Several couples danced to the music which came directly from New York. The oversize screen, a special three-dimensional job with good color values, covered most of the wall beyond the dance floor, showed a full orchestra. Brent guessed that when the floor show came on the management would either use live music or cut off the New York program and feed recordings into the screen.
The second guess proved right. The screen darkened and the couples left the floor. It brightened again, showing a canned vision of a small group completely equipped with electrical instruments. The M.C. walked out as the spot came on. He carried a small hand mike. After the initial fanfare, the music gave him a soft background and he said: “This show costs a lot of money to put on. All you folks drinking beer kindly turn your chairs around with your backs toward the floor. It is my pleasure to present a young lady who doesn’t belong out here on Venus, wasting her time and talents on you space-burnt wanderers. On the other hand, Venus is a very appropriate spot for her to be. I give you Caren Ames and her famous Dance of a New World!” He grinned and backed out of the spot which widened until it covered most of the small dance floor.
The music shifted into a low, throbbing beat, an insistent jungle rhythm. Brent smiled cynically at the buildup, thought it was pretty fancy for what would probably turn out to be an aging stripper.
She backed slowly onto the floor, staring into the shadows from which she backed. Brent’s breath caught in his throat. She was a faintly angular girl who should have had no grace. She wore a stylized version of the jungle clothes of the foremen on the plantations. Across her shoulder was slung a glittering replica of one of the thought boxes. She carried in her right hand a shining knife of silver.
She moved with such an intense representation of great fear that Brent felt the uneasy shifting of the crowd. The music was a frightened heartbeat. Her grace was angular, perfect and beautiful. Her face was a rigid mask of fear, her blond hair a frozen gout of gold that fell across one shoulder.
The throng gasped as the thing followed her into the middle of the floor, stood weaving, with its eyes on her. At first glance Brent thought that it was actually one of the Harids, but then he realized that it was a clever costume, worn by a rather small person. It had all the swaying obscenity of one of the tiny praying mantis of Earth. The swollen abdomen, the little triangular head, the knotted forearms held high — all of it covered with the fine soft gray scales of a Harid. The three digits of each hand waved aimlessly about like the antennae of a mammoth insect.
The expanding spot showed a small bush covered with the blue-black oily foliage of Venus. The girl stood her ground, lifted the thought box to her lips. She swayed slightly in rhythm with the Harid and her shoulders straightened as the Harid turned away from her, went over toward the bush. It began to pluck at the leaves with the perky, incredibly fast motions of the genuine Harid. Her dance of fear turned slowly into a dance of joy of release from fear. The tempo of the music increased and she danced ever closer to the squat form of the Harid, the knife in her hand cutting joyous sparkling arcs in the flood of tinted light.
She danced ever faster, and Brent said to Lee out of the corner of his mouth: “What is she doing here? She’s wonderful!”
“I told you she was, boy.”
A movement to Brent’s right caught his eye. A bulky man from one of the plantations, very drunk, wavered on his chair as he watched the dance with slitted eyes. The lines around his mouth were taut. Brent felt wonder that the girl’s artistry could have such an effect on one of the hardened foremen.
The music increased to a crescendo, and suddenly stopped. The girl stood motionless, her arms widespread. A very slow beat began. The Harid began to sway its head slowly from side to side in time with the beat. A woman in the darkness screamed softly. Head swaying, the Harid turned slowly and faced the girl. Her face once again became a face of fear. The knotted arms of the thing lifted high. The girl took a slow step backward. The tension was a physical thing — it could be felt in the utter silence of the audience.
At that moment the man whom Brent had noticed earlier roared, and jumped to his feet. There was a knife in his hand. He started for the mock Harid. Shane Brent left his chair in a quick smooth motion. His shoulder slammed against the thick thigh of the man with the knife and the two of them fell and slid across the polished floor. The room was in an uproar. The foreman bounded up, his drunken face twisted with rage. He drew the knife hand back to slash at Brent. Brent fell inside the thrust and struck the man a hammer blow across the side of his throat with the edge of his palm. The lights came on as the man dropped heavily onto his face. No one had thought of the music. It continued on. The mock Harid stood up and turned into a pale slight man who held the head portion of his costume in his hand. His pale lips trembled. He said, with great wonder: “That fellow would have cut my head off!”
The M.C. came out and said to the girclass="underline" “Want to try again from scratch, Miss Ames?”
Her eyes were still wide with shock. “No... I couldn’t. Not right now. The next show maybe.”
The M.C. turned to Brent. “Your check will be on the house, of course. The management is grateful.”
The pale young man said: “I’m a little more grateful than the management.”
“Thank you,” Caren said simply.
Brent grinned at her. “You can return the favor by coming to our table after you change, Miss Ames. We’re right over there.”
She looked uncertain for a moment. “I don’t usually—”
“Just this time, Miss Ames,” the M.C. said.
Her smile was brilliant as she turned and left the floor. “See you in a few minutes Mr. — .”
“Brent. Shane Brent.”
By that time the foreman was back on his feet, pale and shaking. He didn’t understand what had happened. His friends led him back through the tables and out the door. He was protesting plaintively.
She sat quietly at the table between them and talked generalities in a quiet, cultured voice. Her between-acts dress was dark and conservative, her blond hair pulled back with determined severity.
She rebuffed the clumsy verbal advances of Hiram Lee very politely. By the time Shane Brent sat through the next show, enthralled anew by her artistry, Hiram Lee had his head on the table and was snoring softly.
During the dull act which followed Caren’s, two heavily built men came over to the table and shook their heads sadly. “Poor ole Hiram! Tch! Tch! You mind, mister, if we lug ole Hiram back with us to Solaray. The poor boy needs a nice soft bunk.”
Hiram protested feebly, but walked unsteadily between them, half supported by them as he left. Caren came back a few moments later.
They sat and talked of many things. At last she smiled and said: “I was silly when I was afraid to sit with you. Usually such things become a bit... messy.”
He grinned. “I’m harmless. It does seem a little funny to me to find somebody like you in... this place.”
Her eyes hardened. “I know how it goes from here on. Caren, you’re too nice for a place like this. Let me take you away with me. I know the whole routine, Mr. Brent.”
“It’s not like that, Caren. Honestly. If I’ve asked a clumsy question, I’m sorry. It wasn’t a buildup.”
She looked into his eyes for long seconds. “All right, Shane. I believe you. I’ll tell you how it happened. I was trained for ballet. When I was nineteen I married a very rich and very weak young man. After two years life became impossible. I managed to get a divorce. Every minute I spend on Earth is spent keeping out of his way. He manages to queer me in every dancing job I get. He has a weak heart. They won’t accept him for space travel. I’m safe here. I can keep this job. But I can’t ever go back.”