Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts
creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world.
They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to
me.
--Ibsen
SID INSISTS ON GHOSTGIRLS
My Elizabethan boy friend put his fists on his hips and laid down the
law to us as if we were a lot of nervous children who'd been playing too
hard.
"Look you, masters, this is a Recuperation Station and I am running it
as such. A plague of all operations! I care not if the frame of things
disjoints and the whole Change World goes to ruin, but you, warrior
maid, are going to rest and drink more wine slowly before you tell your
tale and your colleagues are going to be properly companioned. No
questions, anyone. Beau, and you love us, give us a lively tune."
Kaby relaxed a little and let him put his hand carefully against her
back in token of support and she said grudgingly, "All right, Fat
Belly."
Then, so help me, to the tune of the Muskrat Ramble, which I'd taught
Beau, we got girls for those two ETs and everybody properly paired up.
Right here I want to point out that a lot of the things they say in the
Change World about Recuperation Stations simply aren't so--and anyway
they always leave out nine-tenths of it. The Soldiers that come through
the Door are looking for a good time, sure, but they're hurt real bad
too, every one of them, deep down in their minds and hearts, if not
always in their bodies or so you can see it right away.
Believe me, a temporal operation is no joke, and to start with, there
isn't one person in a hundred who can endure to be cut from his lifeline
and become a really wide-awake Doubleganger--a Demon, that is--let alone
a Soldier. What does a badly hurt and mixed-up creature need who's been
fighting hard? _One individual_ to look out for him and feel for him and
patch him up, and it helps if the one is of the opposite sex--that's
something that goes beyond species.
There's your basis for the Place and the wild way it goes about its
work, and also for most other Recuperation Stations or Entertainment
Spots. The name Entertainer can be misleading, but I like it. She's got
to be a lot more than a good party girl--or boy--though she's got to be
that too. She's got to be a nurse and a psychologist and an actress and
a mother and a practical ethnologist and a lot of things with longer
names--and a reliable friend.
* * * * *
None of us are all those things perfectly or even near it. We just try.
But when the call comes, Entertainers have to forget grudges and gripes
and envies and jealousies--and remember, they're lively people with
sharp emotions--because there isn't any time then for anything but _help
and don't ask who_!
And, deep inside her, a good Entertainer doesn't care who. Take the way
it shaped up this time. It was pretty clear to me I ought to shift to
Illy, although I wasn't quite easy in my mind about leaving Erich,
because the Lunan was a long time from home and, after all, Erich was
among anthropoids. Ilhilihis needed someone who was _simpatico_.
I like Illy and not just because he is a sort of tall cross between a
spider monkey and a persian cat--though that is a handsome combo when
you come to think of it. I like him for himself. So when he came in all
lopped and shaky after a mean operation, I was the right person to look
out for him. Now I've made my little speech and know-nothings in the
Change World can go on making their bum jokes. But I ask you, how could
an arrangement between Illy and me be anything but Platonic?
We might have had some octopoid girls and nymphs in stock--Sid couldn't
be sure until he checked--but Ilhilihis and Sevensee voted for real
people and I knew Sid saw it their way. Maud squeezed Mark's hand and
tripped over to Sevensee ("Those are sharp hoofs you got, man"--she's
picked up some of my language, like she has everything else), though
Beau did frown over his shoulder at Lili from the piano, maybe to argue
that she ought to take on the ET, as Mark had been a real casualty and
could use live nursing. But it was plain as day to anybody but Beau that
Bruce and Lili were a big thing and the last to be disturbed.
Erich acted stiffly hurt at losing me, but I knew he wasn't. He thinks
he has a great technique with Ghostgirls and he likes to show it off,
and he really is pretty slick at it, if you go for that sort of thing
and--yang my yin!--who doesn't at times?
And when Sid formally wafted the Countess out of Stores--a real blonde
stunner in a white satin hobble skirt with a white egret swaying up from
her tiny hat, way ahead of Maud and Lili and me when it came to looks,
though transparent as cigarette smoke--and when Erich clicked his heels
and bowed over her hand and proudly conducted her to a couch, black
Svengali to her Trilby, and started to German-talk some life into her
with much head cocking and toothy smiling and a flow of witty flattery,
and when she began to flirt back and the dream look in her eyes
sharpened hungrily and focused on him--well, then I knew that Erich was
happy and felt he was doing proud by the _Reichswehr_. No, my little
commandant wasn't worrying me on that score.
* * * * *
Mark had drawn a Greek hetaera, name of Phryne; I suppose not the one
who maybe still does the famous courtroom striptease back in Athens, and
he was waking her up with little sips of his scotch and soda, though,
from some looks he'd flashed, I got the idea Kaby was the kid he really
went for. Sid was coaxing the fighting gal to take some high-energy
bread and olives along with the wine, and, for a wonder, Doc seemed to
be carrying on an animated and rational conversation with Sevensee and
Maud, maybe comparing notes on the Northern Venusian Shallows, and Beau
had got on to Panther Rag, and Bruce and Lili were leaning on the piano,
smiling very appreciatively, but talking to each other a mile a minute.
Illy turned back from inspecting them all and squeaked, "Animals with
clothes are so refreshing, dahling! Like you're all carrying banners!"
Maybe he had something there, though my banners were kind of Ash
Wednesday, a charcoal gray sweater and skirt. He looked at my mouth with
a tentacle to see how I was smiling and he squeaked softly, "Do I seem
dull and commonplace to you, Greta girl, because I haven't got banners?
Just another Zombie from a billion years in your past, as gray and
lifeless as Luna is today, not as when she was a real dreamy sister
planet simply bursting with air and water and feather forests. Or am I
as strangely interesting to you as you are to me, girl from a billion
years in my future?"
"Illy, you're sweet," I told him, giving him a little pat. I noticed his
fur was still vibrating nervously and I decided the heck with Sid's
orders, I'm going to pump him about what he was doing with Kaby and the
satyr. Couldn't have him a billion years from home and bottled up, too.
Besides, I was curious.