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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31648-8.txt b/31648-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bb434b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/31648-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1139 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Fair Planet, by Evelyn E. Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: My Fair Planet + +Author: Evelyn E. Smith + +Illustrator: DILLON + +Release Date: March 15, 2010 [EBook #31648] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY FAIR PLANET *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + My Fair Planet + + By EVELYN E. SMITH + + Illustrated by DILLON + +[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction +March 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the +U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + + + +[Sidenote: _All the world's a stage, so there was room even for this bad +actor ... only he intended to direct it!_] + + +As Paul Lambrequin was clambering up the stairs of his rooming house, he +met a man whose face was all wrong. "Good evening," Paul said politely +and was about to continue on his way when the man stopped him. + +"You are the first person I have encountered in this place who has not +shuttered at the sight of me," he said in a toneless voice with an +accent that was outside the standard repertoire. + +"Am I?" Paul asked, bringing himself back from one of the roseate dreams +with which he kept himself insulated from a not-too-kind reality. "I +daresay that's because I'm a bit near-sighted." He peered vaguely at +the stranger. Then he recoiled. + +"What is incorrect about me, then?" the stranger demanded. "Do I not +have two eyes, one nose and one mouth, the identical as other people?" + +Paul studied the other man. "Yes, but somehow they seem to be put +together all wrong. Not that you can help it, of course," he added +apologetically, for, when he thought of it, he hated to hurt people's +feelings. + +"Yes, I can, for, of a truth, 'twas I who put myself together. What did +I do amiss?" + +Paul looked consideringly at him. "I can't quite put my finger on it, +but there are certain subtle nuances you just don't seem to have caught. +If you want my professional advice, you'll model yourself directly on +some real person until you've got the knack of improvisation." + +"Like unto this?" The stranger's outline shimmered and blurred into an +amorphous cloud, which then coalesced into the shape of a tall, +beautiful young man with the face of an ingenuous demon. "Behold, is +that superior?" + +"Oh, far superior!" Paul reached up to adjust a stray lock of hair, then +realized he was not looking into a mirror. "Trouble is--well, I'd rather +you chose someone else to model yourself on. You see, in my profession, +it's important to look as unique as possible; helps people remember you. +I'm an actor, you know. Currently I happen to be at liberty, but the +year before last--" + +"Well, whom should I appear like? Should I perhaps pick some fine +upstanding figure from your public prints to emulate? Like your +President, perhaply?" + +"I--hardly think so. It wouldn't do to model yourself on someone well +known--or even someone obscure whom you might just happen to run into +someday." Being a kind-hearted young man, Paul added, "Come up to my +room. I have some British film magazines and there are lots of +relatively obscure English actors who are very decent-looking chaps." + + * * * * * + +So they climbed up to Paul's hot little room under the eaves and, after +leafing through several magazines, Paul chose one Ivo Darcy as a likely +candidate. Whereupon the stranger deliquesced and reformed into the +personable simulacrum of young Mr. Darcy. + +"That's quite a trick," Paul observed as it finally got through to him +what the other had done. "It would come in handy in the profession--for +character parts, you know." + +"I fear you would never be able to acquisition it," the stranger said, +surveying his new self in the mirror complacently. "It is not a trick +but a racial ableness. You see, I feel I can trust you--" + +"--Of course I'm not really a character actor; I'm a leading man, but I +believe one should be versatile, because there are times when a really +good character part comes along--" + +"--I am not a human being. I am a native of the fifth planet circulating +around the star you call Sirius, and we Sirians have the ableness to +change ourselves into the apparition of any other livid form--" + +"I thought that might be a near-Eastern accent!" Paul exclaimed, +diverted. "Is Lebanese anything like it? Because I understand there's a +really juicy part coming up in--" + +"I said _Sirian_, not _Syrian_; I do not come from Minor Asia but from +outer space, from an other-where solar system. I am an outworlder, an +extraterrestrial." + +"I hope you had a nice trip," Paul said politely. "From Sirius, did you +say? What's the state of the theater there?" + +"In its infanticide," the stranger told him, "but--" + +"Let's face it," Paul muttered bitterly, "it's in its infancy here, too. +No over-all planning. No appreciation of the fact that all the +components that go to make up a production should be a continuing +totality, instead of a tenuous coalition of separate forces which +disintegrate--" + +"You, I comprehend, are disemployed at current. I should--" + +"You won't find that situation in Russia!" Paul went on, pleased to +discover a sympathetic audience in this intelligent foreigner. "Mind +you," he added quickly, "I disapprove entirely of their politics. In +fact, I disapprove of all politics. But when it comes to the theater, in +many respects the Russians--" + +"--Like to make a proposal to our mutual advanceage--" + +"--You wouldn't find an actor there playing a lead role one season and +then not be able to get any parts except summer stock and odd bits for +the next two years. All right, so the show I had the lead in folded +after two weeks, but the critics all raved about my performance. It was +the play that stank!" + +"Will you terminate the monologue and hearken unto me!" the alien +shouted. + +Paul stopped talking. His feelings were hurt. He had thought Ivo liked +him; now he saw all the outworlder wanted to do was talk about his own +problems. + +"I desire to extend to you a position," said Ivo. + +"I can't take a regular job," Paul said sulkily. "I have to be available +for interviews. Fellow I knew took a job in a store and, when he was +called to read for a part, he couldn't get away. The fellow who did get +that part became a big star, and maybe the other fellow could have been +a star, too, but now all he is is a lousy chairman of the board of some +department store chain--" + +"This work can be undergone at your convention between readings and +interviews, whenever you have the timing. I shall pay you beautifully, +being abundant with U.S.A. currency. I want you to teach me how to act." + +"Teach you how to act," Paul repeated, rather intrigued. "Well, I'm not +a dramatic coach, you know; however, I do happen to have some ideas on +the subject. I feel that most acting teachers nowadays fail to give +their students a really thorough grounding in all aspects of the +dramatic art. All they talk about is method, method, method. But what +about technique?" + +"I have observed your species with great diligence and I thought I had +acquisitioned your habits and speakings to perfectness. But I fear that, +like my initial face, I have got them awry. I want you to teach me to +act like a human being, to talk like a human being, to think like a +human being." + +Paul's attention was really caught. "Well, that _is_ a challenge! I +don't suppose Stanislavsky ever had to teach an extraterrestrial, or +even Strasberg--" + +"Then we are in accordance," Ivo said. "You will instruction me?" He +essayed a smile. + +Paul shuddered. "Very well," he said. "We'll start now. And I think the +first thing we'd better start with is lessons in smiling." + +Ivo proved to be a quick study. He not only learned to smile, but to +frown and to express surprise, pleasure, horror--whatever the occasion +demanded. He learned the knack of counterfeiting humanity with such +skill that, Paul was moved to remark one afternoon when they were +leaving Brooks Brothers after a fitting, "Sometimes you seem even more +human than I do, Ivo. I wish you'd watch out for that tendency to rant, +though. You're supposed to speak, not make speeches." + +"I try not to," Ivo said, "but I keep getting carried away by +enthusiasm." + +"Apparently I have a real flair for teaching," Paul went on as, expertly +camouflaged by Brooks, the two young men melted into the dense +charcoal-gray underbrush of Madison Avenue. "I seem to be even more +versatile than I thought. Perhaps I have been--well, not wasting but +limiting my talents." + +"That may be because your talents have not been sufficiently +appreciated," his star pupil suggested, "or given enough scope." + +Ivo was so perceptive! "As a matter of fact," Paul agreed, "it has often +seemed to me that if some really gifted individual, equally adept at +acting, directing, producing, playwriting, teaching, et al., were to +undertake a thorough synthesis of the theater--ah, but that would cost +money," he interrupted himself, "and who would underwrite such a +project? Certainly not the government of the United States." He gave a +bitter laugh. + +"Perhaps, under a new regime, conditions might be more favorable for the +artist--" + +"Shhh!" Paul looked nervously over his shoulder. "There are Senators +everywhere. Besides, I never said things were _good_ in Russia, just +_better_--for the actor, that is. Of course the plays are atrocious +propaganda--" + +"I was not referring to another human regime. The human being is, at +best, save for certain choice spirits, unsympathetic to the arts. We +outworlders have a far greater respect for things of the mind." + +Paul opened his mouth; Ivo continued without giving him a chance to +speak, "No doubt you have often wondered just what I am doing here on +Earth?" + +The question had never crossed Paul's mind. Feeling vaguely guilty, he +murmured, "Some people have funny ideas of where to go for a vacation." + +"I am here on business," Ivo told him. "The situation on Sirius is +serious." + +"You know, that's catchy! 'The situation on Sirius is serious'," Paul +repeated, tapping his foot. "I've often thought of trying my hand at a +musical com--" + +"I mean we have had a ser--grave population problem for the last couple +of centuries, hence our government has sent out scouts to look for other +planets with similar atmosphere, climate, gravity and so on, where we +can ship our excess population. So far, we have found very few." + +When Paul's attention was focused, he could be as quick as anybody to +put two and two together. "But Earth is already occupied. In fact, when +I was in school, I heard something about our having a population problem +ourselves." + +"The other planets we already--ah--took over were in a similar state," +Ivo explained. "We managed to surmount that difficulty." + +"How?" Paul asked, though he already suspected the answer. + +"Oh, we didn't dispose of _all_ of the inhabitants. We merely weeded out +the undesirables--who, by fortunate chance, happened to be in the +majority--and achieved a happy and peaceful coexistence with the rest." + +"But, look," Paul protested. "I mean to say----" + +"For instance," Ivo said suavely, "take the vast body of people who +watch television and who have never seen a legitimate play in their +lives and, indeed, rarely go to the motion pictures. Surely they are +expendable." + +"Well, yes, of course. But even among them there might be--oh, say, a +playwright's mother--" + +"One of the first measures our regime would take would be to establish a +vast network of community theaters throughout the world. And you, Paul, +would receive first choice of starring roles." + +"Now wait a minute!" Paul cried hotly. He seldom allowed himself to lose +his temper, but when he did ... he got _angry_! "I pride myself that +I've gotten this far wholly on my own merits. I don't believe in using +influence to--" + +"But, my dear fellow, all I meant was that, with an intelligently +coordinated theater and an intellectually adult audience, your abilities +would be recognized automatically." + +"Oh," said Paul. + +He was not unaware that he was being flattered, but it was so seldom +that anyone bothered to pay him any attention when he was not playing a +role that it was difficult not to succumb. "Are--are you figuring on +taking over the planet single-handed?" he asked curiously. + +"Heavens, no! Talented as I am, there are limits. I don't do +the--ah--dirty work myself. I just conduct the preliminary investigation +to determine how powerful the local defenses are." + +"We have hydrogen bombs," Paul said, trying to remember details of a +newspaper article he had once read in a producer's ante-room, "and +plutonium bombs and--" + +"Oh, I know about all those," Ivo smiled expertly. "My job is checking +to make sure you don't have anything really dangerous." + +All that night, Paul wrestled with his conscience. He knew he shouldn't +just let Ivo go on. Yet what else could he do? Go to the proper +authorities? But which authorities were the proper ones? And even if he +found them, who would believe an actor offstage, delivering such +improbable lines? He would either be laughed at or accused of being part +of a subversive plot. It might result in a lot of bad publicity which +could ruin his career. + +So Paul did nothing about Ivo. He went back to the usual rounds of +agents' and producers' offices, and the knowledge of why Ivo was on +Earth got pushed farther into the back of his mind as he trudged from +interview to reading to interview. + +[Illustration] + +It was an exceptionally hot October--the kind of weather when sometimes +he almost lost his faith and began to wonder why he was batting his head +against a stone wall, why he didn't get a job in a department store +somewhere or teaching school. And then he thought of the applause, the +curtain calls, the dream of some day seeing his name in lights above the +title of the play--and he knew he would never give up. Quitting the +theater would be like committing suicide, for off the stage he was alive +only technically. He was good; he knew he was good, so some day, he +assured himself, he was bound to get his big break. + +Toward the end of that month, it came. After the maximum three readings, +between which his hopes alternately waxed and waned, he was cast as the +male lead in _The Holiday Tree_. The producers were more interested, +they said, in getting someone who fitted the role of Eric Everard than +in a big name--especially since the female star preferred to have her +luster undimmed by competition. + +Rehearsals took up so much of his time that he saw very little of Ivo +for the next five weeks--but by then Ivo didn't need him any more. +Actually, they were no longer teacher and pupil now but companions, +drawn together by the fact that they both belonged to different worlds +from the one in which they were living. Insofar as he could like anyone +who existed outside of his imagination, Paul had grown rather fond of +Ivo. And he rather thought Ivo liked him, too--but, because he couldn't +ever be quite sure of ordinary people's reactions toward him, how could +he be sure of an outworlder's? + +Ivo came around to rehearsals sometimes, but naturally it would be +boring for him, since he wasn't in the profession, and, after a while, +he didn't come around very often. At first, Paul felt a twinge of guilt; +then he remembered that he need not worry. Ivo had his own work. + + * * * * * + +The whole _Holiday Tree_ troupe went out of town for the tryouts, and +Paul didn't see Ivo at all for six weeks. Busy, happy weeks they were, +for the play was a smash hit from the start. It played to packed houses +in New Haven and Boston, and the box office in New York was sold out for +months in advance before they even opened. + +"Must be kinda fun--acting," Ivo told Paul the morning after the New +York opening, as Paul weltered contentedly on his bed--he had the best +room in the house now--amid a pile of rave notices. At long last, he had +arrived. Everybody loved him. He was a success. + +And now that he had read the reviews and they were all favorable, he +could pay attention to the strange things that had happened to his +friend. Raising himself up on an elbow, Paul cried, "Ivo, you're +_mumbling_! After all I taught you about articulation!" + +"I got t'hanging 'round with this here buncha actors while y'were gone," +Ivo said. "They say mumbling's the comin' thing. 'Sides, y'kept yapping +that I declaimed, so--" + +"But you don't have to go to the opposite extreme and--_Ivo_!" +Incredulously, Paul took in the full details of the other's appearance. +"What happened to your Brooks Brothers' suits?" + +"Hung 'em inna closet," Ivo replied, looking abashed. "I did wear one +las' night, though," he went on defensively. "Wooden come dressed like +this to y'opening. But all the other fellas wear blue jeans 'n leather +jackets. I mean, hell, I gotta conform more'n anybody. Y'know that, +Paul." + +"And--" Paul sat bolt upright; this was the supreme outrage--"you've +changed yourself! You've gotten _younger_!" + +"This is an age of yout'," Ivo mumbled. "An' I figured I was 'bout ready +for improvisation, like you said." + +"Look, Ivo, if you really want to go on the stage----" + +"Hell, I don' wanna be no actor!" Ivo protested, far too vehemently. +"Y'know damn' well I'm a--a spy, scoutin' 'round t'see if y'have any +secret defenses before I make m'report." + +"I don't feel I'm giving away any government secrets," Paul said, "when +I tell you that the bastions of our defenses are not erected at the +Actors' Studio." + +"Listen, pal, you lemme spy the way I wanna an' I'll letcha act the way +you wanna." + +Paul was disturbed by this change in Ivo because, although he had +always tried to steer clear of social involvement, he could not +help feeling that the young alien had become in a measure his +responsibility--particularly now that he was a teen-ager. Paul would +even have worried about Ivo, if there hadn't been so many other things +to occupy his mind. First of all, the producers of _The Holiday Tree_ +could not resist the pressure of an adoring public; although the +original star sulked, three months after the play had opened in New +York, Paul's name went up in lights next to hers, _over the title of the +play. He was a star._ + +That was good. But then there was Gregory. And that was bad. Gregory was +Paul's understudy--a handsome, sullen youth who had, on numerous +occasions, been heard to utter words to the effect of: "It's the part +that's so good, not him. If I had the chance to play Eric Everard just +once, they'd give Lambrequin back to the Indians." + +Sometimes he had said the words in Paul's hearing; sometimes the remarks +had been lovingly passed on by fellow members of the cast who felt that +Paul ought to know. + + * * * * * + +"I don't like that Gregory," Paul told Ivo one Monday evening as they +were enjoying a quiet smoke together, for there was no performance that +night. "He used to be a juvenile delinquent, got sent to one of those +reform schools where they use acting as therapy and it turned out to be +his _métier_. But you never know when that kind'll hear the call of the +wild again." + +"Aaaah, he's a good kid," Ivo said. "He just never had a chanct." + +"Trouble is, I'm afraid he's going to _make_ himself a chanct--chance, +that is." + +"Aaaah," retorted Ivo, with prideful inarticulateness. + +However, when at six-thirty that Friday, Paul fell over a wire stretched +between the jambs of the doorway leading to his private bathroom and +broke a leg, even Ivo was forced to admit that this did not look like an +accident. + +"Ivo," Paul wailed when the doctor had left, "what am I going to do? I +refuse to let Gregory go on in my place tonight!" + +"Y'gonna hafta," Ivo said, shifting his gum to the other side of his +mouth. "He's y'unnastudy." + +"But the doctor said it would be weeks before I can get around again. +Either Gregory'll take over the part completely with his interpretation +and I'll be left out in the cold, or more likely, he'll louse up the +play and it'll fold before I'm on my feet." + +"Y'gotta have more confidence in y'self, kid. The public ain't gonna +forgetcha in a few weeks." + +But Paul knew far better than the idealistic Ivo how fickle the public +can be. However, he chose an argument that would appeal to the boy. +"Don't forget, he booby-trapped me!" + +"Cert'ny looks like it," Ivo was forced to concede. "But watcha gonna +do? Y'can't prove it. 'Sides, the curtain's gonna gwup in a li'l over a +nour--" + +Paul gripped Ivo's sinewy wrist. "Ivo, you've got to go on for me!" + +"Y'got rocks in y'head or somepin?" Ivo demanded, trying not to look +pleased. "I ain't gotta Nequity card, and even if I did, _he's_ +y'unnastudy." + +"No, you don't understand. I don't want you to go on as Ivo Darcy +playing Eric Everard. I want you to go on as Paul Lambrequin playing +Eric Everard. _You can do it, Ivo!_" + +"Good Lord, so I can!" Ivo whispered, temporarily neglecting to mumble. +"I'd almost forgotten." + +"You know my lines, too. You've cued me in my part often enough." + +Ivo rubbed his hand over his forehead. "Yeah, I guess I do." + +"Ivo," Paul beseeched him, "I thought we were--pals. I don't want to ask +any favors, but I helped you out when you were in trouble. I always +figured I could rely on you. I never thought you'd let me down." + +"An' I won't." Ivo gripped Paul's hand. "I'll go on t'night 'n play 'at +part like it ain't never been played before! I'll--" + +"No! No! Play it the way I played it. You're supposed to be _me_, Ivo! +Forget Strasberg; go back to Stanislavsky." + +"Okay, pal," Ivo said. "Will do." + +"And promise me one thing, Ivo. Promise me _you won't mumble_." + +Ivo winced. "Okay, but you're the on'y one I'd do 'at for." + +Slowly, he began to shimmer. Paul held his breath. Maybe Ivo had +forgotten how to transmute himself. But technique triumphed over method. +Ivo Darcy gradually coalesced into the semblance of Paul Lambrequin. The +show would go on! + + * * * * * + +"Well, how was everything?" Paul asked anxiously when Ivo came into his +room shortly after midnight. + +"Pretty good," Ivo said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Gregory +was extremely surprised to see me--asked me half a dozen times how I was +feeling." Ivo was not only articulating, Paul was gratified to notice; +he was enunciating. + +"But the show--how did that go? Did anyone suspect you were a ringer?" + +"No," Ivo said slowly. "No, I don't think so. I got twelve curtain +calls," he added, staring straight ahead of him with a dreamy smile. +"Twelve." + +"Friday nights, the audience is always enthusiastic." Then Paul +swallowed hard and said, "Besides, I'm sure you were great in the role." + +But Ivo didn't seem to hear him. Ivo was still wrapped in his golden +daze. "Just before the curtain went up, I didn't think I was going to be +able to do it. I began to feel all quivery inside, the way I do before +I--I change." + +"Butterflies in the stomach is the professional term." Paul nodded +wisely. "A really good actor gets them before every performance. No +matter how many times I play a role, there's that minute when the house +lights start to dim when I'm in an absolute panic--" + +"--And then the curtain went up and I was all right. I was fine. I was +Paul Lambrequin. I was Eric Everard. I was--everything." + +"Ivo," Paul said, clapping him on the shoulder, "you're a born trouper." + +"Yes," Ivo murmured, "I'm beginning to think so myself." + +For the next four weeks, Paul Lambrequin lurked in his room while Ivo +Darcy played Paul Lambrequin playing Eric Everard. + +"It's terrific of you to take all this time away from your duties, old +chap," Paul said to Ivo one day between the matinee and the evening +performances. "I really do appreciate it. Although I suppose you've +managed to squeeze some of them in. I never see you on non-matinee +afternoons." + +"Duties?" Ivo repeated vacantly. "Yes, of course--my duties." + +"Let me give you some professional advice, though. Be more careful when +you take off your makeup. There's still some grease paint in the roots +of your hair." + +"Sloppy of me," Ivo agreed, getting to work with a towel. + +"I can't understand why you bother to put on the stuff at all," Paul +grinned, "when all you need to do is just change a little more." + +"I know." Ivo rubbed his temples vigorously. "I suppose I just like +the--smell of the stuff." + +"Ivo," Paul laughed, "there's no use trying to kid me; you are +stagestruck. I'm sure I have enough pull now to get you a bit part +somewhere, when I'm up and around again, and then you can get yourself +an Equity card. Maybe," he added amusedly, "I can even have you replace +Gregory as my understudy." + + * * * * * + +Later, in retrospect, Paul thought perhaps there had been a curious +expression in Ivo's eyes, but right then he'd had no inkling that +anything untoward was up. He did not find out what had been at the back +of Ivo's mind until the Sunday before the Tuesday on which he was +planning to resume his role. + +"Lord, it's going to be good to feel that stage under my feet again," he +said as he went through a series of complicated limbering-up exercises +of his own devisement, which he had sometimes thought of publishing as +_The Lambrequin Time and Motion Studies_. It seemed unfair to keep them +from other actors. + +Ivo turned around from the mirror in which he had been contemplating +their mutual beauty, "Paul," he said quietly, "you're never going to +feel that stage under your feet again." + +Paul sat on the floor and stared at him. + +"You see, Paul," Ivo said, "I am Paul Lambrequin now. I am more Paul +Lambrequin than I was--whoever I was on my native planet. I am more Paul +Lambrequin than _you_ ever were. You learned the part superficially, +Paul, but I really _feel_ it." + +"It's not a part," Paul said querulously. "It's me. I've always been +Paul Lambrequin." + +"How can you be sure of that? You've had so many identities, why should +this be the true one? No, you only _think_ you're Paul Lambrequin. I +_know_ I am." + +"Dammit," Paul said, "that's the identity in which I've taken out Equity +membership. And be reasonable, Ivo--there can't be two Paul +Lambrequins." + +Ivo smiled sadly. "No, Paul, you're right. There can't." + +Of course Paul had known all along that Ivo was not a human being. It +was only now, however, that full realization came to him of what a +ruthless alien monster the other was, existing only to gratify his own +purposes, unaware that others had a right to exist. + +"Are--are you going to--dispose of me, then?" Paul asked faintly. + +"To dispose of you, yes, Paul. But not to kill you. My kind has killed +enough, conquered enough. We have no real population problem; that was +just an excuse we made to salve our own consciences." + +"You have consciences, do you?" Paul's face twisted in a sneer that he +himself sensed right away was overly melodramatic and utterly +unconvincing. Somehow, he could never be really genuine offstage. + +Ivo made a sweeping gesture. "Don't be bitter, Paul. Of course we do. +All intelligent life-forms do. It's one of the penalties of sentience!" + +For a moment, Paul forgot himself. "Watch it, Ivo. You're beginning to +ham up your lines." + +"We can institute birth control," Ivo went on, his manner subdued. "We +can build taller buildings. Oh, there are many ways we can cope with the +population increase. That's not the problem. The problem is how to +divert our creative energies from destruction to construction. And I +think I have solved it." + +"How will your people know you have," Paul asked cunningly, "since you +say you're not going back?" + +"_I_ am not going back to Sirius, Paul--_you_ are. It is you who are +going to teach my people the art of peace to replace the art of war." + +Paul felt himself turn what was probably a very effective white. +"But--but I can't even speak the language! I--" + +"You will learn the language during the journey. I spent those +afternoons I was away making a set of _Sirian-in-a-Jiffy_ records for +you. Sirian's a beautiful language, Paul, much more expressive than any +of your Earth languages. You'll like it." + +"I'm sure I shall, but--" + +"Paul, you are going to bring my people the outlet for self-expression +they have always needed. You see, I lied to you. The theater on Sirius +is not in its infancy; it has never been conceived. If it had been, we +would never have become what we are today. Can you imagine--a race like +mine, so superbly fitted to practice the dramatic art, remaining in +blind ignorance that such an art exists!" + +"It does seem a terrible waste," Paul had to agree, although he could +not be truly sympathetic just then. "But I am hardly equipped--" + +"Who is better equipped than you to meet this mighty challenge? Can't +you see that at long last you will be able to achieve your great +synthesis of the theatrical arts--as producer, teacher, director, actor, +playwright, whatever you will, working with a cast of individuals who +can assume any shape or form, who have no preconceived notions of what +can be done and what cannot. Oh, Paul, what a glorious opportunity +awaits you on Sirius V. How I envy you!" + +"Then why don't you do it yourself?" Paul asked. + +Ivo smiled sadly again. "Unfortunately, I do not have your manifold +abilities. All I can do is act. Superbly, of course, but that's all. I +don't have the capacity to build a living theater from scratch. You do. +I have talent, Paul, but you have genius." + +"It _is_ a temptation," Paul admitted. "But to leave my own world...." + +"Paul, Earth isn't your world. You carry yours along with you wherever +you go. Your world exists in the mind and heart, not in reality. In any +real situation, you're just as uncomfortable on Earth as you would be on +Sirius." + +"Yes, but--" + +"Think of it this way, Paul. You're not leaving your world. You're just +leaving Earth to go on the road. It's a longer road, but look at what's +waiting for you at the end of it." + +"Yes, look," Paul said, reality very much to the fore in his mind and +heart at that moment, "death or vivisection." + +"Paul, do you believe I'd do that to you?" There were tears in Ivo's +eyes. If he was acting, he was a great performer. _I really am one hell +of a good teacher_, Paul thought, _and with lots of raw material like +Ivo to work with, I could.... Could he really mean what he's saying_? + +"They won't harm you, Paul, because you will come to Sirius bearing a +message from me. You will tell my people that Earth has a powerful +defensive weapon and you have come to teach them its secret. And it's +true, Paul. The theater is your world's most powerful weapon, its best +defense against the universal enemy--reality." + +"Ivo," Paul said, "you really must check that tendency toward bombast. +Especially with a purple speech like that; you've simply got to learn to +underplay. You'll watch out for that when I'm gone, won't you?" + +"I will!" Ivo's face lighted up. "Oh, I will, Paul. I promise never to +chew the scenery again. I won't so much as nibble on a prop!" + + * * * * * + +The next day, the two of them went up to Bear Mountain where Ivo's ship +had been cached all those months. Ivo explained to Paul how the controls +worked and showed him where the clean towels were. + +Pausing in the airlock, Paul looked back toward Manhattan. "I'd dreamed +so many years of seeing my name up in lights on Broadway," he murmured, +"and now, just when I made it--" + +"I'll keep it up there," Ivo vowed. "I promise. And, meanwhile, you'll +be building a new Broadway up there in the stars!" + +"Yes," Paul said dreamily, "that is something to look forward to, isn't +it?" Fresh, enthusiastic audiences, performers untrammeled by tradition, +a cooperative government, unlimited funds--why, there was a whole +wonderful new world opening up before him. + +"--In another ten years or so," Ivo was saying, "Sirian actors will be +coming to Earth in droves, making the native performers look sick--" + +Paul smiled wisely. "Now, Ivo, you know Equity would never stand for +_that_." + +"Equity won't be able to help itself. Public pressure will surge upward +in a mounting wave and--" Ivo stopped. "Sorry. I was ranting again, +wasn't I? It's being out in the open air that does it. I need to be +bounded by the four walls of a theater." + +"That's a fallacy," Paul began. "On the Greek stage--" + +"Save that for the stars, fella," Ivo smiled. "You've got to leave +before it gets light." Then he wrung Paul's hand. "Good-by, kid," he +said. "You'll knock 'em dead on Sirius." + +"Good-by, Ivo." Paul returned the grip. Then he got inside and closed +the airlock door behind him. He did hope Ivo would correct that tendency +toward declamation; on the other hand, it was certainly better than +mumbling. + +Paul put a _Sirian-in-a-jiffy_ record on the turntable, because he might +as well start learning the language right away. Of course he'd have no +one to talk to but himself for many months, but then, when all was said +and done, he was his own favorite audience. He strapped himself into the +acceleration couch and prepared for take-off. + +"Next week, _East Lynne_," he said to himself. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Fair Planet, by Evelyn E. 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Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: My Fair Planet + +Author: Evelyn E. Smith + +Illustrator: DILLON + +Release Date: March 15, 2010 [EBook #31648] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY FAIR PLANET *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>My Fair Planet</h1> + +<h2>By EVELYN E. SMITH</h2> + +<h3>Illustrated by DILLON</h3> + +<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction +March 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the +U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>All the world's a stage, so there was room even for this bad +actor ... only he intended to direct it!</i></div> + +<p>As Paul Lambrequin was clambering up the stairs of his rooming house, he +met a man whose face was all wrong. "Good evening," Paul said politely +and was about to continue on his way when the man stopped him.</p> + +<p>"You are the first person I have encountered in this place who has not +shuttered at the sight of me," he said in a toneless voice with an +accent that was outside the standard repertoire.</p> + +<p>"Am I?" Paul asked, bringing himself back from one of the roseate dreams +with which he kept himself insulated from a not-too-kind reality. "I +daresay that's because I'm a bit near-sighted." He peered vaguely at +the stranger. Then he recoiled.</p> + +<p>"What is incorrect about me, then?" the stranger demanded. "Do I not +have two eyes, one nose and one mouth, the identical as other people?"</p> + +<p>Paul studied the other man. "Yes, but somehow they seem to be put +together all wrong. Not that you can help it, of course," he added +apologetically, for, when he thought of it, he hated to hurt people's +feelings.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I can, for, of a truth, 'twas I who put myself together. What did +I do amiss?"</p> + +<p>Paul looked consideringly at him. "I can't quite put my finger on it, +but there are certain subtle nuances you just don't seem to have caught. +If you want my professional advice, you'll model yourself directly on +some real person until you've got the knack of improvisation."</p> + +<p>"Like unto this?" The stranger's outline shimmered and blurred into an +amorphous cloud, which then coalesced into the shape of a tall, +beautiful young man with the face of an ingenuous demon. "Behold, is +that superior?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, far superior!" Paul reached up to adjust a stray lock of hair, then +realized he was not looking into a mirror. "Trouble is—well, I'd rather +you chose someone else to model yourself on. You see, in my profession, +it's important to look as unique as possible; helps people remember you. +I'm an actor, you know. Currently I happen to be at liberty, but the +year before last—"</p> + +<p>"Well, whom should I appear like? Should I perhaps pick some fine +upstanding figure from your public prints to emulate? Like your +President, perhaply?"</p> + +<p>"I—hardly think so. It wouldn't do to model yourself on someone well +known—or even someone obscure whom you might just happen to run into +someday." Being a kind-hearted young man, Paul added, "Come up to my +room. I have some British film magazines and there are lots of +relatively obscure English actors who are very decent-looking chaps."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>So they climbed up to Paul's hot little room under the eaves and, after +leafing through several magazines, Paul chose one Ivo Darcy as a likely +candidate. Whereupon the stranger deliquesced and reformed into the +personable simulacrum of young Mr. Darcy.</p> + +<p>"That's quite a trick," Paul observed as it finally got through to him +what the other had done. "It would come in handy in the profession—for +character parts, you know."</p> + +<p>"I fear you would never be able to acquisition it," the stranger said, +surveying his new self in the mirror complacently. "It is not a trick +but a racial ableness. You see, I feel I can trust you—"</p> + +<p>"—Of course I'm not really a character actor; I'm a leading man, but I +believe one should be versatile, because there are times when a really +good character part comes along—"</p> + +<p>"—I am not a human being. I am a native of the fifth planet circulating +around the star you call Sirius, and we Sirians have the ableness to +change ourselves into the apparition of any other livid form—"</p> + +<p>"I thought that might be a near-Eastern accent!" Paul exclaimed, +diverted. "Is Lebanese anything like it? Because I understand there's a +really juicy part coming up in—"</p> + +<p>"I said <i>Sirian</i>, not <i>Syrian</i>; I do not come from Minor Asia but from +outer space, from an other-where solar system. I am an outworlder, an +extraterrestrial."</p> + +<p>"I hope you had a nice trip," Paul said politely. "From Sirius, did you +say? What's the state of the theater there?"</p> + +<p>"In its infanticide," the stranger told him, "but—"</p> + +<p>"Let's face it," Paul muttered bitterly, "it's in its infancy here, too. +No over-all planning. No appreciation of the fact that all the +components that go to make up a production should be a continuing +totality, instead of a tenuous coalition of separate forces which +disintegrate—"</p> + +<p>"You, I comprehend, are disemployed at current. I should—"</p> + +<p>"You won't find that situation in Russia!" Paul went on, pleased to +discover a sympathetic audience in this intelligent foreigner. "Mind +you," he added quickly, "I disapprove entirely of their politics. In +fact, I disapprove of all politics. But when it comes to the theater, in +many respects the Russians—"</p> + +<p>"—Like to make a proposal to our mutual advanceage—"</p> + +<p>"—You wouldn't find an actor there playing a lead role one season and +then not be able to get any parts except summer stock and odd bits for +the next two years. All right, so the show I had the lead in folded +after two weeks, but the critics all raved about my performance. It was +the play that stank!"</p> + +<p>"Will you terminate the monologue and hearken unto me!" the alien +shouted.</p> + +<p>Paul stopped talking. His feelings were hurt. He had thought Ivo liked +him; now he saw all the outworlder wanted to do was talk about his own +problems.</p> + +<p>"I desire to extend to you a position," said Ivo.</p> + +<p>"I can't take a regular job," Paul said sulkily. "I have to be available +for interviews. Fellow I knew took a job in a store and, when he was +called to read for a part, he couldn't get away. The fellow who did get +that part became a big star, and maybe the other fellow could have been +a star, too, but now all he is is a lousy chairman of the board of some +department store chain—"</p> + +<p>"This work can be undergone at your convention between readings and +interviews, whenever you have the timing. I shall pay you beautifully, +being abundant with U.S.A. currency. I want you to teach me how to act."</p> + +<p>"Teach you how to act," Paul repeated, rather intrigued. "Well, I'm not +a dramatic coach, you know; however, I do happen to have some ideas on +the subject. I feel that most acting teachers nowadays fail to give +their students a really thorough grounding in all aspects of the +dramatic art. All they talk about is method, method, method. But what +about technique?"</p> + +<p>"I have observed your species with great diligence and I thought I had +acquisitioned your habits and speakings to perfectness. But I fear that, +like my initial face, I have got them awry. I want you to teach me to +act like a human being, to talk like a human being, to think like a +human being."</p> + +<p>Paul's attention was really caught. "Well, that <i>is</i> a challenge! I +don't suppose Stanislavsky ever had to teach an extraterrestrial, or +even Strasberg—"</p> + +<p>"Then we are in accordance," Ivo said. "You will instruction me?" He +essayed a smile.</p> + +<p>Paul shuddered. "Very well," he said. "We'll start now. And I think the +first thing we'd better start with is lessons in smiling."</p> + +<p>Ivo proved to be a quick study. He not only learned to smile, but to +frown and to express surprise, pleasure, horror—whatever the occasion +demanded. He learned the knack of counterfeiting humanity with such +skill that, Paul was moved to remark one afternoon when they were +leaving Brooks Brothers after a fitting, "Sometimes you seem even more +human than I do, Ivo. I wish you'd watch out for that tendency to rant, +though. You're supposed to speak, not make speeches."</p> + +<p>"I try not to," Ivo said, "but I keep getting carried away by +enthusiasm."</p> + +<p>"Apparently I have a real flair for teaching," Paul went on as, expertly +camouflaged by Brooks, the two young men melted into the dense +charcoal-gray underbrush of Madison Avenue. "I seem to be even more +versatile than I thought. Perhaps I have been—well, not wasting but +limiting my talents."</p> + +<p>"That may be because your talents have not been sufficiently +appreciated," his star pupil suggested, "or given enough scope."</p> + +<p>Ivo was so perceptive! "As a matter of fact," Paul agreed, "it has often +seemed to me that if some really gifted individual, equally adept at +acting, directing, producing, playwriting, teaching, et al., were to +undertake a thorough synthesis of the theater—ah, but that would cost +money," he interrupted himself, "and who would underwrite such a +project? Certainly not the government of the United States." He gave a +bitter laugh.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, under a new regime, conditions might be more favorable for the +artist—"</p> + +<p>"Shhh!" Paul looked nervously over his shoulder. "There are Senators +everywhere. Besides, I never said things were <i>good</i> in Russia, just +<i>better</i>—for the actor, that is. Of course the plays are atrocious +propaganda—"</p> + +<p>"I was not referring to another human regime. The human being is, at +best, save for certain choice spirits, unsympathetic to the arts. We +outworlders have a far greater respect for things of the mind."</p> + +<p>Paul opened his mouth; Ivo continued without giving him a chance to +speak, "No doubt you have often wondered just what I am doing here on +Earth?"</p> + +<p>The question had never crossed Paul's mind. Feeling vaguely guilty, he +murmured, "Some people have funny ideas of where to go for a vacation."</p> + +<p>"I am here on business," Ivo told him. "The situation on Sirius is +serious."</p> + +<p>"You know, that's catchy! 'The situation on Sirius is serious'," Paul +repeated, tapping his foot. "I've often thought of trying my hand at a +musical com—"</p> + +<p>"I mean we have had a ser—grave population problem for the last couple +of centuries, hence our government has sent out scouts to look for other +planets with similar atmosphere, climate, gravity and so on, where we +can ship our excess population. So far, we have found very few."</p> + +<p>When Paul's attention was focused, he could be as quick as anybody to +put two and two together. "But Earth is already occupied. In fact, when +I was in school, I heard something about our having a population problem +ourselves."</p> + +<p>"The other planets we already—ah—took over were in a similar state," +Ivo explained. "We managed to surmount that difficulty."</p> + +<p>"How?" Paul asked, though he already suspected the answer.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we didn't dispose of <i>all</i> of the inhabitants. We merely weeded out +the undesirables—who, by fortunate chance, happened to be in the +majority—and achieved a happy and peaceful coexistence with the rest."</p> + +<p>"But, look," Paul protested. "I mean to say——"</p> + +<p>"For instance," Ivo said suavely, "take the vast body of people who +watch television and who have never seen a legitimate play in their +lives and, indeed, rarely go to the motion pictures. Surely they are +expendable."</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, of course. But even among them there might be—oh, say, a +playwright's mother—"</p> + +<p>"One of the first measures our regime would take would be to establish a +vast network of community theaters throughout the world. And you, Paul, +would receive first choice of starring roles."</p> + +<p>"Now wait a minute!" Paul cried hotly. He seldom allowed himself to lose +his temper, but when he did ... he got <i>angry</i>! "I pride myself that +I've gotten this far wholly on my own merits. I don't believe in using +influence to—"</p> + +<p>"But, my dear fellow, all I meant was that, with an intelligently +coordinated theater and an intellectually adult audience, your abilities +would be recognized automatically."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Paul.</p> + +<p>He was not unaware that he was being flattered, but it was so seldom +that anyone bothered to pay him any attention when he was not playing a +role that it was difficult not to succumb. "Are—are you figuring on +taking over the planet single-handed?" he asked curiously.</p> + +<p>"Heavens, no! Talented as I am, there are limits. I don't do +the—ah—dirty work myself. I just conduct the preliminary investigation +to determine how powerful the local defenses are."</p> + +<p>"We have hydrogen bombs," Paul said, trying to remember details of a +newspaper article he had once read in a producer's ante-room, "and +plutonium bombs and—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know about all those," Ivo smiled expertly. "My job is checking +to make sure you don't have anything really dangerous."</p> + +<p>All that night, Paul wrestled with his conscience. He knew he shouldn't +just let Ivo go on. Yet what else could he do? Go to the proper +authorities? But which authorities were the proper ones? And even if he +found them, who would believe an actor offstage, delivering such +improbable lines? He would either be laughed at or accused of being part +of a subversive plot. It might result in a lot of bad publicity which +could ruin his career.</p> + +<p>So Paul did nothing about Ivo. He went back to the usual rounds of +agents' and producers' offices, and the knowledge of why Ivo was on +Earth got pushed farther into the back of his mind as he trudged from +interview to reading to interview.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus1" id="illus1"></a> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>It was an exceptionally hot October—the kind of weather when sometimes +he almost lost his faith and began to wonder why he was batting his head +against a stone wall, why he didn't get a job in a department store +somewhere or teaching school. And then he thought of the applause, the +curtain calls, the dream of some day seeing his name in lights above the +title of the play—and he knew he would never give up. Quitting the +theater would be like committing suicide, for off the stage he was alive +only technically. He was good; he knew he was good, so some day, he +assured himself, he was bound to get his big break.</p> + +<p>Toward the end of that month, it came. After the maximum three readings, +between which his hopes alternately waxed and waned, he was cast as the +male lead in <i>The Holiday Tree</i>. The producers were more interested, +they said, in getting someone who fitted the role of Eric Everard than +in a big name—especially since the female star preferred to have her +luster undimmed by competition.</p> + +<p>Rehearsals took up so much of his time that he saw very little of Ivo +for the next five weeks—but by then Ivo didn't need him any more. +Actually, they were no longer teacher and pupil now but companions, +drawn together by the fact that they both belonged to different worlds +from the one in which they were living. Insofar as he could like anyone +who existed outside of his imagination, Paul had grown rather fond of +Ivo. And he rather thought Ivo liked him, too—but, because he couldn't +ever be quite sure of ordinary people's reactions toward him, how could +he be sure of an outworlder's?</p> + +<p>Ivo came around to rehearsals sometimes, but naturally it would be +boring for him, since he wasn't in the profession, and, after a while, +he didn't come around very often. At first, Paul felt a twinge of guilt; +then he remembered that he need not worry. Ivo had his own work.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The whole <i>Holiday Tree</i> troupe went out of town for the tryouts, and +Paul didn't see Ivo at all for six weeks. Busy, happy weeks they were, +for the play was a smash hit from the start. It played to packed houses +in New Haven and Boston, and the box office in New York was sold out for +months in advance before they even opened.</p> + +<p>"Must be kinda fun—acting," Ivo told Paul the morning after the New +York opening, as Paul weltered contentedly on his bed—he had the best +room in the house now—amid a pile of rave notices. At long last, he had +arrived. Everybody loved him. He was a success.</p> + +<p>And now that he had read the reviews and they were all favorable, he +could pay attention to the strange things that had happened to his +friend. Raising himself up on an elbow, Paul cried, "Ivo, you're +<i>mumbling</i>! After all I taught you about articulation!"</p> + +<p>"I got t'hanging 'round with this here buncha actors while y'were gone," +Ivo said. "They say mumbling's the comin' thing. 'Sides, y'kept yapping +that I declaimed, so—"</p> + +<p>"But you don't have to go to the opposite extreme and—<i>Ivo</i>!" +Incredulously, Paul took in the full details of the other's appearance. +"What happened to your Brooks Brothers' suits?"</p> + +<p>"Hung 'em inna closet," Ivo replied, looking abashed. "I did wear one +las' night, though," he went on defensively. "Wooden come dressed like +this to y'opening. But all the other fellas wear blue jeans 'n leather +jackets. I mean, hell, I gotta conform more'n anybody. Y'know that, +Paul."</p> + +<p>"And—" Paul sat bolt upright; this was the supreme outrage—"you've +changed yourself! You've gotten <i>younger</i>!"</p> + +<p>"This is an age of yout'," Ivo mumbled. "An' I figured I was 'bout ready +for improvisation, like you said."</p> + +<p>"Look, Ivo, if you really want to go on the stage——"</p> + +<p>"Hell, I don' wanna be no actor!" Ivo protested, far too vehemently. +"Y'know damn' well I'm a—a spy, scoutin' 'round t'see if y'have any +secret defenses before I make m'report."</p> + +<p>"I don't feel I'm giving away any government secrets," Paul said, "when +I tell you that the bastions of our defenses are not erected at the +Actors' Studio."</p> + +<p>"Listen, pal, you lemme spy the way I wanna an' I'll letcha act the way +you wanna."</p> + +<p>Paul was disturbed by this change in Ivo because, although he had +always tried to steer clear of social involvement, he could not +help feeling that the young alien had become in a measure his +responsibility—particularly now that he was a teen-ager. Paul would +even have worried about Ivo, if there hadn't been so many other things +to occupy his mind. First of all, the producers of <i>The Holiday Tree</i> +could not resist the pressure of an adoring public; although the +original star sulked, three months after the play had opened in New +York, Paul's name went up in lights next to hers, <i>over the title of the +play. He was a star.</i></p> + +<p>That was good. But then there was Gregory. And that was bad. Gregory was +Paul's understudy—a handsome, sullen youth who had, on numerous +occasions, been heard to utter words to the effect of: "It's the part +that's so good, not him. If I had the chance to play Eric Everard just +once, they'd give Lambrequin back to the Indians."</p> + +<p>Sometimes he had said the words in Paul's hearing; sometimes the remarks +had been lovingly passed on by fellow members of the cast who felt that +Paul ought to know.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"I don't like that Gregory," Paul told Ivo one Monday evening as they +were enjoying a quiet smoke together, for there was no performance that +night. "He used to be a juvenile delinquent, got sent to one of those +reform schools where they use acting as therapy and it turned out to be +his <i>métier</i>. But you never know when that kind'll hear the call of the +wild again."</p> + +<p>"Aaaah, he's a good kid," Ivo said. "He just never had a chanct."</p> + +<p>"Trouble is, I'm afraid he's going to <i>make</i> himself a chanct—chance, +that is."</p> + +<p>"Aaaah," retorted Ivo, with prideful inarticulateness.</p> + +<p>However, when at six-thirty that Friday, Paul fell over a wire stretched +between the jambs of the doorway leading to his private bathroom and +broke a leg, even Ivo was forced to admit that this did not look like an +accident.</p> + +<p>"Ivo," Paul wailed when the doctor had left, "what am I going to do? I +refuse to let Gregory go on in my place tonight!"</p> + +<p>"Y'gonna hafta," Ivo said, shifting his gum to the other side of his +mouth. "He's y'unnastudy."</p> + +<p>"But the doctor said it would be weeks before I can get around again. +Either Gregory'll take over the part completely with his interpretation +and I'll be left out in the cold, or more likely, he'll louse up the +play and it'll fold before I'm on my feet."</p> + +<p>"Y'gotta have more confidence in y'self, kid. The public ain't gonna +forgetcha in a few weeks."</p> + +<p>But Paul knew far better than the idealistic Ivo how fickle the public +can be. However, he chose an argument that would appeal to the boy. +"Don't forget, he booby-trapped me!"</p> + +<p>"Cert'ny looks like it," Ivo was forced to concede. "But watcha gonna +do? Y'can't prove it. 'Sides, the curtain's gonna gwup in a li'l over a +nour—"</p> + +<p>Paul gripped Ivo's sinewy wrist. "Ivo, you've got to go on for me!"</p> + +<p>"Y'got rocks in y'head or somepin?" Ivo demanded, trying not to look +pleased. "I ain't gotta Nequity card, and even if I did, <i>he's</i> +y'unnastudy."</p> + +<p>"No, you don't understand. I don't want you to go on as Ivo Darcy +playing Eric Everard. I want you to go on as Paul Lambrequin playing +Eric Everard. <i>You can do it, Ivo!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Good Lord, so I can!" Ivo whispered, temporarily neglecting to mumble. +"I'd almost forgotten."</p> + +<p>"You know my lines, too. You've cued me in my part often enough."</p> + +<p>Ivo rubbed his hand over his forehead. "Yeah, I guess I do."</p> + +<p>"Ivo," Paul beseeched him, "I thought we were—pals. I don't want to ask +any favors, but I helped you out when you were in trouble. I always +figured I could rely on you. I never thought you'd let me down."</p> + +<p>"An' I won't." Ivo gripped Paul's hand. "I'll go on t'night 'n play 'at +part like it ain't never been played before! I'll—"</p> + +<p>"No! No! Play it the way I played it. You're supposed to be <i>me</i>, Ivo! +Forget Strasberg; go back to Stanislavsky."</p> + +<p>"Okay, pal," Ivo said. "Will do."</p> + +<p>"And promise me one thing, Ivo. Promise me <i>you won't mumble</i>."</p> + +<p>Ivo winced. "Okay, but you're the on'y one I'd do 'at for."</p> + +<p>Slowly, he began to shimmer. Paul held his breath. Maybe Ivo had +forgotten how to transmute himself. But technique triumphed over method. +Ivo Darcy gradually coalesced into the semblance of Paul Lambrequin. The +show would go on!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Well, how was everything?" Paul asked anxiously when Ivo came into his +room shortly after midnight.</p> + +<p>"Pretty good," Ivo said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Gregory +was extremely surprised to see me—asked me half a dozen times how I was +feeling." Ivo was not only articulating, Paul was gratified to notice; +he was enunciating.</p> + +<p>"But the show—how did that go? Did anyone suspect you were a ringer?"</p> + +<p>"No," Ivo said slowly. "No, I don't think so. I got twelve curtain +calls," he added, staring straight ahead of him with a dreamy smile. +"Twelve."</p> + +<p>"Friday nights, the audience is always enthusiastic." Then Paul +swallowed hard and said, "Besides, I'm sure you were great in the role."</p> + +<p>But Ivo didn't seem to hear him. Ivo was still wrapped in his golden +daze. "Just before the curtain went up, I didn't think I was going to be +able to do it. I began to feel all quivery inside, the way I do before +I—I change."</p> + +<p>"Butterflies in the stomach is the professional term." Paul nodded +wisely. "A really good actor gets them before every performance. No +matter how many times I play a role, there's that minute when the house +lights start to dim when I'm in an absolute panic—"</p> + +<p>"—And then the curtain went up and I was all right. I was fine. I was +Paul Lambrequin. I was Eric Everard. I was—everything."</p> + +<p>"Ivo," Paul said, clapping him on the shoulder, "you're a born trouper."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Ivo murmured, "I'm beginning to think so myself."</p> + +<p>For the next four weeks, Paul Lambrequin lurked in his room while Ivo +Darcy played Paul Lambrequin playing Eric Everard.</p> + +<p>"It's terrific of you to take all this time away from your duties, old +chap," Paul said to Ivo one day between the matinee and the evening +performances. "I really do appreciate it. Although I suppose you've +managed to squeeze some of them in. I never see you on non-matinee +afternoons."</p> + +<p>"Duties?" Ivo repeated vacantly. "Yes, of course—my duties."</p> + +<p>"Let me give you some professional advice, though. Be more careful when +you take off your makeup. There's still some grease paint in the roots +of your hair."</p> + +<p>"Sloppy of me," Ivo agreed, getting to work with a towel.</p> + +<p>"I can't understand why you bother to put on the stuff at all," Paul +grinned, "when all you need to do is just change a little more."</p> + +<p>"I know." Ivo rubbed his temples vigorously. "I suppose I just like +the—smell of the stuff."</p> + +<p>"Ivo," Paul laughed, "there's no use trying to kid me; you are +stagestruck. I'm sure I have enough pull now to get you a bit part +somewhere, when I'm up and around again, and then you can get yourself +an Equity card. Maybe," he added amusedly, "I can even have you replace +Gregory as my understudy."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Later, in retrospect, Paul thought perhaps there had been a curious +expression in Ivo's eyes, but right then he'd had no inkling that +anything untoward was up. He did not find out what had been at the back +of Ivo's mind until the Sunday before the Tuesday on which he was +planning to resume his role.</p> + +<p>"Lord, it's going to be good to feel that stage under my feet again," he +said as he went through a series of complicated limbering-up exercises +of his own devisement, which he had sometimes thought of publishing as +<i>The Lambrequin Time and Motion Studies</i>. It seemed unfair to keep them +from other actors.</p> + +<p>Ivo turned around from the mirror in which he had been contemplating +their mutual beauty, "Paul," he said quietly, "you're never going to +feel that stage under your feet again."</p> + +<p>Paul sat on the floor and stared at him.</p> + +<p>"You see, Paul," Ivo said, "I am Paul Lambrequin now. I am more Paul +Lambrequin than I was—whoever I was on my native planet. I am more Paul +Lambrequin than <i>you</i> ever were. You learned the part superficially, +Paul, but I really <i>feel</i> it."</p> + +<p>"It's not a part," Paul said querulously. "It's me. I've always been +Paul Lambrequin."</p> + +<p>"How can you be sure of that? You've had so many identities, why should +this be the true one? No, you only <i>think</i> you're Paul Lambrequin. I +<i>know</i> I am."</p> + +<p>"Dammit," Paul said, "that's the identity in which I've taken out Equity +membership. And be reasonable, Ivo—there can't be two Paul +Lambrequins."</p> + +<p>Ivo smiled sadly. "No, Paul, you're right. There can't."</p> + +<p>Of course Paul had known all along that Ivo was not a human being. It +was only now, however, that full realization came to him of what a +ruthless alien monster the other was, existing only to gratify his own +purposes, unaware that others had a right to exist.</p> + +<p>"Are—are you going to—dispose of me, then?" Paul asked faintly.</p> + +<p>"To dispose of you, yes, Paul. But not to kill you. My kind has killed +enough, conquered enough. We have no real population problem; that was +just an excuse we made to salve our own consciences."</p> + +<p>"You have consciences, do you?" Paul's face twisted in a sneer that he +himself sensed right away was overly melodramatic and utterly +unconvincing. Somehow, he could never be really genuine offstage.</p> + +<p>Ivo made a sweeping gesture. "Don't be bitter, Paul. Of course we do. +All intelligent life-forms do. It's one of the penalties of sentience!"</p> + +<p>For a moment, Paul forgot himself. "Watch it, Ivo. You're beginning to +ham up your lines."</p> + +<p>"We can institute birth control," Ivo went on, his manner subdued. "We +can build taller buildings. Oh, there are many ways we can cope with the +population increase. That's not the problem. The problem is how to +divert our creative energies from destruction to construction. And I +think I have solved it."</p> + +<p>"How will your people know you have," Paul asked cunningly, "since you +say you're not going back?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> am not going back to Sirius, Paul—<i>you</i> are. It is you who are +going to teach my people the art of peace to replace the art of war."</p> + +<p>Paul felt himself turn what was probably a very effective white. +"But—but I can't even speak the language! I—"</p> + +<p>"You will learn the language during the journey. I spent those +afternoons I was away making a set of <i>Sirian-in-a-Jiffy</i> records for +you. Sirian's a beautiful language, Paul, much more expressive than any +of your Earth languages. You'll like it."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I shall, but—"</p> + +<p>"Paul, you are going to bring my people the outlet for self-expression +they have always needed. You see, I lied to you. The theater on Sirius +is not in its infancy; it has never been conceived. If it had been, we +would never have become what we are today. Can you imagine—a race like +mine, so superbly fitted to practice the dramatic art, remaining in +blind ignorance that such an art exists!"</p> + +<p>"It does seem a terrible waste," Paul had to agree, although he could +not be truly sympathetic just then. "But I am hardly equipped—"</p> + +<p>"Who is better equipped than you to meet this mighty challenge? Can't +you see that at long last you will be able to achieve your great +synthesis of the theatrical arts—as producer, teacher, director, actor, +playwright, whatever you will, working with a cast of individuals who +can assume any shape or form, who have no preconceived notions of what +can be done and what cannot. Oh, Paul, what a glorious opportunity +awaits you on Sirius V. How I envy you!"</p> + +<p>"Then why don't you do it yourself?" Paul asked.</p> + +<p>Ivo smiled sadly again. "Unfortunately, I do not have your manifold +abilities. All I can do is act. Superbly, of course, but that's all. I +don't have the capacity to build a living theater from scratch. You do. +I have talent, Paul, but you have genius."</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> a temptation," Paul admitted. "But to leave my own world...."</p> + +<p>"Paul, Earth isn't your world. You carry yours along with you wherever +you go. Your world exists in the mind and heart, not in reality. In any +real situation, you're just as uncomfortable on Earth as you would be on +Sirius."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but—"</p> + +<p>"Think of it this way, Paul. You're not leaving your world. You're just +leaving Earth to go on the road. It's a longer road, but look at what's +waiting for you at the end of it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, look," Paul said, reality very much to the fore in his mind and +heart at that moment, "death or vivisection."</p> + +<p>"Paul, do you believe I'd do that to you?" There were tears in Ivo's +eyes. If he was acting, he was a great performer. <i>I really am one hell +of a good teacher</i>, Paul thought, <i>and with lots of raw material like +Ivo to work with, I could.... Could he really mean what he's saying</i>?</p> + +<p>"They won't harm you, Paul, because you will come to Sirius bearing a +message from me. You will tell my people that Earth has a powerful +defensive weapon and you have come to teach them its secret. And it's +true, Paul. The theater is your world's most powerful weapon, its best +defense against the universal enemy—reality."</p> + +<p>"Ivo," Paul said, "you really must check that tendency toward bombast. +Especially with a purple speech like that; you've simply got to learn to +underplay. You'll watch out for that when I'm gone, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"I will!" Ivo's face lighted up. "Oh, I will, Paul. I promise never to +chew the scenery again. I won't so much as nibble on a prop!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The next day, the two of them went up to Bear Mountain where Ivo's ship +had been cached all those months. Ivo explained to Paul how the controls +worked and showed him where the clean towels were.</p> + +<p>Pausing in the airlock, Paul looked back toward Manhattan. "I'd dreamed +so many years of seeing my name up in lights on Broadway," he murmured, +"and now, just when I made it—"</p> + +<p>"I'll keep it up there," Ivo vowed. "I promise. And, meanwhile, you'll +be building a new Broadway up there in the stars!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Paul said dreamily, "that is something to look forward to, isn't +it?" Fresh, enthusiastic audiences, performers untrammeled by tradition, +a cooperative government, unlimited funds—why, there was a whole +wonderful new world opening up before him.</p> + +<p>"—In another ten years or so," Ivo was saying, "Sirian actors will be +coming to Earth in droves, making the native performers look sick—"</p> + +<p>Paul smiled wisely. "Now, Ivo, you know Equity would never stand for +<i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>"Equity won't be able to help itself. Public pressure will surge upward +in a mounting wave and—" Ivo stopped. "Sorry. I was ranting again, +wasn't I? It's being out in the open air that does it. I need to be +bounded by the four walls of a theater."</p> + +<p>"That's a fallacy," Paul began. "On the Greek stage—"</p> + +<p>"Save that for the stars, fella," Ivo smiled. "You've got to leave +before it gets light." Then he wrung Paul's hand. "Good-by, kid," he +said. "You'll knock 'em dead on Sirius."</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Ivo." Paul returned the grip. Then he got inside and closed +the airlock door behind him. He did hope Ivo would correct that tendency +toward declamation; on the other hand, it was certainly better than +mumbling.</p> + +<p>Paul put a <i>Sirian-in-a-jiffy</i> record on the turntable, because he might +as well start learning the language right away. Of course he'd have no +one to talk to but himself for many months, but then, when all was said +and done, he was his own favorite audience. He strapped himself into the +acceleration couch and prepared for take-off.</p> + +<p>"Next week, <i>East Lynne</i>," he said to himself.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Fair Planet, by Evelyn E. 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Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: My Fair Planet + +Author: Evelyn E. Smith + +Illustrator: DILLON + +Release Date: March 15, 2010 [EBook #31648] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY FAIR PLANET *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + My Fair Planet + + By EVELYN E. SMITH + + Illustrated by DILLON + +[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction +March 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the +U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + + + +[Sidenote: _All the world's a stage, so there was room even for this bad +actor ... only he intended to direct it!_] + + +As Paul Lambrequin was clambering up the stairs of his rooming house, he +met a man whose face was all wrong. "Good evening," Paul said politely +and was about to continue on his way when the man stopped him. + +"You are the first person I have encountered in this place who has not +shuttered at the sight of me," he said in a toneless voice with an +accent that was outside the standard repertoire. + +"Am I?" Paul asked, bringing himself back from one of the roseate dreams +with which he kept himself insulated from a not-too-kind reality. "I +daresay that's because I'm a bit near-sighted." He peered vaguely at +the stranger. Then he recoiled. + +"What is incorrect about me, then?" the stranger demanded. "Do I not +have two eyes, one nose and one mouth, the identical as other people?" + +Paul studied the other man. "Yes, but somehow they seem to be put +together all wrong. Not that you can help it, of course," he added +apologetically, for, when he thought of it, he hated to hurt people's +feelings. + +"Yes, I can, for, of a truth, 'twas I who put myself together. What did +I do amiss?" + +Paul looked consideringly at him. "I can't quite put my finger on it, +but there are certain subtle nuances you just don't seem to have caught. +If you want my professional advice, you'll model yourself directly on +some real person until you've got the knack of improvisation." + +"Like unto this?" The stranger's outline shimmered and blurred into an +amorphous cloud, which then coalesced into the shape of a tall, +beautiful young man with the face of an ingenuous demon. "Behold, is +that superior?" + +"Oh, far superior!" Paul reached up to adjust a stray lock of hair, then +realized he was not looking into a mirror. "Trouble is--well, I'd rather +you chose someone else to model yourself on. You see, in my profession, +it's important to look as unique as possible; helps people remember you. +I'm an actor, you know. Currently I happen to be at liberty, but the +year before last--" + +"Well, whom should I appear like? Should I perhaps pick some fine +upstanding figure from your public prints to emulate? Like your +President, perhaply?" + +"I--hardly think so. It wouldn't do to model yourself on someone well +known--or even someone obscure whom you might just happen to run into +someday." Being a kind-hearted young man, Paul added, "Come up to my +room. I have some British film magazines and there are lots of +relatively obscure English actors who are very decent-looking chaps." + + * * * * * + +So they climbed up to Paul's hot little room under the eaves and, after +leafing through several magazines, Paul chose one Ivo Darcy as a likely +candidate. Whereupon the stranger deliquesced and reformed into the +personable simulacrum of young Mr. Darcy. + +"That's quite a trick," Paul observed as it finally got through to him +what the other had done. "It would come in handy in the profession--for +character parts, you know." + +"I fear you would never be able to acquisition it," the stranger said, +surveying his new self in the mirror complacently. "It is not a trick +but a racial ableness. You see, I feel I can trust you--" + +"--Of course I'm not really a character actor; I'm a leading man, but I +believe one should be versatile, because there are times when a really +good character part comes along--" + +"--I am not a human being. I am a native of the fifth planet circulating +around the star you call Sirius, and we Sirians have the ableness to +change ourselves into the apparition of any other livid form--" + +"I thought that might be a near-Eastern accent!" Paul exclaimed, +diverted. "Is Lebanese anything like it? Because I understand there's a +really juicy part coming up in--" + +"I said _Sirian_, not _Syrian_; I do not come from Minor Asia but from +outer space, from an other-where solar system. I am an outworlder, an +extraterrestrial." + +"I hope you had a nice trip," Paul said politely. "From Sirius, did you +say? What's the state of the theater there?" + +"In its infanticide," the stranger told him, "but--" + +"Let's face it," Paul muttered bitterly, "it's in its infancy here, too. +No over-all planning. No appreciation of the fact that all the +components that go to make up a production should be a continuing +totality, instead of a tenuous coalition of separate forces which +disintegrate--" + +"You, I comprehend, are disemployed at current. I should--" + +"You won't find that situation in Russia!" Paul went on, pleased to +discover a sympathetic audience in this intelligent foreigner. "Mind +you," he added quickly, "I disapprove entirely of their politics. In +fact, I disapprove of all politics. But when it comes to the theater, in +many respects the Russians--" + +"--Like to make a proposal to our mutual advanceage--" + +"--You wouldn't find an actor there playing a lead role one season and +then not be able to get any parts except summer stock and odd bits for +the next two years. All right, so the show I had the lead in folded +after two weeks, but the critics all raved about my performance. It was +the play that stank!" + +"Will you terminate the monologue and hearken unto me!" the alien +shouted. + +Paul stopped talking. His feelings were hurt. He had thought Ivo liked +him; now he saw all the outworlder wanted to do was talk about his own +problems. + +"I desire to extend to you a position," said Ivo. + +"I can't take a regular job," Paul said sulkily. "I have to be available +for interviews. Fellow I knew took a job in a store and, when he was +called to read for a part, he couldn't get away. The fellow who did get +that part became a big star, and maybe the other fellow could have been +a star, too, but now all he is is a lousy chairman of the board of some +department store chain--" + +"This work can be undergone at your convention between readings and +interviews, whenever you have the timing. I shall pay you beautifully, +being abundant with U.S.A. currency. I want you to teach me how to act." + +"Teach you how to act," Paul repeated, rather intrigued. "Well, I'm not +a dramatic coach, you know; however, I do happen to have some ideas on +the subject. I feel that most acting teachers nowadays fail to give +their students a really thorough grounding in all aspects of the +dramatic art. All they talk about is method, method, method. But what +about technique?" + +"I have observed your species with great diligence and I thought I had +acquisitioned your habits and speakings to perfectness. But I fear that, +like my initial face, I have got them awry. I want you to teach me to +act like a human being, to talk like a human being, to think like a +human being." + +Paul's attention was really caught. "Well, that _is_ a challenge! I +don't suppose Stanislavsky ever had to teach an extraterrestrial, or +even Strasberg--" + +"Then we are in accordance," Ivo said. "You will instruction me?" He +essayed a smile. + +Paul shuddered. "Very well," he said. "We'll start now. And I think the +first thing we'd better start with is lessons in smiling." + +Ivo proved to be a quick study. He not only learned to smile, but to +frown and to express surprise, pleasure, horror--whatever the occasion +demanded. He learned the knack of counterfeiting humanity with such +skill that, Paul was moved to remark one afternoon when they were +leaving Brooks Brothers after a fitting, "Sometimes you seem even more +human than I do, Ivo. I wish you'd watch out for that tendency to rant, +though. You're supposed to speak, not make speeches." + +"I try not to," Ivo said, "but I keep getting carried away by +enthusiasm." + +"Apparently I have a real flair for teaching," Paul went on as, expertly +camouflaged by Brooks, the two young men melted into the dense +charcoal-gray underbrush of Madison Avenue. "I seem to be even more +versatile than I thought. Perhaps I have been--well, not wasting but +limiting my talents." + +"That may be because your talents have not been sufficiently +appreciated," his star pupil suggested, "or given enough scope." + +Ivo was so perceptive! "As a matter of fact," Paul agreed, "it has often +seemed to me that if some really gifted individual, equally adept at +acting, directing, producing, playwriting, teaching, et al., were to +undertake a thorough synthesis of the theater--ah, but that would cost +money," he interrupted himself, "and who would underwrite such a +project? Certainly not the government of the United States." He gave a +bitter laugh. + +"Perhaps, under a new regime, conditions might be more favorable for the +artist--" + +"Shhh!" Paul looked nervously over his shoulder. "There are Senators +everywhere. Besides, I never said things were _good_ in Russia, just +_better_--for the actor, that is. Of course the plays are atrocious +propaganda--" + +"I was not referring to another human regime. The human being is, at +best, save for certain choice spirits, unsympathetic to the arts. We +outworlders have a far greater respect for things of the mind." + +Paul opened his mouth; Ivo continued without giving him a chance to +speak, "No doubt you have often wondered just what I am doing here on +Earth?" + +The question had never crossed Paul's mind. Feeling vaguely guilty, he +murmured, "Some people have funny ideas of where to go for a vacation." + +"I am here on business," Ivo told him. "The situation on Sirius is +serious." + +"You know, that's catchy! 'The situation on Sirius is serious'," Paul +repeated, tapping his foot. "I've often thought of trying my hand at a +musical com--" + +"I mean we have had a ser--grave population problem for the last couple +of centuries, hence our government has sent out scouts to look for other +planets with similar atmosphere, climate, gravity and so on, where we +can ship our excess population. So far, we have found very few." + +When Paul's attention was focused, he could be as quick as anybody to +put two and two together. "But Earth is already occupied. In fact, when +I was in school, I heard something about our having a population problem +ourselves." + +"The other planets we already--ah--took over were in a similar state," +Ivo explained. "We managed to surmount that difficulty." + +"How?" Paul asked, though he already suspected the answer. + +"Oh, we didn't dispose of _all_ of the inhabitants. We merely weeded out +the undesirables--who, by fortunate chance, happened to be in the +majority--and achieved a happy and peaceful coexistence with the rest." + +"But, look," Paul protested. "I mean to say----" + +"For instance," Ivo said suavely, "take the vast body of people who +watch television and who have never seen a legitimate play in their +lives and, indeed, rarely go to the motion pictures. Surely they are +expendable." + +"Well, yes, of course. But even among them there might be--oh, say, a +playwright's mother--" + +"One of the first measures our regime would take would be to establish a +vast network of community theaters throughout the world. And you, Paul, +would receive first choice of starring roles." + +"Now wait a minute!" Paul cried hotly. He seldom allowed himself to lose +his temper, but when he did ... he got _angry_! "I pride myself that +I've gotten this far wholly on my own merits. I don't believe in using +influence to--" + +"But, my dear fellow, all I meant was that, with an intelligently +coordinated theater and an intellectually adult audience, your abilities +would be recognized automatically." + +"Oh," said Paul. + +He was not unaware that he was being flattered, but it was so seldom +that anyone bothered to pay him any attention when he was not playing a +role that it was difficult not to succumb. "Are--are you figuring on +taking over the planet single-handed?" he asked curiously. + +"Heavens, no! Talented as I am, there are limits. I don't do +the--ah--dirty work myself. I just conduct the preliminary investigation +to determine how powerful the local defenses are." + +"We have hydrogen bombs," Paul said, trying to remember details of a +newspaper article he had once read in a producer's ante-room, "and +plutonium bombs and--" + +"Oh, I know about all those," Ivo smiled expertly. "My job is checking +to make sure you don't have anything really dangerous." + +All that night, Paul wrestled with his conscience. He knew he shouldn't +just let Ivo go on. Yet what else could he do? Go to the proper +authorities? But which authorities were the proper ones? And even if he +found them, who would believe an actor offstage, delivering such +improbable lines? He would either be laughed at or accused of being part +of a subversive plot. It might result in a lot of bad publicity which +could ruin his career. + +So Paul did nothing about Ivo. He went back to the usual rounds of +agents' and producers' offices, and the knowledge of why Ivo was on +Earth got pushed farther into the back of his mind as he trudged from +interview to reading to interview. + +[Illustration] + +It was an exceptionally hot October--the kind of weather when sometimes +he almost lost his faith and began to wonder why he was batting his head +against a stone wall, why he didn't get a job in a department store +somewhere or teaching school. And then he thought of the applause, the +curtain calls, the dream of some day seeing his name in lights above the +title of the play--and he knew he would never give up. Quitting the +theater would be like committing suicide, for off the stage he was alive +only technically. He was good; he knew he was good, so some day, he +assured himself, he was bound to get his big break. + +Toward the end of that month, it came. After the maximum three readings, +between which his hopes alternately waxed and waned, he was cast as the +male lead in _The Holiday Tree_. The producers were more interested, +they said, in getting someone who fitted the role of Eric Everard than +in a big name--especially since the female star preferred to have her +luster undimmed by competition. + +Rehearsals took up so much of his time that he saw very little of Ivo +for the next five weeks--but by then Ivo didn't need him any more. +Actually, they were no longer teacher and pupil now but companions, +drawn together by the fact that they both belonged to different worlds +from the one in which they were living. Insofar as he could like anyone +who existed outside of his imagination, Paul had grown rather fond of +Ivo. And he rather thought Ivo liked him, too--but, because he couldn't +ever be quite sure of ordinary people's reactions toward him, how could +he be sure of an outworlder's? + +Ivo came around to rehearsals sometimes, but naturally it would be +boring for him, since he wasn't in the profession, and, after a while, +he didn't come around very often. At first, Paul felt a twinge of guilt; +then he remembered that he need not worry. Ivo had his own work. + + * * * * * + +The whole _Holiday Tree_ troupe went out of town for the tryouts, and +Paul didn't see Ivo at all for six weeks. Busy, happy weeks they were, +for the play was a smash hit from the start. It played to packed houses +in New Haven and Boston, and the box office in New York was sold out for +months in advance before they even opened. + +"Must be kinda fun--acting," Ivo told Paul the morning after the New +York opening, as Paul weltered contentedly on his bed--he had the best +room in the house now--amid a pile of rave notices. At long last, he had +arrived. Everybody loved him. He was a success. + +And now that he had read the reviews and they were all favorable, he +could pay attention to the strange things that had happened to his +friend. Raising himself up on an elbow, Paul cried, "Ivo, you're +_mumbling_! After all I taught you about articulation!" + +"I got t'hanging 'round with this here buncha actors while y'were gone," +Ivo said. "They say mumbling's the comin' thing. 'Sides, y'kept yapping +that I declaimed, so--" + +"But you don't have to go to the opposite extreme and--_Ivo_!" +Incredulously, Paul took in the full details of the other's appearance. +"What happened to your Brooks Brothers' suits?" + +"Hung 'em inna closet," Ivo replied, looking abashed. "I did wear one +las' night, though," he went on defensively. "Wooden come dressed like +this to y'opening. But all the other fellas wear blue jeans 'n leather +jackets. I mean, hell, I gotta conform more'n anybody. Y'know that, +Paul." + +"And--" Paul sat bolt upright; this was the supreme outrage--"you've +changed yourself! You've gotten _younger_!" + +"This is an age of yout'," Ivo mumbled. "An' I figured I was 'bout ready +for improvisation, like you said." + +"Look, Ivo, if you really want to go on the stage----" + +"Hell, I don' wanna be no actor!" Ivo protested, far too vehemently. +"Y'know damn' well I'm a--a spy, scoutin' 'round t'see if y'have any +secret defenses before I make m'report." + +"I don't feel I'm giving away any government secrets," Paul said, "when +I tell you that the bastions of our defenses are not erected at the +Actors' Studio." + +"Listen, pal, you lemme spy the way I wanna an' I'll letcha act the way +you wanna." + +Paul was disturbed by this change in Ivo because, although he had +always tried to steer clear of social involvement, he could not +help feeling that the young alien had become in a measure his +responsibility--particularly now that he was a teen-ager. Paul would +even have worried about Ivo, if there hadn't been so many other things +to occupy his mind. First of all, the producers of _The Holiday Tree_ +could not resist the pressure of an adoring public; although the +original star sulked, three months after the play had opened in New +York, Paul's name went up in lights next to hers, _over the title of the +play. He was a star._ + +That was good. But then there was Gregory. And that was bad. Gregory was +Paul's understudy--a handsome, sullen youth who had, on numerous +occasions, been heard to utter words to the effect of: "It's the part +that's so good, not him. If I had the chance to play Eric Everard just +once, they'd give Lambrequin back to the Indians." + +Sometimes he had said the words in Paul's hearing; sometimes the remarks +had been lovingly passed on by fellow members of the cast who felt that +Paul ought to know. + + * * * * * + +"I don't like that Gregory," Paul told Ivo one Monday evening as they +were enjoying a quiet smoke together, for there was no performance that +night. "He used to be a juvenile delinquent, got sent to one of those +reform schools where they use acting as therapy and it turned out to be +his _metier_. But you never know when that kind'll hear the call of the +wild again." + +"Aaaah, he's a good kid," Ivo said. "He just never had a chanct." + +"Trouble is, I'm afraid he's going to _make_ himself a chanct--chance, +that is." + +"Aaaah," retorted Ivo, with prideful inarticulateness. + +However, when at six-thirty that Friday, Paul fell over a wire stretched +between the jambs of the doorway leading to his private bathroom and +broke a leg, even Ivo was forced to admit that this did not look like an +accident. + +"Ivo," Paul wailed when the doctor had left, "what am I going to do? I +refuse to let Gregory go on in my place tonight!" + +"Y'gonna hafta," Ivo said, shifting his gum to the other side of his +mouth. "He's y'unnastudy." + +"But the doctor said it would be weeks before I can get around again. +Either Gregory'll take over the part completely with his interpretation +and I'll be left out in the cold, or more likely, he'll louse up the +play and it'll fold before I'm on my feet." + +"Y'gotta have more confidence in y'self, kid. The public ain't gonna +forgetcha in a few weeks." + +But Paul knew far better than the idealistic Ivo how fickle the public +can be. However, he chose an argument that would appeal to the boy. +"Don't forget, he booby-trapped me!" + +"Cert'ny looks like it," Ivo was forced to concede. "But watcha gonna +do? Y'can't prove it. 'Sides, the curtain's gonna gwup in a li'l over a +nour--" + +Paul gripped Ivo's sinewy wrist. "Ivo, you've got to go on for me!" + +"Y'got rocks in y'head or somepin?" Ivo demanded, trying not to look +pleased. "I ain't gotta Nequity card, and even if I did, _he's_ +y'unnastudy." + +"No, you don't understand. I don't want you to go on as Ivo Darcy +playing Eric Everard. I want you to go on as Paul Lambrequin playing +Eric Everard. _You can do it, Ivo!_" + +"Good Lord, so I can!" Ivo whispered, temporarily neglecting to mumble. +"I'd almost forgotten." + +"You know my lines, too. You've cued me in my part often enough." + +Ivo rubbed his hand over his forehead. "Yeah, I guess I do." + +"Ivo," Paul beseeched him, "I thought we were--pals. I don't want to ask +any favors, but I helped you out when you were in trouble. I always +figured I could rely on you. I never thought you'd let me down." + +"An' I won't." Ivo gripped Paul's hand. "I'll go on t'night 'n play 'at +part like it ain't never been played before! I'll--" + +"No! No! Play it the way I played it. You're supposed to be _me_, Ivo! +Forget Strasberg; go back to Stanislavsky." + +"Okay, pal," Ivo said. "Will do." + +"And promise me one thing, Ivo. Promise me _you won't mumble_." + +Ivo winced. "Okay, but you're the on'y one I'd do 'at for." + +Slowly, he began to shimmer. Paul held his breath. Maybe Ivo had +forgotten how to transmute himself. But technique triumphed over method. +Ivo Darcy gradually coalesced into the semblance of Paul Lambrequin. The +show would go on! + + * * * * * + +"Well, how was everything?" Paul asked anxiously when Ivo came into his +room shortly after midnight. + +"Pretty good," Ivo said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Gregory +was extremely surprised to see me--asked me half a dozen times how I was +feeling." Ivo was not only articulating, Paul was gratified to notice; +he was enunciating. + +"But the show--how did that go? Did anyone suspect you were a ringer?" + +"No," Ivo said slowly. "No, I don't think so. I got twelve curtain +calls," he added, staring straight ahead of him with a dreamy smile. +"Twelve." + +"Friday nights, the audience is always enthusiastic." Then Paul +swallowed hard and said, "Besides, I'm sure you were great in the role." + +But Ivo didn't seem to hear him. Ivo was still wrapped in his golden +daze. "Just before the curtain went up, I didn't think I was going to be +able to do it. I began to feel all quivery inside, the way I do before +I--I change." + +"Butterflies in the stomach is the professional term." Paul nodded +wisely. "A really good actor gets them before every performance. No +matter how many times I play a role, there's that minute when the house +lights start to dim when I'm in an absolute panic--" + +"--And then the curtain went up and I was all right. I was fine. I was +Paul Lambrequin. I was Eric Everard. I was--everything." + +"Ivo," Paul said, clapping him on the shoulder, "you're a born trouper." + +"Yes," Ivo murmured, "I'm beginning to think so myself." + +For the next four weeks, Paul Lambrequin lurked in his room while Ivo +Darcy played Paul Lambrequin playing Eric Everard. + +"It's terrific of you to take all this time away from your duties, old +chap," Paul said to Ivo one day between the matinee and the evening +performances. "I really do appreciate it. Although I suppose you've +managed to squeeze some of them in. I never see you on non-matinee +afternoons." + +"Duties?" Ivo repeated vacantly. "Yes, of course--my duties." + +"Let me give you some professional advice, though. Be more careful when +you take off your makeup. There's still some grease paint in the roots +of your hair." + +"Sloppy of me," Ivo agreed, getting to work with a towel. + +"I can't understand why you bother to put on the stuff at all," Paul +grinned, "when all you need to do is just change a little more." + +"I know." Ivo rubbed his temples vigorously. "I suppose I just like +the--smell of the stuff." + +"Ivo," Paul laughed, "there's no use trying to kid me; you are +stagestruck. I'm sure I have enough pull now to get you a bit part +somewhere, when I'm up and around again, and then you can get yourself +an Equity card. Maybe," he added amusedly, "I can even have you replace +Gregory as my understudy." + + * * * * * + +Later, in retrospect, Paul thought perhaps there had been a curious +expression in Ivo's eyes, but right then he'd had no inkling that +anything untoward was up. He did not find out what had been at the back +of Ivo's mind until the Sunday before the Tuesday on which he was +planning to resume his role. + +"Lord, it's going to be good to feel that stage under my feet again," he +said as he went through a series of complicated limbering-up exercises +of his own devisement, which he had sometimes thought of publishing as +_The Lambrequin Time and Motion Studies_. It seemed unfair to keep them +from other actors. + +Ivo turned around from the mirror in which he had been contemplating +their mutual beauty, "Paul," he said quietly, "you're never going to +feel that stage under your feet again." + +Paul sat on the floor and stared at him. + +"You see, Paul," Ivo said, "I am Paul Lambrequin now. I am more Paul +Lambrequin than I was--whoever I was on my native planet. I am more Paul +Lambrequin than _you_ ever were. You learned the part superficially, +Paul, but I really _feel_ it." + +"It's not a part," Paul said querulously. "It's me. I've always been +Paul Lambrequin." + +"How can you be sure of that? You've had so many identities, why should +this be the true one? No, you only _think_ you're Paul Lambrequin. I +_know_ I am." + +"Dammit," Paul said, "that's the identity in which I've taken out Equity +membership. And be reasonable, Ivo--there can't be two Paul +Lambrequins." + +Ivo smiled sadly. "No, Paul, you're right. There can't." + +Of course Paul had known all along that Ivo was not a human being. It +was only now, however, that full realization came to him of what a +ruthless alien monster the other was, existing only to gratify his own +purposes, unaware that others had a right to exist. + +"Are--are you going to--dispose of me, then?" Paul asked faintly. + +"To dispose of you, yes, Paul. But not to kill you. My kind has killed +enough, conquered enough. We have no real population problem; that was +just an excuse we made to salve our own consciences." + +"You have consciences, do you?" Paul's face twisted in a sneer that he +himself sensed right away was overly melodramatic and utterly +unconvincing. Somehow, he could never be really genuine offstage. + +Ivo made a sweeping gesture. "Don't be bitter, Paul. Of course we do. +All intelligent life-forms do. It's one of the penalties of sentience!" + +For a moment, Paul forgot himself. "Watch it, Ivo. You're beginning to +ham up your lines." + +"We can institute birth control," Ivo went on, his manner subdued. "We +can build taller buildings. Oh, there are many ways we can cope with the +population increase. That's not the problem. The problem is how to +divert our creative energies from destruction to construction. And I +think I have solved it." + +"How will your people know you have," Paul asked cunningly, "since you +say you're not going back?" + +"_I_ am not going back to Sirius, Paul--_you_ are. It is you who are +going to teach my people the art of peace to replace the art of war." + +Paul felt himself turn what was probably a very effective white. +"But--but I can't even speak the language! I--" + +"You will learn the language during the journey. I spent those +afternoons I was away making a set of _Sirian-in-a-Jiffy_ records for +you. Sirian's a beautiful language, Paul, much more expressive than any +of your Earth languages. You'll like it." + +"I'm sure I shall, but--" + +"Paul, you are going to bring my people the outlet for self-expression +they have always needed. You see, I lied to you. The theater on Sirius +is not in its infancy; it has never been conceived. If it had been, we +would never have become what we are today. Can you imagine--a race like +mine, so superbly fitted to practice the dramatic art, remaining in +blind ignorance that such an art exists!" + +"It does seem a terrible waste," Paul had to agree, although he could +not be truly sympathetic just then. "But I am hardly equipped--" + +"Who is better equipped than you to meet this mighty challenge? Can't +you see that at long last you will be able to achieve your great +synthesis of the theatrical arts--as producer, teacher, director, actor, +playwright, whatever you will, working with a cast of individuals who +can assume any shape or form, who have no preconceived notions of what +can be done and what cannot. Oh, Paul, what a glorious opportunity +awaits you on Sirius V. How I envy you!" + +"Then why don't you do it yourself?" Paul asked. + +Ivo smiled sadly again. "Unfortunately, I do not have your manifold +abilities. All I can do is act. Superbly, of course, but that's all. I +don't have the capacity to build a living theater from scratch. You do. +I have talent, Paul, but you have genius." + +"It _is_ a temptation," Paul admitted. "But to leave my own world...." + +"Paul, Earth isn't your world. You carry yours along with you wherever +you go. Your world exists in the mind and heart, not in reality. In any +real situation, you're just as uncomfortable on Earth as you would be on +Sirius." + +"Yes, but--" + +"Think of it this way, Paul. You're not leaving your world. You're just +leaving Earth to go on the road. It's a longer road, but look at what's +waiting for you at the end of it." + +"Yes, look," Paul said, reality very much to the fore in his mind and +heart at that moment, "death or vivisection." + +"Paul, do you believe I'd do that to you?" There were tears in Ivo's +eyes. If he was acting, he was a great performer. _I really am one hell +of a good teacher_, Paul thought, _and with lots of raw material like +Ivo to work with, I could.... Could he really mean what he's saying_? + +"They won't harm you, Paul, because you will come to Sirius bearing a +message from me. You will tell my people that Earth has a powerful +defensive weapon and you have come to teach them its secret. And it's +true, Paul. The theater is your world's most powerful weapon, its best +defense against the universal enemy--reality." + +"Ivo," Paul said, "you really must check that tendency toward bombast. +Especially with a purple speech like that; you've simply got to learn to +underplay. You'll watch out for that when I'm gone, won't you?" + +"I will!" Ivo's face lighted up. "Oh, I will, Paul. I promise never to +chew the scenery again. I won't so much as nibble on a prop!" + + * * * * * + +The next day, the two of them went up to Bear Mountain where Ivo's ship +had been cached all those months. Ivo explained to Paul how the controls +worked and showed him where the clean towels were. + +Pausing in the airlock, Paul looked back toward Manhattan. "I'd dreamed +so many years of seeing my name up in lights on Broadway," he murmured, +"and now, just when I made it--" + +"I'll keep it up there," Ivo vowed. "I promise. And, meanwhile, you'll +be building a new Broadway up there in the stars!" + +"Yes," Paul said dreamily, "that is something to look forward to, isn't +it?" Fresh, enthusiastic audiences, performers untrammeled by tradition, +a cooperative government, unlimited funds--why, there was a whole +wonderful new world opening up before him. + +"--In another ten years or so," Ivo was saying, "Sirian actors will be +coming to Earth in droves, making the native performers look sick--" + +Paul smiled wisely. "Now, Ivo, you know Equity would never stand for +_that_." + +"Equity won't be able to help itself. Public pressure will surge upward +in a mounting wave and--" Ivo stopped. "Sorry. I was ranting again, +wasn't I? It's being out in the open air that does it. I need to be +bounded by the four walls of a theater." + +"That's a fallacy," Paul began. "On the Greek stage--" + +"Save that for the stars, fella," Ivo smiled. "You've got to leave +before it gets light." Then he wrung Paul's hand. "Good-by, kid," he +said. "You'll knock 'em dead on Sirius." + +"Good-by, Ivo." Paul returned the grip. Then he got inside and closed +the airlock door behind him. He did hope Ivo would correct that tendency +toward declamation; on the other hand, it was certainly better than +mumbling. + +Paul put a _Sirian-in-a-jiffy_ record on the turntable, because he might +as well start learning the language right away. Of course he'd have no +one to talk to but himself for many months, but then, when all was said +and done, he was his own favorite audience. He strapped himself into the +acceleration couch and prepared for take-off. + +"Next week, _East Lynne_," he said to himself. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Fair Planet, by Evelyn E. 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