He was forced to adapt his pitch to follow whichever instrument seemed to be dominating the song at any given point, an experience rather like crossing an eight-lane motorway on a pogo-stick. In short it was brain damage and it made him want to go somewhere quiet - the dark side of the moon would be nice – and get very drunk.
As the final obligatory powerchord from Dobbsy signified the violent end of the murder of yet another standard, Ben decided that the only way that the concert was going to work was if he were to take a more prominent role. Turning to Mark, he snatched his bass guitar. Mark gaped at Ben in shock, but Ben ignored this and looked at Dobbsy meaningfully. Dobbsy, in return, gave Ben an understanding smile. Assuming that this meant that Dobbsy knew what was happening, Ben now began to play the bass riffs which began Sheila. Dobbsy watched him with interest, but that was all – he made no attempt to join in. Ben gave the guitarist an anguished look and hissed the title at him. Dobbsy simply looked back at him blankly.
‘Sheila!’ Ben was not so much hissing as stage whispering as he repeated the prompt for the fourth time. Finally understanding what Ben was saying, Dobbsy hastily began strumming along and Gary, realising what they were playing, joined in.
Ben launched into the verse. The playing of the two humans was nowhere near as accomplished as that of Nutter and Riff, but the relative simplicity of the piece meant that it sounded considerably better than anything else the struggling band had played that evening. Unfortunately, this show of competence was only fleeting: as they began the chorus, Gary and Dobbsy made an attempt at the harmony vocals, sliding off of the notes as if the staves had been greased. By the end of the song, Ben was sweating profusely and trembling with stress. He bowed in response to what little applause there was, then stood and mopped his forehead. He was exhausted – and there was still an hour to go.
He looked out over the audience. Some were still watching the stage, their faces like those that peer from cars as they pass an accident. Most, however, had either turned to conversations with their friends or left. Ben took a couple of deep breaths as he decided what to do next.
‘Play Listening to Nothing,’ a voice called out from somewhere at the back. This was the final straw. He spat in the general direction of the audience, then stormed off of the stage, thrusting the bass back into Mark’s hands as he left. The band exchanged glances, shrugged, and launched into a high-octane rendition of Jack of Clubs. The audience, realising that the highlight of the evening had passed, drifted back to their drinks and their conversations.
The streets of Fadora were still thronged with traffic as a lone robot rolled his way above them. Fadora had a reputation for being a thriving city, although not so much a city that never slept as one which did it on a shift basis. When the shops and boutiques closed for the night, there were other kinds of traders who emerged from their homes – traders who, even in the swankier parts of town, preferred to sell their wares without a fixed address.
Vid rolled along the skywalk nervously, looking around him continuously as he went. The city seemed eerie, bathed as it was in the soft-neon colours of the luminous strips that edged the skywalk and the glitter of purple from the force-fields. He measured his progress by counting the elevator shafts that he passed – with the external similarity of the buildings he wasn’t certain he’d make it back to the right hotel.
After five elevator shafts he passed a shabby looking man leaning casually on the supporting force-field. The slight pressure he exerted distorted the field, causing him to be edged by a nimbus of purple light. He could hardly be described as inconspicuous, but he gave off an air so casual that Vid rolled right past him before he realised that the man was probably exactly what he was looking for. He turned and rolled back to the man, who looked up at him.
‘Hello,’ said Vid.
The man said something in reply, but it was completely unintelligible. For a moment the two just stared at each other blankly, then the man spoke again – this time in Vid’s own tongue.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Are you selling?’ Vid asked – not entirely sure what the best way was to start such a conversation.
‘Not a thing.’ The man’s tone betrayed no offence at the suggestion.
‘I’m buying,’ said Vid. ‘I’ve heard you have the goods.’
The man stood up and adjusted his long leather coat. ‘I might have,’ he said. ‘There ain’t a lot of call for robot stuff in these parts, though.’
‘That’s not what I’m after.’
The man looked at him suspiciously. ‘I don’t do wholesale,’ he said. ‘No discount for bulk.’
Vid shook his head. ‘I’m only after a sample,’ he said.
‘What of?’
This was the bit that Vid had been dreading – he had absolutely no clue what he was looking for and had naively hoped that there would be some kind of arrangement where he could simply examine the merchandise. He decided to try another tack.
‘What’s popular?’ he asked.
‘Here?’ the man asked. ‘I suppose Jolt is the one that’s doing best at the moment. There’s still a market for Puff, but people reckon it don’t filter properly with a smoker.’
‘Do you do much in the way of export?’
‘The odd deal – you after stuff for Ezra?’
‘That’s right.’
The man adjusted his pose and fingered the lapels of his coat. ‘The Ezrans are really going for Cram at the moment,’ he said. ‘One small puff and you’re away – makes it easy to get plenty into the country, but it don’t come cheap.’
Vid nodded – this sounded like the kind of thing. ‘How much for a sample?’
‘What do you want a sample for?’ the man asked. ‘You ain’t gonna sell it to kids are you?’
Vid was momentarily taken back by the man’s attack of morals and hesitated noticeably before shaking his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I just want to learn something about it.’
‘Your money good?’
Now Vid really had to go out on a limb. ‘I want it on account,’ he said.
The man looked him up and down and nodded sagely. ‘And whose account would that be?’ he asked.
‘Tony Ombreggiati.’
The man tipped his head to one side and nodded sagely. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘And he sent you, did he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he say when he was going to settle?’
‘No. He’s not particularly free with information.’
‘Tell me about it.’
The man reached into the recesses of his coat and pulled out a small bag of white powder. ‘Be careful with it,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what it would do to a bot and I ain’t gonna be responsible for no property damage.’
‘Thanks,’ said Vid. He took the package and rolled away.
Two elevators on, Vid took refuge behind one of the supporting pillars of the skywalk and examined his purchase. The white powder was fine as ash and had a faintly resinous property. Not quite the same but – he placed the bag on a protruding bracket of the skywalk support and took out a smoker that he’d found lying around in The Inferno. Plying the mechanism apart, he took out the ignition wand, touched it to the powder and squeezed the end. There was a blast of flame which washed over the powder and gave off a dense, black smoke. Two seconds later the flames died out and left a faint white residue – a residue which was very familiar to Vid’s eye. Nodding, he dumped the dismantled smoker in a garbage chute and rolled back in the direction of the hotel.
Several minutes later the shadows shifted slightly. Where there had previously been no-one a man appeared, detaching himself from the shadows as if they were a portal to another land. The man glanced in the direction Vid had gone then examined the surface where the robot had performed his scientific experiment. He ran his finger through the residue, licked it and nodded. Then, satisfied with his findings, he pulled up the collars on his brown suede coat and walked away in the opposite direction to the departing robot.
44
A popular music commentator once claimed that there was nothing like a spectacle to draw an audience34. This is a maxim that many an artist has put to the test over the years.
For some commentators, the show is more important than the music itself: certainly there have been many acts who have lavished such high production values on their stage shows that the music has gone unnoticed. Other bands have managed to achieve similar effects more or less by accident: the band Alien Lifeform, known simply as ALF to their fans across the universe, used to begin their concerts by landing on stage in a sleek flying saucer, which would open to reveal the band. The spectacle drew huge crowds, who marvelled at the display, and it wasn’t until years after the band had broken up that their manager admitted that it had never been intended as a showpiece and had come about simply because of the difficulties of finding parking spaces at the average venue.
Blue Davis, an art-rock band formed of Omicronian refugees, had their brief claim to artistic fame when they found themselves booked into an unfinished theatre. Since the construction was on a tight schedule and the deposit for the show was non-refundable, the band had no choice but to allow work to go on around them. This in itself wouldn’t have been a problem – the band’s PA was loud enough to render even the most persistent pneumatic drill inaudible - but a flaw in the architect’s drawings meant that, by the time the second half began, a wall had been built