“How do we get aboard?” she demanded.
Mako shrugged and grinned. “Just ask Judy. It’s her boat.”
“Damn you, Mako...”
“Hey... I’m only a bystander,” he said.
The projection room on Lotusland had been set up for a limited number of viewers. There were two rows of three seats and standing room for about six more behind them. Chana and Lee Colbert took the front seats and Lee said to Mako, “You want to sit up here with us?”
“I feel better back here,” Mako told him. He looked back toward the photographer and motioned with his hand. “Why don’t you get up here and give us your summary.”
The young guy nodded and edged forward. “Not much to tell. This was one quick shot, that’s all. We didn’t have a monitor in the plane and I don’t know what the hell we’re going to see. I know what I saw through the viewfinder... I think.”
Somebody switched the overhead lights off and the camera motor began to hum. There were half a dozen separate shots taken of the ocean’s surface from various altitudes. One showed a family of porpoises playing in the waves and another a million tiny bait fish turning the placid ocean top into a rolling scene of activity. Three fish leaped and dove into the mass, filling their bellies, then a cloud of seagulls dove into the feast, ate, took off, then dove again.
The cameraman said, “Here it comes.”
Everybody leaned forward. Only the camera motor made a sound. Nobody even breathed hard.
The plane was in a mild bank, the camera pointed down at a forty-five-degree angle, panning slowly as if it were looking for something. Then at the top of the frame the water suddenly stilled, became darker, not because it itself changed color, but because something below was making itself known.
Had the plane continued in its turn the camera would have caught it, but now it was sweeping away from the deadly thing below. Before anybody could say anything the cameraman put in, “I was the only one who saw it. I kept yelling for Al to go back and he finally heard me.”
The camera was still focused on the blackness below. The plane banked to the right now, hard in the turn, skidding enough to throw the camera a little off, then there it was, the dark thing again, its shape indeterminate, but for one second you got the impression that you weren’t looking at its length, but down onto it, and it was looking up at the camera, knowing what was happening. And it just dissolved. The darkness wasn’t there any longer.
Lee said, “Could it have been a shadow of the plane?”
“The sun was in front of us,” the pilot said.
“Bait fish?”
“Nothing. There was nothing there, that’s why I was turning away. We were looking for some action on the surface.”
They ran the scene four more times, but all they could see was what their imaginations told them to see. “You’re going to put this on national TV?” Chana asked flatly.
“You bet,” the cameraman told her.
“There’s nothing there.”
“Oh, there’s something there, all right. With the right music and our guy with the beautiful throat doing the voice-over, the entire viewing audience will see their own picture. The eater is suddenly going to be famous.”
“We might have even had a better view,” Chana said quietly.
She knew all the eyes were watching her and the moment belonged to her. A factual eyewitness account from a team of divers who experienced something they could recount and draw pictures of and tell about would carry more weight than a dubious strip of film. But backing up the film would add to the importance of the actual photography, enough to make the operation extremely newsworthy. Played right, political funding could be enhanced and upgrades in rank considered.
Chana smiled silently. She might even get to outrank Mako Hooker no matter where he stood in the Company. It would be her turn to lean on him next time.
The suddenly inquisitive murmur of voices stopped abruptly when a voice from the door said, “What did you people see?”
Mako recognized the voice. It was Anthony Pell, and though his tone was seemingly one of polite curiosity, there was an edge to it.
Chana wasn’t going to leave herself open to any interrogation from a civilian, so she simply said over her shoulder, “Tell him, Mako. You seemed to have had the best look at it.”
He decided to really spruce up the episode enough to rattle Chana for putting him on the spot. He said, “Well, I’m no paleontologist but it was nothing like I ever saw before. It was big, damn big. It came up out of the sand like a pure burst of energy and went right over our heads. Visibility went from a hundred feet to a few yards from the violent disturbance of the sand and it moved fast. The whole thing took a good ten seconds to pass us and get out of sight.”
“And nobody even got nipped,” a voice said sarcastically.
Mako couldn’t see who it was, but the voice wasn’t new to him. He had heard it before, and he was running the sound and the inflection through his mind trying to identify the speaker. He couldn’t get an immediate make on it, but he kept the impression fresh and knew that the next time he heard it, the name would be there.
When the light came on he saw that more personnel from the ship had crowded into the screening room. It was their ship and their project too, so they had a right. He reached out and took Judy’s hand. “You got a bar on this boat?”
“Of course. This is Hollywood afloat.”
“Then let’s get Mr. Pell up for a drink. Think you can do that?”
“For me Mr. Pell would do anything.”
“Who made that smart remark about not getting nipped?”
Judy frowned, then said, “I think that was Gary Foster. At least I think I recognized his voice.”
“What’s he do?”
“He’s the assistant prop boy,” Judy told him. “Why?”
Without answering her question, Mako said, “Who does the hiring for the company?”
For a moment she was silent, thinking, then: “If I’m not mistaken, the heads of the departments notify Mr. Pell. He contacts agents or unions for proper help.” Her eyes drifted up to his. “What are you looking for?”
Mako shook his head. “Nothing special at the moment.”
“Yes you are,” Judy stated.
“Like what?”
“This inquiry about Gary Foster.”
He let another few moments pass, then asked her, “Can you find out just what he does?”
“I can tell you now. When the prop boy goes over the scripts to pick out things they’ll need on the set, principally for the actors, his assistant will get the items out of our own inventory, or if they’re not in our stock, he will locate and purchase them. All items will be okayed by the head prop boy and paid for by Mr. Pell.”
“How big is your inventory?”
“Beats me,” she told him, “but I think it will handle most details. Lotusland doesn’t make Gone with the Wind pictures. The main projects have been TV documentaries that seem to have gotten ahead of the motion picture end.”
“But all economically successful?”
“Very.” She gave him one of her impish grins. “Want to buy some stock?”
“Nope.”
“You just want to be a fisherman all your life?”
“If I’m lucky,” he said. “At least I’ll always be able to eat.”
“And live in a funny house on a sandy beach?”
“You forgot my army surplus dinnerware.”
Judy gave him a light punch on the arm. “I’m only kidding,” she said softly. “If Daddy thought I was pulling any rich-kid stuff on you, he’d turn over in his grave.”
“He knew his way around, didn’t he?”
“With the money he made, he’d have to.” Her eyes got a momentary misty film on them and she said, “I wish I had known him better.”