* * *
Pausert woke up in the darkness, and relled vatch. Hello, Big Real Thing! it saluted him cheerfully.
For once, he was happy to salute it back. Hello, Silver-eyes, he thought at it. I have a question for you.
Oh, a question! Now I know you're a real thing. Dream things don't ask questions.
He thought about asking the vatch if it was different from other vatches, but realized that was a stupid question and would deserve a stupid answer. After all, if the vatch had asked him if he was different from other humans, he'd answer "yes," of course. Any human would.
Do all vatches get bigger and smarter when they eat vatch stuff? he asked instead.
Silver-eyes laughed—a new difference. It used to giggle. Bigger, sure. Not always smarter, though. A lot of the big ones are really stupid.
But you do get smarter and bigger?
Of course. That's why I want more vatch stuff. Being smarter is a lot more fun than being stupider.
Are there more vatches who can do that? If he was going to run into a plague of uncontrollable vatches, he wanted to know about it.
Not many. And when we get smart enough, we can go to the (*) place.
The thought of (*) seemed untranslatable. But the clear sense Pausert got was that it was a place that was very desirable—and very much "not here." He decided not to ask Silver-eyes any more questions about it. It probably wouldn't mean anything to him, and it just might be one of those strange klatha things that would turn his head inside out if he did understand it.
I've thought about something you can do for me, then. I'd like it if you can make trouble for the dream things that start to make trouble for us. Not the ones that only pretend to make trouble, he added hastily, like the ones in that show-story that the others and I play in, or the way the clowns toss the Leewit around. I mean real trouble.
Like when you were trying to hide Little and Teeth? That was a neat trick, the way you twisted light around! I never would have thought of it myself until I saw you do it.
What Pausert got along with the words "Little" and "Teeth" were impressions of Hantis and Pul that concentrated on the Nartheby Sprite's relative height and Pul's formidable jaws. Pausert thought about trying to get the vatch to identify them by their names, but it was probably a lost cause.
Yes. If that sort of person is going to make trouble, I'd like you to make their lives as difficult for them as possible. For once, he reflected, he was not going to have to worry about people seeing impossible things. This was a circus, and anything that appeared impossible would, without a doubt, be chalked up to smoke and mirrors and stage-trickery.
I might, agreed the vatchlet. Since that was probably the most he was going to get out of the creature, the captain left it at that. It had already promised not to make trouble for them, which was more than he had ever gotten out of a vatch before this.
Feed me?
Can you bring me something to feed you with? he countered.
Think so.
Its presence faded away, and he started to drift back to sleep again, when he suddenly relled something big, and right on top of him!
With a muffled, startled yell, he formed klatha hooks and sank them into the thing. The vatch was almost as startled as he was, even more so when it knew it had been caught. It literally ripped itself off his hooks and vanished.
Silver-eyes appeared the instant it was gone, and he sensed it dancing with impatience when it "saw" the bits of vatch stuff clinging to his hooks. Feed me!
Once again, Pausert realized, Silver-eyes had lured a big vatch into the area. He was irritated at the little vatch—it could have at least given some warning!—but he gave it what it wanted. And, once again, saw it growing just a tiny bit bigger.
I'll watch, it said then, in a "voice" that seemed a bit more mentally resonant. Then it faded away again. Unable to make up his mind if he had done a good or a bad thing, Pausert turned over, and finally got back to sleep.
* * *
There seemed to be no immediate fallout from the agreement the next day. Which was just as well, since the theatrical company was now in rehearsal for a second play in the morning, while continuing the performances of Romeo and Juliet in the evening, and one of the works they'd already had in their repertoire in the late afternoon. That one was called Twelfth Night and required a much smaller cast.
Contrary to Himbo Petey's glum predictions, the audiences here seemed to have no objections to a play that ended in tragedy, but Richard Cravan decided that the second play put into performance with his augmented cast should be a comedy. He chose A Midsummer Night's Dream in order to use Hantis and Pul. Pul, Goth and the Leewit were creatures called Fairies with fairly extensive speaking roles; Hantis was the Puck-creature that Cravan had mentioned by name, and Hulik played one of the two romantic parts, a girl by the name of Helen. As usual, Cravan himself acted as well as directed, playing King Oberon; Ethulassia was Titania, his Queen.
Even Vezzarn was pressed into service this time. This was a play with an enormous cast, even bigger than Romeo and Juliet, and Cravan recruited people from all over the showboat for non-speaking roles. If they were able to come in on cues and "hit their spots," had interesting faces or could dance a little, they would find themselves filling a place in crowd scenes.
And Pausert found himself playing the clown Bottom against Dame Ethulassia.
Now that put him in an extremely uncomfortable position, for Ethulassia was supposed to fall in love with him thanks to a magical love potion administered by Puck. He couldn't tell if her flirtatious manner onstage was part of her act, or some not-so-subtle attempt to get his attention offstage. Maybe he was enjoying his performances as Mercutio a little too much, and this was the Fates' way of getting back at him. And the more he, as Bottom, tried to evade Ethulassia's cooing caresses, the more she pursued him.
Cravan found this interpretation to be hilariously funny. So, evidently, did almost everyone else in the company, for many of the cast members congratulated him on an original "take" on the character. Goth simply gave him sidelong, opaque looks, saying nothing. The Leewit, on the other hand, taunted him with scathing remarks under her breath whenever he was just within earshot. Hantis and Hulik were amused; Vezzarn couldn't understand why he wasn't following up on Ethulassia's flirtations. Only Pul seemed to sympathize with him.
And he had not forgotten Silver-eyes, either. Though, if the little vatch was around, it was staying so far out of his way that he couldn't rell it at all. He finally cornered both the girls, and told them what had happened the last time it had come around.
"So now I think maybe I've gotten us deeper in trouble than we were before," he said worriedly.
The Leewit shook her head. "I don't know—" she began, but Goth let out her breath in a hiss.
"Huh," she said. "I just thought of something, Captain. What if the vatches we see are all—oh, in a coma or something. They aren't stupid, they're just brain-damaged. That's why they think we're dreams. And the ones like Silver-eyes are the ones that are going to wake up, if they can just get enough vatch stuff put together. Maybe they need it to get their brains back on-line."
Now Pausert felt guilty as well as worried. "That's horrible!" he replied. "If that's true, then I'm beating up on—"