Space Opera (12 page)

The hour designated as curtain time approached. The singers were in costume; the orchestra, after a good lunch and a saunter back and forth in front of the ship, had repaired to the orchestra pit where they sorted out scores and exchanged good-natured banter.

From the tall city of colored mud came the Striads, stalking as before with immense dignity and seriousness. They entered the theater and seated themselves without self-consciousness or hesitancy. Dame Isabel looked from the empty seats to the city — but no more Striads were on the way.

She summoned Darwin Litchley. “Is this all the audience we are to expect? I don’t believe more than a hundred are in the theater.”

“I’ll make inquiries,” Darwin Litchley went to speak to one of the Striads, then returned frowning to Dame Isabel. “He says this will be the entire audience: they are all individuals of responsibility — something like aldermen, I suppose — fully authorized to make whatever decisions are necessary.”

Dame Isabel shook her head fretfully. “I can’t say that I understand.”

“Nor I,” said Litchley. “Still it is probably best to stage the opera before a group like this, which at least is the elite of the city.”

“This is probably the explanation,” said Bernard Bickel. “I have noticed a similar situation elsewhere: a kind of cultural aristocracy which alone is privileged to explore the esthetic mysteries.”

Dame Isabel peered in at the stiffly erect audience, who already were giving careful attention to the sounds of the orchestra tuning. “A rule of the artists, so to speak? A pleasant concept, certainly … Well, we must proceed.”

Sir Henry Rixon mounted the podium. He bowed to the audience, raised his baton: the orchestra produced the three solemn brass chords of the adagio preamble. The audience sat transfixed.

The curtain rose; Tamino came forth pursued by a serpent, and so went the performance. Dame Isabel was delighted with the concentrated attentiveness of the audience. They sat motionless, wincing approval from time to time, especially at Ada Francini’s second act display of her F
in altissima
.

The opera ended; the cast came forth to bow. The audience rose slowly to their feet and for the first time conferred with each other. There seemed a certain amount of dissension, and ignoring orchestra and singers, the Striads left the theater to continue their discussion on the open ground.

Dame Isabel came forth, smiling graciously to all sides, followed by Bernard Bickel and Darwin Litchley. She marched up to the Striads. “What is your opinion of our wonderful music?” she asked brightly, and Darwin Litchley translated.

A spokesman for the group replied, and Litchley looked a trifle puzzled.

“What does he say?” asked Dame Isabel.

Litchley looked frowningly toward the Striads. “He is asking as to availability.”

“‘Availability’? I don’t understand!”

“Nor I.” Litchley made further inquiry and the Striad responded at length.

Darwin Litchley’s eyebrows rose. He started to speak, then shrugged helplessly and turned to Dame Isabel. “There seems to be a slight mistake, a certain degree of misunderstanding,” he said. “I mentioned that the Striads were familiar with Earth only through an occasional commercial mission?”

“Yes, yes!”

“They seem to have mistaken the
Phoebus
for a similar mission, and came to the performances in this frame of mind.” Darwin Litchley hesitated, then spoke out in a rush. “They are not unduly impressed. They state that they need no trombones or violins, their diaphragms being adequate in this respect, but they are willing to place a firm order for two oboeists and a coloratura.”

“Good heavens!” declared Dame Isabel. She turned an indignant glance toward the patiently attentive Striads. “You may tell them —”

Bernard Bickel stepped forward. “Tell them,” he said smoothly, “that unfortunately these particular items are much in demand and that we cannot promise delivery at any time in the immediate future.”

The Striads heard Darwin Litchley with patience and courtesy, then turned and marched slowly back toward their city. In disgust Dame Isabel ordered the theater struck, and the
Phoebus
moved to the lands of the Water-people.

A slow river flowing from the rain-forest wandered first west, then north, then south-west, and finally entered a great inland sea, traversing a delta perhaps fifty miles long and as many wide. Here the Water-people made their homes, evolving into a racial type so different from the Striads as to suggest a different race of beings. They were smaller than the Striads and supple as seals; their diaphragms were atrophied, or perhaps had never developed; in color they were a pallid gray. Their heads were rounder; the black feathery crown of the Striads was represented by a few limp strands of black-green fiber. They were much more numerous than the Striads and much more nervously active. They had altered their environment to a considerable extent, creating an astounding complexity of canals, ponds, levees, floating islands, upon and around which they either swam, poled frail scows, or propelled barges heaped with bundles and bales. In the whole area there was no single large city, merely innumerable villages of grass and reed huts. In the center of the delta, on an island roughly a mile in diameter, rose a pagoda-like tower constructed of timber, woven fiber, red-enameled panels.

Darwin Litchley had discussed the Water-folk with Dame Isabel and Bernard Bickel at some length. “You may not find these people as cordial or as gracious as the Striads; in fact, they are inclined to a cool detachment which can very easily be interpreted as dislike. But this is not the case, nor do the Water-people lack emotional depth. But they are extremely conservative and suspicious of innovation. You may wonder why Commissioner Cam suggested you visit the Water-people, but the answer is simple. They have a highly developed music, in a tradition at least ten thousand years old.”

“Well, well,” said Dame Isabel with a plaintive sigh, “I am glad to come upon a people who at least know the meaning of the word ‘music’.”

“No fear on that score,” said Darwin Litchley. “They are true experts; all have absolute pitch; they will recognize offhand any chord you can play in any of its inversions.”

“This is good news indeed,” said Dame Isabel. “I don’t suppose they maintain orchestras similar to our own?”

“Not precisely. Every adult is a musician of sorts, and from birth has been assigned a definite part in the ceremonial fugues, which he will play upon the instrument hereditary to his family.”

“Interesting!” declared Dame Isabel. “Will we have an opportunity to hear any of the music?”

Darwin Litchley pursed his lips dubiously. “As to that, I can’t say. The Water-folk are neither unhospitable nor hostile, but they are a peculiar people, as you will see for yourself, and must be taken on their own terms. I know them fairly well, and they know me — but as far as any warmth or welcome or even display of recognition — you’ll see none at all. Still, you wanted to meet a musically sophisticated people and here they are.”

“If they are as you say,” said Dame Isabel, “I fancy we can show them something they haven’t seen before. What do you suggest, Bernard?”

Bernard Bickel considered. “Rossini, perhaps:
The Barber of Seville
?”

“The idea has merit; there is a certain rollicking quality to the work to capture the fancy of such as the Water-folk.”

The
Phoebus
alighted on the island, near the pagoda-like tower, which Darwin Litchley identified as the Repository of Archives. He characterized the social system of the Water-folk as a series of paradoxes and confusions which not even the most earnest ethnologist had yet resolved. In the largest sense, each activity and phase of life seemed to be regulated and codified, and subject to the scrutiny of a series of tribunes and monitors.

Still discussing the eccentricities of the Water-folk, Dame Isabel, Darwin Litchley and Bernard Bickel descended the off-ramp. Already waiting was a delegation of Water-folk, the spokesman for whom demanded the purpose of the visit.

Litchley replied in detail, and the delegation departed. “We must wait,” Litchley told Dame Isabel. “They have gone to notify the Musical Commissioner.”

This person arrived an hour later, with another whom he introduced as the Regional Monitor. They listened to Darwin Litchley with close attention, then the Commissioner spoke a few careful sentences which Litchley translated. “He asks the traditional background of the music you plan to — to —” he hesitated. “I can’t think of a corresponding word. Launch? Promulgate? Yes. He wants to know something of the music you plan to promulgate.”

“There is nothing to tell,” said Dame Isabel. “It is a pleasant opera, with no explicit social message, merely a vehicle for a great deal of delightful music. We are here from sheer altruism, to share our music with him and his people.”

Darwin Litchley translated, listened, turned back to Dame Isabel. “When do you propose to promulgate the music, for how long, and on how many occasions?”

“That will depend on how well we are received,” replied Dame Isabel craftily. “If our program seems to give pleasure to the audience we might present several performances. If not, we will depart. It is as simple as that. Our first program will depend on the availability of an audience — which I shouldn’t imagine would be difficult to find.”

There were other words, and Darwin Litchley told Dame Isabel, “You may present your first program tomorrow.”

“Very well,” said Dame Isabel crisply. “Tomorrow it is, at three hours after noon.”

In the morning the theater was assembled by the now adept crew. At two the cast assumed costumes and make-up; at two-thirty the musicians gathered in the orchestra pit.

As yet no sign of the prospective audience had evidenced itself. Dame Isabel went out to scan the countryside with a worried frown, but on all sides life seemed to proceed at its wonted pace and direction.

Ten minutes to three: still no audience.

At three o’clock precisely, the Regional Monitor whom they had met on the previous day appeared carrying a flat box. He was alone. With a brief salute for Dame Isabel, Bernard Bickel and Darwin Litchley, he marched into the theater, seated himself, opened his box from which he took paper, ink and brush and arranged all in a convenient position.

From the entrance Dame Isabel inspected him dubiously. “He’s evidently come to see the opera.”

Bernard Bickel made a survey of the island. “There isn’t a sign of anyone else.”

Dame Isabel turned to Litchley. “Find out when we may expect the audience to appear.”

Litchley conferred with the monitor, returned to Dame Isabel. “He
is
the audience. He is a trifle irritated that the performance has not started on time.”

“We can’t play to a single individual!” protested Dame Isabel. “Did you explain that to him?”

“Well — yes. I pointed out that we were expecting rather more of a crowd, but he states that he is required to make a preliminary survey, to study and assess the performance before the population at large could risk a submission to possibly disturbing sounds. This, he says, is his duty.”

Dame Isabel snapped her jaw shut; for a moment it was touch-and-go whether
The Barber of Seville
would be submitted for approval or not.

Bernard Bickel spoke in his most soothing voice, “I suppose we must expect arbitrary regulations wherever we go, especially on the more highly developed worlds. There is not much we can do about it; we must either accommodate ourselves to local custom or leave.”

Dame Isabel nodded a peevish acquiescence. “I suppose you are right; however when idealistic people such as ourselves spend our talents and our money to provide this wonderful experience, it does seem that the people who will benefit might display appreciation. It is not effusiveness I want, but only some small acknowledgment; then I would be content. I do not believe —” she broke off as the monitor approached. He spoke and Litchley translated: “He is impatient for the program to commence; he notes that we are already nineteen minutes late.”