"He'll just go to bat," the innkeeper warned.
The farmer shrugged. "So? We'll have Lugorf standing by with his butterfly net. Sooner or later, we slam the stake through his heart."
"And then what?" The innkeeper spread his hands. "So he lies there in his coffin for twenty, thirty years. Sooner or later, some young idiot who's looking for a reputation will go down there and pull out the stake, and where will we be? Right where we are now."
"We've done it before," the farmer maintained, "and we'll do it again."
"Again, and again, and again," the innkeeper moaned. "How many times do we have to go through it?"
"How many times did our ancestors have to?" the fanner growled. "Five hundred years they've been cleaning up his messes!"
"Five hundred years?" The innkeeper frowned. "That was the first of them—back when 'Dracula' was a title, not a name."
"That's right. It meant 'dragon,' didn't it? Shame on them, giving dragons a bad name like that!"
"At least dragons didn't hurt people for the fun of it," the innkeeper agreed. "At least, that's what they say about the first one."
"His name was 'Vlad.' They called him 'the Impaler.'"
The innkeeper nodded. "I remember. This mountain country was just a bunch of tiny kingdoms then, wasn't it?"
"Ya. No Kingdom bigger than a hundred miles each way, but their rulers called themselves kings." The farmer shook his head. "What a life for our poor ancestors! Trying to scratch a living out of scraps of level ground, whenever they weren't busy dodging whichever petty king had a war going at the moment!"
"Always fighting," the innkeeper grumbled, "always a battle. It wasn't any better the first time they woke him, a hundred years later…"
Rod listened, amazed, as the two men gossiped through a three-minute history of the Balkans, as seen through the eyes of a couple of Transylvanian peasants. It was ridiculous, it was asinine—and it was working.
"So stick a stake in his sternum… and, at least, we get twenty years of peace," the farmer reminded the innkeeper. "Maybe that doesn't mean much to you, but my cattle start looking pale when there aren't enough gullible people around."
"Where do you think the gullible people stay away from?" the innkeeper retorted. "My inn! Maybe you've got a point. No matter how you bite it, the Count's bad for business."
"So we nail him down again," the farmer sighed, hefting his pitchfork, "and twenty years from now, our sons take their turn. So? You do what you have to do to make a living, right?"
"Right." The innkeeper nodded. "Each generation has to kill its own vampire. You don't stop planting crops just because there's a drought."
"Right," the farmer agreed, "and you don't…"
Out of the corner of his eye, Rod saw the arm whirl, saw the pitchfork fly. "Down!" he bellowed, and leaped into a dive at Chornoi. His shoulder slammed into her as she howled in anger. She chopped at him as he tried to untangle himself enough to stand up, then managed to get a one-handed choke hold—and froze, staring at the pitchfork sticking in the ground, its handle still vibrating.
Rod knocked her hand loose, bawling, "Stop him!" He leaped to his feet, whirling toward the mob of extras, just in time to see the ersatz peasant disappear into the crowd. Rod bellowed and leaped after him.
The crowd parted, giving him plenty of room.
It made a nice lane—just in time. At its far end, Rod saw the "peasant" disappearing into an alley.
Gwen caught a broomstick out of the hands of a stunned extra, leaped on it, and shot off after the "peasant."
Hilda stared after her, then gave her head a quick shake and scowled down at her console. "Now, how the hell did I do that?"
Rod sped down the lane and into the alley. He was just in time to see the "peasant" disappearing around a corner. Rod kicked into overdrive and pelted after him.
The "peasant" dashed back out. Rod stared, then launched himself into a flying tackle. But the "peasant" saw him coming and jumped forward, and Rod smashed into the pavement with a howl of rage. He landed judo-fashion, but pain seared his side.
"Down!" Gwen cried.
Rod did a good imitation of a pancake, just in time for Gwen to flash by directly above him on the broomstick.
He rolled to his feet, shaking his head, and hobbled after her with a limping run.
A block later, he saw Gwen coming toward him, carrying her broomstick. "What's the matter?" he called. "Isn't this backwards? I thought it was supposed to be carrying you."
"I had no wish to scandalize those who live here," she explained.
"Honey, this is the one planet in the whole Terran Sphere where they wouldn't think much of it. They might ask you how you did the effect, though. I take it our man got away?"
Gwen nodded. "There is a town square. From it doth open many streets."
"Here, let me see." Rod limped on past her. The street curved and ended in a plaza, where five narrow, crooked streets fanned out amid tottering houses. The lanes twisted away out of sight.
Rod stood in the center, looking about him and shaking his head. "Right, lady. He could have gone down any one of them."
"Aye," Gwen agreed. "We have lost him."
Rod glowered from one street to another, remembering the pitchfork sticking in the ground. "The bastard almost got Chornoi. Didn't take them long to find us, did it?"
"Peace, husband." Gwen laid a gentle hand on his arm. "The man himself is of no consequence. E'en an thou wert to slay him, a dozen more like to him would spring up."
"Like dragon's teeth," Rod agreed. "The one we need to get is the one who's sending them out. But we don't even know what outfit he works for!"
"Is he not of our old enemies from tomorrow?"
"SPITE or VETO? I'd thought so, but that ersatz extra was after Chornoi, not us."
"Gwen's eyes widened. "Her erstwhile employers?"
"The PEST secret police." Rod nodded. "Probably. I was right when I said we'd be a marked crew if we took her along."
Gwen's hand tightened on his arm. "We cannot desert her."
"No," Rod agreed, "we can't. Besides, we still need a native of this era to guide us. Okay, so we could probably find one who isn't as big a potential liability as Chornoi, but we'd still have GRIPE and/or VETO after us."
"Thou dost but seek to discover reasons," Gwen accused. "When all's said and done, thou'lt not abandon a companion."
"Probably," Rod admitted. "Sometimes I wish I had as high an opinion of me as you do."
Gwen smiled, and slipped her arm through his. "That is my province, my lord. Thou mayest entrust it to me."
"Then I will." Rod smiled down at her. "And try to perform the same function for you."
"Not too well," she murmured, as his face came closer. "'Tis drafty, placed up so high."
"Oh, come down off your pedestal for a moment!" Rod muttered. Then his lips brushed, touched, and claimed hers.
A minute or two later, she murmured, "We must preserve those poor folk from Yorick."
"Yeah," Rod sighed, clasping her hand around his arm as he turned back. "We must save those poor, innocent city folks from our Stone Age country slicker."
As they came back to the shooting site, they heard a voice protesting, "But we weren't really planning it that way…"
"Darn straight you weren't." Whitey's voice was grim. "In fact, this whole elaborate explanation has the definite ring of an ad-lib. Now, what say we try it again—with the truth?"
"If you say so," Yorick sighed, "but you're not going to believe this."
"So what else is new?"
"We are… or at least, two of my friends are. They were born about five hundred years from now. And there's an interstellar organization out to get them. It kidnapped them and dumped them back here."
Whitey just stared at him for a moment, then said, "You're right. I don't believe you."