Brother Joey stood up, dusting off his hands, and turned to the producer. "That chip quits when it overheats. Just get it to a circuit-doctor, and have him put in a new one."
Dave pressed a hand to his forehead. "You mean we have to scrap the scene, after all?"
"No, of course not. Just have somebody run over to the multi-shop and pick up a freezer. You know, one of the little plug-in sticks for cooling down martinis? I'll frost that chip for you just before you run the scene. That'll get you through the day."
"My savior!" Dave grabbed him by the shoulders.
"No, that's my boss." Brother Joey held up a cautioning forefinger. "But I get paid, you know. In my business, we have to pull our own weight. The chapter house is too far away to send me a salary."
"Union rates plus!" Dave turned to Mirane. "Send a gopher for a freezer, will you?"
"He's on his way."
"That's my girl!" Dave spun away too fast to see Mirane blush. "We just have to wait for this scene, Whitey."
"I was going to, anyway." Whitey surveyed the ersatz peasant mob. "Hey, wait a minute—who put the monk in with the farmers?"
Mirane stepped up beside him, frowning. "He's in costume. And that outfit goes with any period—after 1100 ad., of course."
"Yeah, but the poor vampire wouldn't stand a chance with a priest in the crowd. Besides, look at that little yellow screwdriver in his pocket. They never had those in nineteenth century Transylvania." He turned to Dave. "Who hired him for this scene?"
Dave opened his mouth, but Brother Joey answered, "Nobody."
Mirane was touching computer keys again. "He's right. I checked off all the extras, and he's not included." She looked up at Rod, frowning. "None of you are."
"Never claimed to be," Rod confirmed.
Dave was frowning. "Uh, come over here a second, would you?"
Rod and Gwen exchanged glances, then stepped over to the producer.
"I hate to seem rude," Dave muttered, "but if you weren't hired for this scene, what're you doing here?"
Rod shrugged. "Just watching."
"Tourists!" Dave heaved a martyred sigh. "How do you keep 'em out? Look, folks, I appreciate your interest, but we can't have you mixing in with the cast. Just too many legal problems."
"Well, that's show biz," Yorick sighed.
"Very short career," Rod agreed.
"'Twas pleasant, whilst it endured," Gwen concurred.
"Urn, I don't mean to give you the bum's rush, especially since we just hired your friend, here, below-the-line." Dave nodded toward Brother Joey. "You're welcome to watch, if you want to. Just stand way behind the camera ops, okay?"
"I shall surely watch!" Gwen stepped over to Brother Joey and knelt down to study what he was doing. Apprehension prickled Rod's spine.
"Figure it out?" Whitey asked, stepping up.
"Yeah—and I appointed them guests." Dave waved toward Whitey. "This is the director, folks. His name's Tod Tambourin."
Chornoi stared. So did Rod. Even Yorick looked impressed.
"Yes," Dave sighed, "the Tod Tambourin."
"The poet laureate of the Terran Sphere?" Chornoi gasped.
"Not anymore," Whitey assured her. "PEST took the laurels away. They didn't like my verses—decided I favored individualism too much. Horrible, immoral concepts, you know, such as 'freedom' and 'human rights.'"
Chornoi paled. "PEST did that?"
"Hey!" Yorick clasped her shoulder. "Don't take it personally. It's not as though you did it."
"But I did," she breathed, "I did."
"So did every person who voted extra power to the Executive Secretary," Whitey snorted, "but I'm not about to blame each one of 'em." He shrugged. "Besides, they're paying for it now, anyway. Just a bunch of poor suckers, that's all."
"Yes," Chornoi whispered, "we were."
"Hey, don't let it bog you down! Spend too much time cursing yourself for what you did yesterday, and you'll hamstring yourself for tomorrow! Besides…" Whitey shrugged. "I never was too comfortable being 'Tod Tambourin,' anyway. Always preferred being 'Whitey the Wino.'"
Chornoi stared. Then she straightened, and her mouth finned with resolution.
"Well! Always glad to have admirers around." Whitey turned to pump Rod's hand. "What do you think of my show?"
"Uh…" Rod cast a look of appeal to Gwen. "You wrote the script for this epic?"
"Yeah, me." Whitey frowned. "What is it? What don't you like?"
Rod took a deep breath and plunged. "Little on the wordy side, isn't it?"
"Hm." Whitey gazed at him, scowling.
Then he turned to Mirane. "Call Gawain over here, will you? And Clyde and Herman." He gazed off into space, abstracted.
Rod turned to Dave with a word of apology on his lips, but Dave held up a palm. "Shh! He's working."
The actors came up, and Whitey said, "Herman, take it from, 'You are not now in your native Germany,' will you?"
Herman frowned. '"You are not now in your native Germany, so far to the north and west! Nor are you in…'"
"All right, cut!" Whitey chopped down with his hand. "Condense it, Herman. How would your character say it?"
Herman stared at him for a moment, then smiled and said, '"Surely you do not believe that puny science can prevail against me, young man!'"
Mirane stared up at him, her finger keying the dictation mode on her keypad.
"'You are in my Transylvania now, not in your native Germany, where logic prevails!'" Herman went on. "'No, you are caught between Faith and Reason to the west, and witchcraft and superstition to the east…'"
"That's enough." Whitey chopped crosswise with his hand. "I get the point; I tried to work in too much geography at one blow. Okay, let's try it this way: Uh… 'You are trapped here, young man—trapped in Transylvania, trapped between the logic of Germany, to the west, and the superstition of Russia, to the east.'"
"Dracula would keep the 'my Transylvania,'" Herman said softly.
Whitey nodded. "Right. Yeah, he would." He flashed a glare at Rod. "Always listen to the actors, because they know the characters better than the writer does."
"But the writer created those characters!" Chornoi objected.
"But the actor re-creates the character his own way," Whitey corrected her. "If I get an actor to portray my character, it ceases to be just mine anymore. It becomes that actor's character, even more than mine, or the actor will do a lousy job." He turned back to Herman with a grin. "But I get the final say."
"Only because you hired the producer," Clyde snorted. "It's immoral, young man—the Executive Producer doing his own directing."
"It's my money, and I'll spend it as I like, old-timer. Now—'You are trapped in Transylvania, my Transylvania, the land of superstition… no… the land of Superstition and Sorcery… no, Superstition and Black Magic… where Science can have no sway!'"
They went on, overhauling the section of dialogue. When they were done, Mirane reminded, "We were going to shoot the scene with the peasants."
"Of course!" Whitey struck his forehead with the heel of his hand. "How much time have we wasted?"
"Not a second," Dave assured him. "We'll make it all back, because it'll be a better epic. But we should shoot all the day's scenes, Whitey."
"Right! Back to your places!" Whitey spun to the camera ops. "George, you go over by the south wall. Harve, over here, next to me!"
"That's one disadvantage of the writer doing his own directing," Dave confided to Rod. "A separate director could have been shooting a different scene, while he was overhauling this one."
"But how can he?" Chornoi cried. "How can he allow his deathless prose to be violated this way?"
Whitey heard her, and turned back, raising a hand. "Guilty. I hereby confess to writing deathless prose, on occasion— and even immortal verse, now and then. But when I do, I do it alone, with only a split of vin ordinaire for company, and I do it for me, myself, only. It's pure self-indulgence, of course—'art for art's sake' really means 'art for the artist's sake.' It's the sheer personal gratification of doing something as well as I can possibly do it, of expressing my feelings, my view of existence, my self—and it's for me, alone. Oh, I don't mind if other people read it, and it's nice if they like it. Sure, I enjoy praise; I'm human, too. But that's just a by-product, a side issue." He looked around at the crowd of actors and technicians. "This—this is another matter. It's another thing entirely. This script, I wrote for other people, and I make it with a host of other people. If no one else ever hears it or sees it, it will have failed. Worse, it'll be absurd, without purpose. Without an audience, it's incomplete."