The Silver Eggheads

THIRTY-FOUR

"Judas priest! What's got into that tin screwball?" Joe inquired, tugging at his shaggy white hair as he watched the limousine vanish like a radar blip.

Scowling, Gaspard went inside and buzzed the Nursery. Nurse Bishop answered. As soon as he started to speak, she cut in with, "It's about time, you loafer! A dozen of the brats are screaming for paper. They say they're getting their best ideas right this minute and can't put them down. We need those rolls!"

"Look, Bishop, we're in big trouble. The bosses have been kidnapped. No telling who'll be snatched next. And Zane Gort's gone crazy. I want you to-"

"Oh shut up, Gaspard! All you do is bitch. Get those rolls over here fast!"

"Right!" Gaspard snarled. "And coffee too." He hung up.

"You gonna call the po-lice?" Joe demanded.

"Shut up!" Gaspard barked. The small outburst did nothing to relieve his feelings of scratchy disgust. "Look, Joe, I'm going up to Mr. Cullingham's office and grill Miss Willow-and think things over. If I call the police I'll do it from there. You hold the deck." He stepped on the escalator and pushed the button. "And Joe," he added, pointing and shaking a finger as he lofted, "I don't want to be disturbed."

Gaspard's first move inside the big office was to doubleelectrolock all the doors from the buttons behind Cullingham's desk. Then, clasping his hands together in selfcongratulation, he turned to Miss Willow, sitting cool and serene.

"Hel-lo, Mama," he said warmly, luxuriously. "Mama's got a new Poppa."

Five minutes later he decided that either the femmequin must be triggered by Cullingham's voice alone (in which case he'd have to find a recording of it) or if there were a key word he hadn't hit on it yet.

Or else-tragedy-the femmequin was simply run down. No, that could hardly be the case, for her magnificent chest was lifting regularly in simulated breathing, her violet eyes blinked every fifteen seconds (he timed it), while once every minute she wet her lips.

He bent over her. Even this close it was hard to believe she wasn't a real woman, her skin was simulated so perfectly, even to the tiny silver hairs on her forearms. He caught a whiff of the perfume Black Galaxy. He hesitated, then started to unzip her trim black coat.

Deep down in her chest Miss Willow growled, like a large and dangerous watchdog giving a preliminary warning.

Gaspard's heel kicked a file folder as he stepped back hastily. It skittered a few feet. On it, in bold letters, was "Miss T. Willow." He picked it up. Any papers it had held must be scattered among the others on the floor, for the folder was empty except for a small sheet with a few lines on it pasted to the inside back.

The message was so odd that Gaspard read it aloud:

Miss Willow had swayed to her feet and was moving straight toward him.

"Hello, darling," she said in a sweet, sweet voice. "What can Mama do for Dicky-bird today?"

Gaspard told her.

And, as the wild wonderful flurries of imagination began to come, continued to tell her.

Twenty very interesting but purely preliminary minutes later they were standing by Cullingham's desk locked together among the strewings of their clothes. That is, they had their arms around each other and Miss Willow had her right leg twined around his left, heel against heel, and they had just been kissing passionately, but that was exactly as far as the embrace went, because some ten seconds ago Gaspard had become completely impotent.

Gaspard knew exactly why, too. It was very simply the oldest and most powerful of male fears: fear of castration. He could not forget that one deadly growl he'd heard. And, although Miss Willow's flesh simulated the real thing in a wizardly way as to texture, temperature and resiliency, not all the structural members he could feel through it corresponded in shape and position to the bones of a human skeleton. Finally, coming very faintly through the Black Galaxy, was just the tiniest reek of machine-oil.

He knew he could no more take the next crucial step than he could voluntarily thrust his right hand into a sharp-toothed cluster of grinding cog-wheels. Cullingham might be able to, perhaps because of some perfect faith in machinery or else an hypertrophied off-trail death wish, but Gaspard certainly could not.

"Dicky-bird's lost interest," Miss Willow drawled sensuously, investigating with her fingers. "Mama will fix."

"No!" Gaspard said sharply. "Don't do that!" Miss Willow's soft cool fingers had abruptly become nothing but steel claws in his imagination.

"All right," Miss Willow said lightly. "Anything Dicky-bird wants."

Gaspard almost sighed with relief. "Let's pause for a bit," he suggested, "And you do a dance for me."

Miss Willow lightly locked her arms around him, tipped back her head and shook it a little as she smiled.

"Come on, Mama," Gaspard cajoled. "Mama do pretty dance. Dicky-bird watch. Pretty, oh pretty!"

Miss Willow just shook her head again.

Gaspard drew back slightly and brought up his hands inside her arms, lightly pressing them apart, as a polite indication that they break, but Miss Wifiow did not respond to the suggestion.

"Let me go," Gaspard said flatly.

Continuing to smile, Miss Willow said playfully, "No, no, no. Dicky-bird's not going to get away now."

Without warning, Gaspard jerked back and simultaneously slammed his wrists sideways. But Miss Willow's arms did not fly apart. Instead they resisted the shock and then with lightning speed tightened around him, not exactly painfully, but very snugly. Lissome evokers of delight a moment ago, they were now like cushioned bands of steel. His left arm was pinioned, his right arm free.

"Naughty, naughty," Miss Willow cooed. Then pressing her chin in his shoulder she growled horribly in his ear and said in the tone of the growl, "You damage Mama and Mama'll damage you." Then she leaned back and cooed, "Let's play. Don't be scared, Dicky-bird. Mama will be gentle."

Gaspard's almost involuntary response to that was another convulsive effort to escape. When it was over, Miss Willow's arms were still locked around him and now her right leg too. They teetered precariously but didn't fall over, due to the femmequin's fine sense of balance.

"Mama will hug you," Miss Willow growled in his ear. "Mama will keep on hugging you. Every five minutes Mama will hug you a little tighter-until you feed a hundred dollars into Mama you know where."

Miss Willow's arms tightened. Gaspard heard something inside him creak.