“I’ll need two declivities,” said Hester.
“Amen,” said the councilman.
“Kybee,” Pam said, “this is my declivity.”
“It’s important to retain our body heat,” Ensign Benson explained, trying to hunker down beside her.
“Thank you, Kybee,” Pam said, “but I’m really quite warm enough sleeping by myself.”
“You would be,” Ensign Benson muttered, thumping off across the darkling plain and all at once running into a spider web. “Ptchah!” he cried, flailing at the web, then realized it wasn’t a web at all. It was a, it was some sort of, it felt like a thin sheet or a—
Curtain.
“Oh, boy,” Ensign Benson said. Feeling the material with both hands, maintaining a lot of body contact with this drapery, he sidled along to the right, noticing how clothlike it was, giving when he pressed but resisting when he pressed too hard. Somewhere there would be, there had to be, an opening.
There. His right hand slipped off the curtain’s edge and fell forward against unresisting air, and all at once, instead of Hestia’s dull but protracted set, he was looking at somebody’s drawing room.
Comedy-of-manners time. A sofa centered, telephone on stand to its left. Several upstage doors for slamming. Occasional furniture along the walls. Steady, not-too-bright light, source uncertain.
Ensign Benson stepped through the break and inspected more closely. Windows fakes with painted views. Bookcase a painted facade. Telephone nonoperative. Water in ashtray, soap on mirror. Some sort of mottled obscurity high above blocking the sky. Sofa real and soft.
Turning about, he looked through the curtain of bent molecules at his shipmates settling down for the night on the dusty ground, like a small herd from some endangered species. Tell Pam about the sofa? Surely she wouldn’t mind sharing it. On the other hand, there was the rest of the crew.
Ensign Benson sighed. Pushing open the flap, he called, “Everybody! I found us a room.”
Hestia rose like thunder out of the horizon across the way. “I hear thunder,” Pam said, sitting up on the sofa, squinting in the rosy light, looking tousled and adorable and unavailable.
The other Earthlings, less adorable, rose from their beds of chair cushions and window draperies. “Rain,” grumbled Ensign Benson, stretching his stiff, sore back. “Just to make things perfect.”
But there was no rain, and when the thunder stopped, it became obvious that the sound had actually been some sort of approaching motor. For a few seconds the Earthers waited in silence, contemplating their morning mouths, and then an upstage door opened and a heedless young couple in evening dress-black tie for him, green flapper outfit for her — entered and slammed the door. “Tennis, anyone?” cried the boy, with a big toothy grin; then, as he reacted to the scene onstage, his grin became a toothless O of shock. “Lor!” he breathed.
The girl stared about in disbelief. “Well, I never!” she said, in character.
Captain Standforth clambered stiffly from his settee, saying, “Pm terribly sorry. Is this your place?”
The young man stared about in well-bred horror. “Look what you’ve done,” he said, “to this set.”
“We’ll fix it right up,” Billy promised, fluffing the pillow that had been his sole companion on the floor.
“I’ve a good mind,” the young man said angrily, “to report you to, report you to…”
Ensign Benson and Councilman Luthguster both leaned eagerly toward him. “Yes?” asked the councilman. “Yes?”
“To the agency!”
“Of course!” cried Ensign Benson.
The vehicle was a four-wheeled open land traveler with a simple metal-pipe frame and three rows of bucket seats. While the Earthfolk piled atop one another in the back — Pam deflecting Ensign Benson’s attempt to pile atop her — the annoyed thespians sat in front, the male kicking the engine to life and hunching over the handle bars. “We’ll see about this,” he said, and off they lurched.
Up a dusty slope they went and over the ridge and down the long, dusty road toward the settlement, a cluster of small buildings along an X of two streets.
“That’s the colony,” said Ensign Benson, staring around Hester’s shoulder. “Where we landed was nothing but an outdoor—”
“Rehearsal hall,” said Billy.
“They figured,” Ensign Benson said, “we were just actors, rehearsing a—”
“Space opera,” said Billy.
“Shut up, Billy,” said Ensign Benson.
Meanwhile, up front, the girl was pleading their case to her companion. “They’re just trying to attract attention,” she said. “Come on, Harv, you and I aren’t above stunts like that ourselves to get a part. They’re just between gigs, that’s all.”
“Then let ’em go to Temp, like the rest of us.”
“Come on, Harv, don’t be a producer.”
By then they were in the middle of the most utilitarian town the Earth people had ever seen. The buildings were drably functional and lacking in ornamentation, with none more than two stories high. Other stripped-down land travelers moved back and forth, and the several pedestrians, male and female, were mostly dressed in plain, drab jump suits. The few people in costume — a cowboy, a striped-pants diplomat, a belly dancer — stood out like parakeets in a field of crows.
The land traveler stopped. Reluctantly, the driver said, “All right, get out. I won’t report you.”
“Gee, thanks!” said Billy, bounding over the rail.
The others followed, and Ensign Benson said, “Where’s the agency?”
“Don’t milk the joke, fella,” the driver said and accelerated away But his girlfriend, behind his back, pointed and gestured toward a nearby gray-metal building, then waved a good-luck goodbye.
“She was nice,” Billy said.
“I’ve never dealt with agents before,” Luthguster said, frowning at the building. “Only principals.”
Ensign Benson stared at him. “You only deal in principles? Come along, Councilman; this I have to see.”
J. RAILSFORD FARNSWORTH SUCCESSORS — TALENT AGENCY read the inscription on the frosted fiber of the door. The Earthians filed into a small, bench-lined room personed by a feisty receptionist. “Well, look at what the omkali dragged in,” she said, surveying the bedraggled Terrans.
Hester glared at the girl. “Get smart with me, snip,” she said, “and I’ll breathe on you.”
“Harridan,” commented the receptionist calmly, flipping through a card file on her desk. “Battle-ax. Dyke. Sorry, got nothing for your type at the moment. We have your photo and resume on file?”
“Girlie,” Hester said, leaning over the desk, “if I had my socket wrench, I’d unscrew your head.”
“Just a minute, just a minute,” said Ensign Benson, interposing himself. “Is the boss here?”
The girl frowned at him, then smiled. “Oh, yes. You’re the captain.”
“That’s right, and he’s my best friend. Is the chief in?”
“You mean — the agent?”
“The man in charge,” said Councilman Luthguster.
The girl looked dubious. “Who shall I say is calling?”
The councilman drew himself up to his full round. “The Earth,” he said.
The girl looked him up and down. “I won’t argue,” she said.
Framed autographed photos — glossy 8 x 10s — covered every inch of wall space in the small windowless room. The rolltop desk was picturesquely old and battered, the wastebasket overflowing, the Leatherette sofa sagging, the two client chairs tired and gnawed.