Himbo Petey was certainly much happier about it. A little girl being tossed about he could understand; real witches he couldn't.
But however much Himbo was puzzled by Pausert and his companions, it soon became obvious to the captain that he didn't understand the thespians at all. He truly didn't understand the plays that Sir Richard was putting on, or what motivated them to do it.
Pausert walked in on the tail end of one of his arguments—his, because it was entirely one-sided. Sir Richard might look as if the Showmaster was about to drive him mad, but he clearly wasn't going to budge.
"But the audiences won't like it if the lovers are dead in the end!" Himbo protested unhappily. "They'll walk out! Wait and see!"
"By the time they walk out the play will be over, Himbo. So I hardly see where it matters."
"But why can't you change the ending?"
"Because then it wouldn't be a tragedy, would it?" Cravan waved a playbill under Himbo Petey's nose. "Look there—it's in four colors and full process: The Great Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. I hardly think that the audience is going to arrive expecting jokes!"
"And that's another thing—you've got clowns in this play of yours, but they aren't wearing—"
"They're only called 'clowns,' Himbo," Cravan said, wearily. Pausert got the feeling this was something that Himbo Petey had been told many times before. "I've explained this to you in the past. They are not circus clowns. They do not wear paint, or clown-suits, or red noses, or big shoes. It is a term that means—"
"Well, if it means dunces and fools, then why don't you call them that?" Petey asked resentfully. "Oh, never mind. I still think you should rewrite the ending of that Julioff and Rominette thing. People aren't going to like it, I tell you, and not even all those sword fights are going to appease them!"
After Himbo Petey bounced off, indignation in every step, Cravan put his head in his hands. "One of the greatest classical tragedies of all time, and he wants me to rewrite the ending! Bad enough that I've changed the language to something less archaic, to satisfy him, now he wants me to rewrite a masterpiece!"
Pausert felt he understood why Himbo Petey was so upset. It was clear enough the Showmaster really didn't understand any plays, much less these. Petey couldn't grasp why people would be willing to sit for hours and watch live actors on a stage, with limited effects and scenery, when they could see the same story on holo, replete with special effects—and with no human actors who might forget their lines.
In truth, Pausert wasn't sure he understood it either, no matter how many times Dame Ethulassia tried to explain it to him. Petey was certain that displaying something that was going to make people cry instead of laugh was a bad idea; and while Pausert didn't agree with him entirely, he wondered just how many people would be willing to watch something so primitive, and so full of archaic language.
He reminded himself that, fortunately, the Petey B didn't often set down on sophisticated worlds where there were holo-theaters and threedee parlors, and a vidscreen for every room in your house. So maybe the audiences wouldn't have any objections.
Certainly the staged sword fights were exciting things. Richard Cravan plotted every single one of the moves and had all of the participants learn them to background music, so that it was all like a complicated dance, with the music telling you what to do. And if something happened and you missed a move, you didn't have to think about what was coming next; all you had to do was pick it up at the next beat.
When he wasn't worrying, Pausert was enjoying that part, far more than he'd expected to, but he was certain that his other act, the escapist act, wasn't going to come up to Himbo Petey's standards. He hadn't relled vatch in days, and while he thought he'd probably be able to replicate what the vatch had done, with Goth's help, he was afraid by this time that not relling vatch meant that the wretched little creature would turn up at the worst possible moment.
He was worried about a lot of other things, too. The ISS, for one. This new Nanite plague that Hantis had told them about, for another. The pirates. Why Karres had disappeared again. If he was ever going to get the Venture back.
Meanwhile, Hulik was also enjoying the situation—far more, in his personal opinion, than she should be. She had thrown herself into her four roles with astonishing enthusiasm, but it was the role of Juliet that she was really reveling in. She seemed to have forgotten all about their plight, the poor old Venture, and the urgent need to get to the Empress with whatever information that Hantis had.
As for Hantis herself, well, Pausert never had been able to tell what the Sprite was thinking anyway. He hoped she was as worried as he was, because everyone else, even Goth and the Leewit, was acting as if they really were children who had run away to join the circus.
Even Vezzarn! He didn't have an act at all, and as a consequence, didn't have much choice but to muck out animal cages to earn his way. But when Pausert asked him, in the middle of shoveling out several tons of fanderbag manure, if he wasn't nearly dying with eagerness to get the Venture fueled and fixed and get gone, he looked up with astonishment.
"What, Captain? And give up show business?"
Pausert could only throw up his hands and walk away.
* * *
Their first planetfall after Vaudevillia was a little agro-world called Hanson's Reach. Pausert was a little astonished by the backwardness of the place. Once you got a few miles from the port, people actually used animals for transportation.
Not farming, though. That was business, and animals couldn't do the work that an all-purpose combine could do. But the precious and expensive fuel was saved for farm machines. No one wasted it on the unimportant matter of getting people from here to there.
The Petey B set down just outside the port, landing as slowly as she'd taken off from Vaudevillia. Her descent was announced by a shower of bright-colored leaflets as they drifted over the landscape—or to be more precise, while the landscape drifted by underneath the Petey B. Using the lattice ship's inertial drives meant that Hanson's Reach rotated under them and they slowly matched up to the planetary rotation.
The leaflet were vivid bits of butterfly-bright paper that were cut and shaped to fly like little wings in all directions, They spread the word that the Petey B, home of Petey, Byrum and Keep, the Greatest Show In The Galaxy, was beginning a limited engagement on Hanson's Reach, setting down by special arrangement just outside the main center of population and commerce.
"Limited?" Pausert asked, since he'd heard of no set departure date.
Mannicholo shrugged. "Limited to as long as their money holds out."
The Petey B certainly provided a spectacle that was as good as a parade as they set down. And, once they were down, the set-up was a show in and of itself.
If Pausert hadn't been busy helping, he'd have wanted to watch. It looked as if every man, woman, and especially child that could possibly get to the showboat was standing out there, gawking. Stages were deployed, the stays and struts that held up the synthasilk of the tents popped open, tents were hauled up, canopies unfolded, bleachers and benches arrayed, rigging rigged and ropes winched tight, bunting and flags strung out to flap and snap in the breeze, and lastly, the huge banners depicting all the delights to be found within were dropped down to hang from every vertical surface—and all of it was done to a chant of "Push 'em back! Haul 'em back! Take 'em back! Ho!"
What that was supposed to mean, nobody seemed to know. But it was effective, because it wasn't all autowinches and robot-pulleys that did the work, it was muscle and sweat of people and beasts. The huge fanderbags were hitched in teams to pull up the biggest tent-poles; grumbling and complaining, the humpities did the same for the smaller poles. And every hand that might be useful was put on a rope for the several hours it took to get the showboat up and running.
And when they were all finished, the Petey B looked very like the showboat of Pausert's memories: all bright-colored flags and banners and synthasilk veiling the workaday exterior of the lattice ship,
so that it hardly looked like a thing that could go to space at all. And for the first time since they'd hitched up with the Petey B, Pausert began to feel a tingling sensation of dread and fear and excitement that had nothing whatsoever to do with all of the predicaments that had brought them here.
CHAPTER 13
The free Sedmon, still in the portside alleys of Gerota Town, had to pause and lean against the wall to cope with the nausea and the pain.
"What's up, chum?" said one of a pair of crop-haired spacers who had just turned the corner. "Too much of the local rotgut?"
The Sedmons were now very wary of even the most innocuous seeming encounter. The free Sedmon watched these two with some caution. "Just stomach cramps. I ate some dodgy local food."
The other spacer grinned. "Stick to the grog next time. At least you've got a decent excuse for being sick. You need any help?"
The Sedmon was still far from trusting. The two of them were coming a little too close, and something in the second fellow's voice sounded a bit off. "Just trying to find the rest of my crew. There are ten of us off the Vanel. Have seen a bunch of guys—one of them the size of two of me—trundling around? They're probably looking for me by now. Or do you know where 'Voyager Smiles' is? It's a posh little gift-shop we were heading for."
If they had been thinking of any funny stuff, the two weren't anymore. "Thora's place? It's just around the corner to your left," said the first speaker, tugging at his friend's arm. "Come on, Merk. We've got things to do."
Sure enough, the Sedmon found what he'd set out to look for. The gift shop was an expensive-looking establishment in a considerably more respectable street a mere two blocks from the spaceport. A much safer street, too, from its appearance.
Inside, the Sedmon gave the haughty proprietress a near heart-failure. The Daal's agents did have certain code recognition symbols—individual ones, so not a bit of good came of torturing or drugging them out of someone. The words that Thora Herrkin heard from the lips of the slightly shaky-looking man were not something she was prepared for. But she knew that she'd better give him the best cooperation and help possible.
* * *
The Sedmon in the truth-shock chair, on the other hand, was giving his captors as little help as possible. It was possible for him to do that, because, now that he was aware of what was coming, he could split the electroshock between the selves of the hexaperson. The sensation made all of them feel more than a little ill, but it was bearable.
So, he just resigned himself to a period of unpleasantness. Indeed, he was almost serene about the whole matter. One of the great advantages of being a hexaperson was that he had complete and total confidence in his closest associates. And why not? They were him, after all.
* * *
Evening and the local ISS headquarters were both close. For the sort of money the Daal had on call, recruiting a few ex-troopers willing to do a great deal with no questions asked had been an easy enough task. And from Thora, who was now very eager to oblige, the Sedmons knew of the disastrous happenings on Pidoon—and that the Venture had, once again, abruptly and mysteriously disappeared.
"Some of them are still on the run, sir. It's a bit confusing but a woman reputedly called Captain Elin and a couple of her men are hiding out somewhere—along with a local hoodlum called Fullbricht. The ISS can't find them, but my partners know where they are. They're in a small farm just outside town next to the lake. Fullbricht keeps a boat there he uses for dropping, ah, ferroplast 'statues' into the water."
The Sedmon scowled—not at the ruthlessness involved in submerging corpses, but at the pettiness of the whole situation. Local criminals and their pitiful attempts at being murderous. Bah. In times past, the Daals of Uldune had terrified entire star sectors. They were moments—not often, but this was one of them—when the Sedmons regretted their modern civilized ways.
The hexaperson cheered himself up with the thought that, on the other hand, they still weren't all that civilized.
"We'll arrange a visit, then," he said coldly, "just as soon as we have the matter in hand dealt with."
A shifty-looking man in spacer's clothes was ushered into the back office of the gift shop where the Sedmon had set up his makeshift temporary headquarters. The man handed over a spaceship lock-key and a chronometer. "The chronometer got brought to the hock-shop about twenty minutes back. One of the boys extracted the key from Slick Wullie."
"Ah," said the gift shop proprietress. "Do you want him dealt with?"
The free Sedmon winced. His captive clone was being tortured again. "No, there is no point in drawing attention to the matter any further. Is my ship still being watched?
"Not since about ten minutes back," said the ever-efficient Thora.
"Good. Let us proceed, then."
The Sedmon, along with Thora and the hired mercenaries, went back to the Thunderbird in a nondescript van. A few minutes later, they set off for ISS headquarters with a cutter and two cylinders. One had a highly illegal anesthetic in it. It was nearly odorless, and fast acting. The other was a rather unpleasant standby. But the Sedmons were rather tired of taking the pain, and they'd never been fond of the ISS to begin with.
* * *
There was a small basin in the corner of the ISS rooms, where a fastidious torturer could wash his hands between beatings. The drainage pipe from the basin bubbled as the gas was pumped through. But, as Sedmon inside was cued by Sedmon outside, his screams hid the noise quite well. The hexaperson encountered the strange sensation of having one of themselves gently pass out.
Somewhat regretfully, the Sedmon satisfied himself with simply extracting his clone. If he'd had the time and the additional space in his vehicle . . . A number of ISS agents would have become ferroplast statues providing shelter for fish at the bottom of a lake.
But, he simply left them there. He consoled himself with the thought that recovering from that particular anesthetic was an excruciating experience if you didn't possess the antidote—of which he had enough for his clone but no one else. That was partly why he'd picked it. Well. That was mainly why he'd picked it.
Not all that civilized, even the modern Daal of Uldune.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, the plain van and two other vehicles were making a visit to a small farm by the lakeside.
One of the ex-soldiers, a former sergeant in the Imperial Naval Infantry, studied the place through his nightscope. Then, he offered the device to the awake Sedmon, while the clone in the car went through waking up with the help of a well-paid medical assistant. If Thora thought the two looked remarkably alike, she was sensible enough not to say anything. Or question the money in her account.
The Sedmon using the nightscope examined the farm carefully. The incredibly expensive device's sophisticated thermoimaging even allowed him to study the farm's inhabitants. Quickly, he was able to determine that there were three people in the building. The crew of the Venture—including the one the Sedmons were particularly concerned about—were not among the inhabitants. The Sedmons would have been surprised if they had been, but having the assumption confirmed caused a momentary—and most disconcerting—spike of anguish.
Across light-years, the hexaperson issued a collective sigh. Not because of the disappointment, so much as the simple fact of it. They had lived a life of splendid isolation, after all, and the recognition that they now intended to give it up—if at all possible—produced very mixed feelings.
The Sedmon watching through the nightscope didn't personally recognize the trio in the farm. But the Sedmons back in the tower at the House of Thunders had access to a great many records.
They found her. And her associates.
The Sedmon turned to Thora. "There is an Imperial bounty on her head. A million maels, I believe. Her real name is Nairdoo Sheyan. Among other things, she's wanted for the mass murder of the miners on Coolum's World. The second one, Henry Bagr, is worth a mere fifty thousand. The third, I believe, is your local Fullbricht fellow. He'll be wo
rth something too, I imagine, though not much."
"Do we get a cut?" inquired Thora. She looked as if she regretted the words almost as soon as she said them.
But Sedmon smiled at her. "You can have it all, Thora. You've been most efficient and helpful, and I believe in rewarding those of my subordinates who are. Your talents are clearly wasted, anyway, just smuggling and spying and selling expensive trinkets."
A thought came to him. "Although, before I leave the planet, I'll want to purchase a suitable trinket for . . . ah, someone. A young lady."
"I have just the thing."
"Good. And now, let's finish this business."
The smile was still on the Sedmon's face, but it had become a very grim sort of thing. He had no way of knowing it, but at that moment Thora had no doubt at all that her boss was in the direct line of descent from the Daals of Uldune who had committed far worse crimes than even such as Nairdoo Sheyan.
"The reward specifies 'dead or alive,' " he murmured. "Make that 'dead,' if you please. The Sheyan creature has been threatening certain, ah, interests of mine. And I'm not in a charitable mood."
CHAPTER 14
"Who's that?" Pausert asked Mannicholo sharply, pointing to a sausage vendor strolling among the audience. The man looked perfectly ordinary, with his hotbox of sausages slung over his shoulders and not a sign of manner, costume, or oddity to mark him. That was suspicious, for it meant he was too ordinary to be one of Himbo Petey's people.
"Eh? Oh. Local. Petey has all the real food here sold and made by locals."
"Locals? But I thought we sold—"
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