The Silver Eggheads

ELEVEN

Windowless, the room was in darkness except for the glow from a half dozen TV screens placed, one would first think, at random angles. The shifting pictures on the screens were unusually fine, of stars and space ships, paramecia and people, and just plain printed pages. Much of the central floor space and one wall of the room were occupied by tables on which were the television screens and other objects and cabled instruments. The three other walls were irregularly crowded with small stands of varying height-firm little pillars-on each of which reposed, in a smooth thick black collar, an egg, rather larger than a human head, of cloudy silver.

It was a strange silver, that. It made one think of mist and moonlight, fine white hair, sterling by candlelight, powder rooms, perfume flasks, a princess' mirror, a Pierrot's mask, a poet-prince's armor.

The room emanated swiftly varying impressions, one moment a weird hatchery, a fairytale robots' incubator, a witchdoctor's den of fearful leprous trophies, a metal sculptor's portrait room; next it would seem that the silvery ovoids were the actual heads of some metallic species, leaning together in silent communion.

This last illusion was intensified because near the base of each egg, always the small end, were three dark smudges, two above and one below, suggesting a rudimentary eyesmouth triangle under a huge smooth forehead. Going nearer, you would see that these were three simple sockets. Many of the sockets were empty, others had electric cords plugged into them leading to instruments. The instruments were a varied lot, but if you studied the arrangement for a time, you would discover that the upper right socket, figuring from the egg's point of view, was never connected to anything but a specimen of compact TV camera; the upper left socket to some sort of microphone or other sound-source; while the mouth socket always led to a small loudspeaker.

There was one exception to this rule: occasionally the mouth socket of one egg would be directly connected to the ear socket (upper left) of another egg. In such cases the complementary connection was always made: mouth's ear to ear's mouth.

Still closer inspection would have shown some very fine lines and smooth dents in the tops of the eggs. The fine lines comprised a large circle with a small circle in the centar of it-you might just possibly find yourself thinking of a double fontanel. The placing of the dents suggested that each circular section could be twirled out by finger and thumb.

If you touched one of the silver eggs (but you would have hesitated first) you would for a moment have thought it hot, then realized it was merely not as cool as you expected, that its temperature approached that of human blood. And if you have fingertips sensitive to vibration and had let them rest against the smooth metal for a time, you would have sensed a faint steady beating in the same tempo as the human heart.

A woman in a white smock was resting her left haunch along the edge of one of the tables, her upper body drooping and her head bowed, as if taking a quick rest. It was difficult to tell her age because of the semi-darkness and the white mask covering her face below the eyes. At her side, supported by her haunch and a halter-strap, was a large tray, which she also steadied with her left hand. On the tray were a score or so of deep glass dishes filled with some dear aromatic liquid. In about half of these were submerged thick metal disks threaded around the circumference. They were the same diameter as the smaller fontanels in the silver eggs.

Standing on the table near the woman's bowed head was a microphone. It was plugged into an egg somewhat smaller than the rest. A speaker was plugged into the egg's mouth socket.

They began to talk together, the egg in fixed droning tones as if it could control its words and their timing but not their timber or internal rhythm, the woman in a weary croon almost as monotonous.

WOMAN: Go to sleep, go to sleep baby.

EGG: Can't sleep. Haven't slept for a hundred years.

WOMAN: Go into a trance then.

EGG: Can't go into a trance.

WOMAN: You can if you try baby.

EGG: I'll try if you turn me over.

WOMAN: I turned you over yesterday.

EGG: Turn me over, I got cancer.

WOMAN: You can't get cancer baby.

EGG: I can. I'm clever. Plug my eye in and turn it around so I can look at myself.

WOMAN: You just did. Too often's no fun baby. Want to see pictures, want to read?

EGG: No.

WOMAN: Want to talk to someone? Want to talk to Number 4?

EGG: Number 4's stupid.

WOMAN: Want to talk to Number 6?

EGG: No. Let me watch you take a bath.

WOMAN: Not now baby. Got to hurry. Got to feed you brats and run.

EGG: Why?

WOMAN: Business baby.

EGG: No. I know why you got to hurry.

WOMAN: Why baby.

EGG: Got to hurry 'cause you got to die.

WOMAN: Guess I got to die baby.

EGG: I won't die, I'm immortal.

WOMAN: I'm immortal too in church.

EGG: You're not immortal at home though.

WOMAN: No baby.

EGG: I am. Esp me something, come in my mind.

WOMAN: Ain't no esp baby I'm afraid.

EGG: There is. Try. Just try.

WOMAN: Ain't no esp or you brats could do it.

EGG: We're all pickled, we're on ice, but you're out in the wide warm world. Try once more.

WOMAN: I can't try. I'm too tired.

EGG: You could do it if you tried.

WOMAN: Haven't got time baby. Got to hurry. Got to feed you brats and run.

EGG: Why?

WOMAN: Business baby.

EGG: What?

WOMAN: Got to go and see the boss. Come along, Half Pint?

EGG: That's not business, that's a bore. No.

WOMAN: Come along, Half Pint. Make smart talk-talk.

EGG: How soon? Right now?

WOMAN: Almost. Half an hour.

EGG: Half an hour's half a year. No.

WOMAN: Come along, Half Pint. Come for Mama. Boss wants a brain.

EGG: You take Rusty. He's gone crazy. They'll have fun.

WOMAN: How crazy?

EGG: Crazy as me. Take a bath. You got six months. Take off your smock and show your clothes. Take 'em off, take 'em off.

WOMAN: Lay off, Half Pint, or I'll drop you.

EGG: Go ahead do it. Maybe I'll bounce.

WOMAN: You won't bounce baby.

EGG: Sure I will ma. Just like Humpty.

The woman sighed under her white mask, shaking her head, and stood up. "Look here, Half Pint," she said, "you don't want to sleep, trance, talk, or take a trip. Want to watch me feed the others?"

"All right. But plug the eye in my ear, it's funnier that way."

"No baby, that's nuts."

She plugged a fish-eyed TV camera into his upper right socket, at the same time unplugging his speaker with a quick tug at the cable. Tray hanging balanced at her waist she touched a nearby egg with her fingertips. Her eyes went blank above the mask as she judged the temperature of the metal and timed the beat of the tiny isotope-powered pump built into the larger fontanel. She fitted finger and thumb of her other hand to the dents in the smaller fontanel and gave it a practiced twirl. It rose slowly, spinning. She caught it just as it came unscrewed and plumped it into one of the unoccupied dishes on her tray, plucking a fresh disk from its dish, settled its threads at the first try on the threads in the hole, gave it a reverse twirl, and was on to the next egg without waiting to watch it spin down flush.

She had twirled into place the last fresh disk on her tray when a sol-sol-do chimed.

Nevertheless she said, "Goddammit to Hell and gone!"