Chapter 26 - Another Show

After we finished feeding our children, Mickey, Cleo and I took them back to the cribs before we each grabbed some lunch. During our meal we talked a bit about the music we were playing.

"I knew music like this existed, but this is more fun than I ever imagined," Mickey said. "And last night was...wow! I could feel the way the audience reacted."

Cleo nodded. "It is powerful. We need to be feeding that by playing our best."

I blew out a raspberry. "More practice."

The others giggled and reached out to tickle me. I dodged away and finished the fruit cocktail I was nibbling as dessert. Once it was gone I headed to the stairs to return to the orchestra pit.

Cleo and Mickey joined me a moment later. "You like to be first," Mickey grumbled good-naturedly.

"I'm never first at home," I said. "But I just like to get things done." I sat there thinking for a moment. "Much like James does. I guess I learned it from him."

Cleo laughed. "He isn't a bad man to emulate. Now are we ready for tonight?"

"Never," Mickey said. "We can always do better. But we'll do fine."

We began practicing again. This time the AI appeared to want us to work on specific passages and interludes. Instead of full pieces, the displayed music would be just a few bars. I watched as we repeated one section and discovered that the AI was subtly changing the music. The changes consisted of notes being lengthened or shortened. Mickey and Cleo also noticed the change and we started trying to anticipate the AI, often ignoring the music to experiment with a passage after the third or fourth time we played it.

We got so into our play, that we were surprised when the lights in the hall dimmed. I glanced up to see Janice kneeling on the stage and looking down at us. "The crew of Cancun should start arriving in a few minutes," she informed us.

"Are they excited?" Cleo asked as I took advantage of the break to check on Madoka. My daughter was sleeping peacefully in the crib. Earlier she had been awake and watching me as I practiced.

"They definitely talked about it," Janice said. "From what I could understand they are almost all recently extracted from Earth, and the excitement of being a citizen is wearing off."

"Their captain isn't new," I said.

Janice laughed. "No, she isn't. No one has heard her say much about her time in DECO, but her concubine hinted that Jennifer has been around long enough to go through three sets of concubines."

"What?" Mickey hissed. "How do you go through a set of concubines?"

"Well, Chastity wasn't clear about that. From what I could piece together, Jennifer put her concubines into training designed to raise their CAP scores. When they retested and scored high enough to become citizens they'd leave her of course, and she'd pick up replacements," Janice said.

I shivered. "I don't want to retest."

Cleo laughed. "No one said we have to. But that isn't an issue anyway. I just wanted to know if we'll have a good audience."

Janice laughed. "Oh, they'll all be here. But remember that Patricians have small crews. Even with the concubines there aren't going to be forty people."

Mickey shrugged. "I just have fun. Performing like this is a blast. Are we going to start working on a new show after this?"

Janice laughed. "Several. Claire wants to do musical versions of all the classic Grimm's Fairy Tales, but make them a lot more adult than most other versions."

Cleo shook her head. "I can just imagine."

Janice nodded. "Marilyn mentioned that Tamara and Tiffany were musing about performing in a version of Alice in Wonderland. I guess they both wanted to do that back on Earth and never got the chance."

"Citizens performing in one of our plays? What is Ishtar coming to?" I barked out. The others turned towards me in shock, but I spoiled the effect by giggling.

Janice shook her head as I covered my mouth. "Good one, Meiko. We'll probably come up with more ideas as time goes on. I definitely want to keep our current play going though. Bethany said the version on Earth was called Beach Blanket Babylon. We don't have any beaches on Ishtar, and Ice Igloo Ishtar sounds a bit too silly, but we should come up with a name for this play."

Janice looked up staring past the orchestra pit and towards the entrance to the hall. She froze for a second and then waved back. "Oops, Maggie is signaling that people are arriving. I need to get back and into my genie costume. Play well."

"Break a leg," Mickey said as the lights dimmed a bit more.

I looked at the music stand to see it light up. Music appeared. I brought my flute to my lips to see Cleo mentally marking off the beats. When I was ready she counted out four bars and started playing.

Cleo's part was very soft. I found that my flute was carrying the melody. As we reached the end of the first verse I realized that the song was "Fly Me To the Moon." Mickey appeared to pick up on this at the same time because she whispered to both of us as we finished. "We're playing elevator music."

The next song proved Mickey right. We found ourselves playing "Mister Monotony." Mickey played the simple bass line as the AI had me play notes to match the vocals. As we played Cleo pretended to be falling asleep at her drums due to the slow beat of the song.

We expected another simple piece, but the AI chose to have us play "Baby Elephant Walk." Earlier in the day the AI had pressed us to practice this song, and I found myself elaborating many of the trills.

"This is fun!" Cleo hissed at us as the song finished.

I nodded as I watched the music in front of me. It took a moment, but then I recognized the heavy, almost epic piece we had practiced earlier.

"Ouch!" Mickey said. "Time for the serious music. Shall we play Cleo?"

"Certainly," Cleo replied. "Ready Meiko?"

I lifted the flute to my lips. "Give us the beat," I said.

"We need ourselves a director," Cleo said with a giggle as she started lightly tapping her drumsticks together. She counted the beats and we began playing.

The practice from earlier gave me considerable confidence in my playing. There was no way I was going to glance away from the music, but I was able to listen to the music. From the volume of the music, it was clear that the AI was mixing in additional sounds. It made the music sound much richer than our little trio could manage, but I could still easily identify the parts played by Mickey, Cleo or me.

We played the epic piece for several minutes. As it continued, I noticed a light buzz of conversation that grew slightly as we got closer to the end. The voices were tinged with excitement.

Finally, the piece wound down. As we played the last notes the stands went dark. The house lights came up in the hall. I took a moment to glance down at Madoka, but she slept on.

"I need that soundproofing in the pod," Mickey said. "Bruce and his brother can get loud at times. Now, it's like nothing will disturb him."

Cleo shook her head. "What's Michelle's son's name?"

Mickey looked down and blushed. "Bruce."

I shook my head at that, but the theater lights dimmed again. I glanced down at Madoka one last time to confirm that she was sleeping before looking up at the stage.

Madison stumbled out in the middle of the stage. Her left leg appeared to get caught in the curtain, but she wiggled it free. The action caused her to fall down on her butt. She climbed to her feet and turned to face the audience.

The young concubine jumped as if in surprise. The fanfare from the previous night played out. For a moment I thought I saw panic on Madison's face, but as the fanfare came to an end she stood calmly and shouted her lines.

It was immediately clear that Madison was feeling far more confident than the first night. When she reached the point where she was supposed to forget what kind of play we were doing, she milked the scene. I stared at her hand as she then made as if she was patting the toga she was wearing, trying to find non-existent pockets before taking a step towards the curtain. The rest of the cast rescued her with the stage whisper and the song started.

The first part of the show was not much different than the first night. After "Comedy Tonight" was performed. David came out to be abused by Candi and Randi singing "School's Out", and then got a chance to reflect on his lack of knowledge with Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World." The next scene had been expanded with the marching male concubines singing more than a dozen verses about the mademoiselle and her increasingly erotic charms. Mickey and I exchanged several smiles as we listened to the men march off the stage.

The next scene was the first where I could see obvious changes. Once again the tavern looked more like some Sultan's harem and the initial song was "I Dream of Genie," but the next song was new. I remember that on the previous night the following song had been very fast and upbeat. Tonight, Janice pushed David into a chair and sang a song about "I'll Do Anything." Of course David's response was that he wanted to find a good beer.

Janice shook her head, causing the brown ponytail that was part of her costume to snap forward over her shoulder. From the right side of the stage came a ferocious roar. What appeared to be a large bear shuffled onto the stage and snorted at David.

"I said beer, not bear!" David cried.

"But that's what I brought you," Janice replied. She was taking care to sound extremely ditzy and the audience chucked. "That's a bear." Janice mangled the pronunciation of the final word to make it sound like beer.

The bear began stalking towards David. 'I've changed my mind!" David shouted. "Get me out of here!"

Janice snapped the ponytail forward again and the lights went out on the stage. The stand in front of me lit up with a page of music, and Mickey, Cleo and I played a short interlude. It was a mournful melody, and when it ended and the lights on the stage came back on David appeared to be lying in a jungle clearing. As he sat up Tina walked onto the stage.

"Damn that's hot!" I heard Cleo hiss. We had a moment with no music in front of us and could look at the stage. Tina was dressed in what looked like a fur bra and loincloth. The outfit had leopard spots and barely covered her. In her right hand she was carrying a crude wooden club. She approached David and poked him with the club.

He stirred and rolled onto his back before sitting up. "Where am I?"

"You near village," Tina grunted out.

"Is there beer in the village?" David asked.

"Some," Tina said back.

"Please take me to your village," David said as he moved to kneel in front of Tina.

"Can't," was the one word reply Tina gave as she started looking off-stage.

"Why not?" David whined.

In response Tina started yodeling. As Tina moved a short distance from David, the male concubines came out, dancing to some nonsense syllables. I looked down and realized that music had appeared on my stand. I brought my flute to my lips and started playing as Tina serenaded David while warning that in the village, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight."

After that, the music kept coming, but I was able to recognize more songs. David was instructed by Marina to "Walk This Way," only to have Paula and Jillian tell him that he should "Walk Like An Egyptian." The male concubines came on to sing songs of drinking and sailing, but would insist that David had to go someplace else to find the beer.

Janice played a bigger role than I had realized. She would appear from various props and offer to use her genie magic to help David. I noticed it never quite worked. David complained that he had walked more than "500 Miles" trying to complete the quest, only to find empty glasses at the end.

However, eventually the show wound down. When I saw Heather and Elle come out wearing corsets I realized that we had reached the final two songs. Putting my flute to my lips I smiled.

"Thank Mike, it's almost over," Mickey muttered. "My wrists are sore."

"Mine are too, but I'd rather thank Tyson," Cleo replied.

The music for the guten-tag started, so I did not join in the comments. We finished the final two songs with a flourish. When the cast ended the "Beer Barrel Polka" with a mass bow, the room erupted in applause.

At this point I noticed that the AI had taken over playing the music, which was just as well. My lips were rather chapped after all the time playing. As the cast worked their way through their bows I whispered to Cleo. "How long were we playing?"

Cleo shrugged, but the AI turned the music stand into a digital clock for a moment. The display read five-fifteen.

Mickey hissed. "And we started before three. No wonder I'm tired."

I glanced down at Madoka. She was awake and squirming in the crib. "Madoka needs to be changed and fed," I whispered.

"I'm sure Chris and Bruce do as well," Cleo said. "But we have to take our turn and bow."

As Cleo finished her whisper, I could see Janice step forward and point down at the orchestra pit. Cleo stood up immediately, with Mickey and I standing a moment later. We turned to look out at the audience and bow.

I noticed that there were more than fifty people in the audience standing and clapping. As I rose out of my bow I looked around briefly. I found that Linus, Louis, Mike, Tyson and Amanda had claimed seats behind the crew of the Cancun and were watching the show.

As we sat back down Cleo hissed. "Donna and Shawna were in the audience. It looks like some of the citizens snuck in for a second show."

Mickey giggled. "Do you blame them?"

"I just hope they enjoyed the show," I said.

"From the applause, I'd say that they did," Cleo mumbled as she reached down to pick up her son.

The room lit up and I could hear footsteps as people started to make their way to the exits. I figured that it might take some time for everyone to make their way out, so I set my flute on the stand and sat down. Madoka continued to fuss so I picked her up. When I offered her a finger, she tried to suck it, so I shrugged out of my top and offered her my breast. She began feeding immediately. I glanced up to see Cleo and Mickey holding their son's to their breasts as well.

"Might as well while we wait," Mickey said before we turned our attention back to our children.