He looked at the audience again. "Now Hayseed's a good guy, and he has his talents. But sometimes it seems as if he's got corn shucks where his brains should be. The girl was scared to travel with a grown stranger, so he made her a no fault Oath of Brotherhood. That meant he couldn't touch her, no matter how eager for it she might get. To make it worse, she was as cute as they come."
Havoc crossed the stage, and his clothing and aspect changed. Now he was Hayseed the Minstrel.
Hayseed looked at the audience. "Havoc's a good guy and a tolerable king," he confided. "But sometimes it seems as if this business of royalty has squeezed his barbarian qualities right out of him. He's too expletive proper."
Hayseed let fly a resounding burp.
The audience burst into laughter. Shee knew why: the king was famous for having burped during his first public speech as king, showing his barbarian lack of mariners.
Now Hayseed approached Sofee. "Going my way, cutie?"
"Not with you, you lecherous coot," he replied, speaking for her in the manner of such presentations.
"No offense."
The audience chuckled. Shee had to stifle her own smile; Warp was good at this, unsurprisingly.
"Suppose I make you an idiotic Oath of Brotherhood?"
"Then I will travel with you," she agreed. "My brothers call me a brat."
So they walked across the stage together. Hayseed made a hand signal of the sun moving across the sky: time was passing.
"We must settle for the night," Hayseed said. "Here is a rest stop with shelter, food, and a river in which to wash."
"Turn your back," she said sharply. "My brothers gawk when they peek."
So Hayseed turned his back so she could strip and wash herself. The audience watched closely: would she follow the script literally?
"I'll bet she doesn't," Hayseed confided to the audience.
She did. Sofee removed her clothing, pantomimed washing, then shook herself dry and put her clothing back on.
In the process she gave the audience a full view of her nude body. A number of men were openly gaping. This was some village girl! The women were not completely amused.
Hayseed never looked. Instead he walked to the other side of the stage, becoming Havoc. "I told you he was a fool. He could at least have used a hidden mirror." He returned to the Hayseed side.
Next day Hayseed played his dragon scale and sang folk songs for room and board at a village. Warp's rendering was compelling; as a minstrel he was excellent.
Sofee took note, making her attention obvious to the audience, not to Hayseed. Here was a man with genuine talent. She began to get interested. This time when she washed up she did not require him to face away, so that he was able to see her body. She was innocently vamping him. But he did not seem to notice.
Havoc, across the stage, did, though. "Look at those perfect breasts! That tight bottom. I'll bet he has a member so hard it's about to burst his pants. Maybe next time he'll be more careful with his oaths."
On the third night they knew that the following day would see them to Triumph City. By now Sofee was thoroughly smitten with Hayseed. But she had learned that he was married and had five wonderful children. Her love was futile.
He slept, but she was restless. Finally she sat up in her sheer nightie and sang her song of longing. It was a standard folk song, familiar to everyone. They liked to compare how different singers did such songs.
What was different was that she sang it herself, with her own accompaniment of the shells. She saw many members of the audience staring in astonishment. It wasn't just that she sang, or that she had a strange new accompaniment. It was that she was a superlative singer. She put her all into it.
She gazed on him adoringly, but Hayseed slept on, oblivious.
Then she broke down and silently wept, and many in the audience wept with her.
Hayseed still slept.
Finally she went to his bedside, leaned over him, and gave him a fleeting kiss. There was a small moan of identification in the audience. Then she lay on her bed and slept.
The audience broke into prolonged applause.
After a suitable pause, Hayseed sat up. It was morning.
"Our journey together is almost done," he said. "Now there must be truth between us."
"Acquiescence."
"I am not Hayseed, at least, not exactly," he said, manifesting as Havoc. "I traveled with you in order to get to know you. I find you intriguing, and am ready to take you as my mistress."
"I am not a fifth, at least not exactly," she said. "I traveled with you in order to get your attention so I could impress you with my qualities."
"Question?"
"I am not a person at all," she said. "I am a humanoid robot."
"Confusion." He was echoing similar confusion in the audience. They had expected a surprise ending, or at least a heavy no fault session as she released him from his oath, but this was something seemingly from some quite different story.
"A mechanical person crafted to resemble a living woman. Similar to one of your golems, except that no other person animates me. I am on a mission from the machines."
"Bewilderment."
"Your human culture faces its worst enemy: sapient machines that mean to destroy all life in the galaxy. You must stop them or you are doomed."
"If you are one of them, why tell me this? Are you here to kill me?"
"Negation. I am here to love you."
"Confusion," he repeated.
"I want to be your mistress. But you can't keep me unless you meet my price."
"What is the price?"
"You must persuade your Glamor daughter Voila to enlist her services with the machines."
"Denial!"
"If you do, not only can you keep me, the machines will spare your whole culture."
"Outrage!"
"If you do not, the machines will destroy you, and me, and all other human beings."
Havoc faced the audience. "The story of Hayseed and Sofee is fiction. The news of her nature and mission is true.
The machines wish to recruit my daughter to their cause, and have sent this luscious thing to persuade me to persuade her. If we accept, we are safe. If we decline, it means war with the machines, and they are indeed our worst enemy.
They will try to destroy us, and may succeed. Because this concerns every one of you, we are putting it to a vote. Do we accept, which means I get this lovely robot and the machines get Voila? Or do we reject, which means we risk our existence? The votes will be tallied by the village elders in one month."
The audience sat stunned. Havoc had just done it again, wreaking havoc on their emotions.
The curtain closed, isolating them.
"Now we need to identify your natural constituency," Warp said.
Shee was still recovering from the abruptness of the presentation to the people. "Question?"