Due to an OVERWHELMING NUMBER OF APPLICATIONS, processing and mailing of membership packets for the MINMEI FAN CLUB is running several weeks behind.
MINMEI hopes that all her LOYAL FANS will understand this and wants you to know that she LOVES EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU!!!
Macross City newspaper, magazine, and broadcast ad
THE TRIO OF MICRONIZED ZENTRAEDI CAME TO AN INTERSECTION. Before them, crosswalk signals blazed and traffic lights changed colors. The movement of vehicles and people was orchestrated somehow, but the logic behind it was difficult to grasp. Everything was so disorderly, so unmilitary.
And all around them was the barrage of lighted signs and flashing neon of Macross City’s “downtown.” They could read the signs—at least when the logos and print styles weren’t too fanciful—but couldn’t make any sense of them. And there was so little uniformity! Surely, they thought, these Micronians must be mad.
And none of the three dared admit to the others how oddly appealing he found it all.
Rico threw his hands in the air. “What military purpose could all those indicators possibly serve?”
Konda glanced around at lovers strolling with arms about each other’s waists, at parents leading their children by the hand, at old people enjoying coffee at an outdoor café. It was just as horrible as the intelligence reports had indicated. “You can be sure some kind of sinister force is at work here.”
He started off, the other two falling in with him. “There’s something strange at the root of all this, something that makes these creatures so completely unlike us. But I haven’t been able to put my finger on it.”
“I noticed it, too!” Rico said excitedly. “Like something’s out of balance—something weird that affects all of them.”
They heard laughter and shouting coming their way, and the hiss of small wheels against the sidewalk. Bron pointed. “Warriors!”
A young male and a young female sped with easy, athletic grace along the sidewalk on small wheeled contrivances barely big enough to stand on.
Their hair streamed behind them, and they whooped and laughed, tilting and swaying to steer. From their merry demeanor, the spies could see that the young Micronians enjoyed their drill and the prospect of combat.
“Gangwaaaay!” called the boy.
“Yahooooo!” sang the girl.
Trying to hide his dismay at their bloodthirsty war cries, Bron dodged, then faked the other way. The skateboarders, unaware that they were part of an interspecies skirmish, effortlessly avoided him. Bron mistook their evasive maneuvers for an attack, reversed field too quickly in the unfamiliar low-heeled pumps, and ended up on his backside.
Konda and Rico hurried to kneel at either side. “Bron, are you wounded?”
“No, Konda, but I think they suspect something.”
The spies looked around apprehensively. Passersby were gazing at them curiously, sometimes murmuring to one another but not stopping or making aggressive moves.
“Perhaps that was only a probing attack,” Rico speculated. His voice betrayed an unusual lack of self-confidence. If the Micronians were playing such a sadistic cat-and-mouse game, they must be masters of psychological warfare.
More and more people were noticing them now, laughing outright before moving along, passing comments among themselves. Their attention seemed to be focused on Bron and his attire.
“It could be that there’s something wrong with our uniforms,” Rico hissed.
“I don’t see any difference between our uniforms and theirs, do you?” Konda demanded as he and Rico each took one of Bron’s arms and hauled the bulky warrior to his feet.
Bron pulled up his white knee socks and rearranged his string of pearls. “I don’t see any difference, either. But just the same, I wish I’d chosen something a little less breezy down around my legs.” He flapped the hem of his skirt in the air.
People were stopping now, staring at them, laughing and slapping each other on the arm. The female Micronians seemed inclined to look, avert their eyes, then look again, blushing and shaking with laughter.
Rico caught a few words here and there—“women’s clothes,” for example—and made a brief, horrified comparison study of the garments he saw all around him and their wearers.
“That’s it! It’s a female’s uniform you’re wearing!”
So, they hadn’t been spotted by the Micronians’ secret police. Bron had his eyes closed, almost collapsing back into Konda’s arms with the mortification of it.
Konda shoved him upright. “Come on! Let’s get out of here now!”
Nobody appeared inclined to stop them, and most were laughing too hard, anyway. They dashed off in a line, Konda leading, around a corner and down a street, around another corner and across to a park, making sure not to bump into anybody.
“Frat initiation,” someone said sagely.
“Another bunch of drunken performance artists!” an old man yelled, waving his cane at them vengefully.
But other than that, they drew a few puzzled glances and nothing more. Konda had spotted an illuminated symbol whose meaning they’d learned on their earliest explorations, the little stick-figure Micronian near the lighted sign, MEN.
The attendant was standing outside, whiling away the time and watching the people go by. He watched as Konda and Rico dashed into the men’s room, not terribly interested; he’d seen guys in a bigger hurry in his time. Then he heard the pounding of heavy footsteps and did a classic double take as Bron brought up the rear.
The picture of offended righteousness, the attendant held up his hand. “Just a second, madam! Nothin’ doin’! Ladies’ room to th’ left!”
“Okayokayokay!” Bron veered off and ran into the ladies’ room.
There were a few relatively quiet moments, during which the attendant looked up at the evening sky synthesized by the EVE system—tonight they were recreating a northern hemisphere summer sky—and reflected on the sorry state of the human race. Women in the men’s room! Boy, if you weren’t on your toes every minute…
Distracted, wandering to the corner of the little building to look up and philosophize, he failed to notice the dim cries of “A man!” “Get out!” and “Pervert!” that came from the ladies’ room along with shrieks and howls of outrage.
Bron emerged from the ladies’ room a moment later in a low crawl, the shoulder of his blouse ripped, hair askew, and face scratched in parallel furrows, several spots on his shins promising remarkable bruises.
Panting, he took a moment to catch his breath, slumped against a partition, preparing to move on quickly before he was attacked again.
“These… Micronians certainly have a warlike culture!”
* * *
Elsewhere in the park, in the Star Bowl—the open-air amphitheater where Minmei had been crowned Miss Macross—a different sort of ceremony was about to take place.
None of it fazed Max Sterling very much—few things seemed to—but Ben wasn’t happy. “Hey, Max, I thought we were supposed to be resting and relaxing.”
Max adjusted his large aviator-style eyeglasses, smiling his serene, mischievous smile. “Aw, what’s the matter? Don’t you want to be a hero? Didn’t you say you were looking forward to it?”
Ben considered Max sourly. Now, here was this little guy—not even twenty yet—who wouldn’t even be flying in one of the old-time wars. In prewar days, pilot candidates who needed corrective lenses were as sought after as those with untreatable airsickness.
And then there was Max’s self-effacing style, his quiet, somehow Zen humility, which wouldn’t have been noticeable except that he was the hottest pilot who’d ever climbed into a Veritech, and everybody knew it. Not Rick Hunter, not even Roy Fokker himself, was Max’s equal, but Max just went along like a good-natured kid who was rather surprised at where fate had brought him, bashful and loyal and given to blushing. Even if he did follow the fad of dying his hair—blue, in this case.
“Aw, pipe down,” Ben growled at him, but in fact Ben wasn’t that unhappy. Who gets tired of being cheered? Pity them, whoever they are.
Banks of lights came up all around them, until they were standing in a lighted area brighter than brightest day. Triumphant music soared from the sound system as curtains swept aside, and the applause and cheering and whistling began, like waves hitting a shore.
Rick and Lisa, who’d been conversing haltingly and enjoying a kind of mutual attraction they couldn’t seem to resist, looked relieved that the extravaganza had started. The four escapees, in full-dress uniform, stood in a line on the stage; from all around the packed Star Bowl the outpouring of joy and admiration came.
There’d been good war news and bad, and virtually everyone in the amphitheater had lost friends and relatives; besides, many in the audience were military. But these were four who’d gone into the very heart of the enemy stronghold and come back, and returning—coming back home—was something very much in the minds of the people of Macross City these days.
The master of ceremonies, a man in a loud suit with an oily voice, held the microphone right up against his capped teeth.
Rick sighed and made up his mind to put up with the show as best he could. The music was still all trumpets and drums, and the ovation was growing louder and louder. A tech somewhere turned up the gain on the mike so that the emcee could be heard.
“And here are the four young champions who have miraculously escaped the clutches of our enemy: Commander Lisa Hayes, our number one space heroine—”
Lisa was breathing quickly, eyes on the floor, Rick saw; by an iron application of will, she forced herself not to bolt from the stage; there was bravery and there was bravery, and facing a crowd took a great deal of hers.
“And Lieutenant Rick Hunter, whose flying exploits are already legendary!”
Rick was used to crowds, was used to taking bows and waving and soaking up the glory, from his days in his father’s air circus. He could easily have played to the crowd, knew just what it was they wanted and just how to make them like him even more: the little tricks of eye contact, of perhaps singling out a child to kiss or an elderly sort to shake hands with or a good-looking woman to hug.
But he did none of that. The mission that had landed him in the Zentraedi ship and in the heart of the mad Zentraedi empire hadn’t been undertaken to win cheers. Playing to the crowd was a thing that was behind him now, something out of a different life. Rick Hunter acknowledged the ovation with a bow of his head and remained more or less at attention.
He looked aside only once, to see what Lisa was doing. She was watching him.
“And here are their intrepid companions,” the emcee went on in a voice so ebullient that the listeners might have thought he’d been along on the mission. “Max Sterling and Ben Dixon! To these four, we express our deepest gratitude.”
The crowd did. Earth was so close now, and there was a holiday spirit in the air. A homecoming; a victory; the sight of four humans who’d gone up against the relentless enemy and come back covered with glory—these things all had the Macross City inhabitants at a fever pitch.
The emcee was holding his hands up. The uproar died a little. “There’s more to come! To properly demonstrate our high regard for these young heroes, we present that singing sensation, Miss Macross herself, Lynn-Minmei!”
“Miss Macross? Minmei!” Rick had almost forgotten about the Miss Macross contest Minmei had so recently won when he’d gone out on this last mission. It felt like a century before, but it was really only a few days.
She emerged from the wings, most of the spotlights going to her—followed by an escort, a fellow in white tie and tails who carried bouquets of red roses, as if she were royalty. And she was, of a sort; the audience went wild, shouting her name and whistling, clapping.
Rick could see a cluster of people waiting in the wings—Minmei’s entourage, apparently—men in expensive suits who wore sunglasses at night and stylish women with calculating looks in their eyes.
But Minmei… She was gorgeous in a frilly dress whose hem was gathered up high on one side to show off long, graceful legs. Her jet-black hair swayed behind her, and her eyes were alight. She seemed used to the spotlight, used to the devotion of the crowd. She was the same young woman who had shared so many adventures and so much privation with Rick and—at the same time—a new persona, a darling of the mass media.
She blew kisses to the crowd, and it went even wilder; guards at the edge of the stage, who hadn’t been too hard-pressed to keep people away from the military heroes, had all they could do to keep rabid fans from getting out of control. Young girls especially were reaching out in a hopeless effort to touch Minmei, many of them crying.
“I don’t know about you,” Ben’s voice grated. “But I’m embarrassed, being put on a display like this. And just look, will you?” He held up a limp lapel that had been stiffly starched at the beginning of the evening. “My uniform’s starting to wilt.”
Lisa was watching Rick watching Minmei. Lisa didn’t feel very much like a heroine, didn’t feel strong or brave. Instead, she found herself resenting the sideshow atmosphere. What did civilians know about military achievements, anyway? Show them some beautiful contest winner and they forgot all about the people who put their lives on the line to safeguard the SDF-1.
“I think I’d rather be trapped back in that Zentraedi headquarters station,” she blurted before she herself could quite analyze what she meant by it. Rick gave her a quick, troubled glance, then looked back at Minmei.
It was Max Sterling, calm and unflappable, who answered good-naturedly. “Well, it might never happen again, so let’s sit back and enjoy this, huh?”
Minmei held up her hands for silence, and the ovation became relative silence. She took the first of the bouquets of red roses from the man in the tuxedo and gave it to Lisa.
“Congratulations on your safe return!” Minmei’s winsome smile and enthusiastic manner were difficult to resist. She had a way of putting something extra into the words, of breaking through resistance, so that whomever she was talking to virtually had to respond in kind.
Lisa simply couldn’t think badly of Minmei—found herself saying, “Thank you very much,” and meaning it, and even returning the bright smile. Minmei surprised her by shaking her hand warmly, then went on to Rick, taking another bouquet.
Lisa closed the hand into a tight fist. In those seconds Minmei had made her feel like a friend, as if she was all-important to Minmei. Lisa had to admit that that would be a very hard thing for anybody to resist—especially a man.