Madison laughed easily and donned his most engaging smile. "No, hardly. It's really a great vehicle that will show your lovely voice off as never before. You see, there's this mythical planet named Terra. The whole story is a fantasy, you see."

"Oh, I like fantasy. Prince Caucalsia made a great hit. But go on."

Madison wished he could just give her the treat­ment. But it was in his briefcase and she was using the time to get some exercise in. He and the horror-writer had sweat their brains out on it but he hadn't thought he would have to give it verbally. He hoped he had it straight.

"Well," said Madison, "this fantasy planet Terra is ruled by a huge monster in a red suit with horns and a tail."

"You're describing a Manco Devil."

"Good," said Madison, who had never heard of one. "I'm glad you've got that straight. So this Manco Devil rules all the people. And they haven't got any money and they are starving. Now, in the opening scene we show the people all huddled and starving and praying and the Devil comes in and kicks them around."

"How awful!"

"But wait," said Madison. "The Devil has a huge court of Devils and one of these has lost his Devil child and an old nurse has put a HUMAN child in its place to fool the Devil and the Devil raises this human child, thinking it is his own.

"So the sight we saw in the first scene-the main Devil kicking the people around-is witnessed by this human child, who is now a young man, and he decides it's bad."

"Good for him," said Hightee.

"But the Devils in the court all think this son is one of them. They think he's a reliable officer of good repute. But really, he's planning to help the people. So, whenever he can get away, he puts on a mask and starts robbing trains."

"Trains?" said Hightee. "What's a train?"

Madison said, "This is a fantasy."

"Oh."

"Now, the Devils all ship their valuables and money on these trains."

"Ah, a train is a space-liner between planets," said Hightee.

"Well, kind of," said Madison. "And the hero robs them."

"You mean the fellow goes CRIMINAL?"

"Well, he HAS to," said Madison.

"Oh, I don't think that would go down well. People despise criminals."

Madison said, "Well, this isn't really criminal. It's in a good cause. He robs the trains and he gives the money away to the poor and they DON'T STARVE!"

"Listen," said Hightee. "It's the people who raise the food. If they didn't raise the food, they couldn't buy anything with the money the hero gives them."

"Oh, the Devils grab the food and the people have to bribe them to get it back. So suddenly the Devils find out WHO the bandit is. A Devil's own son! So they declare him an OUTLAW! And there's a lot of fighting and the Outlaw escapes."

"Hurray!" said Hightee.

"But the Devils finally catch him," said Madison, "and hang him. Hang him up high and very dead. The people all cry– – "

"Wait a minute," said Hightee. "I don't see any part in this for me. There's no girl."

"Well, I was coming to that. You're the hero's sister."

"Then I must be a Devil, as he was a stolen child."

"No, no. The Devil stole a brother and SISTER! I forgot to mention it. And in the musical, the sister warns and saves the hero time and again. And SHE'S the one who sings all the songs. The Outlaw just runs around shooting people, and the sister, in the songs, describes what he is doing. And all the people begin singing her songs."

"So there're a lot of choruses."

"Exactly!" said Madison. "Now the last scene when they hang him is the great one. All the people are there watching him choke out his life on the scaffold– – "

"How grisly!"

"And the sister comes in and sings a great song, a kind of a dirge. And then the Devils realize that she was the one who tipped him off all the time and they hang her on the spot!"

"No!"

"Yes. Right alongside her brother on a second scaf­fold. And then two graves open up and huge skeletal hands come out of them and grab the bodies off the scaffolds. And then the people all rise up and sing the song she had been singing and remember the Outlaw forever!"

Hightee Heller was staring at him, wide-eyed.

Madison held his breath. Would she fall for it?

A speaker underneath a flowering tree opened up and interrupted them. "Hightee, the instrument is ready."

Madison, as he followed her into the music practice room, knew he had better be awfully lucky or awfully good or both.

The place was a domed room with no flat surfaces to reflect sound. It was decorated with huge enlargements of Voltarian single notes in pastel blue that hung in various places as baffles to farther break up the sound. The interior of the dome was a pastel yellow. Jarp was hanging something from wires in the middle of the room. It was the drawn piano keyboard but the keys were vertical and it was raised five feet above the floor.

"No," said Madison. "You sit down to it."

"No musician ever sits down," said Jarp. "It must be awfully lazy music."

"Give him what he wants," said Hightee. "I can't see for the life of me how you play such a thing. Keys?"

At Madison's direction, Jarp had a band helper get a stool and then they supported the keyboard horizontal and firmed it in place.

Madison, on his part, couldn't possibly see how it would work. The keys, white and black, were simply drawn on paper. They had no action up or down at all.

He summoned up his nerve. It was all or nothing. He struck one of the painted, motionless keys with one finger and he got a sort of a howl.

"Oh, no," he said. "A piano doesn't sound like that. It vibrates more like a harp"

"Let's see if we've got the notes right, first," said Jarp.

Madison limbered up his fingers, wishing he had at least tried to entertain people since he was twelve. He ran the whole scale from bottom to the top. Yes, the notes were all on pitch. But no piano ever HOWLED!

"The tones are wrong," said Madison. "A piano note is bright and bubbling."

"My word," said Jarp. "Well, here's the adjustment tool and that's the panel over on the right end. The first slot is 'attack,' the second is 'decay.' The next one is 'overtones' and the bottom one is 'percussion.' See what you can do."

Striking one picture of a key with one finger, Madi­son fiddled with the controls. He began to perspire. He got rid of the howls and got some sharp striking notes but it still didn't sound like a piano. Far too dead now.

"What's this second box under the top one?" said Madison.

"Well, that thing I pasted the picture on is a chorder-bar. I moved the contact points under it so they match the pictures that you drew, only I can't figure why anybody would want pictures to play an instrument. You simply press the right spots hard or soft. And you don't want that second box. That's drums, cymbals and bells."

"Ah!" said Madison and promptly went to work with his tool on the second box. He found another slot Jarp hadn't mentioned: it was "resonance."

Striking one note repeatedly, he thought he finally had it right.

He wiped off his hands, flexed his fingers, and without daring to hope, experimentally struck a chord. It felt so weird not to have anything move.

Everything, he felt, depended upon this now.

He took a deep breath and began to play "Beale Street Blues."

He got very interested. This thing was putting out sound like the most jangly honky-tonk piano he had ever heard.

He was making an AWFUL lot of flubs and sour chords.

Too much depended on this. He was rattled. He stopped playing and wiped off his hands again. He shook his fingers in the air. What piece had he been enamored with and had played a lot? Then he remembered. It was Scott Joplin's music they had used in the movie The Sting. It seemed very appropriate.