We Open on Venus - Starship Troupers 2

by Christopher Stasheff

“They got the ones at the end.” Merlo pointed. “Then they went away—must have been time for their after-dinner coffee break.”

  “Coffee break? At this time of night? Let’s hope it wasn’t quitting time!”

  “No, I asked Seeholder who was going to lock up, and he told me they had a night-time custodian—so there’s a night shift.”

  “You better get ’em back here to open up the bleachers on each side!”

  “If they haven’t come back by quarter after, I will.” Merlo gave me a wide grin. “I told you, relax. You’re looking for things to worry about.”

  I sat rigid for a minute, then sagged as if the air were going out of me. “I suppose I’m being an idiot—but I’m so excited, damn it!”

  “Enjoy it,” Merlo advised. “Concentrate on how you’re feeling and do the best you can to remember it. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience, Ramou.”

  I looked up in shock. “Why? You don’t think we’re going to have dozens of opening nights?”

  “Sure. Hundreds.” Merlo grinned, leaning back. “But every one of us only has one first opening night. No other one will ever be quite the same. Just as much fun, some of ’em, but never the same fun. Go check on the extras, will you, Ramou?”

  “No prompter?” Lacey fairly screamed. She was pale with rage—or was it fear?

  “Please be calm, Ms. Lark,” Horace said. “The new system that Ramou and Charles are developing still isn’t quite ready.”

  “Ready or not, I’ll take it!”

  “You wouldn’t want it,” I told her. “It’s liable to give you the middle of a sentence without the beginning or the end. We’ll get it working eventually, but this was just too little notice.”

  “But I’ve only had three days to practice this part!”

  “You have had the script for a month,” Horace pointed out gently. I admired his self-restraint.

  “Well, yes, and I know I’ve got it memorized—but that’s in a room by myself, not in front of an audience! I still needed prompting this afternoon!”

  “There were a great many distractions during rehearsal,” Horace reminded her.

  “And there won’t be this evening? Heaven only knows what those yokels are going to do! They could heckle, they could hiss and boo, they could laugh at the tragic lines—”

  “But at least we will be proceeding through the play nonstop.”

  “I hope I won’t stop! What am I going to do if I blank?”

  “Cover,” Horace said simply. “Ad lib. Or do what actors have done for centuries—find a reason to go over to the wings, where one of your fellow actors will be holding the book, and hiss ‘Line!’ ”

  “But that’ll pick up on the PA system!”

  “Oh, let your mind be easy on that score. We won’t have a PA system.”

  Lacey stared at him, turning light blue. Larry erupted.

  “No PA? In a cavern like this one? Impossible! Incompetent!”

  “Why not?” Marty asked, looking nervous.

  “Because,” I said, “the school won’t let us tie our body mikes into their system.”

  “For heavens’ sake, why?” Even Susanne had a case of incipient panic.

  “They say it’s because their PA is hooked into their main computer, and who knows what viruses our nasty unhygienic equipment might have? After all, who knows where it’s been?”

  “They’re afraid we’ll contaminate them?” Larry cried in outrage.

  “Sure. After all, that’s what they’re afraid of from us in every other way, isn’t it? That we’ll contaminate their teenagers’ pristine minds, not to mention their sterile community.”

  “Sterile!” Larry spluttered. “Haven’t they seen the discontent seething under their noses? Don’t they know how much bitterness is welling up in the workers?”

  “If they don’t look at it, it isn’t there,” Ogden rumbled.

  “But what’s the matter with our own amplification system?” Lacey turned on me.

  I shrugged. “We thought we’d be tying into the school’s system.”

  Lacey fixed me with a beady eye. “So you didn’t bring our system?”

  I nodded, feeling sheepish. “After all, they told us we could when we made the site survey …”

  “Shouldn’t have given them time to change their minds,” Ogden huffed.

  “I’m afraid we did need a few days’ rehearsal, Ogden,” Horace demurred.

  Lacey turned on Horace. “Oh, that’s just great! That’s really reassuring, Horace! Nobody will hear me call for a line, because nobody will hear me, period! How am I supposed to make these rubes listen without a PA system?”

  “Project,” Horace said simply. I could see his temper was wearing thin. “Use the fullness of your natural voice.”

  Ogden frowned down at Lacey from all the majesty of his somewhat unsteady height. “Don’t see what all the fuss is about, myself. If the audience is farther away, you project more loudly, that’s all.”

  “Fifty meters?” Lacey shrilled.

  “Fifty, or a hundred.” Ogden scowled. “Any actor worth his pay should be able to fill a space this size with his voice—especially since there are bleachers on each side of us; if they can’t hear, they can move closer.” He looked up, blinking. “Or was anyone thinking there would be a full house tonight?”

  “It would take the whole town to fill this house,” Marty muttered.

  Horace added, “If it was good enough for Thespis, Ms. Lark, it should be good enough for you.”

  “Thespis was trained for it!”

  “And so were you,” Horace reminded her, “or so it said un your list of credits.”

  “Well, yes—but I was trained to fill a five-hundred-seat theater, not a barn like this, with the acoustics of a racetrack!”

  Horace nodded. “The simile is apt; Thespis had to make his voice heard in an open-air amphitheater.”

  “Yes, an amphitheater that was semicircular and concave! An amphitheater that just happened to reflect his voice back to everybody who hadn’t heard it the first time!”

  “Ah, you did learn some theater history, at least,” Horace said.

  “It’s been done without that, Ms. Lark,” Ogden added. ‘The tale is told of Winston Churchill, that he was addressing a vast crowd in the open air, when the microphone went dead. Those farther away from him could see his lips moving, but could not make out the words and began to protest. The grumbling spread until the whole crowd was rumbling.”

  We young sprouts were hanging on his words, in spite of ourselves. “What happened?” Larry asked.

  “Churchill raised his hand for silence. When the crowd had quieted, he flourished the microphone overhead and, with a dramatic gesture, flung it to the ground, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. Then he gripped his lapel and thundered, ‘Now that mechanical contrivances have failed us, we shall fall back on Mother Nature!’ ”

  Susanne gave a little, half-disbelieving laugh, and Marty grinned slowly.

  “Surely that’s not true!” Lacey protested.

  Ogden shrugged. “Have you ever seen a film of the great orator, Ms. Lark, or heard one of his recordings?”

  “Of course,” she snapped.

  “Then you may say for yourself. I do not know whether the tale is true or not, but I do not find it hard to believe.”

  Horace seized his opportunity. “And you will not be in the open air, Ms. Lark. This enclosed gymnasium we are in will echo the sound back and forth quite nicely. There may be a few dead spots here and there, and the resonance may blur our phonemes a bit—but as long as we speak slowly and distinctly, there is no reason why the audience should not hear us. They’ll surround us on all three sides, after all.”

  “Oh, it’s well and good for you to make it sound so easy—but you haven’t ever done it!”

  Horace frowned slightly. “Whatever makes you say that?”

  “Because you …” Lacey swallowed the rest of the words, reddening. “You mean you have performed in a b
arn like this before? Without a microphone?”

  “Quite similar. It was a handball court in Lima, Peru—well, not handball, actually, but a rather more energetic version of the game called high-a-lie, presumably because it is played in an antigravity chamber, in free-fall, and the players have to make the ball rise high to lie right for their shots. They had the antigrav turned off, of course, but we were down at the bottom of a well, surrounded by hard plasticrete walls, and we had to make our voices rise up to he people seated above. It was no mean feat, I can tell you, but we managed it.”

  She was wide-eyed, hanging on his every word. “And he audience understood you?”

  “They laughed in all the right places,” Horace affirmed. ‘Of course, they laughed in some rather odd ones, too, when someone turned on the antigravity by accident—at east, I think it was by accident. But the spectators were quite considerate about hauling us in over the rail to safety, until the malfunction could be rectified.”

  “What an impossible story!”

  “Yes.” Horace nodded. “That is how you can be sure it s true. If I had made it up, it would certainly have been more plausible.”

  She glanced at him uncertainly and said, “Then you’re sure they’ll be able to hear us?”

  “If you project from the diaphragm, my dear, without shouting—yes. Would you have any doubt that an opera diva could fill this hall with sound?”

  “Well, of course … I mean, her training …” Lacey stopped, looking shamefaced. “Then I can, too, can’t I?”

  “Yes, indeed.” Horace beamed like a fond uncle. “Mind you, you shouldn’t have to—but since you must, you will.” She smiled, amused and relieved. “Thank you, Mr. Burbage. You’ve made me feel a lot better.”

  “My pleasure. Now be off with you for warm-ups, my dear.”

  She turned away, and so did Horace. His face was immobile; he didn’t say a word. But he took a deep, deep breath, ind let it out in a gust.

  “Just opening-night jitters?” I ventured.

  “Presumably,” Horace said. “I only hope she won’t be that way for every opening night. Time for places, Ramou. Summon your minions.”

  But before I could get away, Susanne came dashing back, her face white. “Ramou! They haven’t opened the side bleachers! Only the ones at the end—and they’re only half full!”

  I looked up, startled, and Horace’s face was a study. Then it set into grim and purposeful lines. “Come along, Ramou. We must discover the meaning of this.”

  It only took a few steps; we could hear the argument before we got there. For the first time since I’d known him, Barry Tallendar was raising his voice, and he wasn’t projecting.

  “Very well, I can understand only opening as much seating as is apt to be used,” he snapped, “but why the end ones?”

  Seeholder frowned. “Because the audience is supposed to sit in front of the stage, isn’t it? I don’t see what your problem is, mister.”

  “The audience sits in front of a 3DT screen, not a theater! We have staged this play in three-quarter arena, since we knew we were unlikely to find a proscenium—and the style is better suited to Shakespeare’s plays anyway; it corresponds to the conditions of his original theater! The audience is supposed to sit on all three sides!”

  “Well, they’re not.” Seeholder’s eyes narrowed. “The custodians rolled out the bleachers before they went off duty, and there’s only one old man left on shift. We’re not opening any more bleachers unless those fill up—and the teachers have already called roll; we know all the English classes are here already.”

  “English classes?” Mamie gasped, appalled.

  “ ’Course. That’s why we wanted you to put on this show—so they’d get motivated about Shakespeare.”

  “You mean they were required to come?” Barry’s voice was grim.

  “Yeah, and they’re not very happy about giving up their Friday night, I can tell you. You better do a good job, mister, or you’re going to have a lot of angry people out there.”

  “Surely you haven’t barred adults from coming!”

  “No, but who would want to?” Seeholder shrugged. “Shakespeare is boring. Look, you better start pretty soon, or they’ll tear the place apart.”

  As if on cue, a roar that was half cheer, half rebuke, came from the far end of the gymnasium.

  “Oh, my heavens.” Horace gripped Barry’s arm and pulled him away. “Oh, my aching drum! Come, Barry, let us get this performance started, before we discover something else that has gone wrong!”

  18

  “Mr. Ogden! You promised!”

  I turned fast and saw Susanne and Ogden wrestling over a small bottle.

  “Just a little bracer, my dear,” Ogden panted, “to put me in shape for performance.”

  “The shape it will put you in is flat on your back! Ramou, help me!”

  I reached out and grabbed the bottle, twisting it against Ogden’s thumb. He hung on with a death grip—he may have been getting feeble, but all his strength went into holding fast to that bottle. His arm stayed rigidly bent, pulling against mine like a stone statue’s, while he pleaded, “Young man, surely you can understand! There are times when only the taste of strong drink can nerve a man to do what he has to do!”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but this isn’t one of those times.” Frankly, I didn’t believe a word of it.

  It was a genuine predicament—if I applied real force, I’d hurt the poor old guy, certainly strain a muscle, maybe even tear a ligament. Fortunately, just then, Horace came up. “What’s the matter?” He hissed. “Surely you know you’re making enough noise to … ah!” He saw the bottle in Ogden’s hand.

  “Only a small nip,” Ogden pleaded, “just enough to get one in the mood, so to ..

  “To slow down one’s reflexes and make one late on one’s cues!” Horace laid his hand over the current issue. “Really, Ogden! It’s not at all fair to your fellow actors!”

  “We could let you have a drink after curtain call,” I bargained.

  “A very small one!” Susanne snapped, then suddenly turned tender and teary-eyed. “Oh, Mr. Wellesley, you really are an old dear, and we’d be lost without you—so you really mustn’t, mustn’t drink!”

  “Well—since you are so concerned,” Ogden grumbled, and his hold on the bottle loosened just enough.

  I twisted it out of his hand like white lightning, and Horace crowed in a whisper, “Well done, old friend!”

  “Oh, yes, very well done!” Susanne reached up on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Wellesley!”

  “Curtain!” I whispered, looking out toward the stage.

  “Oh, yes!” Susanne turned away—and Ogden reached out to give her retreating backside a delicate pinch. She yelped and whirled back, red-faced. “Mister Wellesley! I thought you were a gentleman!”

  “Just for luck, my dear,” Ogden assured her—but I noticed that he didn’t say whose luck, or in what. I started toward my little army, then hesitated, glancing back at Ogden.

  Horace leaned close to me and muttered, “You may entrust him to my care, Ramou. I shall see that he makes his entrance in no worse shape than he is in already. Do go take care of your extras.”

  “Thanks, Horace,” I said gratefully, and hurried off to my rowdy group, who were getting more and more rowdy by the second, with stage fright.

  Unfortunately, the damage had already been done before Susanne caught Ogden; I could see it would be quite a chore getting him onstage on cue, and an even greater chore trying to act with him. I took firm hold of his arm and turned him to face the stage.

  The lights went down—or off, I should say; why should a school waste money on dimmers for the gymnasium? The audience quieted—more out of surprise than anticipation, I suspect—and Merlo brought up the special spotlight on Grudy, crouched atop the highest platform, which had somehow turned into a crag under Merlo’s virtuoso playing of the scene board. She cackled, high and long, then called out, “
When shall we three meet again, in fire, thunder, or in rain?”

  The light came up on the second level, where Susanne swayed in an invitation to damnation, answering, “When the hurly-burly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won!” But her line was drowned out in a storm of whistles. Barry plucked at his doublet nervously, watching from offstage. “Perhaps the choice of a young and seductive witch was not for the best …”

  The third special came up on Lacey, trying her best to outdo Susanne in voluptuousness. She did well enough; she, too, was greeted by a torrent of whistles. Her line was lost in the midst of them. Grudy and Susanne came down to join her as they recited their lines; at last, the three turned in a circle in a travesty of a gavotte, chanting,

  “Fair is foul, and foul is fair;

  Hover through the fog and filthy air!”

  Then they split, shrieking, and ran off, Susanne up the stairway, Grudy off right, Lacey off left, and the soldiers began to straggle on, hauling the bloody sergeant.

  A chorus of booing echoed through the gym.

  Lacey came off, livid. “How dare they! Those boorish little twerps! How dare they boo us!”

  “Don’t fret, dear,” Grudy assured her. ‘They were booing your exit, not your acting. The way you and Susanne were gyrating, they were hoping to watch you all night.” Lacey stared, startled; then she smiled. “And more and more of us as the evening went on, eh?”

  “Don’t oblige them,” Susanne advised.

  “Don’t worry, darling, I won’t—and next time, think up your own variations on the bump and grind, will you?”

  “My own! Why, you little thief! I was doing that move two days before you began it!”

  “Pretty good, for only a five-day rehearsal period,” Merlo hissed from the board. “Quiet down, would you, ladies? We’ve got a scene onstage!”

  Ramou was shooing his extras out, hissing, “You’ve just been through a battle! Look strung out! Look paranoid! Look tired, at least!”

  I watched him anxiously, wondering how he would fare. His first entrance in front of an actual audience was bound to be hard enough, but an audience that was booing …

  I stepped out, and terror hit. I looked up, and there they were—there seemed to be a solid wall of them, sweeping up from right in front of my feet to way over my head, and all of them were yelling “Booooo!” and “Bring back the girls!”