Narabedla Ltd (33 page)

It was a welcome break for me, too. With two major roles to get up, plus a full day of rehearsals every day, plus vocalizing with Ugolino Malatesta and, when I could find the time, an hour or so working out in Conjur’s gym, there wasn’t much left of my days.

There wasn’t nearly
enough
left, because there was so much more that I wanted to do. There was my house to refurnish, my neighbors to meet, the rest of the opera troupe to get to know. Not counting all the questions about Narabedla itself, and about the Fifteen Associated Peoples and their multitudinous relationships and activities that I still hadn’t answered. I did from time to time remember to think of Marlene and Irene Madigan and my abandoned clients back on Earth. I remembered them with affection. I sincerely hoped that they were all well and happy, but I can’t say I did any of those things very often. There was simply too much in the here and now.

The probe launch to the Andromeda galaxy that we had watched on the skry had been bloody awesome. As technology it was so vastly beyond anything human that I could hardly take it in. Just to start with, these people harnessed
stars
to their purposes! They set them working the way I might turn the ignition key in a car. More than that, it was the incredible scope of the project that made my eyes widen and my breath come short, for they were starting something that would not come to an end for
three million years.

And the Andromeda launch was only the newest and farthest-ranging of their probes; they had already sent off robot exploring sailships to fifteen other external galaxies and star clusters, including a dozen major galaxies I had never heard of. (Purry told me human beings had never seen them, because they lay on the far side of the core of our own galaxy.) A thousand other probes were on their way to the unexplored corners of our own galaxy, to the core, to the far edges of the galactic rim, to the spherical halo of stars outside the galactic disk. Many, of course, had long since arrived at their destinations. Some had found wonders (binary pairs, with one dense little star sucking the blood from its larger, more tenuous sister; black holes; nova shells). Some had found more practical treasures; they had identified sixteen planets with life, suitable for colonization or (like Earth) for supplying trade goods (like us). Another dozen planets were not life-friendly—yet—but they were seeding them with dust or chemicals or organic matter so that someday, maybe in a thousand years at best, they too could be colonized. There were eight other stars which had not yet developed planets; each had a sort of Saturn-ring disk of uncoalesced particles around it. Perhaps each of them, in a million years or so, might have started developing a solar system if left alone. They weren’t left alone. One or another of the Fifteen Peoples, usually several of them in partnership, were busily shuffling those particles around to make a screen around the parent stars, to trap all their escaping energy to make power for their other enterprises. In a dozen places they were busy coagulating clouds of interstellar gases. Why? To make sunshades. To stop the radiation from supernovae that might otherwise threaten inhabited places on the far sides of the clouds. In the empty space between the stars they had constructed a thousand immense space telescopes—mirrors a thousand miles across, radio antennae forty times as big— to study the stars and systems they had not yet reached with a go-box.

And that was only the astronomical part. I could understand that—some of it. I could even understand, a little, some of the biological things they did, like making the Kekketies, and Purry, and a hundred other creations that did the work none of the Fifteen Peoples cared to do. I don’t mean that I could understand
how
they did it, but
what
they did was simple enough to comprehend. But—mathematics! Molecular biology! Nuclear particle physics! Even Purry couldn’t explain any of that to me. He couldn’t even find the words in English that might translate some of the ideas, whether I then could understand the ideas or not, because such words did not yet exist on Earth. There was no need for them. The things the words referred to had not yet been discovered.

When Meretekabinnda showed up I tried some of the questions on him. He seemed tickled by the fact that I was interested in such things. “You’re really quite peculiar, Nolly,” he said affectionately. “Most of our guest artists from your The Earth don’t care much for scientific things.”

“They’re performers,” I explained. “Singers don’t get worried about anything farther away than their press notices and the state of their vocal cords.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose that’s it. I know that on your The Earth you do have all sorts of chemists and astrologers and shamans. No doubt they would be more curious about such things. Well! How can I help you? The genetic things? That’s mostly the Ossps, you know; we Mnimn don’t deal much in such things.”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to ask you. The Fifteen Associated Peoples. How do you decide who’s going to do what? How do you share out the business?”

“Ah,” he said, bobbing his upper body. “I see. Well, you know what the Polyphase Index is?”

“Something like the Stock Exchange?” I hazarded.

“In a way, perhaps,” he said doubtfully. “Here, let me borrow your skry. This is what it looks like.”

The graph he displayed on the skry was in three dimensions and a whole spectrum of colors, and it changed and flowed before my eyes. It measured, he explained, the available and committed resources of each alien race for each shared project.

Binnda pointed out the tiny peaks that were devoted to the Narabedla project. It was almost too small to show. Even within it, we actors, singers, and baton twirlers were lumped together in a single little spike called “Cultural Activities,” and we were the tiniest item in the group. “As you see,” he said, “only eight of the Associated Peoples are committed to Narabedla. Pity, but some are simply cultural morons. But now when we come to the probes, and particularly the Andromeda project…” The peaks were a mountain range now, immense spikes of lilac and blue and green. “That’s a
major
area of cooperation, you see! Oh, my dear boy, I can’t tell you how much we have needed a success like that! And it’s shared by every single one of the Fifteen Associated Peoples—except, of course, the Ossps.”

“Right,” I said. “And what do the Ossps do?” 

“Genetics,” he said shortly.

“Yes, I understand that, but why are they so—I don’t know—disliked?”

“Because they are very dislikable, my boy,” he said, refilling his glass. “It was probably a mistake to admit them to membership. Now, really, weren’t we supposed to be discussing your interpretation of the role of Don Giovanni?” 

“Sure,” I said, refreshing my own drink, “but right now I want to hear more about the Ossps.”

He said firmly, “You won’t. I don’t want to discuss them. If it was up to me I’d put the whole planet in slow time.” 

“But I’d just like to know—”

“No,
Nolly,” he said, and closed the three-cornered mouth with a snap.

I took a long pull at my drink, resentfully. We were both silent for a moment. Truth to tell, I’d lost interest in how to interpret the Don’s motivations and needs; the good The Earth whiskey had loosened Binnda’s bright green tongue, and it seemed like the best chance I would ever have to ask some questions.

I tried another tack. “All right, then what about slow time?”

“What about it?”

“Well, our new bass, Manuel de Negras. What was he in slow time for?”

“Ask him.”

I said reasonably, “But that’s hard, Binnda. He doesn’t speak any English.”

“Purry will translate for you. He’s had Spanish, installed for de Negras.” Then he relented. “But, ah, my dear boy, why do you concern yourself with unpleasantness? Manuel de Negras did a foolish thing; he attempted to return to your The Earth. As others have done. With the same result: he was placed in slow time. It did him no harm. It simply removed him from circulation for a while. After all, slow time is not a bad thing; we all wind up there sooner or later, don’t we?”

“We
do?”

“We either do that or we die, don’t you know? We Mnimn are not quite as well off as you people, you know. With good care and repair, your The Earth people can last for over three hundred of your The Earth years. Our theoretical limit is maybe two hundred and a bit. Then there’s cellular degeneration, and then”—he shrugged wryly—“it’s the slow-time vaults.”

“And what happens in the slow-time vaults?”

“You just sit there,” he said wryly. “And you hope that sometime in the next thousand years or so—say, a week in slow time—people will figure out how to fix the cells. But even the Ossps don’t hold out much hope for that.”

I stared at him. “So nobody ever really
dies?”

“Oh, of course they do. It just takes a long, long time.”

I shook my head. “You must have a hell of a population problem.”

He bobbed his upper torso affirmatively. “That’s why we’re so busy looking for new living space. A planet like your The Earth would be a home for billions of, say, Bach’hets. And don’t think there aren’t a lot of people who’d like to use it for that.”

He tossed off the last of his whiskey, and slipped off the couch to the floor. “It’s getting late,” he said. “Now. I have been working on preparations for our tour. Never fear, you will be making your debut in a very few days! But you must have your rest to protect that golden voice.”

“All right,” I said, getting up reluctantly to escort him to the door.

As he was leaving, he paused. “And when will you have that housewarming party you’ve been promising us?” he asked jovially.

“Well, pretty soon,” I said, gazing around my new home. All the furniture was in; I was as ready as I was likely to be.

“Please don’t put it off too long. And make sure, please, to have plenty of your good The Earth whiskey, and a lot to eat. I’ve taken the liberty of mentioning it to a number of my colleagues—Ptrreek and Hrunwians, mostly. You don’t mind?” I shook my head. “It’s really important for us to get together socially, you know. There are—well, frictions now and then. But the Andromeda probe has made things a lot friendlier, and I’m anxious for some of the others to get a really good impression of your The Earth. Even if they can’t visit it themselves, as I have. You see, I really love the place! I only wish it could be opened up soon—”

He stopped, looking embarrassed. Alerted, I asked, “What do you mean, opened up?”

He said unwillingly, “Well, sooner or later it’s bound to happen, isn’t it? Some of the Peoples think it should be open now—oh, not as a
member,
of course, but for visiting. But I think the protected status will remain for a long time yet.” I shook my head. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Who are you protecting?”

And he said simply, “You.”

A
s all of my girlfriends had told me in the old days, a party should be planned for. I didn’t have time for that, but I went ahead and had it anyway.

There wasn’t any problem about whom to invite. I skried invitations to everyone I knew and crossed my fingers. The Kekketies provided everything I demanded of them, but I couldn’t help worrying about whether I’d have enough room, or alternatively whether anyone would come, or whether I’d provided enough food and drink.

I needn’t have worried. Everybody showed up, and most of them brought contributions of their own.

Tricia showed up early with Malcolm Porchester, back from his sand-painting chores. Both were bearing gifts. “I cooked for your party,” Tricia said happily, setting down little trays with foil on top. She unwrapped a plate of what looked like pale fudge. “This is coconut burfy, and these sweet pastries have honey and pistachio nuts in them. And the quiche just needs to be heated.”

What Porchester had brought was a white enamel tray and a couple of small sacks of powder. “To decorate your party,” he grinned, and wouldn’t explain. He set himself up in a corner of the bedroom, and I left him to it, because other guests were arriving.

Norah showed up with Ephard Joyce on one arm and my castrato coach, Ugolino Malatesta, spry and smiling, on the other. Ugolino had a huge, round-bellied bottle of Lacrimae Cristi, and Joyce was carrying Norah’s contribution to the party, little silver-paper boxes of candied almonds and pecans. “I wanted to get something nicer,” she apologized, “but you know how hard it is to get special orders filled now that the yacht’s off in the colonies somewhere. Oh, you didn’t know? Well, Mr. Davidson-Jones thought it best to keep it away from the major ports for a while. Because of the questions that were being asked, you know. No, no, don’t feel bad, Nolly. I’m sure all those little problems you caused will blow over.”

I kissed her cheek apologetically and turned to the next arrivals. I had almost forgotten there was anything to blow over.

Everybody came, starting with the whole opera troupe. Even Canduccio sulked in, looking daggers at Ugolino as he waltzed with Norah to the music Purry was pouring out, show tunes and gentle rock. Sam Shipperton was there, bringing a pretty little Chinese girl I’d never met. Conjur Kowalski followed them in—a little cool, a little reserved (as he’d been ever since the night of the Andromeda launch), but he brought a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, crunched my shoulder good-naturedly enough with his immense right hand, and promptly began dancing with the pretty little harpist from across the street. Most of my neighbors had showed up, too. That was just as well for them. There were plenty of people, there was plenty to eat and plenty to drink, but one of my concerns turned out justified. The house just wasn’t big enough for the party. We spilled out into the street, and so all of my neighbors were at the party whether they wanted to be or not.