Carter had already considered that. “Igor can tell them that the Boojums are props for the show. The guards will believe him. What else could they be?”
They spent the next morning reconnoitering the studio. From the outside the old film complex looked little different from the other commercial buildings that filled half the industrial park south of Edinburgh. Vacant fields alternated with sprawling, usually windowless single-story distribution facilities and assembly plants.
A large satellite dish peered heavenward from atop the main structure. Chain link fencing topped with concertina wire enclosed the grounds. While Carter had been correct in his assumption that the Contisuyuns would not have armed men conspicuously on patrol, it was also clear they had no intention of allowing casual visitors to roam freely about the studio.
The Boojums were possessed of several acute senses, but vision was not one of them. So it was left to Carter and Igor to sit in the front of the van and swap a pair of hastily purchased binoculars back and forth as they studied the grounds.
“I see one guard station,” Igor murmured as he stared through the glasses. “One man inside.”
“That rambling structure would be administration,” Carter decided, peering past the shorter man. “The broadcast facilities are probably located behind it. Technical should be next door, under the big dish. That’s where you need to take our friends.”
Igor lowered the binoculars. “What about you? How will you get onto the set?”
Carter chewed his lower lip. “I don’t know. It’ll be a lot tougher to slip in there unchallenged than into Technical. The longer I can delay my ‘entrance,’ the greater the surprise and the better chance I’ll have of pulling this off. Ideally I need to keep out of sight until right before I step in front of the cameras.”
“Then we need to find a way in, where you won’t be noticed,” Ashwood opined from her seat next to the door.
Carter turned. “There is no other way in.”
She smiled and gave him a playful jab in the ribs. “How do you know if you don’t have a look? Let’s take a drive around back.”
After circumnavigating the studio they parked in the lot of the plastics factory next door, whose busy workers ignored the unmarked delivery vehicle in their midst.
Ashwood squinted through the binoculars. “There’s an old dirt road crossin’ the empty field between the studio and here. It ends at a gate.” She gripped the field glasses tighter. “I see a big chain and a heavy padlock. No problem.”
“I thought you told me that you had nothing to do personally with those robberies your boyfriend was involved in years ago?”
She lowered the binoculars. “What I said was that I never killed nobody. I didn’t say nothin’ about a little recreational breakin’ and enterin’.”
He made a face. “So when do we go in?”
“Early in the morning, before the crew arrives to start settin’ up. Guards’ll be changin’ shifts and less alert. We’ll take some sandwiches or somethin’ and find a place where we can hide until evening.”
Carter frowned at her. “Who said you were coming with me?”
“Why not?” she shot back. “I’d look out of place in the van with Igor and I’m damned if I’m gonna squat back at the cottage and wait for the menfolk to come ridin’ in to tell me how their evening went. Besides, if somebody stumbles into us maybe I can distract ’em. Tell ’em I need their help in wardrobe. I can make that believable enough.” Twisting in her seat, she glanced back at the Boojums. “They start sending at seven P.M. How soon after they’re on the air should he make his ‘entrance’?”
“It does not matter once we are in control of the technical facilities,” Shorty told her. “We will of course be able to see him on your boxy little visual monitors once he enters the field of view. At that time we will begin to broadcast our altered suggestiveness in conjunction with his improvised dialogue.”
“Let’s wait ‘til at least the second half of the show,” Carter suggested. “That way they won’t have time to put a countervailing message on the air if they somehow manage to retake the transmission room.”
“Ripping good notion, old boy.”
Ashwood peered around Carter’s bulk at Igor. “Head for the gate just before airtime. That way you won’t be parked where you might attract the attention of some bored road cop. Also, you can say that you got caught in rush-hour traffic … I guess they got rush-hour traffic hereabouts … and that the ‘props’ you’re deliverin’ are needed right away for the show. Rent-a-cops don’t like bein’ yelled at, and it’ll be so close to airtime there won’t be time for him to call somebody else to run a check, so he ought to wave you on through. You couldn’t bring it off at a studio in L.A., but I’ll bet they’re more laid-back hereabouts.”
“The timing is very close.” Igor sounded concerned.
“We will have ample time.” A rush of reassurance emanated from the Boojums. Suddenly Carter felt completely confident. “Once we have taken the broadcast facilities we will retain control of them until our work is concluded. The Contisuyuns will not have time to realize what has happened to them. By the time they do it will all be over and their nefarious intentions come to naught.”
“I just thought of something.” Ashwood regarded her companions solemnly. “Assuming we bring this off, what’s to keep them from starting all over again with another show someplace else?”
“We will see to it that the dangerous equipment is obliterated beyond repair,” Crease told her. “Learning machinery is very delicate and requires components and manufacturing facilities not present on your world. The Contisuyuns who are marooned here are not capable of reconstructing such facilities, even with paid human assistance. These are technicians, not engineers. Your best auto mechanic could not assemble a car from piles of metal and plastic.”
“Then let’s go back to the cottage.” Ashwood yawned noisily. “If I’ve got to get up early to save the world, or at least this part of it, I want to get a good night’s sleep in before it’s time to go to work.”
XVIII
Igor and the Boojums wished Carter and Ashwood well as they left for the studio at sunup in the small rented car. The aliens and their anxious Peruvian driver wouldn’t abandon the cottage for another ten hours or so. Carter gave Macha a goodbye caress, whereupon Tree assured him they would watch over her as carefully as they did Grinsaw.
For the second time in as many days Carter found himself parked in the plastics company lot gazing through the binoculars at the studio. Arriving workers ignored the couple in the compact, intent only upon checking in.
“The area around back’s deserted,” he was murmuring. “No guard, no dog, nothing.”
“No point in hangin’ around here, then.” Ashwood opened her door and slipped out.
No one challenged them as they strolled casually across the dirt field that separated the two industrial blocks. When they reached the chained gate Carter kept watch while Ashwood did something to the clunky padlock with a small piece of metal. A distinct click was followed by his companion’s grunt of satisfaction.
“Like ridin’ a bike. Once you’ve done it, you never forget how.” She rapped the lock against a metal pole and it obediently popped open.
Carter slipped it free of the chain and eased the gate aside. Once in, he replaced both without closing the lock.
The old film studio was much larger than was needed for the production of a single television show. No doubt it had been chosen for its isolation as much as anything else. The empty buildings offered plenty of cover for the two intruders as they worked their way toward the front of the complex, intending to check out the larger of the two sound stages first.
Sure enough, technicians and performers were arriving at and departing the barn-like structure in a steady stream: actors and wardrobe people, makeup specialists and caterers, gofers and gaffers.
Working their way around back they were gratified to find an unlocked door. There was no reason to secure the sound stage, Carter mused, if you had confidence in your perimeter security. The rear of the cavernous edifice was a sargasso of dusty props and fragments of stagework, unused lights, and half-trimmed lumber. What light there was filtered back from the front of the building where the show was produced.
Carter picked his way carefully forward, Ashwood following close on his heels, until they came across a Victorian couch backed up against a false pub front. It was dark and quiet, a good place to hole up ‘til evening.
