Hey, I was managin’ a couple of other class acts when I signed Minmei, y’ know? I mean, I wasn’t just chopped liver, kapish? I mean, I had the Acnes, who had a big, fat bullet: “I’ll Bee a Goo-goo for You.”
Anyway, Minmei-doll hits the scene, and I can’t even get my other acts arrested! “Minmei! Minmei!” People don’t wanna hear anything else.
The public—go figure.
Vance Hasslewood, Minmei’s personal manager, interviewed on Jan Morris’s on-ship TV show, “Good Morning, SDF!”
THE CITY OF MACROSS HADN’T SEEN FIREWORKS SINCE THAT fateful day when the Zentraedi first appeared in the solar system. There had been plenty of explosions, all right, but not simple skyrockets and colored bursts.
Now, fireworks flashed high over Prometheus’s flight deck. Canopies and marquees were set up, and an old-fashioned town festival was in progress.
Strings of firecrackers banged and snapped on the nonskid, and streamers and confetti flew in squalls, carried by the sea breezes. Many had chosen to wear costumes, and some wore fantastic, gruesome giant masks that covered them from head to foot. There was dancing and laughter, a sort of communal drunkenness with joy.
On an improvised speaker’s platform, Mayor Tommy Luan held his hands high. “Our troubles are finally over! Let’s make this party last all week!”
The stocky little mayor’s good friend, Vern Havers, a lean, mournful-looking man with a receding hairline, clung to the side of the platform to call up anxiously, “But what about packing? Shouldn’t we be getting ready to leave?”
“Vern, this isn’t a day for packing! We have plenty of time for that! Don’t you think that the Macross survivors deserve a celebration after all we’ve been through?”
The mayor looked up at the looming SDF-1, its silent guns throwing long shadows across the deck. “Besides, once we leave this ship, we’ll probably never see it again.”
Vern hadn’t even thought about that, but it made sense; SDF-1 would have to take up its job of guarding Earth; the rebuilt Macross City would of course be dismantled.
Like many others, Vern had dreamed of returning to Earth, had lived for it, all these months; but now, like many others, he felt strangely sad that a unique time in his life was ending. He hoped there could be some kind of open house or something so people could see what the citizens of Macross had accomplished before all their handiwork was swept away.
“Well,” he said, “if you put it that way, I suppose you may be right.”
The major was literally hopping up and down, from his own swelling emotions. “Of course I’m right! Now, let’s party!”
Vern resigned himself to the inevitable. It was good to be back on Earth, but he was beginning to realize how difficult it would be to get used to uneventful peacetime life.
* * *
Elsewhere in the milling, boisterous crowd, the three Zentraedi spies were trying to absorb what they were seeing around them.
Gaiety like this was unknown among their people; certainly the frivolous consumption of food and drink, scandalous mingling of males and females, and pointless merrymaking would be a court-martial offense among the warrior race.
Konda was absorbing something else—his third cup of an intriguing purple liquid with ice cubs floating in it—when Bron, gawking at all the goings-on, jostled his elbow.
Konda, vexed when some of his drink spilled, gave the bigger spy a shove. “Clumsy! Can’t you be more careful?”
Bron looked hurt. Konda said, “I’m sampling something called ‘punch,’ and you interrupted my experimentation.”
Bron looked at the beverage dubiously. “It seems to me you’ve imbibed more than is necessary for a mere effects test, Konda.”
Konda pushed the cup into Bron’s hands. “Here! You try it! I know where to get more, and the requisitioning procedure is puzzlingly informal.” He hiccupped.
Bron sniffed the stuff suspiciously; then, after a final glance at Konda to make sure he showed no sign of toxic reaction, he downed the punch in two big swallows. It was cold but somehow had a warming effect. He gagged a little but felt a pleasant sensation course through him.
“I don’t know what’s in this stuff,” Konda said with a foolish grin, “but it sure is getting me charged up!”
Oh my goodness! thought Bron. “You… you mean it’s got some kind of Protoculture in it?”
Exasperated, Konda was considering clouting Bron in the head for being such a dummy, when Rico rushed up to them angrily. “Why aren’t you two making noise like the rest of these people? You want them to notice us? Well then, pretend you’re having fun!”
Rico, too, held a cup of the punch; it was all but empty, and he looked a little bleary-eyed. He threw one fist up and yelled, “Yayyyy!” so loudly that he quite startled his companions. “We finally made it back! We’re home again!”
“Hurrah! We beat the enemy!” Konda added helpfully. “Hurrah for us! Hurrah for Earth!”
“Down with the Zentraedi!” Bron burst out, doing a little jigging dance step. That punch beverage, whatever it was, had him feeling rather, well, happy. “Up with the Micronians! Down…”
He realized the other two were staring at him. Bron covered his mouth with his hand in anguish. “Oh, my! I didn’t know what I was saying! Konda, Rico—please don’t report me!”
Just then a young woman dressed as a medieval princess and carrying two cups of punch swept by. She saw the three standing together, one without a cup. She put her extra one into Konda’s hand and clinked glasses with them, grinning behind her silvery domino mask. “To home and friendship!” Then she was gone in the crowd.
The three spies looked at one another for a moment, then echoed, “To home and friendship,” and clinked cups as the celebration swirled around them.
* * *
With most of the off-duty crew and virtually all the civilians up at the party, SDF-1’s passageways were empty, giving the ship a haunted feel. Making her way toward the VT pilots’ living quarters section, Claudia Grant tried to put that fool Maistroff out of her mind and concentrate on enjoying her brief time off watch.
For the first time in months, the Veritech pilots weren’t flying constant patrols or combat missions, and SDF-1 was being manned by a virtual skeleton crew. So her free time meshed with Roy’s for the first time in a long time.
The love affair between Claudia Grant and Lieutenant Commander Roy Fokker, as passionate as it was romantic, had been terribly strained by the demands of the SDF-1’s desperate voyage. But now there would be time to be together—the very best thing about the dimensional fortress’s return, as far as Claudia was concerned.
She signaled at the hatch to his quarters but got no response. Rapping on it with her knuckles was no more effective.
Claudia wasn’t about to miss her chance to see him. Perhaps he’d left her a note. She tapped the hatch release and entered as the hatch slid aside.
Roy Fokker—leader of the Veritech Skull Team, heroic ace of the Robotech War—lay snoring softly, dead to the world, his long blond hair fanned out on the pillow. At six foot six, he hadn’t yet found a military-issue bunk that fit him; his feet and the covers stuck off the end of the bed.
It had been said of Roy that “he doesn’t fly a jet; he wears it.” But right now Roy looked like nothing so much as a sleepy kid.
For months we never have the chance to be alone, and when the opportunity finally arrives, he sleeps through it! But she couldn’t be mad at him. He’d been on duty, usually in the cockpit of a fighter, just about every waking hour since the spacefold jump.
Poor dear; he must be exhausted. “Oh, well…” She pulled the covers up over his shoulders, then turned to go.
“Hey, hold up!” She turned to see Roy sitting up in bed, blinking the sleep away, smiling. “You just gonna run off?”
She grinned at him. “I figured the Skull Leader needs all the beauty sleep he can get.”
“You were wrong. C’mere.”
He grabbed her wrists, his big hands engulfing hers, and pulled. Claudia gave a laughing yelp as he dragged her down next to him, then relaxed against him in a kiss that took away all the pain and sorrow and weariness of the long voyage home.
* * *
Back in the midst of the festivities on Prometheus’s flight deck, Rick Hunter stood waiting next to an aircraft. He was wearing his old flying circus outfit of orange and white trimmed with black, and his silken scarf. The plane was the fanliner sport ship won by Lynn-Minmei when she’d taken the Miss Macross title. This was to be its maiden voyage in the atmosphere of Earth.
It was a sleek, beautiful propfan design by the illustrious Ikkii Takemi himself, with powerful, pinwheel-like propellers in a big cowling behind the cockpit. It reminded Rick very much of his own Mockingbird, which depressed him because that in turn reminded him of the time he’d spent with Minmei, stranded together in a remote part of the SDF-1. During that time she’d come to mean so much to him, but now…
“You’re a lucky guy, Rick, to be flying Minmei home,” a ground crewman was saying. “You not only get to leave the ship, but you spend time with a beautiful—huh?”
Rick heard it, too, and looked around. The roar of the crowd had increased, and there was cheering and applause.
“Like I said,” the ground crewman went on, “you get to spend time with a beautiful celebrity.”
Minmei’s entrance was worthy of her star status—her superstar status, as far as the crew and passengers of the SDF-1 were concerned. She was being chauffeured across the flight deck in a glittering new Macross City-manufactured limo, the crowd parting before her. They held up signs with hearts and fond sentiments on them or waved autograph books somewhat hopelessly.
Flower petals and confetti and streamers rained down on her car; people pressed up against the glass to smile, wave, and call out her name—to feel close to her, if only for a moment.
“Y’ know, she’s the only one who’s been given permission to leave the ship so far, even for a short time,” the crewman continued. “Hope you enjoy the ride.”
Minmei sat quietly in the exact middle of the limo’s rear seat, hands folded in her lap, watching the people throng around her car and pay homage. She wore her old school uniform: white blouse and necktie, brown plaid blazer, plaid skirt. Audience research indicated that her public liked to see her in attire that emphasized her youth.
Her manager, Vance Hasslewood, sat next to the chauffeur, happily surveying the crowd. “Well, this is quite a turnout for you, Minmei.”
Minmei gave a little sigh. “Yes, I suppose these mobs are the price one must pay for fame.”
Hasslewood and the uniformed chauffeur exchanged a wry, secret look.
“Could we go a little faster? I’m late as it is,” Minmei added.
The driver sped up a bit, honking his horn, and Minmei’s adoring public had to move out of the way quickly.
I wonder if she’s changed much, Rick thought as the limo screeched up beside the little sport plane. Minmei had promised that she and Rick could still see a lot of each other once he joined the Robotech Defense Forces, but between his duties and her sky-rocketing career as the SDF-1’s homegrown media idol, that promise had been forgotten.
The chauffeur held the rear door open for Minmei while Vance Hasslewood went to confer with a liaison officer from the SDF-1 Air Group.
“Hello, Minmei.” Rick smiled. “It looked like you had a lot of trouble, getting through that crowd back there.”
She giggled, her eyes shining in the way he remembered. “Those are my loyal fans. They follow me everywhere. I just love them!”
She turned to wave to the people being held back by a cordon of security guards. “Hello, hello! Thank you for coming down to see me off! I love you all very much!”
Apparently she was unaware that a lot of the people, the majority of them perhaps, were simply there for the party; maybe she didn’t even realize that there was a celebration going on. Rick shook his head, laughing; Minmei was sweet and charming, but she still lived very much in a world of her own.
The fans were clapping, stamping, and whistling for her, waving their signs and banners. Vance Hasslewood looked on approvingly, eyes hidden behind tinted glasses.
“Thank you!” she called, throwing kisses.
“Boy, they really like you,” Rick remarked.
“I know,” she said matter-of-factly. “Rick, when can we take off? I’m really anxious to see my parents.”
“Well, I guess we can take off any time; the engines are all warmed up.”
He led her to the boarding ladder. “Just climb into the rear seat—careful, now—and sit down, strap yourself in.”
She got into the fanliner and settled her shoulder purse next to her, taking up the safety harness. “Thanks, Rick. It seems like you’ve become a lot nicer now than when we first met.”
Huh? Minmei was still living in her own world, he saw—revising her memories of the past according to her preferences, forgetting whatever was inconvenient or troubling or replacing it with something that freed her from introspection.
So now she’d decided that Rick had been unkind to her. Perhaps she’d forgotten that he’d saved her life several times… forgotten that they’d held a mock wedding ceremony and she’d worn the very white silk scarf that he now had around his neck as a bridal veil.
Perhaps she’d forgotten their kiss, there in the remotest part of the ship. Certainly she was now surrounded by people who would go along with almost anything she said or chose to think, people not eager to remind her of her past life and ties. She was free to be completely self-absorbed.
As he stood on the boarding ladder looking down into the cockpit at her, he saw her in a new light. “Maybe I’ve grown up, Minmei.”
Her brows met, and she was about to ask what he meant; but just then Vance Hasslewood, standing at the foot of the boarding ladder, thrust his face up into Rick’s. “Young man! Your name; what is it, hah?”
Rick threw him a sarcastic salute. “Lieutenant Rick Hunter, sir.”
“Well, Lieutenant Rick Hunter, I expect you to take good care of Minmei! She’s a very busy person, and she must get back to the ship on time.”
Minmei surprised both men by jumping in on Rick’s side. “Don’t worry, Vance! I feel perfectly safe! Rick’s a very good pilot!”
Hasslewood backed off a bit. “Er, yes, I’m sure he is, but he’s so young, I, uh—”
Rick wondered just who and what Hasslewood really was. Certainly, Minmei’s astounding popularity had been very lucrative for the man, and he was very proprietary about her. But what else was there to the manager-client relationship?
Nothing romantic, Rick was pretty sure of that; even at her most career-hungry, Minmei wouldn’t have fallen for an abrasive hustler like Hasslewood. But how had Minmei gotten permission for even a brief visit to her parents when the SDF-1 was virtually quarantined?
To be sure, Rick’s confidential orders were specific enough: Make sure that Minmei had no access to outside media interviews. Just the family visit, and then right back to the SDF-1, whatever that took.
Rick had thought about Minmei’s brief liberty privilege and could only come up with one explanation: her talents and appeal had been a major factor in keeping up morale and fighting spirit during the long return voyage to Earth. And no matter what the public information people were saying, the war wasn’t over and there was still a threat of invasion. If Minmei could do for the general population of Earth what she’d done for the people on SDF-1, she would be a tremendously important resource. That gave her and, in turn, Hasslewood, an awful lot of leverage.
Right now, though, Rick wasn’t worrying about influence or power. He stuck his face into Hasslewood’s, cutting him off. “How about standing back? We’re taking off now.”
Hasslewood just about fell over his own feet, retreating. “Sure, kid; don’t get touchy! Have a good trip, Minmei! Hurry back!”
Rick pulled on his goggles and headset, lowering the cockpit’s front and rear canopies.
Vance Hasslewood mopped his forehead with his handkerchief, watching as Rick increased the propfan RPMs. The manager prayed silently for a quick, uneventful flight; all his personal marbles were riding in that rear seat.
Rick turned the fanliner’s nose and taxied. The sport plane wasn’t equipped for cat launch, but it was so little and light and there was more than enough runway for a takeoff. With Daedalus’s bow turned into the wind, the little ship fairly leapt up off the deck.
Minmei sighed happily, looking down at the SDF-1, savoring the freedom of the flight. “Ahhh! It’s been a long time!”
“It sure has,” Rick murmured, bringing the plane onto its course for Japan. A vivid, seductive fantasy had begun running in the back of his mind, of being forced to land with Minmei—marooned on some idyllic desert island, perhaps; of things being the way they once were.
“I forgot how I felt about her.”
“What?” Minmei asked, leaning forward to peer around his seat.
He hadn’t meant to say it aloud. Flustered, he hastened. “Oh, nothing, nothing!” But his face was reddening, and she looked at him oddly.
He tried to concentrate on his flying as she settled back in her seat. But that little fantasy just wouldn’t let him alone.