He was looking at me oddly, though. “What are you doing in Death Battalion full dress?”
“It’s Snelz,” I said. “I mean, there seems to be an awful lot of tupples here amongst the danceships.” I realized I was talking too fast.
“Are you all right?” said Heller.
“Of course, Lombar is all right. Whatever Snelz says, goes. Goes up to the bear girls, of course, unless the bands don’t launch.” (Bleep) it, I was talking too fast.
“You better sit down,” said Heller. “On the rail, there. No, no, don’t fall over! Here, I’ll open one of these review chairs. Now you just sit there and take it easy. This will all be over and we’ll be gone soon.”
I didn’t know why he was concerned. The world looked just great to me.
PART ELEVEN
Chapter 9
I was about to see what Heller called “keeping it in the family.”
Ten o’clock arrived. And so had scores and scores of lorries and thousands and thousands of people. The hangar guards seemed to be making no attempt to regulate traffic or numbers—the gates were simply wide open.
Gay bunting and flags were all over the place. Tup hadn’t arrived by the canister: it had arrived in tankers; and everywhere you looked, people were drinking from mugs. Some of the bands had begun to play and the music, in conflict from band to band, rose above the chatter of the multitude. One would have thought the party had started.
Not so. A daylight fireworks crew had arrived a bit earlier and I had been eyeing them benignly, not realizing what they were up to. They signaled the start of the party!
Up from their platform went a “flaming planet”!
It soared half a mile into the air, hung there spinning and displaying lighted “continents” and then burst into a great ball of fire. It would have been visible for miles in all directions! That officially started the party.
The crowd burst into a cheer.
Oh, well, I thought, such displays are common enough: it wouldn’t be thought to be anything special by the countryside. New store opening, a public bullet ball game. No harm. Besides, it had been quite pretty.
Sitting in my chair on the review platform, I was mostly hidden by the bunting on its rails but I could see quite well what was going on. I felt quite powerful, really, capable of controlling everything with ease from where I sat.
My eye lighted upon a crane platform lifted up from a big truck, higher even than I was. Suddenly I saw it was a Homeview crew! A big Homeview crew! With big cameras!
Oh, well, I thought. Probably the tup companies had called them in hopes of getting some free advertising into every home. Maybe the manager of the dancing girls or the mountain dancing bears. Homeview crews went everywhere and they often didn’t use what they shot. Just routine.
Reporters! The vans of about ten newssheets were parked around the Homeview crane truck. There was a swarm of newshawks and their cameramen. Oh, well, they say where you find free drinks, you always find reporters.
They seemed to be heading over this way. Ah, of course! There was Heller standing there and they probably didn’t have many pictures of him in fancy Fleet full dress, blazing with citations. He looked kind of cute. Naturally they would want some shots of him—for their files, of course, in case anything exciting happened in the future. And sure enough, I was right. Here they came storming up the eighty-foot rise of steps, jostling each other. And their cameramen immediately began shouting orders to Heller to smile, to look up, to look down, to turn this way or that and even to shake hands with one of the leading reporters who probably wanted one to show to his kids. No harm in all that. Just routine.
Then I caught sight of the Fleet Intelligence officer, Bis. He seemed to be talking to three reporters and pointing up at the platform and here they came with their cameramen.
Aha! They recognized power when they saw it! They were not heading for Heller! They were coming straight to me! About time.
They asked me to stand up and look this way and that. I’m sure they got some very good portraits: probably sell them for use in history books of the future. Contemplating the feats I felt capable of at that moment, they would probably be writing whole sets of volumes about me.
Then they wanted me to stand just behind Heller so they could shoot Heller in the foreground to the left and me behind him slightly to the right. Bis was there, too, helping them pose me, whispering so as to not disturb Heller.
So, they got some shots of me looking at Heller’s back. They weren’t satisfied. But when they told me I was a natural actor and could glare and grit my teeth and all that I entered into the fun of it. I did all that and even added a few of my own such as tapping my lead-filled sack against my palm and clenching my metal-guarded fists. Heller was unaware of it and just went on chatting.
I thought they were through with me, but no, I had to sit back down in my chair. A cameraman assistant got a backscreen erected behind me—a sort of pattern of stones like a cave, quite realistic. And I posed and looked powerful for them.
But Bis, who was being very helpful, still wasn’t satisfied. He was pointing down and whispering and I got up to see what he was pointing at. There was a whole display of figure-cakes along one bar: these are made of sweetbun dough, are life-sized and pretty realistic, nymphs and so on, all in natural color. And an assistant went racing down and chopped off a cake nymph’s hand and smeared some red jam on it and came racing back up and handed it to me.
I told them I wasn’t hungry. But they said they wanted to see how well I really could act and would I please look ravenous and voracious and look as if I was eating it. Well, nothing was easier: I am a natural actor and today I was capable of anything. Then they got some shots of me chewing the bite as though delicious. Finally, Bis and they agreed I’d done beautifully and left.
One hundred girls were doing a parade dance along the bars, floating big banners along, and I got interested in watching them. They seemed a bit unreal but pretty.
The crowd was already pretty noisy and suddenly there was a surge of sound so I looked to see what had attracted their attention.
It was just a Palace City limousine. It glided to the landing target. And out stepped Captain Tars Roke, the King’s Own Astrographer. He was accompanied by several aides and they were all in dress uniform and made a splendid sparkle of color to the crowd. They came sedately over to the platform and up the steps. The Homeview crane swung way over and got close.
Roke came up and shook Heller’s hand and they chatted like old friends. And a Homeview interrogator was there. I caught some scraps of it.
“I’m sorry,” Roke was saying, “I can’t reveal where this mission is headed. I just came over to tell my friend Jet that I wished him well.”
“From the type of engines that this mission ship has, Captain, couldn’t we conclude that the mission is back to the old home galaxy? Perhaps to pick up and tow here some ancestral monument from the ruins of our racial planet?”
“I didn’t say that,” said Roke. “You did.”
“But, Captain, this is Tug One and we have it on reliable authority that it can’t be run within a galaxy without peril. Its sister ship blew up.”
At the moment I thought, well, I’ll just have to carry it there with my bare hands. I felt perfectly able to do so. Really capable of tremendous feats! Methedrine, I thought, what have I ever done without you? What glorious stuff! My mouth felt kind of dry but I didn’t want to get down into that crowd just to get some tup.
The Fleet male chorus was singing some Fleet song and the crowd took it up. I didn’t realize it was a prelude to something else. Then I noticed that everyone was looking up. So I looked up.
Maybe three miles above us, two hundred and fifty Fleet spacefighters were flying in formation. They do it in a very orderly fashion. I think the command ship has a computer which spits out coordinate orders to individual crews and they immediately take those positions. They wheeled and formed various figures, all very precise. And then s
uddenly they all strung out across about five miles of sky.
They fired their guns all at once!
Mile-long, eighth-mile wide bands of sustained flame, the kind that lasts a minute glaring in the daylight, and then throws out white clouds, blasted across the sky. It said:
GOOD LUCK, JET!
And then the concussion wave hit while the sign flamed!
It was loud enough to be heard by every person in every one of the five cities!
And even the ground was lit up by the glaring light of those letters!
Although I was feeling almost as high as those letters, something nagged at me that this was not quite all right for a secret mission! I couldn’t put my finger on it. It just didn’t seem fitting somehow. Then I realized what it was. Those pilots and crews up there were missing the party! Flying around up there, they wouldn’t get any tup or cakes.
I was about to call this to someone’s attention when down they came and, with new blasts, they landed in an open field nearby and out poured the pilots and crews and over they came to the party. So that was handled.
I was feeling a little sorry for the Homeview crews. They were working so hard and yet, really, they weren’t getting anything newsworthy. The stuff would never be used. They had lots of films of dancing girls and tup trucks. Why would they show any more? So it was all right. The secrecy of the mission was still intact.
I was gazing down upon what now must be ten thousand Fleet and Apparatus people and had just about decided it was pretty well over when I heard a yell.
Somebody was pointing up and then a lot of people were pointing up and here came a white and gold air-limousine. It was an unmistakable vehicle. It had been built as a present from billions of fans on a hundred and ten planets!
The din of the crowd hurt the ears! “It’s Hightee Heller!” They chanted her name so loud it almost took the hangar roof off! “Hightee Heller! Hightee Heller! Hightee Heller!”
I smiled. I understood now what Jet had meant. A family affair. Of course. How nice of her to come!
The Homeview crane was swooping down.
Hightee Heller danced out of the limousine, throwing kisses. She was dressed as an angel!
Of course. For the christening!
Well, we’d get the christening over and leave. Nothing else of interest could happen.
All five bands and choruses began to sing and play her favorite song.
A special effects truck was drawn up below the review platform and its crew, waving canisters of tup the while, were setting up.
Hightee came dancing up the platform steps. She kissed Heller lightly on the cheek and the crowd screamed “Hightee and Jet!” “Hightee and Jet!”
Then here went the christening!
A great white cloud, by three-dimensional electronic projection, appeared in the sky above. An angel seemed to step out of it—but, of course, it was just Hightee on the platform furnishing the physical pattern which was projected on the sky.
The crowd screamed with delight!
The white cloud settled over the ship, billowing and curling.
Hightee leaned over on the platform and the three-dimensional image of her, a hundred and fifty feet tall, made an elegant motion over the ship with both hands.
All five bands struck a dramatic chord. Both choruses sang a prolonged note.
The angel cried, “Little ship, I give thee life!”
The bands and choruses went silent.
The angel seemed to bend over and kiss the ship upon the nose.
The bands and choruses sounded another chord which ended with a cymbal crash.
Then the angel again spread her hands and cried out, “THY NAME IS NOW PRINCE CAUCALSIA!”
The bands and choruses sang with joy.
The crowd went mad!
The Homeview crews got it all!
Some good sense seemed to penetrate my fog. Because it was Hightee Heller here, those Homeview pictures just could get viewed on every screen in a hundred and ten planets. And worse, all you had to do was put that name, Prince Caucalsia, on any office or school or museum computer keyboard and you’d get Folk Legend 894M and that would point directly to the mission destination, Blito-P3!
Oh, it was a good thing I was powerful enough even to work with such crass amateurs! Superhuman feat, but I could do it.
Besides, Hightee had probably christened other ships. That wouldn’t guarantee they would use the pictures. It would take more than that.
The fireworks truck was busy again. The christening had ended with a wild display of daylight fireworks in all colors, visible for miles. And then there was a supernova! It must have been started earlier because now, twenty miles up at least, it burst with a flash that lit up all five cities already brilliantly lit by Voltar’s sun. Spectacular!
About a minute later the shattering crash of it made even the ground shake!
Everybody, all the thousands, had drinks in their hands and they were shouting good luck to the Prince Caucalsia.
Hightee flew off to get back to the studio. Well, I guessed it was pretty well over and we’d be leaving. No real damage done, I told myself. The Homeview crew would never use those pictures.
A bunch of mountain dancing bears was performing now.
I was heartened by the fact that Bugs Bunny hopped up the steps and handed me a carrot. I wasn’t hungry but I munched at it. “They’ll never use those pictures, doc,” he said in English. “No violence.” I thanked him for his good advice. Always sound. But I wondered if a freighter had just come in from Earth. They had to be careful about stowaways. I turned to caution him but he was gone.
The dancing bears didn’t go away and the crowd loved them.
Suddenly, in the cleared space below, Snelz, my dear friend Snelz, appeared with his company. Good man, Snelz.
His whole company was uniformed splendidly in black. They were wearing their visored combat helmets and carrying blastrifles. A band, accompanied by the Fleet chorus, began to play and sing a march, and to its time, Snelz’s company began to go through the most complex set of geometric infantry figures I have ever seen. Squares and crosses and interthreading lines. Then doing it with blastrifles spinning and going through manuals of arms. How did he ever get Apparatus troops to do anything like those maneuvers?
The crowd was impressed. They cheered the conclusion of each difficult pattern.
Then the blastrifles seemed to fire. At the end of a difficult swirl, each time, the blastrifles all banged off a reduced charge. Maneuver, Bang! Maneuver, Bang! On and on. Impressive.
Then suddenly all the rifles seemed to shoot out a flag. And the most difficult patterns of marching yet seen were accompanied by a manual of arms that made floating blurs of color the while.
Then with one final bang, the rifles fired flitter up into the sky. With the whole company going to a knee-present-arms to the ship, the flitter began to float down in sparking bits over the tug.
The crowd went absolutely crazy! They had never before seen drilling like that!
The cheering died when Snelz told his company, “Dismiss!”
There was a moment’s silence. And through it cut the voice of an Apparatus officer, addressed to the Fleet fliers, “Yeah, yeah! So you Fleet guys think the Apparatus troops can’t drill!”
There was a silent, electric tension, like a blanket going over the whole crowd.
Then a Fleet pilot said, real loud, “That drill captain is an ex-Fleet Marine! He ain’t no ‘drunk’!”
An Apparatus man hit him!
A Fleet pilot hit an Apparatus man!
Twenty Apparatus men hit twenty Fleet men!
A hundred Fleet men hit a hundred Apparatus men!
The fight was on!
The Homeview crews got it all and continued to get it!
Screams sounded!
Canisters flew!
Fleet military police spacers present leaped in to try to stop the fight.
Apparatus military police guards sprang up and
tried to stop the fight.
Fleet and Apparatus military police met head-on and began to fight each other!
Benches went over! Cakes were being used as ammunition!
The Homeview crews were getting every bit of it!
Heller, high on the review platform, gazed over the seething scene. He grabbed a microphone that was hooked to the public sound system.
Above the din he shouted, “All bands and choruses! STRIKE UP ‘SPACEWARD, HO!’”
It is what is called a song-chant. The first lines are sung as a melody and then some lines are chanted as though they are orders and so on.
Above the din, three bands which were perched too high on stages to get into the fight, struck up the refrain.
Those of the choruses still in place sang the first two lines:
Spaceward, ho!
To the stars we go!
Then the chant:
Upward, upward, upward!
High, high, high!
Roll the blast! Roll the blast!
Close all locks! Grab sky!
Canisters were crashing. Screams and shouts racketed. The bands and choruses turned up their volumes.
The choruses sang:
Spaceward, ho!
The planet flees below.
And the chant:
Thunder, thunder, thunder!
Flame, flame, flame!
Feed the fuel! Feed the fuel!
Correct the course and aim!
Far off, above the din, sirens were wailing as alerted riot units rose to fly in!
The choruses sang:
Spaceward, ho!
Some other land to know!
Target, target, target!
Drive, drive, drive!
Bore the black! Bore the black!
Fasten belts! G Five!
Raid sirens were going off. The first of the antiriot ships bashed to ground nearby. The battle raged on.
The choruses sang:
Space is a mistress!
Space is a whore!
Space is a spell
No spacer can ignore.