Chapter 5

I looked at these two idiots. They were sitting there now, sipping out of each other's canisters, laughing, keeping Hightee included in. They were very beautiful people. They did not know that Lombar could order both of them killed without a second thought if he had no further use for them. And certainly would if they threatened any kind of exposure to the Apparatus activities on Blito-P3. There was no way to tell them.

The music played, the acts went on.

Suddenly the beam was on our table again. "Oh, no," said Hightee. "I hoped they would miscalculate. I'm all that's left at this table." She stood up. "Never mind, Soltan. They won't double your bill. I'll go sing for my supper." She threaded her way between the tables to the stage. No one paid her very much attention, due to the number of acts that went on and off. She jumped up on the platform, her blue dress glittering. She said something to the bandmaster. He turned and said something to one of his musicians and the fellow reached back into a pile of instruments and handed one out.

It was the electronic half-globe they call "the chorder-beat." It is about eighteen inches in diameter. Hightee put the curved side of it against her stomach and then buckled it expertly behind her back. She took the "beater" in her right hand. By poising the spread fingers of the left hand over the chorder-beat in different positions and distances, one gets chords, usually enharmonic. By gesturing and sort of hitting in the air with the beater in the right hand, one makes the chords pound out a rhythm. They make a wild, sinuous, suggestive sort of music when they are properly played.

Hightee said something to the bandmaster. He looked a bit surprised. Then he looked at her more closely.

I thought, oh, my Gods, he has recognized her! Either through her voice or the song she'd asked for. I almost jumped up and screamed at her to come back to the table. I didn't. I glanced at that Homeview camera crew. They seemed to be at ease. So did the reporters.

The blinding spotlight turned on her full. Her blue evening dress threw sparks. Her sexy wood nymph mask sucked up attention. She raised her right hand. The bandmaster took it as his cue and watched it to get the beat.

Spraaaang!went the chorder-beat. Yow-yow!went the band.

For the first full melody she played and did not sing. And it was sexy! Her body swayed and curved, her left hand seemed to be indicating something else than chords. Her right hand writhed to the beat. It was SEXY!

Audience attention was almost electric in the air. The way that chorder-beat was playing, the way that performer swayed, they knew they were looking at a polished professional. It seemed to stun them. There wasn't another sound in that nightclub except the band and Hightee's chorder-beat.

She started the melody again and this time, she sang. Her voice was a throaty, sexy lure. But it had comedy in it.

There once was a man when I was young, Who said he knew a foreign tongue, He'd teach me!

"Oh, my Gods!" a man cried out. "It's Hightee Heller!" A ruffle of music and chords from Hightee. A high-pitched scream from the audience. "Hightee! It's High-tee Heller!" Bedlam!

He said it went a funny way, A thing the ancients used to say.

He'd teach me!

A ruffle of chords. Sexy sways. Even above this growing bedlam in the nightclub I heard a yell outside, "Hightee Heller is in there!" It'd need, he claimed, a very soft bed, A place where he could lay my head, To teach me!

The Homeview crew was grinding it out! There were shouts outside the building. Had the word spread, were the other night clubs emptying? Yes! A mob was pouring in the door! And this club audience was on its feet surging forward!

So we found a place we could repose, And he removed my underclothes, To teach me!

"Hightee! Hightee Heller!" Bedlam of bedlams!

And so we got down to the song, He kept it up so very long, He taught me!

They had turned the loudspeakers up to get her voice above the ear-shattering racket of the surging crowd.

Hija, hoopah, jiggety plow, Lecheroo, pokeroo, pow, pow, pow!

Hourly, too!

The place was a screaming jam, filling up, people at the front of the stage were trying to climb up on it, all of them yelling! "Hightee! Hightee! Hightee Heller!" Up went the loudspeaker volume again.

The language is not hard to learn, And I invite you, if you yearn, To be taught!

The music riff. Hands reaching for her, people getting on the stage! Heller on his feet, pushing his way forward to the stage to keep her from being mauled! The glaring spotlight, the busy Homeview crew!

Hija, hoopah, jiggety plow.They had shoved her back against the band. Dozens of hands were trying to touch her. She was engulfed! Heller was through the mob and to her.

Pokeroo, lecheroo, pow, pow, pow!

She was still playing and singing! Heller was to her. He lifted her high in the air above the mob and clutching hands.

Come see me!

It was at that exact moment that I pulled my handgun, flipped it to needle blast and with one expert twitch of the trigger, shot out the main spotlight.

I didn't do it to help Heller. I did it because, back of the mob and coming straight toward me was a yellow-man, holding in his hand what could only be the bill!

The explosion of filaments was deafening.

I spun. I had already spotted the main switchboard back of the dance platform. With unerring aim, I blasted it to bits! It was totally dark.

Above the deafening din of the crowd a new scream sounded, "Police! It's the police!" Dim emergency lights came on. Sure enough, I saw a flicker of blue. Police plowing through the crowd, baton charging the riot!

A firm hand grabbed my collar and I was yanked out of the booth so fast I flew horizontally. I was being dragged across the floor.

The emergency exit door banged open! I was being dragged up the alley! I could barely hold on to my gun.

We were at the airbus. The door opened and I was hurtled inside. And only then did I see who had dragged me. It was the Countess Krak!

I looked back anxiously toward the emergency exit. Sound and lights were bursting through it out into the alley.

There came Heller! He was still holding his sister high over his head.

Behind them came a solid wave of blue! Oh, my Gods, the police were right on their heels!

The Countess Krak sprang into the airbus and batted me to one side!

Heller arrived at the door. He launched his sister inside and the Countess Krak caught her expertly and put her on the settee.

Heller slid fast under the wheelstick.

A police helmet right at his door. A face.

"We'll be at the hangar ahead of you, Jet. We're all clear!" It was Snelz! Snelz in a cop uniform!

The airbus sprang into the air!

We had fought free!

Perhaps it was because Hightee Heller was laughing fit to burst – it takes steel nerves to be a celebrity in the Confederation. Perhaps it was because I was still a bit high on bubblebrew. But I felt a bit elated. By not paying the bill I had escaped being cashiered on the one hand for bankruptcy or executed on the other for passing counterfeit money. And nobody but Hightee had been recognized, I supposed, and Hightee wouldn't matter. What luck!

We stopped at Hightee's garden in the clouds. She unstrapped the chorder-beat and Heller said he'd get it returned to the club for her. She kissed each of them on the cheek and touched my hand.