"Then he did an incredible thing. He slipped off his pants, and he wasn't wearing underwear. I suppose he thought the sight of his—uh—capabilities would so inflame my passions that I'd throw myself across the bed crying: Take me! I am yours!' As you saw, it didn't quite work out that way."
Reith had gone into a laughing jag, rocking helplessly back and forth on the bed. When he caught his breath, he said: "I—I ought to beat the sh—stuffing out of Cyril. But the sight of him eating standing up for days, with everybody kidding him, is revenge enough. And it's all happened for the best, in a way."
"What do you mean?" Alicia asked, suspiciously.
"Since you got back to Krishna, I've been afraid that the Moritzian therapy, besides curing your compulsions, might have taken the spunk out of you. I see now that I needn't have worried!"
XII - Enrique Schlegel
Another moon had passed since the rout of the nomad horde. Reith had presided over makeshift rites for the fallen Krishnan soldiers and the rash Fodor, who had died like the hardy barbarian he had always yearned to be. Dutifully, Reith had consoled the late director's widow and mistress, although he sensed ambivalent feelings in both.
Reith sent Timásh to Novorecife via Kolkh, to pick up the accumulated mail and to return with Zerré. He thought that an extra subordinate, loyal to him, might be useful on the journey home.
While Alicia and several women from the shooting crew assisted the Krishnan army surgeon in tending the wounded, a subdued motion-picture company, under Hari Motilal's fussy direction, completed the final takes. The script had been revised to make the most of the battle; and Krishnan knights and men-at-arms, some clad in garments from the Qaathian corpses, reenacted scenes from the fight. The Krishnans grumbled about the stench of the nomads' filthy attire and the heat of the heavy woollens under a blazing sun.
Sobered by genuine battle and death, the shooting crew, anxious to finish and begone, completed their work with dispatch. One day when the sky clouded over and a brisk rain fell, the actors and the crew spent the time in the studio tent, making blue-screen shots and voice-overs. To pass the afternoon, Reith wandered among the forest of stands bearing lights and reflectors and picked his way over a floor cluttered with coils and loops of cable. He overheard Olson the gasser saying to Motilaclass="underline" "Number three hoarder is getting weak. If she goes, with number four dead, we'll be up the well-known creek."
"A couple of inkies will do for this shot," replied Motilal. "It's a night scene." He turned to Fairweather. "Now, Randal, go back to 'How could I have doubted you?' and run through it again. Try to sound more British! American audiences think it's more aristocratic, the way a prince ought to sound. Speak as I do."
"You mean with a Hindi accent?" said Fairweather with ostentatious innocence.
Motilal hurled his roll of script to the floor. "No, damn it! I am speaking perpect Oxpord English! I mean—oh, devil take you!" Quivering with rage, the little man mastered his passions. "My good Mister Pair— Fairweather, will you be so kind as to go through that scene again, beginning at 'How could I—T'
After an hour of watching, Reith returned to the tent he now shared with Alicia and buried his nose in a grammar of the language of Katai-Jhogorai.
Atop the long slope to the river, in the village of Zinjaban, the folk went about their daily tasks. When they could steal time from work, they and their children gathered to gape at the aliens' movie-making. Some shyly offered edibles as thanks for their deliverance from the nomad horde.
Timásh returned from Novorecife, bringing with him Zerré and a young Khaldonian, who introduced himself as Minyev's cousin Yinkham. He had, he said, received word that Minyev was leaving his post with Reith and was recommending Yinkham for the job.
"My God, what effrontery!" exclaimed Reith in English to Alicia.
"We'd better learn what he knows about the Vizman business," said Alicia. "He may be entirely innocent."
"Maybe," said Reith grimly, "but he'll have to work like a beaver to convince me of that. You'd better ask the questions, since you speak better Khaldonian than I."
Alicia began the interrogation. Yinkham gave his place and date of birth and his relationship with Minyev. Then he asked: "Madam, be ye not the Doctor Dyckman whereof I have heard my cousin speak?"
"Yes. What had he to say about me?"
"Oh, he always spoke in terms of the most lavish praise. He said that ye ought to be the queen of a Krishnan kingdom; if it was ever within his power to do so, he would try to bring that event to pass."
An hour's rigorous questioning convinced Reith that Yinkham knew nothing of Alicia's abduction, and Alicia agreed with this conclusion. The Khaldonian, however, revealed several limitations. He was not fully mature, and like Minyev he was small and slight. Moreover, he had only a smattering of Mikardandou and knew no Terran tongues at all.
"He's got a long way to go," said Reith. "I don't know that it's worth my while to try to teach him all he needs to know, or whether I'd do better to pick some promising local boy."
"Are you going to send him packing?"
"I might, if we were back at the ranch. I won't fire him now, but keep him with us on the way home to see how fast he learns and how willing he is to turn a hand to tasks we ask him to do."
At last the final takes were in the can. The Krishnan cavalry regiments struck their tents and packed their gear. As an afternoon sun danced on the rippling Khoruz, the two long columns of armored ayamen, like silver serpents, took to the dusty roads, the Ruzuma moving north towards Kolkh and the Mikardanduma east towards Mishé, their standards languidly waving in a lazy breeze.
For the return to Novorecife, Reith had intended to lead the Cosmic crew to Kolkh and thence along the Pichidé' via Rimbid to the spaceport. But Motilal, now director, insisted on going back by way of Mishé to film some street and temple scenes that Fodor had deleted from the original script.
Reith would not have minded the change of plan if he could have kept Alicia with him; but this proved impracticable. The small, infrequent wayside inns along the road to Mishé dictated that the Cosmic crew be split amebawise into halves and travel a day apart. The first half would reach a designated inn, fill it to capacity, and depart the following morning. By dusk, the second contingent would arrive to occupy the abandoned quarters. Timásh would ride ahead of the lead party to reserve accommodations, and Zerré would bring up the rear to collect stragglers and unremembered belongings. Each section of the cosmic crew required a competent guide; and since Strachan's wound was not sufficiency healed, and Fallon had left days before, Reith and Alicia must each shepherd a moiety.
On the day before the first group's departure, having sent Timásh on his way with Minyev's young cousin, Reith ordered the Cosmic personnel to gather at the mess tent. Cyril Ordway was not present. Unable to bear the ridicule that had dogged him after his public thrashing, Ordway had already left camp despite Stavrakos's threat to fire him for desertion. Having found that it is easier to give gibes than to receive them, he had hired a local farmer to drive him in a light wagon all the way to Novorecife. Reith asked: "Who wants to go in the first group with me?"
"I go with you," said Kostis Stavrakos.
"And I," said Hari Motilal.
"Me, tool" said Cassie Norris.
When sixteen had volunteered, Reith called a halt. "The rest of you will leave two days hence, with Alicia."
Next morning, amid the usual bustle, clatter, and confusion, two omnibuses and one wagon were loaded. Stavrakos insisted that the canisters containing the exposed film and the costlier cameras be placed in the first wagon, where he could keep an eye on them. Doctor Mas'udi helped a hobbling Strachan aboard the second omnibus and sat beside him.