went limp. «That will keep him quiet while you get clear. Can't have any unseemly disturbance under the eyes of the nest. Let's check time.»
We did so. I was about three and a half minutes ahead of the deadline. «You are to go in exactly on time, you understand? Not ahead, not behind, but on the dot.»
«That's right,» Clifton and I answered in chorus.
«Thirty seconds to walk up the ramp, maybe. What do you want to do with the three minutes you have left?»
I sighed. «Just get my nerve back.»
«Your nerve is all right. You didn't miss a trick back there. Cheer up, old son. Two hours from now you can head for home, with your pay burning holes in your pocket. We're on the last lap.»
«I hope so. It's been quite a strain. Uh, Dak?»
«Yes?»
«Come here a second.» I got out of the car, motioned him to come with me a short distance away. «What happens if I made a mistake — in there?»
«Eh?» Dak looked surprised, then laughed a little too heartily. «You won't make a mistake. Penny tells me you've got it down Jo-block perfect.»
«Yes, but suppose I slip?»
«You won't slip. I know how you feel; I felt the same way on my first solo grounding. But when it started, I was so busy doing it I didn't have time to do it wrong.»
Clifton called out, his voice thin in thin air, «Dak! Are you watching the time?»
«Gobs of time. Over a minute.»
«Mr. Bonforte!» It was Penny's voice. I turned and went back to the car. She got out and put out her hand. «Good luck, Mr. Bonforte.»
«Thanks, Penny.»
Rog shook hands and Dak clapped me on the shoulder. «Minus thirty-five seconds. Better start.»
I nodded and started up the ramp. It must have been within a second or two of the exact, appointed time when I reached the top, for the mighty gates rolled back as I came to them. I took a deep breath and cursed that damned air mask.
Then I took my stage.
It doesn't make any difference how many times you do it, that first walk on as the curtain goes up on the first night of any run is a breathcatcher and a heart-stopper. Sure, you know your sides. Sure, you've asked the manager to count the house. Sure, you've done it all before. No matter — when you first walk out there and know that all those eyes are on you, waiting for you to speak, waiting for you to do something — maybe even waiting for you to go up on your lines, brother, you feel it. This is why they have prompters.
I looked out and saw my audience and I wanted to run. I had stage fright for the first time in thirty years.
The siblings of the nest were spread out before me as far as I could see. There was an open lane in front of me, with thousands on each side, set close together as asparagus. I knew that the first thing I must do was slow-march down the center of that lane, clear to the far end, to the ramp leading down into the inner nest.
I could not move.
I said to myself. «Look, boy, you're John Joseph Bonforte. You've been here dozens of times before. These people are your friends. You're here because you want to be here — and because they want you here. So march down that aisle. Tum tum te
I began to feel like Bonforte again. I was Uncle Joe Bonforte, determined to do this thing perfectly — for the honor and welfare of my own people and my own planet — and for my friends the Martians. I took a deep breath and one step.
That deep breath saved me; it brought me that heavenly fragrance. Thousands on thousands of Martians packed close together — it smelled to me as if somebody had dropped and broken a whole case of Jungle Lust. The conviction that I smelled it was so strong that I involuntarily glanced back to see if Penny had followed me in. I could feel her handclasp warm in my palm.
I started limping down that aisle, trying to make it about the speed a Martian moves on his own planet. The crowd closed in behind me. Occasionally kids would get away from their elders and skitter out in front of me. By «kids» I mean post-fission Martians, half the mass and not much over half the height of an adult. They are never out of the nest and we are inclined to forget that there can be little Martians. It takes almost five years, after fission, for a Martian to regain his full size, have his brain fully restored, and get all of his memory back. During this transition he is an idiot studying to be a moron. The gene rearrangement and subsequent regeneration incident to conjugation and fission put him out of the running for a long time. One of Bonforte's spools was a lecture on the subject, accompanied by some not very good amateur stereo.
The kids, being cheerful idiots, are exempt from propriety and all that that implies. But they are greatly loved.
Two of the kids, of the same and smallest size and looking just alike to me, skittered out and stopped dead in front of me, just like a foolish puppy in traffic. Either I stopped or I ran them down.
So I stopped. They moved even closer, blocking my way completely, and started sprouting pseudo limbs while chittering at each other. I could not understand them at all. Quickly they were plucking at my clothes and snaking their patty-paws into my sleeve pockets.
The crowd was so tight that I could hardly go around them. I was stretched between two needs. In the first place they were so darn cute that I wanted to see if I didn't have a sweet tucked away somewhere for them — but in a still firster place was the knowledge that the adoption ceremony was timed like a ballet. If I didn't get on down that street, I was going to commit the classic sin against propriety made famous by Kkkahgral the Younger himself.
But the kids were not about to get out of my way. One of them had found my watch.
I sighed and was almost overpowered by the perfume. Then I made a bet with myself. I bet that baby- kissing was a Galactic Universal and that it took precedence even over Martian propriety. I got on one knee, making myself about the height they were, and fondled them for a few moments, patting them and running my hands down their scales.
Then I stood up and said carefully, «That is all now. I must go,» which used up a large fraction of my stock of Basic Martian.
The kids clung to me but I moved them carefully and gently aside and went on down the double line, hurrying to make up for the time I had lost. No life wand burned a hole in my back. I risked a hope that my violation of propriety had not yet reached the capital offense level. I reached the ramp leading down into the inner nest and started on down.
* * * * * *
That line of asterisks represents the adoption ceremony. Why? Because it is limited to members of the Kkkah nest. It is a family matter.
Put it this way: A Mormon may have very close gentile friends — but does that friendship get a gentile inside the Temple at Salt Lake City? It never has and it never will. Martians visit very freely back and forth between their nests — but a Martian enters the inner nest only of his own family. Even his conjugate-spouses are not thus privileged. I have no more right to tell the details of the adoption ceremony than a lodge brother has to be specific about ritual outside the lodge.
Oh, the rough outlines do not matter, since they are the same for any nest, just as my part was the same for any candidate. My sponsor — Bonforte's oldest Martian friend, Kkkahrrreash — met me at the door and threatened me with a wand. I demanded that he kill me at once were I guilty of any breach. To tell the truth, I did not recognize him, even though I had studied a picture of him. But it had to be him because ritual required it.
Having thus made clear that I stood foursquare for Motherhood, the Home, Civic Virtue, and never missing Sunday school, I was permitted to enter. `Rrreash conducted me around all the stations, I was questioned and I responded. Every word, every gesture, was as stylized as a classical Chinese play, else I would not have stood a chance. Most of the time I did not understand my own replies; I simply knew my cues and the responses. It was not made easier by the low light level the Martians prefer; I was groping around like a mole.
I played once with Hawk Mantell, shortly before he died, after he was stone-deaf. There was a trouper! He
