Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [46]
When Harry finished, the audience seemed to exhale as one, catch its breath, then unleased a torrent of applause that rocked Harry back on his heels. He grinned foolishly, then bowed. When the cries of “Encore,” began, Harry actually blushed, and seemed ready to walk off the stage, but a warning look from Tom kept his friend in the spotlight. After searching his memory, Harry finally said, “I don’t have anything else prepared, but this is one of the first songs I ever learned. If you want to, you can sing along.” Then, Harry launched with brio into a peppy tune that every human (and most nonhumans) instantly recognized. Tom was surprised to find that he knew the song’s words, even the part about “a penny for a spool of thread, a penny for a needle.” Seventy-five people in a room the size and shape of the holodeck singing “That’s the way the money goes, POP goes the weasel!” must have made the the ship’s beam vibrate.
The second surprise came when Ensign Garber had a last-minute attack of nerves and decided that the juggling act just wasn’t going to work. His partner, Ensign Chell, took him aside and tried to calm him, but the unexpected delay left Tom with an empty stage and the next act unprepped. The long pause (broken only by Garber and Chell’s hissing whispers) stretched on and on until finally Kes quietly rose from her seat, took Neelix (who was standing in the pit) by the hand, and guided him up the short stairway to the center of the stage.
Kes said, “Back on Ocampa, this is a song taught to children to teach them the names of the stars. I taught it to Neelix a long time ago. We used to sing it in his ship because I liked the echoes.” With nothing more than shared glances and a short countdown, the pair began a slow, syncopated song that, as far as Tom could tell, was nothing more than a list of Ocampan names (nonsense to anyone else’s ears) followed by the chorus, “Starlight, starlight, rain down on my home tonight. With the morning you’ll be gone, but for now we’ll sing the starlight song.”
With the second stanza, in addition to singing, Kes and Neelix began clapping their hands together, then exchanging pats, first on each other’s palms, then forearms, then upper arms and shoulders. Their movements were quick, graceful, and perfectly timed. As the list of names grew longer, their motions became quicker and the slaps and pats louder until the words and the sounds mingled. By the fifth chorus, both Neelix and Kes were panting furiously, neither one able to sing the lyrics anymore, but determined to finish the final round of gestures before they broke down in fits of giggles. The performance concluded with a final rendition of the chorus and then an exhausted slump onto the stage, which was greeted by laughter and grateful, astonished clapping.
If only the same could have been said about Tuvok’s poetry recital. Vulcans do not express emotion, or so Tom had been told many times. But if the look on Tuvok’s face at the conclusion of his three selections wasn’t disappointment at the polite smattering of applause, then he knew nothing about show business. “Maybe next time,” Tom whispered as Tuvok paused at the edge of the stage, “you should use the translator.”
“But the translations,” Tuvok protested, “would be so dry.”
Tom couldn’t help but say, “Dryer than that?”
“Much.”
“Then don’t use the translator next time.”
Tuvok only cocked an eyebrow in response. Tom resolved that future shows (should he be pulled into assisting at another, which he would resist with all his might) would not feature senior officers. Their egos, in general, were much too fragile.
To wit: as the moment the captain would go on crept closer, Tom found it more and more difficult to maintain his mask of detached professionalism. What was she planning? And why hadn’t she warned Tom beforehand? For that matter, he thought, had