“Finish your prayer, comrade,” said Mela, picking up the gun he’d dropped.
As he staggered close to Mela, he found his chance, and whispered quickly: “The gun, Mela—eject the first cartridge. Eject it, quickly.”
He was certain she heard him, although she showed no reaction—unless the slight flicker of her eyes had been a quick glance at the gun. Had she understood? A moment later, another chance to whisper.
“The next bullet’s real. Work the slide. Eject it.”
He stumbled as Piotr pushed him, fell against a heavy couch, slid down, and stared at them. Piotr went to open the window and shout an offer to the mob below. A bull-roar arose from the herd outside. They hauled him to the window as a triumphal display.
“See, comrade?” growled the guerrilla. “Your faithful congregation awaits you.”
Marka closed the windows. “I can’t stand that sight!” she cried.
“Take him to his people,” the leader ordered.
“No—” Marka brought up the gun, shook her head fiercely. “I won’t let you do that. Not to the mob.”
Piotr growled a curse. “They’ll have him anyway. They’ll be coming up here to search.”
Thorny stared at the actress with a punted frown. Still she hadn’t ejected the cartridge. And the moment was approaching—a quick bullet to keep him from the mob, a bit of hot mercy flung hastily to him by the woman who had enthralled him and used him and betrayed him.
She turned toward him with the gun, and he began to back away.
“All right, Piotr—if they’ll get him anyway—”
She moved a few steps toward him as he backed to a corner. The live round, Mela, eject it!
Then her foot brushed a copper bus-lug, and he saw the faint little jet of sparks. Eyes of glass, flesh of airfoam plastic, nerves of twitching electron streams.
Mela was gone. This was her doll. Maybe the real Mela couldn’t stomach it after she’d found what he’d done, or maybe Jade had called her off after the first scene of the third act. A plastic hand held the gun, and a tiny flexible solenoid awaited the pulse that would tighten the finger on the trigger. Terror lanced through him.
Cue, Thorny, cue! whispered his earplug.
The doll had to wait for his protest before it could fire. It had to be cued. His eyes danced about the stage, looking for a way out. Only an instant to decide.
He could walk over and take the gun out of the doll’s hand without giving it a cue—betraying himself to the audience and wrecking the final moment of the show.
He could run for it, cue her, and hope she missed, falling after the shot. But he’d fall on the lugs that way, and come up shrieking.
For God’s sake, Thorny! Rick was howling. The cue, the cue!
He stared at the gun and swayed slightly from side to side. The gun swayed with him—slightly out of phase. A second’s delay, no more
“Please, Marka—” he called, swaying faster.
The finger tensed on the trigger. The gun moved in a search pattern, as he shifted to and fro. It was risky. It had to be precisely timed. It was like dancing with a cobra. He wanted to flee.
You faked the tape, you botched the show, you came out second best to a system you hated, he reminded himself. And you even loaded the gun. Now if you can’t risk it—
He gritted his teeth, kept up the irregular weaving motion, then—
“Please, Marka… no, no, nooo!”
A spiked fist hit him somewhere around the belt, spun him around, and dropped him. The sharp cough of the gun was only a part of the blow. Then he was lying crumpled on his side in the chalked safety area, bleeding and cursing softly. The scene continued. He started to cry out, but checked the shout in his throat. Through a haze, he watched the others move on toward the finale, saw the dim sea of faces beyond the lights. Bullet punched through his side somewhere.
Got to stop squirming. Can’t have a dead Andreyev floundering about like a speared fish on the stage. Wait a minute—just another minute—hang on.
But he couldn’t. He clutched at his side and felt for the wound. Hard to feel through all the stickiness. He wanted to tear his clothes free to get at it and stop the bleeding, but that was no good either. They’d accept a mannequin fumbling slightly in a death agony, but the blood wouldn’t go over so well. Mannequins didn’t bleed. Didn’t they see it anyway? They had to see it. Clever gimmick, they’d think, Tube of red ink, maybe. Realism is the milieu of—
He twisted his hand in his belt, drew it up strangle-tight around his waist. The pain got worse for a moment, but it seemed to slow the flow of blood. He hung onto it, gritting his teeth, waiting.
He knew about where it hit him, but it was harder to tell where it had come out. And what it had taken with it on the way. Thank God for the bleeding. Maybe he wasn’t doing much of it inside.
He tried to focus on the rest of the stage. Music was rising somewhere. Had they all walked off and left him? But no—there was Piotr, through the haze. Piotr approached his chair of office—heavy, ornate, antique. Once it had belonged to a noble of the czar. Piotr, perfectly cold young machine, in his triumph—inspecting the chair.
A low shriek came from backstage somewhere. Mela. Couldn’t she keep her mouth shut for half a minute? Probably spotted the blood. Maybe the music drowned the squeal.
Piotr mounted the single step and turned. He sat down gingerly in the chair of empire, testing it, and smiling victory. He seemed to find the chair comfortable.
“I must keep this, Marka,” he said.
Thorny wheezed a low curse at him. He’d keep it all right, until the times went around another twist in the long old river. And welcome to it—judging by the thundering applause.
And the curtain fell slowly to cover the window of the stage.
Feet trouped past him, and he croaked “Help!” a couple of times, but the feet kept going. The mannequins, marching off to their packing cases.
He got to his feet alone, and went black. But when the blackness dissolved, he was still standing there, so he staggered toward the exit. They were rushing toward him—Mela and Rick and a couple of the crew. Hands grabbed for him, but he fought them off.
“I’ll walk by myself now!” he growled.
But the hands took him anyway. He saw Jade and the beefy gent, tried to lurch toward them and explain everything, but she went even whiter and backed away. I must look a bloody mess, he thought.
“I was trying to duck. I didn’t want to—”
“Save your breath,” Rick told him. “I saw you. Just hang on.”
They got him onto a doll packing case, and he heard somebody yelling for a doctor from the departing audience, and then a lot of hands started scraping at his side and tugging at him.
“Mela—”
“Right here, Thorny. I’m here.”
And after a while she was still there, but sunlight was spilling across the bed, and he smelled faint hospital odors. He blinked at her for several seconds before he found a voice.
“The show?” he croaked.
“They panned it,” she said softly.
He closed his eyes again and groaned.
“But it’ll make dough.”
He blinked at her and gaped.
“Publicity. Terrific. Shall I read you the reviews?”
He nodded, and she reached for the papers. All about the madman who bled all over the stage. He stopped her halfway through the first article. It was enough. The audience had begun to catch on toward the last lines of the play, and the paging of a surgeon had confirmed the suspicion.