“The point occurs in our folklore as well,” said Tarvish. “But I don’t—” Suddenly he stopped.
Paul grinned. “Did you get a wave? But let me go on out loud—this race is happier that way. Yes, we had it all solved yesterday and let it slip. The lie we bribed Tim to tell—”
“—that I am your new dummy,” Tarvish picked up eagerly.
“The act’ll be sensational. Because you can really talk, I can do anything. Eat soda crackers while you’re talking—it won’t make any difference. And you—I hate like hell to say this to any man, but from an audience viewpoint it’s true—you’re cute. You’re damned near cuddly. They’ll love you. And we bill you with the precise truth: you’re a visitant from outer space. It ties a ventriloquism act into the sciencefiction trend in TV. You’re THE STAR DUMMY. We’ll make a fortune—not that I’m thinking of that—”
“Aren’t you?” Tarvish asked dryly.
Paul smiled. “Can anyone be a hypocrite in a telepathic civilization?”
“It’s been known to happen.”
“Well, anyway, I’m not thinking primarily of the fortune. We’ll get publicity we couldn’t buy. And wherever she is, unless it’s in Darkest Africa or behind the Iron Curtain, Vishta’ll learn where you are.”
“Paul,” said Tarvish solemnly, “you’re inspired. On that I could use a drink.”
“Another custom of all rational races?”
“Nearly all. But just a moment: I find in your mind the concept alcohol. I’m afraid that doesn’t convey much.”
Paul tried to think back to his high-school chemistry. Finally he ventured, “C2H6OH. That help any?”
“Ah, yes. More correctly, of course, CH3CH2OH. You find that mild fluid stimulating? We use it somewhat in preparing food, but . . . Now, if I might have a little C8H10N4O2?”
Paul rubbed his head. “Doesn’t mean a thing to me. Sounds like some kind of alkaloid. It’s the touch of nitrogen that does it with you people?”
“But indeed you do know it. You were drinking it at breakfast. And I must say I admired the ease with which you put away so much strong liquor so early in the day.”
Hastily Paul checked in a dictionary. “Caffeine, ”he groaned. “And what do you use to sober up? A few cups of good straight alcohol, no cream?”
And in copious shots of C2H6OH and C8H10N4O2, the two men pledged the future of THE STAR DUMMY.
So now you see at last to what this story has been leading. What began in a confessional and passed through an analyst’s office to a zoo—all symbolism is read into the sequence at your own peril—is in actuality the backstage story of the genesis of your own favorite television program.
Most of the rest of that genesis you know from a thousand enthusiastic recountings, from John Crosby’s in the Herald Tribune to Philip Hamburger’s in the New Yorker: how network producers at first greeted Paul Peters skeptically when he returned to show business, after a mysterious absence, with a brand-new type of act; how THE STAR DUMMY was at first somewhat hesitantly showcased on San Francisco Presents; how the deluge of fan mail caused that first showing to be kinnied all over the country, while the next week a live performance shot over the nation on a microwave relay; how the outrageous concept of a cuddlesome dummy from Outer Space managed unbelievably to combine the audiences of Charlie McCarthy and Space Cadet; how Star Dummies outgrossed the combined total sales of Sparkle Plenty Dolls and Hopalong Cassidy suits.
But there are a few untold backstage scenes which you should still hear.
Scene: Station KMNX-TV. Time: the morning after the first Star Dummy broadcast. Speaker: a vice-president.
“But my God, M.N., there’s all hell popping. That was Hollywood on the phone. They’ve got the same damned show lined up for show-casing next week. Same format—identical dummy—only maybe theirs has bigger ears. The property owner’s flying up here and our lawyers had better be good!”
Scene: Same. Time: that afternoon.
“I think,” Paul had said, “that we might be able to reach a settlement out of court.” The vice-presidents had filed out eagerly, the lawyers somewhat reluctantly.
Once he had been introduced to Vishta (and so close had he come, in weeks of preparing the show, to Tarvish’s ways of thinking that he found her enchantingly lovely), it would have been inconceivably rude and prying to do anything but turn his back on the reunion of the lovers. Which meant that he had to keep his eyes on Marcia Judd, property owner of the Hollywood show.
“I’m not a professional ventriloquist like you, Mr. Peters,” she was saying. “I couldn’t do a thing without Vishta. But when we talked about it, it seemed the most logical way to let Tarvish know where she was. You know, like ‘The Purloined Letter.’ ”
“And you have waves?” Paul marveled. It was about the only thing which she did not obviously have on first glance.
“I guess maybe it’s because I write fantasy and s.f. Oh, I don’t sell much, but a little. And I’m not too sure that there’s anything that can’t happen. So when I was walking through the San Diego zoo and I saw something in with the koalas that was making diagrams . . . Well, I couldn’t help remembering Joe’s story about intercultural communication—”
“Joe Henderson? You know old Joe?”
“He’s helped me a lot. I guess you’d sort of say I’m his protege.”
“So long,” Paul smiled, “as he isn’t your protector. But tell me, does Joe still. . .”
And one half of room was as happy in the perfect chatter of a first meeting as was the other half in the perfect silence of a long-delayed reunion.
Truth had shifted again, and THE STAR DUMMY was in fact a dummy—a brilliantly constructed piece of mechanism which had eaten up the profits of the three shows on which Tarvish himself had appeared. But the show was set now, and
