The Ship Who Sang

They worked hard, experimenting, changing, improving until they got through the duel scene twice without a flaw. Even allowing for his handicap, Helva was impressed by Prane.

Ansra drifted languidly into the main cabin and the atmosphere changed so abruptly that Helva inadvertently scanned her warnings system.

"Good morrow, good madam," Prane said jauntily. "Shall we have at the balcony scene, fair Juliet?"

"My dear Solar, you have obviously been hard at it with Davo. Are you feeling up to more?"

Prane hesitated a microsecond before he bowed and with a genuine smile replied: "You, as Juliet, are up, my dear," and he gestured with a flourish to the area where she was to play the scene, above him.

He turned then, floating to the edge of the cabin and Ansra, her jibe ignored, shrugged and projected herself upward.

"Give me Benvolio's line, please," Prane asked Kurla.

Ausra's entrance had flustered the girl and she flipped nervously through the sides.

"Act II, scene i, Kurla," Davo murmured encouragingly.

Helva dropped her voice to a tenor register: "Go then; for 'tis in vain to seek him here that means not to be found."

"Zounds, who was that?" cried Prane, whirling in such surprised reaction that he drifted toward the wall, absently holding himself off with one hand.

"Me," Helva said meekly in her proper voice.

"Can you change voices at will, woman?"

"Well, it's only a question of projection, you know. And since my voice is reproduced through audio units, I can select the one proper for the voice register required."

The effect of her ability on Prane, Helva noticed, was nothing to its effect on Ansra.

"How could you see to read the line?" Prane demanded, gesturing toward the script in Kurla's hands.

"I've been scanning the text from the library banks." Helva forbore to tell the long story of the childhood years during which she had been hooked on ancient movies, leading somehow naturally to Shakespeare, and opera, both light and grand. Her only hobby, and it was her own memory she was scanning.

Prane imprudently flung out both arms and had to correct against the ceiling.

"What incredible luck. Can you, would you read something else?"

"What? Auditioning a ship, Prane?" Ansra asked, her voice richly intimating that he'd gone mad.

"If I'm not wrong," Davo put in, his eyes glinting sardonically, "Helva here is also known as the ship who sings. Surely you saw the tri-cast on her some years back, Ansra? In fact I know you did. We were playing the Greeks in Draconis at the time."

"If you please, Davo," Prane-the-director interrupted, gliding over to Helva's central column. "You are the ship who sings?"

"Yes."

"Would you be kind enough to indulge me by reading the Nurse's speech, Act I, scene iii, where Lady Capulet and the Nurse discuss Juliet's marriage. Begin 'Even or odd of all days in the year'. . ."

"The nurse is to be played as an earthy type?"

"Yes, indeed, blissfully unregenerate. Her lines are a triumph of characterization, you know. Only she can speak the ones the playwright gave her. That is, of course, the test of true characterization."

"I thought this was a rehearsal of my scene, not a lecture," Ansra remarked acidly.

Prane silenced her with a peremptory gesture. "The cue is," and he altered his voice to a husky, aging contralto," 'A fortnight and odd days'. . ."

Helva resigned herself to an active part in this incident, and responded as Nurse Angelica.

Helva called a halt to what promised to be a round-the-chrono affair, on the spurious grounds of some critical computation. What had turned critical was Ansra's temper.

Davo and Kurla had willingly read additional parts, Davo with an insight to the minor characters that wrung mute respect from Helva and generous thanks from Prane. Kurla rose to the challenge of Lady Montague. Ansra's Juliet became less and less convincing. She was 'reading', not acting, certainly not reacting to the passion, the youthful enthusiasm and tender passion of Prane's Romeo. She was wooden. The voice was youthful, the gestures girlish, but she resisted every effort of Prane's to draw out of her that quality he wanted Juliet to project.

None of this was obvious from the even tone of his courteous suggestions, but it was most apparent to the others. And to Helva, Ansra's behavior was doubly inexcusable.

Once Helva had withdrawn, Kurla announced that it was time to eat a hot decent meal. She then insisted that they all get some sleep. Helva watched surreptitiously as Kurla ran a quick medical check on Prane. She, too, was amazed that the Solar was in remarkably strong vigor after such an intense and long rehearsal.

"You've got to rest, Solar Prane. I don't care what the recorder says. You can't put forth the energy you did today without replenishing it in sleep," Kurla said firmly. "I'm tired! And you've another planetfall to make."

He made a boyish grimace but lay back on the shock-mattress, his eyes closed, one hand on his chest.