Without slowing, the boy veered about and ran straight into the arms of an obviously relieved young woman, who dropped an elaborate crutch and knelt to enfold him in her arms. “Mama!” He hugged her tightly. “I got lost!”
Agatha cleared her throat. “He’s yours then. Good.”
The woman looked up, surprised. She reached for her crutch with one hand, and thrust the boy behind her with the other. Agatha smiled awkwardly and tried to look harmless.
After a long moment, the woman relaxed and smiled back gingerly. “Yes, he is. Thank you.” She hugged the squirming boy tightly, “I was so worried.”
“We found him sitting in a tree. Um... I’m Agatha Clay.”
“Trish Belloptrix.”
Balthazar squirmed free. “She’s nice, Mama! She’s show people!”
Trish looked surprised. “Show people?”
Balthazar nodded vigorously, “Yeah! She’s got a great talking cat act!”
Trish looked at Krosp, who was rolling his eyes and gnawing on a piece of grass. “Cat act.”
Krosp waved a paw lazily. “Hey, howzit going?” he drawled.
Trish’s face hardened, and she raised an eyebrow as she reassessed Agatha. “That’s your ‘act’ is it?”[6]
Agatha pointed at Balthazar. “He called it an act. Not me. We’re not actually performers.”
Krosp shuffled from one foot to another and waved his paws in the air over his head. “And I can dance, too! Voh-dodi-o-doh...”
Trish adjusted her crutch and pulled herself erect, leaning on it lightly. Agatha noted that although the woman had just one leg and obviously relied on the crutch, her movements were graceful and controlled, like a dancer’s.
She was wearing a style dismissed in towns like Beetleburg as too rustic to be fashionable, but so elaborately embroidered that it looked more like an opera company’s version of a peasant’s dress, rather than the real thing. Still, Agatha could see that the clothing, while clean and well cared for, had been patched and mended numerous times. This was no costume, it was the everyday garb of a performer who lived her life in full view of her audience. It made sense. Most people found that traveling players were worth watching, even off stage. The general assumption was that, not being “from around here,” they were exotic and slightly dangerous. You never knew what they might do next.
Trish smiled again. This time the smile was more genuine. She chuckled as Krosp continued to hop back and forth, humming to himself and waving the blade of grass above his head. “Ah. The townies must love him.” She gestured back to the wagons. “Why don’t you come with me? We were just starting a late breakfast when I missed Balthazar. A meal is the least I can do.”
Agatha hesitated, “Well... I don’t want to be a bother...but...”
Krosp marched on ahead, grabbing the ragged end of Agatha’s skirt as he passed and pulling her behind him. “Let’s go. Food is always good.”
Trish scanned the tree line where they’d emerged. “But...where are the rest of your people?”
Agatha shook her head. “Oh, It’s just us.”
Trish looked shocked. “You’re walking around the Wastelands alone?”
Agatha nodded. “We were on an airship. It crashed.”
Trish studied her. “Pretty lucky, then.”
Agatha looked blank. “Lucky?”
Trish nodded. “That you found us. I doubt there’s another human being within twenty kilometers of here. One that you’d want to meet, anyway.”
Balthazar broke in, “And not just anyone, no! For here you will find the greatest dissemblance of heroes in all of Europa!”
Agatha and Krosp looked at him blankly. Trish patted him on the head. “That’s ‘assemblage,’ dear.” Balthazar smacked his head. “Right.”
Krosp still looked blank. He looked at Agatha. “What? Heroes? What?”
But now that they had come closer, Agatha had been studying the signs on the wagons. The scenes and characters painted there told her everything she needed to know. “Ah—it’s a traveling Heterodyne show!” she exclaimed.
Krosp looked blank. “These people are Heterodynes?”
Agatha sighed. “No, no. I told you earlier, remember? Not everyone with a Heterodyne badge is really connected... Um... Let’s see... Do you know what theatre is? Acting?”
Krosp thought about this. There was a theatre on Castle Wulfenbach. It was used to make important announcements and presentations. And, due to one of the immutable laws of nature, because there was an underutilized stage, there was a Castle Wulfenbach Amateur Theatrical Society. Krosp had snuck in one evening and sat through three performances of “My Pardon, Sirrah, But Is That Your Piston?” a farce from Prague that had left him with several dozen questions about human relationships and a rather low opinion of theatre in general. “Sort of,” he said.
“Well the Heterodynes were real people, who had real adventures, and people like hearing about them. So theatre troupes started doing plays about them, and it became really popular.[7] There are lots of Heterodyne Shows. I always tried to go see them when they came through... Er...”
Agatha faltered a bit as the weirdness of it all sank in. All those dashing stories of the Heterodyne Boys... they were about her father, a man she had never seen. Her uncle Barry—who had disappeared when she was small. These people did plays—usually rollicking adventures with lots of slapstick comedy—about her family. She caught her breath and blinked, seeing the circle of wagons in a strange new light.
“Not a bad way of putting it, miss.” Agatha turned and discovered that they’d been joined by a young man with dark curly hair, a trim chin beard and another colorfully embroidered outfit. He had the air of a man with his mind constantly running over a hundred little details, all of which he was determined to see to before he allowed himself a much-needed drink.
Trish indicated the newcomers. “This is Miss Agatha Clay and her cat. The cat talks. Miss Clay, this is Abner de la Scalla, Master Payne’s apprentice. Abner talks a lot. He also helps run things. Abner, Miss Clay and her cat found Balthazar in the woods and brought him back.”
De la Scalla made a courteous bow. “Much thanks, miss.” He turned to Balthazar. “Jump to it! Go tell everyone that you’ve been found. While you’re at it, tell them that we’re packing up and moving out as quickly as possible.” Relieved that no punishment appeared to be looming, the boy gave a quick salute and dashed off.
Trish looked surprised. “Already? But we were going to—”
“Master Payne wants us out of this valley as soon as possible. There’s something out there that’s spooking the horses.” He blinked. “Did you say the cat talks?”
Trish nodded. “He does.”
Abner looked at Krosp speculatively. “Interesting.”
Trish continued, “I promised them a meal, but we might ask Master Payne to let them join us, if only because she’s traveling alone.”
This fully engaged Abner’s attention. “Alone? In the Wastelands?”
Agatha winced. “It really wasn’t my idea. My airship crashed.”
Abner studied her. “Aeronaut, weird-looking weapon, talking cat... You’ll probably fit right in around here,” he muttered. He then glanced uneasily back toward the woods. “You wouldn’t know anything about whatever is out there, would you?”
Agatha shook her head. “We didn’t see anything, and we slept out there all night.”
6
It was commonplace in Europa for professional entertainers to look down upon acts that displayed or utilized genuine artifacts of mad science without obfuscation. A talking cat act (for example) consisting of an actual cat—that actually spoke—would have been considered “cheating.” On the other hand, a talking cat disguised and billed as a “talking dog” would be greatly admired. It’s all about how you play the game.
7
Heterodyne shows were a recent variation of the venerable tradition known as commedia dell’arte. Actors assumed various iconic roles, and while the plays themselves varied, the personalities of the main characters generally remained the same, and were well-known to the audience. Heterodyne stories were quite popular—so much so that many troupes came to specialize in them, and to bill themselves directly as “Heterodyne” shows. At the time that our story takes place, The Empire’s Department of Entertainments, Circuses, Carnivals, Traveling Shows and Smugglers estimated that there were over a hundred and twenty such shows, though surely few were as elaborate as Master Payne’s Circus of Adventure.