Gladiator-At-Law

Chapter Twenty

Bligh was passing out cigars. "It's a boy," he proudly told anybody in the office who would listen. "I looked through the foetoscope myself. Doctor says it's the finest forty-day embryo he's ever seen, and that wasn't just a snow-job. By God, when that kid gets born he's going to have every advantage I—"

Charles Mundin emerged from his office.

"Morning!" Norvie Bligh bellowed. "It's a boy, boss! The doctor raved about him. Have a cigar."

"Congratulations," Mundin said sourly. "Norvie, can we get to work now? This is the big day, after all!"

Norvie, sobered, said, "Yessir." They entered Ryan's office.

A clerk had overheard. Norma Lavin, following half a minute behind Mundin and Bligh, saw the girl pick up a vase of flowers and hold it to her lips. Thirsty? Norma wondered. But the girl did not appear to be drinking the water; her lips were moving. Getting rid of her gum, Norma thought Or—talking? But then Bliss Hubble hailed her and she forgot it.

Which was a pity, in a way, for the girl had not been getting rid of her gum. Norma Lavin vaguely heard the clerk's low-pitched murmur, but by then Norma was slapping Bliss Bubble's hand off her arm and no one was looking at the clerk.

The girl put the vase back and returned briskly to work.

The Big Seven—the two Lavins, Mundin, Ryari, Hubble, Nelson, and Coett—and Norvell Bligh were assembled in Ryan's office.

Norma was saying with fire, "I trust I do not impose on the biological fact that I am a woman, and I don't expect anyone to impose on me. If Mr. Hubble can't keep his damned hands to himself I at least expect him to leave me alone during working hours. After hours I can manage to avoid him."

Bliss Hubble grinned. "Sorry, Norma, but——"

"Lavin!"

"Sorry, Lavin, but I guess I was off-base. I don't mind admitting I'm a little jumpy today; this is make-or-break, you know."

"We're all a little tense, young lady," soothed Harry Coett. "I must admit that I, for one, am a little tired of sitting here. You're sure, Mundin, that your friend—uh—did what he was supposed to?"

Mundin shrugged. After a moment he said, "Anybody want coffee or anything?"

Nobody did. Nobody wanted anything except an end to their vigil. Except for Norma, whose fires were still raging internally, and Don Lavin, who was in a state of chronic joy after his long torpor, every face in the room was showing signs of worry.

And then—

Norvie Bligh, huddling over a muted radio in the corner, yelled, "Here it is!" He dived for the video and volume knobs.

"—AT FIRST BLAMED ON VIBRATION," bellowed the newscaster; then Norvie got the sound where he wanted it. "Experts from G.M.L., however, said that at first glance this appears unlikely. A team of G.M.L. engineers is being dispatched to Washington to study the wreckage. We bring you now a picture from our library of the First Bubble-House. As it was—"

The slide flashed on; there stood G.M.L. Unit One, dwarfed by the vast Hall of Basics.

"—and as it is—"

A live shot this time: Same site, same hall—but instead of the gleaming bubble-house a tangle of rubbish, with antlike uniformed men crawling about the wreckage.

Norma Lavin blubbered, "Da-da-daddy's first house!" and burst into tears. The others gave her swift, incredulous looks, and went right back to staring in fascination and fear at the screen.

"Our Washington editor now brings you Dr. Henry Proctor, Director of the Museum. Dr. Proctor?" The rabbit-face flashed on, squirming, scared.

"Dr. Proctor," asked the mellow tones, "what, in your opinion, might be the cause of the collapse?"

"I—really—I—I really have no opinion. I'm—uh—completely in the—uh—dark. It's a puzzle to me. I'm afraid I can't—uh—be of the slightest—I have no opinion. Really."

"Thank you, Dr. Proctor!" To Mundin it seemed that all was lost; any fool could read guilt, guilt, guilt plastered on the director's quivering face and at once infer that Proctor had sprayed the bubble-house with a solvent supplied by someone else; and it would be only moments until "someone else" was identified as Charles Mundin, LL.B. But the newscaster was babbling on; the rabbit face flickered off the screen. The newscaster said, "Ah, I have a statement just handed to me from G.M.L. Homes. Mr. Haskell Arnold, Chairman of the Board of G.M.L. Homes, announced today that the engineering staff of the firm has reached tentative conclusions regarding the partial malfunction—" Even the newscaster stumbled over that. The listening men, recalling the pile of rubble, roared and slapped their knees in a burst of released tension. "The—uh—partial malfunction of G.M.L. Unit One. They state that highly abnormal conditions of vibration and chemical environment present in the Museum are obviously to blame. Mr. Arnold said, and I quote, 'There is no possibility whatsoever that this thing will happen again.' End of quote." The announcer smiled and discarded a sheet from the papers in his hand. Now chummy, he went on, "Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm certainly glad to hear that, and so, I'm sure, are all of you who also live in bubble-houses. "And now, for you sports fans, the morning line on Grosse Pointe Field Day. It's going to be a bang-up show produced by the veteran impresario Jim, 'Blood and Guts,' Hanrahan. Plenty of solid, traditional entertainment. First spectacle——" "Turn that thing off," someone ordered Norvell. Wistfully, he did, straining to catch the last words. Remembering.

Harry Coett broke the silence. Brutally, "Well, that's that. We're committed. Is everybody here as terrified as I am?"

"I guess so," Hubble said slowly. "You know, Mundin, we still haven't been able to get a line on Green, Charlesworth."

The offices of Alive, flagship of the Alive-Space-Chance publishing squadron, were rocking. Hot on the heels of the disaster in Washington, a new cataclysm had just flashed in from their stringer in Coshocton, Ohio.

"Keep talking it!" yelled the editor to the stringer, switching him to a rewrite man. He yelled at the picture editor, "Standby squad to Coshocton, Ohio. Whole goddam bubble-city fell apart!" The picture editor acknowledged and spoke a few quiet words into a phone. Overhead on the landing stage, a transport plane that stood with its engines just ticking over, quickened to a roar and took off, its paunch laden with six photographers and their gear. A klaxon screamed in the ready room next the landing stage; another standby squad put down their poker hands and climbed into a second plane, which taxied to the take-off line and stood waiting.

The editor snapped, "Morgue! Send up the file on. G.M.L. Home failures, collapses, service guarantees, and so on. Science! Put two writers on to whip it into a sidebar. Photoroom! Hold everything; stand by to remake the issue. Transmitter! Hold everything; stand by to remake; three pages of four-color transmission upcoming. Midwest! Midwest—what the hell held you up? Get a squad to Coshocton, Ohio; G.M.L. Bubble-City collapse. Art! Stand by for visualization—scene of collapsing bubble-houses—"

And so on. Until —

The editor quite suddenly stopped what he was doing and softly said to his assistant, "Oh, Jesus. Take over, Manning. Policy."

He got up, fixed his cravat, and walked up a flight of carpeted stairs. When he got past the publisher's secretary, he said delicately:

"Of course, sir, it looks like big news to us. But we'd like the benefit of your judgment in a, well, sensitive area like this. I understand you hold some G.M.L. stock, sir, so naturally you'd have an insider's slant. What I want to know is, do you consider it—uh—in the best public interest to splash the story?"

"Splash it," the publisher said nobly, in the best tradition of no-fear-nor-favor journalism.

The editor, grateful but wondering, said, "Thank you, Mr. Hubble."

He almost backed out of The Presence.

He said to his assistant, marveling, "Sometimes I think the old boy isn't such a selfish louse after all." He shrugged, and shook his head, and turned to his desk panel, yelling:

"Hasn't anybody got through to G.M.L. yet?"