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the loudspeakers.
    The litter bearers began to march up the trail. Everything was quiet now, except for their bare feet padding on the soft earth. It was stifling under the blanket, but there was nothing she could do about it. The litter tilted a little as they climbed the embankment by the pool, became horizontal again when they reached the top. They halted and lowered her gently to the ground. She could hear their breathing, and then she couldn’t. They were moving away, down the embankment to drink at the pool. Now was the time to open her eyes.
    She saw the camera, a dark, heavy rectangle on the end of the long boom, moving in for the close-up, saw back of the camera the intent faces of Tom Billings and Josh Gordon. The camera drew closer in the noiseless arc described by the boom. Then tilted by Billings during the last few feet of motion, it peered directly down at her face. As she was wondering where the shots were, they came; two sharp reports from the right, and she let the faint smile, the sexually satisfied, cruelly triumphant, cat-ate-the-eanary smile she had practiced so many years, curl her lips.
    She saw Josh Gordon nod, and then the camera swung towards the pool, the entire crew pushing the crane forward on its rubber-tired wheels until she was behind everyone. She threw back the blanket and sat up on the litter, rubbing her hip where a crosspiece had chafed her. Then she yawned, stretched lazily. There was plenty of time. The camera had to record the bearers’ reaction to the other three shots from Masterson’s heavy elephant gun, and then it had to pan back up the embankment with the two men as they came to carry her the rest of the way to camp.
    She looked towards the pool but all she could see was the wheeled base of the camera crane and the backs of a couple of heads. She was yawning a second time when she caught sight of Fabro coming towards her from the wardrobe cabinet on the opposite side of the stage. He nodded approvingly as he neared her. He had the raincoat slung over one arm now, but his face was dripping with perspiration.
    â€œBetter not let Gordon catch you,” she whispered.
    â€œThe shots’ll warn me,” he whispered back, kneeling beside her. “That was good, Caresse.”
    â€œSure it was good.”
    â€œI just wanted to tell you—everything’s all right.”
    â€œIt better be, Fatso.”
    The sound of the first shot echoed through the stage and she waved him away impatiently, leaned back on the litter.

Richard Blake
    Over the gray metal door marked Stage 17, dimmed by mist, the red bulb glowed sullenly. He pushed open the door, went through the darkened sound lock, and pushed open the inner door. A studio policeman moved to intercept him, but he brandished the freshly typed pages, cut past the man towards the circling canvas screen that shielded the sets from the stage walls. He was just approaching the battened canvas, white on his side but painted to represent trees and sky on the other, when he heard the shots. Three explosions so close to his head they made him duck.
    He realized, after a confused instant, that they came from the jungle side of the canvas and simultaneously recognized them as the ones the bearers were to react to at the pool. Gordon was making good time, he thought, starting along the canvas again. And it was a good thing he’d borne down on the rewrite of Caresse’s speech. At this rate they’d be getting to it before lunch.
    He came to the opening of the screen back of the camp, peered around the wing to make sure he wasn’t in anybody’s way, then walked into the camp. He saw the set was ready for the next scene. Three scenes, actually, the way Jenkins had it planned. Sound equipment and the three cameras were in place, overhead all the lights were blazing. Some men were working on the TV monitors, banked along a wooden platform. In the hunters’ tent he glimpsed Ashton Graves, seated on a