The Silver Eggheads

FORTY-ONE

Rocket House had prettied itself up for the judging of the Silver Eggheads Writing Derby. At least Gaspard had hung a sign with those four words on it in the big office, Joe the Guard had brought in folding chairs and strung a few strands of silver bunting, Engstrand's was catering a refreshment table, and the escalator was running merrily again.

The door with the electrolock had been re-repaired rather too well, unfortunately: it now tended, somewhat upsettingly to Flaxman, to swing open at unpredictable intervals without visible agency or a finger anywhere near the control buttons; however, a little heavy pounding on the lock by Joe the Guard seemed to have effectively suppressed this tendency.

The partners had elected to read all the manuscripts between them-an even fifteen apiece, selected at random and presented to them anonymously. They had both taken Prestissimo Pills, which multiplied their reading speeds by an approximate factor of ten, and the endless sheets from the voicewriters moved across the faces of their two reading machines in nervously frequent rushes between hold-stills.

Cullingham was taking a little longer on each chunk, or hold-still, of reading, but he was using a larger chunk. Far from showing exhaustion from his forty-eight hours with a ferocious flesh-and-blood woman, the fair editorial director was actually outpacing Flaxman little by little until at the halfway mark he was a full half manuscript ahead-as Gaspard, who had made a small bet with Zane, noticed to his chagrin; as far as Gaspard could tell, neither man was doing any skimming.

All the Rocket House faithful were on hand; not one of them would have missed seeing the partners do some actual work for a change. Gaspard was there with Nurse Bishop, Zane with Miss Blushes, while the Zangwell brothers sat side by side. Pop Zangwell was fresh-bathed and very pale, quiet enough on the whole though inclined from time to time to weave his beard around his wrist and stare with vacant, apprehensive longing at the drinks end of the refreshment table, which was forbidden territory to him.

It had been feared, especially by Gaspard, that Heloise Ibsen would strike a wrong or at least raucous note, but as befitted an editorial director's lady, she had appeared dressed in high fashion with a very low neckline, had been very nice indeed to everyone, and was now sitting quietly by herself, smiling composedly at Cullingham whenever he looked up from his contest chore.

Even Miss Willow was present-it had turned out that Cullingham's lease on her had three days more to run. However, because Flaxman found her disturbing, the femmequin had been draped at the last minute with a white sheet, though it is rather doubtful if this made her any less "creepy" to the publisher.

Out of tacit deference to Flaxman's weakness it had been decided not to have the eggs physically present, but a two-way TV link had been set up between the Nursery and the office. Unfortunately there was a defect in the circuit which caused the huge screen to black out occasionally or dissolve in a herringbone churning. At the moment, however, it showed Miss Jackson surrounded by a battery of small TV eyes; despite their pretensions of disinterestedness and lonely intellectual grandeur, the eggs were all showing a considerable interest in the judging of their dashed-off masterpieces, not one of which had failed to make the deadline. Half Pint, indeed, had been writing continuously at absolute top speed ever since his restoration to the Nursery.

The two partners secretly enjoyed having a large audience; actually it was the only way either of them could ever get any work done. They made no comments and concealed all their reactions, favorable or otherwise, even while changing rolls, which created for everyone a nervous light-headed excitement. Conversations, conducted in undertones, skittered and veered.

"I read some more in The Mauritzius Case last night," Gaspard remarked, shaking his head. "Boy, Bishop, if that's a sample of the oldtimers' mystery stories, I wonder what their mainstream must have been like!"

"Hurry up and finish it," she told him. "The eggs have got another whodunnit picked out for you, by an old Russian master of suspense-The Brothers Karamazov. After that they're going to let you relax with a little rib-tickler about an Irish funeral called Finnegan's Wake, some light society reminiscenses entifled Remembrance of Things Past, a cloak-and-sword melodrama name of King Lear, a fairy tale called The Magic Mountain and a soap opera about the ups and downs of suffering families-War and Peace, I believe they said. They got lots of easy reading mapped out for you, they tell me, after you finish the two mysteries."

Gaspard shrugged. "As long as they spare me the old mainstream, I guess I'll make it. There is one mystery that keeps tickling me, though-Zane's Project El."

"Hasn't he told you about it? You're his friend."

"Not a word. Do you know anything? I think Half Pint's in on it."

Nurse Bishop shook her head, then grinned. "We've got our own secret," she whispered. She squeezed his hand.

Gaspard lightly returned the pressure. "Who do the eggs think is going to win the contest?"

"They won't say a word. I've never known them to be so secretive. It worries me."

"Maybe all the scripts'll be knockouts," Gaspard suggested with grandiose optimism. "Thirty best-sellers smack off the bat!"

The rolls had almost all been read and tension was rising sharply-as reflected by Joe the Guard having a little struggle to keep Pop from bee-lining to the drinks-when Gaspard, visiting the refreshment table, felt himself nudged by the steel elbow of Zane Gort, who with far-seeing diplomacy was fetching a plate for Heloise Ibsen.

"Gaspard," the robot whispered. "There's something I must tell you about."

"Project El?" Gaspard inquired quickly.

"No, far more important than that-at least to me personally. It's something I'd never tell another robot. Gaspard, Miss Blushes and I spent the last two nights together-intimately."

"Was it good, Zane?"

"Thrilling beyond belief! But what I didn't realize, Gaspard, what truly startled and to a degree upset me, what I never in fact for a moment anticipated, is that Miss Blushes is such an enthusiast!"

"You mean, Zane, you're bothered because you think she's had previous-"

"Oh no, no, no. She was completely innocent-there are ways of telling-yet she almost instantly became a mad enthusiast. She wanted us to plug in on each other again and again-and for long periods!"

"Is that bad? Watch it, here comes Pop--no, Joe's caught him."

"No, it's not bad, Gaspard, but it eats up so much time, especially when one envisages a lifetime of such companionship lying ahead. You see, the moment of robot-robix union is the one time when a robot isn't thinking-his mind goes into a sort of ecstatic electronic trance, a blackout with lightning flashes. Now I'm used to thinking twenty-four hours a day, year in and out, and the prospect of having huge chunks cut out of that thinking time is profoundly disquieting. Gaspard, I know you'll hardly credit this, but on the last connection we had, Miss Blushes and I were plugged in for four solid hours!"

"Oh-oh, Old Bolt," Gaspard commented. "You're up against some of the same problems I had with Ibsen."

"But what's the answer? When'll I do my writing?"

"Is it possible, Zane, you're changing your mind about monogamy being the best solution for the author of the Dr. Tungsten stories? At any rate I think a certain amount of travel, or even flitting, is indicated. Hold it, they've finished the readings. Cullingham wins by a roll! Pay you later- I've got to get back to Bishop."

G. K. Culllngham leaned back, blinking his eyes rapidly, squeezing the lids together. This time he did not return Heloise's smile, but only bowed his head. Then he said in a quack-quack burst, "How-about-a-conference-Flaxy before-you-start-that-last-one? "-his voice was trying to match the drug-goaded speed of his reading. He touched a button and the TV screen went black. "They'll-think-it's-just-the-bad-circuit-again," he explained.

Flaxnian finished inserting his last roll in his machine and looked around at his partner. Cullingham at last got his voice under control, at least to the extent of not letting the Prestissimo Pills speed it up. In fact the words came out with painful slowness as he inquired, "How are your entries so far?"

Flaxman's impassive look changed to one of deep sadness. With a painful hushed respectfulness, like one reporting the tragic toll of a flash-fire in a kindergarten, he said softly, "They stink. They all stink."

Cullingham nodded. "So do mine. All of them."