The Golden Globe

"So it's really Hollywood?" the boy asked.

"Son of Hollywood," said his father. "Not much around here that's all that original."

The real name of the area was the King City/Mare Vaporum Artistic and Industrial Park, but no one called it that. The King City part was gerrymandering of the most blatant sort. The actual city was over a hundred miles away, but the city limits ran on each side of the Hyginus rail until it reached Vaporum, where it ballooned to include all the area zoned for industry. The only real benefit reaped by the businesses there was the privilege of paying King City taxes.

As for industry, the only industry in Vaporum was The Movies. Whether anything "artistic" was happening was endlessly debated among the more acerbic critics back in the city.

Those who worked there called it The Park, The Vapors, or Hollywood, the Sequel. They spoke of going out to The Rima, or The Edge, or Yellow Bricktown. Everybody else just called it Hollywood. Since the original Hollywood was a memory, there was seldom any confusion.

"And besides," John Valentine said to his son, "Hollywood was always just a state of mind, anyway."

Young Ke

Behind them were mountainous holograms of the logos of motion-picture studios, past and present, solvent and defunct. Dodger knew they were holograms, but since he had no idea what a hologram was, they were as real to him as the car he was riding in. The apparent heights of these juggernaut illusions could be measured in miles.

There was a tapering iron tower sitting on the north pole of a half Earth globe, spitting stylized sparks and spelling out, letter by letter, A RADIO PICTURE. Next to that was a snow-covered mountain surrounded by drifting clouds and haloed with a starry diadem. A mile-high lion's head roared in the middle of an elaborate scroll of old-fashioned motion picture film, and then yet another globe, hanging suspended and massive above the barren plain, being endlessly circled by a winged machine. "An airplane, Father!"

"That's right. Universal."

"Look! Look!" the boy shouted, pointing to one he was more familiar with. "Sentry! That's where we're going, isn't it, Father?"

"If you don't knock the train off the tracks with all your commotion. Settle down, boy."

Dodger contained his excitement, and watched the armored warrior and bursting firework trademark of Sentry/Sensational Pictures. The gigantic figure went from attention to a position of challenge, his huge weapon held out before him at port arms. But soon he was fading into the distance, replaced by a circle and golden sunburst saying TOHO and a word he couldn't read. A horse with wings charged the tramcar and leaped over it. Dodger looked, but the Pegasus never landed on the other side. A gargantuan rooster flapped its rust-colored wings and ruffled its neck. A dozen multicolored flags snapped in a nonexistent breeze under the towering legend FILMWERKS.

Dodger wished he could fly over this wonderful plain. Recently Father had him memorize the script for Swift!, and he supposed it must look as if a child of Brobdingnag had upended his toy chest and then abandoned his mammoth fripperies out here in the wilderness. Actually, from above he would have seen nothing at all. It cost more to project a holo in all directions, and the designers of the Route of the Stars understood a principle known since the days of D. W. Griffith: make sure your budget gets on the screen. The Hyginus route was the electronic equivalent of dusty old western streets walked by William S. Hart, Tom Mix, and Roy Rogers: false fronts propped up with two-by-fours.

They were just getting into the part of the route devoted to scenes from classic movies when the train pulled into the first Vaporum station. Dodger didn't really want to get off, but when Father took his hand he stood and followed him off the car.

They went down a slideway with a curved, transparent roof, right between the hairy legs of a giant gorilla chained to a big wooden cross. The beast followed them with his eyes, and father and son both looked up as they walked under him.

"Let's hope he doesn't have an upset tummy," John Valentine said, and his son collapsed in helpless giggles.

John Valentine led his son to a wide sofa in a big, nondescript waiting area outside the casting offices of Sentry/Sensational studios. There were many other couches, mostly filled with people. He sat him down, and then squatted in front of him.

"Now, I may be a while, Dodger," he said, straightening the big yellow bow at the boy's neck. Current fashion for young men was a quasi-Victorian look, with knee breeches and frock coats and lace at the cuffs. When Dodger was dressed up like that John called him Buster Brown. Since this was an important audition, father and son were dressed in their best, which if examined closely would have revealed loose threads where the tags reading PROPERTY OF NLF COSTUME DEPARTMENT had been removed. Young Ke

"I want you to wait right here until I get back," Valentine said. "There is a water fountain over there, and the rest room is just around that corner and down the hall. You've got your script"—he took a tattered copy of Cyrano de Bergerac from his briefcase and set it on the sofa—"and I brought a lunch for you." He produced a brown paper bag, opened it, and let Dodger look inside. The boy saw something wrapped in waxed paper, and smelled a banana. "Peanut butter and jelly, your favorite. Now, can I trust you to behave?"

Dodger nodded, and his father pulled the beret down over his eyes, tickled his ribs lightly, and stood. He headed for the door marked CASTING DEPARTMENT.

"Father?" Dodger called out, and John Valentine turned. "Break a leg," the boy said. Valentine gave him a thumbs-up, and went through the door.

Dodger was pretty good at waiting. This wasn't the first time he had gone along for a cattle call, though never before at a motion-picture studio. His father didn't have a very high opinion of the movies, though he worked in them when there was nothing else happening and the rent was overdue.

"Never extra work, though, son," he would say. "If you don't get a line, it's not acting. You might as well hire yourself out as scenery."

Dodger wouldn't have minded being scenery, sometimes. Scenery didn't have to memorize so many plays.

This one was pretty good, though. By the second act he had assigned his own names to all the characters: Cyranose, of course, and Rockshead, who reminded Dodger of a chorus girl they used to know. Pretty, but dumb as a mime. If only she'd been like a mime and stopped talking every once in a while. Then there was Christian the Noodlehead, the Comedy Grease, and Raggynose, the pastry cook.

It was jammed full of sword fighting, which was great, but it also had lots of words he didn't recognize. He dutifully underlined each one, as his father had taught him. He would learn them later. Popinjay. Jobbernowl. Ambuscaded. Mountebanks. Buskin. And what was he to make of Hippocampelephantocamelos?

From time to time an adult would hurry by, usually far too busy to notice the boy sitting in the farthest corner of the lobby. Then someone would pause, look back at him uncertainly. Dodger would give him or her his most wi