Free The Dark Beyond the Stars : A Novel by Frank M. Robinson Page A

annoyed. “You don’t have to.”
    “Pipit showed you her ship,” Snipe corrected. “She didn’t show you my ship.”
    Which irritated me even more, but this time I bit my tongue. I waved at the huge hangar deck surrounding us.
    “Why are we up here?”
    “Because this is where the stage is.”
    I looked surprised.“Stage for what?”
    “Plays,” she said, impatient once again.“Plays about the Astron and its mission.It’s one way we keep our continuity with previous crews and with the Earth itself. It’s not the only way but it’s probably the best way.”
    “Plays,” I said, mystified.
    “Plays,” she repeated. She drifted over to the palm terminal. There was a flickering on the hangar deck and I was suddenly looking at a vast expanse of purple sand dotted with small hillocks sweeping upward toward a range of pink mountains. It was an alien planet at dusk, with two moons overhead and an impossibly large spaceship settling to the ground a kilometer away. Two odd-shaped military tanks came clanking around one of the small hills between us and the ship but I could see nothing else moving. I stared, fascinated, hastily shielding my eyes when flares exploded above the ship. The scene faded and Snipe said, “That was the invasion of Pilar , this is—”
    “Did that really happen?”
    “It could have.” The difference didn’t seem to matter to her. “We use it for training.”
    “I didn’t see any people.”
    She made a face. “Of course not, that’s just the set.”
    “And the actors?”
    “Almost everybody acts in them from time to time.” She looked me up and down, obviously unimpressed. “If you can act, maybe we can find a part for you. But Ophelia said she didn’t think you would be very good.”
    The projections were changing now, from the alien battlefield to a jungle of huge trees with trailing vines and many-colored birds flying through the branches overhead, to an outer-space battle between a ship I took to be the Astron and vessels crewed by intelligent insects. There were at least fifty “sets” that flickered in and out of existence so fast they became a confusing blur—a universe of alien creatures and civilizations, the purpose of the Astron made fresh every time actors appeared to bring that purpose to life.
    The last of them faded and I said, “Do you ever act in them?”
    Snipe became surprisingly shy and said, “Sometimes.”
    “Which ones?”I persisted.
    She gave me a sidelong glance, debating whether to trust me.
    “The historical—those where I can dress up.You know…” She opened her eyes wide and suddenly looked small and demure and three years younger.
    “‘Thou know’st the mask of night is on my face, else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek for that which thou has heard me speak tonight.’”
    She relaxed into herself again. “That’s from Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. He’s… very good.”
    I was astonished. For a moment she had become a character who had lived and died in imagination thousands of years before. I took a closer look at her as she floated in the flickering glow from the terminal. She was skinny, her nose was too big, her hips stuck out, and she was much too quick to tell you the truth about yourself even if it hurt—or maybe especially if it hurt. But despite all of that, she was very pretty.And fragile. And she had trusted me enough to let me see her fragility.
    “Which plays are the most popular?”
    “The historicals , of course.We like to live other people’s lives because our own are so dull.”
    I was surprised. “Do you really believe that?”
    In a small voice: “Most of the time.” Then, irritated by her own weakness, she burst out: “You have eyes. Can’t you see?” She immediately followed it with a contrite “I forgot, I’m sorry.”
    I didn’t ask what she forgot, but changed the subject to something more important to me. “Did I ever act in the historicals ?”
    “Everybody on board does at one time