Triton (Trouble on Triton) (18 page)

“Ah ha!” the Spike said. “I think we have just gotten down to a gritty—or at least a nitty.”

He looked at her white mask sharply. “Why?”

“Your whole tone of voice changed. Your body carriage shifted. Even with your mask, you could see your head jutting forward so, and your shoulders pulled back
into
position—in the theater, you have to learn a lot about what the body has to say concerning the movements of the emotions—”

“Only I’m not into theater. I’m into metalogics. What about those of us who don’t know what the body has to say about the emotions? Or the paths of the comets? Put it in terms that / know!”

“Well,
I’m
not into metalogics. But you seem to be using some sort of logical system where, when you get near any explanation, you say: ‘By definition my problem is insoluble. Now that explanation over there would solve it. But since I’ve defined my problem as insoluble, then by definition that solution doesn’t apply.’ I mean, really, if you ... No. Wait. You want me to say what happens in your terms?

Well, you
hurt,
for one thing. Yes, people like me can sit down and map out how you are managing to inflict a good deal of that hurt on yourself. I suspect, at your better moments, you can too—”

“In
your
terms they’re my better moments. In
my
terms they’re my worst—because that’s when the hurt seems to be the most hopeless. The rest of the time I can at least come up with a hope, however false, that things will just get better.”

“In your terms, then, you just hurt. And—” She sighed—“from time to time—I mean I know how much Miriamne wanted that job; she’s probably a good number of credit slots below you
and
me—you hurt other people.”

They were silent for a dozen, rustling steps.

“You were asking me before if being a prostitute had done me any harm. I was just thinking. Your friend Miriamne thought the reason I’d gotten her fired was because she hadn’t been interested when I’d made a pass at her. Well, maybe that’s one bad thing hustling
did
do to me. You see, the one, degrading thing that happens to you again and again and again in that kind of job is people—the men who employ you as much as the women you’re there to service—is people constantly give everything you do, just because you’re selling it, some sort of sexual motivation. When you’re in the business, you learn to live with it. But it’s the difference between
them
and you—you get it in jokes, you
get
it in tips, you get it in jobs you’re shuttled away from. And it never has anything to do with any real reason you might do anything real at all. Ask your friend Windy, he’ll tell you what I mean: when I came out here, I’d heard all about the satellites’ sexual freedom—it’s the golden myth of two worlds. When I left Mars, I promised myself that was something I’d never do to any other person, as long as I lived; it had just been done to me too many times. Well, maybe being a prostitute made me over-sensitive, but when Miriamne seriously said that, to me, this morning—that I’d gotten her canned because she wouldn’t put out—well, it just threw me! It
isn’t
something you find out here all that frequently, and, yes, that represents an improvement in my life. But when it
is
done, it doesn’t make it any more pleasant. It’s not something I could possibly do to anyone else. It’s not something I like having done to me ... As much as I dislike her, all the way over here I’ve been feeling sorry for her. But if she
is
the type who would do that to another person ... hell, do it to
me,
I wonder if I have the
right
to feel sorry for her ... You know?”

“On one level,” the Spike said, her voice projecting an expression of seriousness as intricate as the former^ projected smile, “everything you say makes perfect sense. On another, very profound one, I do not understand a single word. Really, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you before; and I’ve known a few. Your recounting of everything, from Philip to Miriamne—
his
women?
her
men? In fact you didn’t even
say
the sec—

ond one; I wonder if that’s significant?—just sounds like a vision from another world!”

“I am from another world—a world you’re at war with. And yes, we did things differently there.”

“A world I hope very much we’re not at war with.”

“All right, a world we’re not at war with
yet.
Do you think my inability to hold on to the fine points is just another example of my Martian confusion?”

“I think your confusion hurts other people.”

He scowled behind the mask. “Then people like me should be exterminated!”

Her masked eyes glittered. “That would be a solution; I thought we were discounting those from the start.”

He kept scowling and was silent.

After a few more steps, the Spike said: “So, now that you know all about me, what will you do with this precious information?”

“Huh? Oh, just because I’ve been carrying on about myself? Well, we’re
in
the unlicensed sector, aren’t we—”

“I would have called it complaining about your subordinates and bragging about your boss, but never mind.”

“But I
do
know all about you,” he said. “At least, a lot—you’re the brat of nine, Ganymede ice-farmers; probably as healthy and wholesome an upbringing as you could get in Philip’s crowd—”

“Oh, more wholesome in some ways. Far more neurotic, I’m sure, in others—in
my
terms.”

“—and now you’re living the romantic life as a theatrical producer in the swinging, unlicensed sector of the big city, where you’ve gained fame and, if not fortune, at least a government endowment. What else is there to know?”

The white, plumed skull let a single syllable of laughter, almost a bark (he found it intensely ugly): a string of smooth ones followed it. “Well, you know at least
one
other thing about me.”

“What?”

“I have fair tolerance as a listener. Tell me, do you think people who spend time, for whatever reason, in the Goebels, run to a particular personality type? I ask, because I must admit I find, here and there, similarities between your personality and Fred’s. Oh, nothing specific, but just a general approach to life.”

“I don’t think I’m flattered.”

“Oh, but of course! You must know everything about Fred too ... I mean I don’t think it has anything to do with prostitution itself.
He
wasn’t one. And anyway, neither of you is the least like Windy. He was—but then, like you said, Earth is a different matter.”

“You just don’t understand.” Bron sighed. “Help me. Take me. Make me whole.”

“I’d have to learn something about
you
first.” Her gaze was all white satin and sequins. “And I pay
you
the compliment of assuming I haven’t even begun.”

“I bet you think you could—what did you say?—sit down and map out how I’m managing to inflict a good deal of the hurt on myself.”

“Your presumptions about what I think are so monumental as to be touching.” Still holding his hand, she moved ahead. Suddenly, she looked back, and whispered: “Let me help you! Let me take you! Let me make you whole!”

“Huh?”

She raised a gloved forefinger against the veils before her lips. “Come with me. Follow close. Do what I do. Exactly. But on no account speak!”

“What do you ... ?”

But she
shhhhed
him again, released his hand, and, in waves of white, darted down the steps beside them.

In waves of black, he followed her.

She crossed a cindery stretch and, immediately, hurried up a badly repaired stairway between walls scarcely wide enough for his shoulders.

She stopped at the top.

He stopped behind her. One sequin lapping the edge of his right eye-hole deviled his vision with scarlet glitter.

And her white plumes and satin headpiece had gone flickering red, brighter than any faulty coordinate sign could dye them.

Beyond the alley entrance, half a dozen people—

among them the little girl he’d seen in the Spike’s room last night, also the massive and mastectomized Dian—carried above their shoulders scarlet torches, a-hiss and a-drizzle with sparks. Windy, on a large contraption like a rodent’s exercise wheel, bells fixed on his wrists and ankles, rotated head down, head up, head down: A target was painted around his belly button, rings of ted, blue, and yellow extending far as circling nipples and knees. The guitar started. As though it were a signal, two men began unrolling an immense carpet across the ground—another mural: this one of some ancient fair with archaic costumes, barkers, and revelers.

Verbal disorientation, he thought, listening to the surreal catalogue of the lyrics: the melody was minor, this time rhythmic, more chant than song.

Who (Bron gazed about the spectators clapping to the intense, insistent rhythm) was the audience this time?

“Here!” the Spike whispered, picking up a pole leaning against the wall, thrust another into Bron’s gloves and, carrying hers high, ran out over the spread carnival, into the circle of torchbearers (who fell back for her) waving her pole over her head.

Bron ran out behind her, waving his.

From the corner of his eye, he saw that Windy had left the wheel and was turning slow cartwheels (his fingernails and toenails were iridescent and multihued) through the milling torchbearers. The top of the Spike’s pole had erupted in blue sparks. He looked up: his own was a crackle of gold.

Then, beyond gold, he saw the trapeze arc down toward them. (Just how high
was
the ceiling here?) Two figures rode it. One was the woman, now in an ordinary cutaway street sack, who, when he’d last seen her, had worn mirrors on her toes. The other was younger, taller, with dark hair (they dropped within six feet of the glittering pole tops, then swung off and up); her features, from somewhere in Earth’s Oceana, were set in astonishment as she craned back, rising away in the dark.

... and came swinging back, trouser cuffs and hair whipping. The singing changed key and timbre. First he thought the song was breaking into polyphony. But everyone was just going off on their own. Above, the two women swung.

The music was complete cacophony.

The Spike raised her pole high and swirled it, with fluttering sleeves, in a wide circle (he raised his own, swung it; he was sweating inside his head-mask), then suddenly hurled it to the ground (his own pole clattered down a moment later). Immediately, the singers silenced.

Bron looked up, as did everyone else.

The swing’s arc dipped, backward and forward, slowing.

Someone to his left began a note. Someone to the right took up another, a third away. Others added to it; the chord grew, consonant and minor, like the waters of some alien ocean breaking about his ears. Suddenly it opened up into major—which made him catch his breath.

The swing came to an unsteady halt. The tall, young woman was clutching one of the ropes with both hands and staring down in amazement.

The chord died. Torches guttered on the ground, red, and blue, and gold, and red ... The younger woman said: “Oh ... Oh, that was—Oh,
thank
you!”

The other woman on the swing said: “Thank
you .
..” She released her rope and, balancing there with crossed ankles, began to clap.

So did the rest of the company.

The Spike had taken off her mask and, with it tucked under one arm, bowed, white plumes doffing, among the other, raggedly-bowing performers. Bron finished his own embarrassed bow, took off his own mask. Skin, moist behind his ears and across the bridge of his nose, cooled.

“That was marvelous!” the young woman said, looking down among them. “Are you some sort of theatrical company?”

“A commune,” explained the other woman on the trapeze. “We’re working on a government endowment to do micro-theater for unique audiences. Oh, I hope you don’t mind—we used some drugs—cellusin?”

“Oh, of course not!” the young woman said, glancing back and then down again. “Really ... it was just—”

“So were you!” called up one of the men, picking up torches.

Everyone laughed.

Something tapped Bron’s ankle. He looked down. Three people were rolling up the mural. Bron stepped over
it
Barkers and revelers and amusement rides disappeared in the canvas bolt.

“... the song was written by our guitarist, Charo ...” (who’s guitar face flashed in Bron’s eyes as it went into its case; Charo grinned at the swingers.) “... props and murals are by Dian and Hatti, with help from our tumbler, Windy. This production was conceived, produced, and directed by our company manager, the Spike,”—who nodded, waved, and went to help Windy tear down the wheel—”... with special appearances from Tyre, Millicent, Bron, and Joey—all of whom were our audience too, at one time.”

“Oh ... !” the young woman said, and looked down at Bron and the others indicated. Bron looked around, surprised, remembered to smile up at the swing.

“Thank you again for being our audience. We really appreciate a responsive one. That was our final performance on Triton. Shortly, our endowment will be taking us on. We’ve been on Triton eight weeks now, in which we’ve given over two hundred and twenty-five performances of ten works—three of them never performed before—to almost three hundred people—” Someone picked up the pole Bron had thrown down, took it away—“Thank you again.”

“Oh, thank
youl”
the tall young woman cried. “Thank
you
... !” The swing began to rise into the dark, by creaks and starts, wound up on a rackety pulley. “Thank you all! I mean, I had no idea, when you just suggested that we sit
down
on this thing that, suddenly, we would ... Oh, it was just marvelous!”

Heads, hands, and knees, they jerked up into the shadow, away from the decimal clock, dim and distant on the dark.

The Spike, head-mask still under her arm, was talking to the woman who held the little girl now in her arms. All three were laughing loudly.

Still laughing, the Spike turned toward Bron.

He pulled off one of his gloves and tucked it under his arm with his own mask, just to do something. He was trying to think of something to say, and already the anger at not finding it was battling his initial pleasure.