The Silver Eggheads

THIRTY-ONE

During the first days of the Silver Eggheads Writing Derby, Gaspard de la Nuit found himself rapidly becoming everybody's porter, helper, and errand boy-and nobody's friend. Even dependable, square-shooting Zane Gort acquired the habit of being mysteriously absent more often than not when there was any lugging on the agenda, while it developed that Joe the Guard Zangwell had a heart condition that prevented him from carrying anything heavier than his skunk pistol or a lightly laden dustpan.

When Pop Zangwell quit drinking because he could no longer keep the stuff down, Gaspard had some hopes of getting a third-rate assistant, but it turned out that without liquor the old custodian merely became a jittery wreck twice as disturbing and useless as he had been while on the booze.

Flaxman and Cullingham turned down Gaspard's suggestion that a little extra help be hired, robot or human, on the grounds that it might slit the cloak of secrecy surrounding the Eggheads Project, a garment that seemed to Gaspard more holes than cloth to start with. They also hinted that Gaspard was exaggerating the amount of work the Derby involved.

But from his point of view there was certainly a weary plenty of lugging and kindred jobs to be done. Just getting hold of twenty-three voicewriters proved a Herculean task, involving trips all over New Angeles, since existing local stocks had all been rented or bought by hopeful union authors at the time of the wordmiil smash. Gaspard managed to re-rent a few from the disillusioned and bought the rest at prices that made Flaxman squeal.

Then a special connection had to be made on each voicewriter so that it could be plugged directly into an egg's mouth socket, bypassing the audible-sound stage. It was a simple enough job, taking little more than half an hour, as Zane Gort demonstrated step by step to Gaspard while adapting a voicewriter for Half Pint. Thus instructed, Gaspard adapted the other twenty nine, getting many new insights into the joys of the mechanic's life and the question of whether there really are any. He might have quit right there except that it was fun being badgered and wheedled by Bishop and the other nurses transmitting the imperious demands of the eggheads, who now all wanted to be equipped with voicewriters on the instant and were bitterly jealous of those who got machines first. Zane dropped back briefly to remark with an embittering admiration that while robots excelled at trouble-shooting and original work, it took a human working stiff to really carry through on a monotonous job.

It was during this job that Gaspard took to sleeping in at Rocket House, snatching naps in the mens' room on Joe the Guard's cot, odorous of Odor-Ban. When it was done, Gaspard briefly found a mildly pleasant pride in folding his pricked, gouged, and grim-engrained hands and sitting back in the Nursery to survey the machines he had adapted, each plugged into its egghead, while the endless rolls of paper rustled out in irregular bursts, or backtracked for x-ings out, or more often just sat still and silent while presumably the canned brains thought furiously.

He did not get to enjoy this leisure long, even if helping Miss Bishop and the other nurses with routine chores could be accounted leisure. As soon as the eggheads had machines, they began to demand daily and even more frequent storyconferences with Flaxman or Cullingham, necessitating that they and their voicewriters and other equipment be trundled over to the office, for the partners were always too busy to come to the Nursery. Gaspard early decided that the eggheads were not having any real trouble with their writing and certainly did not expect any sort of useful advice from incarnated humans, but merely enjoyed taking little trips after so many decades of being fettered to the Nursery by Zukie's rules.

It got so that at any time of the working day at least ten eggs would be over at the office, with a nurse, fresh fontanels, and so forth, having or awaiting or recuperating from conference. Gaspard fatigued his arms almost to the point of uselessness with lugging and came bitterly to detest most of the peevish, cruelly witty lead-heavy brains. Finally after applying several times to the partners, Gaspard was grudgingly given the use of Flaxman's limousine, when available, for transporting the eggs portal-to-portal, though even that left lugging a-plenty. He was also permitted after some demurs to set up a sketchy security system with one of the Zangwell brothers standing guard during the loading or unloading of the eggs, which now, also by Gaspard's suggestion, were transported cushioned with excelsior in plain boxes rather than the attention-getting gift wrappings.

As an ultimate concession to Gaspard's importunings about the need for greater security, Flaxman loaned him an antique revolver-style bullet-gun from his great grandfather's collection and even provided him with a stock of the proper ammunition, handmade to ancient specifications by robot gunsmiths. He had earlier tried to borrow Nurse Bishop's more modern handgun but had been curtly refused.

Gaspard would have found his drudgery easier to bear if this lovely girl had been willing to date him again and at least listen to him recite his grievances in return for being allowed to air her own. But she turned down all dinner and even lunch and coffee-break invitations with bitter remarks about ex-writers who had time to waste. She and Miss Jackson had taken to sleeping in like Gaspard, but at the Nursery. The other four nurses were not that devoted; one even took advantage of the increased work-demands to quit. Nurse Bishop filled her nights as well as her days with efficient yet nevertheless frenzied checking to make sure that each egg was safe and not missing one step of Zukie's Schedule, no matter whether it was at the Nursery, at Rocket House, or in transit between.

As far as Gaspard could tell, he had become to Nurse Bishop nothing more than the most miserable of male slavies. She barked at him, she blew her top at him, whatever loads he had she piled on extras. To make it worse, she had taken to behaving toward Flaxman with saintly sweetness and patience, toward Cullingham in a way that was indecently cute, while for Zane Gort, when he put in one of his rare appearances, she was wittily cajoling. Only Gaspard seemed to bring out all the bad-tempered evil in her.

However, twice, at moments when he was so utterly fatigued with egg-lugging that he literally could not lift his arms, she had given him a quick un-withholding hug and planted on his lips a shrewdly expert kiss. Thereafter one twinkling grin and the incident was as if it had never occurred.

The second time that happened, Gaspard worked his lips together-he was too tired to wipe them-and said simply, "You little bitch!"

"I didn't think you were very hot on love," Nurse Bishop observed wisely.

"That's not love, that's torture," Gaspard told her.

"Are they so different? You ought to read Justine by the Marquis de Sade, Gaspard. A girl wants to give someone she loves the most intense sensations possible, and what's as intense as pain? That's what a good girl brings, the gift of pain. Making love, Mr. Writer, is a process of applying exquisite tortures and then, two hours after the pangs become absolutely unendurable and death inevitable, pouring on the antidote. Of course, all you've got's a zombie then, but a happy zombie."

"But when do you get to the antidote stage?" Gaspard asked.

"In your case never!" she snapped. "Fit a new roll in Nick's voicewriter. He's been signaling for the last three minutes. Who knows, maybe he's in the midst of a seduction scene that will put Rocket House at the top of the best-seller list."