Is it? What fun! Oooo— Pausert sensed it somehow looking over the audience. It's just a story? Like a dream? But they're excited like it's all real!
Yes, and some of them already know what the ending will be, but they're still excited. He was pleased to have given it a new sort of diversion. Watch them watching us, and you'll see.
Then his cue came, and he swaggered back onstage.
By now the audience had decided that they liked him, especially when he played his bawdy tricks on Juliet's Nurse. They were laughing at the slapstick humor of it, and even though half of his attention was on the vatch, he thought he had completed the job that Richard Cravan had set him—to make the audience care about him, so that when Tybalt killed him—
Well, that was for later. He took his exit, and realized that the little vatch was gone. He heaved a sigh of relief. One less thing to worry about.
For now.
* * *
"—and that was when it stopped, well, acting like a vatch," he concluded, as Goth and the Leewit stared at him. "Or at least, like the vatches I've run into before."
"We always knew there were some vatches that couldn't be controlled, even by a really good vatch-handler like you. What I'm wondering now is whether that's just because the vatches we usually run into are just, well, vatch-style village idiots?"
The Leewit scowled, but it was her thinking sort of scowl. "You did all right, Captain," she said, finally. "I think maybe Goth's right. It's not a new sort of vatch, but just one you don't run across too often. You think if it eats vatch stuff and keeps getting smarter, maybe someday it'll get smart enough to leave us alone?"
Pausert shrugged. "As long as it's willing to play nice, I don't care. I'm not going to give it too much vatch stuff, though. What if it gets smart and big, then decides to really mess with us? By that point it'd be so big I couldn't distract it anymore by tickling it with klatha hooks."
"Good thinking," the Leewit agreed, just as her chrono chimed. "Oops! Got to get to the Big Top!" She scampered out of the dressing room so fast she might just as well have teleported to the circus side of the ship. Pausert glanced at his own chrono; she had about half an hour to get into her clown costume and makeup before the Entrance Parade. It was the first time he'd ever seen the Leewit making sure she was on time for anything.
That worried him. She was enjoying her role in the circus; maybe enjoying it too much.
"We're fitting in here entirely too well," said Goth, in an echo of his own thoughts.
Pul shouldered his way into the dressing room, growling back over his shoulder at the Nartheby Sprite and Hulik, who were following him. "—and you're liking this too much!" he said. "What about our mission? What about the Nanite plague? What about the Empress?"
Hulik, smiling faintly, leaned back against a wall, and started removing the long wig she wore as Juliet. Hantis folded herself into a chair. "I am liking this, but I haven't forgotten, Pul," she said seriously. "The trouble is, there are entirely too many people trying to find us. The Agandar's pirates, not to mention the ISS. For all I know, the Sedmons might even be looking for us! One at a time we could evade, but until we shake some of the hunters off, every time we start to run, we're only going to run into someone else. And the only way we can shake them is by doing what we're doing: going to ground, not poking our noses up until we've lost some or all of them."
"We're going to ground?" the grik-dog said, blinking. "I thought we were earning fuel-money, repair-money, our passage and buying the Venture free."
"We're also in hiding, in the best way possible way," said Hulik. "We're not hiding."
Pul shook his head rapidly, his ears flapping like a pair of frantic wings. "Hiding? Not in hiding? You two are making my head hurt!"
"Mine too," said Pausert, "And I have to agree with Pul—I think you all like this life too much."
"If we tried to actually hide anywhere, chances are that we'd be found," Hulik insisted. "Believe me, it's the hardest thing in the world, trying to stay underground. You have to eat, you have to drink, and sooner or later, you nearly go crazy for a bit of open space around you. And people will always be looking for you and looking at you if you act as if you don't want to be seen. But if you do what we're doing—why, we're not in hiding, are we? We're some of the most visible people on the Petey B! Three shows a day, for most of us, two shows in the Freak Show or the Big Top and one on stage, out in front of thousands and thousands of people. Obviously we're not trying to hide! But—!"
She held up a finger, as Hantis nodded. "Do we look like the people that the ISS and the pirates are trying to find? Do we act like them?"
"Well, no," admitted Pul.
Goth was apparently rethinking the matter. "If we do witchery here, people will just assume it's tricks," she admitted. "And they'll figure we're working on something new for the acts. Nobody believes in Karres witches on the Petey B—I know; I've nosed around. They think it's all misdirection and mirrors!"
Hulik spread her hands. "You see?" she said to Pul and Pausert. "There's something else I don't think you've noticed. Outside—people are always asking personal questions about you—who are you, where are you from, where are you going, who do you know, what's your business? Hadn't you noticed, not even Himbo Petey asked very much about us."
"Well . . ." said Pausert slowly, his brow wrinkling as he thought back. "I guess you're right."
"I've been monitoring his data-access, Captain," said Goth. "He just did superficial checking on us, to make sure we weren't well-known violent criminals or something. After that, he didn't seem to care."
"He doesn't care," Hulik said firmly. "Showboat people are often people hiding something, or running from something, trying to live something down, or trying to forget something. That's why nobody goes poking their noses in where they're not invited. I expect if I ran full security checks on everyone on the Petey B, there wouldn't be more than a handful of people who would pass. Everybody has a secret, and in order to keep their own secrets, they protect the secrets of everyone else in the family. We're part of the family now, and if any outsiders come poking around, asking questions, they'll get as many stories about us as there are people they ask, and not one of those stories will be anything like the truth."
At that, Goth started to chuckle. "That explains why Mannicholo was telling the Clown Master that the captain and the Leewit and me are all cousins that Ethulassia talked Himbo Petey into hiring away from a big, important theater company on Rellart where we were all stars!"
Hulik echoed Goth's chuckle. "And last I heard, you, Pul, are actually a were-dog from Kolatte—and you're the real ventriloquist, because Hantis is a mute!" She smiled, and began to comb out her wig. "The stories will only get wilder and less believable. Everyone will make a up a different one, to help protect us, without any of us even hinting that we need protecting. So we're as safe here as we could be anywhere outside of the Empress' palace."
"That may be true," Pausert said grudgingly. "But what about our mission?"
"The mission is only going to end badly if we get caught," pointed out Hantis. "So we'll just have to be patient, and do what we can, when we can, until we can break away without being chased."
"And right now, I think that means doing your escapist show over on Sideshow Alley," said Goth, looking meaningfully at his chrono.
Pausert left, shaking his head. They were probably right, but he didn't like it. If anything, he was even more worried, because the longer they stayed here, the harder it would be to leave. After all, wasn't this a dream come true? Didn't everyone want to run away to join the circus? The trouble was, running away was the last thing he wanted to do.