"The colonel's a good old soldier but a bit of a bore. If—oh, hello, Mary!"
Mary Hopkins came in. The wardrobe mistress declined a drink but listened eagerly to Reith's version of the rescue. Then she exclaimed: "There's the dinner gong!"
As they took their places in the chow fine before the cook tent, Mary Hopkins said: "It's nice enough eating picnic style in good weather but miserable when it rains. Then we have to cover our plates and run back to our tents."
Dinner at the long tables over, Alicia took Reith to Manshu's tiny inn for a showing of the day's rushes. The common room was jammed, with people sitting on the floor and trying to see past one another's heads. The makeup artists, Reith thought, had done an excellent job on the Terran actors; it would take an expert to tell them from authentic Krishnans.
In one scene, Princess Ayala, played by the buxom Cassie Norris, was about to be burned at the stake. At the last minute Prince Karam, the actor Randal Fair-weather sporting a short-sleeved, coarsely-knit sweater dipped in metallic paint to simulate chain mail without the real thing's weight, galloped up on an aya. Severing the princess's bonds with a slash of his sword, he caught her up and galloped off.
Cassie's complaining voice, high and sharp, rose above the chatter in the crowded room. "I thought I'd gotten close enough to being fried; but Attila wanted more realism. So on the third take, he delayed the rescue till the damned fire burned my leg. The fuckin' thing still hurts, in spite of Doc Hamid's goo!"
Fodor growled: "You're lucky. It's my ambition to make a picture where somebody really is burned at the stake."
"Damned sadist!" said Cassie.
"Of course!" boomed Fodor cheerfully. "All barbarians are sadists at heart!"
"You can't do another take of that scene, anyway," Mary Hopkins put in. "That was the last of those white chemises she's supposed to wear."
"Then we get the local people to stitch us up some more and shoot the whole scene over. I don't like it the way it is. When Randal picks her up, her tits are supposed to pop out. The slips should be cut way down lower."
Groans filled the darkened room. Fodor said: "Okay, okay; I lad. Tomorrow we go on the long chase. The colonel at Castle Kandákh says we can stay all night at his fort. So bring your toothbrushes! He's moving his junior officers out of their rooms for us. Guess he hopes to stick his face in the camera and see his picture in the film."
Alicia and Reith sat their ayas in the foothills of the Qe'bas, watching cameramen struggle up rocky slopes sparsely covered with pink, mauve, and blue-gray herbage.
"One nice thing about making movies on Krishna," she said, "is the long days. Since it takes so much time to get everything set up and put away again, the extra daylight hours give us half again as much actual shooting time as on Terra."
"Lots of disadvantages, too, I suppose," suggested Reith.
"You just bet! No electric power, so we have to haul those super-storage batteries called 'hoarders' along. Oh, there's Attila waving at me. I have to go interpret for him. Don't fall off any cliffs!"
As he watched her receding back, Reith earnestly wished that he could get Alicia alone long enough to resolve the problem of their future. Even if her more-than-sisterly affection for him had been lessened by the Vizman episode, his feelings towards her burned brighter than ever. He felt a growing urge to "have it out" with her. But, in the hustle and bustle of cinematic work, there were scarcely five minutes when one or the other was not absorbed in some chore for Cosmic Productions.
Hour after hour, Reith watched from the sidelines as the chase sequence took form. The action was simple, if strenuous, for the actors involved. Prince Karam, holding a terrified Princess Ayala in the curve of his sturdy arm, galloped up the Balhib road with a dozen villains, played by Mikardando extras, in pursuit.
Over and over, as Fodor raised his bullhorn and bellowed: "Sound! Cameras! Action!" Prince Karam, clutching his leading lady, galloped past the cameras. Each time when Fodor yelled, "Cut!" Karam reined his aya down to a walk and guided it back to the starting point. After the shot had been repeated three or four times, Fairweather and Cassie were allowed to rest while the Krishnan pursuers were photographed galloping up the same stretch of road, again and again.
A short time later, the whole crew moved further up into the hills and repeated the process on another stretch of road. Alicia explained that such a sequence was technically called an alternating syntagma. Cassie's flimsy garment became shabbier by the hour.
Interested though Reith was, as the long day wore on, he found movie-making tediously repetitious. He was impressed by the time and the endless attention to detail that each take called for. A ten-second shot might require up to a quarter or even half an hour of repositioning the cameras, the sound equipment, and the sheets of silvered cardboard used to reflect light on the actors. Everyone, including Alicia, White, and Ordway, pitched in to move equipment.
Reith overheard an altercation between Cassie Norris and Attila Fodor. She screamed: "If you suckers weren't such cheapskates, you'd have brought doubles for the long shots. I'll be so worn out tomorrow, I won't be able to act for shit!" Reith was amused by the contrast between Cassie's raucous, inelegant everyday voice and the sweetly refined tones she used before the cameras.
A Krishnan aya-wrangler spoke to Alicia, who translated. "Attila, he says unless we take time out, we'll founder the mounts."
"Oh, hell, then we get some more ayas!"
"Don't be stupid!" said Randal Fairweather. "You want me to start the ride on a roan and end up on a gray, like when I played d'Artagnan in Swords and Muskets? I never did hear the last of that."
"You shut up!" roared Fodor. "Who's boss here? Anyway, it's time for lunch."
Roqir had disappeared behind the peaks when the fugitives reached Castle Kandakh ahead of their pursuers. Since the light was no longer strong enough for the last shots of the sequence, Fodor reluctantly called time and led the cast and crew into the fort. Those who could ride had ridden up from Zinjaban; those who could not had been ferried up in one of the omnibuses.
Inside the gate, Sir Litáhn's armored troops stood in a double line with drawn swords. As the Terrans approached, they raised their swords and shouted: "Hao na Ertsumak!"
Fodor called back over his shoulder. "Does that mean they welcome us or are going to cut us in pieces?"
"It's a cheer," said Alicia. "Go on in."
"This guy wants to make sure he gets a bit part," growled Fodor. "We'll let him make a cameo appearance." He strode in, grasped thumbs with Sir Litáhn, and made himself agreeable. The others followed.
In what appeared to be an officers' club, a tidied and refreshed film crew assembled for drinks. Reith, Alicia, and Fallon were kept busy interpreting the pleasantries between Earthmen and Krishnans. Ordway came up to Reith, his round face disarmingly respectful. He exclaimed: "I say, Sir Fergus, Tony just told me about your new tide. Isn't that splendid?"
"I hope I don't let it go to my head."
"Oh, surely not!" said Ordway, completely missing Reith's irony. "We all know you're a man of sound character. May I shake your hand? And will you do me the honor of having a drink with me?"
Reith smiled at Ordway's infatuation with titles. He let Ordway press a drink of kvad upon him, then another.
Lady Gashigi appeared, crying: "Ah, my two fah-vo— fay-van-rite Earsmans! How I loov ze Terrans! Get me a da-rink, pa-lease, Cyril."
Reith was congratulated again on his knighthood, and more drinks were thrust at him. He would have liked to stay close to Alicia; but she was surrounded by junior officers and seemed to be enjoying herself.