When the camera went to the studio audience for a moment, Karen saw about half the younger women were topless. Some of them wore Lizard-style body paint, some didn’t. That had been coming in Karen’s time, but it hadn’t got there yet. Plainly, it had now.
Back to Rita. She flashed a million-watt smile. “Now, folks,” she said, “heeeeere’s… Donald!”
He bounded out to center stage. The audience went nuts. All the Americans in the room in Sitneff started howling with glee. Donald was wearing a tuxedo-a painted-on tuxedo, perfect right down to the red-carnation boutonniere. Even his hands had been painted to make them seem a Caucasian‘s-though not a whole lot of Caucasians had fingerclaws.
“Hello, people!” he said. Energy came off him in waves. “Welcome to another session of-”
“You’d Better Believe It! ” the audience shouted. They applauded themselves.
“That’s right.” Donald couldn’t grin-his mouth wasn’t made for it. But he gave the impression that he was grinning. He was a performer right down to the tip of his tailstump. “Now we’re going to find out how much tonight’s contestants don’t know-and how much they’ll pay for it.” It was a throwaway line. The studio audience broke up anyway. Karen felt herself smiling, too. She couldn’t help it. Donald pulled a smile out of her the way a magician pulled a rabbit out of a hat.
She looked around the room. She wasn’t the only one smiling. Donald had even managed to distract the men from the lovely Rita. If that didn’t prove he had what it took, nothing ever would.
Out came the first contestant, a short, dumpy, gray-haired woman from Great Falls, Montana. Donald contrived to grin at her, too. “Hello, Mrs. Donahue,” he said. “What’s your excuse for being here with us tonight? Exhibitionism? Or just greed?”
Mrs. Donahue blushed. “A little of both, maybe,” she said.
“You’d better believe it! ” the audience roared. She had to know that was coming, but she flinched anyway.
“Well, here we go,” Donald said. “Why don’t you climb into the hot seat, and we’ll give you a whirl.”
The hot seat had a seat belt. Karen rapidly discovered why: Donald had meant that whirl literally. The seat could spin on all three axes. It could also give electric shocks and do a wide variety of other unpleasant things. Mrs. Donahue had to answer questions while the chair and some really horrible sound effects discombobulated her. Not surprisingly, she didn’t cover herself with glory.
“Too bad,” Donald said when her ordeal was over. “No all-expense-paid trip to the Moon for you, I’m afraid. But you do have the new refrigerator and five hundred dollars in cash, so this didn’t turn out too bad after all.”
“You’d better believe it!” Mrs. Donahue said gamely, and the audience gave her a big hand.
Later on, a young man did win a trip to the Moon, and just about passed out from excitement. Back on Earth, going to the Moon evidently still wasn’t something people did every day. Here from the Tau Ceti system, it didn’t seem quite such a big deal. Karen glanced over at Sam Yeager. He’d been to the Moon. He’d had a photo on his wall to prove it. Karen never had. If you lived in Southern California, going to Home and not the Moon was like going to Madagascar without ever visiting Long Beach.
At the end of the show, Donald’s eye turrets followed the lovely Rita’s… visible assets as if he were a human male with some special girl-watching equipment. Then one of them swiveled back toward the camera for a moment. “I know the real reason-reasons-you watch, you crazy people out there. You can’t fool me. We’ll see you tomorrow-and you’ll see us, too. So long.” The screen went dark.
“Pause,” Karen said in the Race’s language. For a wonder, the player listened to her twice running. She went back to English: “Do we really want to watch another episode right away?”
“If it’s got Rita in it, I’ll watch it,” Tom said. Linda planted a good, solid elbow in his ribs. He yelped, overacting-but he didn’t overact half as much as Donald did.
“Well,” Sam Yeager said, “it’s nice to know he’s making an honest living.”
“You call that honest?” Jonathan asked.
“He’s paying his own bills,” the older man answered. “If that’s the most popular game show in the country, he’s probably making money hand over fist. Of course, if that’s the most popular game show in the country, it’s probably a judgment on us all, but that’s a different story. But it’s not illegal, no matter what else you can say about it.”
“I think we’ve got the idea of what he does,” Frank Coffey said. “I wouldn’t mind leering at Rita some more-just don’t tell Kassquit about it-but it can wait. Rita’s a knockout, and Donald’s pretty damn funny, but the show…” He shuddered and knocked back his drink. Then he walked out of the room. Karen wondered if he realized he was whistling the theme song from You’d Better Believe It.
The de la Rosas and Dr. Blanchard also left. Sam Yeager got up, too, but only to fix himself another drink. “What’s up, Dad?” Jonathan asked-he’d noticed something was out of kilter, too, then. “You’re not just down in the dumps because Donald’s making a buffoon of himself on national TV. You were low before we got the disk.”
“Now that you mention it-yes,” his father said. He stared down at the glass in his hand, as if expecting to find the answer there. Karen had never seen him do that before. It alarmed her. After a moment, still looking down into the glass, Sam went on, “They don’t want to let me go home.”
“What? Why not?” As soon as the words were out of Karen’s mouth, she knew how silly they were. She knew damn well why not. She just hadn’t imagined it would still matter, not after all these years.
Jonathan had no trouble figuring it out, either. “That’s outrageous, Dad,” he said. “You were right, by God.”
“You’d better believe it,” his father said, and laughed a sour laugh. “But what’s that got to do with the price of beer?”
“What… exactly did Major Nichols tell you?” Karen asked.
“First off, they didn’t expect to find me the ambassador. They figured I’d be minding the Doctor’s p’s and q’s for him,” Sam Yeager said. “They were going to have me go on minding p’s and q’s for whatever young hotshot they’ve brought to take over here. Told me there were still hard feelings back home over what I did. I wonder how big a villain I am in the history books.” He swigged the almost-vodka.
“You shouldn’t be,” Karen said. “The people who ordered the attack on the colonization fleet were the villains.”
Her father-in-law shrugged. “I think so, too. But if the powers that be don’t…” He finished his drink. “I wonder if the Commodore Perry brought any real, live air conditioners for the new ambassador and his people. We should have thought of that ourselves, but we were too dumb.” His mouth twisted. “Of course, even if they do have ’em, they probably wouldn’t give me one.”
“Oh, for the love of God, Dad!” Jonathan said.
“Yes, for the love of God.” Sam Yeager sounded like something straight out of Edgar Allan Poe. Karen wondered if he did it on purpose.
She said, “Talk to their captain. Maybe he’ll change his mind.”
“Maybe.” Her father-in-law sounded dubious in the extreme. He also sounded furious-just how much so, she didn’t really understand till he went on, “I’d rather stay here than beg, though. Why should I have to beg for what I… darn well deserve anyway?” He held out his glass to her. “Fix me another one, would you? After all, I’ve got so much to celebrate.”
Atvar climbed out of the shuttlecraft at the Preffilo port. Males and females in the body paint of the imperial court met him in the terminal and whisked him away to the palace. He hadn’t been summoned to the capital for an audience with the Emperor, but for a working meeting with him. The ceremonial was much less involved. The honor might have been greater. A meeting with the Emperor meant he really wanted your opinion. An audience could mean anything at all. Champions at the biennial games got audiences with the Emperor.