"What'll we do?" said Lynd.
"We had better stop the shooting and give them the antidote before Mr. Dallas mistakes somebody for a Shakespearean character and tries to kill him."
Knight's face became apoplectic. His fists clenched, his eyes rolled wildly, and his face turned red and pale by turns. He shook with the effort of repressing his urge to scream and shout.
"You — you mean we gotta cut the scene in the middle and give 'em the antidote? And ruin the day's shooting?"
"You have what you have shot already," said Sorokin. "Now that Dallas is off his indoctrination, is no telling what he will do."
Knight ground his teeth. "Then what?"
"You cannot simply go up to them and say, No more acting, please. They are in a trance, and if you interrupt them or force a violent incongruity upon their consciousness you will send them into convulsions. That is how Cary Chambers died."
"Not to mention what Remington'll do if he mistakes you for Macduff," added Hahn.
"Oh, God!" Knight raised fists to a heedless heaven. "What'll we do, then?"
"Have you anesthol charges for that squirt pistol in your dispensary?" asked Sorokin.
"How should I know? C'mon, let's find out." Knight seized the little scientist's wrist and dragged him off.
Hahn turned his attention back to the stage, on which
Cornzan was now striding back and forth with his chin in his hand, booming:
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
How apt, thought Hahn, when the pat-pat of men running on tiptoe made him turn to see Knight and Sorokin coming back. Knight held the squirt pistol and Sorokin a hypodermic needle. Knight panted:
"Hey, Eisenhower, where the hell did Bob Gelbman set to?"
Lynd answered: "He just went. He was through for the day."
"Oh, no!" Knight glared wildly. "Look. This is how we're gonna do it. Doc Sorokin's the only one knows how to use the gun and the needle. If he walks up to Remington in his regular clothes, Remington will cut his head off, thinking he's one of Djurk's gang, or will fall down foaming in a fit and prob'ly die on account of having his illusion busted. If Doc dresses up like an Anthonian character, Remington will just cut his head off, period."
"What then?" said Hahn.
Knight stared at Franklin Hahn with a fixity that made Hahn sorry that he had spoken. "I was gonna ask Gelbman to go onstage and engage Remington in swordplay while Doc sneaked up behind him and shot him with this. But since Bob's gone, you're the one who comes closest to his size and looks. So duck into the dressing room and climb into the King Djurk costume, quick!"
"But, Ego!" said Hahn. "I'm no swashbuckler; I just write the drool. You don't want your best scripter's head cut off either!"
"No time to argue. Do like I say or out you go. And don't be scared of Remington. The fencing he learned was designed to put on a good show, not to kill anybody."
"But —"
Knight seized Hahn by the wrist and dragged him, protesting, towards the dressing rooms. Sorokin followed.
When Hahn and Sorokin reached the stage again, the show still had nine minutes to run. They were clad as Djurk and Bogar respectively, though without makeup, and Sorokin's spectacles impaired the effectiveness of his disguise.
Knight whispered instructions to his improvised actors and shoved them towards the stage. The word had spread among the floor men that something was wrong, and people crowded up to the clearance lines to see. Cornzan was ranting:
"Arm, arm, and out! If this which he avouches does appear, there is no flying hence, nor tarrying here. I 'gin to be aweary of the sun, and wish the estate o' the world were now undone. Ring the alarm-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back!" He whirled to face Lululu. "But come, sweetheart. Any minute your villainous father will return. While for myself I'm too proud to run from his whole army, I fear lest you take harm from him."
Lululu: "But Cornzan, how shall we get over that horrible snake?"
Cornzan: "Just as I did: by this vine. They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, but bear-like I must fight the course. What's he that was not born of woman? Such a one am I to fear, or none."
Franklin Hahn, conscious of the long sword banging his knees and the projections of his costume jabbing him in unexpected places, mounted the stepladder, which had been re-erected over Sasha's body. He heard Sorokin behind him as he climbed down on the other side, his scabbard bumping the steps. Then he started up the slope towards the Temple of Yak.
Cornzan: "One good swing and over we go — but hold, what's this? By the gods of Anthon, King Djurk himself! Enter first murderer!"
Lululu: "That's odd. He looks somehow different from how he did a few minutes ago."
Cornzan: "He's shaved off his beard, but I'd know that sneering face anywhere. But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, brandish'd by man that's of a woman born. And Bogar too! Ahhhh!"
Cornzan leaped lightly from the top step of the shrine to the ground in front, whipping out his sword. He bared his incisors and gave forth a sound like tearing a piece of sheet-iron. This was the feral snarl of the untamed barbarian, at the sound of which the beasts of Anthon slunk into their lairs.
Lululu called: "Oh, Cornzan, try not to kill him! After all he is my father!"
Ignoring Lululu's request, Cornzan stalked forward, teeth bared, head sunk forward between his shoulders in a Neanderthaloid posture. He said:
"I will not yield to kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, and to be baited with the rabble's curse. Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, and thou oppos'd, being of no woman born, yet I will try the last: before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, and damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'"
"Get around!" said Hahn to Sorokin, and then the whirlwind struck.
Clang! Zing! Clang! went the swords. Hahn parried desperately. He knew that property swords were dull, so that even if Cornzan got home he would not really cut Hahn's head off — only half off. Although Hahn had fenced a few times with Remington Dallas for the hell of it, he was not really skilled in the sport.
Hahn, backing as he parried, was vaguely aware of Ilya Sorokin hovering in Cornzan's rear, trying to get a shot with his squirt pistol. Then Franklin Hahn turned an ankle over a property jungle root, made an awkward parry as he recovered, and felt the sword knocked out of his hand. It spun through the conditioned air to fall with a clang on the concrete outside the stage.
Before Cornzan could make a tigerish leap to finish his victim, Sorokin hurled the squirt pistol. The missile struck the back of Cornzan's head. Being a light structure of plastic and aluminum, it bounced off, providing merely enough of a blow to distract the attention of the mighty mercenary. Cornzan whirled, whooped, and started for Ilya Sorokin, shouting:
"The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon! Where gott'st thou that goose look?"
Sorokin ran straight away from his pursuer. Franklin Hahn, after a half-second's delay, ran after Cornzan. As a straight line starting within a circle is bound to intersect the circle, Sorokin's course brought him to the body of Sasha, twenty feet from the serpent's head. The stepladder lay in the other direction, so that, to reach it, Sorokin would have had to run two-thirds of the way around Sasha's circumference.