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together.”
    “And why is the Great Auteur trudging up the mountain with the rest of the unwashed? I figured he’d be riding in the Sno-Cat.”
    “He wants to be photographed ‘on the ground,’ as we say. It looks better for the ‘making-of’ video that will ultimately accompany the DVD.”
    Marshall shook his head in quiet disbelief at the circus this had become.
    They resumed the climb, and almost on cue Conti angled toward them. “Is there anything I should know?” he asked Marshall in his clipped Italian accent.
    “About what?”
    The producer swept his hand in a wide arc. “Anything. The place, the weather, the local fauna-any color we can add to the project.”
    “There’s a great deal you should know. It’s a fascinating geological region.”
    The producer nodded a little dubiously. “I’ll schedule an interview when we get back.”
    Sully, who had heard this exchange, hurried over. “I’d be happy-in my role as team leader-to give you any assistance you need.”
    Conti nodded again, absently, his eyes back on the glacier.
    Marshall wondered if he should tell the producer about the nearby inhabitants. They were probably precisely the kind of “color” Conti was looking for. Just as quickly, he decided against it. The last thing the Tunits wanted-or deserved-was a loud, ignorant film crew descending on their village. He didn’t need to guess how they’d react if they could see how Mount Fear had been transformed over the last few days.
    He glanced surreptitiously at Conti. Marshall was having a difficult time drawing a bead on the director. For all his posturing as a fey artiste, the man also exhibited a hard, uncompromising façade. It was a most unlikely combination, half Truman Capote, half David Lean. It kept one off-balance.
    The ice cave lay ahead now, its dark maw obscured by the pieces of heavy equipment: a flatbed crane on balloon tires and another vehicle that Marshall could not identify. They were painted bright yellow, garish against the snowpack and the pale blue of the glacier. While the cameramen swapped out lenses and the sound engineer readied his belt mixer, the battalion of men in leather began spreading out around the machines. Two heaved themselves up into the cabs, while others began pulling the wooden pallets from the Sno-Cat and stowing their contents onto the rear of the mobile crane. Glancing more closely, Marshall saw that they were duffels loaded with heavy steel spacers, with hydraulics for adjusting their height.
    Barbour watched the men work with narrowed eyes. She held a palmtop computer in one heavily gloved hand and a digital recorder in the other. Even more than Marshall, she was suspicious of the documentary crew. “I can guess what the bloody great flatbed is for,” she murmured. “But what’s the other thing?”
    Marshall peered at the second vehicle. It bristled with equipment that looked vaguely medieval. “No idea.”
    “Make a note,” Conti was saying to Ekberg. “I want a four-color palette: the white of the snow, the cerulean of the sky, the azure of the glacier, the black of the cave. It should be a nocturne in blue. We’ll need to use that special process when we get it to the lab.” He glanced at the cameramen. “Ready?”
    “Ready,” said Fortnum, the director of photography.
    “Ready here, Mr. C,” said Toussaint, the assistant DP.
    “You’ll need to be very, very careful,” Marshall said. “The floor is glare ice, and very slippery. And like I said, these lava tubes are extremely brittle. This whole thing is a crazy risk. One false move and you’ll bring down the roof.”
    “Thank you, Dr. Marshall.” Conti turned back to the cameramen. “Fortnum? Toussaint? If you hear any sharp cracking noises while we’re inside, quickly pan over the assembled faces. Pick the most frightened you find and zoom in.”
    The cameramen glanced uneasily at each other, then nodded.
    Conti took one final look around, then nodded to Toussaint.