The Silver Eggheads

FORTY-THREE

"Yes you did write my story, Momma," Half Pint continued overridingly, his blank form seeming to swell the screen. "It all came to life when I was telling you the plot. I was thinking of you every minute, trying to make you understand. Trying to court you, really, because you're the girl in the story too, Momma-or maybe I am, maybe I'm the girl who cant feel-no, now I'm getting confused. . Anyway, there's a barrier, an anesthesia, and we get around it. ."

"Half Pint," Flaxman said hoarsely, a tear trickling down his cheek, "I haven't told anybody about this, but there's a prize for winning this contest-a silver voicewriter that belonged to Hobart Flaxman himself. I wish you were over here right now so you could receive it and I could shake your- Well, anyway, I wish you were here, I really do."

"That's all right, Mr. Flaxman. We don't need any prizes, do we, Momma? And there'll be lots of chances-"

"No, by God," Flaxmnn roared, standing up, "you're coming over here right now! Gaspard, go-"

"Gaspard doesn't need to!" Miss Blushes squealed loudly. "Zane left a minute ago to fetch Half Pint. He told me to tell you."

"Who the hell does that tin hack think- Wonderful!" Flaxman cried. "Half Pint, boy, we're going to-"

The sentence was not finished, because at that moment the screen dissolved briefly into herringbone and then went dark. Voice cut off too.

Nobody minded. Everyone was too interested in congratulating each other and snagging victory drinks. Joe had another sharp struggle with his brother, who seemed to find the sight of so much rapid-fire imbibing more than sanity could bear. Fighting his way to his feet the old alcoholic pointed a beard-entangled shaking hand at a bottle of scotch Culhingham was lifting and cried out "There it goes!" in a bloodchillingly eerie voice and then followed with shaking hand and bloodshot eye what seemed to be the spirit double of the scotch bottle as it floated past him high in the air and out through the dosed door. "There it goes!" he wailed again despairingly. Joe with difficulty forced him back into his seat.

By that time the excitement had simmered down to the point where chunks of conversation could be heard.

Cullingham was explaining to Gaspard, "So you see it really is a matter of editorial cooperation. A kind of symbiosis. Each brain needs a sensitive human being that it can tell its story to, that it can feel through, a partner who isn't imprisoned. It depends on getting the right person for each brain. There's a job I'll enjoy working at! It'll be a little like conducting a marriage bureau."

"Cully, baby, you get the cutest ideas," Heloise Ibsen said with a ladylike chortle, grabbing his hand.

"Yes, doesn't he?" Nurse Bishop agreed, grabbing Gaspard's.

Gaspard said expansively, "Yes, and once we have wordmills again, with their bigger-than-human stock of memories and sensations, just think of what a three-way possibility we'll have. One egghead, one two-legged writer, and one wordmill-what a writing team that'll be!"

"I'm not sure new wordmills will ever be built, or at least used to the same extent," Cullingham said thoughtfully. "I've programmed them most of my adult life and so I've never said anything against them, but to tell the truth I've always been oppressed by the fact that they are dead machines that can never work by anything but formula. For instance, they never could make the corny but blessed mistake of writing about themselves, as the Half Pint-Bishop team has done." He smiled at Gaspard. "You're surprised I should be saying this sort of thing, aren't you? — but do you realize that although hundreds of millions of people have lived or at least gone to sleep by the power of wordwooze, it's never been established how much of its effect is due to actual story and how much to pure hypnotism and the perfect but sterile manipulation of a few fundamental symbols of security, pleasure and fear-an endlessly repeated formula for feeding the ego, stilling anxiety, and blanking out the mind? Who knows but that tonight may mark the rebirth of true fiction in the world? — fiction that grapples, takes chances, adventures, and explores!"

"Baby, how much have you been drinking?" Heloise asked him anxiously.

"Yeah, watch that scotch, Cully, it goes down easy when you're light-headed," Flaxman advised, coming up at that moment and giving his partner an odd look. "Listen, folks, the instant Half Pint comes through that door, I want everybody to stop what they're doing and give him a big hand. Don't let him feel like a spectre at the feast. Zane'll be trotting him in any minute now."

"Gallop, you mean, Mr. Flaxman-they ought to have been here five minutes ago, the way that robot tears," Joe the Guard opined, come up to sneak a couple of quick shots while his brother's attention was momentarily snared by the antique silver voicewriter that had just been trundled in from the adjoining office.

"Oh, I do hope there's been no more kidnapping," Miss Blushes squealed excitedly. "If anything happened to Zane now, I couldn't bear it!"

"There are varying views on kidnapping," Cullingham announced loudly, waving a new drink. "Some dread and deplore it. Others regard it as life's loveliest awakening."

"Oh Cully!" Heloise chortled, grabbing his arm. "Hey, you never did show me that rubber bitch. I think we ought to take her home tonight since you still got paid-up time coming on her, there are some tortures it takes two girls to apply. Cully, you cutie, did you actually call her Tits Willow?"

At that key name, loudly uttered, the femmequin stood up and, the white sheet still covering her from head to ankles, walked straight toward Heloise.

Pop Zangwell looked up from the silver voicewriter just in time to catch his brother pouring himself a generous slug of bourbon. The old soak began to shake again and his eyes went wide. "There it goes!" he quavered.

Flaxman shuddered out of the way of the advancing sheeted femmequin. "Do something about her, somebody!" he demanded, but all that happened for the moment was that Pop Zangwell's gaze traveled over and across Flaxman's head and the old man called hollowly, "There it goes!" Flaxman stared and shuddered again.

At that instant the electrolocked door flew open and a silver egg swooped into the room and circled it, sailing eight feet off the floor. It had a small eye, ear and speaker plugged directly into it without cords-a very odd sensory-motor triangle-and it was based on a little silver platform from which came two small clawed feet, like the hands of a harpy. In fact, if it looked like anything at all, it looked like a wingless metal harpy or a hydrocephalic silver owl designed by the team of Picasso, Chirico, and Salvador Dali.

As it circled him, Flaxman swung around slowly, waving his arms defensively and screaming in a thin high voice. Then the pupils of the publisher's eyes turned up and he slowly fell over backwards.

The egg swooped in to him, fixing its claws in the lapels of his coat and easing his fall.

"Don't be scared, Mr. Flaxman," the egg cried out as it sat on his chest, "It's just me, Half Pint, as regadgeted by Zane Gort. And we can shake hands now. I promise not to pinch."