The Wizard of Karres

Tornam also had an ISS office.

Hulik tried to reassure him that it was just a little backwater of a place; and that, even if the agents in charge had even heard of the Venture and its crew, they would hardly look for them snugged into a showboat. They would expect such desperate criminals to be trying to hide, not starring in a play.

It didn't help. In truth, the only reason Pausert wasn't starting at every sound and looking over his shoulder constantly was that, irrational as it was, he had begun to trust the little Silver-eyes. Or, perhaps, he just trusted that the vatch had come to realize that there was great deal more amusement to be had from helping Pausert and his crew than from trying to trip them up at every turn. But he still had the nervous certainty that disaster of some sort was just around the corner, a feeling of a metaphorical storm just below the horizon.

* * *

Yet, when disaster came, it had nothing to do with Pausert and the others. It didn't even happen in or around the showboat itself.

It happened when the second lead of Cravan's company, Ken Kanchen, was in Bevenford, the largest town on the planet. Kanchen took the part of Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, of Horatio in Hamlet—pretty much any male part that required a handsome face, athletic ability, solid if not inspired acting, and the ability to memorize a part in two days,

He wasn't even there to do anything that could have conceivably gotten him into trouble. He was running a simple errand, visiting a local bookshop. Unfortunately, he stepped back into the street just at the wrong time. Traffic laws on Tornam were haphazard. Kanchen ended up under a floater, and then in a hospital, with more broken bones than anyone wanted to think about. He was just lucky that he was still alive—and that his handsome face was still untouched.

Not even Sir Richard could manage to act the part of Tybalt in a full body cast.

Himbo Petey had Kanchen brought back aboard the Petey B as soon as possible, of course. A ship the size of a showboat usually had a sick bay as good or better than anything a provincial planet could provide, and the Petey B was no exception to that. Besides, the showboats had a long tradition of taking care of their own—even people not as well-liked as Kanchen was by virtually everyone in the company and crew. The poor man was guaranteed better round-the-clock nursing as well as superior medical care; his problem would not be a lack of care and company, but a surfeit of it.

But the thespians were without their Second Male Lead. They were stretched so thin now that there was no understudy. Cravan was beside himself.

'There's no help for it,' he said at last, after a meeting of the full company determined that there wasn't anyone able or ready to step into Ken's shoes. 'I'll have to call for outside auditions. You'll all have to help me; otherwise we'll never find someone we can lick into shape in any reasonable period of time.'

A groan went up. 'Dick!' cried Alton. 'You're going to kill us! The last time we had to hold a cattle call, on Plankelm, I was ready to slit my wrists before it was over!'

'Yes, but that cattle call netted us Trudi,' Cravan countered, 'and she's the best Female Character I've seen in—well, longer than I care to think.'

Pausert glanced over at the plump, middle-aged woman who played Juliet's Nurse; she shrugged, but smiled.

'Tornam is more populous than Plankelm,' Trudi commented. 'A lot. Double the population in this city alone.'

'Double the number of clueless idiots who think they can act,' Alton groaned.

'It could be worse,' Cravan pointed out ruthlessly. 'We could be looking for a Juvenile. Then we'd have stage-mothers to contend with.'

'If you dare inflict that on us, I will slit my wrists!' Alton started clawing at the prop dagger at his waist.

'Right. I want panels of four,' Cravan continued, ignoring him. 'Each one headed by an experienced Lead, which, Miss Hulik, I regret to say does not include you. Alton, Lassia, Trudi, myself, Hembert, Doeen, and Killary. That's six for initial auditions, with my panel making final judgment. Panel heads, pick your teams—you newcomers, please do not be offended if we don't select you. We need people who are dedicated thespians who are going to be living with this actor for a very long time, and we all know very well,' here he bestowed a kindly smile on Pausert, Hulik, and Hantis, 'that as soon as you can, barring that you decide differently, you are leaving us.'

Was it that obvious? Pausert sighed. Not that he wanted to be on any blasted panels, listening to people stumble their way through speeches—not after the way that Alton had been carrying on.

* * *

For two days, during which the theater was dark, the panels held nonstop auditions in any little space that would hold a table and four chairs. The pickings were thin, though the applicants were legion—in two days, only three candidates were passed up to Cravan's panel waiting in the theater. At the end of the two days, however, about the time that the panel members were beginning to look haggard and despairing, Vonard Kleesp appeared.

Trudi's panel passed him on to Cravan after only five minutes of audition. By the time he took his place on the stage in front of Cravan's panel, rumor had spread through the showboat like wildfire in pure oxygen. Everyone who could get away was trying to get into the theater to see him. Pausert was no exception, though, by the time he got there, Vonard had already gone through two major soliloquies with impressive ease.

What he saw up on the stage as he squeezed in between Hulik and Vezzarn was a man who, like Cravan, had a very memorable face. It was not, strictly speaking, handsome. The face was too saturnine for that, there was too much of an ironic lift to his eyebrows, and a cynical twist to his lips. But it was memorable, which was what a Second Lead needed. And the man moved like a cat. Just as Pausert got there, he was demonstrating that he even knew how to use a sword properly.

'Well, Master Vonard,' said Cravan after a moment. 'Familiarity with the very plays we are putting on, acting experience, something of a swordsman. You seem almost too good to be true.'

'Well, Sir Richard, under most circumstances, I would agree with you,' said Vonard, with a lift of his lip that was not quite a sneer. 'Except that I come to you laden with some personal baggage, which is the reason why I am here on this backwater dirtball in the first place.'

'Ah,' Cravan said. 'Weaknesses?'

'Near-fatal ones, I'm afraid. The first, the one that all too many of our profession are prey to—' Here he mimed a man pouring and drinking. 'Not to put too fine a point on it, I drink to excess, I'm a very devil when drunk, and I never drink without getting drunk.'

Cravan leaned forwards over his steepled hands. 'And why do you drink?' he all but purred.

Vonard laughed. 'My other weakness, sir, and the one that sent me here, putting all of the distance between us that my pocket could bear, here to drink until what was left in my pocket was gone.'

'Ah,' Cravan said, leaning back in his chair. 'The female of the species?'

'Deadlier than the male,' agreed Vonard. 'Insofar as I was thinking at all, which was not a great deal between the madness and the wine, I had intended to commit slow suicide. Fortunately, both my money and my resolve ran out at the same time.'

'Surely not just when we arrived?' asked Himbo Petey.

Vonard laughed. 'Of course not. I have been driving produce floaters. The local— thespians'—here his lip curled—'were not inclined to welcome an outsider into their ranks, especially not one who, by this time, had the reputation as an ugly drunk. I was attempting to budget my drinking to allow me to put enough away to get me off this benighted rock. I didn't even know there was a showboat on-planet until one of my employers told me. I took a two-day leave to get here, hoping I could sign on for anything like an acting job. I didn't even know about the cattle call until I walked through the gate.'

'And can we trust you to stay off the bottle if we take you on?' That was Trudi; Pausert recognized her voice.

'While I'm working, yes. I have never missed a rehearsal, a gig, or a line because of drink, and I don't intend to start now. When I am not working, however . . .' He shrugged. 'I can't promise. Or at least, I can promise only