Chapter 8: CHAPTER EIGHT

A few days later Fenwick stood just inside a library set up in one of the houses. Although the number of books on display here could never compete with a library in any major city in the world, there were enough books here to satisfy curious aliens. Ten bookcases, sixty bookshelves, each shelf holding about thirty books. What did that add up to? Twelve hundred, more or less? Most of the books were old. As he scanned the shelves he was amazed how the subject matter varied, from astronomy to biology to physics. Not just non-fiction, fiction as well, although most of the books were written by 19^th and 20^th century authors. Did these aliens bring any literature from their home world? Other than that multi-volume encyclopedia?All he could see were books by authors who had been as Earthbound as he was now. Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck, Arthur Conan Doyle...

He stopped when he heard the bell tinkle at the front door. One of the Tereskàdians entered the buildings, looked around. The absence of those fine hairs around the perimeter of the ears told him this was a female, and the whistling dragon with her, a male.

Chandrha?

Why didn’t they have some distinct feature so you could tell one alien from another, other than that collar with its red diamond-shaped symbol. Different colors for each family. He remained where he was, watched her as she drifted to one of the shelves to his left. Orange collar, so it wasn’t Chandrha browsing the shelves.

He immersed himself in a thick volume of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. The bell at the front made a soft chiming sound a few more times, but he didn’t look up to see who was coming in. Who could it be but Tereskàdians, unless some of the humans here found this library interesting.

He jumped when someone tapped him on the shoulder. Cal Torrence was standing there, his eyes taking in the book in Fenwick’s hand. “The boss wants to see you.”

“Creighton?” He replaced the book on the shelf.

“Who else do you work for?”

“I was fired.”

“You’re unfired,” Torrence said. “Mr. Creighton is going ahead with his picture. He’s going to call it ‘Dragons of the North.’ ”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” he murmured. “He told me he wanted to make a documentary.”

“Well, he changed his mind.”

Creighton was waiting for him just outside the village. He had his back to the vast forest that lay like a gigantic sleeping monster in this immense region of northern Ontario. In his right hand he held the script, a script he might have changed yet again to accommodate his new ideas. ‘Dragons of the North.’ Like a documentary about the whistling dragons, although the title might confuse whatever small group of people was going to see it.

He was wrong.

“It’s a fantasy,” Creighton said. “We’ll shoot whatever we can here, then we’ll go back to California, and you can get to work.”

“Are we back to fire-breathing dragons?” he asked. He had no idea how he was going to turn these fur-bearing mammals with wings into fire-breathing dragons.

He looked past Creighton into the forest. A sense of foreboding pervaded his body, as if someone in the woods was watching them, watching every move. What kind of indigenous animals lived up here? Moose... deer... wolves... bear... He didn’t want to tangle with a hungry bear.

“I’ve made a few changes to the original script,” Creighton said, “to reflect the setting, but otherwise we’re right back where we’re supposed to be.”

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Right back to a piece of crap. From a horror film to a romantic adventure to a possible documentary and now, a fantasy.

The cast and crew were waiting for Creighton to get the film started since nothing had been done so far. That would have to wait, since the eminent director liked to give a pep talk, like an NFL coach trying to lift up a losing team by urging, prodding, cajoling, doing everything possible except wringing the necks of the players.

“The main focus of this picture will be the dragons, so what our chief cameraman, Ned Wilson, has done is filmed the dragons in all kinds of situations, flying, eating, nursing... uh, giving milk to their Tereskàdians. We’ll incorporate quite a few of those images into the film. The stars of this picture are Benita Corovelli and Cal Torrence. They have been learning their lines, but they need to learn more. The other members of the cast will be made available when the script calls for it. The setting will be this village and the forest...”

“When does this picture take place?” someone at the back asked.

“Somewhere in the past,” he said. “No specific date.”

“Am I supposed to be in this picture with an ad on my jacket?” Billy Tallard asked. “I mean, do we use costumes?”

“Yes, we brought costumes. For everybody in this film. Now, can we just rehearse that first scene? Benita... Billy... Let’s see. Billy plays Benita’s brother...” He glanced at the first page of the script.

“What about the aliens?” Fenwick asked.

“They can’t act. True emotions, that’s it. Let’s say I wanted them to show anger, and they’re... happy, showing anger would be like lying. And you know they can’t do that.”

“Here comes Chandrha.”

Creighton looked up. “How do you know it’s her?”

“Who else would it be? None of the other Tereskàdians have approached us, except a few cubs. Besides, her family wears light green collars with that red diamond symbol.”

“Are you going to use Jhevharel?” Chandrha asked when she reached them. Her whistling dragon stood at her side.

“Hello, Chandrha,” Fenwick said.

“Yes, we’re going to use Jhevharel,” Creighton said. “As a matter of fact, he’ll be in the first scene. All I want him to do for now is fly.”

“That’s it?” Ears back, tailtip twitching. Something wrong?

“That’s it.”

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