Yes, that was what my friend asked. Turns out it’s not at all unusual for dead people to file lawsuits on Keshtak 37. Don’t ask me.
My friend doesn’t know what to do, but then while he’s there, he picks up another bit of information. The only entertainers who don’t get interred with His Imperial Awesomeness are the ones who perform so badly that they are deemed unworthy of the honor. Yes. On Keshtak 37, when you stink at the Palace, you don’t die at the Palace.
So my friend rushes back here and starts calling in all the lousiest acts he can find. Which takes very little searching, because every agent knows plenty of hopeless no-talent losers; they come around begging you to represent them, and they’re so persistent and so pathetic you take their names and information down just to get rid of them and then they call you every few days for the rest of your life wanting to know when you’re going to get them some work.
In almost no time my friend has assembled a collection of the worst stinkeroos in this part of the galaxy. Tone-deaf musicians, stumblebum dancers, comics unfunny enough to induce suicidal depression, he’s got them all. He said he had to open the office windows to air the place out after they all left.
No, he didn’t tell them. He felt bad about that, but it really wouldn’t have done to let them in on what was going on. Entertainers and artists, you see, are very touchy people that way, and the bad ones most of all. The worse they are, the greater they believe they are and the harder they believe it. If he’d told them the truth, they’d have been furious, and chances are they’d have walked out on him.
So off they went to Keshtak 37, and—ah, yes, I’m seeing this look on your face, you’re way ahead of me, aren’t you?
That’s right. The thrill of finally getting a professional gig, and a prestigious offworld one at that, got them so worked up they barely needed a ship to get to Keshtak 37; they could have gone into warp by themselves. And by the time they went on at the Imperial Palace, they were so inspired that they performed, all of them, better than they’d ever done in their lives.
Or ever would again, in what little was left of them… my friend was very upset. Not that anybody would miss that particular bunch, but the Oomaumau buried their paychecks with them and he never did collect his cut.
But listen, don’t misunderstand, I’m not disrespecting my colleagues. It’s not like I’ve never made any mistakes myself. How I only wish…
Let me tell you about the comic.
Or rather tell you what happened, I can’t really tell you about him. Can’t do justice to his talent with a simple description, you’d have had to see him in action to fully comprehend just how great he was. And yes, great I said and great I meant. All these people like to think of themselves as “artists,” but in his case it was the simple truth. A genuine comic genius is what he was, and he could just maybe have been the greatest ever, if only—but I’m getting ahead of myself.
I found him working open mike night at a cheap club down in the Ginzorninplad district. He’d just gotten into town, worked his way here from his home-world aboard a worn-out old tub of a bulk freighter, and he didn’t have much more than the clothes on his back. I watched his act and then I caught him backstage and signed him up, just like that. And said some very sincere prayers to Hnb’hnb’hnb for granting me the privilege.
I got him a few local gigs and he did just fine, even got some good ink from the critics. But you know this town; an outsider has a tough time getting accepted. Especially an outsider from, and I don’t mean this in any derogatory way, a different-looking race. I hate to say that, but it’s true.
So when this opening turned up for a long offworld tour, I advised him to go for it. Oh, it wasn’t much of a booking—the world was a pretty backward sort of place, off in a distant arm of the galaxy where hardly anybody ever went even to visit, and the pay was worse than lousy.
But I didn’t really have anything else for him at the moment; things were slow, all the best clubs were booked up solid. And I figured this was a chance for him to get some experience, develop his material, and practice his technique out in the sticks without having to worry about bombing because even if he did have a bad night nobody who mattered would ever hear about it. Meanwhile I could work on lining up something better for him.
Well, what can I say? It seemed like a good idea at the time, I should hit myself repeatedly with the nearest blunt object.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that he went into the sandbox or anything like that. On the contrary, they loved his act—or at least they loved him; right away, almost as soon as he arrived, they started making a big fuss over him. In no time at all he was playing to packed houses.
You understand, he was sending back regular reports, keeping me up on what was going on, and every time I heard from him, he sounded more amazed. People followed him around on the street, came up to him wanting to meet him and trying to touch him, and before long he even had his own fan club. In fact there were about a dozen of them who took to traveling around with him, seeing to his needs, just like he’s a big superstar.
But what was really strange was the way the audiences reacted to his act. Nobody ever laughed. He’d do his funniest routines, stuff that would make a Rhrr laugh, and they’d just sit there staring at him with these very serious faces and nod and look at each other and nod some more, like he’d just said something wise and profound.
He tried everything. He even tried dumping his own material, since they didn’t seem to get it, and doing corny old gags about farmers and animal herders and fishermen, thinking maybe they just weren’t ready for sophisticated modern humor. Didn’t make a bit of difference. They still came to see him, more and more all the time, but they still didn’t laugh.
And this was starting to make him crazy, as you can imagine. He got so desperate he started doing magic tricks. Now I mean that’s pretty bad, when a talented performer has to reach that low. What next, I thought, he’s going to take up juggling? But these hicks absolutely ate it up. They liked the tricks even better than the comic routines; the crowds started getting really huge.
Finally the time came for his debut at the big city— well, the biggest in that part of that particular world, it wouldn’t have made a slum neighborhood here— and off he went, hoping the city audiences would be a little more hip.
He made something of an entrance, too; his twelve roadies did a really great job of getting the word out, making sure there was a big crowd to welcome him when he arrived in town. By the time he did his first show, the turnout was so big they had to hold it outdoors on a mountainside, where he gave possibly his greatest performance ever. Still no yucks, but he thought he saw a few of them smiling a little toward the end.
So things were looking up; and so my boy didn’t think anything of it, a few nights later, when a bunch of people showed up, right after dinner, and wanted him to come with them. Some kind of fan thing, he thought, and he said sure, and went along without argument, though some of his entourage tried to talk him out of it.
And when they got where they were going, he still didn’t tumble to what was happening. Not even when they started bringing up the lumber and nails. In fact he gave them a hand. He figured they were getting ready to build a stage for him. There were some cops standing around but he assumed they were just security.
By the time he found out different, it was too late.
If I told you what they did to him, you would not sleep tonight and you would have dreams for years, just as I did when I heard about it. So I think I better not go into the details. Enough to say it was a terrible, terrible thing and I’ve never heard of anything quite like it, even on the most barbaric worlds.