STARSHIP TROUPERS IV: THE UNKNOWN GUEST, Chapter 16

STARSHIP TROUPERS IV: THE UNKNOWN GUEST

Chapter Sixteen: Encore

Christopher Stasheff

It took Marnie three days to pack—some of us suspected that she was drawing out the process because, against the odds, she had become fond of all (or at least most) of us. She, Valdor, and Lacey had time to watch our first run-through of Didn’t He Ramble, whether it was due to sentiment or to Marnie’s wishing that Lacey would have to witness Suzanne’s performance in the role she might have had. Then it was time for the General’s grav-car limousine to take us all to the spaceport, where we gathered at the shuttle’s boarding ramp to say goodbye, with Marnie embracing each of the company in turn—except, of course, for Lacey, but including Cholly and, last of all, Larry. After the hug, though, she held him at arm’s length and said, “What has gone wrong to make you revert, Lawrence? You had become so friendly and considerate on Sandrock.”

Larry stared at her, shocked. “Had I really?” Marnie held his shoulders a minute longer, staring into his eyes and pondering, while Larry tried to recover and hide his surprise. “Don't worry,” Larry said, “I promise you that I shall always do my best to sneer at those I consider below me.”

“Oh, you need not go that far,” Marnie said. “Someone might accuse you of imitating me.” Before he could answer, she turned away to the shuttle’s gangway.

Valdor lingered to give his brother Barry one last hug—who knew, perhaps the last of their lives—then held his shoulders and stepped back. “Be careful in your choice of plays, Barry.”

“Has it become so bad as that, then?” Barry did not seem surprised.

Valdor nodded. “Rudders and his LORDS party already have the populace ready to do his bidding and vote him in. I fear the worst. The LORDS party is gradually tightening its hold on the government and is only looking for a danger great enough to unite the public in a hysterical plebiscite to vote them in. Democracy has perhaps ten years left, I imagine.” He turned to the rest of the company, what there was of it. “Still, if anyone wants to go back to Earth, I'll be more than happy to take them.” He eyed Barry hopefully, and Barry gave the matter a few minutes consideration, then said, “I thank you for the kind offer, brother, but I would rather eke out a living going from planet to planet than become a propaganda organ for a reactionary government.”

Finally, Valdor let all his anxiety show. “This bids fair to be the most complete tyranny Old Earth has ever seen, Barry. Those who do not speak the party line will be trampled—perhaps literally.”

Barry forced a smile. “We will triumph, Valdor—not in our lifetimes, perhaps, nor in those of our grandchildren or great-grandchildren, but democracy will rise slowly and inexorably—not dead, only sleeping.”

Valdor shuddered. “Thank heavens for Cholly and his undercover education.”

“You always have been shrewd.” Barry clapped him on the shoulder. “Guard yourself well, brother. You’re the younger, you’re supposed to outlive me.”

“I shall do my best.”

They stood, hands clasped, for a long minute. Then Valdor forced a smile and followed Marnie up to the hatch, where she turned to wave her farewell, then stepped into the ship arm-in-arm with Valdor, making her exit in the grand style that was her due. We gave her a final round of applause, of course, then climbed back into General Shacklar’s grav-limo for a ride far enough away from the blast pit to be safe. When it arrived at its place, the limo turned ninety degrees so that we could watch the shuttle lift off. As it did, Suzanne sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. “Happy ending, just as it should be, Ramou.”

“Happy, yes—but not an ending. Not as long as I have you.” A squeeze of the hand brought Ramou her glowing smile, as it should.

The shuttle pilot stepped out of his cockpit to say, “A very sleek courier ship has just landed on the moon, General.”

“That will be Lacey’s transport, at a guess. Are you packed, Ms. Lark?”

“Just this one small grip.” Lacey held up a bag perhaps eighteen inches by fifteen. “They’ll buy me all new things back on Earth.”

“I think you might want to catch this shuttle, then.”

“I think so.” Lacey ran up the ramp, turning at the top to wave. I wondered if she realized she was imitating Marnie.

Watching the hatch close, Ogden mused, “I wonder if Ms. Lark realizes just how uncomfortable that ride up to the moon is going to be.”

“Yeah.” MacLeod nodded. “Those shuttles aren’t big on padding or artificial gravity.”

“I wasn’t speaking of the accommodations…”

Didn’t he Ramble went very well indeed, though with wolf whistles and shouts of encouragement every time Suzanne entered—but the fight at the end of the play brought roars, especially for the younger brother and the “winner take all” line. There were howls of disappointment when he lost, but when the Sadman came out to describe the funeral and the rest of us followed, playing trumpets, horns, and trombones, the howls quieted. On the second chorus, the Sadman came out to play his drums and the place turned into chaos, convicts dancing up and down the aisles.

We performed three separate times, one in each of the labor camps around the planet, where the “prisoners” were continuing the work of terraforming the planet. Then, finally, it was time to go.

At the spaceport, Shacklar stood by his grav-limousine to shake each of our hands as we came out—but before we could say anything, the pilot came out of the shuttle and told Shacklar, “General, the prisoners in all three camps are demanding self-government. Backer’s modern-day version of the death of the king has motivated them.”

“Excellent!” Shacklar said, glowing. “Exactly as I’ve dreamed it. Tell them I’ll be free for discussion in an hour.”

The pilot nodded, looking skeptical as he went back into his cockpit.

“You wanted this?” Barry asked with an incredulous stare.

“Of course! It is the beginning of democracy on the planet where Rudders thinks he buried it. I owe it all to your company—but especially to you, Charles.” He gave Cholly’s hand a vigorous shake. “I suspect you were somewhat influential in the choice of plays.”

“Well, perhaps a little,” Cholly said, abashed.

“Subtlety and modesty are two of his most endearing characteristics,” Shacklar told us.

“And on that compliment, I think it is time to bid farewell.” Barry shook Cholly’s hand. “You’ve caused us a great deal of trouble, Charles—but I think it will all be worth it.”

Marty shook his hand next. “If we win, we’ll be heroes in the history books.”

“If we are,” said Cholly, “they will be highly amusing, since you’re the one who will write them.”

Marty stared, taken aback, then began to grin.

So it went, each of us shaking Cholly’s hand. Even McLeod came down from the shuttle to pump the General’s hand. When the last of us had done so, and we all stood on the boarding ramp. Barry frowned in consternation. “Where shall we jump next?”

“We could ask Cholly,” I offered.

“No, I think we’ve had enough of his schemes,” Barry said, and the rest of us breathed a communal sigh of relief.

“There’s a G-4 sun only a dozen light-years away,” McLeod offered. “Beta Cygni VII, otherwise known as Mantua. They started as devout atheists, but I understand they’re open to all religions now. Might be a good place for some horror plays.”

“Excellent thought.” I nodded. “There’s also Swedeborg, a planet that started as a religious colony but has recently allowed secular gathering-places to be built.”

“A fella could do well hiking around and planting apple seeds.” McLeod nodded and, cheerfully discussing options, we went up the ramp and into the shuttle.

Half an hour of teeth-rattling lift-off later, we transferred to the Cotton Blossom and went to the lounge to relax in what had become our home.

“We should plan our itinerary so that we will arrive back on Earth,” Ogden opined. “We should end as we began, should we not?”

“Not with a price on our heads and a dictatorial government that will enforce it.”

“Well said,” Horace agreed, “but the destination is not always the purpose of the journey.”

“You mean we should start our tour back toward Earth, but plan never to reach it?” Suzanne asked.

“Quite so,” Horace said. “I believe an ancient Greek king did such a thing once—and more recently, a captain named Roadstorm. After all, the true purpose of our journey is not to make money or to reach a goal, even if it is Old Earth—is it?”

“It was.” Suzanne smiled up at me. I took her hand and smiled back.

“It no longer is,” Barry said. “Correct me if I’m wrong, my friends, but I think our goal has become that of keeping theater alive and well, even prospering, in Earth’s sphere of colonies, to which so many of our fellow émigrés have gone.”

“I could not disagree,” Winston said.

“I could do with a bite to eat,” I said.

“So could we all, I think.” Barry nodded.

Merlo, Barry, and Marty unfolded the table and chairs out of the wall—we usually ate in the ship’s lounge so we could eat together. Those who didn’t want to join us could dine in their cabins, but that was very rare. As the others lined up at the food dispenser, I excused myself, promising to return shortly, and left.

Ten yards from the lounge door, someone stopped me with a light touch on my shoulder. I turned around to see Suzanne watching me anxiously. “Ramou… are you alright? Is something wrong?”

“Not really,” I said. “Just a little unfinished business. Excuse me a few minutes.”

“No,” she said, “I’m coming with you.”

Well, I didn't really mind that at all. As we headed down the corridors together, Suzanne looked at me and said, “We won’t really be alone on this trip, will we?”

I stared at her in surprise. “You’re smart, lady.”

Suzanne shrugged off the compliment. “Larry and Marnie turning warm and friendly would be enough to make anyone suspicious—and the coffee machine in your cabin still has a mind of its own.”

No way I’m saying how she knew about the coffee dispenser.

“I've got an idea how to solve that problem. Let’s stop by the tech booth on the way to dinner,” I suggested.

She gave me a strange look, but only said, “Let’s.”

When we arrived I pulled out the box I had made out of spare parts, which I’d been adding to for a few days, then went to the chip bin and swiped another handful of solid-state components—I’d taken three already—and started plugging them into the cube in front of me.

“What are you making?” she asked.

“A puzzle,” I said, “out of molecular circuits.”

“I didn’t think that was possible,” she said.

“Technically, it isn’t,” I answered. “A molecular circuit isn’t really a single molecule—it’s a bunch of integrated circuits plugged into a card in a definite order for getting a job done. Okay, so it’s the same size as a molecule of uranium or plutonium, but it’s not radioactive, and it packs an awful lot of power into a very small space.”

So I took a tiny card and plugged in chips at random, then did the same to half a dozen more cards and stacked them in the upright holder, again with not the slightest idea of trying to make a comprehensible machine that would do a specific function—any specific function.

In the booth, I laid out a piece of blank paper with a pen and pitched my voice a bit louder than usual. “Passengers have to sign in with the purser, remember? We don’t have a purser, so you can write your name right here.”

Suzanne frowned, confused, then started to ask a question—but before she could, the pen rose of its own accord and scrawled “Harrison.”

Suzanne turned pale. “Ramou…”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “he’s on our side.” Then I sat back, folded my arms, looked at my handmade cube, and said very loudly, “Anybody who wanted to experiment, or figure out a puzzle, could have a hell of a good time with this one.”

The booth was very quiet for a few minutes. Then I felt a gust of wind on the back of my neck, a cold gust, but it was just passing. Suzanne felt it too, and shivered. I gave her hand a squeeze that I hoped was reassuring.

A second later, a tell-tale light glowed to life on the cube.

Suzanne’s fingers dug into my arm. I gave her a confident smile and stood up to leave with a sigh of satisfaction. “Come on, let’s go.” She went with me, but with an apprehensive glance over her shoulder. I closed the door to the booth with a smirk, really pleased with myself.

“Ramou,” Suzanne’s asked, “that cube—what's it for?”

“Fun,” I said. “Harrison’s been playing games with the ship’s circuitry out of sheer boredom—so I made him some recreation. See, some computer engineers have big egos and can’t resist a challenge. Show them a problem, and they absolutely have to solve it. They’ll put in an unbelievable number of hours trying to work it out, then twice that number making it work better. But in this case, there is no logic to the gadget I whipped up—and if Harrison’s ghost is trying to figure it out, he’ll be tied up for a century or two.”

“What will happen when he does make sense of it?”

I grinned. “The results may be, shall we say, surprising—maybe tachyon radio, or button-sized recorders. I won’t be around to worry about it though.” With a shrug, I added, “What are future generations for?”

So I followed Suzanne back to the lounge for dinner, patting myself on the back. Horace looked up as Suzanne and I came in. “A little late, aren’t you? We’ve just begun the brandy.”

“Sorry—got sidetracked,” I said.

“Not exactly unexpected.” There were a few knowing smiles around the table.

As we sat down, Larry asked, “Was it true, what Marnie said? Did I really become a pleasant person on Sandrock?”

The room quieted amazingly. We glanced at one another, unsure how to tell him. Finally, Barry took the burden—as managing director, it was his duty. “You did indeed, Lawrence. So did Marnie, for that matter.”
“Well, yes, I know Marnie did—but she stayed pleasant! Whatever possessed her? There isn’t the ghost of a chance that I will.”

“Oh,” I said, “maybe the ghost.”

Under the table, Suzanne kicked my shin. I grinned.

“You could try to be nice,” Marty offered.

“Oh, don’t push him,” I said. “You never know what qualities a person has hidden.”

“Or what will come out,” Winston said.

I knew what was hidden. I exchanged a conspiratorial glance with Suzanne. Two of us knew, now—knew that one of the Sandrock ghosts had decided to hitch a ride, and it was the one who had made Larry polite and friendly as Hamlet. My guess had been that it was Harrison, and the signature in the tech booth bore that out. We had one more Unknown Guest. He had brought out the subconscious self in those of us who had never looked inward. Thus Harrison had released what lay dormant or buried—and in Marnie, that had been a really warm and caring, if somewhat imperious, person.

With Larry, I’m afraid, it was, as the early programmers said, WYSIWIG—“what you see is what you get.”

The after-dinner brandy turned out to be the wrong choice—I was yawning in minutes. I attempted a graceful exit, pleading exhaustion, but Suzanne was instantly concerned. She put a hand on my forehead and checked my pulse, then frowned. “I don’t see anything wrong, Ramou.”

“Just needing some rest. It’s been a really strenuous tour. Are they always like this?”

“They used to be, in the days when actors toured by railroad and stagecoach,” Horace said. “This is the first tour by starship, though.”

“I’ll be okay in a few hours,” I assured them. “Just gotta take a rest while I can. G’night, folks.” I gave Suzanne a sad and apologetic smile.

She looked kind of indignant.

Tired I might be, but satisfied with myself, too. I went back to my cabin, feeling smug. On the plus side, Harrison probably wouldn’t bother us again. On the minus side, Larry probably wouldn’t be Mr. Nice Guy ever again.

Trying to figure out if this was really a problem, I showered, shaved, changed into my sleeping shorts, and went to bed. “Light off,” I called, and reveled in the muted light of the numbers on my clock and the steady, unhaunted glow of my coffeemaker’s “automatic” light. I let my eyelids drift shut.

There was a knock on the door.

I swallowed a curse and lay still for a minute, getting used to the idea of staying awake a little longer. Then I got up and went to open the door.

“Ramou?” Suzanne said. “Are you feeling better?”

She was dressed as she had been the night I had come to take her to the Cotton Blossom, one jump ahead of Rudders’ gang—which is to say, not dressed much at all. She wore a CPO shirt three sizes too big for her, which hung to her knees and left a lot of room for imagination.

I imagined.

She placed her right hand on my forehead, felt my pulse with her left, and smiled. “You feel better.”

I did.

“I was hoping we could talk,” she said.

Suddenly I felt a lot better. “Sure,” I said. “Come on in. Lights up!” The overheads flashed on.

“Lights off,” Suzanne called as she entered.

The room went dark again.

“Moonlight!” Suzanne demanded.

An image of the moon rose on the wall.

“Music!” Suzanne said, “Ravel’s Bolero.”

The music began to play softly, and the player’s “on” light added itself to the glow—but not much.

Suzanne sat down on the edge of the cot. I opted for gallantry and sat in the desk chair, but she patted the sheet beside her and said, “I don’t mean to put you out of your own bed.”

“Th–thanks.” I felt a lump in my chest getting in the way of my breathing as I sat down beside her.

“You do still look a little feverish.” She touched my forehead and my wrist again. “Your pulse is racing and your temperature’s up a few degrees.”

“Gee,” I said, “I wonder what could have caused that.”

“I think I know the cure.” Her eyelids lowered, her lips swam closer. The kiss started light and chaste but deepened amazingly. I swallowed heavily and said, “I don’t think I got that quite right.”

“Let’s try it again,” she suggested.

We did. And again and again and again. The wall was beginning to glow with synthetic sunrise when we decided we’d finally gotten it right and went to sleep.

We joined the company for breakfast. I was very pleased with myself—and hoped Suzanne was, too. We listened with vague interest, immersed in our own euphoria, as the others offered choices for possible ports of call, discussing our next destination with delight and pleasure—for the adventures of a touring company should never end.

THE END