"You mean from Earth?" Ariel asked incredulously. Terran culture was not held in high regard in most Spacer circles.
"Shakespeare was from Earth," put in Derec mildly.
"Yes, but he was lucky enough to be talented," said Ariel. "You can't say that about most Terran artists."
"Perhaps you judge our aspirations too harshly," said Benny.
"Yes, you should judge after you hear us play," said M334.
"Yes, you should have plenty of critical ammunition then," said Harry.
Ariel stared at Derec. "It was a joke," Derec said.
"Close to bein' good one!" said Wolruf.
The three robots then magnetically applied computerized, flexible, artificial lips to their speaker grills. The lips were connected by electrical cords that led into the positronic cavities, and Derec saw at once, by the way the robots exercised the lips and blew air through them, that they responded directly to thought control.
Just like real lips,thought Derec, biting his lower one as if to make sure. "Excuse me, but before you boys strike up the brass, I'd like to know what names those instruments are supposed to have."
"This is a trumpet," said Benny. " A saxophone," said M334.
"And a trombone," said Harry.
"And by way of further introduction," said Benny, "the number we would like to assault for your aural perusal is an ancient composition dating not four hundred years later than Shakespeare's time. This was already during the age of recorded music, but no tapes are currently available through central, so we can only surmise the manner in which these instruments were played by examining the sheet music. "
"What there is of it," said Harry. "Most of this number is improvised."
"Uh-oh!"said Ariel to herself, putting her hand protectively on her forehead. "I must be having a delirium!"
"And the number we would like to assault is what the reference tapes denote as, in the parlance of the day, a snappy little ditty. This song its composer, the human known as Duke Ellington, called 'Bouncing Buoyancy."'
I've got a bad feeling about this,Derec thought. He waved his hand. "Play on, McDuffs!"
The robots did. At least, that's what the humans and the alien thought they were trying to do. The musical form was so radically unlike anything they'd experienced, the playing so haphazard and odd, so full of accidental spurts and sputters and stops, that exactly what the robots were attempting to do remained a matter of some conjecture.
Benny's trumpet played the lead with a blaring succession of notes that occasionally struck the ear as being just right. The noise the instrument made resembled the wail of a siren, recorded backwards. So high was its frequency that Derec became afraid his ears would begin bleeding. Benny's notes, on the other hand, did seem to possess some kind of internal logic, as if he knew where he was going but wasn't quite sure how to get there.
Harry on the trombone and M334 on the saxophone attempted to provide Benny with a solid foundation; awkwardly, they tooted eight measures of unchanging harmony, over and over again. They nearly succeeded, harmony-wise, and perhaps their glitches wouldn't have been so noticeable if they'd occasionally managed to start and end the eight measures at the same time.
The trombone itself tended to sound like an exquisitely crafted raspberry, surreally brayed from the mouth of a contemptuous donkey. The saxophone's sonic attack, meanwhile, resembled nothing so much as a gaggle of geese gurgling underwater. The effect of the three instruments combined was such that Derec wondered momentarily if the robot hadn't come up with a violation of an interplanetary weapons treaty.
Derec spent the first minute finding the music absolutely atrocious, utterly without redeeming social value. It was the worse kind of noise; that is, noise pretending to be something else. But gradually he began to perceive, vaguely, the equally vague ideal in the robots' minds. The music itself, regardless of the manner of its playing, possessed a single-minded joy that quickly became infectious. Derec discovered that his toe was tapping in a rhythm akin to that of the music. Ariel was nodding thoughtfully. Wolruf had her head cocked inquisitively, and Mandelbrot was his usual inscrutable self.
Derec's mind wandered a second, and he wondered if he could rig up a specimen of those liplike fixtures on the mouths to help robots portray human emotions during the production. The fact that most had immobile faces, incapable of even rudimentary expression, was going to cripple the illusion unless he devised some way to use the very inflexibility to greater effect. He imagined a set of lips twisted in laughter at the play's cavorting actors, and in fear of the ghost of Hamlet's father, and in anguish at the sight of all the dead bodies littering the stage. Well, it's a thought, he figured, and then returned his attention to the music.
The arrangement of "Bouncing Buoyancy" concluded with all three instruments playing the main theme simultaneously. Theoretically. The robots took the mouthpieces from their lips with a flourish and held out the instruments toward their audience.
Derec and Ariel looked at one another. Her expression read You're the director, you do the talking.
"How did our number bludgeon you, master?" asked Benny.
"Uh, it was certainly unusual. I think I see what you robots are trying to get at, and I think I may like it if you actually get there. Don't you agree, Ariel?"
"Oh, yes, definitely." She was really saying I seriously doubt it.
"Iss it Ham-lit?" Wolruf asked.
"That, I don't know," said Derec. "I suppose this Ellington fellow composed other works, though."
"In a variety of styles and moods," said Benny
"All adaptable to our instruments," said Harry.
"I was afraid of that," Derec said. "But don't worry. I'm sure you'll improve with practice. I take it this has been your secret project, Benny?"
Benny bowed in a manner curiously appreciative for a robot. "I personally crafted the instruments and taught my friends what knowledge I had concerning the art of blowing horns."
"Take off those lips, will you? They're just too weird."
As the robots complied, Mandelbrot said, "Master, this performance. Where will it take place? I do not believe the city has theatrical facilities."
"Don't worry. I've got it taken care of. I know just the robot who can design us a theatre perfectly suited for the denizens of Robot City. Only he doesn't know about it yet. "
"And who is that, master?"
"Canute. Who else?" Derec smiled. "In fact, get me Canute. Have him come here right away. I want him to hear some of this 'Bouncing Buoyancy' brew."
"Each age has different terrors and tensions," said Derec a few days later on the stage of the New Globe, "but they all open on the same abyss."
He paused to see what effect his words had on the robots sitting in the chairs before the proscenium. He had thought his words exceedingly profound, but the robots merely stared back at him as though he had recounted the symbols of a meaningless equation, interesting only because a human had happened to say it.
He cleared his throat. Sitting in seats off to the side of the robots were Ariel and Mandelbrot. Ariel had a notebook in hand, but Mandelbrot, whom Derec had appointed property master, naturally had no need of one; his total recall would keep track of the production's prop specifications without notes.
Wolruf sat licking her paw in a chair just behind the pair. She had insisted on being the official prompter, or line coach, and as such had already spent a lot of time prompting Derec and Ariel while they were memorizing their lines-a task that he feared, in his own case, was far from completed.
Derec cleared his throat again. His awkwardness showed-at least if the knowing smile Ariel directed toward him was any indication. Wolruf just licked her chops; he got the feeling that on an unspoken level, she was finding the shenanigans of humans and robots incredibly amusing.