Space Opera (22 page)

“I don’t know. I’ll return to Earth, and I suppose find a job somewhere.”

“The only lasting effect of this business,” grumbled Roger, “is the state of my reflexes. I feel like a laboratory rat. When he presses a green button cheese comes down a chute; until suddenly pressing the green button gets him only shocks and air-jets.”

Madoc Roswyn took his hand. “What if I asked you to push the green button just once more, and promised nothing but cheese and never any shocks and air-jets for the poor young rat again?”

“In that case,” said Roger, “I’d push all the green buttons in my cage, every one I could find.”

“Well — I promise.”

Dawn came fresh and clear to Rlaru. The sun, somewhat larger and a deeper gold than Earth’s sun, rose over the distant hills.

Not long after, some of the local inhabitants were seen: a half dozen men in blue trousers, white jackets and extremely wide-brimmed hats, on their way to work in a nearby field. Noticing the
Phoebus
, they paused in mild curiosity, then continued on the way, glancing back over their shoulders.

“Odd,” muttered Dame Isabel. “Their lack of interest is almost insulting.”

“Did you notice their physical characteristics?” asked Bernard Bickel. “Extremely man-like — yet in some subtle, almost indefinable, manner, not quite men.”

“This is no surprise,” said Dame Isabel, with a trace of asperity. “They are precisely the type of the Ninth Company. There can no longer be any doubt as to Mr. Gondar’s complete veracity, at least in regard to the Ninth Company and Rlaru.”

“None whatever,” agreed Bernard Bickel. “As I recall, he spoke of three castes or classes: the indigents, the workers and the artists who constitute an elite.”

“Yes, I recall a remark to this effect. Presumably a deputation will shortly come out to greet us.”

But morning became noon and no one appeared but three or four men wearing coarse gray smocks and cloth sandals. Squatting in the dirt, they gave the
Phoebus
a brief inspection, then rising moved off in a purposeless amble, to disappear in a grove of trees beside the river.

Dame Isabel paced back and forth in front of the
Phoebus
, looking first toward the village, then shading her eyes with her hand and peering toward the workers in the field. Finally she returned into the ship and ascended to Adolph Gondar’s cabin.

There was no response to her knock.

She knocked again, peremptorily. “Mr. Gondar, open if you please.”

Still no answer. After one further rap, Dame Isabel tried the door, but found it locked.

Nearby, on the bridge, sat the crew-man deputed to guard Adolph Gondar’s cabin; Dame Isabel spoke sharply, “Fetch Mr. Henderson at once, and then ask Mr. Bickel to step up. I fear that Mr. Gondar may be ill.”

The Chief Technician appeared. After a knock or two, he forced the door. Adolph Gondar was not in his cabin.

Dame Isabel turned ominously upon the crew-man who had been standing guard. “How and when did Mr. Gondar leave his cabin?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure I don’t. He took his lunch; I saw it handed in to him, and that’s only been an hour ago. I haven’t had my eyes off that door. A cat couldn’t have slipped out.”

“Bernard,” said Dame Isabel crisply, “please check the lifeboats.”

Bernard Bickel shortly returned to report that all lifeboats were securely in their pods. Nor could Adolph Gondar have used the exit-ramp; those standing in front of the ship would have seen him. Dame Isabel ordered a search of the ship.

Adolph Gondar was not aboard. By some means unknown he had departed his cabin, seemingly vanishing into thin air.

In the middle afternoon the field workers in their odd broad-brimmed hats halted work and returned to the village. As before they gave the
Phoebus
a mildly interested inspection, though hardly slackening their pace to do so. Only Dame Isabel’s sense of fitness prevented her from marching forth to demand a responsible delegation from the village. She watched the retreating backs a minute or two, then turned to Bernard Bickel and Andrei Szinc, who stood beside her. “What, in your expert opinions,” she asked, “would seem an appropriate work to perform here, presuming we were able to attract an audience of other than bumpkins and vagabonds?”

Andrei Szinc flung out his hands, as if to imply that one opera would do as well as another for folk so incurious as these. Bernard Bickel replied to the same effect: “I find it difficult to decide. Frankly, I had expected a far different cultural complex — an ambiance considerably more lively and sophisticated.”

“My feelings exactly,” said Andrei Szinc. He looked around the landscape. Drenched in the golden haze of late afternoon it seemed wonderfully tranquil and beautiful, though permeated with a sense of remoteness and even melancholy, like a scene remembered from one’s youth.

Frowning, Andrei Szinc spoke on slowly. “There seems an aimlessness here, a lack of purpose, as if people and landscape aren’t altogether real. Perhaps ‘archaic’ is the word I want. Everything exudes a redolence of something old and half-forgotten.”

Dame Isabel chuckled drily. “I admit Rlaru is not quite as I expected it — but both of you seem to have evaded my question.”

Bernard Bickel laughed and pulled at his fine gray mustache. “I evade because I am at a loss. I talk, hoping to stimulate an idea into existence — but I have failed. Still, for an off-the-cuff suggestion, why not
Tales of Hoffman
? Or perhaps
The Magic Flute
once more? Or even
Hansel and Gretel
?”

Andrei Szinc nodded. “Any of these would be suitable.”

“Good,” said Dame Isabel. “Tomorrow we will perform
Hansel and Gretel
in the open, and hope that the sound of the music, which we will amplify and direct toward the village, will attract an audience. Andrei, please see to bringing out the requisite sets, and arranging some sort of a curtain. Bernard, perhaps you would be good enough to inform Sir Henry and his people.”

The company, which had become somewhat edgy, reacted with great energy to the prospect of a performance. Musicians and singers joined the crew in the labor of carrying out sets and stage properties, and rigging a makeshift curtain. Work continued by floodlight long after dark, and Dame Isabel noted with satisfaction that in the village lights were not extinguished as early as the night before, and occasionally lights which had been turned off came back to life.

There still was no clue as to what had become of Adolph Gondar. Various theories were current, most to the effect that Gondar, after leaving the ship by some crafty method, had made his way to the village in order to seek out his old acquaintances. It was generally expected that Gondar in his own good time would return to the ship.

On the next morning almost a dozen folk came out from the village, and now the
Phoebus
company for the first time saw the so-called “aristocrats” of Rlaru. These were people closely resembling in style and attitude the Ninth Company which Adolph Gondar had brought to Earth: slender well-shaped people of great grace, verve, and gaiety. They wore garments of various rich colors, no two of which were alike, and several carried musical instruments of the sort used by the Ninth Company.

Dame Isabel advanced to meet them, holding up her hands in the universal gesture of friendship — a gesture, however, which the folk of Rlaru did not seem to comprehend, for all appeared somewhat puzzled.

Dame Isabel, having established her peaceful intentions, spoke slowly and distinctly. “Hello, my friends of Rlaru. Are any of you members of the Ninth Company which visited Earth? Ninth Company? Earth?”

None of the natives gave any sign of understanding, though all listened with courtesy.

Dame Isabel tried once more. “We are musicians from Earth. We come to perform here on Rlaru as your wonderful Ninth Company performed on Earth. This afternoon we will bring you one of our great operas,
Hansel and Gretel
, by Engelbert Humperdinck.” She ended on a note of rather desperate cheerfulness. “We hope you will all come and bring your friends.”

The villagers spoke a few grave words among themselves, turned to inspect the sets, and presently moved off about their affairs.

Dame Isabel looked after them with a dubious expression. “I hoped to convey an inkling, at least, of our purpose,” she told Bernard Bickel. “I fear I did not succeed.”

“Don’t be too pessimistic,” said Bernard Bickel. “Some of these alien races are wonderfully adept when it comes to sensing one’s basic intents.”

“Do you think then that we’ll have an audience?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised one way or the other.”

Three hours after the sun reached the meridian Sir Henry took the orchestra into the first notes of the overture, and the stately horn chorale, amplified to a certain extent, sounded throughout the countryside.

The first of the Rlaru natives to appear were a group of smock-clad indigents, who came blinking out of the grove by the river as if the music had awakened them from sleep. About twenty of these wandered close and settled themselves into the last row of the benches. Then a dozen or so workmen from nearby fields came to investigate. Five or six stayed to watch and listen, while the others returned to their tasks. Dame Isabel sniffed in contempt. “Louts are louts, no matter where they are found.”

During Scene Five a straggle of villagers appeared, including several aristocrats, to Dame Isabel’s great satisfaction. During the whole of the second act there were perhaps forty persons in the audience, including the semi-torpid indigents, whom the workmen and aristocrats quite noticeably avoided.

“All considered,” Dame Isabel told Sir Henry, Andrei Szinc and Bernard Bickel after the performance, “I am well-pleased. The audience seemed to like what they saw.”

“Not having Gondar puts us to great inconvenience,” said Bernard Bickel fretfully. “I assume that he knows the language, and he would have been of great help in explaining our program.”

“We will do without him,” said Dame Isabel. “If any of the Ninth Company are here — as well they may be — surely they know at least a smattering of our language. We will demonstrate that Adolph Gondar is not as indispensable as he thinks he is.”

“Certainly a mystery where the fellow got to,” declared Sir Henry. “He never left by the off-ramp — that I’ll swear to. I was standing at the bottom every minute, and I saw no sign of him.”

“He’ll no doubt return when he’s good and ready,” said Dame Isabel. “I refuse to worry about him. Tomorrow:
Les Contes d’Hoffmann
, and let us hope that today’s performance will bring us a larger audience!”

Dame Isabel’s hopes were abundantly fulfilled. As soon as the first notes of music drifted across the countryside, folk approached from all directions and settled on the benches without diffidence. The three castes Adolph Gondar had described could easily be distinguished by their costumes. The indigents in their shapeless gray smocks sat to the side like pariahs. The workers wore blue or white pantaloons, blue, white or brown jackets and, more often than not, broad-brimmed headgear. The “aristocrats”, of course, were as extravagant as peacocks among crows; only natural elegance and a certain playful hauteur lent credibility to their costumes. Several carried musical instruments, which they stroked or played softly, with apparently unconscious movements.

Dame Isabel watched in complete satisfaction. “This,” she told Bernard Bickel, “is almost precisely what I had hoped for. Rlaru is by no means as technically advanced as I had presumed, but the folk here are sensitive and aware, in every stratum of society, which is more than can be said of Earth!”

Bernard Bickel had no dispute with her comments.

“After the performance,” said Dame Isabel, “I will approach some of them, and inquire as to Mr. Gondar. It’s quite possible that he has taken refuge with friends, and I would like to learn his intentions.”

But when Dame Isabel tried to communicate with certain of the “aristocrats”, she encountered only blank stares of incomprehension. “Mr. Gondar,” spoke Dame Isabel, very distinctly. “I am interested in learning the whereabouts of Mr. Adolph Gondar. Do you know him?”