Orbit 9 Read online

  I told him I would be happy just to handle three well.

  “You will learn. You have already learned more difficult things. But you will not learn traveling with just one. If you wish to learn three, you must have three with you always, so that you can practice. But already you do the voice of a woman speaking and singing. That was the most difficult for me to learn.” He threw out his big chest and thumped it. “I am an old man now and my voice is not so deep as it was, but when I was young as you it was very deep, and I could not do the voices of women, not with all the help from the control and the speakers in the dolls pitched high. But now listen.”

  He made Julia, Lucinda, and Columbine, three of his girls, step forward. For a moment they simply giggled; then, after a whispered but audible conference, they burst into Rosine’s song from The Barber of Seville—Julia singing coloratura soprano, Columbine mezzo-soprano, and Lucinda contralto.

  “Don’t record,” Stromboli admonished me. “It is easy to record and cheat; but a good audience will always know, the amateurs will want you to show them, and you can’t look at yourself and smile. You can already do one girl’s voice very good. Don’t ever record. You know how I learned to do them?”

  I expressed interest.

  “When I was starting—not yet married—I did only male voices. And the false female speaking singsong, the falsetto. Then I married and little Maria, I mean Signora Stromboli my wife, began to help. In those days I did not work always alone. She did the simpler movements and the female voices.”

  I nodded to show I understood.

  “So how was I to learn? If I said, ‘Little Maria, you sit in the audience tonight,’ she would say, ‘Stromboli, it is not good. It is better when I do them.’ So what did I do? I made the long tour outworld. The cost was very high but the pay was very high too, and I left little Maria at home. When I came back we could do this.”

  Columbine, Lucinda, and Julia bowed.

  * * * *

  The signor and I said our good-byes on the day before I was to leave Sarg. My ship would blast off at noon, and the morning practice sessions were sacred, but we held a party the night before with wine in the happy, undrunken Italian way and singing—just Stromboli and his wife and I. In the morning I packed hurriedly, and discovered that my second best pair of shoes were missing. I said to hell with them, gave my last suitcase to Stromboli’s man of all work, said good-bye again to Maria Stromboli, and went out to the front gate to wait for the man of all work to bring the buggy around.

  Five minutes passed, then ten. I still had plenty of time, a couple of hours if he drove fast, but I began to wonder what was keeping him. Then I heard the rattle of harness. The buggy came around a curve in the road, but its driver was a dark-haired woman in pink I had never seen before. She pulled up in front of me, indicated my luggage, which was neatly stowed on the back of the buggy, with a wave of her hand, and said, “Climb up. Antonio is indisposed, so I told the Strombolis I would drive you. I am Lili. Have you heard of me?”

  I got into the seat beside her and told her I had not.

  “You came here to see Stromboli, and you have not heard of me? Ah, such is fame! Once we were notorious, and I think perhaps that it was because of me that he retired. He lives with his wife now and wishes the world to think that he is a good husband, you understand; but my little house is not far away.”

  I said something to the effect that I had been unaware of any other houses in the neighborhood.

  “A few steps would have brought you in sight of it.” She cracked her whip expertly over the horse’s back, and he broke into a trot. “Little Maria does not like it, but I am only a few steps away for her husband too. But he is old. Do you think I am getting old also?”

  She leaned back, turning her head to show me her profile—a tip-tilted nose, generous lips salved carmine. “My bust is still good. I am perhaps a little thicker at the waist, but my thighs are heavier too, and that is good.”

  “You’re very beautiful,” I said, and she was, though the delicately tinted cheeks beneath the cosmetics showed craquelure.

  “Very beautiful but older than you.”

  “A few years, maybe.”

  “Much more. But you find me attractive?”

  “Most men would find you attractive.”

  “I am not, you understand, a tart. Many times with Signor Stromboli, yes. But only a few with other man. And I have never been sold—no, not once for any price.” She was driving very fast, the buggy rattling down the turns.

  After a few moments of silence she said, “There is a place, not far from here. The ground is flat and you may drive off the road to where a stream comes down from the mountain. There is grass there, and flowers, and the sound of the water.”

  “I have to catch my ship.”

  “You have two hours. We would spend perhaps one. For the other you can sit in a chair down there, yawning and thinking nice thoughts about Sarg and me.”

  I shook my head.

  “You say that Signor Stromboli has taught you much. He has taught me much too. I will teach it to you. Now. In an hour.” Her leg pressed hard against mine.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but there’s somebody else.” It wasn’t true, but it seemed the best way of getting free of an embarrassing situation. I added, “Someone I can’t betray, if I’m going to live with myself.”

  Lili let me off at the entrance to the spaceport, where I could pile my bags directly on the conveyor. As soon as the last of them were gone she touched the horse’s rump with the lash of her whip, and she, with the horse and the rattling buggy, disappeared in rising dust. A coin-operated machine inside the port vacuumed most of it out of my clothes.

  As she had said, I had almost two hours to kill. I spent them alternately reading magazines and staring at the mountains I would be leaving.

  “For the Sol system and Vega. Gate five. You have fifteen minutes before departure

  I picked myself up in a leisurely way and headed toward Gate five, then stopped. Coming toward me was a preposterous figure, familiar from a thousand pictures.

  “Sir!” (Actually it sounded more like “SeeraughHa!” given a rising intonation all the way—the kind of sound that might have come from a chummy, intoxicated, dangerous elephant.)

  “Sir!” The great swag belly was wrapped in a waistcoat with blue and white stripes as broad as my hand. The great shapeless nose shone with an officious cunning. “Sir, your shoes. I have your shoes!”

  It was Zanni the Butler, Stromboli’s greatest creation. He held out my second-best shoes, well brushed. In his flipper of a hand they looked as absurd as I felt. People were staring at us, and already beginning to argue about whether or not Zanni was real.

  “The master,” Zanni was saying, “insisted that I restore them to you. You will little credit it, sir, but I have run all the way.”

  I took my shoes and mumbled, “Thank you,” looking through the crowd for Stromboli, who had to be somewhere nearby.

  “The master has heard,” Zanni continued in a stage whisper that must have been audible out in the blast pits, “of your little talk with Madame Lili. He asks—well, sir, we sometimes call our little world the Planet of Roses, sir. He asks that you consider a part of what you have learned here—at least a part, sir—as under the rose.”

  I nodded. I had found Stromboli at last, standing in a corner. His face was perfectly impassive while his fingers flew over the levers of Zanni’s controller. I said, “Joruri.”

  “Joruri, sir?”

  “The Japanese puppet theater. The operators stand in full view of the audience, but the audience pretends not to see them.”

  “That is the master’s field, sir, and not mine; but perhaps that is the best way.”

  “Perhaps. But now I’ve got to catch my ship.”

  “So you said to Madame Lili earlier, sir. The master begs leave to remind you that he was once a young man very like yourself, sir. He expresses the hope that you know with whom you are keeping f
aith. He further expresses the hope that he himself does not know.”

  I thought of the fine cracks I had seen, under the cosmetics, in Lili’s cheeks; and of Charity’s cheeks, as blooming as peaches.

  Then I took my second-best pair of shoes, and went out to the ship, and climbed into my own little box.

  <>

  * * * *

  Robert Thurston

  STOP ME BEFORE I TELL MORE

  —There was this traveling salesman, see—

  * * * *

  COLD-SKINNED. Anyone who touched him remarked on it. Skin as cold as the Beadsman on St. Agnes’s Eve. As cold as the hymen of a virgin witch.

  Not ugly, not handsome. Not much to speak of. Between tall and short, slim and fat, lined and smooth. Eyebrows, thick, were noticeable; eyes were not.

  You couldn’t have called him a Willy Loman type because Willy Loman hadn’t been invented yet. You wouldn’t anyway since he was shy, promoted the product with reluctance, and had been shunted off to an unlucrative sales route by a compassionate district manager. He hated the road. All roads. Dirt, asphalt, concrete, patches of blobbed tar. He feared the miles ahead and drove with his eyes staring steadily down at a point just a few feet in front of the car.

  * * * *

  —and one dark night—

  * * * *

  All light switched off above, below, and to the side. Weak headlights that needed adjustment picked out a triangular section of monotonous gravel. Cold seeped in through the cracked rear window and entered his cold body at the neck. His eyes ached from staring at the road. He wanted to stop and rest but knew he would freeze in place if he did. What vengeful God had made the Great Plains so vulnerable? There must be a place near but in pitch blackness it was impossible to make out any outlines. He was well-read enough to ponder the meaninglessness of a death practically on the doorstep of an unseen farmhouse.

  * * * *

  —his car breaks down on this lonely road, see—

  * * * *

  Without even a wheeze or a decent dying gasp. Just rolled to a graceless stop. Wearily he leaned his head against the steering wheel, right up against the horn which blew or choked with a long echo that seemed to travel far without encountering a human ear. He sat up. The draft caught him a particularly frosty blast on the back of the neck. He listened for some sound, then began to pound the horn like crazy for comfort.

  Finally he decided that freezing in motion was probably better than freezing still, and he left the car to hunt for shelter.

  * * * *

  —comes finally to this farmhouse—

  * * * *

  Hardly aware he had been going uphill, he came near the crest and saw the single light shining in the distance. Unshaped and too far away to tell whether it was a fire, another headlight (perhaps with another salesman cursing another dead car), or a window. Over the crest and downhill to the glittering beacon he ran. The shuffle of his shoes against the gravel sounded like rapid asthmatic breathing.

  * * * *

  —runs all the way to the farmhouse and knocks—

  * * * *

  Where? The light from the window was so weak it didn’t illumine the shape of the house or any detail beyond the windowsill. The light source was a lamp in the window, and even with head pressed against glass, he could see very little of the room. A patch of wall seemed faded and grease-stained.

  Then should he knock on the window? Or holler? Such actions were too aggressive. But he just couldn’t stand there and die.

  Hand over hand, palms pressed against wall siding, he began to make his way along the house. He caught one sliver in the side of a palm, another more painful one in the web between thumb and forefinger. He stepped into a rosebush, thorns punctured his calf. He couldn’t refrain from cursing. A sound came from inside the house, something like a shin banging against a chair.

  He reached the corner of the house and felt his way to the door. He knocked once. The door opened. A fat man blocked some of the glaring light that flowed out at him.

  * * * *

  —farmer comes to the door and asks—

  * * * *

  “Who’s out there?”

  The voice seemed gruff, billy-goatish, angry. He retreated three paces, almost wishing he could run back to his car and freeze in peace.

  “Speak up, boy. I got a gun sittin’ here by the door powerful enough to blast you to double-smithereens before you get outta the light.”

  “No don’t!”

  He stood still, trying to look as niceguy as possible.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Leonard Brack and my car broke down just up the road.”

  “We got no phone but you can . . .”

  * * * *

  —farmer took him in and—

  * * * *

  “. . . spend the night here and I’ll drive you up to the gay-rage in the mornin’. Come in and get warm, boy.”

  Once in the house and seated by a flaming gas heater, Leonard enjoyed the rediscovery of warmth. The farmer, Cyrus McConnell, fed him coffee and dull conversation.

  * * * *

  —well, this farmer had two beautiful—

  * * * *

  “What is it, papa?” came a soft voice from somewhere above.

  “Come on down and see for yourself.”

  Hopping footsteps followed skipping footsteps down a stairway to the hall. Two shapely forms came through the doorway.

  “This here’s my two daughters:

  “Jeanie—”

  Who was tall and blond with the kind of pretty farm-girl face found on tractor calendars and in almanac illustrations.

  “—and Joanie.”

  Who looked exactly like Jeanie except for her raven-black hair.

  “They’re twins.”

  Which didn’t really have to be pointed out.

  * * * *

  —each o’ these babies was built like a—

  * * * *

  “Brick shi—” Leonard stopped suddenly, realizing he was thinking aloud.

  “What’s that, son?”

  “Ah—brickshi. That’s a traditional Ukrainian greeting.”

  * * * *

  —salesman ogled the twins up and—

  * * * *

  “You’re breathin’ heavy, mister,” said Jeanie.

  “Like a thirsty heifer,” said Joanie.

  “Don’t spook the gentleman, girls,” said the farmer. “Of course he’s breathin’ heavy. He’s tired out from trottin’ over the whole durn countryside.”

  Leonard, in nine years on the road, had never before encountered such breathtaking beauty. Packed well, too, including ribbons.

  “You’re pale, mister,” said Joanie.

  “Like a harvest moon,” said Jeanie.

  * * * *

  —then the farmer said the salesman could sleep in the guest room provided—

  * * * *

  “...that you let me lock you in there till dawn.”

  The words acted like an emetic on Leonard, as disappointment dissipated his desire. Still, he comforted himself with the thought that the brief sight of these twin delectations would, for a change, give him something more exciting than invoices to think about as he drifted off to sleep. Sneaking one more look at the girls, he cursed fate for always springing on him Surprise without Resolution.

  “You look sad, mister,” Jeanie said.

  “Like a hound dog that’s just flushed a feather hat,” said Joanie.

  * * * *

  —locked him in and he went to bed, but sure enough in a minute—

  * * * *

  Ready to sleep, kept awake only by the dilemma of whether to dream about blond Jeanie or brunette Joanie. Or was it brunette Jeanie and blond Joanie?

  Then a warm hand touched his face.

  “You got cold skin, mister.”

  He sat up straight.

  “How did you get in here?”

  “That’s my secret.”

  “It’
s too dark in here. Which one are you?”

  “That’s also my secret. Move over.”

  * * * *

  —so they, you know, made out, all the rest of the night, and it was—