Dr. Jefferson dismissed the waitress, looked up and noticed him staring at the Martian. Don said, “I was just wondering why he would come here. Not to eat, surely.”
“Probably wants to watch the animals feeding. That’s part of my own reason, Don. Take a good look around you; you’ll never see the like again.”
“No, I guess not—not on Mars.”
“That’s not what I mean. Sodom and Gomorrah, lad—rotten at the core and skidding toward the pit. ‘—these our actors, as I foretold you… are melted into air—’ and so forth. Perhaps even ‘the great globe itself.’ I tally too much. Enjoy it; it won’t last long.”
Don looked puzzled. “Dr. Jefferson, do you like living here?”
“Me? I’m as decadent as the city I infest; it’s my natural element. But that doesn’t keep me from telling a hawk from a handsaw.”
The orchestra, which had been playing softly from nowhere in particular, stopped suddenly and the sound system announced “News flash!” At the same time the darkening sky overhead turned black and lighted letters started marching across it. The voice over the sound system read aloud the words streaming across the ceiling: BERMUDA: OFFICIAL: THE DEPARTMENT OF COLONIAL AFFAIRS HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THE PROVISIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE VENUS COLONIES HAS REJECTED OUR NOTE. A SOURCE CLOSE TO THE FEDERATION CHAIRMAN SAYS THAT THIS IS AN EXPECTED DEVELOPMENT AND NO CAUSE FOR ALARM.
The lights went up and the music resumed. Dr. Jefferson’s lips were stretched back in a mirthless grip. “How appropriate!” he commented. “How timely! The handwriting on the wall.”
Don started to blurt out a comment, but was distracted by the start of the show. The stage floor by them had sunk out of sight, unnoticed, during the news flash. Now from the pit thus created came a drifting, floating cloud lighted from within with purple and flame and rose. The cloud melted away and Don could see that the stage was back in place and peopled with dancers. There was a mountain in the stage background.
Dr. Jefferson had been right; the ones worth staring at were on the stage, not serving the tables. Don’s attention was so taken that he did not notice that food had been placed in front of him. His host touched his elbow. “Eat something, before you faint.”
“Huh? Oh, yes, sir!” He did so, busily and with good appetite but with his eyes on the entertainers. There was one man in the cast, portraying Tannhauser, but Don did not know and did not care whom he represented; he noticed him only when he got in the way. Similarly, he had finished two thirds of what was placed before him without noticing what he was eating.
Dr. Jefferson said, “Like it?”
Don did a double take and realized that the doctor was speaking of food, not of the dancers. “Oh, yes! It’s awfully good.” He examined his plate. “But what is it?”
“Don’t you recognize it? Baked baby gregarian.”
It took a couple of seconds for Don to place in his mind just what a gregarian was. As a small child he had seen hundreds of the little satyr-like bipeds—faunas gregariaus veneris Smythii—but he did not at first associate the common commercial name with the friendly, silly creatures he and his playmates, along with all other Venus colonials, had always called “move-overs” because of their chronic habit of crowding up against one, shouldering, nuzzling, sitting on one’s feet, and in other ways displaying their insatiable appetite for physical affection.
Eat a baby, move-over? He felt like a cannibal and for the second time in one day started to behave like a groundhog in space. He gulped and controlled himself but could not touch another bite.
He looked back at the stage. Venusberg disappeared, giving way to a tired-eyed man who kept up a rapid fire of jokes while juggling flaming torches. Don was not amused; he let his gaze wander around the room. Three tables away a man met his eyes, then looked casually away. Don thought about it, then looked the man over carefully and decided that he recognized him. “Dr. Jefferson?”
“Yes, Don?”
“Do you happen to know a Venus dragon who calls himself ‘Sir Isaac Newton’?” Don added the whistled version of the Venerian’s true name.