Rat Man moved forward. "Duckfoot, that guy from the Palace ever show up?"
The Boss Canvasman nodded. "Showed up a few minutes ago." He pointed toward the lights of the main entrance. "Went in there with the Governor." Duckfoot listened to the tune. "Okay, this is it."
Everyone hefted their stakes and tensed. The music concluded, followed by dead silence. Rat Man felt the sweat beading on his forehead. Then the sounds of many feet moving out of the blues, the regular customer seats. The Governor emerged from the main entrance with an Ahngarian, waved good-by, then turned to the armed circus people waiting in the dark. "All you people move on into the main top—and leave those toothpicks behind." Everyone exchanged confused looks. "Go on! Move it! We don't have all night."
Rat Man dropped his stake, and the others did the same. He joined the Governor as O'Hara led the procession into the big top. "Mr. John, what is it?"
"Rat Man, you won't believe it until you see it."
As they came to the lowest tier of seats, Rat Man Jack could see that the stone-faced Ahngarians still occupied the ends and one side of the blues, while the ones who had been sitting in the opposite side of blues had come down and were standing in the twin rings and around the hippodrome. O'Hara pointed to the unoccupied seats. "Up there."
They moved up into the seats, and Rat Man noticed that many of the performers were already seated, including Stenny the tramp clown. As soon as all the circus people were seated, the top again became as quiet as death. Rat Man jabbed O'Hara in the ribs with his elbow. "What's going on?"
"Shhh!" O'Hara pointed at the center of the tent. "Just watch."
The Ahngarians standing around the hippodrome track turned to their lefts, four in each rank, then began swaying as those in the center of the tent began singing. The canvas swelled with the bell-clear voices, as the ranks surrounding them whirled off into a complicated series of dance steps. Soon, open places between the dancers and singers filled with Ahngarians performing complex, as well as astounding, feats of balance, with one pyramid successfully making its sixth tier. The song changed, and the dancers pulled red, blue, orange, and yellow scarves from their robes and began waving and whirling them in graceful swoops and loops, and all in unison. This spectacle of song, dance, and tumbling lasted for twenty-five minutes, then those in the center of the tent formed up and moved out into the night. As the Ahngarians in the blues opposite the circus people began moving down to the center of the tent, O'Hara checked his watch, then looked at Rat Man. "We're a hit, Rat Man! We have made it!"
"What're you talking about, Mr. John?"
"All four groups will each do twenty-five minutes. In Ahngarian terms, that is a thundering well done. You see, when our people were performing, they were silent so they wouldn't miss anything. What you're looking at now is the applause." The Governor folded his arms and smiled. "I think we're going to do very well this season; very well, indeed."
As the show worked its way across the surface of Ahngar, the customer performances grew longer and the main top held larger crowds, until two- and three-day stands were necessary to meet the demand. By the time the show had hit Darrasine, there were many young Ahngarian hands to help spread canvas to get free passes to the show. At the stand in Yolus, a blowdown that came up in a flash, and left just as suddenly, left the main top canvas in tatters and splintered two of the three center poles. Within a week the local merchants replaced the old rag with a light, strong fabric, and the center poles with local sticks about twice as strong as the Douglas Fir poles the show had been using. Even with the show playing in the open, the customer performances continued to grow longer.
As the days on Ahngar passed, everyone noticed a change in the Governor. Hours at a time he would spend locked in the office wagon. Several times the show moved from one stand to the next with O'Hara still in the wagon. On those rare moments when he would allow someone else inside, they would find the Governor's desk piled with papers, books, plans, charts.
After leaving Abityn, the Patch happened to meet O'Hara rushing back to the office wagon from the cookhouse. The Governor, deep in thought, didn't notice the fixer. "Mr. John?"
O'Hara stopped, looked around with a frown on his face, then let his gaze stop on the Patch. After a moment his eyebrows went up. "Oh. It's you."
The Patch frowned. "Of course it's me! Mr. John, you better tell me what's going on. If we're in trouble, I should know about it."
The Governor shook his head. "We're not in trouble."
"Well, what's going on? What have you been doing in the office wagon all this time?"
O'Hara looked at the office wagon, then turned and looked at the show's main top. A strange look came over his face. "Patch, my whole life has been spent trying to keep a show alive; first, helping my father, now alone." The fixer saw the corners of O'Hara's eyes crinkle. "But, it's not just keeping the show going. The circus itself is almost extinct." The Governor raised an eyebrow. "Do you know what Annie Oakleys are?"
"The shooter?"
"That's what they're named after, but what are they?"
Patch shrugged. "What?"
"Comps."
Patch wrinkled up his brow and held out a hand. "Comps? Free tickets? What's that got to do with Annie Oakley?"
"Annie Oakley used to have a card thrown up and she'd shoot the ace out of it, just like the comps are punched. Do you know what else comps were called?"
"No."
"Ganesfake, ducats, snow-see, Patch, we're losing all that. Even though we have a show going, we're losing the circus." The Governor nodded, turned, and headed toward the office wagon.
Patch called after him. "But, Mr. John, what are you doing in the wagon?"
"Saving the circus," he answered, then went up the steps and disappeared into the wagon.
Jingles McGurk, treasurer, pulled his long, thin nose from his ledgers long enough to peer from his desk in the office wagon to the Governor's. O'Hara was shoulder high in plans and odd scraps of paper. Jingles cleared his throat to get O'Hara's attention. When that failed, he coughed. His other options closed, he spoke up. "Mr. John?"
"What?" O'Hara's eyes never left his work.
"Mr. John, it appears as though we have cleared the show of its liabilities."
O'Hara glanced up, then returned to his papers. "You sound almost disappointed, Jingles." The Governor smiled. "But that's why I hired a pessimist for the books. Better I should have money and not believe it than not have money and think I am rolling in coin." He looked up. "Think we'll make a profit over the liabilities?"
Jingles raised his right eyebrow and shrugged in resignation. "It's barely possible." "Terrific."
Jingles shook his head and stuck his nose back into the ledger.
Dormmadadda, Valtiia, Dhast—one after another the show played to capacity crowds as the date for the Monarch's birthday drew near. The show's route turned toward Almandiia, Ahngar's capital city, and at Stinja on Almandiia's outskirts, one of the young Ahngarian's spreading canvas appeared on the lot with four hulking brutes who appeared to be bodyguards. As the young Ahngarian joined the others in the line up at the lap of the thick flat roll of the center section, Duckfoot nodded and the roughnecks and Ahngarians reached to open the first fold. While they were so occupied, the Boss Canvasman moved over to the four silent bodyguards. Their black short-robes and belts did little to hide their powerful bodies, and as Duckfoot approached, they turned their smooth, leather-capped heads in his direction. He nodded, then cocked his head toward the line up and ordered the next fold run out. Looking back, Duckfoot smiled. "Is the lad something special?"