“The boys again?”
“Nay. Bleedin’ penurious Conservative government. Turn to your left and you’ll be confrontin’ the loop access. Take it up an’ all the way ‘round an’ you’ll find yourself on the M-14 neat as you please.”
“Thank you, sir. Thank you!”
“Aye, you’re welcome, laddie. But …”
Igor was already behind the wheel, slamming the door shut behind him. The van’s tires squealed as they threw gravel, leaving the old farmer to gaze contemplatively after the disappearing vehicle. Eventually he turned and headed back up the rocky slope toward his waiting team.
“O’ course, I wouldn’t go that way.” He sighed, shaking his head as he walked. “Young folks these days got no patience in ’em.”
Activity among the swarming actors and technicians was rising to a fever pitch as broadcast time approached. Having satisfied himself that he’d memorized as much of the script as was possible in the short time available to him, Carter found himself wondering if the Boojums were already on the grounds preparing to take over the satellite uplink complex. He checked his watch anew. As Crease had pointed out, timing would be of the essence.
So don’t waste it worrying about the aliens, he admonished himself. Concentrate on the script, on what you’re going to say. Even if any unforeseen complications arose, he reminded himself, his allies were beings who had built matter transmitters and starships. Absurd to think they couldn’t deal with the unexpected.
A point of character nagged at him and he flipped open the script to page 32.
“Bloody hell. I knew one of us should have ridden up front to navigate,” Shorty was thinking. “I just knew it.”
Igor stood by the open driver’s side door. “Oh yes, that would’ve been useful, especially if some policeman had seen me driving along with a gesticulating plant in the passenger seat.”
“Piffle! What policeman? We have not encountered a living soul since we received instructions from that elderly fraud you questioned.”
The three aliens had assembled behind their driver to join him in staring at the underside of the old railroad bridge. As events had just demonstrated, the helpful farmer had been no more accurate in his assessment of spatial relationships than he had been in his directions, the result being that the top of the van had struck a very large, very solid supporting timber dating to 1878 which had peeled back the roof of the rented vehicle like soft cheese, not incidentally pinning it in place.
“Maybe you would like to take over the driving, too?” Igor suggested angrily. Spitting and the sound of claws digging at metal walls sounded from inside the van. Even the cats seemed frustrated, he thought. He’d already let some air out of all four tires in an attempt to lower and free the van, to no avail. It was jammed tight beneath the bridge.
“I wonder if so dense and sarcastic a species is worth saving?” Shorty mused angrily.
“At least we have legs.” Igor walked to the front of the van, inspecting the underside of the bridge. “For a supposedly advanced race you certainly are critical of others.” Pushing down hard on the van’s hood produced only complaining metallic squeaks.
“If both of you would devote as much energy to contemplating methods for freeing our vehicle as to trading insults, we might find a means of departing this wilderness,” Crease observed darkly.
Ashwood shifted uncomfortably on the couch. She was used to a firm work chair, and the overstuffed relic was cramping her backside.
“What time is it?”
“Twenty minutes ‘til seven.” Carter was squinting through the backdrop. “No reason to assume they won’t start on time.”
“When are you plannin’ on making your entrance?”
He checked the purloined script. “There’s a halfway logical opening here, just after they return from the mid-break commercials.”
She nodded. “You’re gonna have to give the performance of your life.”
“I know.” He returned his attention to the crack in the backdrop. “Actually I’m kind of looking forward to it. At least I’ll be doing something serious for a change.”
Fewick leaned back in the reclining chair in the control booth, stroking the cat curled in his lap as the director called for quiet, preparatory to beginning the evening broadcast.
“We’ve come quite a ways, Moe.” His fingers scratched beneath the animal’s chin and the big orange tom purred approvingly. “Perhaps when we commence stage two of this operation and our Contisuyun friends enable me to take control of the great museums of Europe, Mum and Pater will finally acknowledge my presence. As disdainful as they have been of my field work, I should think they would find a switch to administration most gratifying.
“Think of it! I, Bruton Fewick, in control of the destinies of the world’s greatest museums. There will be some changes made, I promise you that. After the emphases in the field of archaeology are appropriately altered to suit my theories, I shall branch out. Into art perhaps, and then science. The world will be a better place for the irresistible intrusions of Bruton Fewick. You think so too, don’t you, Moe?”
The tom glanced lazily back up at him, its expression inscrutable as Pucahuaman and Apu Tupa entered the booth. From there they could watch and comment on the show in sound-shielded comfort. The Scottish and English technicians busy at their consoles ignored the three men and concentrated on doing their jobs. Broadcasting live television via satellite was no task for the lazy or indifferent.
In another room in another building nearby, Contisuyun technicians would receive the audio and visual from the studio. After adjusting the levels, they would feed the composite signal through some peculiar and elegantly sinister apparatus of their own devising before shooting it up to the Eurosat III for distribution to sets and stations across Great Britain and the Continent. Two armed Contisuyun soldiers flanked the only entry door. Once transmission of the show began, no one would be allowed to leave or enter.
The local technical people did not question the unusual procedure. Their job was to record and transmit the show to a chosen destination, and if that destination happened to be the building next door instead of a recording studio or local station, that was none of their business so long as the Bank of Scotland continued to cash their checks.
Pucahuaman barely glanced up when the director called for action and the opening title of the show appeared on the monitors in the booth.
“This night will live forever in the memories of my people. Tomorrow the great football game between the Spaniards and the English will dissolve into rioting and chaos, the culmination of all our careful work and preparations. As people throughout Europe watch it happen, the anti-Spanish feeling we have instigated will spread, pitting former allies against one another and plunging governments into crisis. There will be calls for punishment and for sanctions. And every week, every Thursday night at seven o’clock, Day Becomes Tomorrow will be there to provide subtle suggestions and offer sly advice on what future course of action the citizens of Europe should take.”
“After we have revenged our ancestors,” Apu Tupa added, “we will move to influence the outcome of elections in specific countries, promoting those candidates whose policies please us and decrying those whose do not. It will be the beginning of the new empire. Eventually we will rule this planet as it should be ruled: from the navel of the world. From Cuzco.”
“And everyone will have to drink Inca Cola twice a day, and visit their local Incaworld once a month,” Fewick reminded them merrily. “Remember your promise to the Fernández brothers.”
“We will not forget.” Pucahuaman turned his gaze downward, toward the production that was getting under way. “I would not have thought this possible were it not for the assurances of the small woman Ho that this world of our ancestors can be controlled completely through this television.”
“I never cared much for the medium myself,” Fewick told him. “And as long as it does not interfere with my work I do not care what you do with the world.” He smiled down at his cat. “What do you think, Moe? Should we let our friends take over the world? You don’t care as long as they don’t interfere with the international flow of cat food, do you? I thought not.” Together with Apu Tupa and the general, he leaned back to enjoy the show.
“What is the problem now?” A tired Crease peered out the open rear door of the delivery van. Macha and Grinsaw clustered curiously near his cilia.
Igor had parked by the side of the road and crawled under the truck. He wiped sweat and dirt from his face. “This vehicle we rented isn’t new. I am afraid the rear axle is broken.”
“What does this mean?”
“It means,” said Igor as he slid back out on his backside, “that it will no longer go.”
