Chapter 1

Selected scenes from the End of a Journey episode:

The tavern was a fairly good one as such things went. The rushes on the floor weren't stained in too many places by spilled wine, ale or other less appetizing fluids. There were few bones and food scraps for the dogs to fight over. The wicks on the oil lamps nailed to the walls were well-trimmed and only smoked a little. There was a good fire in the fireplace and the blonde slave girl chained to the wall by a ring around her neck was moderately pretty and her thin finery was mostly intact.

A tall man at the bar was wearing a black leather sleeveless jerkin over a short-sleeved mail shirt and black trousers stuffed into knee-high boots. A dagger hilt showed above each boot top. A long black cloak hung from his shoulders and a sheathed rapier lay on the bar beside his left hand. He was watching his friend at the center table with a small smile on his face.

The center table of the room was occupied by a large man wearing a greasy bearskin, worn brown boots and leather trousers with several visible patches. A gold amulet hung over a bare muscular chest and a matching armband adorned an impressive bicep. Gold earrings peeked out through long, shaggy hair that was kept mostly under control by a leather strip around his forehead. He was snarling across a table littered with pitchers, mugs and coins at a small, thin man who was sweeping a pile of coins toward himself with his left hand.

The large man said, "You win too much, townsman." He whipped out a dagger and nailed the man's left forearm to the table. The hand opened and a pair of dice tumbled out "You try to cheat Urgah, townsman?" he said in a loud, menacing tone. All eyes in the tavern focused on him. The slave girl's head turned, showing a split lip and black eye. She dropped to her knees and cowered behind a table, the chain tightening.

The large man stood suddenly, his stool falling over behind him. He drew a broadsword and pointed it at the face of the man nailed to the table. "You try to cheat Urgah? I have your liver for this! With onions!" he shouted.

"Cut!" a disembodied voice called out. "That's it. That's a wrap. Beautiful job, Jim."

Studio work lights came on and various people appeared and started to disassemble the set as the actors milled about and started to leave. Jim Thacker, Urgah the Magnificent to his adoring holovision audience, righted his stool and fell into it. He pulled off his wig and scratched his head vigorously. He leaned forward toward the thin man who was detaching the prosthetic arm still pinned to the table. "Are you okay, Fred? I didn't miss?"

"No, Mr. Thacker. Perfect aim. You have a good eye."

"I hate doing that. It's always hard for me to remember that it's not your real arm."

"Mr. Thacker, my hand has been shot off, cut off or eaten by some creature more times than I can remember. The arms I use for this kind of thing don't hurt cause they don't have any pain sensors. I keep my other hand well out of the way, in case anyone forgets which one is which."

"Good." Jim's face took on a vacant expression. He pulled out a large blue bandanna just in time to muffle a pair of sneezes. He blew his nose. "Damn, I feel lousy," he said to no one in particular.

Jordan "Brick" Bricklin, the director of these masterpieces of the dramatic holovision arts, approached the table with the unchained slave girl in tow. He was tall, thin and wearing the current in' dress of the HV director - parachutist's jump boots with white laces, white overalls and a puffy-sleeved silk shirt, bright red in this case. "Looks like you finished just in time," he told his star.

Jim looked at his director with a baleful eye. "No, Brick. Whatever you want, no. I'm going home before I die," he said. He sneezed. "Maybe I'll go home to die, but I'm going home." He blew his nose again.

"The only thing I want you to do is say hello to the winner of the walk-on contest then you can leave. Jim, this is Dorothy Kirkpatrick; Dorothy, this is Jim Thacker, Urgah the Magnificent."

"I'm not really a hero, I just play one on HV. Hello, Ms. Kirkpatrick, sorry I didn't meet you earlier. Consider your hand shaken. When I feel this way I feel virulently contagious. We can send people to Venus and Mars and we still can't cure the common cold." He looked closely at her eye and lip. "You didn't have to go to the trouble of having someone black your eye for the part. The makeup department does a wonderful job." He grinned at her.

Dorothy was a little older and more muscular than the stereotypical HV starlet hopeful. She started to smile, then winced and put her hand to her lip. "It's an honor to meet you, Mr. Thacker. I got clipped in Judo class and Mr. Bricklin told the makeup people not to cover it up. He thought it would be more authentic."

"Well, nice to meet you. Go to the wrap party for me."

Brick was startled at this. "You're not coming?"

Jim answered, "I told you, I'm going home. In about a week I'll throw some small parties at my house. Until then I'm going to bed." He looked at Dorothy. "I hope you'll accept my invitation."

"May I bring my housemates? There are three of us."

"Sure, bring em all." With that he stood, dropped the bearskin and replaced it with a dressing gown held by a young man from the costume department. "I'll send the rest back later," he told the young man. "The way I feel right now it'll need decontamination; the bearskin too." With that he shuffled off, sneezing at intervals.

Two weeks later Dorothy and her two housemates rang the doorbell of what a glowing hologram labeled "Urgah's Castle." The three of them were surprised when the door was answered and they were invited in by a human-form robot. Dorothy handed it their invitation:

Jim Thacker requests the honor of the presence of
Ms. Dorothy Kirkpatrick and guests
at his home to celebrate the end of the third season of
Urgah The Magnificent
at seven thirty in the evening.
Casual dress.
Warning: These premises are co-owned by cats.

The bottom of the invitation had the handwritten lines:

Please bring your housemates & wear
whatever you're comfortable in J. T.

The robot smiled and said, "Welcome, Ms. Kirkpatrick, ladies." It had human-looking eyes with dark gray irises but the rest of it was smoothly metallic with a matte aluminum finish. Its eyebrows and eyelashes looked as if they were made of silver wire. It had a woman's face, a slim waist and two low, smooth raised areas on its chest. The effect was that of a short, naked, bald, very flat-chested woman who'd had an unfortunate encounter with a can of silver spray paint. It had what looked like small black earrings in the shape of the number 5 on each earlobe.

"I am robot number five. All of us are normally addressed by our numbers. This way, please," it said. Another robot (number 3) appeared to take the women's coats, revealing that they were dressed in the current student women's style of short wraparound skirts with patch pockets, black tights, low shoes and v-neck sleeveless blouses.

The front door had opened into the right end of what was evidently a living room with an inactive holo wall, picture windows looking out onto the front lawn and built-in bookcases above a couch. Aside from the couch there was nothing to sit upon. A coffee table was pushed up against the wall beneath the windows. Number five led the three young women through an archway from the living room into what seemed to be a dining room with a china cabinet on one side and the doorway into a kitchen on the other. French doors led from the rear of the dining room out to a patio and a back yard lit by tiki torches.

Jim Thacker was speaking with two couples when Five announced, "Ms. Kirkpatrick and friends, sir."

Jim dismissed the couples with, "Go enjoy yourselves; this party is for you, not me. And don't hide in a corner and talk shop." Once the four had gone into the yard he smiled widely at the newcomers and held out his hand. "Thanks, Five. Hello, Ms. Kirkpatrick, I'm Jim Thacker. Good to see you again. Your eye and lip look much better. Will you introduce me to your friends?"

"Hello, Mr. Thacker. This is Angela Green and Lu-Mei Chin."

"Welcome, ladies."

"Thank you sir," they chorused.

"House rules: First names for everyone and nobody calls me Sir'. Clear?"

Another chorus of "Yes, sir, Mr. Thacker, sir," accompanied by mischievous grins.

Jim grinned and shook his head. "Well, ladies, welcome to my humble abode." He waved at the back yard. "We have food, alcohol, coffee and cannabis. I've invited a cross-section of the cast and crew so you should find at least some interesting company. If you need anything, just ask one of my staff." He nodded at Five. "They're fairly competent."

"Gee, thanks Boss," Five responded.

Jim shook his head at the robot with a grin. This was evidently a standard form of byplay. "Now, go have fun, ladies," he said, motioning them out the door.

The three young women entered the back yard and, to them, a totally surreal atmosphere. The crowd could only be called eclectic. There were people dressed in everything from what looked like costumes from the show to jeans and t-shirts, conventional suits and revealing dresses to stylish glittering uniforms and ball gowns that wouldn't have looked out of place in 1890s Vienna. What really raised the eyebrows of Dorothy and her friends was the sprinkling of men and women who were wearing the absolutely latest fashion for beautiful people: skintight body stockings in varying degrees of opacity. Dorothy nudged Lu-Mei with an elbow and nodded at a gorgeous woman in a particularly diaphanous example. "There you go, Lu. Just the thing. You have the body for it, why not show off?"

"No thanks. If I'm gonna wear clothes they gotta have pockets. If I'm gonna be naked I'm really gonna be naked." She paused for a moment and said, "However, with this crowd I'll betcha we could take off our blouses and nobody'll say anything." She grinned and started to unbutton her blouse. "Come on, why not? It'll be like going to the park."

Getting into the spirit of the occasion, Dorothy and Angela followed suit. One of Jim's robots appeared to take their blouses. "I'll put these with your coats, ladies. Just ask any of us when you want them back."

When the party started to wind down Dorothy, Angela and Lu-Mei had one of the robots fetch their blouses. After putting them on they looked for Jim to make their goodbyes. They found him holding court in his living room grandly receiving the thanks of a steady stream of guests. A robot would appear with the guests' coats as they were ready to leave. He accepted thanks from the three, then addressed Dorothy. "Dorothy, would you be so good as to stay for a few minutes? I have something I'd like to discuss with you. I'll have someone take you home later." A slightly mystified Dorothy agreed. "Six, would you show Dorothy to my study?" Angela and Lu-Mei left while Dorothy followed the robot.

Jim's study wasn't what she expected. It was a small room with an L-shaped table in one corner, a desk against another wall and several swivel chairs. The table was covered with computer and holo equipment. Shelves on the walls were full of recordings in various media. Jim arrived in a few minutes with Three in tow. "Thanks for staying. I'm having a beer; do you want anything?"

"A beer sounds good, thanks."

After dispatching Three with their orders, Jim seated Dorothy in one of the swivel chairs and took another for himself. "I've been asked to discuss the possibility of your future involvement with the show, unofficially and without any commitment on either part."

Dorothy was puzzled. "I won the walk-on contest, that's all. I wasn't thinking of anything further. I'm not in the business."

"We know that but the feedback and rerun purchases from your episode tells us that there's interest in that poor slave girl.' The fans don't want Urgah and Morgan to leave her behind." He grinned. "It probably has something to do with your black eye."

"I see," Dorothy said slowly. "What sort of thing's being discussed? I'm a student and I don't have time for an acting career."

"Well, the first thing that we thought of was a two-episode story arc of Urgah and Morgan returning you to your grateful family before riding off into the sunset. Interspersed with various adventures. All you'd have to do is tag along, of course."