"Yin Bauh? No." The old spacer laughed and pointed at the dishcleaning unit. "If you want to know what they do there, look on the base of half the cheap trade goods in the Galaxy. 'YB made.' "
The Leewit looked astounded. "I thought that stood for 'why be made?' You mean it's a planet?"
"It's a planet, all right. A tax haven, without the labor laws of most of the rest of the Empire. All the big companies have manufacturing plants there. It's a pretty grim sort of place, mind you. But it is nice and inconspicuously on our way to the Imperial Capital, eh, Captain?"
Pausert nodded. "So it is. And you girls should be nice and inconspicuously on your way to bath and bed. And remember to wash behind your ears," he said sternly to the Leewit.
She stuck her tongue out at him. "I'm going to talk the little vatch into putting baking soda in your bubble-bath."
"Don't have any, child," said Pausert with a grin. Bubble bath was a newly discovered chink in the Leewit antiwashing armor. Actually, Goth had privately told the captain, most of that was for show these days. But the Leewit liked to resist baths. She felt it was something she ought to do just as a matter of principle. The Mistress of the Universe shouldn't even be subjected to getting dirty in the first place.
Goth rolled her eyes, but her shoulders shook slightly as she led the Leewit off to that fate worse than death, hot water. "And don't you forget to wash behind your ears either, Captain," she called back sternly.
"I won't. Good night, girls."
* * *
Three days later, the lattice ship drifted her way downward to a landing on Yin Bauh. They were making a night-side landing and it was plain to see that this world was heavily populated.
"We going to get audiences?" wondered Goth, with all the scornful skepticism of a new-converted thespian. "This looks like the sort of planet full of holo-theaters and threedee parlors, with wall-to-wall vidscreens in every house."
Vezzarn snorted. "Not likely, missy. Those lights are either factories or dormitories. Mostly factories. The dormitory towns are the bleakest places you'll see this side of prison. I was here to look over the potential for a smuggling route, once, since it's an independent state and nice and free of official Imperial customs. The sultan's customs are worse, unfortunately. And it's a bad place for anything except murder—they don't worry about corpses much." He seemed to shudder a little. "Those dormitories are full of debt-prisoners whose prison contracts are sold off by various Imperial worlds. The people don't get paid much at all, other than production bonuses. But food and your bunk are free, and there's not much to spend money on. The poor beggars are mostly desperate enough for any kind of entertainment. Any showboat that's down on her luck comes here—it's not great money, but it's reliable."
"It seems a bit like robbery, taking it from them," said Hantis. "It's one of the things we Sprites find strange about you humans."
"It's in character for the Petey B, though," said the captain. "It's on our way, and there's nothing suspicious about us setting down here. Lattice ships aren't cheap to operate, and most of the showboats get into financial trouble sooner or later." He rubbed the back of his neck, wincing. "Still, reliable as it might be, Yin Bauh is a frightening place for a Showmaster. A threat of where he might end up, with the Petey B sold off and him still in debt."
The Leewit was horrified. "Ol' Himby belongs with the show! And the Petey B is going to go for ever and ever and ever. You couldn't let that happen to him, could you, Captain?"
Touched by her faith—most unusual, that, coming from the Leewit—the captain smiled. "I'll do my best." Privately he suspected the Petey B's debts might easily be enough to give the Sedmons pause. And he didn't see them coming to the Petey B's rescue, anyway, in the event the showboat fell on hard times. Over the centuries, the Daals of Uldune had been famous for many things—a very long list of things, in fact, including most capital crimes. But neither altruism nor generosity had ever been on the list once.
* * *
The setup on an expensive piece of wasteland hired from the sultan's factor didn't even draw the four reporters that Altim Four had.
"Where is everybody?"
"They work long shifts here. And you have to get a pass to travel anywhere outside your official place of residence and work."
"So how do they get to know we're here, Mannicholo?"
The chameleon man stopped hauling on the banner rope for a moment. His colors rippled. "Word gets through the dormitory towns like lightning, the sultan's rules be damned. That's why the sultan's satraps don't let ships set down too close to the last spot a showboat visited. It'll be a year or so since these people have had anything more than a game of cards to entertain them. When the next shift ends we'll have 'em in droves. We only sell cheap tickets when we come here. Himbo says it's too close to the bone to exploit these poor devils."
"At least it'll be short shows," said Timblay grumpily. "All we'll get out of this place is refueling money, you watch and see."
"Maybe so," said the chameleon man tersely. "But at least we'll give them something to forget about this dump for a while."
"Dump" was certainly the right word. The place was an industrial garbage heap. The air burned in the captain's lungs. The sky was a brown color, and the rows of factory chimneys belched out more of it. He was glad they wouldn't be staying.
Sure enough, that evening was a full house. It was also one of the most depressing crowds that Pausert had ever seen. There was a beaten look about the people buying the one-price special-offer tickets.
It even infected the actors. The first scene of A Midsummer Night's Dream was, Pausert thought, completely flat. But the audience still drank it up as if it were the honeydew of paradise.
Never had Helena's "How happy some o'er other some can be!" seemed more appropriate.
Cravan was backstage, snapping like an irate turtle. "They paid to be lifted up from this misery—not have you join them! Now, scene change is coming. You"—he pointed—"Bottom, Snug, Flute, Quince, Snout and Starveling. You go out there and give the punters the show of their lives."
So Pausert, AKA Bottom the passionately pursued . . . did. So did his fellow actors. The audience loved it.
Well, most of them loved it. But there were some people sitting in the front row who didn't seem to be enjoying anything. That worried Pausert. Pausert, the new thespian, because members of an audience who don't enjoy the show are always worrisome. Pausert, the captain entrusted with a vital mission, was a lot more worried.
So, as he changed costumes in the dressing room, Pausert wasn't surprised at all when Silver-eyes showed up and echoed his own anxieties.
I think there's more trouble, Big Real Thing, squeaked the little vatch inside his head. There are some strange dream things here—or maybe real things. It's hard to tell. They're like not-things. Like those tiny bits of klatha stuff you feed me, except different.
That was confusing, although . . .
Now that he thought about it, it struck Pausert that "not things" was a fairly accurate description of the oddly impassive bunch of people sitting in the front of the house tonight.
They are waiting back at your ship, too.
That was another unpleasant report.
Like the ones in the front rows out there?
The vatch disappeared briefly, before returning to the dressing rooms. Yes. But there are more than that at the ship. And some more still at the edge of the lattice. Digging.
Digging what? Well, whatever they were up to, it would be no good. He didn't need Pul's Nanite-sniffing nose to tell him the Nanite-infected ISS had almost certainly caught up with them. Thoughtfully, Pausert sucked his teeth.