The Big Time

  CHAPTER 5

  Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me.

  --Ibsen

  SID INSISTS ON GHOSTGIRLS

  My Elizabethan boy friend put his fists on his hips and laid down thelaw to us as if we were a lot of nervous children who'd been playing toohard.

  "Look you, masters, this is a Recuperation Station and I am running itas such. A plague of all operations! I care not if the frame of thingsdisjoints and the whole Change World goes to ruin, but you, warriormaid, are going to rest and drink more wine slowly before you tell yourtale and your colleagues are going to be properly companioned. Noquestions, anyone. Beau, and you love us, give us a lively tune."

  Kaby relaxed a little and let him put his hand carefully against herback in token of support and she said grudgingly, "All right, FatBelly."

  Then, so help me, to the tune of the Muskrat Ramble, which I'd taughtBeau, we got girls for those two ETs and everybody properly paired up.

  Right here I want to point out that a lot of the things they say in theChange World about Recuperation Stations simply aren't so--and anywaythey always leave out nine-tenths of it. The Soldiers that come throughthe Door are looking for a good time, sure, but they're hurt real badtoo, every one of them, deep down in their minds and hearts, if notalways in their bodies or so you can see it right away.

  Believe me, a temporal operation is no joke, and to start with, thereisn't one person in a hundred who can endure to be cut from his lifelineand become a really wide-awake Doubleganger--a Demon, that is--let alonea Soldier. What does a badly hurt and mixed-up creature need who's beenfighting hard? _One individual_ to look out for him and feel for him andpatch him up, and it helps if the one is of the opposite sex--that'ssomething that goes beyond species.

  There's your basis for the Place and the wild way it goes about itswork, and also for most other Recuperation Stations or EntertainmentSpots. The name Entertainer can be misleading, but I like it. She's gotto be a lot more than a good party girl--or boy--though she's got to bethat too. She's got to be a nurse and a psychologist and an actress anda mother and a practical ethnologist and a lot of things with longernames--and a reliable friend.

  * * * * *

  None of us are all those things perfectly or even near it. We just try.But when the call comes, Entertainers have to forget grudges and gripesand envies and jealousies--and remember, they're lively people withsharp emotions--because there isn't any time then for anything but _helpand don't ask who_!

  And, deep inside her, a good Entertainer doesn't care who. Take the wayit shaped up this time. It was pretty clear to me I ought to shift toIlly, although I wasn't quite easy in my mind about leaving Erich,because the Lunan was a long time from home and, after all, Erich wasamong anthropoids. Ilhilihis needed someone who was _simpatico_.

  I like Illy and not just because he is a sort of tall cross between aspider monkey and a persian cat--though that is a handsome combo whenyou come to think of it. I like him for himself. So when he came in alllopped and shaky after a mean operation, I was the right person to lookout for him. Now I've made my little speech and know-nothings in theChange World can go on making their bum jokes. But I ask you, how couldan arrangement between Illy and me be anything but Platonic?

  We might have had some octopoid girls and nymphs in stock--Sid couldn'tbe sure until he checked--but Ilhilihis and Sevensee voted for realpeople and I knew Sid saw it their way. Maud squeezed Mark's hand andtripped over to Sevensee ("Those are sharp hoofs you got, man"--she'spicked up some of my language, like she has everything else), thoughBeau did frown over his shoulder at Lili from the piano, maybe to arguethat she ought to take on the ET, as Mark had been a real casualty andcould use live nursing. But it was plain as day to anybody but Beau thatBruce and Lili were a big thing and the last to be disturbed.

  Erich acted stiffly hurt at losing me, but I knew he wasn't. He thinkshe has a great technique with Ghostgirls and he likes to show it off,and he really is pretty slick at it, if you go for that sort of thingand--yang my yin!--who doesn't at times?

  And when Sid formally wafted the Countess out of Stores--a real blondestunner in a white satin hobble skirt with a white egret swaying up fromher tiny hat, way ahead of Maud and Lili and me when it came to looks,though transparent as cigarette smoke--and when Erich clicked his heelsand bowed over her hand and proudly conducted her to a couch, blackSvengali to her Trilby, and started to German-talk some life into herwith much head cocking and toothy smiling and a flow of witty flattery,and when she began to flirt back and the dream look in her eyessharpened hungrily and focused on him--well, then I knew that Erich washappy and felt he was doing proud by the _Reichswehr_. No, my littlecommandant wasn't worrying me on that score.

  * * * * *

  Mark had drawn a Greek hetaera, name of Phryne; I suppose not the onewho maybe still does the famous courtroom striptease back in Athens, andhe was waking her up with little sips of his scotch and soda, though,from some looks he'd flashed, I got the idea Kaby was the kid he reallywent for. Sid was coaxing the fighting gal to take some high-energybread and olives along with the wine, and, for a wonder, Doc seemed tobe carrying on an animated and rational conversation with Sevensee andMaud, maybe comparing notes on the Northern Venusian Shallows, and Beauhad got on to Panther Rag, and Bruce and Lili were leaning on the piano,smiling very appreciatively, but talking to each other a mile a minute.

  Illy turned back from inspecting them all and squeaked, "Animals withclothes are so refreshing, dahling! Like you're all carrying banners!"

  Maybe he had something there, though my banners were kind of AshWednesday, a charcoal gray sweater and skirt. He looked at my mouth witha tentacle to see how I was smiling and he squeaked softly, "Do I seemdull and commonplace to you, Greta girl, because I haven't got banners?Just another Zombie from a billion years in your past, as gray andlifeless as Luna is today, not as when she was a real dreamy sisterplanet simply bursting with air and water and feather forests. Or am Ias strangely interesting to you as you are to me, girl from a billionyears in my future?"

  "Illy, you're sweet," I told him, giving him a little pat. I noticed hisfur was still vibrating nervously and I decided the heck with Sid'sorders, I'm going to pump him about what he was doing with Kaby and thesatyr. Couldn't have him a billion years from home and bottled up, too.Besides, I was curious.