"If he wears it at all," Valentine said, dangerously. "I don't know, Pepsi. There's something about it that rubs me the wrong way. Call me old-fashioned. Nudity is fine, at home, at the playground, in the swimming pool."
"But this isn't nudity, Mr. V," Rose piped up, honestly trying to be helpful. "Nudity is dreary. This is style."
"Not to put too fine a point to it, Rose, my darling," John said, "I was raised to believe a young gentleman should wear pants in public."
Rose—who, like most third-generation and younger Lunarians, had no more body modesty than a mink—had no idea what he was talking about. She had made costumes faithfully for a hundred Earth-era pictures without ever really grasping the genitalia taboo. People wore lots of clothing on Earth because it had been dangerous down there, to her way of thinking. Blistering sunlight, lethal cold winds. There was nothing like that to protect oneself from on Luna, and people wore clothing almost exclusively for decoration, sometimes a lot of it, sometimes very little, depending on the fashion of the day. If the fashion now was no pants, what's the big deal? She looked to Peppy for help.
Gideon Peppy carefully removed half his lollipop from his mouth, and chewed on the rest. He had never eaten his hard candy treats until he met the Valentines, father and son, but now he found himself frequently biting down hard on them. Pepsi, is it, you prick?
He laughed indulgently, one friend to another, and shook his head.
"Johnny, Johnny, honestly! I don't know where you get these ideas! He's a riot, isn't he, fellas? A riot. Sometimes I think you're just kidding us, and I'm too dumb to get the joke. But I'm here for you, paisan. I care, I really do. If you have concerns I'm always willing to listen. If you're not happy, nobody at this table is happy, so what I want from you is to talk to me, John. Blue-sky it for us. What would you like to see here? We all want your input and my mind is a blank page, costume-wise. So draw on it, John B., draw on it. What kind of pants are we talking here?"
Sparky, who had not been following the exchange at all closely, chose that moment to pipe up.
"I kind of like it, Father," he said.
The silence that followed was mercifully short, as one of Rose's assistants arrived with a girl in tow. Now it was Sparky's turn to frown dubiously.
Peppy stood up to greet the girl. He lifted her up onto the table where she stood confidently, hands on hips, looking a challenge at Sparky.
"Folks, meet Sparky's new sidekick. I'd like you to say hi to Kaspara Polichinelli!"
"Sidekick? Sidekick? I didn't see anything about a sidekick." John Valentine reached for his script.
"All action heroes have sidekicks," Peppy said, smugly. "We figured from the start Sparky'd have one. We wrote her in last week."
Sparky walked slowly toward the young lady. Eight years old, he figured. Dressed exactly as he was, only the waistcoat was blue with silver highlights. Hair trimmed the same, only silver instead of brass. Zigzags, eye shadow, all the same. The black lipstick was a trifle bee-stung, a little Betty Boopish, but other than that, she looked just like him.
He stopped a pace away and looked her up and down. She smiled. Her two front teeth were prominent.
"What kind of name is Kaspara?" he asked. He was aware that an argument was happening down at Peppy's end of the table, but he tried to ignore it. He knew he had made a major mistake in his comment about the costume, but he was hoping this new sensation might make it seem less important in retrospect. Perhaps Kaspara Polichinelli's arrival would distract his father from his son's innocent gaffe. And that was good.
But he was far from sure anything else about her arrival was so great.
"I don't use it," she said.
"What do they call you? Kassie?"
"Everybody calls me Polly."
Sparky had edged a little closer, trying to see if his shoulder was higher than hers. She smiled, and came around him to stand back-to-back. The two of them looked in the mirror. He had an inch on her. Maybe two if he stood up straight. Well, that was okay, then.
She laughed, and bumped him with her hip.
"Come on," she said. "Don't be such a flip. I know how to stand downstage and not get in your shot. They told me the part was a sidekick when I tried out."
"You're going to be my buddy? Is that it?"
"I don't think they planned any sexual involvement until the third season, at least," she said. "Which is fine with me. I'm old-fashioned, like your father. I figured I'd wait till my blood day, just like my mother did."
Sparky was saved from replying to that by the sound of rising voices at the power end of the table. Storm clouds were forming over there, and the outlook was excellent that the long-delayed cataclysmic confrontation between producer and parent was about to break out. Aides were scurrying for cover as John Valentine came around the table, slapping his script into his open palm while Peppy slapped a copy of Sparky's contract into his.
"Come on," Polly said, pulling his hand. "They told me to bring you back. Miss Crow says it's time for classes."
"Miss Crow?" For a moment Sparky forgot who she was. "Oh. Auntie Equity."
"Auntie Equity." She laughed. "I like that. C'mon, let's get out of here. There's a fight about to happen, and I think your dad's going to lose it. I don't think you want to be around when he does."
John Valentine did lose the fight, if the removal of the character of Polly was the criterion for winning. But he saw it coming, and managed to turn the contest in midstream until it was a struggle over artistic control and not over Polly herself—and managed to convince himself that was what he had been upset about in the first place. It might even have been true. He was not mollified by a small victory on the issue of trousers. "Listen to this," Peppy had offered. "We shoot the pilot in the outfits Rose designed. Then there's a coupla markets off-planet... what is it, Vesta, Callisto... Ceres, I think, all fulla Baptists and Mormons and jerks like that. Vesta, now, wha'd' they call it in that skit the other day...?"
He snapped his fingers rapidly and an aide spoke up. "Planet of the Prudes," he said.
"That's it. We always have to tinker with the Peppy Show for export, so what we'll do, we'll morph some britches on 'em, see what it tests like. Now I ask you, John B. Is that fair?"
"Couldn't be fairer, Pepster." Valentine beamed.
Ah, Polly. Those were more innocent days.
Yes, it's me again, awake after another week.
Like most long voyages, at sea or in space, awake or asleep, there is not usually much to report. One day is like another, barring storm or disaster. I will tell you now, no such disaster will befall. The deadballs will continue to work their hypnotism-reinforced magic, I will continue to awake at regular intervals, I will eat, I will fall back into the arms of Morpheus. In time I will arrive at Oberon, where further adventures await. In the meantime I will allow that long-ago Sparky to tell his story, as is his habit, in the third person, suitably edited into high and low points.
I doubt that I will interrupt him again.
But this time I had to. Sometimes something rises from the depths of the sea or sails out of the ocean of night to make the day a special one. Your diary has been an endless series of identical entries: Falling sunward. Shipboard routine uninterrupted. Weather clear. Slept. Then the lost continent of Atlantis appears off the starboard bow. It's worth a postcard.
We ran into a herd of diaphanophores. A flight of diaphanophores? The book where I found that fancy name you've probably never heard of neglected to give a collective noun for them. Herd definitely won't do, though. How about an exaltation of diaphanophores?