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  "Brilliant misdirection, boy! Brilliant! I didn't even notice you doing the legs."

  Pausert blushed. This had gone so wrong. He brought his hands up to hide his face.

  It was only when the length of chain still on his wrist hit him on the head that he realized that his hands were free too. All that remained of his bonds were the loops around his chest. He realized that the little vatch had kept its promise after all. He was free!

  Well, almost. There were just the loops of rope around his chest. If he could pretend it was all planned . . . He sent begging thoughts at the little vatch. All he got was the tinkle of laughter. He strained desperately at the rope. Strained and strained. He felt the veins stand out on his forehead.

  The ropes stayed as tight as ever. Pausert wilted. "I'm afraid . . . something has gone wrong with this stage. I'll have to ask you to undo the knot. Or cut it," he said lamely.

  Himbo got up from his perch on the edge of his desk and walked across. "Never mind. A fine performance anyway. As good as any I've seen. You'll just have to practice that part. And we'll need to find something better in the way of a cloak than those silly things. Turn around." A moment later: "Ho ho! Very clever. Very good indeed!"

  Pausert wished that he knew just what piece of naughty-minded witchery had again sent everyone, from that pestilential little vatch to Dame Ethulassia, into gales of laughter. Of course, he couldn't see it. With a sinking heart, Pausert knew that just as Pul and Hantis had to sacrifice their dignity to being part of the "freak" show, he would have to make a fool of himself in front of audiences across the Empire. Well. At least they probably wouldn't be going to Nikkeldepain.

  He was too gloomy at the thought to pay any real attention to the rope falling around his ankles. Or the little twist of flowers where the knot had been.

  * * *

  Pausert sat in the control room talking to Goth. The Venture was safely snugged into the latticework on the second tier. Her hold was now full of an assortment of ropes, screens, fake treasure chests, feather-light swords, and an eclectic collection of bric-a-brac furniture ranging from ornate ancient chairs to stools some showperson might just have stolen from an ultramodern bar somewhere.

  "You got us a good deal," said Goth, hugging her knees and grinning. "You're a hot witch, Captain. I wouldn't have thought of that trick with the flowers. And I nearly died when the back of the allweather cloak lifted up so that we could see you and the keys." She started laughing again. "It was so neat! You had them all fooled."

  "Actually, Goth, I didn't plan any of that. It was that dratted little vatch. It was playing its tricks on me. We were just lucky, I guess."

  "Luck's a klatha thing too, Captain."

  Pausert sighed. "We're going to need it, Goth. Everything has gone haywire on this trip. We expected an easy voyage . . . and look at it. We've lost our money, we've nearly lost our ship. I've even lost my best boots. I'm getting used to these new ones now, but they're not the same."

  Goth examined the boots. "They're pretty spiffy ones, Captain. Looks like Lambidian iguana leather."

  The captain looked at the boots in question. They were smarter looking than he remembered. "They're a spare pair I've had for years. I certainly never had the money for Lambidian iguana. Even my best pair were just tanned miffel-hide, but made to measure. Anyway, I think boots are going be the least of my problems. I'll have to try to get that bit of vatch stuff I gave to the little one back. I might be able to rely on that. I can't rely on the little vatch. I'll be all chained up on stage and it'll think it a capital joke to disappear."

  "I wonder if I can talk Dame Ethulassia into being chained up in one of your performances?" asked Goth, innocently.

  "You stay away from her," Pausert said sternly.

  "You do the same, then," Goth growled. "Even if I'm not marriageable age yet, I don't want you fooling around with anybody else."

  The captain rolled his eyes. "Great. Not only does it seem I've gotten myself a pint-sized fiancee—and how did that happen, exactly? I don't remember anybody asking me—but she's jealous as Medea to boot."

  "Don't need to ask, not on Karres," Goth replied firmly. "What's bound to happen is bound to happen. Besides, fair's fair. I'm not fooling around with anybody else either."

  "Of course you're not. You're only twelve years old!"

  "Still. Fair's fair."

  CHAPTER 12

  "Well," Dame Ethulassia said, archly, surveying Pausert and the rest of his crew. "I suppose you want to know why I asked you—here."

  She waved her hand at the rows and rows of theater seats beyond the stage. At least, Pausert thought there were rows and rows of seats out there; he could only see the first few.

  Goth was paying no attention to the Dame at all. Instead, she was peering into the darkness. "Who's that?" she suddenly demanded.

  "Richard Cravan," replied a rich and powerful voice from the darkness. The voice seemed to echo, as if in a great cavern.

  "Sir Richard Cravan," said Dame Ethulassia, "The founder and director of our theatrical company."

  To the captain's surprise, she dimpled. The smile made her seem a lot younger. A lot more attractive, too, than her earlier Great Vamp performance. For a moment, The Incredible Bosom even seemed to belong to a real woman.

  "Poor Himbie! He thinks I make all the decisions about casting! But if he knew it was Sir Richard, he'd never let us have half the resources he gives me."

  "My dear Lassia," chuckled The Voice, "You make as many decisions as I."

  "But you are the heart and soul of the Company," Dame Ethulassia replied. Pausert would have expected her to simper, but she simply seemed serious, almost reverent. "Miss Hulik, would you step to the front of the stage, please?"

  With a look of surprise, Hulik did so. As she did, Pausert saw words appearing in the air between them and the theater. "This is a love-speech, Miss Hulik," said The Voice. "The lady in question is very young, and so is her lover. They just met this evening, and fell instantly in love, even though their families are involved in a deadly feud. He has come to see if she feels as strongly as he does—as you do, Miss Hulik. He stands below you, beneath your balcony. Let me hear you speak to him, please."

  Hulik stepped forward—and to Pausert's delight and surprise, seemed to shed years and become someone else altogether.

  He had known, of course, that the do Eldel was an agent of the Empress, and as such, was capable of many roles. What he had not really understood was that she could act. Hulik started reading her lines from the words projected in the air without seeming even to pause.

  "What man art thou," she whispered, "that thus bescreen'd in night so stumblest on my counsel?"

  "By a name," The Voice replied, sounding impossibly adolescent, breathless and excited all at once, "I know not how to tell thee who I am: My name, dear Saint, is hateful to myself, because it is an enemy to thee. Had I it written, I would tear the word!"

  Hulik clasped her hands before her, gasping with mingled consternation and delight. "My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words of thy tongue's uttering, yet I know the sound. Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?"

  Pausert listened and watched, holding his breath, and he was not the only one. Goth and even the Leewit were doing the same; the grik-dog actually lay down and was gazing up at Hulik soulfully. And when he looked out of the corner of his eye at the Dame, expecting to see her eyeing Hulik with jealousy, he was shocked to see a tear trickling down her cheek and an odd little smile playing on her lips.

  Then Hulik finished a very long speech that ended: "And not impute this yielding to light love, which the dark night hath so discovered."

  The Voice said, "Enough, Miss Hulik. Thank you. My dear Lassia? I believe you are correct. Historically, it should be the handsome young lady beside Captain Aron, of course, but—no. There are some things it is better not to be accurate about, and allowing Juliet to be portrayed by a young adolescent is one of them."

  "It's been too long, dear Richard
, since our little troupe has been able to stage Romeo and Juliet," the Dame said, with a passion that surprised Pausert. "I am many things, and capable of many roles, but I will no longer attempt to play a fourteen-year-old girl. It would be foolish."

  "And you are no fool. Captain Aron?"

  "Sir?" Pausert stepped forward.

  "May I ask if you have ever handled a sword?"

  As it happened, he had. Fencing was one of the sports provided at school on Nikkeldepain, and he'd tried it out of curiosity. He'd kept it up in the Nikkeldepain Navy, since swordsmanship was something of a tradition there. "I fence a bit, sir," he replied cautiously.

  "Well! You surprise me pleasantly! A captain who actually knows how to use a sword. I thought that was illegal, these days."

  In fact, The Voice did sound extremely pleased. But given that whoever The Voice belonged to was obviously a consummate actor, Pausert didn't know if he was or not.

  "Come, Captain, step forward. You are Romeo's best friend Mercutio—older, something of a bully-boy, and just a little mad. It was a favored role of mine, but alas! I have accumulated too many years for it. Now, our hero has not met his Juliet at this point—he believes himself in love with another girl, and his friend Mercutio is trying to jolly him out of his depression by coaxing him to go to a party."

  The Voice changed, somehow sounding again like that younger self that had spoken with Hulik. "Give me a torch, I am not for this ambling. Being but heavy I will bear the light."

  Pausert had been looking at the words in the air, and tried to put on a "jollying" tone. "Nay gentle Romeo, we must have you dance!"

  "Not I, believe me! You have dancing shoes with nimble soles, I have a soul of lead so stakes me to the ground, I cannot move."

  Romeo sounded like a moping little teenaged fool. If I were his older friend, what would I sound like when he's in a mood like this? Pausert wondered. He made himself sound impatient; more than a little tired of this theatrical depression. "You are a Lover, borrow Cupid's wings, and soar with them above a common bound!"

  The Voice was finished with him much quicker than with Hulik. "Good, good, you'll do. You're no Barrymore, mind—but if you can handle a sword at all, you're head and shoulders above anyone else we might use for the part. Now, Miss—Hantis, is it? Please step forward."

  New words appeared in the air.

  "You are something very different, my dear. Your appearance suits you ideally for a creature known as Puck. He is not human, is in fact a sort of magical spirit. He's also exceedingly mischievous. Begin, please?"

  Hantis threw herself into the part with more enthusiasm than Pausert had expected—more enthusiasm than talent, perhaps, but The Voice did not interrupt her too quickly. "Good, good, that will do. Your appearance is half the thing, and when I've explained what all that seeming nonsense you've been reciting actually means, I believe you'll do very well. And the . . . grik-dog, I believe he is called? With jaws like that, it behooves me not to offend him."

  "Pul," growled Pul.

  "So it is. Pul, indeed. I mean to have you play one of Titania's attendants, and perhaps, if you do well, a much larger role in another play later on. You might make an interesting Caliban."

  Pausert hadn't a clue what all that meant, but the Dame clapped her hands with glee. "Wonderful! And Miss Hantis for Ariel?"

  "That was my thought. Now, let me see what the others can do."

  The Voice ran through the rest of them in fairly short order. Goth did not seem to be at all unhappy that she was dismissed with: "A Fairy, an attendant on Juliet, and some crowd scenes, I think." But, then, she wouldn't be. Goth took a sly pleasure in being overlooked by people, as long as the captain wasn't one of them.

  The Leewit, of course, scowled when she wasn't picked for a larger role, but she didn't make any open protest. Her lips didn't even start to purse for a whistle. Pausert would have been surprised, since the Leewit's self-esteem normally fell in the Mistress of the Universe range. But there was something immensely authoritative about The Voice that even seemed to affect her.

  Vezzarn, however, completely declined to even audition, The Voice be damned. "Not me!" he declared, red-faced. "Couldn't recite at school, won't do it now."

  Finally: "House Lights," said The Voice. The lights came up beyond the stage, showing a tall, gray-haired man sitting in the fourth row back.

  As he stood, it was clear that he had a couple of inches on Pausert, and that he had the sort of face that people would remember.

  "Miss Hulik, I hope you understand just what Dame Ethulassia is sacrificing here," he said gravely. "She is giving over the title role to you, a newcomer, not even a classically trained actress, when it is she who has been the leading lady of our company."

  Pausert wondered if he had been the only one to hear the emphasis on the word "classically." Clearly, Richard Cravan was well aware that Hulik was an actress, even if he wasn't sure just what sort of actress she was.

  "Believe me, I'm grateful," Hulik said, sounding as if she were.

  "Piff!" said Ethulassia, with an exaggerated wave of her hands. "I still have Titania, Lady Macbeth, and Portia! And Lady Capulet is not so bad a role, anyway."

  The Great Vamp returned, alas, and The Incredible Bosom underwent another suprahuman transformation. Ethulassia eyed Pausert through lowered lashes. "I shall be able to play her with that hint of suppressed passion that I've always wanted to do."

  Cravan laughed. "Well, Captain! I believe that I can assure Himbo Petey that your crew is going to fully pay its way without anyone being relegated to roustabout or janitorial duty too frequently. Dame Ethulassia will see to it that you all have copies of the four plays we will be doing, with my explanations and annotations so that you can understand some of the archaic languages. There will be a prompter in your ear, and as you saw, we have LiteTitles to be sure that if you forget your lines, they will appear before you. They can be adjusted so the audience can't see them. Our first rehearsal will be tomorrow morning."

  That seemed to be a dismissal, and Pausert set at example by turning and exiting the stage. He was followed by Goth, and then, belatedly, by the others.

  "Commanding sort, isn't he?" Pausert remarked.

  Goth wrinkled her nose. "He didn't even consider that any of us might not want to be in his plays."

  "Of course he didn't," said Hulik with a smile, coming up behind them. "I've seen his type before. Born actors, and he simply can't even imagine that anyone in his right mind wouldn't wish to be on the stage."

  Goth didn't seem put out, though. "As long as it means less sweeping, I'll learn to like it well enough."

  "If it means less playing the fool, I'll definitely like it," said Pausert.

  * * *

  When the Petey B lifted off, Pausert scarcely noticed. He was used to the roar and acceleration of his own ship; but, of course, a delicate structure like the lattice ship could not take such stresses and so was using obsolete but still perfectly functional Orris-Jawl engines. The Petey B simply elevated, as gracefully and slowly as a puff-seed.

  Slowly was indeed the hallmark—no fast getaways here! They took hours to get into space, with the ground of Vaudevillia slowly growing farther and farther away. Pausert would have liked to watch, but he was too busy.

  When he wasn't learning his parts for the plays or rehearsing them, he was practicing his escapism, or he was dragooned into any one of a number of odd jobs that called for strength. Over the course of the Petey B's return to space, for instance, he could have been found moving and stowing cargo, bracing a ladder for one of the riggers in the "Big Top," or helping that same rigger haul up the net for the aerialists.

  That experience was enough to convince him that "actor" was indeed the best job he could ask for on the ship. Truth to tell, he was hoping he wouldn't even have to spend too much of his time on Sideshow Alley.

  So, he was pleased to discover that he had parts in all four of the new plays that Cravan's company was going to perform: He was
a character called "Bottom" in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, a servant called Launcelot in Merchant of Venice, and King Duncan in Macbeth.

  Goth and the Leewit were particularly taken with Macbeth, for, with some amusement, Sir Richard had cast them at their own request as two of the three Witches. He had no idea why they wanted to play Witches, until at the first rehearsal, Goth played more of her light-shifts and levitated the potion ingredients into the huge cauldron, adding a very interesting bit of "business" to the scene.

  Cravan said nothing more than "hm," but he agreed that they could have the coveted roles, and added Hantis as the third Witch. Since this also meant that none of them would be doing as much mucking-out for the animal-trainers, they were delighted.

  Pul wasn't delighted at all. True, no one expected him to do any mucking-out work. But he was beginning to darkly suspect that he'd soon be consigned to the mucking end of the business—locked in a stall himself, as if he were a mere animal! Fortunately for the limbs of all concerned, he stopped growling and baring his teeth after Sir Richard allowed that the Bard's Sacred Work could be tweaked enough to permit one of the witches to have a familiar.

  Pausert was sorely puzzled by the Dame. She was almost two people: One, flamboyant and flirtatious—and still making sly innuendos regarding "service"—outside the theater; the other, when inside the theater, was serious, careful, and clever, treating everyone with respect and Sir Richard with near-veneration.

  He said as much to Goth and Hantis.

  "She's an actress," Hantis replied immediately, as if the answer was self-evident. " 'Actress' with a capital 'A.' "

  "Well yes, but—"

  "So, she doesn't confine her acting to the stage."

  He thought about it. "But which one is the act?"