The Silver Eggheads

TWENTY-NINE

Readership Row was not exactly filled with activity, but it was liberally spotted with it, all of an uneasy sort. Right at the start of their short sprint Gaspard sighted a slowly cruising roadster packed with apprentice writers. Fortunately it was being trailed by a government prowlwagon. Behind that came a skeleton car with three rough-looking robots hooked to the ribs of its stark metal spine. A scrap truck hurtled past. Just as they reached Rocket House a large helicopter drifted scant yards above the roof with "Penfolk" in large letters on its prow; from its balcony peered youths with black swiaters and windblown hair and beside them ancient women in gold and silver frocks; from the keel was suspended a huge sign: ROBOTS BEWARE! WORDMILLS AND WRITERS ARE FINISHED! GIVE AUTHORSHIP BACK TO tHE AMATEURS!

Gaspard and Nurse Bishop were passed into Rocket House by a rat-faced office-bog the wordmill mechanic didn't recognize and an eight-foot-tall door-robot with peeling gold trim-possibly, Gaspard hazarded, part of Flaxman's new defenses-the pair seemed fitting partners for Joe the Guard. The first floor was still heavy with the funereal odor of burnt insulation and the escalator hadn't been repaired. Neither had the electrolock; they pushed straight in, causing Flaxman to fall out of his chair-at any rate their first glimpse of the small publisher was of his head disappearing behind his desk.

The three brains rested in their collars on Cullingham's end of the desk with only their microphones plugged in. The microphones were clustered near the tall fair man himself, who was holding some manuscript pages while others were scattered on the floor around his chair. Gaspard and Nurse Bishop had hardly had time to take this in when Flaxman reared up from behind his desk, waving the drill Miss Blushes had seen and with his mouth open to shout something. He evidently thought better of this last, for he instead closed his lips and lifted a finger to them and pointed with the drill at Cullingham.

At this point Gaspard began to hear what the latter was reading.

"On and on the Golden Swarm surged, perching on planets, bivouacking on galaxies," Cullingham intoned in a surprisingly dramatic voice. "Here and there, on scattered systems, resistance flared. But space spears flashed and klirred mercilessly and that resistance died.

"Ittala, High Khan of the Golden Swarm, called for his super-telescope. It was borne into the blood-stained pavilion by cringing scientists. He snatched it up with a savage laugh, dismissed the baldpates with a contemptuous gesture, and directed it at a planet in a far-distant galaxy that had as yet escaped the yellow marauders.

"Slaver poured from the High Khan's beak and ran down his tentacles. He dug an elbow into fat Ik Huk, Master of the Harem. 'That one,' he hissed, 'the one in the middle of the bevy on the grass knoll, the one wearing the radium tiara, bring her to me!'"

Nurse Bishop said out of the side of her mouth, "Miss Blushes was misled, there's no torture going on here."

"What!" Gaspard replied the same way. "Aren't you listening?"

"Oh that," she said scornfully. "As I often tell the brats, sticks and stones can break my bones-"

"But words can drive me crazy," Gaspard finished. "I don't know where they dug up that stuff, but I know that if a person used to good writing-wordmill quality-were forced to listen to it for long, he'd go stark raving nuts."

She glanced sideways at him. "You really are a serious reader, Gaspard, a writer's reader. You ought to have a go at those old books the brains pick for me-I bet you'd get to like them."

"Just drive me bats a different way," Gaspard assured her.

"How do you know?" she demanded. "I read a lot myself but good or bad I never get as worked up about it as you do."

"That makes you an editor's reader," Gaspard said.

"Stop whispering, you two," Flaxman called. "You can stay here but don't disturb the conference. Gaspard, you're a mechanic, take this drill and attach this bolt to the door. That lousy electrolock isn't working yet. I'm more than a little sick of being burst in on."

Cullingham had stopped reading. "So there you have. Chapter One and the opening of Chapter Two of The Scourge of Space," he said quietly, directing his voice at the three microphones. "What are your reactions? Could you improve on it? If so, how? Please state the main headings under which you would organize revision."

He plugged a speaker into the smallest of the three eggs. "You contemptible chattering ape," the speaker intoned in its quiet unimpassioned way, "you inflicter of horror on the helpless, you bullying chimpanzee, you exploded lemur, you overgrown spider monkey, you shambling-"

"Thank you, Half Pint," Cullingham said, pulling out Half Pint's plug. "Now let's have the opinions o Nick and Double Nick."

But as he reached the plug toward another of the silver eggs, Nurse Bishop's hand came between. Without a word she rapidly disconnected the microphones from the eggs, leaving all their sockets empty.

She said, "I think I approve on the whole of what you two gentlemen are doing, but you're not going about it quite the right way."

"Hey, quit that!" Flaxman objected. "Being the Czarina of the Nursery doesn't make you the boss here."

But Cullingham lifted his hand. "She may have something, Flaxy," he said. "I haven't been making the progress I'd hoped."

Nurse Bishop said, "It's a good idea to force the brats to listen to all sorts of stuff and ask them to criticize it, so as to get them interested in writing again. But their reactions ought to be constantly monitored-and guided." She smiled fiendishly and gave the two partners a conspiratorial wink.

Cullingham leaned forward. "Keep sending on that wavelength," he said.

Gaspard shrugged his shoulders and started the drill chewing into the door.

Nurse Bishop continued: "I'll attach whisper-speakers to all three of them and listen to what they're saying while you keep on reading. In the pauses you make, I'll whisper 'em back a word or two. That way they won't feel so isolated and just lose themselves in cursing you, like they're doing now. I'll absorb their exasperations and at the same time work in a little propaganda for Rocket House."

"Great!" Flaxman said. Cullingham nodded.

Gaspard went back for the screws. "Excuse me, Mr. Flaxman," he said in an undertone, "but where in the world did you get that crud Mr. Cullingham's reading?"

"The slush pile," Flaxman confided freely. "Would you believe it? A hundred years of nothing-but-wordmill fiction, a hundred years of nothing-but-rejections, and the amateurs are still submitting stories."

Gaspard nodded. "Some amateurs called Penfolk were circling over this place in a helicopter when we came in."

"Probably planning to bomb us with trunkfuls of old manuscripts," Flaxman told him.

Cullingham intoned, "In the last fortress on the last planet held by earthmen, Grant Ironstone smiled at his terrifled clerkish assistant Potherwell. 'Every victory of the High Khan,' Grant said floughtfully, 'brings the yellow octopoids that closer to defeat. I'll tell you why. Potherwell, do you know what's the fiercest, smartest, most dangerous, deadliest hunting-beast in the entire universe-when finally aroused?' 'A kill-crazy rogue octopoid?' Potherwell quavered. Grant smiled. 'No, Potherwell,' he said, placing a finger on the narrow chest of the trembling clerk. 'You are. The answer is: man!'"

Nurse Bishop's curly head was now bent over the clustered whisper-speakers plugged into the eggs' lowest sockets. Occasionally she uttered what looked like a sympathetic "Tsk-tsk." Gaspard drilled and wielded the screwdriver. Flaxman smoked a cigar, his nervousness at the eggs' presence well under control except for occasional twitchings and single beads of sweat running down his forehead. Chapter Two of The Scourge of Space rocketed remorselessly toward its climax.

As Gaspard twisted the last screw down flush and proudly surveyed his handiwork, there came a very faint tap at the door. Gaspard softly opened it to admit Zane Gort, who stood respectfully listening.

Cullingham, who had grown a shade hoarse, declaimed: "As Potherwell, fingernails flailing, launched himself at the canary chrome brain sac of the rogue octopoid, Grant Ironstone cried, 'There is a spy among us!' and took hold of the filmy bodice of Zyla, Queen of the Ice Stars, and ripped. 'Look!' he commanded the astounded space marshalls. 'Twin radar domes!' Chapter Three: By the light of the inmost moon of the sunless planet Kabar, four master criminals surveyed one another doubtfully."

Zane Gort observed quietly to Gaspard, "You know, it's funny how humans are forever ending stories or episodes with the discovery that the beautiful woman is a robot. Just at the point where it starts to get interesting. And ending it bang without one word of description as to the robot's shape, color, decor, pincher-style and so on, or even telling you whether it's a robot or a robix."

He shook his metal head. "Of course I'm prejudiced, but I ask you, Gaspard, how would you like a story in which it turned out that the beautiful robot was really a woman and snap it ended right there, without a word about complexion, hair shade, and bust measurement, without even a hint as to whether she was a houri or a hag?"

He turned his headlamp toward Gaspard and twinkled it. "Come to think of it, I once did end a Dr. Tungsten chapter just that way: Platinum Paula turns out to be an empty robot-shell with a human movie starlet inside at the controls. I knew my readers would feel so frustrated they'd want to get on to something else right away. So I cut to Silver Vilya oiling herself. That always tickles them."