"Don Cervante at the Castle...."
"Don Cervante at the Castle...."
His reading was painfully slow, and he stumbled over the pronunciation of many words. The people in the room watched him so intensely, with such absolute concentration, that they gave the impression of reading his lips rather than listening to his words. Frequently, he would have to translate a word or phrase into the new language, and there would be nods of understanding and relief.
Willy's bright blue eyes sparkled more brightly than ever. He ran his fingers constantly through his thin bristle of white hair. The elderly woman on the sofa beside the Digester was so flushed and breathing so rapidly that Walther feared she was on the verge of a stroke. Even the urbane heart surgeon showed the emotional impact of this experience. His long, tapered fingers were clenched together, and he ran his under lip constantly over the edge of his greying mustache.
Maria seemed the only one in the room who was not affected by the reading. Only a slight tightening of her lips marred her careful composure.
Soon Walther lost himself in the tingling excitement of the room, and he forgot about watching the others. Word by word, sentence by sentence, the Digester led them along with Don Cervante.
The reading, with its many pauses for translation, took almost two hours. When it was over, everyone was emotionally and physically exhausted. The little Digester was so pale he looked ill; his high forehead dripped with perspiration.
Walther drew a long breath, and brought himself reluctantly back to reality.
Willy asked quietly:
"What do you think of our intellectual underworld?"
An outbreak of almost hysterical conversation made it useless for Walther to answer. Maria, with a look of reproach at Willy, moved across the room to speak to their hostess. Willy lit one of his cigars and leaned closer to Walther. There was a gleam of amusement in his twinkling blue eyes.
"You look more worn out than Don Cervante!" he chuckled.
The contrast between this evening and the disillusionment of the day made it hard for Walther to put his gratitude into words.
"I can't thank you enough—" he began.
"Don't try," said Willy. "I may have had my own devious reasons for inviting you." He glanced toward Maria, who was making an effort at polite conversation with the hostess. "I'm afraid our young diva isn't an ardent admirer of the unexpurgated Don Quixote."
There were many questions Walther wanted to ask about Maria, but he tactfully inquired, instead:
"How often does this group meet?"
"Whenever there is something to share—a chapter of literature—a copy of an old painting—a recording. It all depends on what our few Digester friends can manage—They don't have an easy time of it, you know."
"Is it difficult for them to take things out of the vaults?"
"Difficult ... and dangerous," Willy answered grimly.
"But why...?"
"For reasons that make good sense, officially at least. A culture founded on brevity cannot be expected to encourage its own demise through the acts of its civil servants! Think what could happen: A total work of art, whatever its form, takes time to appreciate! But if people spend too long at an opera, the legitimate theatre or the television industry would be slighted! If they paused too long in contemplation of a painting, newspapers might not be purchased! If they dawdled over the old-style newspaper, the digest magazines, the popular recordings, the minute movies, the spectator sports—the thousand and one forms of mass recreation offered the public—each in turn would suffer from unrestrained competition!"
"It's inconceivable," Walther protested, "that entertainment interests could be strong enough to shape a culture! Surely the productive basis of Earth's economy...."
Willy snorted.
"My boy, work as such may still be important in Andromeda, but how could it possibly be so here on Earth? Generations ago, automation, the control of the atom, the harnessing of the sun's energy—all combined with many other factors to make work a negligible part of Man's existence! Thus, with four-fifths of his waking hours devoted to leisure-time pursuits, the balance of power shifted inevitably to the purveyors of mass entertainment. Great monopolies, operating under the Happy Time, Ltd. cartel, seized upon the digest trend in the old culture and made brevity the basis of the new order. The briefer you make a piece of entertainment, the more pieces you can sell the public in a given number of leisure hours! It's just good business," Willy concluded drily.
Walther was silent a moment, trying to frame this picture in his thoughts. But there were so many missing elements.
"Your artists and writers," he demanded, "all your creative people—don't they have anything to say about it?"
"Damn little. You see, the successful artist—whatever his field—is well paid by his particular monopoly. Besides, he's been trained in the new form! I doubt if Maria has ever seen the original score of an opera—let alone tried to sing an entire aria!"
Willy took a glass of wine from a tray offered by the hostess's servo-robot. He motioned to Walther to help himself, but Walther shook his head. Another question was troubling him.
"Why do the monopolies even bother with Digesters and the classics? Why not let modern artists create in the new form?"
Willy's voice grew hard.
"Because," he snapped, "there have been no creative artists on Earth for over a century! Why create when your creation is only fed into the maw of the Digesters? That which is not wanted dies—in a culture as well as in the human body! That—my young friend from Andromeda—is the bitter tragedy of it all!"
Maria rejoined them, and whispered something to Willy. The old producer sighed and turned to Walther.
"Maria would like to leave now. Will you take her back to our hotel? There are some people here I must see...."
"Of course!"
Yet, in spite of his eagerness to get better acquainted with Maria, Walther was reluctant to leave. There was so much more he wanted to ask, to learn. And deep beneath the surface of his thoughts a bold idea was beginning to form.
As if reading his mind, Willy said:
"We have no performance tomorrow afternoon. Come and see me at our hotel—we'll talk further! Meanwhile—" Willy's blue eyes sparkled again, "Meanwhile, for the young, the evening is still young. It should be an interesting challenge!"
Maria said nothing until they had left the apartment building and started across the street to the monorail station. Then she stopped, drew a long breath of the wintry air, and shook her head.
"Whtrblvng!" she exclaimed.
She smiled at his puzzled expression and tucked her arm through his. When they were inside the station, he handed her his Manual. She flipped through the pages, but could not find the exact translation of her remark. Finally, she picked out parts of three phrases. Put together, they read:
"What a terrible evening!"
After the first shock of her words, Walther realized he could expect her to feel no differently. She was a product of her culture, and evidently this had been her first visit to Willy's Bohemia.
It was past midnight when they boarded the monorail, and they were alone in the car. Fumbling in her purse for a coin, Maria pointed to the small screen on the back of the seat in front of them. Walther offered a handful of coins. She put one into the slot beside the screen. A comedy sequence appeared, lasting for approximately thirty seconds. Much of it was lost to Walther, because he couldn't understand the dialogue. But Maria laughed gaily. The tension lines, the outward evidences of inner emotional control, began to smooth away. Her cheeks flushed; her dark eyes began to sparkle. This was the Maria Walther felt he could learn to know.
When the television screen went dark, Maria promptly put another coin into a slot beside a small grid. A full-scale orchestra sounded what might have been the first chord of a symphony, but the piece was over before Walther could identify it. A third coin, dropped into the arm of the seat, produced a small two-page magazine, which seemed to consist chiefly of pictures. One of the pictures showed Maria herself, in operatic costume. She studied it critically, then tossed the magazine into a handy receptacle under the seat. A fourth coin brought out a game from the side of the monorail car. It vaguely resembled a checker-board, except that there were only six squares and two magnetized checkers. Maria guided his hand while he made two moves. As she completed her last move, the board automatically folded back into the side of the car. A fifth coin summoned a miniature keyboard from just beneath the television screen. Maria touched the keys, producing tinkling noises that sounded like a tiny celeste. Then the keyboard zipped back into its enclosure.
Maria reached for a sixth coin. Walther closed his hand over hers, and made a motion to indicate that his head was already in a whirl. She laughed, but didn't try to remove her hand. A moment later the monorail stopped in front of their hotel.
As they crossed the lobby, Walther pointed inquiringly toward the cocktail lounge. Maria smiled and nodded gaily.
A servo-robot waiter seated them at a small chrome table beside a tiny dance floor. Maria ordered their drinks, and the waiter was back with them in a matter of seconds. The glasses seemed extremely small to Walther, compared to the huge mugs and steins he was accustomed to on Neustadt. The liquor tasted rather bland, more like a sweet wine than a whiskey.
The servo-robot presented a bill with the drinks. Money had never meant anything to Walther, but he could scarcely repress a start when he deciphered the amount of the bill. By any standard of wealth or exchange, the drinks were fantastically expensive.
A scattering of applause announced the return of the orchestra. Maria held out her hand in an invitation to Walther. With some misgivings, he led her out on the dance floor. She turned and came into his arms so naturally and suddenly that she almost took his breath away. She danced very close to him. Her cheek was warm, and the faint perfume from the tip of her ear was something he would have liked to explore more thoroughly. But the moment was over before it began. The music stopped, the orchestra leader bowed and led his men from the stage.
Back at the table, Walther lifted his glass to suggest another drink. She shook her head, explaining,
"Olndrptd."
Spelled out with his Manual, her explanation was:
"Only one drink is permitted."
And, after Willy's brief orientation, this was understandable: Nothing could disrupt the perpetual entertainment cycles more easily than excessive drinking. A tipsy person was not a good customer for other leisure-time activities. Therefore, permit only one drink to a person, and charge enough for it so that the liquor monopoly would get its fair share of the entertainment expenditure. As Willy would say, it was just good business.
Maria touched his hand to signify it was time to leave. Walther took her up to her room on the 32nd floor, and they watched two musical comedies en route on the elevator pay-as-you-see television screen.
In front of her door, Maria lightly touched the back of his hand with her fingertips. She said,
"Thyfrwrdrftm."
Walther knew she was thanking him, but from force of newly-acquired habit he reached for his Manual.
She laughed, shook her head and translated her own words by raising up on tiptoe and brushing his lips with her own.
Their lips were together so briefly that Walther wasn't sure whether he had really kissed her. He reached out to take her in his arms and make sure of it.
Deftly, she turned away and closed her door behind her.
Many thoughts interfered with Walther's second night of sleep on Earth, and they weren't only of Maria. In fact, as his idea took form, even the scent of her perfume and the moth-like touch of her lips were forced temporarily into the background of his consciousness.
The next morning he waited impatiently for an hour after breakfast, then went up to Willy's room. Willy came to the door in his dressing robe, holding his glasses in one hand and a sheet of music in the other. He waved aside Walther's apology for not waiting until afternoon.
"Nein ... nein!" he said. "I ordered an extra pot of coffee—because I didn't think you could wait!"
Willy led Walther into his sitting room and poured him some coffee.
"Maria was already here," he chuckled. "She came to ... ah ... pick up music ... and to ask what I know about you. I told her nothing good, and nothing bad!"
He settled himself in his easy chair with a luxurious sigh. His bristling white hair and cherubic cheeks gave him the appearance of a benign old innkeeper, brought to life from a canvas by Holbein.
"All right, tell me what you've been thinking about all night!"
Walther shifted tensely to the edge of his chair. He spilled a little coffee in setting his cup down.
"I would like to buy copies," he said, "of everything your Digester friends have ever smuggled out of the vaults!"
"That's a large order, my young friend."
"I'll pay ... whatever it costs!"
"So would I—if I could afford it! But I fear it's not that simple. Take, for example, the chapter of Don Quixote you heard last evening. The World Government representative from England sent the Digester's notes to an aunt in Liverpool. She'll read them to her Bohemian friends tonight, and tomorrow they may be in Buenos Aires or Istanbul—who knows?"
"But what happens to them eventually? Aren't they kept in some central place?"
Willy spread his short, pudgy fingers in a gesture of hopelessness.
"That would mean organization—and we're not organized. We wouldn't dare to be! I've never stopped to think what finally happens to these things. Perhaps they end up among the papers of some old dreamer like myself. It's enough that they have brought their mellow moments of happiness!"
"It's not enough!" Walther protested fiercely. "It's a great waste! How will you ever improve things that way?"
"Who's trying to improve anything? The people of Earth are content—and those of us who are not entirely so—well, we have our little underworlds of pleasure."
"Is that all you want?"
"Is there more?"
Walther jumped up angrily.
"I believe there is—and I think you do, too!" he said harshly. "If you don't, why did you take me to that meeting last night and invite me here today? Why did you send me off alone with Maria?"
Willy only smiled, but under his silk robe his round belly shook with silent laughter.
"You are a foolish young man ... and sometimes not so foolish! Sit down. Sit down...."
He leaned forward in his easy chair, and his manner became grave.
"Perhaps it's difficult for an old man to come near the end of life fearing that the beauty he loves will never escape from its tomb. Perhaps it's also difficult for an old maestro who cherishes the talent and loveliness of a young woman to know that she may never understand what her gift really means. Perhaps an old man can still dream some dreams that a young man could not comprehend...."
The tight knot in Walther's stomach slowly unwound itself.
"Then you will help me," he said quietly.
"Yes, I will help you ... if I can ... and you will help me!"
At Willy's suggestion, they decided to talk first to the Digester who had smuggled out the Don Quixote chapter.
"He's been most successful of all of our friends," said Willy. "He might be willing to organize a group of Digesters who could bring out things to be duplicated, and return them, I question, though, that you could duplicate many things here on Earth."
"Then we'll ship them away from Earth! The outermost world of this galaxy—at least to my knowledge—is Alden IV; it's technically well-developed and is a contact with our own galaxy."
Willy called the bald little Digester, and he came over right after lunch. But his reaction to Walther's proposal was not what they had expected.
"This ... this is a terrible mistake!" he stammered. "It's ... it's too big—much too big! Now—by being cautious—we can enjoy our little evenings together. But if we anger the Happy Time, Ltd. people we'll lose everything!"
Willy snapped his fingers impatiently.
"What have we to lose? A chance to be tea-cup rebels! This young man is giving us an opportunity to do something about what we profess to believe!"
The Digester looked pained.
"We are already doing something," he protested. "Did I not bring Chapter IX of Don Quixote...."
"You did, and we enjoyed it! But what if we could inspire a rebirth of art as big as a whole galaxy instead of entertaining each other with our little flings at Bohemia?"
The little Digester struggled with the thought for a moment, then dismissed it with a shudder.
"It's too big," he repeated miserably. "Please forget about it, Willy—our own way is best." He glared at Walther, and his distress turned to rage: "I warn you, young man ... don't start trouble for us! If you can't accept the ways of Earth, go back where you belong!"
He held out a trembling hand to Willy.
"Goodby, Willy ... I go now." He hesitated, then added with the wistful air of a small boy waiting to be praised: "In two weeks I will bring another whole chapter to read!"
When Willy only shrugged, the little Digester turned away and sadly left the room.
During the next two days, Willy contacted several other Digester friends. In varying degrees, he met with refusals from each. By the end of the week, only two of the younger Digesters in the Bohemian set had agreed to cooperate and even they were careful not to promise too much.
"At this rate," Walther pointed out glumly, "it will take years to collect any real quantity of material—and I have only six months! Is there no other source?"
Willy shook his head.
"None that I know of."
"There must be!" Walther insisted. "Do you mean to tell me that in all the homes of Earth there are no treasured heirlooms of the past? No books? No paintings? No recordings?"
"Oh, I'm sure they are," Willy agreed. "But how to reach them? We can hardly advertise."
He paused, hesitated, then snapped his fingers.
"Wait—there may be a way—even more illegal than your first suggestion, but still a way...."
"What is it?"
"I used the word 'underworld' in speaking of our Bohemian group last night, but actually there is an underworld, of a sort ... trafficking mostly in liquor. The cartel's one-drink restriction has never been too enforceable." Willy lifted the seat of his piano bench and took out a bottle. "If you can afford it, you can always buy a bootleg supply."
"What's liquor got to do with art?"
"For a price—the underworld may be willing to traffic in art, literature and music ... in addition to alcohol!"
Willy sent out word through a bootlegger who supplied some of the opera singers with their favorite beverages. The next night, after final curtain, a greying, bespectacled and very distinguished looking gentleman in formal dress met Willy and Walther in a vacant dressing room backstage. He spoke tersely, and Willy translated:
"He says he has friends who could be interested in your proposition, if there's money enough in it."
"Tell him there's money enough," Walther replied grimly.
Willy digested this, and their visitor smiled his scepticism.
Not accustomed to having his financial standing questioned, Walther faced the man himself and demanded:
"How much money do you want?"
The man understood Walther's tone, if not his words. After a brief calculation, he named a price that shocked Willy, who turned to Walther with dismay:
"Ten thousand credits for every usable piece of art that can be bought outright. An additional deposit of ten thousand if it has to be sent away from Earth to be duplicated. You are to pay all shipping costs, as well as legal expenses if any of their men are arrested."
Walther accepted the terms with a nod.
Their underworld contact stared respectfully at Walther, took off his suede gloves and proceeded to get down to business. It was soon arranged for Walther to set up letters of credit in banks of all major cities. Shipments of "tools and machinery" would be billed against these credits, after bills of lading had been inspected by Walther or a designated representative. From the level of the discussion, they might have been transacting legal business on a corporation scale.
Their visitor shook hands with each of them, doffed his top hat and left with a courteous bow.
Willy wiped shining beads of sweat from his forehead.
"High finance," he gasped, "is not a part of my daily routine!"
He dug into a wardrobe trunk, brought out a bottle and poured two drinks. Raising his glass high in the air, he toasted:
"To art ... and crime! I hope we don't have to pay too much for either!"
"How are you getting along with Maria?" Willy asked a few days later.
"Just what do you expect to accomplish by throwing the two of us together so much," Walther asked bluntly. "Oh, I enjoy it, mind you—but, really, we're worlds apart. When I go back...."
"With the young everything is possible—even the impossible," Willy answered evasively.
"Well, tell me something more about her. Where does she come from? Has she ever been engaged? Married?"
Willy filtered a cloud of smoke through his nostrils.
"Maria's the only talented offspring ever produced by a rather poor family in Naples. She still supports them—or rather, makes it possible for them to be good Happy Time consumers. As for her talent ... well, it was discovered by her first school teacher—and from then on her education was taken over by the opera monopoly! Engaged? Nothing serious that I know of. Married?" Willy frowned. "I shudder to think of her marriage to one of our mechanical young rabbits!"
Walther blinked.
"Do you mind explaining that one?"
Willy grimaced.
"I might as well. You see, sex per se is encouraged, with or without the formality of marriage. Large numbers of offspring are good for society! We have the technology to provide for them, and the more there are, the more potential Happy Time consumers! But the arts of sex ... the refinements of love.... Can't you imagine by this time what takes place in the boudoirs of Earth? Sex is something to be accommodated between pay-as-you see television programs! Besides, you've encountered a couple of our young men, do you consider them physically capable of prolonged amour?"
Walther was finding it heavy going to picture some of the things Willy was describing for him. But the mention of the two young men he had met outside the opera that first night brought up a question he'd been waiting to ask:
"What was wrong with them? I barely touched them!"
"Participation sports—physical activity of any kind is discouraged as interfering with the mass entertainment media. The few gifted boys are trained to be professionals. The others scarcely develop enough muscle to walk against a strong wind. In fact, they don't walk any more than is necessary!"
Willy paced agitatedly around his room, and stopped in front of Walther's chair. He held out his hands pleadingly:
"Be patient with Maria," he begged. "You promised to help me, too ... and this is all I ask of you!"
Walther didn't find it unpleasant to comply with Willy's request. He had nothing to do while waiting for the first shipment to be assembled, and so was able to attend rehearsals as well as the performances of the operas.
At rehearsals, he saw a serious Maria, a perfectionist devoted to her art, a superb technician. After rehearsals and the opera itself, he saw a Maria who was a product of the alien leisure-time culture he had found on Earth—a Maria who flitted with tireless zest from one activity to another, who naturally and enthusiastically accepted the innumerable forms of entertainment offered by the Happy Time cartel.
With growing despair, Walther tried to find some activity they could share. He had always enjoyed sports, so he took her to all the attractions at the Uniport arenas. Each was a new disappointment. What was billed as a fight for the world's heavyweight title ended with a one-round decision. A basketball game was exciting—for three furiously-contested minutes. The professional tennis match consisted of each player serving four balls, which the other attempted to return.
While traveling to and from the various attractions, there were always the diversions offered on the monorail and stratoway cars. Private transportation, Walther learned after hopefully exploring this possibility, had been eliminated for the obvious reason that it was restricted in the number of recreational opportunities it permitted, and might lead to over-indulgence in sex—from the point of view of the time involved, rather than promiscuity. And while walking was not strictly illegal, those who tended to over-indulge were advised to curtail their eccentricity.
After much thought, Walther did hit upon a possibility: It was prompted by his recollection that the natural beauty of such places as the Vienna woods had not been obscured. Since Maria was not required to be at rehearsals until two in the afternoon, they could spend the morning visiting some distant beauty spots he had read or heard about back on Neustadt. Perhaps in some of these places the pace of leisure would be slowed.
Maria happily accepted his initial invitation to spend a morning in the South Sea Islands. They boarded a stratoway car immediately after breakfasting together at the hotel, and soon had exchanged chilly Uniport for languorous Tahiti.
The island village, the natives and their costumes, the wet fragrance of the jungle and the soft rippling of the surf were all as Walther had pictured them since his first reading of Stevenson's voyages to the South Seas.
However, suspecting that the Happy Time cartel had probably made its presence felt in the village itself, Walther steered Maria around it, toward a path that wound invitingly between the tall palms and growths of bread fruit trees.
Maria's hand fell easily, naturally into his own, and she pressed a little closer to him, as if awed by the unaccustomed stillness.
She smiled up at him, started to say something, but Walther put his finger over her lips and shook his head. Maria looked puzzled, then took out of her handbag a miniaturized, self-powered television set, with its own tiny coin meter. She popped in a coin, flicked the dial, and the image of an actor appeared on the screen. Walther covered it with his hand. He took the set away from her, and dropped it into the pocket of his coat. Then he pointed to her, to the shadowed trees around them—and spread his hands as if to ask what more anyone could possibly want.
He wasn't sure she understood, but he put his arm around her waist and she rested her head against his shoulder. They continued a dozen steps down the path, until it ended at a silvery lagoon. Here, she touched the radio button of her wristwatch—rented on a weekly basis—and the rhythm of a jazz band filled the tropical air.
Walther took her wrist, shut off the radio. He turned her toward him and held her face tightly between the palms of his hands.
"No television," he said firmly, "No radio—no nothing—except this...."
She yielded with a faint smile. Her eyes closed, but their lips had scarcely touched when she tried to draw back.
"Not that way," Walther told her. "This way...."
He held her face firmly teaching her the kind of kisses that were used in a frontier world where people had time to make love. She struggled away from the unnaturalness of his kissing, then slowly she ceased to struggle.
Suddenly, the lagoon was lighted by a brilliant spotlight, and a servo-robot stepped out of the shadows. It said pleasantly:
"Since only tourists come to this spot, it is presumed that you come from some distant planet. Therefore, let me point out that all couples are limited to two minutes by the lagoon. If you hurry, you can catch a native dance number before the next stratoway leaves."
In the same pleasant tone, the servo-robot began to repeat these words in the other ancient languages of Earth.
Maria's breath came in short, trembling gasps. Her lips were still apart, and she touched them with the tip of her tongue.
"Weil nur Touristen nach diesem Fleckchen Erde kommen..." the servo-robot droned along in its pleasing voice.
"Oh, shut up!" Walther growled.
He took Maria by the arm and led her back up the path.
"Somehow," he promised her fervently, "Somewhere—we're going to finish that."
"Dthgn," she whispered in breathless wonder.
The first shipment of "tools and machinery" had been assembled at the Uniport landing. Walther received a formal notice to this effect from the local Exchange Bank. The same evening, in a backstage dressing room, he and Willy Fritsh received a rather more informative report from the gentleman who was their contact with the bootleg underworld. Every item in the shipment was listed and described with meticulous care. By reference to a leather-bound pocket notebook, the contact managed to furnish additional details.
With Willy's help, Walther was able to judge the nature of the haul. He was both pleased and disappointed. Numerically, it had more items than he had expected. Qualitatively, it left much to be desired. There were no complete literary works, only fragments. The pictures were admittedly cheap copies; the recordings were only passages from major works. A total of eight hundred items had been purchased outright by underworld agents; fourteen hundred more had been borrowed on the security of the huge deposit. The latter would have to be duplicated on Alden IV and returned to their Earth owners as quickly as possible. Walther had expended a huge fortune for a dubious return. But, through Willy, he told the contact:
"Keep it up. Get everything you can!"
Several items did look promising: From an elderly spinster in Durban, South Africa, the first two acts of "Othello" had been obtained by the bootlegger who delivered her dry sec sherry twice a month; in New Orleans, an undertaker had parted with a nearly complete Louis Armstrong original—about an inch was broken off one edge of the record, but the bill of lading stated that the rest was quite audible. There was also what was reported to be the last third of "Crime and Punishment," loaned by a lawyer in Prague.
The second shipment was on a par with the first, with the hopeful indication that some of the new acquisitions would complement others in the first shipment. Walther stood beside Willy at the Uniport landing as the shuttleship carrying their second shipment blasted off on the first leg of the long route to far-off Alden IV.
The third shipment was much smaller, only three hundred outright purchases and seven hundred and twenty items obtained against deposit. With the bill of lading came a warning note. Walther translated it himself. It was from their contact, who wrote:
"Don't try to get in touch with me until further notice. Send off this shipment as soon as possible. The Happy Time boys know something big is going on."
By paying a fabulous premium, Walther was able to get the third shipment off on the midnight shuttle. Afterwards he stood in the window of Willy's hotel room, staring up at the star-filled sky.
"Well, that may be the end of it," he said.
"You've done well," said Willy, joining him. "I didn't think you'd get that much."
"I hope it'll do some good. Perhaps all this new material will at least form the basis of a good research library."
Willy glanced at him speculatively.
"I was disappointed about the music," he said. "Not one complete work."
By this time, Walther had learned to know when Willy was maneuvering toward an objective.
"Just tell me what you've got in mind," he grinned. "No preliminaries."
Willy chuckled his appreciation, then grew serious.
"Our opera season ends this week.... We're supposed to take a month off, then start rehearsals for the next tour. Perhaps, during this month...."
Walther sensed what was coming next, but he held his breath—waiting for Willy to say it. Willy did:
"Perhaps—if you still want to spend more money to pay them—we could persuade some of our group to record...."
"A full-length opera!" Walther exclaimed. "Would they—could they—do it?"
Willy pursed his lips thoughtfully.
"As for willingness—you've observed that your wealth is rather persuasive on Earth. Like most artists, our people spend more than they earn, and would probably try anything for what you could pay them. As for ability—we'd undoubtedly have to record in short sessions. We might even have to break up the arias into sections, because we're not conditioned for sustained effort."
"I'll pay them anything to try it," Walther broke in, enthusiastically. "Where would you try it—here in Uniport?"
"Hardly. But there's an old inn in North Wales where I once spent a vacation with some of our group. If the Happy Time agents should be watching us now, it would be quite natural to return to that inn."
"Maria ... do you think she would?"
Willy sighed, and shrugged.
"Not for the money alone ... she's quite a perfectionist about her art. But I'm hopeful that by this time...." His eyes twinkled.
Walther laughed.
"What a chess player you would make! I think you've been moving me around like a pawn ever since the first evening we met!"
"Not a pawn," Willy corrected him with a smile. "A knight."
However, they decided not to tell Maria the real purpose of the proposed vacation until they were all set up at the inn in North Wales. Walther thought the setting sounded perfect for some personal unfinished business.
"Even I could sing an aria in such a place," Willy enthused.
Willy began quietly and individually contacting other members of his company. With the kind of payment Walther authorized him to offer, he had little difficulty getting performers for the venture. Most of them thought the project ridiculous, but the money was more than they would normally earn in an entire season. Willy swore each of them to silence. They were to treat the trip as nothing more than a vacation. He made arrangements for the various pieces of recording equipment to be shipped separately from London, Berlin and New York.
Willy's pink cheeks were perpetually flushed these days, and his bright eyes sparkled brighter than ever. When Walther brought up the question of which opera would be attempted, he discovered that the shrewd old maestro had long ago acquired Puccini's complete "Madame Butterfly" and had already packed the music for shipment to North Wales.
The night before they were to leave Uniport, a familiar, distinguished figure appeared backstage, threading his way between the huge crates being packed by the servo-robot stagehands. Willy led him immediately to one of the dressing rooms.
With admirable simplicity, the underworld contact put a proposition before them.
The first three shipments had pretty well exhausted the supply of readily obtainable material. With the Happy Time agents now alerted, the risk of trying to get more material wasn't justified by the probable results. But the underworld wasn't anxious to let go of a good revenue source without one big payoff.
What did they propose to do?
Willy's voice shook as he translated:
"For—for the right—fee—they're willing to break into the Uniport Library vaults!"
Walther was silent for a long moment. Instinctively, he recoiled from such overt action. But reason asked: Why should he draw back now? Everything taken from the vaults would be duplicated and returned in good condition. Was it right to let his own personal reaction stand in the way of something that might benefit whole ages of Mankind?
When he had firm control of his own voice, he nodded and asked:
"How do they propose to do it?"
The plan was a piece of professional craftsmanship. In the century of its existence, no one had ever attempted to enter the new library illegally. With the absence of any known motive for doing so, the need for guarding against it was routine. There were the usual doors and time-locks, the alarm systems and servo-robot guards, but nothing that couldn't be handled. They would bring in technicians from Vega VI to handle the time-locks. Otherwise, barring some unsuspected move by the Happy Time security police, the job was within the bounds of their own abilities. Of course, there must be meticulous attention to detail and planning.
The contact explained that, according to preliminary surveys, they could count on about two hours of work after gaining entrance to the vaults. By concentrating only on books, for speed of handling and packing, a reasonable sized crew should be able to get at least twenty thousand volumes out of the vaults and into a waiting monorail transport, where the crates would already be assembled. Previous arrangements could be made for the midnight freight shuttle to take the crates from the Uniport landing to Cyngus III. From there, the crates could be dispersed throughout the immeasurable reaches of deep space.
"But they must be returned," Walther insisted. "I'll see to that!"
Their visitor shrugged, indicating that this detail was of no interest to him. He named a price, and when Walther promptly agreed to it, Willy poured them all a drink.
"When I was a small boy," Willy said, in a voice that still trembled, "I slid on the seat of my trousers down an icy slope in the Alps. It was good fun for the first twenty yards; and then I realized I had gone beyond my power to stop. That's the way I feel right now. Prosit!"
As their caller started to leave, Walther stopped him by raising his hand. Throughout the discussion, an irresistible compulsion had been growing within him. Now he had to speak:
"I've come a long way," he told Willy. "Granting that nothing goes wrong, and that I'm able to leave, I know I'll never return to Earth again. But there's one selfish, personal thing I want to do before leaving. It isn't sensible, I know—but neither was my dream to begin with. I want to go with these men into the Uniport vaults—just to see for an hour—greater treasures than I can ever hope to see again."
From his room on the second floor of the Bridge End Inn, Walther could look down upon the River Dee, tumbling along beside what was still called the Shropshire and Union Railroad Canal, although the tracks of that ancient railroad had been torn up centuries ago. Old ways and names had a way of persisting in North Wales, despite the pace of modern leisure. Walther had noted with satisfaction that the double consonants of the old language, with their strange throaty pronunciation, had defied contraction. Llangollen and Llantysilio were two nearby cities whose names were still spelled out, as they had been for a thousand years.
He glanced at his watch. Maria should be waking from her nap just about now. In a half hour, Willy wanted to meet with her and ask her cooperation in doing "Madame Butterfly". Walther had suggested waiting until the next day, since Maria was tired from the closing night festivities in Uniport, and from packing the rest of the night in time to catch the morning stratoway. But Willy opposed delay.
As he stood there by his window, Walther had a sense of peace, for the first time since he'd been on Earth. The moment was all the more to be cherished, since he knew it could not last.
A light knock on his door jarred the view and the peace out of focus.
"Come in," he called, and turned, expecting to see Willy.
But it was Maria who entered, looking remarkably refreshed after her short nap. She wore a sweater, a very short skirt and open-toed sandals. Her long, dark hair was combed out loose.
It was the first time he had seen her dressed so casually. She looked more like a Welsh mountain girl than the star of the Uniport opera.
"Hi!" he said, inadequately.
She laughed at his surprise, and put her arms around him.
"Hi," she answered.
Maria had not forgotten her first lesson beside the Tahiti lagoon; and Walther was reviewing some subsequent lessons when both of them became aware of the unwelcome fact that they were not alone.
Willy Fritsh stood in the doorway, smiling benignly.
"Oh, hell," said Walther.
"Believe me, I didn't intend to interrupt," Willy said happily. "But since we're all together right now ... under such ... ah ... propitious circumstances, suppose we talk things over."
"Later," said Walther.
Ignoring his protest, Willy sat himself comfortably on the window seat, opened a large envelope and took out the bound libretto of "Madame Butterfly". He handed it to Maria, without comment. She stared at it curiously, but made no move to open it until Willy motioned her to do so.
She nodded with recognition at the title page, then as she riffled through succeeding pages, her expression changed from surprise to distaste. She tried to hand the libretto back to Willy, but instead of taking it, he drew her to the window seat beside him, and spoke to her as a father might speak to his daughter.
By this time, Walther could understand a little of what Willy was saying and he could guess the rest of it. Maria's first reaction was to stare incredulously at Willy. As the full meaning of what he was asking became clear to her, she looked up at Walther. He saw scorn and anger in her dark eyes.
When she looked back at Willy, it was to shake her head in emphatic refusal.
Willy's tone became even more persuasive. He gazed out the window as he spoke, down at the river pouring over the weir and ducking under the old stone bridge. Maria rolled the libretto into a tight scroll. Her fingers showed white through her unpolished nails.
Willy stopped abruptly. He looked older, tired. Maria remained silent, her lips compressed into a tight line. At last she answered him, in a voice that was tightly, coldly controlled.
She stood up and walked toward the door. Walther held out his hand; she ignored it. He started after her, and Willy said,
"Let her go."
Willy looked so depressed that Walther felt a need to comfort him.
"It's all right," he said. "We'll forget the whole idea."
Willy shook his head.
"She'll do it," he said wearily.
"But...."
"She'll do it because she thinks she owes it to me."
Walther waited for the old maestro to continue.
"As soon as we're through recording," Willy went on, pushing himself up from the window seat, "Maria wants to be released to another opera company."
"I'll go see her right now," Walther began.
"Not now," Willy interrupted. "She wouldn't have anything to do with you. She thinks your only interest has been this recording."
Willy started rehearsals early the next morning, in the big stone barn behind the inn. The structure's high roof and thick walls provided natural acoustics, while its location was far enough from Llangollen to avoid creating undue curiosity. Recording equipment had been set up along one side; around it, the orchestra was grouped. The center area was marked off for vocal rehearsals.
Willy handled the direction himself, and not for a century had any director on Earth undertaken such a staggering task.
From the first moments of rehearsal, it became evident that the orchestra could never hope to play an entire number in one sustained effort. It was not so much the physical effort involved, as the difficulty of maintaining an emotional crest for so long a period. The first violinist fainted halfway through the opening sequence between Lieutenant Pinkerton and the American consul. This triggered a mass collapse among the woodwinds. The pianist wavered off an octave through sheer fatigue, and the drummer dropped his sticks when Willy cued him to step up tempo.
Willy was frantic.
"We'll have to record a few bars at a time—until they're more accustomed to the strain," he told Walther. "What an editing job this will be!"
The problem with the vocalists was even more acute. Every duet would have to be recorded in at least ten segments.
Maria was the only one who stubbornly insisted on doing a complete number. It was a point of pride with her. She hated the music; it violated every principle she had ever learned. But the perfectionist in her, reinforced by her bitterness toward Walther and her sense of obligation to Willy, drove her to deliver the full measure of her promise.
In the love duet between Butterfly and Pinkerton, which closed Act I, the pale and perspiring Pinkerton was nearly spent as he began his final lines: