The Ship Who Sang

"Let's put her off balance. Remember what we used to do on the long hauls on tour?"

"Reshuffle all the parts?"

"Exactly. Christ, we all know each other's lines and movements."

Prane began to grin mischievously. "And. . . let Helva be Juliet?"

"No, Kurla is Juliet!" Davo returned Prane's surprised stare with a dead serious dare.

"And Romeo?"

"That part need not change," Davo said evenly, then added in a light voice, "but I shall be Friar Lawrence and marry you two."

Prane waited till everyone had eaten and was relaxed with Thracian beer. The announcement met with approval, raucous and bawdy.

"I'll be Lady Capulet," Escalus announced in a squeaky falsetto.

"And I'll be Lady Montague," said Friar Lawrence in a quavering contralto, reverting to his own normal bass to add, "Always thought she was a wino."

"I'll be Escalus," Helva volunteered in a voice so like the real actor's the man dropped his tankard.

"You could be the whole damn play all by yourself," Davo vowed, his voice far more slurred than it should be on Thracian beer. "There isn't one part you couldn't do."

"Really? In that case, I'll be the Nurse," Ansra Cornier announced. "Then Helva can see how the part should be played."

"And Kurla will be Juliet," Davo cried, his eyes on Ansra. "Set the stage, oh chorus. Places, everyone. Places."

"Two households, both alike in dignity. . . " Helva began promptly in a basso, sweeping everyone into the act before they had time for second thoughts.

Davo came on as Sampson, and Chadress, normally Lord Capulet, as Gregory, hamming their lines and indulging in slapstick nonsense. Balthasar rolled on, as though drunk, slurring through the establishment of conflict between the two houses. Lines were rattled off, and actors bodily moved each other into proper stage position or deliberately upstaged the speaker.

When Escalus, Lady Capulet glided on in the company of Nurse Angelica, Ansra, with deliberate malice, dispensed with fun and played her part as she had not played Juliet. And somehow twisted her lines as Nurse to mean something entirely different. Her exit line, "Go girl, seek happy nights to happy days," was barbed enough to make Escalus falter.

But then Juliet met Romeo at the feast, and Ansra's spitefulness backfired. For Prane was a different, tenderer Romeo, his voice trembled not with fatigue but with newfound love, gentle, protective, eager. And Kurla, her eyes equally discovering her lover, was Juliet, breathless, shy, daring, and precious. She blushed shyly as she said,

"For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."

She turned her hands palms down on Romeo's, as he had so often directed Ansra only to have her mis-time the words and action as to make them meaningless.

Romeo raised Juliet's hands on his, and the ardor in his eyes, the answering joy in hers, made that little scene so tender that everyone was spellbound.

"Thus from my tips, by thine, my sin is purg'd" said Romeo in so soft a voice it seemed a faint echo, but it hung clearly until his tips met Juliet's in a kiss that was as devout an avowal as a shout.

Her role forgotten completely, Ansra flung herself forward at the two still embraced and lost to their surroundings. And the proximity alarms twanged. They had arrived at their destination.

"Now," Chadress said to the actors, all seated in the main cabin, hastily cleared of all its party debris, "the transceivers were fitted to your head sizes so they will be quite comfortable. You all heard the reports from those survey ship members who used the first device. You know the transfer process is painless and easy. You think yourself on the surface and there you are."

"How can you think yourself on a surface you've never seen?" Nia demanded, grimacing at the transceiver she was holding.

"The nearest analogue would be the underseascapes on Terra in the Carribean area, or the water world in Aldebaran. Or Vega IV. Imagine yourselves surrounded by seaweeds, all shapes and colors. Yes, the survey people repeatedly emphasized the enormous importance of color. The Corviki resemble a marine animal in the class hydrozoa, sort of a large sac-like body with a complex collection of tendrils that may be nerve endings."

"Gawd, what a costume!" Nia Tubb muttered, shuddering.

"It'll fit, I'm told." Chadress grinned at her. "Now, Helva is our fail-safe. She's equipped with an automatic return relay. We've been warned not to remain too long in the Corviki environment."

"Why?" Ansra demanded in a bored voice.

"The Corviki undoubtedly have good reason, but they did not say what. Now, Prane?"

The Solar rose, looked around at the entire cast "We all know the importance of this unlikely exchange of Shakespeare for power. The Bard has been translated into every conceivable language, alien and humanoid, and somehow the essence of his plays has been understood by the most exotic, the most barbaric, the most sophisticated. There is no reason to suppose that Will Shakespeare hasn't got something to say to the Corviki. . . if we do the job wholeheartedly. . . or whatever our Corviki envelopes use for that Organ.