We Open on Venus - Starship Troupers 2 Read online

  “Shhh!” Susanne glanced frantically around to make sure no one had overheard my gaffe.

  “Quite so,” Ogden said, his tone iron, “and I’ll thank you not to use that word again, outside of rehearsals.”

  Well. That explained what Mamie was so happy about.

  * * *

  I found out later that actors have a lot of superstitions. No, I can’t call them the most superstitious people on Earth—or off it, for that matter. They’re definitely in the running, but I’ve run into people in every walk of life who have things they’re funny about. Even computer programmers worry about gremlins and glitches, and we engineers hang up joking signs asking St. Vidicon to protect us from Murphy. Actors just have a tradition of superstitions that’s a little longer—like about a thousand years. Horace tells me there’s a rumor that Thespis wouldn’t wear his makeup outside the theater.

  For instance, it’s bad luck to whistle in the dressing room. It’s bad luck to wish an actor good luck. It’s bad luck to throw your hat on a bed. That last one made sense to me—the last time I’d done it, I’d wound up leaving town one foot ahead of a paternity suit. Believe me, it was impossible—but that never stopped a lawyer. As they say, you don’t have to be able to win to be able to sue.

  The nervousness about Macbeth, though, seemed really silly to me. I mean, a play is just a play, right? Words on paper, then words spoken aloud—how could it cause bad luck?

  “Skeptical you may be,” Ogden warned me, “but the Scottish play has never been performed without at least one casualty, and frequently a fatality.”

  “Aw, come on!” I scoffed. “Never?”

  “Never,” he solemnly averred.

  “Laugh while you can,” Susanne warned me. “You’re about to be part of it.”

  I wasn’t worried. After all, I wasn’t going to be onstage.

  “What do you mean, I’m going to be onstage?” I stared at Merlo, appalled. The laughing and conversation were all around us, but not loud enough to have drowned out his threat. “You want to see jelly? Look^at my knees if you get me in front of an audience!”

  “ You are scared?” Merlo jibed.

  I flushed. Just because you have a black belt in karate, people think you aren’t scared of anything. Not true at all— you just don’t let fear stop you. I mean, if some guy is pointing a laser rifle at me, damn right I’m going to be scared. It’s not going to stop me from trying to take the blasting thing away from him, but I’m going to be scared.

  And going up in front of an audience had absolutely nothing to do with physical courage.

  “Too right I’m scared!” I pointed to the holo of a scene from Macbeth that someone had already hauled out and tacked to the wall. “You’ll never get me up there on one of those things!”

  “It’s not as if you had to deliver any lines, Ramou.” It was Barry, coming up behind Merlo. “I’m only asking you to come onstage carrying a spear, step aside to guard the entranceway, then follow Duncan off. Nothing difficult there.”

  “Yeah, except the thousand people looking at me!”

  “Only if we’re fortunate.” He sighed.

  “Besides,” I said, “I’ve got to be offstage, running the console.”

  “Only when I’m onstage,” Merlo told me, “and when I come off, you can go on. How else are we going to do an army with only twelve people in the company?”

  “Even I am carrying a spear, Ramou,” Barry said gently.

  “Yeah,” Merlo said, “and that’s after he’s finished playing Duncan.”

  “It’s easy for you,” I said, “you’ve been doing it all your life!”

  “Only since my teens,” Barry corrected. He turned to Horace, who had drifted over, looking interested. “Could you?”

  “I’ll certainly try,” Horace said, and stepped forward.

  I braced myself; I liked Horace, and I owed him a lot— including my being here in the first place.

  “Now, see here, Ramou,” he said, “you signed on to help provide scenery, didn’t you?”

  I frowned. “Yeah—that’s what you told me the tech assistant did, in addition to going for coffee, and a lot of other odd jobs.”

  “Well, carrying a spear is another odd job.” He raised a hand to forestall my protest. “Besides, all a spear-carrier is is moving scenery. Is there so great a difference between making scenery and being it?”

  They had me convinced—Macbeth was bad luck. I mean, “the Scottish play.”

  Meanwhile, the party raged on around us. Well, maybe “raged” is too strong a word—or maybe it was the drink that was too strong. I do remember chatting with Susanne, who was very receptive and cuddly, but somehow I remember snuggling up with Lacey, too, and in between there, I seem to have a memory of dancing with Mamie, if you can believe that. She moved smoothly as silk on even the most inane college-fad dance that I knew, then insisted on teaching me an antique she called the samba, and how those movements made her body look should be decidedly illegal. I also remember some loud and shrill arguments with Larry—Lacey with Larry, Susanne with Larry, Merlo with Larry, me with Larry, and Marty always managing to work his way into the quarrel somehow and turn it into such a rip-roaring farce that the quarrelers always had to break off gasping for air. For example:

  “Modern shet dezhign?” Larry hiccuped, and stubbed out a cigarette. “Your idea of ‘modern’ is Robert Edmund Jones!”

  “Hey, he had a history course!” Merlo jibed. “Did they teach you to act?”

  They were both a bit more intense than the lines maybe seem like. This had been going on for five minutes.

  “Of course they did!” Larry snapped.

  Marty was between the two of them, nodding and saying, “Yeah. Yes.”

  “Then you probably think ‘the new stagecraft’ meant an improved way of making flats,” Merlo sneered.

  Marty nodded at Larry. “Flats. Right.”

  “They haven’t used flats in a century!” Larry retorted. Marty said, “Century,” to Merlo.

  “Don’t tell me your college was still using wood and canvas!” Merlo said. “Well, that explains your acting style.”

  “He’s got style,” Marty agreed.

  “How would you know the tiniest thing about acting?” Larry stormed.

  “Know any tiny things?” Marty asked Merlo.

  Merlo tried to ignore him. “Tiny things! I’ll bet you think ‘Stanislavsky’ is two names.”

  “Yeah, Harry Stanislavsky!” Marty said brightly. “I worked under him in Cleveland!”

  “When were you in Cleveland?” Larry demanded.

  “Not likely, kid,” Merlo said. “He’s been dead a few centuries.”

  “That’s Constantin. I’m talking about his great-great-grandnephew, Harry. We worked summers as ushers at the Cleveland Festival. I worked the ground floor, and he—”

  “Was in the balcony,” Merlo finished for him. “Right. Look, do you mind if we have an argument here?”

  “Do you have enough mind for an argument here?”

  “I should say we do!” Larry snapped indignantly.

  “Then have another drink …”

  That was the way Marty was. I noticed the older folks were just holding up the wall and talking at first, till he started making the rounds with the dozen or so practical-joke props he usually carries with him. Somewhere toward the middle of the party, I realized that Winston and Marty were shooting it out with water pistols. Then a little later, I realized that Barry and Horace were holding a knife fight with rubber daggers, and some yells that would have won an award at the county fair, in the pig-meat preserving contest. Mamie was actually teaching the girls and Marty how to do the conga, and a bit later on, I saw a bemused Charlie trying to figure out which one of Marty’s buttons to push in order to get some light out of the lamp shade he was wearing over his face. I never figured out where he got it— all the lights were set into the ceiling.

  Of course, when Larry actually managed to start a fight with Ma
rty, it was another matter. He raged at our comic for ten minutes, telling him to stop trying to buy his way out of trouble with cheap jokes, and Marty finally got angry enough to start answering back. The epithets flew fast and hard for a few minutes, with remarks about low comics and large heads, so I figured I’d better do for Marty what he’d done for the rest of us. I co-opted Lacey and strolled over to the shouting match.

  “Doing it very well, aren’t they?” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Lacey said. “Larry hit his energy peak five minutes ago, and he hasn’t flagged since. He really needs a bit more variation.”

  “True.” I nodded. “And now that you mention it, Marty’s getting way too red in the face. That shade of mauve just doesn’t go with his socks.”

  Marty broke off fighting to glare at me.

  “Actually, he needs to yell a bit,” Lacey informed me. “This low, intense vituperation just won’t project at all.”

  “But Larry really lacks sincerity, when you think about it. Doesn’t sound as if he believes a word he says.”

  “Sincere!” Larry turned on me, his face white. “How dare you!”

  “ ’Cause I’m getting bored,” I said. “I just heard you use the same insult that you’d used on Susanne an hour ago.”

  “Originality never was his strong suit,” Lacey agreed. “Larry, just because I said you should practice improvisation more often, doesn’t mean you have to do it all through the party.”

  Marty grinned, and I knew we’d won our case. “Yeah, it is getting boring,” I told Lacey. “Let’s go see if we can get Mamie to teach us how to waltz.”

  “I already know how to waltz, I’ll have you know!”

  “Yeah, so do I.” I grinned.

  “Really?” Larry snarled. “I’m very surprised, since you don’t know how to conduct yourself in polite society.”

  I turned back slowly, and that was when Marty had to get me laughing.

  We laughed best as we were carrying Larry back to his stateroom. Lacey followed along with a tall glass in her hand, giggling and bouncing off the wall every three steps.

  We tucked him away and came back out. “So what did you put in his drink, Ramou?” Marty asked me as we closed the door.

  “Me? Nothing,” I said. “It was the beverage machine that did it. Think they’ve worked their way up to the bossa nova yet?”

  A door clicked open behind us. I turned just in time to see Lacey vanishing into Larry’s room. I was about to object, but the door clicked shut behind us.

  Marty’s hand fell on my shoulder. “So she needs to crash, too. That should dampen our good time?”

  The tension ebbed. I hadn’t even realized it had been building—but my body thawed, and the rush of sobriety went away. I hooked an arm around Marty’s shoulders, leaned against him, and staggered back toward the lounge.

  I remember making it back to the party. I remember trying to back Susanne into a comer, and winding up backing her all around the dance floor instead. I remember saying something to her that seemed extremely smooth and romantic, but I couldn’t figure out why she was giggling all the way through it. And that’s about all I remember. Fortunately, I’d set my alarm clock for daily buzzing.

  4

  Now, if there’s one thing I hate more than the sound of an alarm clock going off in the morning, it’s the sound of an alarm clock going off when I’m hung over. Admittedly, Sensei taught me to avoid intoxicating substances, because the Way of the Warrior insists that a fighter always have his wits about him—but he also taught me that you have to really let yourself go now and then, when you’re sure it’s safe and somebody else is guarding your back. And you can’t be much safer than aboard a spaceship, with a captain who’s a determined teetotaler on duty, and gruffly insisting you go and have a good time at the lift-off party with everyone else. That’s even more remarkable because the captain in question was an alcoholic—but Gantry McLeod had informed us that whenever he stepped aboard a space wagon as captain or first officer, he went on the wagon in more ways than one. However, he did admit that it was easier if he didn’t even think about alcohol, which is why he preferred to be alone with his books and computer and antialcohol beverage. How it satisfied the craving for booze without getting him drunk, I didn’t understand, but centuries of use had proved that it did, and without any harmful side effects, either. In fact, Antihooch was so tasty that everybody drank it now, which made things a lot easier for the recovering alcoholic in public—he only had to endure some ribbing about having sissy drinks when he was a grown man.

  So on captain’s orders, I had gone off and gotten stinking drunk along with the rest of the party—though I did seem to have some sort of hazy recollection of helping Marty drag Larry Rash back to his cabin, with Lacey following along behind, which had given me hopes—but when Marty and I had tossed him into his bunk and left, she had lagged behind to tuck him in—and locked the door behind us. It left me miffed, but not very—much good might he do her, in his condition! Besides, I was feeling no pain myself, nor much of anything else, either. I had some notion of Marty going with me sometime later as far as my cabin and holding my thumb up to the print plate—but I had staggered in on my own and fallen into bed, which is about all I remember. I wondered which of us had locked the door.

  Fortunately—or not, depending on how you look at it—I had set my chronometer to wake me every day at the same time, so here it was, announcing that it was ‘Ten A.M. and all’s well!” in the soothing tones of Beethoven’s Pastorale. Thank Heaven for musical wakers.

  I staggered out of my bunk and over to the beverage dispenser. I was about to punch for some hair of the dead dog when I noticed a dram glass of dark, syrupy fluid on the table in front of it, with a notecard leaning against it that read:

  You deserved it, kid!

  —Merlo

  I wondered which way he meant that.

  Either way, I decided he was right, but that I deserved that glassful even more—it was his patent hangover cure. I held it up to my chin, took one last breath of clean air, and chugged.

  It tasted vile. It tasted like the Nile at high tide. It tasted like black molasses with sulfur and vinegar added.

  It worked.

  I gasped for breath and staggered back against the wall. I could almost feel that horrible concoction shivering through my every neuron and cleaning off the dendrites with steel wool. It was like a tide of electricity flowing outward from a bomb in my stomach, outward and onward, past my extremities …

  And gone.

  So was my hangover.

  I set the glass down with a silent prayer of relief. Nice to know the boss looks after the hired help. I lifted the card in fingers that scarcely trembled, and happened to notice a set of numbers in the lower right-hand comer. Could it be that my boss had programmed the beverage-dispenser system with Gran’ma Horrhee’s Home Hangover Remedy?

  I decided to try punching it in later. Right now, my muscles still felt like water, but there was gelatin in that solution, and it was firming up fast. I turned to the beverage dispenser and punched for some orange juice to get the taste of Merlo’s potion out of my mouth. My finger hovered lingeringly near the “vodka” button, but I decided the only screwdrivers I needed were in my toolbox, so I took my vitamin C straight. I followed it with a cup of coffee, half milk to cool it for convenience, then headed on up to the lounge to punch dispenser buttons for those too weak to do it for themselves.

  Marty was my first customer, stepping up to my table array of coffee and doughnuts to peer closely at me. “Only slightly the worse for wear. Hi, Ramou.”

  “Hi, yourself,” I said, ever the master of the snappy comeback, “and thanks for getting me through the door. What did I do last night?”

  He stared at me in surprise. Then a slow grin spread over his face from ear to ear, and he said, “Buddy, you did it.”

  I hid my face in my hands and groaned.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I think Lacey took i
t as a compliment, and Susanne was having more fun than you were. I think you picked the wrong one to take home, Ramou.”

  “You mean Larry? Definitely. Can’t think what got into me.”

  “Lacey’s request. She played on your sympathies and your sense of duty shamelessly, pal, and I think your hypertrophied sense of responsibility got the better of you. He did need the help, though.”

  I snorted. “That part, I remember. He needed a stretcher.”

  “Good idea!” Marty held up a forefinger. “Too bad we didn’t think of it. Uh-oh!” He stepped aside. “Here comes the lady in question.”

  Lacey staggered into the lounge, pale and wan, and holding onto the wall for support. She took one look at the doughnuts and turned away, swallowing hard. I snatched up a cup of black coffee and brought it over to her. “Try this first.”

  She sniffed it suspiciously, then accepted it as if she were Socrates taking the hemlock. “What did you put in it?”

  “Nothing, yet. When you’re feeling up to it, I’ll dial you a potion that will take the hammer off that anvil that’s beating in your head, or at least turn it to rubber.”

  “I’ll take it!” she exclaimed with fevered need.

  “You won’t like it,” Marty warned.

  “What does liking have to do with it?” Lacey snapped. “I need medicine.”

  “Coming right up.” I punched in the secret code—secret only because nobody else had ever bothered to look it up after Merlo put it into the dispenser system—and took out a small glass of oily dark liquid. I realized that was a mistake and poured it into an empty coffee mug.

  Too late—Lacey had seen it. “What is that villainous-looking gunk?”

  “Gran’ma Horrhee’s Patent Drunk and Hangover Remedy,” I said helpfully. “Drink it down, and you’ll feel right as rain in two minutes.” I carefully didn’t say how she’d feel in between.

  “It helps if you hold your nose,” Marty supplied.

  She paused with the rim at her lips. “You’ve tried it already?”

  “Not this morning,” Marty said, sidestepping the question.