Fritz Leiber - The Silver Eggheads

He knew he could no more take the next crucial step than he could voluntarily thrust his right hand into a sharp-toothed cluster of grinding cog-wheels. Cullingham might be able to, perhaps because of some perfect faith in machinery or else an hypertrophied off-trail death wish, but Gaspard certainly could not.

"Dicky-bird's lost interest," Miss Willow drawled sensuously, investigating with her fingers. "Mama will fix."

"No!" Gaspard said sharply. "Don't do that!" Miss Willow's soft cool fingers had abruptly become nothing but steel claws in his imagination.

"All right," Miss Willow said lightly. "Anything Dicky-bird wants."

Gaspard almost sighed with relief. "Let's pause for a bit," he suggested, "And you do a dance for me."

Miss Willow lightly locked her arms around him, tipped back her head and shook it a little as she smiled.

"Come on, Mama," Gaspard cajoled. "Mama do pretty dance. Dicky-bird watch. Pretty, oh pretty!"

Miss Willow just shook her head again.

Gaspard drew back slightly and brought up his hands inside her arms, lightly pressing them apart, as a polite indication that they break, but Miss Wifiow did not respond to the suggestion.

"Let me go," Gaspard said flatly.

Continuing to smile, Miss Willow said playfully, "No, no, no. Dicky-bird's not going to get away now."

Without warning, Gaspard jerked back and simultaneously slammed his wrists sideways. But Miss Willow's arms did not fly apart. Instead they resisted the shock and then with lightning speed tightened around him, not exactly painfully, but very snugly. Lissome evokers of delight a moment ago, they were now like cushioned bands of steel. His left arm was pinioned, his right arm free.

"Naughty, naughty," Miss Willow cooed. Then pressing her chin in his shoulder she growled horribly in his ear and said in the tone of the growl, "You damage Mama and Mama'll damage you." Then she leaned back and cooed, "Let's play. Don't be scared, Dicky-bird. Mama will be gentle."

Gaspard's almost involuntary response to that was another convulsive effort to escape. When it was over, Miss Willow's arms were still locked around him and now her right leg too. They teetered precariously but didn't fall over, due to the femmequin's fine sense of balance.

"Mama will hug you," Miss Willow growled in his ear. "Mama will keep on hugging you. Every five minutes Mama will hug you a little tighter-until you feed a hundred dollars into Mama you know where."

Miss Willow's arms tightened. Gaspard heard something inside him creak.

Someone was pounding on the doubly electrolocked door.

Gaspard did not know how long the pounding had been going on, he had been scrabbling so intently for money through such drawers of Cullingham's desk as he could reach with his free arm. He hadn't found any.

"Look," he pleaded, "let me bend over so I can reach my pants. I don't think I've a hundred dollars but I have some money and I can write you a check for the rest. And let me feel through the bottom desk drawers-there still may be money there. Where does Cullingham keep his money? You should know."

But such questions and contingency-based suggestions seemed quite beyond Miss Willow's capacities. She said only, "One hundred bucks cash, Dinky-bird. Mama's hungry."

The pounding continued. Through it he could hear faintly a woman caffing, "Let me in, Gaspard! Something terrible's happened."

Gaspard heartily agreed as Miss Willow's grip tightened another notch.

"You'll kill me," he said, talking in short bursts because there wasn't too much room for air left in his chest. "That won't help. Please. My pants. Or Cullingham's drawers."

"One hundred bucks," Miss Willow repeated implacably. "No checks."

Gaspard's free hand found the door buttons. The door to the hall gave slightly under the pounding it was getting, then was pushed open. Miss Jackson lunged in, her blonde hair in disorder and her blouse pulled off one shoulder, as if she'd been through some sort of struggle herself. Gaspard wondered wildly if the whole world were being attacked individually and intimately by femmequins and manikins.

"Gaspard!" the nurse cried. "They've kidnapped-"

She saw the tableau beside Cullighain's desk. She froze. Rather slowly, her mouth fell open a little. Then her eyes narrowed as she began to study. After about five seconds she said critically, "Well, really!"

"I need. . one hundred dollars. . cash," Gaspard got out. "Don't ask. . explain."

Disregarding these statements, Miss Jackson continued to study them. Finally she asked, "Aren't you ever going to spring apart?"

"I. . can't," Gaspard explained breathlessly.

Miss Jackson's brow cleared, her eyebrows went up and she nodded twice with the dawn of a great understanding. "I've heard of such things happening," she said wisely. "They told us about it at nursing school. The man can't withdraw and the couple have to be taken to the hospital on the same stretcher. To think that I'd ever see it."

She advanced, peering with an expression of horrid fascination.

"Not that. . at all," Gaspard squeezed out. "Idiot. . Just holding. . arms. Miss Willow. . femme. . robot. Need. . hundred. . bucks."

"Robots are made of metal," Miss Jackson said dogmatically. "Could be painted, I suppose." She reached out and pinched Miss Willow. "Nope. You're just getting hysterical, Gaspard," she diagnosed confidently, walking around them. "Take hold of yourself. Nobody ever died of shame. I remember now they told us it almost always happened to unmarried couples. The woman's sense of guilt causes the spasm. My walking around and peering at you this way probably just makes it worse."

The breath Gaspard had gathered for his next appeal was squeezed out of him in a useless little squeak as Miss Willow's arms tightened once more. The room seemed to darken. As if at a great distance he heard Miss Jackson say, "Don't try to bury yourself in him like an ostrich, Miss Willow. This is something you're going to have to live through whether you like it or not. Remember I'm a nurse-you can't shock me. Think of me as a robot. I know you're a proud woman, not to say stuck-up. But maybe this experience will humanize you a bit. Hold onto that thought."

Through the thickening dark Gaspard was aware of a gleam of dark blue.

Zane Gort paused for an instant in the door, then strode up to Miss Willow.

"How much?" he demanded, unlocking with one pincher a little window in his waist, while with the other he deftly lifted Miss Willow's sleek platinum hair, revealing a horizontal slit in the back of her neck.

"One hundred bucks," growled the femmequin.

"Liar," Zane Gort said and fed in a fifty.

Sensors in the femmequin recognized the intricate pattern of magnetic oxide in the bifi. Miss Willow's arms opened. Her leg unclamped.

Gaspard felt deep relief, was dimly aware of metal arms supporting him, then the small pain of taking a deep breath. The room began to lighten.

Miss Jackson's mouth fell open all the way.

"Get dressed," Zane Gort ordered. "You too, Gaspard. Here, put on these."

Miss Jackson said, "Now I've seen everything."

"Congratulations," Zane Gort told her. "And now if you would be so kind, my friend would like a drink of water- it's over there. I'll buckle that for you, Gaspard. Don't dawdle, Miss Willow-this isn't a performance. Easy, Gaspard. I'll buzz Madam Pneumo's tomorrow and have them pick up their femmequin-and give those robot procurers a piece of my mind-fun's fun, but one day they're going tokill a customer with their extortionist tricks and then there'll be trouble. Thank you, Miss Jackson. Gaspard, swallow this capsule."

Miss Jackson watched with a rather envious expression the little odalisque's dance that, despite Zane's admonition, Miss Willow made of getting dressed. After a bit the nurse thought to pull her blouse up over her own exposed shoulder. "Say," she said loudly, "I completely forgot! I got so interested in the little. . er. ." She looked at Gaspard.