Rowley started. "Never was?"
"Don't ask me. It's your idea, with talk of stage plays and phoney accidents. You made me feel it. I come down to find out. You've been the victim of something ... I don't know what. Are you comforted?"
"No. If only we had more time!"
"We've got a few days," Spliid reassured him. "You've got a good idea in that stage play simile. But the actors aren't very good, and the directing is abominable. It takes a lot of rehearsal to make a good play, Cliff."
For a long time after the pilot boat drifted down from the upper air and whispered away toward the stars with Commander Spliid, Rowley stood brooding, looking down into the pool of shadows hiding the village.
Stage play. Actors. What happens to the scenery when the audience goes home? Rowley shrugged and went to bed.
In the morning, Rowley stirred together an unpalatable breakfast, then went down into the village. The natives were already stirring. Children ran in the grassy streets. The solid stone of the houses gleamed white and gray, streaked and spotted with brown, crumbling at the corners. The thatched roofs were ochre, glistening blue-grey with dew.
Painted scenery? The slender, racing children—hired extras? And Tsu—the leading lady?
He felt miserable about disturbing Tsu and Smarin today. It was intrusion on their period of mourning. Did they mourn on Hume?