Timothy Zahn - The Play's the Thing

Illustration by Alan M. Clark

The whole trouble started when the Fuzhtian ambassador announced that he wanted to see a Broadway play.

Though I suppose you could equally well say that the trouble started when those first silent Fuzhtian probes snuggled coyly up behind our geosynchronous TV satellites and began shipping the signals back home. You might even go back further and say that it all started when Marconis first radio went on-line and began spewing electromagnetic radiation out into space for everyone to hear.

Oh, well, hell, lets be honest. All of it really started with whoever the bunch of trouble-making Sumerians were who sat around on a rainy Sunday afternoon and invented entertainment.

Because thats really what started the trouble: our vast entertainment industry, and the Fuzhties maniacal love for it.

For a simple exampleand this isnt supposed to be noised aboutwhen the Fuzhtian ship landed outside the White House, the Greetings and Joy to Humankind line that will be going into the history books were actually the ambassadors second words to the President. His first words were an expression of disappointment from his government that Johnny Carson was no longer hosting the Tonight Show. For those of you whod always wondered why Carson suddenly came out of retirement right after that to do a one-month stint as guest-host, now you know.

I suppose it could have been worse. No, strike thatit could have been a lot worse. Youve heard all the similes: a walking barn door with gorilla arms, a four-hundred-pound bag of blubbery muscle with pinfeathers; a cross between a bull and Doberman on steroids. Even without the kind of technology we knew they had, the Fuzhties could have stomped the planet flat as Florida if theyd taken a mind to do so.

Which is why everyone had been falling all over themselves trying to satisfy the ambassadors slightest whim. Partly it was residual fear that he might suddenly stop being congenial and start behaving the way any self-respecting B-movie creature his size ought to; but mainly it was because every national leader on the planet was visibly salivating over the prospect of getting their hands on Fuzhtian technology.

Anyway, at the time the ambassador made his Broadway request hed been on Earth about six months, getting everything he wanted. And I mean everything. He had the top two floors of an exclusive Washington hotel, specially commissioned airplanes and cars, and three of the premier chefs in Europe. Along the way hed also collected an astonishingly eclectic entourage, consisting of top US government officials, a smattering of foreign representatives whose countries had somehow caught his interestwe still dont know how or why he picked the ones he didand a few oddballs like me. Id been up on a ladder doing some woodwork repair in the White House when the ambassador apparently expressed some sort of vague approval of me. The next thing I knew Id been hauled down, poured into a suit and handed a briefcase, and tossed in among the smiling State Department wonks whose job it was to dog the ambassadors size-28 footsteps.

Long afterward I learned that what had captured the ambassadors attention was not me but rather the hammer Id been using. But by then Id overheard enough under-the-breath comments about my relative usefulness to the group that sheer native orneriness required me to keep quiet about the error.

Besides, the briefcase theyd handed me that first day had contained a presidential plea for my cooperation and about two bucketfuls of money, both of which I was far too patriotic to walk away from.

But for whatever reason, I was in that elite group. And Id been with them for about five weeks when, from out of the blue, the ambassador made his request.

We still dont know what prompted him to bring it up at that particular time. For that matter, were not even sure how he knew about Broadway, unless hed picked up a reference from one of those pirate transmissions their probes had been making. But however it happened, there it was, plain as day, that morning on the RebuScope:

Are you sure thats what it means? Dwight Fogerty, a senior State Department wonk and head of our little group, asked as he peered back and forth between the RebuScope and the tentative translation.

I dont see what else it could be, sir, chief translator Angus MacLeod said. Hed been loaned to us by MI6 because he was both a whiz at cryptanalysis and a huge Concentration fan. Angus always called Fogerty sir because he was polite, not because Fogerty deserved it. Its clearly eye w-ant two cee a br-rod-weigh something. What else but play?

Well, who says that scale thing is weigh? Fogerty countered. Maybe its Broadscale something.

Theres no such word as Broadscale, someone pointed out. Or place, either.

Theres a Broad Sound, though, someone else said, punching keys on a laptop. Its near Rockhampton in Australia, near the Great Barrier Reef. Maybe thats a radio or stereo speaker, not a scale.

And what, that last picture is us and him throwing a beach ball back and forth? Fogerty scoffed.

Well, then, maybe its supposed to be Broadsword, one of the other wonks said. The damn RebuScopes screwed up before. Maybe he wants to see some sword demos from one of those Medieval-nutcake groups.

Its I want to see a Broadway play, Angus said firmly. Im sure of it.

Fogerty muttered something vicious-sounding under his breath. Why the ambassador had chosen to use a gadget as ridiculously hard to understand as the RebuScope for his messages to us was a mystery, but most of us had gradually developed a sort of resigned acceptance for the procedure. Fogerty, who dealt widi the gadget more than anyone except Angus, roundly hated the thing, and seemed to be running systematically through his vast repertoire of multilingual curses in regards to it. All right, fine, he said. Well take him to a Broadway play. Smith, get on the horn and find out who the hell we talk to about doing that.

I cleared my throat. You dont need to call the White House, Mr. Fogerty, I said. I know some people on Broadway.

Were not interested in pretzel vendors, thank you, Fogerty said tardy, gesturing at Smith. We need a producer or theater manager or

I know all of them.

Fogerty stopped, his gesturing hand still poised in midair, and turned his head to look at me. You what? he asked.

I know all of them, I repeated. Up until a year ago I was working with one of the top set designers on Broadway.

It was, and Ill admit it, an immensely soul-satisfying moment. The whole bunch of them just stood there, professionals and wonks alike, staring at me like something that had just crawled out of the primordial ooze and asked whether the Metro Blue line stopped here. All except Angus, that is, who had a faint but very knowing smile on his face. Obviously, he was the only one of them whod bothered to read the FBIs rundown on me after I was booted aboard.

Fogerty recovered first, in typical Fogerty fashion. Well, dont just stand there, Lebowitz, he said, waving Smith forward with his phone. Lets get to it.

The first step, I decided, would be to figure out which Broadway offering would be the best one to take the ambassador to see. I put in a call to Tony Capello, theater critic, and we spent fifteen minutes discussing the current crop of plays and musicals in town.

Actually, the first twelve of those minutes were spent talking over the old times when I was a lowly carpenter and Tony was chief gopher for a succession of minor choreographers. I would have cut off the reminiscences earlier, except that the delay so obviously irritated Fogerty. When I finally got Tony down to business, his advice was instant and unequivocal: