STARSHIP TROUPERS IV: THE UNKNOWN GUEST, Chapter 10

STARSHIP TROUPERS IV: THE UNKNOWN GUEST

Chapter Ten: Impromptu Audition

Christopher Stasheff

Thankfully, just then our gravcar (more of a grav-limo, really) pulled away and zoomed off before the Man in Gray could approach us. I wasn't even sure if he had seen us yet. We'd have to deal with him at some point, sure—but at least it would be later rather than sooner. Besides, a member of our troupe was apparently on very good terms with the most powerful man on the planet—General Shaklar. That had to count for something.

Charles explained their situation to us in the grav-limo—well, he and Shaklar. It seemed rather odd for the warden and commanding officer to come greet us on his own—until Charles had finished telling us just how big a white elephant we had bought.

“You see, my friends, that education is absolutely necessary for democracy. In fact, it must continue after formal schooling is done; the voters must be able to understand the events of the day.”

“Well, of course.” Barry frowned. “That’s common knowledge.”

“Not so common anymore,” Charles said with a sigh.

“Too true,” Marty said. “The only reason my classmates knew anything about American history was because we did a production of 1776.”

Marnie was clearly horrified, but Horace shook his head in mourning. “I can only hope you are right in your theory, Charles. Who would believe that people could learn from our purported ‘frills’?”

Charles, that’s who—and he had a list of scholars and politicians who agreed with him. Not written down, of course—memorized, in his head, where no one could use them against him. The role call included John Quincy Adams and John Smithson (of the Smithsonian Institute), as well as some later scholars and politicians, such as John Dewey and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Horace simply stared for a moment. Then wild delight sparked in his eyes and grew as he said, “If these luminaries really nurtured that shining ideal into the republican government that has embraced the whole of Old Earth, then perhaps, just possibly… if you can convince the convicts as thoroughly as you have convinced me… Why, then democracy could make a spectacular new beginning on Wolmar!”

“At just the time when Elector Rudders and his party of plutocrats are trying to extinguish it back home,” someone said.

The company froze into stark silence, except for the general, who looked rather grim.

“There,” I muttered. “I said it. I actually said it.”

“It can’t be true.” But Marty was clearly shocked.

“What difference does it make?” Lacey asked with a toss of her head. “The rich men have always ruled, openly or not.”

“It matters,” Marnie said, “because one of the first causalities of Elector Rudders’ version of a ‘New Order’ will be freedom of speech—and then our ability to present the plays that we treasure will vanish.”

“Not to mention freedom of religion,” Winston put in.

I frowned, turning to our fellow trouper-turned-Mystery Man. “So you’re planning to turn Wolmar into a sanctuary, where you can keep democracy safe.”

We all stared at Charles, waiting. Finally, he gave a small nod.

“Where it can grow and thrive until the rest of the colonized planets decide they want it again,” Lazaro inferred.

Another nod, larger this time.

“Charles T. Barman!” I straightened in my seat as the name connected with the news stories. “You’re the rogue educator!”

“Guilty,” Charles admitted.

“You are indeed,” Horace said. “Elector Rudders and his unofficial enforcers have been searching for you so they can lock you up where your heretical doctrines won’t contaminate the electorate.”

Barry’s face turned dark. “And you chose my company for your refuge!”

“And transport,” Merlo added.

Charles had the grace to look abashed. “Forgive me, my friends, but I had just received word from a certain network whose existence is known only to the few people who agree with me…”

“Several million, actually,” Shaklar interjected.

“Out of fifteen billion?” Charles asked with a rueful smile. “Scarcely a huge number.”

“Lamentably true,” Shaklar sighed, “especially since many of the people who built that network now reside here—not entirely willingly, I might add.”

“Then it is only fitting that I join them,” Charles said, sounding far happier than any man entering a prison had any right to be.

“Fortunately, there were enough of them to know what was going on in Rudders’ camp,” Shaklar told the rest of us, then turned to Charles. “That's how you learned that he had sicced his hounds upon you.”

“I take it the hounds were human,” Winston said.

“Technically.” Charles nodded. “I would have preferred the canine variety—they would have been less vicious.”

“You see,” Shaklar said, “Charles had been incautious enough to publish his findings and to propose a solution. That is how I learned of his existence. I sent him a note of thanks, expressing my interest in all his work, past and future…”

“And thus became a part of his network,” Barry inferred.

“Quite so,” said Shaklar, “so when I learned that he was in danger of imprisonment for life, I sent word that he would be welcome and safe on Wolmar—if he could reach us.”

“However,” said Charles, “the good general could not arrange transportation.”

Shaklar nodded. “To use a government vehicle for so private a purpose would have attracted as much unwelcome attention as a bear at a picnic.”

“So you would be safe,” Barry said slowly, “if you could find your way here.”

The company stared in shock for a moment. Then Marnie erupted. “You horrid little man! You jeopardized the whole company! Every single one of us might have joined you in jail, with no hope of escape—for surely, Rudders would not make your arrest public! You might as well have sicced the Man in Gray on us yourself!”

“I have absolutely no idea who he is,” Shaklar admitted.

But Marnie was on a tear. “Not only did you join our company under false pretenses—you had the audacity to continue your experiments on us! On us, and our audiences! The mistakes in prompting, the editing of speeches, the ad libs that were neither—they were all your doing, weren’t they? Weren’t they?”

“They were indeed.” Charles had the grace to hang his head in shame.

“And the choice of plays? How did you arrange that?”

“Oh, just the right words in the right ears at the right times.” Charles smiled. “The power of suggestion, despite being so simple, is a remarkably effective tool when used properly. Besides, it’s amazing how many average people wish to be seen as cultured—and want it for their children, too.”

“Well, that’s some good news, anyway,” Ogden rumbled. “Still, you might have told us.”

“I can only say,” Charles said with a sigh, “that I was taking precautions to assure that we would be allowed to leave each planet when the time came.”

“Yes, by initiating revolutions!” Marnie opened her lips for Tirade Part Two—then froze, her eyes gaining a calculating look.

The rest of us sat quietly, waiting for the axe to fall.

Finally she said, “You know, you may have achieved exactly that.”

Charles nodded. “On New Venus, the threat of a planet-wide firestorm could certainly count as a diversion.”

“As could the presence of ghosts on Sandrock,” Horace said.

Me, I suddenly found the roof of the limousine so fascinating that I had to study its every inch.

“That, at least, was not my doing,” Charles said. “Not on Sandrock.”

“Not even the mis-prompts?”

Charles shook his head.

We were all quiet, contemplating explanations for the phenomenon.

Then the grav-limo slowed and halted. Shaklar stepped down to the pavement and stood, waving us all toward a door flanked by two Marines. As we approached the portal, one of them opened it.

“Honored guests,” said Shaklar, “let me introduce you to Charles’s venue-in-waiting. Yours, however, will be considerably more well-appointed.”

We piled out—and froze, staring at Charles’s future laboratory.

It was a tavern.

“Come in, come in!” Shaklar said. “And when next you desire it, your landlord will be Charles himself.”

Somewhat subdued, we filed in.

It was a dim and low-ceilinged place, with a horseshoe-shaped bar surrounded by three dozen meter-wide tables. At one end stood a small stage, perhaps a meter high and five wide, four spotlights giving it a glow. A young inmate sat there on a stool, playing, of all instruments, a lap-harp. He looked as though he were about to burst into song but managing to resist the impulse.

The clientele, a score of bearded stocky men in rough clothing, looked up as we came in—and stared hungrily at the actresses. I felt like the Huntsman guarding Little Red Riding Hood.

“Ah, yes,” Shaklar said. “I forgot to tell you about the proportion of men to women here.”

“I take it the men outnumber the women substantially,” Winston said.

“Approximately twelve to one.”

“I thought there were indigenous tribes here…?”

“Well, not really indigenous,” Shaklar said. “They’re the descendants of the first wave of colonists, and although they do have a somewhat higher proportion of women to men—three women to every two men—their leaders are disgusted with my charges and do everything they can to keep the two cultures separate.”

I looked around me and realized that, without thinking about it, I had moved out in front of Lacey and Suzanne. I noticed that General Shaklar was standing between Marnie and the rustic gentlemen.

“Do go back to your games, fellows,” he said. “You shall see the ladies clearly when the company performs next week.”

That seemed like a truly abundant period of time, after the crammed rehearsals we’d had en route to our previous venues.

Charles was looking about him in bliss. “An excellent location, General. I can already see these tables covered with games centering on historical events, and 3DT videos explaining the great inventors and their discoveries!”

“There is, of course, a back room for those seeking advanced educations.”

“It will be admirable,” Charles said with a happy sigh. “I cannot thank you enough for this space and its patrons, General.”

“Yes, you can,” Shaklar said, “by doing what you were planning anyway—stealth education, entertainment that teaches.”

The General led us to a booth off to the side, and I found it rather amusing when Ramou quite deliberately placed himself on the outside seat—right between our young actresses and the rather rough-edged clientele of this establishment. It was gallant, chivalrous, and—considering the warden was with us—completely unnecessary. Still, I suppose, it's the thought that counts—and I'm almost certain Ramou was hoping Suzanne thought so, too.

Out of habit, my eyes drifted back to the stage—it was only polite to pay attention to a performer, after all. The harpist plucked a finishing chord and looked quite surprised when we all applauded him. Then he smiled, bowed, and exited stage left into the wings and whatever passed for a backstage.

It was then that I noticed an older gentleman approaching our table with a look on his face that I knew all too well. Of course, we had never been on a planet more than a day before stage-struck locals started showing up—but we didn’t expect them in less than an hour of our arrival!

Moreover, we would never have expected a would-be performer on a prison planet—you expect felons to be big and tough and brutal, or small and wiry and shrewd, and in either case not at all interested in the arts—but the mild old duffer who showed up at our table in Charles’s tavern didn't look like a convict.

“Excuse me,” he said in a diffident tone and with a posture that asked you to excuse his existence, “but I was wondering if there were any openings with your company? Extras, spear-carriers, that sort of thing?”

I turned to him with the urbane smile that had greeted a hundred such hopefuls down through the years. “We generally manage with the company members. Still, let me take your card in case the need arises.”

Wonder of wonders, the old duffer handed me a worn plastic business card—then thumbed the corner, and it unfolded into an eight-by-ten holo head shot! Of course, he didn't look anything like the face smiling at us from the holo—it was him in his thirties, with dark brown hair, firm skin with no wrinkles, and square, chiseled lines to the face. The eyes, though, were startling—a clear blue where you would have expected brown or black, somehow gazing past the camera into a world where everything was bright and exciting. They were a dreamer's eyes.

I glanced up at the skinny old wretch in the worn coat and threadbare trousers, bowed with years of trying to slide by, at the white hair and the facial lines that had softened and blurred, the wrinkles that netted every inch, and the straight nose that had reddened with years of drink.

I took the head shot with the gravity and grace appropriate when dealing with a fellow professional, and pressed the holographic brass plaque below the chin that had the actor's name—one that had considerably more character than his appearance. “Seamus Lazaro?”

I saw Ramou stiffen with a look that showed alarm bells ringing in his chest so loudly that I could only hear myself thinking that it had to be a coincidence. He must have noticed my quizzical glance before I turned back to Lazaro. “Would that be Irish and Hispanic?”

“It would,” said the worn-out veteran.

“An odd combination,” I said, and this time I could not prevent concern from showing in my glance at Ramou.

“Is it not?” Lazaro pointed to the name plaque. “It’s somewhat like a genie’s lamp—press it again.”

I did, and the name opened out into a list of acting credits—a long list. I couldn't help my eyebrows rising in surprise at the first line. “Actor’s Equity? Still paid up?”

“The general is kind enough to take care of that,” Lazaro said.

“We have a slush fund on Earth for unique situations,” Shaklar said. “We established an automatic payment schedule by tachyon mail before we cleared Pluto’s orbit.”

“So I always manage my dues somehow.” The geezer managed a weak smile. “They still send me the voucher for my year's pair of shoes, though there's no one here who will take it.”

I studied his credits. “Carnegie... the Studio... Julliard… Did your time in rep, I see…”

“I would be quite pleased to do it again.”

“Made the transition from leading man to character roles successfully...”

“Yes, well, I was never really a leading man,” Lazaro said apologetically, “more of a foil, a secondary focus.”

I found it difficult to believe that this old scrap of a man could ever have pulled any focus. He was the kind of fellow who comes into a room and creates the impression that someone has just left. I suspected he would look better onstage, though. From the entries I saw scrolling before me, he was definitely a professional—and pro is a pro.

And Ramou was Ramou—a martial arts master with a gaze growing more and more bleak. I began to wonder whether or not I should be alarmed.

I turned back to the list of credits. “A career building steadily… but you seem to have stopped making progress when you were—what? Thirty?”

“Twenty-nine,” the duffer said, “but I had learned my craft by then. Having the opportunity to practice it—well, that was quite another matter.”

“Oh, I think we can spare the time,” Marnie said, too casually. “Don’t you think so, Barry?”

“I confess to being intrigued,” Barry answered. “A fellow with your credentials should not be wasting his talents on so rugged a frontier planet.”

“I became somewhat disenchanted with theater... well, no, that's not true. But I did marry and began to want to spend time with my wife.”

“Yes, an attractive young woman should not spend the evenings alone,” I said.

Lazaro missed the hint—or let it go by. Ramou did not, I could see it in his face, and wondered at the cause. “Quite so,” he said. “After all, if one makes a commitment, one should do all one can to stick by it.”

Ramou made a sound somewhere between a growl and a squeak. I looked up at him, puzzled, then did my best to explain it to Lazaro. “My young friend has trouble with the concept of commitment.”

“Yeah,” Ramou said. “The only people I've met who stuck to a commitment were the ones in hospitals.”

“Ah, well,” Lazaro said with a sad smile, “sometimes it isn't a matter of choice.”

Ramou stiffened more, and from his lack of expression, I could see he was trying not to let his anger show—and he saw that I could see. I turned back to Lazaro. “Sit down, why don't you, and explain that notion.”

“Gladly.” Lazaro sat, seeming somewhat surprised. “I should think you'd be familiar with the phenomenon, though.”

“I've known my own version of it.” I signaled the waiter. “What are you drinking?”

The waiter bustled up—and it was Charles himself!

“Why, bourbon, thank you,” Lazaro said, even more surprised.

“Anytime, guv,” Charles said.

“Eh, Cholly!” another patron called. “Pitcher over here!” I had a notion Charles would be “Cholly” for the rest of his life. Cholly nodded and turned away, looking rather happy about it all.

“ ’Ere now, Laz,” said the local patron, “what about that song and dance?”

Lazaro stepped up from our table and into the lights, which brightened obligingly.

“Do find seats,” Shaklar urged. “You’re in for a treat—if you enjoy classic humor.”

“Meaning jokes so old they creak?” I smiled, standing and rubbing my hands in anticipation. “I must have a seat in the front row!”

A little more slowly, we followed him. Marnie sat at Shaklar's left hand, Winston at his right, and Ramou hung back in the shadows, as though he were not sure he wanted the old comic to notice him.

Shaklar stepped to the center of the stage, a cane tucked under his arm like a swagger stick. He stood on the floor, though, so as not to block Lazaro as Shaklar took his place directly in front of the purported comedian onstage a meter higher. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have the pleasure of introducing to you Seamus Lazaro, the finest comedian on the planet of Wolmar.”

A quick glance at Ramou showed me that he was braced for that, perhaps beginning to relax a little, though it did seem a bit forced, as though wondering what other unpleasant experiences might be waiting for him here. I decided stayed on my guard, just in case. Shaklar stepped aside and tossed the cane to Lazaro, who caught it and spun it in a blur, then stopped it in mid-twirl and reversed the spin.

I heard Ramou stifle a groan and stepped over nearer to him—close enough to hear him mutter, “Just what I needed, a baton twirler in my family!”

I stared, startled. How could he think the old fellow a relation? Surely there had to be other people with “Lazar” as part of the family name… though I hadn’t met any of them yet.

I was distracted by the need to join in the perfunctory applause we gave Lazaro. After all, every one of us knew its importance.

“Thank you, General.” The weary face livened surprisingly at the infusion of appreciation. “What he neglects to tell you,” he said to the rest of us, “is that I am the only comedian on Wolmar.”

“Still good for laughs, though,” said one of the regulars.

“Which requires that I make clear the difference between a comedian and a comic,” Lazaro said.

“And that is?” I said in a tone that invited a reply.

“Why, that a comedian is a performer who says funny things…”

“Whereas a comic is a performer who says things funny,” I finished.

The younger contingent groaned, and I looked at them in surprise, astonished that they were not already acquainted with the distinction. I turned back to Lazaro and asked, “How would you differentiate between a comic and a clown?”

“Warily,” the old comedian answered. “After all, we laugh with a comic, but we laugh at a clown.”

“I beg to differ,” I said. “Clown, comic, or comedian, it makes no difference. What matters is that the audience laughs when you want them to.”

Marty loosed a sigh of pure pleasure. The other younglings stared in surprise, then began to pay much closer attention.

“I can see you are a man of discernment, sir,” Lazaro said to me. “I must ask your pardon if my jokes seem rather archaic.”

“Not at all,” I replied. “After all, we can’t have archaic and eat it, too.”

This time the audience groaned, and I was surprised that even the locals joined our juveniles in their left-handed tribute. My fellow veterans, though, gave the sound a flavor of the delight one feels upon meeting an old friend. Many of us immediately recognized the opening line of his skit—an classic Vaudeville routine by Webber & Fields. Shaklar wasn't kidding about it being a old classic—it was from the nineteenth century!

Lazaro had apparently adapted the routine into a monologue, although it worked much better as a duet. When I completed his punch line for him, he immediately realized I knew the skit as well—and a slow smile spread across his face. Lazaro tipped his hat to me, then flourished his cane so that it knocked against the stage floor and rebounded to smack into his other hand.

I returned his tip of the hat, and Lazaro looked a bit nonplussed as I came up the three steps to join him on the stage. He recovered quickly enough and bowed. “I am delighted to meet you.”

“And I you,” I said.
“The pleasure is all mine.”

“No, no!” I said. “I too have mined for pleasure.”

“At the cemetery,” Ogden called out, “digging up forgotten jokes!”

But Lazaro proved equal to the challenge. “I fear you are forgetting why they were buried.”

“Forgetting?” Ogden asked. “My dear fellow, I am for getting everything I can!”

“Which leaves out laughs,” I said. Then, to Lazaro, “You look as though you need a hand.”

Marnie promptly began clapping, and the other veterans joined in. The younger contingent stared from one of us to the other, wondering what the hey we were doing (it was an ancient vaudeville skit, of course, which is why we did not say ‘What the hell’).

Lazaro was taken aback at first, then remembered the situation and did what any old pro would do—bowed, tipping his hat to them.

“For a minute there, I was thinking you were needing some help,” I said.

“No, the material is needing it,” Marnie said. “Which of you is Webber and which Fields?”

“I am a bit numb today,” I said, “so I can’t be fields.”

“Not ‘feels,’ ” Marnie said, “Fields!”

“Not too far afields, I hope,” I told her, then turned to the old comic. “Have you learned your lines?”

Lazaro grinned with delight at meeting a fellow humor historian and said, “Indeed I have, my good man. The lines are in the letter.”

Marty decided to get in on the act. “I thought letters made up lines.”

“Not the kind of letter I received from my goil,” said Lazaro, “but I don't know how to write her back.”

I replied, “Why would you write on her back?”

Lazaro shrugged. “Paper is better. Such an edjumacation you got! Write her back! You mean rotten her back. How can you answer her when you don't know how to write?”

Someone laughed. Someone not in the company, that is. One of the regulars. Laz’s head rotated toward the sound like a hunting dog going to point as he said, “That makes no never mind,” he continued. “She don't know how to read.”

I said, “If you love her, why don't you send her some poultry?”

The old comedian answered, “She don't need no poultry; her father is a butcher.”

“But you could add a verse.”

“If she was adverse, why would she be my goil?”

“Make some money for her,” I said. “Go to the race track and make a bet.”

“What! You mean I should go from verse to better?”

The kids all groaned, covering their faces—except Ramou, who was studying Lazaro closely, as though looking for a gesture, a facial expression, anything familiar.

“Maybe you was right the first time,” Lazaro said. “Would poultry really move her?”

“She could wing it,” Marty called.

Marnie turned to look back at the next generation, as though to say, “Well! The young ones are getting into the spirit of the occasion,” then gave Lazaro a beaming smile—at least, beaming until it hit Ramou. Then she looked surprised—and for the first time since I’d known her, concerned. I would have been touched if Ramou hadn’t been balanced on the edge of anger.

But the show must go on, especially when you can’t think of an alternative. I said, “No, no! Poultry, not chickens.”

“Duck!” Suzanne called.

Lazaro and I complied, pulling our heads down and bending our knees, then straightening, looking over our shoulders to stage left. A loud clang sounded there, and we both jumped. I realized the harpist must have stayed to listen.

“That was his swan song,” Lazaro explained.

“Enough with the poultry!” I said. “I mean love boids like Romeo and Chuliet talks:

“ ‘If you love you like I love me,
No knife can cut us together.’ ”

“I don't like that,” Lazaro said.

“That never stopped you before!” Winston hooted.

I asked Lazaro, “What you want to say to her?”

“I don't want you to know what I'm saying to her,” he answered. “All I want you to do is tell me what to put in her letter.”

“Such a foolishness!” I said. “If I don't tell you what to say, how will you know what to write if she don't know how to read?”

“I don't want nobody to know what I'm writing to her.”

I gave him my most puzzled mug. “You don't want nobody to know what you are rotten?”

“No,” he said.
“Then send her a postal card.”

“Send her a postal card?” Lazaro bleated. “If I do, she'll think I don't care two cents for her.”

“It’s up to a dollar now,” Marnie put in helpfully.

“Inflation,” Ogden explained.

“Are you going to marry her?” I asked, and Ramou looked as though someone had rammed a poker up his spine. Marnie and Winston both turned to glance at him, clearly worried.

So was I.

Think about it later, I told myself, after we finish the skit.

Lazaro answered, “In two days, I will be a murdered man.”

“A what?” I asked, mugging shamefully in surprise.

“I mean a married man.”

That one fell like a lead brick—not a peep from the house full of convicts (and involuntary bachelors). I was beginning to think I was going to owe Ramou an apology. Not Lazaro, of course—until we finished this performance.

I went on. “I hope you will always look back upon the present instance as the happiest moment of your life.”

“But I ain't married yet,” Lazaro protested.

“I know it,” I said, “and furthermore, upon this suspicious occasion, I also wish to express to you—charges collect—my uppermost depreciation of the dishonor you have informed upon me in making me your bridesmaid.”

“The insult is all mine,” Lazaro assured me.

I sniffled, wiping away an imaginary tear. “As you stand before me now, so young, so innocent, so obnoxious, there is only one woid that can express my pleasure, my dissatisfaction…”

“Yes, yes?”
“And I can't think of it,” I confessed.

A round of booing erupted from the house. I glanced at them; everyone was grinning—except Ramou. I would definitely have to have a chat with him later—if I could only discover the cause of his depression.

“I know I will be happy,” Lazaro exclaimed.

“I know you will be.” I clasped his hand. “And later on, when you lose all your money, and your wife runs out on you, and your house burns down, and your children run away or go to college, then I, your best friend, will take you by the hand… and…”

“Yes, yes?” Lazaro said, wiping an imaginary tear.

“And say…”

“Yes, yes!”

And say, “I told you so!”

The troupers came to their feet with applause and shouts of “Bravo!” We tipped our hats and took our bows. The locals looked at my friends (for if they had suffered through that material and came up smiling, they could scarcely be anything else!). Not that there was anything wrong with the Webber & Fields skit, mind you. It was excellent comedy—in 1885. The company shouted their applause, but the locals stared at us as if we were half-witted. Our old friends blithely ignored them—and our young friends, too.

All except Ramou, who sat so stone-faced that he could have applied for employment at Easter Island.

Everyone else was applauding, though, and some of the locals were calling, “More! More!” and “Bring back the old guy!” Since, by their standards, we were both old, we turned to bow and tip our hats again, then straightened, Lazaro twirling his borrowed cane.

“Why do you tip your hats?” one of the locals called, with the intonation of a question that was as much a regular as the man who had asked it.

“Why,” said Lazaro, “because I am tipsy.”

Another mass groan rose, and the heckler (who seemed to be an old friend) said, “But you haven’t had a single drink!”

“An oversight,” I said, “which we shall both do our best to rectify immediately.”

This time the laugh was genuine, and we waved and turned our attention to the bar—or, more to the point, to a table; my comrades had all gathered around the largest one.

“We have supplied the round table,” Shaklar said. “I trust you shall be good knights?”
“Good night?” I protested. “But the evening has barely begun!”

Winston turned to me. “Make like a carpenter and join us.”

“We shall be delighted.” I turned to Lazaro. “Won’t you, old fellow?”

“Why, how kind.” Lazaro sat, and Marty set a stein in front of him. The old fellow (I have the right to say that if anyone does) blew off the foam with an expert touch and took a long swallow. He set the tankard down with a sigh of satisfaction. “Thank you, my friends. It has been many years since I have had the joy of performing for fellow professionals.”

“A delightful courtesy,” I said, “to one who, like us, did tread the boards for pay!”

“That I did—for a few years. Then, sadly, destiny called me away from the jaded audiences of the inner planets and stranded me here, to seek to make my fellow felons laugh and keep the peace among them with high good humor.”

“Why was the humor high?” Marty asked.

“Bless you, my lad,” the old trouper said. “You’ve learned how to deliver a straight line. As to why the humor was high, you have only to draw a deep breath for your answer.”

We all did upon the instant, of course, and smelled the telltale scent of poor man’s tobacco—otherwise known as marijuana, the reason why the man stayed poor. Only Ramou desisted, sitting a little apart from the table with his arms folded, glowering at us all. Wherefore? I wondered, then had to turn my attention to making the old fellow—the other old fellow, I should say—feel welcome.

“How did you come here?” I asked.

“By starship,” Lazaro answered.

I answered with a gentle smile. “Truly said—but why come all this way for so rough a frontier?”

“Why, to find an audience who would truly appreciate my art.”

“Rather a bit above the ambience,” Marnie said.

I nodded and murmured agreement, as did all except Larry and Lacey, who said, “Comedy is an inferior form of the dramatic art.”

“Indeed!” Lazaro said. “Must I remind you of the dying words of the immortal Edmund Kean?”

“And what would those be?”

“ ‘Dying is easy,’ ” we veterans recited in chorus. “ ‘Comedy is hard.’ ”

“Your teachers were remiss,” Lazaro said, “if you have never heard that quotation before.”

Larry and Lacey both lost their smiles, and Larry said, “If he was dying, how could he have been immortal?”

“He is now.” Lazaro bent an eye toward the lad. “For that, young fellow, you shall receive full measure of vengeance.”

“Oh, really?” Larry said with a snide smile. “What vengeance will that be?”

“Someday, for your sins, I shall make you both laugh and cry in the space of ten minutes.” Then, before Larry could frame a reply, he turned to Marnie. “Have I really the pleasure of meeting the famous Marnie Lulala?”

“Why, yes,” Marnie was clearly pleased at the compliment, though she knew it for the flattery it was. “How kind of you to remark upon it.”

“Not at all, not at all,” Lazaro said. “I was fortunate enough to see you perform in O Dad, Poor Dad. I laughed myself silly, then came out of the theater shivering with dread.”

Marnie smiled. “I trust my performance steered you away from any such harridans.”

“It did that, madam,” said the old man of the world. “If there were faults in our marriage, they were at least as much mine as well as hers.”

“Very good of you to say it,” Marnie said, clearly withholding a measure of censure. “That is at least one of the strengths of comedy, is it not? To allow us to laugh at our own vices—and by laughing, to accept their existence and by so accepting, to set them to mending.”

Barry nodded. “As Lord Byron said, ‘and if I laugh at any mortal thing, ’tis that I shall not weep.’ ”

“Well said, goodman, well said.” Lazaro turned to Barry with his hand out. “Could you be the renowned Barry Tallendar?”

“I could be, and am.” Barry smiled.

“And the praiseworthy Horace Burbage!” Lazaro shook my hand too and said, “I must say, I am amazed to be sitting in such distinguished company.”

“Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you?” Larry muttered, but carefully not loudly enough that anyone else could hear. He had forgotten (or never knew) about the surgery that had saved my hearing—and given me ears for more acute than the average human.

“Tell me,” said Barry, “the details of your coming here—for you certainly could have fared much better on old Earth.”

Everyone leaned forward a little—except Ramou, who sat ramrod straight.

“It was my agent’s doing, I suppose,” Lazaro said with a sigh. “He booked me as the continuity for a popular music concert—I could play the zither fairly well in those days, and had developed comical lyrics which, if I may say so, never failed to gain a rousing series of laughs from any audience. I should have been suspicious, I know, for it’s rare that concerts have comedians, but I was only twenty-three and keenly aware of how little I knew about the profession—and Publius Promo was an experienced booking agent with an excellent reputation…”

“He is no longer of high repute,” Barry said. “In fact, it was he who worked out our itinerary—though, I may say, with some suggestions from Charles…”

“Be fair,” Marnie said. “We were all free to propose venues.”

“I had thought New Venus was an exotic location with miles of beaches,” Winston said. “It never occurred to me that those beaches might be flammable.”

“I dare say Promo’s reputation began to decline with the World Wide Concert,” Lazaro said. “In his defense, I must say that no one could have foreseen what would happen—that thousands of young folk would swarm to the site, ready and willing to tear down fences and anything else that stood in their way.”

“Égad!” Ogden said. “You don’t mean the Great Pop Riot, surely!”

“Oh, quite surely indeed,” Lazaro said.

“Who's Shirley?” Marty piped up. A few of us groaned; the rest ignored him.

Ogden grumbled like a volcano warming up. “We learned, some years later, that the then-young man we would come to know as Elector Rudders was behind the whole scheme.”

The young folk had eyes round as omelets. “A politician produced a concert?” Larry asked in disbelief.

“He did indeed,” Ogden told him, “because young folk tend to favor change—starting at the beginnings of their careers, they have little to lose, and changes in politics or business may favor them. Elector Rudders not only resists change, but actually tries to reverse it!” I said with alarm.

“Does he truly?” Lazaro asked. “I had begun to suspect as much, from the year-old newscasts we’ve been receiving. In fact, back then, my young wife urged me not to go to the World Wide Concert—quite insistent about it, really. She’d had a presentiment of disaster—but I told her not to worry, then kissed her and went out the door, assuring her that I would be home for dinner.” He sighed. “I wasn’t.”

“And…” Ramou floundered, looking as though he were trying to frame a question. “But the baby!”

Lazaro frowned, looking at him a little strangely. “What baby?”

“Well… there must have been a baby! I mean, you were a young couple! You must have wanted a baby!”

“Eventually, perhaps,” said Lazaro, “but at the time, we were both far too concerned with our careers.”

“Did you make sure?” Ramou demanded. “There are ways to make sure! Did you?”

“Scarcely your affair.” Marnie laid a gentle but restraining hand on Ramou's arm. “Excuse him, please, Mr. Lazaro.”

Ramou rode right over her. “I have to know! Did you make sure?”

“As well as we could.” Lazaro’s head was sinking. “How did you know, young man?”

Ramou stared in shock. “Know what?”

“My abiding dread, all these years—that the ‘sure thing’ might have failed, that I might have a fatherless child somewhere, withering from neglect?”

“Maybe I didn’t know,” Ramou said. “Maybe she didn’t, either—and only knew that you didn’t come home to her big surprise: candlelight, soft music, and the shining news that you were about to become a daddy.”

Lazaro hung his head, and his voice was so low we could scarcely hear him. “My fear—my fear, and my abiding sorrow.”

Ramou sat back. “Too late to change it now.”

“Then why bring it up?” Marnie asked. “Let the dead past bury our dead events, Ramou, and with them our regrets.”

“But they’re not dead,” he said, “none of them. They’re all still alive—if you can call that life.”

“Oh, I can.” Lazaro’s gaze turned distant, looking deeply into the past. “It was a good marriage at first, but she was an aspiring actor too, and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t able to gain her entry into the professional ranks. Her frustration with my lack of progress in gaining her entrée into the world of the professionals grew steadily. She began to make caustic comments, berating and belittling me, complaining about the sordid domestic life we were living, with no regular salary and my nature being too passive to break into even small parts off-Broadway.”

“And her accusations whittled away at your self-esteem,” I said with a smile of regret, “making you even less likely to carve out a niche for her—or even for yourself.”

“Quite so,” Lazaro admitted. “Eventually she began to complain that I had married her under false pretenses, leading her on with the tantalizing notion that she would become a star—with some truth, I might add, for in addition to her ambitions, I had played the rising star myself, boasting and name-dropping and introducing her to the few professionals I did know—though merely in passing, which they did. Eventually she began to rant and rail, demanding to know why I could not break through into the gilded world, or what she imagined it would be…”

Marine’s smile was somewhat wry. “So many of us think that at first—then learn that the fourteen-hour days and endless retakes are extremely exhausting, rarely bring any measure of success.”

“Quite so, as I have learned to my sorrow—and as she did, too. I finally managed to find her a minor part in a 3DT epic, and she was shocked to find that the stars and, yes, even the regulars paid her no attention at all. Then, of course, it became my fault for not having ingratiated myself with them so that she would have a proper chance, the opportunity she felt she deserved. When the shooting was through, she began to yearn for a normal life, or so she said—and as I drew her out in conversation, I learned that her idea of normality involved nothing of a small town or a white picket fence and a rose garden. Instead, it meant only a child with the two of us, and a larger apartment in a more pleasant neighborhood—all while we were earning fortunes in our profession.”

“Wanting two conflicting dreams at the same time? The poor thing was dooming herself to misery,” Marnie said, but her tone was one of nostalgia and regret.

“It seems so,” Lazaro said with a sigh. “As suddenly as it had clouded over, her temperament became sunny, with joyful smiles, even singing as she went about her daily round of auditions.” He shook his head in amazement. “I had no idea what it meant at the time—only delighted with her happiness.”

“So now you know,” Ramou said. “What was it, duffer?”

“Ramou!” Marnie said, scolding. “He has done nothing to merit your censure.”

“I think he has,” Ramou said. “What did it mean, old man? The delight, the singing—what did it all mean?”

“Do we have to spell it out, Ramou?” Lacey demanded.

“Yes, we must,” Marnie said. “Men are always blind to the most important things in life.” She turned back to Lazaro. “She was carrying your child, was she not?”

“I think she was,” the old comic said, “though of course, for I cannot know for certain. If she was, it must have been the joy of beginning a new life that quelled her cataloguing of my faults—but as the first weeks passed and her physical condition became more uncomfortable, the belittling and blaming began again, and increased. Finally she gave me an ultimatum—I must obtain a solid supporting role and an abundant income, or move out and seek a divorce.”

“No!” Ramou’s fingers bit into the tabletop.

Lazaro looked at him in mild surprise, and I hastened to change the topic—or to attempt to. “Couldn’t her insistence on income have been a part of preparing her world for another life?”

Ramou went on as though he hadn’t heard. “You trying to say she kicked you out?”

“Alas, I’m afraid that’s true,” Lazaro said, seeming to fold in on himself, “and I was too timid, too passive, to persuade her to take me back. Not that I didn’t try…”

“But that can’t be!” Ramou said. “That’s not the way it happened!”

We stared at him in shocked surprise, and Suzanne touched his arm as Larry said, “How could you know, Ramou? You weren’t there!”

“I hope I wasn’t! But tell me this, old man…” Ramou leveled a forefinger, as though he were aiming a blaster. “Didn’t you wait until the baby was born?”

“Sadly, no.” And Lazaro did look sad and thin, wraith-like. “I felt so diminished by her complaints that I was bound and determined to prove myself, to show that I could earn a living, could rise in show business, so hungry to succeed in her eyes that I went to Publius Promo and demanded a booking—and he found me one.”

“At a concert that was really an elaborate trap for those who dissented with Elector Rudders,” Ogden rumbled, “whose agents incited a stampede that drove thousands of dissenters out of the meadow and back down a darkened woodland trail, into the arms of a small army of vigilantes which, I am now persuaded, was funded by Rudders and his supporters. There followed a sensational series of group trials—countered by class action suits that always failed and prosecutions that became persecutions. When the media circus packed its tents and folded, a flotilla of starships began years of round trips, bringing the most outspoken of the dissenters out here to Wolmar, never to leave.”

“You’re trying to tell me that it wasn’t that you didn’t want to come home?” Ramou snapped. “You’re trying to tell me that you couldn’t?”

“Quite true. I was too much a craven to attempt to stem that human tide.”

“You and several thousand others of us,” Ogden said.

Lazaro sat up straight, squared his shoulders and lifted his chin, obviously nerving himself up. He stared at Ramou. “But you, young man—how could you know anything about this? It was all twenty years ago, at least!”

Ramou ignored his question. Instead, he demanded, “What was the baby’s name? The baby that wasn’t even born when you ran for the stars?”

“Well, we were both in the theater, so of course we chose names accordingly. If the child had been a girl, we would have named her Columbine…”

“And a boy!” Ramou demanded. “What if it was a boy?”

“Ramou…” Winston’s tone was of warning, but also of sympathizing.

Ramou waved him away with a gesture that was more of a chop than a wave. “The name! The baby! If it was a boy? What NAME?”

“Scaramouche,” Lazaro said, “but why—”

Ramou drowned him out with a huge, hoarse bellow as he sprang up, knocking chairs and tables aside as he ran out the door.