Damon Knight - Orbit 18

“That grant only gets you from place to place. It doesn’t guarantee you’re going to make enough to keep traveling once you’re done with it.”

“Well, will these folks give a grant twice?”

“They’ve never done it before,” he said, and looked up from his tone-bar to smile lopsidedly at me. “So I’ve got quite a job today, don’t I.”

“I guess,” I said.

We watched the video for a while. As the singer juggled the three parts of his fugue Tone-bar shook his head. “Amazing, isn’t he,” he said.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “The question is, do you listen to music to be amazed.”

He laughed. “I don’t know, but the audience thinks so.”

“I bet they don’t,” I said.

This time he didn’t laugh. “So did I.”

Number Sixteen was leaving the stage and being replaced by Number Seventeen. That meant we wouldn’t be on for an hour or so. I wished we were going on sooner; all the excitement I had felt was slowly collecting into a tense knot below my diaphragm. And I could see signs of the same thing happening to the others. Not Crazy, he was still rowdy as ever; he was marching about the room with his tuba, blasting it in the technicians’ ears and annoying as many people as possible. But I had seen Fingers wandering toward the piano, undoubtedly planning to join Hook and Crazy in the phrases they were working on; some character wrapped in purple-and-blue sheets sat down just ahead of him and began to play some fast complicated stuff, classical probably, with big dramatic hand-over-hands all up and down the keys. Fingers turned around and sat back down, hands hidden in his lap, and watched the guy play; and when the guy got up Fingers just sat there, looking down at his lap like he hadn’t noticed.

And Sidney got quieter and quieter. He stared up at the video and watched a quartet of people fidget around a big box that they all played together, and as he stared he sank into his chair and closed around his clarinet. He was getting scared again. All the excitement and energy the band had generated on the trip over had disappeared, leaving only Washboard’s insistent tapping and Crazy’s crazy antics, which were gaining us more and more enemies among the other performers.

While I was still wondering what to do about this (because I felt like I was at least as scared as Sidney) Crazy made his way back to our corner of the room, did a quick side shuffle, and slammed into another musician.

“Hey!” Crazy yelled. “Watch it!”

I groaned. The guy he had knocked over was dressed in some material that shifted color when he moved; he had been making loud comments about us from the practice rooms ever since we had arrived. Now he got his footing and carefully lifted his instrument (a long many-keyed brass box that turned one arm back into itself) from the floor.

“You stupid, clumsy, drunken oaf,” he said evenly.

“Hey,” Crazy said, ignoring the description, “what’s that you got there?”

“Ignorant fool,” the musician said. “It’s a Klein-Ritter synthesizer, an instrument beyond your feeble understanding.”

“Oh yeah?” Crazy said. “Sounds a little one-sided to me.” He burst out laughing.

“It is unfortunate,” the other replied, “that the Blakely Foundation finds it necessary to exhibit even the most atavistic forms of music at this circus.” He turned and stalked over to the piano.

“Atavistic!” Crazy repeated, looking at us. “What’s that mean?”

I shrugged. “It means primitive,” said Tone-bar. Hook started to laugh.

“Primitive!” Crazy bellowed. “I’m going to go hit that guy and let him think it over.” He turned to follow the musician, tuba still in his arms; and before anyone could move, he missed the step down and crashed to the floor, as loud as fifty cymbals all hit at once.

We leaped over and pulled the tuba off him. It was hardly dented; somehow he had twisted so it fell mostly on him.

“You okay?” Hook said anxiously, pushing back the rest of us. From somewhere in the room there was a laugh.

Crazy didn’t move. We stood around him. “God damn it,” Hook said, “the bastard is out cold.” He looked like he wanted to kick him.

“And look!” Sidney said, lifting Crazy’s left arm carefully. Right behind his hand (his fingering hand) was a bluish lump that stretched his skin tight. “He’s hurt that wrist bad,” Sidney said. “He’s out of it.”

“Fuck,” Hook said quietly. I sat down beside him, stunned by our bad luck. There was a crowd gathered around us but I didn’t pay them any attention. I watched Crazy’s wrist swell out to the same width as his hand; that was our whole story, right there. We’d put him on stage in a lot of strange conditions before, but a man can’t play without his fingering hand. . . .

“Hey, Wright is here today,” Tone-bar said. He was frowning with what looked like real concern. “Doesn’t he know some old jazz?” None of us answered him. “No, seriously,” he said. “This kid Wright is an absolute genius, he’ll probably be able to fill in for you.” Still none of us spoke. “Well, I know where his box is,” he finally continued. “I’ll try to find him.” He worked his way through the crowd and hurried out the door.

I sat there, feeling the knot in my stomach become a solid bar, and watched a few of the stagehands lift Crazy up and carry him out. We were beat before we began. You can play Dixieland without a tuba player—we had often had to—but the trombone has to take a lot of the bass line, nobody can be as free with the rhythm, the sound is tinny, there’s no power to it, there’s no bottom! Sidney looked over at Hook and said, with a sort of furtive relief, “Well, you said we didn’t have a chance,” but Hook just shook his head, eyes glistening, and said quietly, “I wanted to show ’em.”

I sat and wondered if I was going to be sick. Crazy had crazied us right back to the rocks, and on top of my knotted stomach my heart pounded loud and slow as if saying “ka-Doom, ka-Doom, ka-DOOM.” I thought of all the stories I’d heard of Vesta, the barren graveyard of the asteroids, and hoped I didn’t live long enough to be sent there.

There was a long silence. None of us moved. The other performers circled about us quietly, making sure not to look at us. Slowly, very slowly, Sidney began to pull apart his clarinet.

“I got him!” came a wild voice. “He can do it!” Tone-bar came flying in the door, pulling a tall kid by the arm. He halted and the kid slammed into his back. With a grin Tone-bar stepped aside and waved an arm.

“Perhaps the finest musician of our—” he began, but the kid interrupted him:

“I hear you need a tuba man,” he said and stepped forward. He was a few years younger than me even, and the grin on his adolescent face looked like it was clamped over a burst of laughter. When he pushed all his long black tangles of hair back I saw that the pupils of his eyes were flinching wildly just inside the line of the irises; he was clearly spaced, probably had never seen a tuba before.

“Come on, man,” I said. “Where did you learn to play Dixieland tuba?”

“Earth,” he said. “Played all my life.”

I stared at him. I couldn’t believe it. As far as I knew, Dixieland was only played in the bars on Jupiter Metals’ rocks; I would have bet I knew, or knew of, every Dixieland musician alive. And this kid didn’t come from the mines. He was too skinny, too sharp-edged, he didn’t have the look.

“I didn’t even know anyone played Dixieland anymore,” he said. “I thought I was the only one.”

“I don’t believe it,” I said.

“We don’t got a whole lot of choice, Shaky, we’re running out of time,” said Hook. “Hey kid—you know Panama?"