STARSHIP TROUPERS IV: THE UNKNOWN GUEST

Chapter Thirteen: Welcome to the Company

by

Christopher Stasheff

Copyright © 2012

 

Lazaro and came down off the stage with yard-wide grins, and the troupe rose in a standing ovation.

“I’ve never seen it done better!” Ogden exclaimed.

As I joined my fellow thespians at our table with General Shaklar, Marnie leaned over to Barry to say, “Lazaro may be a seasoned comic, but he also seems to be an excellent character actor. ”

“I was thinking along the same lines, ” Barry said.  As the applause died, he sat, then looked up in surprise.  “Where is he off to in such a hurry?”

Marnie looked up just in time to see Lazaro’s coat tails disappearing out the door.

Barry looked back to Marnie.  “A company vote?” he asked.

Marnie hesitated, then gazed at Suzanne, gazed very thoughtfully.  Barry saw and nodded.  “Quite correct—Lazaro’s absence makes it easier for us to deliberate.”

Marnie nodded.  “Let us see how violently Ramou objects.”  She beckoned to Suzanne, and some strange communication must have passed between them, for Suzanne caught Ramou’s hand, eyes alight, and brought him over to our table.

“What’s going on?” he asked us.

“We are considering inviting Lazaro to join the company,” Barry said.

Ramou went ramrod straight.

“We won’t hire him if you find it too repellant, Ramou,” Marnie assured. 

The lad stared.  “Why should I have any say about whom we hire?”

“Because you’re part of the company,” I explained.  “We know you, we’ve worked with you, you have come to our aid several times…”

“Yeah, but just because I enjoy a good fight.”

“Actually,” I said, “fighting is the least of the services you have given us.  You were not contracted as an actor, but you have never failed to perform when we needed you to do so.”

Suzanne regarded him with glowing eyes.  I noted that her hand was still on his.

“The performance on New Venus would never have come off without your finessing the locals,” Barry added.

“And we could not have succeeded at Sandrock without your matching wits with the ghosts.”

“Uh… I didn’t really do all that well on that one.”  Ramou was about to say something more, but Marnie spoke first. 

“All that is really secondary, Ramou,” she explained.  “This company has turned out to be one of those magical experiences in the theater; everyone helping everyone else—even Larry and Lacey and, yes, me—and all of us becoming friends with each production, a friendship that grows deeper with every performance.”

I couldn’t believe Marnie was being such a sweetheart, after being so irascible at the beginning of the tour.  She did not really have much of a reputation for kindness and patience.

“I would hate to disrupt that spirit of unity,” she continued, “but that will surely happen if we hire an actor whom you despise.”

“And whom you have reason to resent,” I said.

Barry nodded.  “Truly said.  You have become a comrade-in-arms, as it were, and we owe you as much loyalty as you have shown us.”

“But there’s a selfish side to it, too,” I said, “and Marnie has stated it quite clearly.”

Marnie smiled, amused.  “Why, thank you, Horace.”

“Only a small part of what you deserve.”

“As Ramou deserves a great deal of us,” she said.  “Whereas Lazaro is an almost complete unknown.  He has shown us that he is an excellent actor as well as a comedian.  But could he be pretending loyalty to win some favor from us?”

Ramou sat still for a moment, then nodded slowly.

Suzanne looked distressed.

“We owe you a great deal,” I said.  “We owe Lazaro nothing.  In fact, if we take him on, it will be more an act of charity than of self-interest, taking him back to the inner planets where he might yet prosper.”

“We shall need another recruit in any case,” Barry said, “if Charles stays here.”

Suzanne was watching Ramou with huge eyes.

“He came through when Winston needed help,” Ramou said.  “We owe him for that, at least.  He chose a side, and it was ours.”

“He might show that kind of loyalty again,” Suzanne said.

“Yeah,” Ramou said, “but he might not.”

I glanced at the two of them.  Did Suzanne seek to bring about a reconciliation for Ramou’s sake?  Or for Lazaro’s?  Perhaps both?

Or was it simply that she was the kind of person who wanted the best for everyone?

“Give him a shot,” Ramou said.  “If it doesn’t work out, we can always toss him out the airlock.”

Delighted that the lad’s inborn generosity had triumphed, we all laughed.  Except Suzanne.  I hoped she didn’t think he had spoken in seriousness.  Surely he hadn’t.

Surely?

Right on cue, Lazaro walked in and swerved toward the bar.

“Oh, do come and join us, old fellow,” I called.

“Why, how kind.”  He changed course for our table.  Two seconds later, Cholly set a double whiskey in front of him.  Lazaro looked up, surprised.  “How did you know?”

“Whin a man looks loike death warmed over,” Cholly said, “ ’e needs embalming.”

We took a closer look.  Lazaro did look haggard, with a gray tinge to his face.  “What was so exhausting, old fellow?” I asked.

“I…”  Lazaro cast a guilty glance at Ramou, then as quickly glanced away.  He took a breath.  “I have been… writing home.”

Ramou froze.

Suzanne clasped his hand in both of hers.

“It is always difficult to apologize,” Lazaro said, “let alone to explain your faults.  But it is done, and will hopefully ease her heart a little.  A bit of closure, perhaps.”

“Closure?”  Ramou almost bolted out of his chair.  Iron discipline held him in his seat—that, and Suzanne’s delicate hand.  Instead, the lad took a deep breath, then said, “You didn’t tell her never to see you again, did you?  After all these years?  Talk about hurt!”

“Certainly not.”  Lazaro winced.  “I did make it clear—I hope—that I could not blame her for the divorce, that I was at fault in many ways…”

“So was she,” I added gently.

“I could not tell her that,” Lazaro said.  “Indeed, I think that I was far more to blame than she.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Ramou said, “but you might tell her you met your mutual son.”

“Oh, I did—and told her how proud I was, and how excellently she has reared you.”  He cradled the glass in his hand.  “Yes, overall, I need this drink.”  He drained the glass in one swallow, then looked up at Ramou.  “I’ll need a bit of help, young man—an address where I might direct the postal ship.”

Ramou nodded.  “Sure.”  Then, clearly reluctantly, “Thanks.”

“Only her due—in fact, far less.”

Cholly set down a refill.  This time, Lazaro took only a sip.  Then he looked up at Ramou.  “I must apologize to you too, Ramou.  I’m very sorry—and do wish I could have stayed by you.”

“ ’S all right,” said our tender-hearted warrior, then turned to give Barry a very slight nod.  Barry answered with an equally slight smile.

Suzanne glowed.

“Lazaro,” said Barry, “would you like to join our company for this set of performances here on Wolmar?”

Lazaro heaved a huge sigh of relief.  “Yes!  A thousand thanks.  I will not pretend that I had not hoped for such an outcome, but I had not really expected it.  You are the one chance I have ever had for escape from this cultural wasteland.”  Then, quickly, with a raised palm, “Not that I think you have made any commitment… but being allowed to demonstrate my abilities—to audition, as it were—is a great kindness indeed.”

“But the legal aspects?”  Barry turned to General Shaklar.  “How can you free him without—I would suppose—a new trial?”

“Easily done,” Shaklar said, “especially since none of the deportees ever had an individual trial—they were condemned in one massive travesty of justice.  Since I'm the commander as well as the warden, I can release him on that legal pretext, or any other.”

“But wouldn't you then have to release them all?” Barry asked.

“I did, some years ago.”

We all stared.  Then I said, “You mean to tell me we've been walking the streets among freed felons?”

“Only ten per cent of the population were really felons,” Shaklar reminded us.  “As to walking the streets… they may be free, but they still have to pay for their own transportation.”

“Don’t they feel cheated?”

“Excuse me, folks.”

We looked up as a huge bear of a man in coveralls, windbreaker, knit cap over curly red hair, padded boots and full bush of a beard and moustache, came up to us and took a seat, uninvited.  “Gotta put a word in here.  I got the drift of your talk—pretty loud, but I guess that goes with acting…”

Barry nodded.  “We can project if there’s a need, yes.”

“Just want y’ to know that yeah, I felt cheated at first—right from when I was arrested—but after I’d been here a couple of years, I got to liking it.  I own my own land, thanks to the general’s relocation program…”

“Relocation?”

“Yeah, from Earth to here—and there’s a really great satisfaction in raising your own crops and cattle.  When I think of how I lived on Earth—tenements in the city, jammed together with only four rooms for a whole family and scarcely six feet between houses, if you were lucky enough to have a house of your own instead of just an apartment, and a factory job watching assembly lines to make sure the robots didn’t foul up—no feeling of accomplishment there, none of it.  Here, there’s the feeling that you’re building something, maybe even getting ready for a way to save the Empire of Earth from a tyrant and dictator.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to Mr. Houston Streeter,” Shaklar said, “one of our more avid students.”

“Pleasure,” Streeter said, but didn’t try to shake hands.  “All in all, we’ve got it pretty good here, if you’re not afraid of hard work…”

“I trust you count performing as hard work?” Odgen rumbled.

“Performing?” Streeter said with a shudder, and waved at the stage.  “Never get me up on one of those things.  No, folks, by and large, we got it pretty good here, a lot better than on Old Earth.  Only one thing we don’t have.”

“What would that be?" Marnie asked.

Streeter answered with a grin, looking straight into her eyes with naked hunger, then turned the same look on Lacey and Suzanne.  The younger women shifted in their seats, but Marnie only looked thoughtful.  When Streeter’s gaze came back to her, he was clearly startled to see her gaze still on him, with a thoughtful, meditative look.

“But I thought there were women with the natives,” Larry said, his voice shaking a little.

Ramou squeezed Suzanne’s hand with what I hoped was gentle reassurance.  She turned back to smile at him with that look of pride and total trust that would have undone a lesser man.

“Someday their shamans and village headmen may let ’em mix with us,” Streeter said, “but in the meantime, we can only spend time with the ladies who came from Earth with the rest of us sweepings of dissent.”

“Thank you, Mr. Streeter.”  Shaklar smiled, then turned to Barry.  “I won’t mention to you the parliament we formed last year, nor that Mr. Streeter is its Speaker.”

“Nice to have a title.”  Streeter nodded.  “Nicer to use it.”  He turned to Lazaro.  “Good to see you at the back of the fight there, old-timer.  Your cane-twirling’s as good as ever.”

That kind of put baton-twirling in a different category.  Ramou watched Streeter turn away back to his table and his friends, then turned his gaze on Lazaro and the other veterans.

“Well!”  Barry stood.  “Pleasant though this interlude may have been, we have a small matter of an upcoming performance to consider.  Let us turn our steps toward the hall General Shaklar has delegated to our use, and read through the play.”