Intermission Time

Raymond F. Jones Intermission time

The party was like a wake; the talk was quiet, the faces of the guests waxy. Some of them regretted coming, John Carwell thought. Some of his best friends. He didn’t blame them; there’s nothing appropriate to say to a man at his own funeral.

Doris had insisted on the party, and she was struggling mightily to produce an air of celebration. The trouble was that in her it was real.

She sat at the piano, her fingers playing a twinkling song of springtime. Guests were seated about, or standing in small knots, their attention on her playing. But it might as well have been a funeral march for all the delight reflected in their faces.

John moved silently through the wide doors to the balcony overlooking the garden. In the darkness he almost collided with another figure standing by the railing. He grunted apologetically. “Sorry, George. Didn't see you standing there.”

The figure of George McCune, concert agent for John and Doris Carwell, moved like a bulbous shadow. “I'm out here weeping,” he said. “That music — it turns me over inside when I think I'm not going to hear it any more.”

He placed a broad fat hand on John’s shoulder. “I've said everything; I've given you all my arguments. So now I give you my congratulations.

“It's a wonderful thing you're doing, you and your sister. A wonderful thing — and the biggest damn' piece of foolishness I have ever heard of in a life that has been long, and composed of much more than ordinary foolishness. What can I say to show you how crazy — how utterly damn' crazy —”

He spread his hands in resignation and clamped them to his side. “Have you tried to show her, John?”

John's arm went fondly across the agent’s low broad shoulders. “There's no use making any more talk,” he said quietly. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow Doris and John are but guinea-pigs.”

George puffed violently and pushed himself free of John's hand. He looked towards the horizon, across the city of life and ruin. “Planet 7,” he muttered. “Human Developments!” It's wonderful that they should take morons and pigs, and make human beings and geniuses out of them; but what in Heaven’s name has that to do with John and Doris Carwell?

“You and your sister have genius now, at your fingertips. With your music you make people happy. Is there any greater genius than this?

“Ah, but we've been through this before. Tell me that you have changed your mind and made Doris understand. Just say the one word that will make an old man happy.”

“We leave at noon, tomorrow,” said John.

The notes from the piano were like a thousand tiny bells in the air beside them. The two men listened, and dreamed of a fresh spring world uncharred and overflowing with life.

“Doris made the decision,” said John. “Ever since our folks died when we were kids, she's been the one to come up with the answer — for both of us. She’s older. Things have always worked out the way she said; maybe this will, too.

“I wouldn’t go, of course, if it weren't for her; but I'd be far less than half the Carwell piano team if I stayed. You couldn't book me three times a year, alone.”

“Listen, boy!” George almost bounced with sudden inspiration. “You could have them standing in the aisles. I know. I've watched you — you've got a fire that Doris can never show. Her playing is brilliant — and cold; she's never let you show the things that are inside you.

“Tell her you've decided to go it alone; tell her you're going to live your life and play your music the way you want to. Then she’ll back down, call this Human Developments thing off, and let you lead the concerts the way you always should have.”

“You know Doris better than that. She wouldn’t back down for the Devil himself, and I’m no Devil!”

“What are you?” George whispered with a sudden bitterness that shocked them both. Then, “Forget it,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, John; let’s go inside.”

“No — I’ll stay out here. It’s Doris’ show, anyway.”

“Always Doris’ show!” exploded George. “But this performance I will not accept. I will persuade her myself. Tomorrow you will play in the auditorium; I will announce it on the radio that you have come to your senses!”

He marched away — squat, resolute, ridiculous, lovable. Marched as if he had not already a hundred times explained to Doris the folly of leaving a career on Earth for the fantastic experiments being run on Venus.

John leaned on the iron railing, staring over the city at the evening star. In a moment he heard the music stop, and the babble of voices. He closed his ears to the debate that fumed again; he was sick of it. They were going, he and Doris. He didn’t understand why; maybe Doris did.

Out there on Planet 7, in the Alpha system, they were trying to make a new man because the old man had failed. Homo sapiens had burned up a world.