Chapter 2

title: Urgah the Magnificent - Season Premiere - Talia's Rescue

Selected scenes from the Talia's Rescue episodes:

An improbable trio rode into town: a large man in a bearskin cloak and a tall man in a black cape. A woman with a plain metal ring around her neck - a slave's collar - rode behind the large man. She wore a sleeveless shirt tucked into knee-length trousers that were held up with a chain. They stopped in front of a blacksmith's shop and the woman dismounted. She looked up and said, "Urgah, you and Morgan go have a beer. I can do this better without you looking over my shoulder, trust me."

"I trust you, Talia. If they try to cheat you I'll come back and cut their ears off."

"I know what I'm doing. Just leave it to me."

Urgah gave her a small bag of coins. She put some of the coins in one pocket, a few of them in another, then tucked the much- depleted bag into her shirt, looked up at Urgah and winked then walked into the shop.

Much later Talia entered the tavern where the men were standing at the bar. She wore a helmet, a brown leather back-and- breastplate molded to her body, a sword on one hip and a dagger on the other. She carried a small shield on one arm and a pair of gloves in her free hand. She still wore the slave collar and the chain was still around her waist but she had a belt for her trousers now. The men glanced at her without recognition. "Hi, guys," she said. "Buy a girl a beer?"

Urgah's eyebrows went up when he recognized her. "Who are you, Talia the Terrible? How much did all that cost?"

"That's Talia the Terrific to you, buddy," she replied with a grin. She tossed her gloves on top of the bar, put down her shield and then dug into one of her pockets and came up with a small pile of coins and put them on the bar. "It didn't cost as much as you thought." She removed a coin from another pocket and flipped it to Urgah. "See, I told you I knew what I was doing. You even have enough left to buy a horse for me and a donkey for carrying stuff." She became serious and bit her lip. "Urgah, Morgan, can I ask for something?"

Morgan answered, "Sure, you can always ask."

"I saved you a lot of money. There's an inn here with its own hot spring. Can we stay there tonight and have a bath and sleep in a real bed and have a dinner that we don't have to catch and cook ourselves? Please?"

Morgan frowned at her. "Spend our hard-earned money on luxuries like a bath? Sleep in a bed?" He relented and smiled. "Sure. I'd love a warm bath; I'm getting tired of cold streams." He nudged Urgah with an elbow. "Wouldn't you like that?"

Urgah responded, "Uh, sure." He was evidently preoccupied with something about Talia. "Weren't you going to have that slave collar taken off?"

"I had it fixed." She reached behind her neck with both hands and removed the collar and held it out. "See." Her expression became serious. "I think I'll keep it because I wore it so long but knowing that I can take it off makes all the difference. You don't know how much that means to me." She blinked and swallowed hard.

Urgah looked at her. "Yeah, I do," he said softly.

"Cut!" a disembodied voice called out. "That's it. Marvelous job, everyone."

# # #

Dorothy's first press conference was held just after filming started. She was introduced wearing her sleeveless shirt, knee- length trousers with a chain for a belt and the slave ring around her neck. She had Talia's long blonde wig covering her own short black hair. 'Brick' Bricklin, the director, introduced her along with the established stars Jim Thacker and Chuck Baxter, then gave a short biographical sketch (very short, very sketchy), then started calling on reporters for questions.

"Ms. Kirkpatrick, do you have any previous acting experience?"

"Nothing except my involvement with the Society for Creative Anachronism when I was in high school."

"Why do you think you were given the role?"

"Someone obviously felt that the show needed comic relief. Urgah and Morgan are such serious characters." This occasioned a round of laughter.

"Will your character be armed? What would you like to see her use?

"A Glock nine millimeter, but I think that would be a little out of place on the show." Another round of laughter followed but this prompted another question.

"Your name came up in association with a shooting incident some years back. Would you comment on that?"

"No. Ask my Dad."

"But you did say 'Dammit, Daddy, you can shoot better than that?'"

"Yes, I said that. No, I won't comment. Ask my Dad. Politely."

"Why did you say it?"

Dorothy stood and looked at the assembled reporters with a serious expression. "Look, all of you. Get this through your heads: if I say I won't comment then I won't comment. Drop the subject and we'll remain friends. Continue and I won't talk to you again. Ever." She looked at the studio press relations person, who looked as if he was having apoplexy, then back at the reporters. "I will answer questions about myself only as long as they pertain to my involvement with this show. I will discuss other actors only in terms of the relationship between their characters and mine. My private life and those of my family and friends are out of bounds. Do I make myself clear?" There was no answer, just a stunned silence. "Do I make myself clear?" she said again in an 'I will be obeyed' voice. "Your responses are 'Yes, ma'am', 'No, ma'am' and 'No excuse, ma'am'"

There were a smattering of "Yes, ma'am." responses.

"Thank you." She smiled. "Sorry, I got a little bit into character there. Talia is a warrior's daughter stolen by slavers at about twelve. She wasn't real happy about being a slave and has the scars to prove it. Urgah and Morgan freed her and she's not gonna take any shit from anybody again." She became a little less intense. "I'm just a student who was offered a part in a holo series. I'll tell you what, don't second-guess yourselves. I'll let you ask me questions as long as you'll accept it when I say won't comment. Deal?"

One reporter responded, "Deal. Thank you, Ms. Kirkpatrick."

"Call me Dorothy. I'm really new at this and I don't want anyone snooping around the house and trying to interview the cat. The cat's the owner, you see, and she gets annoyed when asked about her staff." This occasioned a round of relieved laughter as she sat back down at the table.

"Do you see your character being armed? Fighting?"

"Yes. Talia is not going to be a helpless little creature that depends on Urgah and Morgan."

"Will there be a romantic interest in Talia by either Urgah or Morgan?"

'Brick' Bricklin, the director, answered, "No. She was a slave when they rescued her. She was beaten and chained to a wall. Any relationship under those circumstances would be abusive."

Afterward, Jim Thacker asked Dorothy,"'Yes, ma'am', 'No, ma'am' and 'No excuse, ma'am.' What the hell?"

"One of my teachers in the SCA was a starchy bitch; probably a frustrated drill sergeant. I guess I just decided that I was gonna be in charge and it was a good moment to let 'em know."

"Yes, ma'am."

# # #

Dorothy Kirkpatrick, Talia to the HV audience, dragged herself through the door of her house and collapsed into her one good piece of furniture - a soft, luxurious easy chair. She made the major effort to put her feet up, one at a time, on the footstool. She had just finished six weeks of intensive activity to help generate what she considered three measly hours of grade 'C' melodrama. The word 'create' was too grandiose to use for the process. She had moved into a house two doors down from Jim Thacker to avoid disrupting the lives of her housemates. She leaned the chair back with a heartfelt groan.

House robot number seven came into the room. It looked like a nude, bald, very flat chested woman who had been spray painted silver. "Welcome back, Dorothy. May I bring you some iced tea?"

"Hi, Seven. That sounds delightful. I feel totally dehydrated."

"Certainly. I have some ready; your car called when you were about ten minutes away. You were totally asleep."

"Thank God for smart cars."

"I'll be right back. Take off your clothes and I'll bring something better to relax in."

Dorothy unsealed her shoes and kicked them off. Creaking to her feet, she had just peeled off the remainder of her clothing into a pile on the floor when Seven returned with a pitcher and glass on a tray in one hand and a pair of pyjamas over the other arm.

"Here you go. You said that you like to be dressed around the house. I hope you don't feel uncomfortable being undressed around us robots."

"Nah, it just feels better. Most of the things to sit on need something between me and them." Dorothy pulled on the pyjamas and sat back down.

"Oh. Sorry, we wouldn't know about that. You wanted to be reminded about your journal." Seven poured Dorothy a glass of iced tea.

"Damn. I really don't feel like slaving over a hot mike tonight but I guess I've gotta do it before things fade. Serious students can read the script and people who know about the business will know the details. This is for me. I can edit it later into a more coherent format."

"You can dictate to me and I'll send it to the house system."

"Cool. I'd forgotten about that. You ready?"

"You may fire when ready, Gridley."

# # #

Title: Memories of a Reluctant Warrior by Dorothy Kirkpatrick

My troubles started with the fact that I'd won the contest for a walk-on nonspeaking role in the previous season's final episode of Urgah the Magnificent, playing an eye-candy slave girl. Unfortunately, I'd had a black eye from Judo class and the director had told the makeup people not to disguise it. The fans had noticed and had wanted the heroes to rescue me. Jim Thacker, the star of the show, and Brick Bricklin, the director and his partner in crime, had talked me, Dorothy the gullible, into trying the role as the title character's new companion when the current companion and co-star moved on to a show of his own.

The plot of the first two episodes (what they called the plot, anyway) revolved around the main character Urgah the Magnificent and his companion Morgan the Black befriending the poor slave girl Talia and teaching her things like how to read (Morgan) and how to fight with swords (Urgah). The whole thing's very much like 'Urgah and Morgan adopt a pet, ' with a script and cast from the Marx Brothers and the more intellectual bits from The Three Stooges. At this point I think the whole thing's a big mistake. This journal contains my impressions and memories of the project.

Talia was washing Urgah's greasy bearskin cloak in a stream. She had taken off her boots and shirt and rolled up her trousers and was bashing the bearskin against a rock. The stream was cold, the wet bearskin was heavy and even though it was a synthetic it smelled like, well, like a wet bear. I'll always remember the cool, impersonal hands of the makeup people applying fake whip scars to my back, somehow different and more intimate than having makeup put on my face. Just five scars, three from my right shoulder to my left ribs and two horizontally across my shoulder blades, but the damned things itched and I couldn't scratch. Plus I had to try to act while stripped to the waist. I'd spent enough time at the beach and in parks that having a bunch of people watching didn't bother me, it was being cold and having to be careful of the makeup on my back. I had somebody with a heated terrycloth bathrobe standing by to warm me up between takes.