Cam himself had been verbally commissioned Brother Lieutenant-Colonel when the revised oration had been submitted to Sowles. The Reaper ate it up this trip. "You'd have thought it came down from Sinai on tablets," said Ev after Sowles left to begin practicing the Speech.
"He'll make it sound that way," Cam had remarked. "Above all, Our Leader is a great orator."
"Translation: bloody demagogue," Ev had replied.
Now their chauffeured air-suspension limo was tooling them up through the thickening crowds to the hill-cradled amphitheater.
Curt had come along to help. "What's going to happen to the overflow?" he asked anxiously, peering at the turgid sea of faces outside.
"Special buses will take them to closed circuit 3-D houses," said Cam.
"Fantastic," said Ev.
Inside, there were just about the same number of last-minute panics and snafus as at most 3-D spectaculars. Power for the innumerable huge coaxial snakes was several times inadequate, which problem no one, of course, had foreseen. But eventually all the crises had had their moment and were coped with—and suddenly it was almost air time.
Cam, Curt, and Ev repaired to the control booth and found an area where they wouldn't be under the technicians' feet. (Cam had decreed a triple platoon system on this one: a fresh director and crew were alternated in every fifteen minutes.) Ev produced a flask, which Cam and Curt declined; but the super-mongoose took a few greedy licks at the cap.
"A lush Gestalt yet," muttered Curt.