He broke off as the whine of an approaching vehicle sounded from behind the next hill. The rugose beings imitating his gesture showed no inclination to return to the interior of the van. With a sigh he turned to face the unwary oncoming motorist, despairing of inducing anyone to stop anytime soon.

XIX

Carter had chosen an unimportant expository moment near the beginning of the third act to make his entrance. According to the script there would be only two performers on stage at the time and if he was lucky he would be able to take over before they realized what was happening. It seemed the most natural place in the story for a stranger to put in an unexpected appearance and he’d prepared his improvisational dialogue accordingly.

Much depended on whether his startled fellow actors would react professionally or simply panic. He was relying on the immediacy of live TV to keep them in line, but there was no guarantee. Therefore he planned to say as much as he could as quickly as possible.

As the show progressed he saw Pucahuaman, Apu Tupa, and Fewick leave the control booth. Bored, no doubt, or intent on other business. Excitement stirred within him. Without anyone on the set to recognize him he might be able to talk until the next commercial before studio security personnel reacted.

Odd that all his training as an actor had led him finally to a role fraught with far more meaning than any he’d ever envisioned. He was about to give the most important performance of his life and he doubted it would last more than a few minutes.

It might also be his last performance.

“You ready, good-lookin’?” Ashwood was a comforting, maternal presence nearby. Well, not entirely maternal, he reminded himself. “I just want you to know that no matter how this turns out, you got more guts than anybody I ever knew.”

“You’re just saying that to bolster my nerve.”

“It’s workin’, ain’t it?” She grinned at him.

He rose and made his way to the edge of the back-drop, easing it forward just enough to let him slip past at the critical moment. Their hiding place lay to the right of the stage and no one was looking in that direction. No doubt the Boojums had already taken control of the uplink facilities and were patiently awaiting his appearance.

“Seriously, Jason, it’s been my pleasure to have made your acquaintance. Maybe Security’ll just stun you. I couldn’t tell if the guards we saw earlier were packin’ guns or those funny-lookin’ tubes. I’d feel a lot more comfortable if this was a bank you were fixin’ to break into. Then I’d know for sure.”

He had to smile. “Getting nostalgic?”

“Only for a .38.”

According to the script a quick change of sets was scheduled for the commercial break between the second and third acts. As technicians swarmed over the stage positioning scenery and props, he hoped to mix with them without being noticed, thereby putting himself in position to step before the cameras right on cue.

He was surprised how relaxed he was, how prepared he felt. What he was about to attempt wasn’t unlike live theater, one of his enduring loves for which he was never chosen. Well, this time he’d gone ahead and cast himself, and nobody was going to fire him until he’d delivered his lines.

Of course as Ashwood had so succinctly pointed out, they could still fire at him.

“So you see,” the young actress not twenty feet from where he was standing was declaiming melodramatically, “how that Spanish corporation has nearly ruined us, despite all we have done for them, despite my father having given his life for the good of the company.” She turned away from the matronly woman who was playing opposite her.

“Because of that, because of them, now I won’t be able to marry Edward.” She began to sob.

“I am so sorry, my dear.” The older actress walked to her mark behind a writing desk and picked up the letter opener lying there. “If only your brother Jack were here. He would know what to do about these lying cowards. But unfortunately he—”

“There’s no need to panic, Aunt Dora,” insisted the tall, self-possessed actor who strode out onto the stage. He had the presence of, if not an Olivier, at least a Hoffman. “I was able to change my travel plans at the last minute. Now I’m here where I belong, ready to help my family.”

Both actresses gaped at him. In the context of the story line, their astonishment and surprise seemed perfectly natural.

The older woman started to turn to the director for an explanation, realized that everything she was doing was going out live, and to her everlasting credit and Carter’s undying delight managed to stutter without breaking character, “I … I beg your pardon?”

As if he’d rehearsed it all week Carter strode across the set and settled into a chair opposite the two women. “I canceled my flight. Just made it back from the airport.” He stared straight into the actress’s eyes and said with a grin, “You didn’t expect me, did you?”

The two women exchanged a look. Then the younger smiled at the older. They’d been told how important tonight’s show was. Obviously this was the old actors’ gag of throwing a ringer into the production in an attempt to rattle them. Always good for a few laughs. The expression on this new guy’s face as much as confirmed their suspicions. Well, it hadn’t quite worked. They were in on it now and they’d play along until the next break.

Which was what Carter had been counting on all along.

He stayed perfectly in character as the girl’s older brother, his dialogue based on what he’d been able to divine from his hasty examination of the evening’s script. It was laced with plenty of pro-Spanish sentiment, designed to mesh smoothly with the Boojums’ manipulation of the Contisuyuns’ mind machinery.

“It turns out that the Spanish government corporation wasn’t responsible for your father’s death after all,” Carter declared encouragingly.

“It wasn’t?” said the younger actress with becoming sincerity.

“Not at all. It’s the fault of those you thought were your friends all along, those strange Contisuyuns. I found out that they’ve been manipulating you and Aunt Dora and everyone else while trying to blame the Spaniards for nonexistent misdeeds. They’re at tempting to sow dissent and discord across Europe by stirring up unfounded hatred against the Spanish populace. It’s all part of a plot to gain revenge against people long dead.”

At any moment he expected to hear the director scream “Cut!” or security men to pile on stage in spite of the running cameras to drag him away, so he was more than a little nonplussed by the continuing calm. Fortunately he had enough presence of mind to keep talking.

From where he was sitting he couldn’t see the pandemonium which had engulfed the control booth, nor did any noise reach him from inside the soundproof enclosure. It turned out that having gotten Act III successfully under way, the director had left to take a leak, leaving matters of direction in the hands of his capable but presently very bewildered assistant.

That worthy saw no reason to intervene. Everyone on the set including the unidentified actor seemed to know what they were doing, so who was he to break into a live broadcast? Or to think of it another way, where production was concerned, if it didn’t look broke, don’t try and fix it.

Obviously there had been a last-minute script change on which he hadn’t been consulted. Being distinctly peeved hardly constituted sufficient reason to interfere. What else could you expect on a production where peculiar-looking Indians, imperious fat men, and a peripatetic Vietnamese-American reporter kept wandering freely on and off the set? In a few minutes they would break for a scheduled commercial and no doubt it all would be explained to him then.

Meanwhile he sat back, did his best to look unconcerned, and enjoyed the performance. Those technicians on the set who looked to the assistant director for edification saw a man completely in control of himself and his work. They could do no less. The cameras and microphones continued to record.

Carter rambled on, enjoying himself now and wondering if Ashwood was silently applauding from her hiding place behind the backdrop. No doubt this continent-wide exposure would help his career, if he didn’t end up shot. He knew he was delivering a memorable performance.

Once as he was turning he got a good look at the frantically gesticulating technicians up in the control booth. A moment later the booth door burst inward to admit the recently departed Pucahuaman, Apu Tupa, and Bruton Fewick complete with tomcat. While the Contisuyuns ranted wildly at the technical director Fewick turned to stare in disbelief down at the stage. Carter imagined the renegade archaeologist’s state of mind and found the vision pleasing.

Meanwhile no one took any action to interrupt the broadcast.

U’chak was just awakening to what was happening. With everything going as planned he had once again allowed himself to relax completely and as a result it seemed that once again he was to be denied. His fury and frustration knew no bounds as he tried to puzzle out what had gone wrong.

He quickly realized that rather than being technical in nature, the problem lay with the human playacters. At the same time he was shocked to sense that a nonhuman, non-Shihararaneth intelligence was at work nearby, with the result that his design was not merely in the process of being altered but shattered, all because he had for a second time allowed overconfidence to gain sway over him.

A hasty evaluation suggested that the damage to his design might be beyond repair. For all his abilities, the one thing U’chak could not manipulate was time, no matter how angrily he scratched and clawed at it in his repeated attempts to get a grip on the slippery concept.

Seeing his intricate and carefully wrought plans being methodically demolished before his very eyes not by some higher intelligence, not by a Monitor, but by a single low-level human was more than he could stand. Nor could he influence the humans around him to repair the damage, as he had in the past. Their reaction times were too slow, their manipulative abilities far too limited.

His rigorous self-control vanished in the realization that if he didn’t do something right then, that instant, all he had worked for would be lost.

He leaped.

A circular smooth-edged four-foot-wide hole appeared in the thick glass of the control booth, perfectly delineating the diameter of the vortex generated by the Renegade’s passing. The technician nearest the aperture swore as she raised both hands to protect her face from flying glass that did not materialize.

Carter turned as the younger actress playing opposite him screamed and stumbled backward. Pure undiluted hatred in the form of a bulbous silvery teardrop had exploded out of the control booth, expanding as it arced toward him. Claws of fluid stain less steel reached like chrome putty for his face, directed by seething eyes the color of molten sulfur.

Realizing instinctively that if it touched him he would shrivel up and perish as quickly as ash from a cremated newspaper, he tried to duck. He was dimly aware of people around him yelling.

Something hit him in the ribs with the force of a velvet hammer, lifting him completely off the stage and smashing him to his right. He slammed into the false wall of the drawing room set, cracking wood, plaster, and possibly a rib or two. Tumbling to the floor, he rolled over once and lay still, dazedly trying to catch his breath.

At the same time he realized that it was not the hellish teardrop which had struck him.

Revelation!