Universe 10 - [Anthology] Read online

  But those pure-hearted and aesthetic children with their rainmaking willow dances were far ahead of the Local Anaesthetics on points. The Locals would have to play catch-up ball. Those were plumes and sheens of the purest rain that anybody ever saw.

  It was now or never. The Locals put their heads and their hearts together to generate what power they might. A fish crashed to the pavement there amid the throng.

  That was a crash? You couldn’t have heard the sound of it a block. That was a fish? Why, that thing wasn’t more than three feet long.

  ‘We might as well let the empty-water people have it if we can’t do any better than that,” Dennis said.

  An anomalous frond of macrotaenopteris fell down there with a muted but heavy jolt. That was a heavy jolt? Why, that frond wasn’t twenty feet wide, and it wasn’t twenty million years old. That was the biggest dog in the world with his snout in this business? A little Great Dane could do that well. The Local Anaesthetics would have to muster more power than this.

  * * * *

  “How are you going to get the fish out to Sheen’s Ravine, Austro?” Roy Mega asked.

  “I never thought of that,” Austro admitted. Austro was panting already, and the battle looked bad for the Locals. “Maybe Dog would carry them out there in his mouth,” Austro said.

  “Fish?” Barnaby asked. “What fish? Will there be many fish?”

  “Quite a few, I believe,” Mega said, “though I’m not sure quite what the kids have in mind.”

  “Better go get the twelve-ton truck, then, Roy,” Barnaby said. “Some people might be fussy about the dog carrying the fish in his mouth.” So Roy went to get the heavy truck.

  * * * *

  A few of the larger fish fell, but most of them weren’t much longer than a man. Quite a few of the long crinoid stems swacked down to earth, and many really big wielandiella and macrotaenopteris ferns from the ancient days. The dog was getting with it now. He was drawing bigger stuff down from the Tertiary skies. He was doing a better job than the kids in the gang were.

  (Several persons, George Drakos and Roy Mega among others, have said that Austro’s big dog was really a hairy dinosaur. You can believe this if you want to, but you should notice that there are points of poor correspondence between them. Go look at the anklebones of a dinosaur, for instance. Then look at the anklebones of Austro’s big dog. How about it?)

  * * * *

  There were bigger and more weird sky falls now, but the Local Anaesthetics just weren’t stealing the initiative from the willow-dancing, pure-water kids. The limpid showers of the dancers were just doing too many sparkling things. And yet there was real talent to be found among the L.A.s. There was Austro. There was Dog. There was Susie.

  “Almost every time the world is turned around it’s a little trick that does it,” Susie said. “I’ll just try a little trick.” And she went boldly into the area of the enemy, into the lair of the pure-pseudo-science, rain-dancing young people.

  “Your glasses are cracked, kids,” Susie told them. And the glasses of all seven of them were cracked (all aesthetic, willow-dancing children wear glasses). And something else about them cracked at the same time. It was their protective psychic carapaces. It was their science itself.

  The tide of battle swung to the Local Anaesthetics. Something else was falling to the pavements of the area now. It was the scales from the eyes of the people. Now the folks were able to see the monstrous crashing ichthyoids that had been, or would be, or maybe already were fish. Ancient sorceries will whip modern fetishes every time, and it was a case of that.

  Man, that’s when they pulled the stopper out of the drain and let it all come down!

  People loaded up the twelve-ton truck that Roy Mega arrived with then. And then they brought in a number of really big trucks and loaded them with the gloriously smelling old fish and the earlier-age crinoids and giant fern fronds. And a great number of loaded trucks as well as several thousand people went out to Sheen’s Ravine for the enjoyment.

  “My magic can whip your magic and my dog can whip your dog!” Austro called to the aesthetic remnant.

  * * * *

  Out at the ravine, it was fun to cut up crinoid stems with axes and crosscut saws. It was fun to bruise the fronds of large and early ferns and palms (Ah, that was a palmy hour!) with pneumatic hammers. And then to use that royal vegetation to garnish the big and powerful fish, to bring out the nobility of their strong smell and taste, that was to know what an enjoyment and a banquet were all about.

  * * * *

  “Where those rain dancers and the big people who sustained them made their mistake,” Dennis Oldstone was lecturing like an even younger Roy Mega, “was that they didn’t understand the vastness of the universe. They—”

  “Duck, everybody! There’s no way he won’t think of it!” Susie wailed the warning.

  “—they only understood the half-vastness of the universe. Luckily, enough of us with enough scope to handle the situation happened to be around.”

  * * * *

  “I suppose that I’ll have to accept it,” Barnaby Sheen was saying. “It’s a fractured plane of reality that is introduced here. I can brush up on my fractured-plane equations, or I can have Roy Mega review me on them. Ah, I find that little shower rather refreshing. And the fish really isn’t bad, Austro.”

  Susie Kalisky (or Susie Kalusy; it depends on which part of the fractured plane you are on) was focusing a shower of inhabited rain right on the head of Barnaby Sheen. The shower was inhabited by frogs and fish and eels and claw-feet that bedecked the wet head and shoulders of Barnaby as he ate (along with five thousand other people) the fried and garnished fish.

  “It’s not really bad fish the way it’s fixed,” Barnaby admitted. “The garnish is so strong that one can’t taste the fish, and the fish is so strong that one can’t taste the garnish. But where did it really come from, Austro?”

  “There’s a pool about a mile from here, Mr. Sheen. It’s plain loaded with those big old fish. And the banks and bottom of it are loaded with those big old plants. It was Dog who first discovered it.”

  * * * *

  “Your glasses are cracked, mister,” Susie Kalusy said to a fish-eating man there.

  “That’s all right, little girl. They never did fit me. I don’t look through them. I look over them.” He was a nice man.

  * * * *

  “The pool’s only a mile from here, Austro?” Barnaby Sheen asked. “Which way?”

  “Up.”

  <>

  * * * *

  With the advance of technology, the range for artistic endeavors also widens: new art forms are invented, existing forms are augmented by new techniques. Humans, of course, remain central, for it’s they who must interpret and use the new artistries.

  Lee Killough, whose novels include A Voice Out of Ram ah and The Doppelganger Gambit, writes of anomalies and dangers in one new art form, in this colorful novelette set in her future artists’ Colóny of the Aventine.

  * * * *

  BÊTE ET NOIR

  Lee Killough

  On gray days, when the clouds hang in heavy pewter folds and the wind comes down cold and sharp as a blade, I think of Brian Eleazar. We stand facing each other in the sand garden, surrounded by the elaborate and alien patterns of rock outcroppings in a score of minerals and dunes of a dozen different colored sands. The sand underfoot is fine and white as sugar over a deeper layer of red. Across it, between us, a trail of footprints shows scarlet, as though they were stepped in blood.

  Gateside was still thawing out from winter when I arrived at the Blue Orion Theater to join the cast of Zachary Weigand’s new play. Leaden clouds shrouded Diana Mountain, hiding the stargate above the city. The wind blowing over the remaining traces of snow and ice left me shivering, despite the efforts of my coat, which fluffed itself and clung to me like a frightened cat. For as long as it took me to pay the cabdriver and hurry across the sidewalk into the theater, I thought with regret o
f the movie I had turned down to take this part. It was being made in southern Italy, where the sky was almost certainly clear and the sun shining.

  As I pushed through the doors into the Blue Orion, a guard came out of his station, ready to turn back anyone who did not belong here. “May I help—” He broke off, a smile of recognition spreading across his face. “It’s you, Miss Delacour. Mr. Eleazar said you’d be coming. Congratulations on the Tony nomination for Silent Thunder. I hope you win. Are you going to play Simone in the movie, too?”

  I smiled back at him. “If my agent has any influence at all I will.”

  “I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Before you go in, may I have your autograph?”

  He brought a book from his station. I took it and thumbed through looking for a place to sign. I would be in Olympian company, I saw. The pages already signed carried the signatures of the theater’s greatest, personalities like Lillith Mannors, Eden Lyle, Walter Fontaine, and Maya Chaplain. I found a new page and signed it in a precise hand with ornate capitals: Noir Delacour.

  It reminded me why I was here instead of in southern Italy. Zach Weigand’s name on a script was enough to fill a theater opening night, but when it was accompanied by that of Brian Eleazar, who had directed in almost every medium in his career and earned himself a shelf of Tonys and Oscars to prove how competent he was at it, the play was sure to draw the attention and acclaim of every major critic. The Sand Garden had the additional attraction of being a théâre vérité production. Improvisation and scriptless drama had become very fashionable in the past few years, but théâtre vérité was the most popular. It was playing to huge, enthusiastic audiences all over the world.

  And of course I could not overlook the fact that Brian Eleazar had asked me to be Allegra Nightengale.

  “He was almost on his knees begging for you, pet,” my agent said when he relayed the offer.

  However histrionic he sounds, Karol Gardener rarely exaggerates. There was no real agony over which contract to sign, then. It meant a great deal when a director of Brian’s stature begged for a particular actress. The director of the movie had not begged.

  I returned the guard’s autograph book. “Can you tell me where Mr. Eleazar is?”

  “He’s onstage with the rest of the cast. Go right on through there.”

  Warmth was seeping back into me. My coat loosened its grip on my arms and chest as the heat soothed and settled it. I could also feel my hair loosening from the hairpins. To the despair of hairdressers everywhere, it has the texture of quicksilver. I did not need a look in the lobby minors to know the wind outside had ruined thirty minutes of Raoul’s best efforts. I pulled out the hairpins and let the whole pale, slithery mass fall free down my back as I went into the auditorium.

  I love theaters. Full ones are best, of course, but I have a special fondness for empty ones. I love the sensation of hearing the ghosts of a thousand past performances still whispering in the musty silence, and of feeling the magic of performances yet to come waiting in golden expectation.

  I listened to the ghosts as I made my way down the sloping aisle toward the stage in the center. Halfway down, though, I switched my attention to the three men standing in the pool of light onstage. Two were familiar faces. I had worked with both before. Tommy Sebastian’s classic profile and lamb’s-wool curls looked copied from a Grecian vase. With the help of cosmetisculptor surgeons, they probably had been. In contrast to Tommy’s beauty, Miles Reed’s face was so unremarkable it disappeared instantly from memory. He hardly existed as a person offstage. Miles was a blank canvas on which he painted every role with a new and different brush. I noticed he had shaved his head for this part.

  The third man must be Brian Eleazar. He was smaller than I had expected. His head reached barely higher than Tommy’s shoulder, but he radiated a presence I felt even from where I was. Above the turtleneck of his sweater, the craggy irregularity of his face, which the gossip columnists liked to describe as “Lincolnesque,” had a compelling magnetism.

  I had reached the stage without any of them noticing me. I made my presence known. “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”

  They turned. Miles shaded his eyes to peer past the lights. He grinned. “Noir.” He came over to offer me a hand up the steps. “Congratulations on the Tony nomination.”

  Even Miles’s voice was subject to change. Last time we met, it had been deep and rich. Today it was a sibilant hiss.

  Tommy blew me a kiss. “Darling. ‘She walks in beauty, like the night.’”

  I squeezed Miles’s hand in thanks before I let go and looked past him to lift a brow at Tommy. “That’s nice, but do you ever learn more than the quotable bits?”

  Tommy grinned, unabashed. ‘That’s all it takes to impress most people.”

  Brian Eleazar nodded to me. “Good afternoon, Miss Delacour.” His voice was unexpectedly deep, rumbling up from the depths of his chest.

  I smiled at him. “I’m delighted to be here. I’ve been looking forward to working with you.”

  I extended my hand. He managed to ignore it and I pulled it back, feeling annoyed and foolish. Once Brian had been legend for romancing his leading ladies. That had ended when Pia Fisher became a fixture in his life, and apparently her influence remained even though it had been a year since her death. After a few minutes, amusement at my own reactions overcame the annoyance and disappointment of being held so clearly at a distance. Only then did I discover that Brian’s cinnamon-colored eyes were fixed on me with searching intensity.

  Before I could examine that expression, he turned away to four chairs in the middle of the stage. “Now that we’re all here, shall we begin?”

  A thin loose-leaf notebook lay on each chair: our playbooks. I found the one with “Allegra Nightengale” printed on the cover and sat down. The playbook would not be a script, of course; théâtre vérité uses no scripts. The notebook contained the biographical history of Allegra Nightengale.

  The biography is what makes théâtre vérité unique. Instead of merely ad-libbing from an opening situation, as in most improvisation, or playing roles, as in conventional drama, actors in vérité learn the histories of their characters, absorb them until they know how the characters will think and feel and react to any given situation. Then, with an angel’s help, they become the characters. The action of the play emerges from the natural response of the characters to each other.

  And because many factors can affect a response—a variation in another’s tone or inflection, a distracting sound, the normal day-to-day difference in outlook—no two performances are ever quite alike. There have been numerous examples of vérité productions with endings that changed from night to night. The dynamic nature of the form, the limitless possibilities in each new performance, are what brings in the audiences.

  I opened the playbook. The first page was a scenario of the opening and a tentative outline of the action. Authors have some idea what they want to happen. They design their characters to produce personalities that will react in the desired manner. They also hedge their bets by stating their expectations. No matter how involved the actors become in their characters, then, the professional subconscious steers a course in the right general direction toward a satisfactory climax.

  “Read over the outline and opening scenario, please,” Brian said.

  I had seen the outline before in Karol Gardener’s office when I signed the contract, but I read it again. Brian paced while we did so, and on every turn I felt his cinnamon eyes come back to me.

  Allegra Nightengale and Jonathan Clay were lovers, the sun, moon, and stars to each other. Jonathan was also a speculator. He had an option to buy a cargo brought back by an exploration team from a planet the stargate had touched once and lost. Because the planet had no receiving gate, reestablishing contact with it was virtually impossible. That made the cargo priceless. Jonathan went to a Shissahn living on Earth for financial backing. Hakon Chashakananda was a careful businessman and demanded some security to insure the return
of his loan. The opening scenario had Hakon, played by Miles, telling Jonathan, Tommy, to leave Allegra with him as a hostage until the cargo was sold and profits distributed.

  I went on to the plot outline. If Zach Weigand had tailored Jonathan’s character correctly, Jonathan would agree to the arrangement. Allegra would also agree, out of her love for Jonathan. She would be repelled by the alien, because of both his inhuman appearance and his demand for a hostage, but gradually she would find aspects of him to admire. He would be drawn to her in turn and eventually release her. On returning to Jonathan, however, Allegra would find herself looking at him with new eyes. She would find flaws in him she could not accept, and she would leave this once-beloved man of her own kind to return to the alien.

  “All right,” Brian said. “Study the bios tonight and start learning your characters. Do you all have your angels?”

  Miles and I nodded. Tommy shook his head. Brian handed him a vial of minute white pills. “Don’t take more than one. I don’t want you to settle in too deep. Tomorrow we’ll begin scenarios and bio alterations as necessary. I shouldn’t need to, but I remind you not to discuss your bios with each other.”