We Open on Venus - Starship Troupers 2

by Christopher Stasheff

  “All hail, Macbeth!” Grudy cried. “Hail to thee, thane of Glamis!”

  “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!” Lacey started to cackle the line, but realized halfway through that Grudy had moaned hers, and shifted to mourning in time for “thane.” That settled the issue; from then on, Lacey and Susanne followed Grudy’s lead in the parts—not that she made any attempt to establish her primacy, of course, nor tried to coerce them in any way. She merely outdid them.

  After all, this was closer to her age range than theirs.

  Winston stood up and stepped toward the ladies, looking suddenly and immensely threatening. Barry frowned—this was only a read-through, after all—but deferred to Winston’s own experience.

  It was serving a purpose, after all—Lacey and Susanne jumped up and scurried to crouch beside Grudy, who put her arm protectively about Lacey’s shoulders as she held her script in the other hand, declaiming, “All hail Macbeth, that shall be king hereafter!” The movement did add a certain zest to the readings.

  So they played out the scene, Winston moving only a few steps from his chair, though I stepped up behind him. Then all three women united in a cascade of cackling, and Susanne and Lacey darted back to their chairs.

  Merlo rose, Ross stepping up to tell Macbeth of his promotion, saying, “The king hath happily received, Macbeth, the news of thy success ..Then something snapped and Merlo fell, with a howl of pain, quickly bitten off. Susanne was at his side in a second, and Ramou was right behind.

  5

  I was off that stool and over to my boss in a sprint that would have qualified me for the Olympics—but Susanne was closer, and she got there first. “Where, Mr. Hertz?”

  “Nothing, just a stumble,” Merlo ground out as he struggled to get up—but his face was white.

  Susanne pressed back on his chest firmly. “I’m sure it is, but I’m going to ask you to lie still until I’m certain “Look, it’s just .. Then Susanne probed, and his face went whiter. He gasped.

  “Ramou?” Susanne looked up and saw me. Her eyes widened in surprise; then she flashed me a smile of gratitude. “Make sure he doesn’t get up, okay?”

  “Sure,” I agreed, but I remembered that nobody was watching Ogden, and I gave him a quick glance to make sure he was okay. I wouldn’t have put it past him to have another heart attack, just to keep from being upstaged. But his gaze was fixed on our little tableau, too, and he nodded impatiently, so I turned back and dropped down, holding a hand out toward Merlo’s chest.

  Merlo got a look of foreboding in his eye, but he tried bluster anyway. “Look, who’s your boss any—yiiii!” Susanne took her hand away from his ankle, nodding with grim certainty. “It’s a sprain at least, and maybe a break. No, Mr. Hertz, don’t try to get up until we’re sure.”

  “But all I did was get out of a chair!” Merlo protested.

  “Okay, I stepped across my own path to get around Charlie’s chair—but I was still just stepping!”

  “It was an odd move, though, and you came down on that foot at just the wrong angle,” Susanne explained, “and I’ll bet you were off balance, too, and came down a little hard?”

  “But not hard enough to cause a break!” Merlo protested.

  “Freak accident,” I said, to give him an out. After all, what engineer wants to feel clumsy? “Just bad luck.”

  The room was suddenly very, very quiet, and I realized I had made a very bad mistake. I glanced from face to face, and nobody had to say it: the curse.

  Susanne let me off the hook. “Ramou,” she said, “would you get another stretcher?”

  “Sure,” I said, wondering how many we had. As I turned away, I decided I’d better check the inventory.

  I also noticed that Lacey was looking extremely peeved. At a guess, she didn’t like Susanne getting the notices as angel of mercy—but she still wasn’t making any move to help.

  And, as I went out the door, I wondered when Charles Publican had become “Charlie” to Merlo. After all, it had only been one day since we took off.

  As to “the curse,” it had evolved. “Macbeth is bad luck” had turned into “There’s a curse on Macbeth.” I was never too clear as to who had put on the curse, or why, but it did kind of make sense—if you believed in superstitions.

  After all, if that first rehearsal was anything to judge by, Macbeth really was bad luck. Of course, that could all be autosuggestion—if people believe something bad is going to happen, they subconsciously make it happen. Sometimes.

  But sometimes it happened all by itself.

  I decided that one of my goals in life was going to be tracking down the records of every performance of the Scottish play ever done and programming them into a computer. Then I was going to have it give me a statistical analysis of accidents, injuries, maimings, and deaths. After that, I’d run the same kind of breakdown on a representative sample of some other plays and see if it really did rate as all that much more dangerous.

  Well, no, of course it would, if it were in there with drawing-room comedies and talk plays like Uncle Vanya and Waiting for Godot. I’d have to select my sample from other war plays, like Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V, maybe including some murder mysteries like Ten Little Indians, where there’s a gun that’s supposed to be loaded with blanks. After all, if you’ve got a bunch of big muscular guys hauling around claymore swords and fake spears, you have to expect a few more accidents than if you’re just having a maidservant wheel in a tea cart. And if the script calls for a great flashing broadsword duel to the death, you can’t be surprised if somebody slips a little …

  Come to think of it, maybe the play was more dangerous than the average.

  Nothing supernatural about it, though. Just probabilities, and the right conditions for accidents. So I decided to make the atmosphere as accident-proof as possible.

  “Hey, look, I’m the tech assistant, right? Why should you have to do all the drudgery of grinding all those props out of the holoform? Just show me the designs and turn it over to me!”

  Merlo looked tempted; he was gazing at the three-foot screen-top of his drafting table, moving the square bar and drawing lines with the light pen. I knew he’d much rather be designing than building, and that was my in. Out, rather—but he shook his head. “I brought the main swords with us—I’ll have to distress them, but they’re fine. For the extras, though … No. Like as not you’d get safety conscious and program a change in the materials, like making the swords out of a ceramic compound.”

  “Would I do that?” My tones of offended righteousness were sharpened because I’d been planning exactly that.

  Merlo looked up and gave me an appraising glance. “Maybe you do have some talent as an actor.”

  I shifted tacks. “Look, even if I did chum out ceramic broadswords, what difference would it make?”

  “Sound,” Merlo said succinctly. “They wouldn’t clang.”

  “All right, so I’ll metalize them!”

  “Good.” Merlo nodded with satisfaction. “Then you’ve got something that’s just as dangerous as the real thing. Very good, Ramou.”

  “I’ll dull the edges,” I suggested, “make them mushy.” Merlo was still nodding. “So all they can do is bludgeon each other to death. Nice improvement.”

  “It does lower the risk,” I pointed out.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Merlo contradicted. “You didn’t think I was going to put an edge on those swords, did you? Cold rolled iron won’t be any more hazardous than those metal-ized putty-edges of yours, and they’ll be a dam sight more reliable.”

  “Look, just because it’s been done that way for five centuries—”

  “ ‘Doesn’t mean it has to be done that way now.’ ” Merlo gazed off into the past with a nostalgic smile. “I remember when I used that line.”

  I reined in my rearing temper. “So now it’s my turn. What have you got against innovation?”

  “It’s unreliable.” He went back to designing. “We have people’
s lives riding on this, Ramou, whether you believe it or not. Better the old dangers we know than new ones we don’t.”

  “I never pegged you for a conservative.”

  “Responsibility tends to do that to people.”

  “But—”

  “No, Ramou.” Merlo drew the line on his screen. “I program the designs onto read-only cubes, you punch the buttons to grind ’em out. That’s it.”

  I sighed. It was some gain, anyway. After all, if I couldn’t put in a modification between cube and holo, I didn’t deserve the degree I hadn’t finished. “Okay, boss. Any way you want.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Merlo nodded, satisfied. “What’s going on in the cargo hold?”

  “Oh, I’m building.” I sighed. “How come a passenger ship had a cargo hold, anyway?”

  “So the company could make an extra profit off the trip.” Merlo drew another line. “No spaceship ever carries just passengers, or just cargo either, for that matter. They’ll carry anything that pays—and sometimes, even on a liner like this, the cargo brought more than the passengers. How’s the stage coming?”

  “I’ve got almost all the platforms formed,” I grumbled, “but I still don’t see why.”

  “Because we must have a dress rehearsal, Ramou.” Barry gestured to include the whole cavernous space. “When we’ve earned enough to afford it, this whole cargo hold will be modified into a theater—a small one, yes, only five hundred seats, but large enough for the average audience we’ll be hoping for in most of the colonial capitals.” I stared. “Where are we going to perform till then?”

  “In any space big enough that we can rent,” Horace told me. “If we’re very lucky, there may be a genuine theater for a local amateur group …”

  “Otranto and Falstaff,” Barry sighed. “None of the other colonies has any such endeavor, according to the current word from the embassies. Of course, that information may be out of date …”

  “But probably not,” Horace finished for him. “Barring that, there may be a school auditorium that’s not too badly equipped.”

  “No information on that,” Barry murmured, “other than that New Venus’s educational facilities are of the best and most modem.”

  My stomach sank. “Gymnasiums.”

  Barry nodded. “And militia armories, and union halls.”

  I shuddered. “You mean if it’s big enough, we’ve got to find a way to perform in it.”

  “It won’t be so bad as that,” Barry assured me. “After all, Ramou, any theater is only an empty space.” He turned, indicating the rest of the hold with a sweeping gesture. Even this hold, that will one day be a theater, fully equipped, is only a void. We will fill it with artifacts arising from our imaginations—yes, by way of solid-forming machines. but products of our imaginations nonetheless. We will have a thrust stage that can be converted to full proscenium, or even arena, and you will lay rails that will let you paint sets with light, just as Grudy Drury will program costume designs and pull finished garments out of her Fabric-cator. the actors will put on their finery and paint their faces, and fill the stage with lunacy, drama, and poetry, which will draw both laughter and tears from our audience. But when all is said and done, all our wonderful machinery, all our paints and costumes, can only stimulate the audience to use their own imaginations, and the world we shall evoke and the characters who people it must come as much from their minds and hearts as from ours. For that is the magic of the living theater, that it is living indeed for both actor and audience, that it is the creation of a wonderful illusion in which both must participate. And this vast dark cavern, like any other theater, is only an empty space, and we must fill it with our imaginations.”

  I stared around at the gloom about me, and the confounded emptiness did seem suddenly magical and imbued with all sorts of potential.

  “So build the stage, eh, Ramou?” Barry smiled down at me. “At least we will be able to have a proper dress rehearsal, for the time being—but someday, a theater complete.”

  “Yes, sir,” I muttered, and blast it if he didn’t make it all sound genuinely mystical.

  I did it, of course. It’s not that you don’t say no to Barry Tallendar—it’s just that after five minutes talking with him, you don’t want to.

  Of course, I could have been much more efficient about it. I could have put everything together a lot sooner if I hadn’t had to keep running off to attend rehearsals—but what the hey, I was still gofer as well as carpenter.

  I know, I know, the planks were made out of plastic, and the forming machine did most of the detail work—but I still had to join the units. I sawed ’em and nailed ’em and clamped ’em as if they were genuine, organically grown cellulose. I know, ’cause I did a little work with real, actual, fallen tree limbs and dead trunks at Scout camp now and then.

  But I had to get up early to put in a couple of hours of work before rehearsals started. Oh, sure, they could have gotten along without me—but I didn’t want to let them know that.

  Besides, Susanne and Lacey were there, too.

  Marnie? Yeah, she was there. Every now and then, something about the way she moved made me realize that fifteen years ago, watching her must have been almost as much fun as watching Lacey or Susanne was now. It was a shocking thought, but it explained how Valdor got involved.

  I could not help but notice that she was still a very beautiful woman. Of course, she caught the look in my eye and snapped, “At your age, Horace, aesthetics should be divorced from experience.”

  Well, who was I to quarrel with her about divorce? If experience counts for anything, Mamie Lulala was an expert on the subject. Still, she did seem to walk with a little more arrogance after the exchange.

  Of course, I doubt that I was as limited as she seemed to think—though I must admit that I hadn’t had occasion for experiment in recent years. Even at my age, however, feminine pulchritude still gave a lift to my soul, almost as much as when I turned a corner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and came upon Van Gogh’s Sunflowers without warning—the original, blazing there in static splendor. Mamie still had that quality, when she chose to display it. I understand that she always chose not to, as soon as the ring was on her finger, which may have explained why she had had three husbands, none for longer than a year.

  However, as leading lady, the opportunities for her to slink and to snuggle were much more limited than when she had been a starlet. I remember her well, even though she very obviously thought of me as a doddering old fool even then, and took every opportunity to belittle me—until she learned that Morty the Milkman also played character parts on Broadway. Then she became surprisingly civil, if not complimentary. Never one to turn away a possible friend, I responded with courtesy, and a hint of warmth. Apparently she assumed that the silly old fool had been captivated by her youthful charms, and forebore any attempt at closer association—which was quite a relief, I must say. I understand that black widow spiders are lovely to behold, in their way—but I prefer to admire from a distance.

  Of course, that made her the perfect Lady Macbeth. Good thing, too—at least that gave her one Shakespearean role in which she was competent. I had a notion that might have influenced Barry’s choice of play. After all, we could have done Julius Caesar, and were still planning to rehearse it.

  In the meantime, Merlo was out of action for the heavy stuff. So guess who that left trying to get the stage together?

  Oh, Merlo was more than willing to guide me. “Right, Ramou, but we need another six-by-forty unit.”

  I turned and stared. “You mean I got the dimensions wrong?”

  “No,” he said, “forty by twenty is what I had on the drawings. But Barry took a look and told me he needs another six feet in front of the proscenium line, for a deeper forestage.”

  “I thought you told me we weren’t going to use a picture-frame opening!”

  “We’re not, but some of the performance spaces we use will probably be municipal theaters, and the locals will have gon
e to a lot of trouble to build in a proscenium, just like in the encyclopedia articles on theater. They’ll be real proud of it, too, so we’ll just have to cope with it.”

  “So we are going to build a proscenium,” I said, trying to check the exasperation.

  “No, we’re just going to put six more feet into the forestage.”

  I threw up my hands. “Look, wouldn’t it be easier to just feed those platforms into the vat and set the extruder to make new ones, twenty-six feet deep?”

  “Waste of time. Besides, the crack between the six-footers and the stage will give the actors a great idea where the proscenium line is.” Merlo levered himself up onto his good foot and his Canadian crutch. “Look, I’ll show you how. You just set the horizontal for—”

  “I know how to operate the machine!” I rushed over to him, to ease him back down into his chair. “You know the robo-doc said you should stay off that ankle unless you’re walking, and you have to watch how much you do of that!”

  “Oh, all right,” Merlo grumbled, and let me ease him down. I turned away to punch the codes into the Constructor, seething. He was manipulating me, the louse—he knew I’d do what he told me, rather than see him hobble around and stand still on that damn crutch.

  Besides, why not? It would take a little less time.

  I reconsidered that question while I was underneath the platforms on my back, wearing the oxygen mask and holding the heat gun.

  “Meld ’em every meter,” Merlo’s voice said, muted by the depth of the platforms.

  “I didn’t bring a measuring stick with me,” I called out.

  “It doesn’t have to be exact—just about a meter.” His chair scraped, and the crutch thumped on the floor. “Here, let me show you …”

  “No way!” I bleated. “You sit back down, damn it!” I pointed the gun and pressed the thumb patch. The aiming laser stabbed out at the resin, showing me where the heat was concentrated. Of course, there was a fair amount of spillover; I began to sweat. When I saw the surfaces of the two platforms flow and mingle enough to eliminate the crack between them, I let up on the trigger patch—but not quite soon enough; a single drop of resin spattered onto my hand. I swore.