship's salon.
Hulik looked a little smug. More than a little, in fact.
* * *
"You are not entirely surprised, I gather?" one of the Sedmons asked her, cocking his head. His twin's head was also cocked, although in the opposite direction. To Pausert, the look both of them were giving the do Eldel seemed oddly intense.
"No, not really." Hulik looked back and forth from one to the other. "I was always curious about that 'of the Six Lives' business and did a little discreet investigation on my own. The timing of your public appearances is not, I'm afraid, always up to professional standards. Quite good, mind you, for a monarch. But from my vantage point, a bit on the sloppy side. There have been occasional reports of these odd overlaps. Not many, and I doubt if anyone except me has ever really put it together. Perhaps, in the future . . . a little expert advice . . ."
"Indeed," said both of the Sedmons simultaneously, almost eagerly.
The Leewit interrupted. She was almost cross-eyed, staring at them. "You mean you're—you're—?" She gave her older sister an exasperated glance. "What's the word, Goth?"
"Sextuplets. But I don't think that's it. Here, I mean. I think they're clones."
The Sedmons nodded, again simultaneously. "That is correct. Although, even that does not fully encompass the reality. The witches of Karres are not the only ones who have delved into the mysteries of klatha."
Hantis nodded. "You were birthed by the Hospitalers of Ghrauth, then." She made a face. "Risky business, dealing with them."
Pausert had never heard of "the Hospitalers of Ghrauth." But he noticed that both Goth and the Leewit's eyes were wider than they had been.
"Clumping crazy," muttered the Leewit.
The Sedmons shrugged. "It is an old arrangement," said one of them, "dating back through the last four Daals of Uldune. A bit dangerous, I suppose, but . . . let us say that my forefathers not only paid extremely well but had certain methods of ensuring that the Hospitalers stuck to their side of the bargain."
Goth seemed to suppress a snort. "No fooling! Burn their moonlet down to bedrock."
"Well, yes, that too," said the other Sedmon modestly. "Though, of course, that would only be an inconvenience to the monsters. But the Daals have other longstanding arrangements, you know. The Hospitalers have always been considerably more impressed by our friendly relations with the Nemode Cluster."
So was Goth, from the way her eyes kept widening. The Leewit's eyes bore a fair resemblance to saucers. "Clumping insane!" she choked.
Hulik, on the other hand, simply looked intrigued. Very intrigued.
Pausert cleared his throat forcefully. He didn't understand anything they were talking about, and had more pressing concerns anyway.
"You were going to explain why you had our account frozen . . ."
* * *
The Sedmons knew about the Nanite plague. They had known about the Agandar's fleet and the ISS being in pursuit of the Venture and its crew. This, according to the two that were here, was why they had put a hold—"a hold only, and then only with the instructions to verify with us before authorizing payment"—on the account with the Daal's Bank on Uldune.
"The hold was on the account," the right-hand Sedmon said crossly. "It wasn't an order to hold the captain who tried to use it! All that was supposed to happen was that the person verifying the information was supposed to call us, and we would release the account. It seemed a perfectly reasonable and quiet way to find out where you were without sending out messages that would have revealed you, and us, to enemies! Our instructions were not carried out, and we are most aggrieved."
"Hmph. Not half as aggrieved as we were," Pausert replied, but he was privately feeling a lot less angry. When Sedmon of the Six Lives was "most aggrieved," heads usually began to roll.
"Your instructions may have been subverted and contaminated, Excellency," said Hantis. "When the ISS fails to honor a safe-conduct in the Empress' own hand, such a thing is not unlikely."
Both Sedmons nodded somberly, like a pair of souvenir bobble-heads. "All the more reason to be aggrieved," the left-hand one said, this time very grimly indeed. Pausert could practically hear the echo of a falling ax behind his words. "And our sources give us three reasons why such things could have happened to you and to us. One—that someone high in the Empress' government has been infected with the plague, or is jockeying to make himself Regent or Emperor. We think the former is the more likely possibility, otherwise why try to stop you? You only bring word of the Nanite plague—this could not help or harm someone who is merely engaging in cutthroat politics, so there would be no reason to try to intercept you."
Pausert nodded, and so did the Nartheby Sprite.
"Two—someone high in the ISS is the infected entity."
"We thought of both of those ourselves," said Goth evenly.
Unlike the Leewit, she was not scowling—had not scowled once, in fact—but there was always something rather unsettling about that expressionless face on a girl who was still only twelve standard years old. For a moment, the Sedmons almost seemed to flinch a little.
"Ah, but there is a third possibility." The right-hand Sedmon raised a finger. "The Agandar's followers pursue you, under the assumption that you have the Agandar's treasure, or at least, the key to it."
"I don't—" Pausert began with some heat, but the Sedmons both waved him to silence. He might not have obeyed, except that seeing both of them move and act as one was oddly compelling and a bit creepy.
"Whether you do or not is irrelevant," the left-hand Sedmon said. "The point is, that they believe that you do. And so, perhaps, does someone in the ISS."
"Eh?" said Pausert, and "Oh!" said Goth and the Leewit together. The older
sister's face now had an expression, and the Leewit had left off scowling.
"Captain! Someone in the ISS might be looking to make himself rich on the Agandar's treasure," said the Leewit. "And that's a lot of treasure."
Hantis and Pul stared at each other. "Reason enough," Pul agreed. "Even for ignoring the Empress' safe-conduct."
"Personally, of all three reasons, this is the one that is the most likely, we think," the right-hand Sedmon said. "Greed is a more reliable motivator than anything else."
Pausert didn't agree with him, although he wished he did. The Daal's third alternative was the least frightening. A corrupt ISS official was somehow easier to deal with in his mind than someone who—well—wasn't "himself" anymore. That just made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and worse, made him want to shut himself in his stateroom and weld the door closed.
"Now, we have unlocked your account, but it may not be safe to use it," the left-hand Sedmon continued. "Clearly, someone has a watch on it. We underwent some difficulties ourselves in the course of finding you, that lead us to believe that our own safeguards off Uldune are not as secure as we had thought. We have access to other accounts to pay off your ship and refuel it, of course, but it might be best not to touch them until you have lost pursuit. So—it may be that this is your best and safest means of travel for some time."
"But the Petey B won't be going anywhere near the core worlds," Pausert protested.
Both Sedmons raised their eyebrows. "Oh?" said the right-hand one. "The ship goes where the profit is, does it not? And if the Daal's Bank on Uldune elects to sponsor this ship on a goodwill cultural tour spiraling towards the core?"
"There might even be some profit in it," the left-hand Sedmon added, thoughtfully. "These Old-Yartheian plays are strangely compelling. Especially the one with the mud-wrestling scene—"
"Sponsoring the showboat would certainly guarantee that it went where you wanted," Pausert interjected hastily. "But Sedmon—uh, or is it 'Sedmons'?—you aren't dealing with some back-country yokel here. Himbo Petey is shrewd. So are Richard Cravan and Dame Ethulassia—and Himbo won't do anything like this without consulting with them. They're all going to be curious about why the Daal's Bank is suddenly sponsoring cultural tours, and they probably won't stop looking for an answer until they find one."
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