"So what's a leading man?" Whitey shrugged. "We'll just have to make sure we get all his scenes shot before then."
"All right, all right! So make sure of it, will you?"
"Oh, all right." Whitey heaved himself up with a sigh and stepped over to a fiftyish woman behind a complicated-looking console. He talked quietly with her a moment, then turned to call out, "Okay, Gawain, Herman, and Clyde! As long as we're waiting, let's run the first part of the scene, before the mob jumps the vampire."
"Where I throw the handkerchief?" asked a little man in a dark blue robe and pointed cap sprinkled with signs of the zodiac.
Whitey nodded. "Let's take it back a bit, to where Gawain has just come out of the inn and seen Herman waiting for him across the plaza."
"Right." A blond young man in a tweed suit stepped up beside Whitey. "I just woke up and found out breakfast wasn't even made yet, right?"
"That's it, Gawain. And a nice young guy like Dr. Vailin wouldn't even dream of waking somebody up just to get him a cup of coffee."
"So I'm stepping out into the false dawn to let the chill wake me up."
Whitey nodded again. "That's right. You enter from camera left, take a deep breath, look around, and see Count Dracula."
"Over there." The young man pointed at the vampire— and frowned. "Aw, come on, Herman! You had all night with that script!"
"Just making sure, lad." The vampire closed the cover on a small computer-pad and handed it to a coveralled brunette. He turned back toward Gawain and straightened his collar. "Now, then: 'It is pleasant, is it not? The air of my Transylvania.'"
"The approach of dawn clears the air," Gawain agreed. "But aren't you becoming careless, my lord? The first rays of the rising sun will touch you quite soon."
"What is existence without risk?" the vampire asked. "Only a dull, endless round of absurdity. Still, I do not hazard greatly; I have yet a little time."
"Thirteen and a half minutes," snapped the little man in the blue gown.
"Ah, my colleague is always precise," Dracula purred. "You have not been introduced, I believe. Dr. Vailin, allow me to present the esteemed sorcerer, Vaneskin Plochayet."
Gawain gave a slight bow. "Charmed."
"Not yet," the sorcerer chuckled, "not yet."
"Not ever," Gawain's face became stern. "The words of Aristotle will preserve me from your illusions, Master Plochayet."
The little sorcerer cackled, and Dracula sneered, "Surely you do not believe that your puny science can avail against our might, young man! You are not now in your native Germany, so far to the north and west! Nor are you in Italy, the Land of Faith; nor Greece, the Land of Reason! Nay, both are…" He broke off, turning to the director. "Damn it, Whitey! Am I supposed to make that sound realistic?"
"Of course not," Whitey retorted, "it's a fantasy. Just make it believable. Come on, come on! 'Greece, the Land of Reason…'"
Herman sighed and turned back to Gawain. "'Nay! Both are my neighbors—and uneasy neighbors they are. For you bide now in Transylvania, home of witchcraft and horror! Southeast of Austria, southwest of Russia we bide, poised between the lands of Reason and the land of feudal darkness, where your Science can have no sway!"
"Not so," Dr. Vailin smiled, almost amused. "Science rules the universe, even this small, forgotten corner—for science is the description of Order, and Order proceeds from the Good. No creature of Evil can stand against its symbol!" He slipped a crucifix from his breast pocket and brandished it. The Count shrieked and cowered, hands raised to ward him from the sight of holiness. But his sorcerer-ally leaped in front of him, hurling something as he shouted an incantation.
It was a silk scarf, and it fluttered to the pavement at his feet.
"Cut!" Whitey bawled, and he turned to the woman behind the console. "Well! That was a majestic flop. What happened, Hilda? The kerchief was supposed to fly across to drape itself over the crucifix!"
Hilda was punching buttons, looking miffed. "Sorry, Whitey. It's the static-charge generator. It was working ten minutes ago, I swear!"
"Don't," Whitey advised, "it's not nice. Get the gremlins out of it, will you?"
"Clouds!" Dave slapped Whitey on the shoulder, pointing at the sky.
Ominous charcoal-colored thunderheads were drifting toward them in full majesty.
Whitey turned to Mirane, beaming. "You got through!"
She nodded. "Just a clerk's foul-up. They promised it'll be nicely ominous within fifteen minutes."
"Awright!" Whitey grinned. "Now we can get to work!" He turned to Hilda. "How soon can you have that static generator fixed?"
Hilda's jaw set. "I'm a special-effects operator, Whitey, not a repairman!"
"Specialists!" Whitey rolled his eyes up. "Preserve me from 'em, Lord—or David. You're closer. Talk to her, will you?" He turned back to Mirane. "What else can we shoot?"
Dave heaved a sigh and rolled over to Hilda. "Don't you know how the gadget works?"
She stared at him for a moment, then blushed and shook her head. "Sorry, Dave. I just push the buttons."
Whitey turned away from Mirane, bawling, "Places for Scene 123!"
Dave stepped up to Mirane. "Where's the nearest electronics tech?"
"They're all kinds of them on this planet," she answered. "Somebody has to keep all those holo effects working. But they're all on salary, Dave, and they've all got regular rounds. I don't think we could get one on less than a day's notice."
"Blast!" Dave scowled. "And I was hoping we could finish up with Clyde and Herman today. Well, no help for it. We'll just have to scratch the scene and pick it up tomorrow. "
Mirane punched keys, and frowned at her pad. "Another day of Clyde and Herman will cost you a therm and a half each. And the minimum crew for an extra day is 843 kwahers."
Dave paled. "That'll put us over budget."
"Uh, your pardon, please." Brother Joey stepped up. "I'm afraid I eavesdropped."
"Not hard," Dave grunted. "We haven't exactly been tiptoeing."
"Perhaps I could help." Brother Joey slipped his screwdriver out. "I'm very good with gadgets and gizindigees."
Dave stared a moment, then smiled with tolerant patience. "This isn't exactly a job for a hobbyist, fella."
"I made a living at it," Brother Joey said, poker-faced. "I used to fix holo gear on spaceliners."
Dave really stared now, his lips parting toward a grin.
"But you're not in the union!" Hilda howled.
"He doesn't have to be; we aren't on Luna now." Dave grinned wickedly. "Or anywhere within the Terran Sphere, for that matter—so we don't have unions yet."
"Well, we ought to," Hilda grumbled.
"Why, Hildie?" one of the camera ops said. "If we had, you couldn't've gotten in—or any of us, except Harve, here. He's the only one who had an uncle in the union."
Harve nodded. "Besides, union max was twenty kwahers a day below what they're paying us here."
"Bribery," Hilda snipped. "Lousy union-busters."
"No, victims." Harve grinned wickedly. "There ain't too many of us out here, Hilda. We can call down top money."
"It's right here, I think," Brother Joey called, his head and shoulders inside an access hatch. "The trouble, I mean. A weak chip."
"How canst thou tell?" Gwen knelt beside the hatch, peering in with avid interest.
Rod listened with growing trepidation as Brother Joey explained about test meters. Gwen's infatuation with technology was really beginning to be depressing.
"Paranoid?" Chornoi asked at his shoulder.
"Always," Rod assured her.
"Turn it off, please." Brother Joey pulled himself out of the hatch and looked up at Hilda. "Let it cool down."
Tight-lipped, she stabbed at a button, and the telltale lights died.