Fritz Leiber - The Silver Eggheads

"Just leave them there for the present," Gaspard said. "Where's Miss Blushes? She was on the front door when I went out. She ought to have warned Cullingham about the writers. Did they get her too?"

Joe scratched his shaggy head. His eyes widened. "Now that's a funny thing, I forgot all about it up to now, but just after you went out to buy the rolls, Gaspard, five swishes in black sweaters and tight black pants come in and gathered around Miss Blushes' reception desk and started screaming at her-I don't mean really yelling, I mean talking gay-and she was screaming back at them happy-sounding as anything-they were all six screaming about knitting-and I was thinking, 'That's all right, you're half a dozen of the same thing.' Then the swishes all went out together in a black clump and that pink robix wasn't at her desk any more. If I'd had a little time to cogitate about it, I'd have realized she was gone and that the black swishes must have spirited her off, but just then the writers come charging in and put it all out of my mind. Do you get me, Gaspard? Just after you went out to buy the rolls-"

"I get you," Gaspard said earnestly and pushed the down button of the escalator. He was several yards below Joe before the other thought to follow.

On the reception desk, secured by a paperweight of lunar obsidian, was a note in voicewritten pink script on black paper.

Zane Gort! ( it read ) Your monstrous scheme for having robot brains replace wordmills is known. Your robot fiction factory at Wisdom of the Ages, with its hideous disembodied ovoid robot heads, is under surveillance. If you value the good looks and sanity of the robix Phyllis Blushes, give up the scheme, dismantle the factory.

"Here comes Mr. Flaxman now," Joe said, shading his eyes with his hand as he peered down the street through the view faзade. Gaspard shoved the note in his pocket and followed Joe out onto the sidewalk.

Flaxman's limousine was jogging along on automatic. The publisher must be taking a nap, Gaspard thought.

The car sensed its destination, nosed over to the curb and stopped beside them. There was nothing lying on the leather-upholstered seats except a note in bold black printing on gray paper.

Zane Gort! ( it read ) You may be able to write all the human fiction the solar system can absorb, but you can't get the books on the racks without a publisher. Split the field with us and you can have him back.

Gaspard's first thought was simply that robots must be closer to taking over the world than even alarmists believed, if the two enemy groups should both assume that Zane was the key to the new activities at Rocket House and choose to deal with him alone. Gaspard felt a bit hurt. No one had thought to send him a threatening letter. No one had, as yet, even tried to kidnap him. You'd think that Heloise, at least, in view of their past relationship. . but no, the fickle writrix had kidnapped Cullingham.

" Whir-hey! I've done it, I've done it!"

Gaspard was grabbed and whirled around in a mad dance by Zane Gort, who had appeared like a blue streak from God knows where.

"Stop it, Zane!" Gaspard commanded. "Simmer down. Flaxman and Cullingham have been kidnapped! "

"I've no time for trifles now," the robot cried, releasing him. "I've done it, I tell you. Eureka! "

" Miss Blushes has been kidnapped too! " Gaspard bellowed at him. "Here are the ransom notes-addressed to you !"

"I'll read them later," the robot said, stuffing them into a snap window in his side. "Oh, I've done it, I've done it! Now to check with Cal Tech!" And he sprang into the limousine and sent it hurtling down the street.

"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.