Part 4

With Willy's help, Walther was able to judge the nature of the haul. He was both pleased and disappointed. Numerically, it had more items than he had expected. Qualitatively, it left much to be desired. There were no complete literary works, only fragments. The pictures were admittedly cheap copies; the recordings were only passages from major works. A total of eight hundred items had been purchased outright by underworld agents; fourteen hundred more had been borrowed on the security of the huge deposit. The latter would have to be duplicated on Alden IV and returned to their Earth owners as quickly as possible. Walther had expended a huge fortune for a dubious return. But, through Willy, he told the contact:

"Keep it up. Get everything you can!"

Several items did look promising: From an elderly spinster in Durban, South Africa, the first two acts of "Othello" had been obtained by the bootlegger who delivered her dry sec sherry twice a month; in New Orleans, an undertaker had parted with a nearly complete Louis Armstrong original--about an inch was broken off one edge of the record, but the bill of lading stated that the rest was quite audible. There was also what was reported to be the last third of "Crime and Punishment," loaned by a lawyer in Prague.

The second shipment was on a par with the first, with the hopeful indication that some of the new acquisitions would complement others in the first shipment. Walther stood beside Willy at the Uniport landing as the shuttleship carrying their second shipment blasted off on the first leg of the long route to far-off Alden IV.

The third shipment was much smaller, only three hundred outright purchases and seven hundred and twenty items obtained against deposit. With the bill of lading came a warning note. Walther translated it himself. It was from their contact, who wrote:

"Don't try to get in touch with me until further notice. Send off this shipment as soon as possible. The Happy Time boys know something big is going on."

By paying a fabulous premium, Walther was able to get the third shipment off on the midnight shuttle. Afterwards he stood in the window of Willy's hotel room, staring up at the star-filled sky.

"Well, that may be the end of it," he said.

"You've done well," said Willy, joining him. "I didn't think you'd get that much."

"I hope it'll do some good. Perhaps all this new material will at least form the basis of a good research library."

Willy glanced at him speculatively.

"I was disappointed about the music," he said. "Not one complete work."

By this time, Walther had learned to know when Willy was maneuvering toward an objective.

"Just tell me what you've got in mind," he grinned. "No preliminaries."

Willy chuckled his appreciation, then grew serious.

"Our opera season ends this week.... We're supposed to take a month off, then start rehearsals for the next tour. Perhaps, during this month...."

Walther sensed what was coming next, but he held his breath--waiting for Willy to say it. Willy did:

"Perhaps--if you still want to spend more money to pay them--we could persuade some of our group to record...."

"A full-length opera!" Walther exclaimed. "Would they--could they--do it?"

Willy pursed his lips thoughtfully.

"As for willingness--you've observed that your wealth is rather persuasive on Earth. Like most artists, our people spend more than they earn, and would probably try anything for what you could pay them. As for ability--we'd undoubtedly have to record in short sessions. We might even have to break up the arias into sections, because we're not conditioned for sustained effort."

"I'll pay them anything to try it," Walther broke in, enthusiastically. "Where would you try it--here in Uniport?"

"Hardly. But there's an old inn in North Wales where I once spent a vacation with some of our group. If the Happy Time agents should be watching us now, it would be quite natural to return to that inn."

"Maria ... do you think she would?"

Willy sighed, and shrugged.

"Not for the money alone ... she's quite a perfectionist about her art. But I'm hopeful that by this time...." His eyes twinkled.

Walther laughed.

"What a chess player you would make! I think you've been moving me around like a pawn ever since the first evening we met!"

"Not a pawn," Willy corrected him with a smile. "A knight."

However, they decided not to tell Maria the real purpose of the proposed vacation until they were all set up at the inn in North Wales. Walther thought the setting sounded perfect for some personal unfinished business.

"Even I could sing an aria in such a place," Willy enthused.

Willy began quietly and individually contacting other members of his company. With the kind of payment Walther authorized him to offer, he had little difficulty getting performers for the venture. Most of them thought the project ridiculous, but the money was more than they would normally earn in an entire season. Willy swore each of them to silence. They were to treat the trip as nothing more than a vacation. He made arrangements for the various pieces of recording equipment to be shipped separately from London, Berlin and New York.

Willy's pink cheeks were perpetually flushed these days, and his bright eyes sparkled brighter than ever. When Walther brought up the question of which opera would be attempted, he discovered that the shrewd old maestro had long ago acquired Puccini's complete "Madame Butterfly" and had already packed the music for shipment to North Wales.

The night before they were to leave Uniport, a familiar, distinguished figure appeared backstage, threading his way between the huge crates being packed by the servo-robot stagehands. Willy led him immediately to one of the dressing rooms.

With admirable simplicity, the underworld contact put a proposition before them.

The first three shipments had pretty well exhausted the supply of readily obtainable material. With the Happy Time agents now alerted, the risk of trying to get more material wasn't justified by the probable results. But the underworld wasn't anxious to let go of a good revenue source without one big payoff.

What did they propose to do?

Willy's voice shook as he translated:

"For--for the right--fee--they're willing to break into the Uniport Library vaults!"

Walther was silent for a long moment. Instinctively, he recoiled from such overt action. But reason asked: Why should he draw back now? Everything taken from the vaults would be duplicated and returned in good condition. Was it right to let his own personal reaction stand in the way of something that might benefit whole ages of Mankind?

When he had firm control of his own voice, he nodded and asked:

"How do they propose to do it?"

The plan was a piece of professional craftsmanship. In the century of its existence, no one had ever attempted to enter the new library illegally. With the absence of any known motive for doing so, the need for guarding against it was routine. There were the usual doors and time-locks, the alarm systems and servo-robot guards, but nothing that couldn't be handled. They would bring in technicians from Vega VI to handle the time-locks. Otherwise, barring some unsuspected move by the Happy Time security police, the job was within the bounds of their own abilities. Of course, there must be meticulous attention to detail and planning.

The contact explained that, according to preliminary surveys, they could count on about two hours of work after gaining entrance to the vaults. By concentrating only on books, for speed of handling and packing, a reasonable sized crew should be able to get at least twenty thousand volumes out of the vaults and into a waiting monorail transport, where the crates would already be assembled. Previous arrangements could be made for the midnight freight shuttle to take the crates from the Uniport landing to Cyngus III. From there, the crates could be dispersed throughout the immeasurable reaches of deep space.

"But they must be returned," Walther insisted. "I'll see to that!"

Their visitor shrugged, indicating that this detail was of no interest to him. He named a price, and when Walther promptly agreed to it, Willy poured them all a drink.

"When I was a small boy," Willy said, in a voice that still trembled, "I slid on the seat of my trousers down an icy slope in the Alps. It was good fun for the first twenty yards; and then I realized I had gone beyond my power to stop. That's the way I feel right now. Prosit!"

As their caller started to leave, Walther stopped him by raising his hand. Throughout the discussion, an irresistible compulsion had been growing within him. Now he had to speak:

"I've come a long way," he told Willy. "Granting that nothing goes wrong, and that I'm able to leave, I know I'll never return to Earth again. But there's one selfish, personal thing I want to do before leaving. It isn't sensible, I know--but neither was my dream to begin with. I want to go with these men into the Uniport vaults--just to see for an hour--greater treasures than I can ever hope to see again."

* * * * *

From his room on the second floor of the Bridge End Inn, Walther could look down upon the River Dee, tumbling along beside what was still called the Shropshire and Union Railroad Canal, although the tracks of that ancient railroad had been torn up centuries ago. Old ways and names had a way of persisting in North Wales, despite the pace of modern leisure. Walther had noted with satisfaction that the double consonants of the old language, with their strange throaty pronunciation, had defied contraction. Llangollen and Llantysilio were two nearby cities whose names were still spelled out, as they had been for a thousand years.

He glanced at his watch. Maria should be waking from her nap just about now. In a half hour, Willy wanted to meet with her and ask her cooperation in doing "Madame Butterfly". Walther had suggested waiting until the next day, since Maria was tired from the closing night festivities in Uniport, and from packing the rest of the night in time to catch the morning stratoway. But Willy opposed delay.

As he stood there by his window, Walther had a sense of peace, for the first time since he'd been on Earth. The moment was all the more to be cherished, since he knew it could not last.

A light knock on his door jarred the view and the peace out of focus.

"Come in," he called, and turned, expecting to see Willy.

But it was Maria who entered, looking remarkably refreshed after her short nap. She wore a sweater, a very short skirt and open-toed sandals. Her long, dark hair was combed out loose.

It was the first time he had seen her dressed so casually. She looked more like a Welsh mountain girl than the star of the Uniport opera.

"Hi!" he said, inadequately.

She laughed at his surprise, and put her arms around him.

"Hi," she answered.

Maria had not forgotten her first lesson beside the Tahiti lagoon; and Walther was reviewing some subsequent lessons when both of them became aware of the unwelcome fact that they were not alone.

Willy Fritsh stood in the doorway, smiling benignly.

"Oh, hell," said Walther.

"Believe me, I didn't intend to interrupt," Willy said happily. "But since we're all together right now ... under such ... ah ... propitious circumstances, suppose we talk things over."

"Later," said Walther.

Ignoring his protest, Willy sat himself comfortably on the window seat, opened a large envelope and took out the bound libretto of "Madame Butterfly". He handed it to Maria, without comment. She stared at it curiously, but made no move to open it until Willy motioned her to do so.

She nodded with recognition at the title page, then as she riffled through succeeding pages, her expression changed from surprise to distaste. She tried to hand the libretto back to Willy, but instead of taking it, he drew her to the window seat beside him, and spoke to her as a father might speak to his daughter.

By this time, Walther could understand a little of what Willy was saying and he could guess the rest of it. Maria's first reaction was to stare incredulously at Willy. As the full meaning of what he was asking became clear to her, she looked up at Walther. He saw scorn and anger in her dark eyes.

When she looked back at Willy, it was to shake her head in emphatic refusal.

Willy's tone became even more persuasive. He gazed out the window as he spoke, down at the river pouring over the weir and ducking under the old stone bridge. Maria rolled the libretto into a tight scroll. Her fingers showed white through her unpolished nails.

Willy stopped abruptly. He looked older, tired. Maria remained silent, her lips compressed into a tight line. At last she answered him, in a voice that was tightly, coldly controlled.

She stood up and walked toward the door. Walther held out his hand; she ignored it. He started after her, and Willy said,

"Let her go."

Willy looked so depressed that Walther felt a need to comfort him.

"It's all right," he said. "We'll forget the whole idea."

Willy shook his head.

"She'll do it," he said wearily.

"But...."

"She'll do it because she thinks she owes it to me."

Walther waited for the old maestro to continue.

"As soon as we're through recording," Willy went on, pushing himself up from the window seat, "Maria wants to be released to another opera company."

"I'll go see her right now," Walther began.

"Not now," Willy interrupted. "She wouldn't have anything to do with you. She thinks your only interest has been this recording."

* * * * *

Willy started rehearsals early the next morning, in the big stone barn behind the inn. The structure's high roof and thick walls provided natural acoustics, while its location was far enough from Llangollen to avoid creating undue curiosity. Recording equipment had been set up along one side; around it, the orchestra was grouped. The center area was marked off for vocal rehearsals.

Willy handled the direction himself, and not for a century had any director on Earth undertaken such a staggering task.

From the first moments of rehearsal, it became evident that the orchestra could never hope to play an entire number in one sustained effort. It was not so much the physical effort involved, as the difficulty of maintaining an emotional crest for so long a period. The first violinist fainted halfway through the opening sequence between Lieutenant Pinkerton and the American consul. This triggered a mass collapse among the woodwinds. The pianist wavered off an octave through sheer fatigue, and the drummer dropped his sticks when Willy cued him to step up tempo.

Willy was frantic.

"We'll have to record a few bars at a time--until they're more accustomed to the strain," he told Walther. "What an editing job this will be!"

The problem with the vocalists was even more acute. Every duet would have to be recorded in at least ten segments.

Maria was the only one who stubbornly insisted on doing a complete number. It was a point of pride with her. She hated the music; it violated every principle she had ever learned. But the perfectionist in her, reinforced by her bitterness toward Walther and her sense of obligation to Willy, drove her to deliver the full measure of her promise.

In the love duet between Butterfly and Pinkerton, which closed Act I, the pale and perspiring Pinkerton was nearly spent as he began his final lines:

Come then,

Love, what fear holds you trembling?

Have done with all misgivings....

His impassioned plea quavered; he clutched Maria's arm to steady himself. Willy cut the music. For five minutes they held cold compresses to the singer's wrists, while members of the orchestra slumped, exhausted, in their chairs. When all were somewhat recovered, Pinkerton attempted the next two lines of his wedding night rapture:

The night doth enfold us,

See the world lies sleeping....

And then he had to rest again.

But when Maria answered, her dark eyes flashing defiantly, she went through her entire eight lines without a pause.

Her great test came with the famous second act solo, "One Fine Day". It was difficult enough to learn the strange words and music, but to achieve and hold the emotional peaks of the solo for nearly two minutes was something she had never before attempted.

Because she insisted on doing the entire aria without resting, Willy set the recording for early in the morning, when the orchestra would be fresh. He asked them to assemble on the improvised sound stage an hour after breakfast.

Willy limited the orchestra to a minimum tune up period so that the musicians could conserve their energies for the ordeal ahead. The violins were the last to be ready. When the final string had been tuned, Willy cued the engineers to stand by and pointed the tip of his baton toward Maria.

"Un Bel Di...."

The words came clear as the notes of a silver bell, calling back to life the beauty that had been dead for so long. Walther felt his stomach muscles tighten; a tingle of wonder crept up his spine.

Standing there in the center of the old stone barn, wearing only sandals, shorts and a light blouse open at the neck, Maria still managed to convey the feelings of the lonely young Japanese wife who sang so confidently of her husband's return from across the sea.

This was Maria, the incomparable artist, using all of her technique to blend the unfamiliar words and music.

But for the first few lines it was only a technical tour de force. Then Puccini's music began to take hold of Maria, merging the artist with the woman, and creating yet a third entity out of the two.

He saw Willy turn, transfixed toward Maria. His hands and baton continued to move, but not by conscious direction. His pink cheeks were pale, etched with deepening lines. His blue eyes were misted.

Even the other members of the company seemed moved by Maria's performance. Yet they could not stay with her emotionally; they were compelled to break the tension by shuffling their feet and self-consciously lighting cigarettes.

To a man, the orchestra played as if hypnotized, sweeping through measure after measure with an intensity that seemed impossible to maintain.

For an uncertain moment, near the end of the aria, it looked as if Maria could not finish. She swayed, held tightly to the microphone for support. Walther stepped forward to catch her, but she recovered, drawing on some inner source of strength to finish:

"... This will all come to pass, as I tell you!

Banish your idle fears ...

For he will return, I know it!"

As Maria finished, she tore herself away from the microphone. Her lips were trembling; her eyes were wide, like those of a woman in shock. She half-ran out of the barn, stopped--confused--in the bright sunlight, and then ran on down the path toward the Inn.

* * * * *

Until late afternoon, Maria would see no one. Then she agreed to see Willy for a few moments.

When the old maestro left her room, he looked deeply troubled.

"I don't know ..." he told Walther, shaking his head. "I don't know what this has done to her."

"What did she say?"

"Right now, she says she will never sing again. She's going to her home in Italy this evening."

"Can we do anything?"

"Looks like we've already done more than we should. Mixing two cultures in one artist is dangerous chemistry!"

Up to this moment, Walther had deliberately avoided any decision about Maria. She had been a continuing and delightful challenge, especially since Tahiti, but beyond that he had not allowed his thoughts to go. Now there was a responsibility he could no longer evade. He had watched the dual personality that was Maria being shattered under the impact of Puccini's music. How would the pieces fit together again? Should he stand by and watch? Or should he try to help? And if he could help her, how would it all end? The gulf between two cultures could be wider than the mathematics of space between two galaxies, or the bridging power of sex.

Against Willy's advice, Walther decided to catch the same stratoway with Maria, and take his chances on what might happen.

But a phone call from Uniport abruptly changed his plans. It was from their underworld contact, who informed Willy that the "Board of Directors" was meeting that evening; if Walther wanted to attend, he would have to take the next stratoway to Uniport. Someone would meet him at the station.

Uniport or Italy? Willy intervened to make the decision easier.

"This will be your only chance to get into the vaults," he counseled. "Besides, Maria must think some things through for herself."

His emotions in turmoil, Walther boarded the next stratoway for Uniport. As North Wales and England blurred into the ocean beneath him, he had the feeling that he would never see the River Dee country again.

A tall, thin young man, with eyes as colorless as waxpaper, met him at the Uniport station and hurried him into a monorail car. Walther tentatively began a question, but the young man stopped him with an opaque stare.

Four times they changed monorail cars, ending up eventually at a freight terminal, where an older man met them and pointed silently to one of the freight cars. Inside, Walther saw a strange assortment of smiling servo-robots and grim-faced humans sitting around on empty packing cases. The cases were already marked for shipment and trans-shipment throughout the galaxy.

After quick, sharp glances of appraisal, no one paid any attention to him. He sat down beside one of the servo-robots and forced himself to wait as patiently as possible. For a half hour nothing happened. The servo-robots remained motionless; the humans chain-smoked until the air in the freight car was an acrid grey smog. Nearly every human switched constantly and nervously from his tiny TV set to his watch-radio. One of the men brought out a bottle, but quickly put it away after a staccato command from the greying, square-jawed man who seemed to be in charge.

At 6 o'clock, without warning, the freight car vibrated slightly and began to move. The servo-robots stood up attentively; the humans snuffed out their cigarettes. Peering through one of the small windows, Walther saw that twilight was merging into night.

It was completely dark when the car stopped at a loading platform behind the steel-grey building that towered above the Uniport cultural vaults. A servo-robot guard stepped forward challengingly.

At a gesture from the leader, one of the servo-robots within the car marched out on the platform and presented a punched bill of lading. As the guard fed the document into its tabulator, the other stepped closer and lightly brushed against it. The guard stiffened, as though from a severe shock. There was a sound like that of a racing motor suddenly thrown out of gear. Then a click, and silence. The servo-robot guard unhinged itself at the knees and collapsed on the platform.

Another signal from the leader, and out of the car scurried the humans and servo-robots. They ran across the platform toward the shadow of the building. Here, two of the men, who Walther guessed to be the experts imported to Earth for this job, traced a circle around the door with an instrument that resembled a small camera. Evidently this was to cut off the alarm system, for almost immediately they relaxed and went on to open the door without any attempt at caution.

Proceeding in single file, lighting their way with powerful flashlights, they passed in similar manner through a series of inner doors to an elevator leading down into the vaults. A servo-robot took over its operation, and they shot downward. At each level, the leader stepped off the elevator to look around. At the sixth level, he nodded and they followed him into the vault.

This was the book vault. Tier upon tier, the stacks of books reached in every direction as far as a flashlight beam could probe.