Gladiator-At-Law

Chapter Eight

Norvie woke up with a start. They were joggling him, with identical, contemptuous smiles. Even in the fog of sleep he felt a little stab of pride at Virginia's beauty, a twitch of unhappiness at the same bony beauty smothered beneath the fat of her daughter.

"What's the matter?" he croaked.

His voice sounded odd, and he realized he wasn't wearing his hearing aid. He groped for it beside the bed. It wasn't there. He sat up.

He yelled at Alexandra, his voice thin and strange to him as it was sustained through the bones and cavities of his body rather than the neat chain of the auditory apparatus: "Where is it? If you've hidden it again I'll break your neck!"

Alexandra looked smugly shocked. She mouthed at him, "Goodness, Norvell, you know I wouldn't do that" The exaggerated mouthing was a mockery of consideration; he had repeatedly told her that exaggeration only distorted the lips.

Virginia tapped him on the shoulder and said something, stiff-lipped. He caught an "eep" and a "larm."

He clenched his fists and said, "What?"

She mouthed at him, "I said, you must have come in too drunk to set the alarm before you went to sleep. Get up. You're an hour late for work now."

He leaped from bed, anguish spearing his heart, Oh, God! An hour late on this day, of all days!

He found the hearing aid—on the floor in the entrance hall, where he couldn't possibly have left it, any more than he could possibly have failed to set the alarm. But he didn't have time for that minor point. He depilated in ten seconds, bathed in five, dressed in fifteen and shot out of the house.

Fortunately Candella wasn't in.

Norvie sent Miss Dali to round up his staff and began the tooling-up job for the integrator keyboard, while the production men busied themselves with their circuits and their matrices, and the job began. This was the part of Nome's work that made him, he confessed secretly to himself, feel most like God. He fed the directions to Stimmens, Stimmens fumblingly set up the punch cards, the engineers translated the cards into phase fields and interferer circuits. . . . And a World That Norvie Made appeared in miniature.

He had once tried to explain his feelings to Arnie. Arnie had snarled something about the presumptuous conceit of a mere pushbutton. All Norvie did, Arnie explained over many glasses of beer, was to decide what forms and images he wanted to see. It was The Engineers who, in Their wisdom, transmuted empty visions into patterns of light and color that magically took the form and movement of tiny fighters and wrestlers and spear-carriers. The original thought, Arnie explained severely, was nothing. It was the tremendous technical skill that transformed the thought into visual reality in the table-top model previewer that was important.

And Norvie humbly agreed. Even now he was deferential to the production men, those geniuses so well skilled in the arts of connecting Circuit A to Terminal IV, for they were Engineers. But his deference extended only to the technical crew. "Stimmens, you butterfingers," he snarled, "hurry it up! Mr. Candella will be here any minute!"

"Yessir," said Stimmens, hopelessly shuffling the stacks of notes out of Norvell's hands.

Stimmens was coming along well, Norvie thought. A touch of the whip was good for him.

It took twenty minutes and a bit more, and then Norvell's whole design for a Field Day was on punch cards. While Stimmens was correcting his last batch of cards, the production men began the highspeed run-through. The little punched cards went through the scanners; the packed circuits measured voltages and spat electrons; and in the miniature mockup of the Stadium, tiny figures of light appeared and moved and slew each other and left.

They were Norvell's own, featureless and bright, tiny and insubstantial. Where Norvell's script called for the bodies of forty javelin-throwers in the flesh, the visualizing apparatus showed forty sprites of light jabbing at each other with lances of fire. No blood spilled; no bodies stained the floor of the Stadium; only the little bodiless fire-figures that disappeared like any other pattern of excited ions when the current went off.

Somehow, inside Norvell's mind, it was here and not in the big arena that the real Field Days took place. He had heard the cries of the wounded and seen the tears of the next of kin waiting hopelessly in the pits, but they were not real; it was as mannikins that he thought of them always.

One of the production men looked up and said approvingly, "Good show, Mr. Bligh."

"Thanks," said Norvell gratefully. That was always a good sign; the technical crews had seen 'em all. Now the question was, what would Candella say?

He found out.

What Candella said, gently at first, was:

"Bligh, the upcoming Field Day is important. At least, it seems to me that it is. It seems to me that everything we do is important. Don't you think so?"

Norvell said, "Well—"

"I'm glad you agree. Our work is important, Bligh. It is a great and functional art form. It provides healthful entertainment, satisfying the needs of every man for some form of artistic expression. It provides escape—escape for the hardworking bubble-house class, escape for the masses of Belly Rave. For them, in fact, our work is indispensable. It siphons off then: aggressions so that they can devote their time to— uh—to comparatively harmless activities. Allotments and Field Days! Our society is built on them. You might call our work the very foundation of society, looked at in that way. Do you agree?"

Norvell's voice failed him. He said in almost a whisper: "Yes, sir."

Candella looked politely apologetic. "I beg your pardon?" "Yes, sir!" Norvell, too late, found he was almost bellpwing.

Candella looked pained. "You needn't shout." he reproved —gently, smilingly. "There is nothing wrong with my hearing." Norvell winced. You unutterable louse, he thought. But Candella was going right on. "—foundation of our society, as I say, but also an art form. The cultured classes appreciate our efforts on the artistic plane; the rabble of Belly Rave— with all respects, my dear Bligh, to the origin of your charming wife—need it on the glandular level. Every show we produce is important. But the Field Day——"

He hesitated, and the composition of his features changed. His thick brows came down like the ragged anvils of thunderclouds; his temples pulsed. His voice became a bass roar. He thundered, "The Field Day, you asinine little tineared incompetent, is the biggest day of the year! Not just because it draws the biggest audience—but because that's the one I am judged by! The Board attends. The Mayor attends. The men from G.M.L. attend. If they like it, good. If they don't—it's my head that's on the line, Bligh! And I don't want it lopped off because of the idiotic blunderings of a half-witted ass like you!"

Norvell opened his mouth; it hung open, wordless. Candella roared on, "Not a word! I want no excuses. You had the assignment, and you muffed it. Your notion of what constituted a Field Day was, of course, uninspired. But I thought that, with patching and improvising, we might get by. However, I no longer think so—not since examining the superb presentation that was handed me this morning—at nine o'clock, I might add." He slammed a sheaf of punch-cards on the desk. "By a member of your own staff, Bligh! A brilliant boy whom you have evidently been holding down. Thank God for his guts! Thank God for his loyalty! Thank God he had the courage and sense to come to me with this masterpiece instead of permitting you to destroy it!"

There was a long pause. At last Norvell was able to croak,

"Who?"

Candella said triumphantly, "Stimmens."

Norvell was speechless. The thing was not possible. Stimmens? Wet behind the ears, untried, incompetent even at simple research? Stimmens who didn't even want to stay with the firm, who had the infernal gall to ask for a contract release? Stimmens?

His hand stretched out for the cards, and then he stopped, abashed, realizing he had forgotten to ask permission. "Go ahead," Candella said coldly.

Norvell scanned them in astonishment. Why, he thought, this is impossible—and this bit here, we can't——

"Mind if I play these, Mr. Candella?" he asked and, getting an ironic nod, fed the punch-cards into Candella's previewer. The circuits scanned the punched holes and built a scene of electronic slaughter for him. He watched the little fire-figures in growing apprehension.

When he looked up, he said, so bemused that he hardly remembered to be fearful, "Why, it's good."

"Of course it's good!"

"No, really good, Mr. Candella." He shook his head wonderingly. "Stimmens, eh? I never would have believed it. Of course, it's rough—the emotional values need bringing out. The comedy stuff with the vitriol pistols ought to follow a tense thriller like Man Versus Scorpions instead of another comedy number like the Octogenarians with Flame Throwers. But that's easy enough to fix. Race Against Man-Made Lightning is out too; Stimmens told me himself we couldn't get the equipment from Schenectady. I suppose he forgot."

Candella was looking at him with an indescribable expression, but Norvell raced on, babbling nervously. "Real originality, Mr. Candella. I—I must say I admire him. Piranhas in the aquatic meet! Wonderful. And the octogenarians are a terrific switch. Number after number I've never heard of! I have to admit it, Mr. Candella, that boy has talent."

Candella said dangerously, "What the hell are you talking about?"

Norvell stammered, "Why, the—the originality, Mr. Candella. The freshness."

Candella hardly heard him; he was mumbling to himself as he riffled through sheets of paper. He pounded them with his fist and glared at Norvell.

"Originality! Bligh, do you think I'm nuts? Do you think I'm crazy enough to run untried novelties in a show like this?

Every one of these features has been a smash success somewhere in the country within the last ninety days."

"Oh, no! No, Mr. Candella, honest—I know. I've been getting all the reports, and none of this stuff—— Honesty Mr. Candella! I was saying to Stimmens just the other day, 'It's funny how little new stuff is turning up.' Gosh, Stimmens was doing the research himself, he ought to know!"

Candella exploded, "Look, you fool!" He tossed a sheaf of reports at Norvell.

They were all there. Names, dates, and places. Norvell looked up in horror. "Mis-ter Can-deMa," he whispered. "It's a doublecross!" His voice gained strength. "He wants a Fifteen rating. Just yesterday he tried to get me to recommend remission of his contract. I wouldn't do it; this is his way of getting even."

"Bligh! That's a serious charge!"

"Oh, I'll prove it, Mr. Candella. I've got the copies of his reports in my desk, under lock and key. Please, Mr. Candella —come into my office with me. Let me show you."

Candella stood up. "Show me," he ordered.

And ten minutes later he was saying grimly, "Thought I wouldn't call your bluff, eh?"

Norvell stared unbelievingly at the reports, face white as a sheet. They had been in his desk, locked with his key...

Arid they were not the reports he had seen. They sparkled with novelties; they showed all the magnificent new concepts in Stiminens's outline, and much, much more.

The papers shook in Norvell's hands. How? He couldn't have left the desk unlocked. Nobody had a key but him and Miss Dali—and she had no reason to do such a thing. There had been no chance for sleight of hand, no possibility his eyes had deceived him. Had he gone mad? Was it some chemical prank, the reports he saw in disappearing ink, the substituted ones then coming to light? How?

Over Norvell's desk set Candella was calling Stimmens in. The boy appeared, looking awed and deferential.

Mr. Candella said briefly, "Congratulations, Stimmens. You're the head of the department from this moment on. Move into your office whenever you like—this is your office. And throw this bum out." To Norvell: "Your contract is canceled for cause. Don't ever try to get a job in this line again; you'll waste your time." He left without another word.

Norvell was entirely numb.

Stimmens said uneasily, "You could have avoided this. Don't think I enjoyed it. I've been working on it for six months, and I didn't have the heart to go through with it. I had to give you a chance; you turned it down."

Norvell stared, just stared. Stimmens went on defensively: "It isn't as if I just walked into it. Believe me, I earned this. What do I know about Field Days? Sweat, sweat, sweat; I haven't had a moment's peace."

Miss Dali walked in and kissed Stimmens, burbling: "Darling, I just heard! You wonderful Grade Fifteen you!"

"Oh," said Norvell in a sick voice.

They said more, but he didn't hear; it was as if his hearing aid were turned off, but the switch was not in his pocket but in his mind. He was out on the street before he realized what he was doing . . . and what had happened to the contract career of Norvell Bligh.

The thing was, Virginia.

Norvell came up to that point in his thinking as he had come a thousand times before and, like a thousand times before, he backed away from it. He ordered another drink.

No contract status, no bubble-house. It would be Belly Rave, of course. Norvell took a deep swallow of the drink. Still, what was so bad about Belly Rave? You'd be out in the fresh air a lot, at the least. You wouldn't starve—nobody ever starved, that much everybody knew. He could find something to do, probably. The allotments would take care of eating; his extra work—whatever it turned out to be—would give him a chance to save a little money, make a fresh start, maybe find a place in the old section of the city. Not like the bubble-houses, of course, but better than Belly Rave, from all he'd heard.

He wished one more time that he knew a little more about Belly Rave. Funny, considering that Virginia had been born there; but she had never wanted to talk about it.

And there he was, back on the subject of Virginia again.

How she would take it was another matter. He really couldn't guess. She had been so resolutely, reliably silent on the subject of Belly Rave and all it concerned. Her childhood, t her parents and even her husband, the power-cycle stunter whose crash in a long-ago Field Day had left young Norvell Bligh with a tearless widow to jolly out of filing a claim. He had married her instead; and Candella had made an unforgivable joke. . . . No. He faced it. He hadn't married her; she had married him—and not even him, really, but a contract job and a G.M.L. house.

He dialed another drink.

He looked around the bar; he had never been in the place before. He didn't even know where he was; he'd found himself wandering through the Ay-rab section of town, footsore. He had turned back and this place had been there, new and shiny and attractive. It looked like a nice place. Someday he might bring Arnie here, if Arnie would still——

He squelched that thought before it was properly formed. Certainly he would bring Arnie here! Arnie wasn't the kind of friend to look the other way when you were a little down on your luck—not even that, really, just temporarily in a little bit of a rough time due to a professional misunderstanding and a doublecross. Good old Arnie, Norvell thought sentimentally.

He caught a glimpse of the time.

Better face the music and get it over with. Maybe he could have it out with Virginia, and then go over and spend a little time with Arnie. The thought bucked him.

He swallowed his drink and slipped his wallet into the bar slot. Having it out with Virginia might not be so tough at that. In a way, he thought, the fact that she had been born in Belly Rave was an advantage, if he could only make her see it that way. She would know the ropes. She'd have friends there; she'd have some ideas about pleasant, useful work he could do to supplement the allotment until he got on his feet again. She could save him plenty of time in making contacts, getting—

Something crushed his shoulder and spun him around. "Whaddya think you're up to, Buster?" the policeman demanded in a bass snarl. He shook Norvell's wallet under his nose. "You know the penalty for passing a bum credit card? You Belly Ravers are all alike; get a lapsed card and a front, and try to get a free load. Come along, Buster. The Captain wants to talk to you."

It was all quite horrible.

Of course Candella had canceled his card at once—but it was a simple-enough oversight. Norvell spent a long time trying to make them believe him down at the precinct, before he realized that they did believe him—believed him, and just didn't care.

It was close to dinner time, and they put him in something they called "the Tank" to think things over until the desk sergeant got back from his meal. Norvell didn't like the Tank, and he didn't like the looks of the half-dozen other persons who occupied it with him. But still, he reminded himself, it could have been worse. It was only a question of his lapsed credit card; they could easily have added drunk and disorderly to the charge. And Norvell could have found himself logged for being without visible means of support, which meant getting a job, instanter, or getting jugged for quite a while. And there was only one kind of a job a man in police trouble could pick up a phone and get, every time. Usually you didn't have to phone. The cops would drive you down to the Stadium's service entrance themselves; Norvell knew the process, having seen enough "volunteers" delivered.

"Hey, Bligh."

Norvell said, "Yes, sir?"

The cop opened the door. "This way." They came, to a dingy room. There was an embarrasing process of holding your hands over your head while someone ran his hands over you; you couldn't blame them for searching you, Norvell told himself, there must be plenty of times they had desperate criminals here. There was a curiously interesting process of inking the fingers and rolling them across a piece of paper. There was a mildly painful process of looking into what seemed to be a binocular microscope; a light flashed, photographing the retina of his eyes, and Norvell had a little trouble seeing for some time afterward.

While Norvell was blinking at the halo in his field of vision the cop said something. Norvell said, "What?"

"I said do you want to call your lawyer?"

Norvell shook his head automatically. Then he remembered: He had a lawyer. "Why, yes," he said. He found Mundin's phone number in the book with some difficulty; it was after hours, but he was lucky enough to get an answer—though Mundin himself wasn't there, and the person who answered seemed, Norvell thought, to be drunk or something. But he left a message, and then there was nothing to do but wait.

Curiously, the waiting was not unpleasant. Even the thought of what Virginia would say or do about this was not particularly terrifying; what could happen worse than had already happened?

So he waited. Past six o'clock, past seven; and for a couple of hours more before he began to worry.

It was almost ten o'clock; if he didn't get out pretty soon, it would be too late to try to see good old Arnie.