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a bagpipe. A querulous puff generated a sound of astonishing depth and
resonance. He began experimenting with the buttons set in one side, finally
removed it from his mouth.
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"Might be able to. What are we going to do? Give a concert?"
"Hey, why not? You see any signs banning street musicians?"
"No, but I don't see any street musicians, either. Not that we'd be able to
read any signs."
"So much the better. We'll be a novelty. Our music sure will."
"I have to confess I don't have any better ideas. I don't guess you know any
Mozart?"
"Mozart schmotzart. Are we gonna play real music or what?"
"All right," Kerwin said tiredly. "I knew it was proba-bly too much to ask and
I don't want to argue about it. You start with something and I'll try to
follow, okay?"
Seeth did just that, his hands roaming in circles across the top of the flower
petals. As for the flute-antenna, Kerwin found it surprisingly simple to get
the hang of. Before long the two of them were jamming away like mad in the
rain and cold, wondering if the sounds they were fashioning were even
comprehensible, much less appeal-ing, to the few remaining passing
pedestrians.
After a while the rain ceased, not gradually, but as if someone had turned off
a faucet far above. More pedestri-ans began to appear. Stores and shops began
to reopen along the walkway, which was soon alive with nocturnal strollers.
Kerwin would have put a beckoning hat on the pavement if they'd had one.
Miranda's boredom was replaced by a growing interest in the music the two
young men wove on alien instru-ments. She started by nodding her head, then
smiling, then moving sensuously in some private universe of her own.
Soon she was dancing and twisting in time to the eclectic rhythm, swaying and
kicking like a lost line escaped from its oscilloscope.
It was all Kerwin could do from then on to concentrate on his pseudo-flute.
The girl could move, though whether her supple gyrations would appeal to
non-humans was a matter for contention. But when Izmir joined in, lighting up
like some atomic-powered Christmas tree, changing shapes and colors while
bleating incomprehensibly, they began to attract the attention of many of the
passersby.
Miranda slipped out of her shoes and danced barefoot. The pavement was
pleasantly cool and drying rapidly. Soon her abandoned footgear began to fill
up with an interesting assortment of metallic, plastic and ceramic shapes. It
looked like the debris gleaned from the depths of a child's toychest.
Izmir grew several long legs and tried to dance with Miranda. Failing to keep
in step with her or the music, he abruptly transformed himself into an
extensive sashlike sheath of glittering gold and copper, the alternating bands
rippling like fluid metal. Electric discharges crackled in the air as he
wrapped himself around the girl. It worried Kerwin for a moment, but she
assured him she wasn't feeling a thing and that this new Izmir-form weighed
next to nothing.
The Astarach seemed content to be treated like a piece of clothing. Miranda
easily whirled him through the air, spinning him above her head like a
Spanish dancer. Through-out it all the single blue eye drifted amidst the gold
and copper, mournfully surveying its surroundings.
It was a presentation sufficiently exotic to stop even sophisticated alien
travelers in their tracks. A crowd grew as many lingered to watch. Kerwin
tootled on, keeping a wary eye alert for anything that looked like a
policeman. He had the feeling a cop was recognizable as a cop no matter how
many limbs or eyes he possessed.
No representatives of local authority showed themselves, however, and for all
they knew such sidewalk performances were perfectly legal. If not, none of the
onlookers voiced any complaints. In a city the size of Alvin, it was
conceivable that police responded only to reported viola-tions of the law and
didn't have the time to go hunting them up. Just to patrol it you'd need a
force the size of the French Army.
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The performance finally ended when Kerwin ran out of breath and Seeth's
fingers were starting to turn raw from his constant strumming of the flower
machine. Kerwin collapsed his flute and Seeth folded up his musical petals.
Miranda looked askance at the two of them.
"What's the matter? You're not tired already, are you?" She looked as fresh as
a marathon runner after a month's time off.
"Not entirely," Kerwin wheezed. "Dead tired'd be more like it."
"Come on
." She snapped her fingers. "That music was like, totally rad." She spun a
circle, tresses flying.
"Pack it in, sugarthighs." Seeth was leaning back against a wall, wiping sweat
from his forehead and the shaven sides. "What do you run on, fusion?"
"No." She looked down the well-lit street. "But now that you mention it I
am, like, you know, kind of hungry. Remember?"
Seeth slung his portable onto his back. There was no strap, but the instrument
clung to his leather jacket as if both surfaces had suddenly
acquired a Velcro overlay. Maybe it just liked leather. Then he bent to
examine the bizarre contents of her shoes.
"Coins?" Kerwin wondered aloud.
Seeth sniffed one shoe. "Looks like garbage to me."
"Maybe they were rendering their opinions." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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