Fritz Leiber - The Silver Eggheads

"He had me pegged," Half Pint put in. "If I had sworn, I would have kept my word-you learn to do that in two hundred years or you go crazy. It would have been an interesting life too-he said, for instance, 'Think how a Syndicate traitor would feel if he opened his suitcase and there you were, staring at him with that eye of yours and telling him he was doomed'-but I got fascinated wondering when I'd start to get scared. And stubborn. And I wanted to draw him out. That acid wouldn't have brought pain to me, you see-just new sensations and maybe new ideas. For a little while."

The instant Zane had burst into the cabin, the robot would have been paralyzed by a shorting-beam the all-foreseeing Fenicchia directed at him, except that Zane was carrying before him a copper net that acted as a Faraday Cage. On seeing the acid-eaten splotches on Half Pint's shell, the robot reached with one pincher for the alkali base the Garrote had ready to neutralize the nitric, and crying, "A yegg for an egg!" slapped the gray gang leader in the face with the other-knocking out half his teeth and removing a large chunk of cheek and chin, half his upper lip, and the end of his nose.

Instantly Zane had poured the neutralizer on Half Pint, snatched him up, and dashed past catastrophe-confused gangsters to plunge into the sea where his jet unit was tethered. Doubting the egg's capacity to resist water under pressure, the robot had scudded along just below the surface, holding Half Pint aloft in one pincher.

"Oh boy, what a ride," the latter put in, adding wistfully, "I could almost feel that water."

"It must indeed have been a strange sight," Zane admitted, "if any of the crew took time off to watch from saving the Queen : a silver egg racing mysteriously through the wave tops."

"Don't, it gives me the creeps!" Flaxman put in, hunching his shoulders and squeezing his eyes shut. "Excuse me, Half Pint."

Reaching the five-mile circle, Zane had radioed Miss Blushes and coached her into hovering the flier above him while Flaxman let down a ladder. The first thing the robot had done when he climbed aboard was to twirl a fresh fontanel into Half Pint.

"I don't believe that eight-hour jazz," Half Pint said. "As I recall it, we all just pretended to pass out that time to scare the nurse."

"Tell me one thing, Zane," Gaspard asked curiously. "What would have happened if your jet unit had failed?"

"I would infallibly have sunk to the bottom of the sea," the robot replied. "I would be lying there right now, holding Half Pint in my arms and-if my structure and headlamp had held out-contemplating the beauties of sediment and abyssal life. Or more likely, knowing my nature, I'd be trying to walk to shore."

"It all goes to show you," the stray congressman said, his voice beginning to thicken as he slopped more whisky in his glass.

"It does indeed, sir," Zane echoed.

"Well, at any rate now you can get back to Project El with a clear conscience," Gaspard told him.

"That's true, I can," Zane agreed with disappointing brevity.

"Look, there's the coast," Miss Blushes said. "The wonderful lights of New Angeles, like a carpet of stars. Oh, I feel romantic."

"What's this Project El?" Flaxman asked Zane. "Anything to do with Rocket House?"

"Yes, sir, in a fashion."

"One of Cullingham's babies?" Flaxman pressed. "You know, I'm worried there. This Ibsen babe may drain him dry as a dead grasshopper and we'll have to take over everything he's doing."

"No, this bad nothing to do with Mr. Cullingham," Zane assured him. "But if you don't mind, I'd rather not discuss it at present."

"Self-assigned project, hey?" Flaxman said shrewdly. "Well, anything for the hero-and believe me, I mean that, Zane."

"I know a secret," Half Pint said.

"Shut up," Zane told him and pulled his speaker plug.

Leaving the stray congressman to explain to wondering controlmen how he had piloted the executive flier from the Mohave to an oceanic gambling hell and back completely blacked out-or at most with the help of a few friendly hallucinations-the Rocket House party taxied home to find the place a renewed shambles inhabited only by a dazedly wandering Joe the Guard and twenty blue-uniformed Little League moonball players sitting rigidly at attention in the foyer.

The chunkiest of these sprang up and barked at Flaxman, "Dear sir, we are fans and faithful followers of your Outer Sports and Space Rookie series. Our moonball team has been chosen by the Fannish Presidium to-"

"That's fine, that's wonderful," Flaxman bellowed, touseling the boy's hair and peering about anxiously as though he expected to find large holes in the fabric of the building. "Gaspard, buy these young heroes some ice cream. I'll talk to you later, boys. Joe, snap out of it and tell me what's happened. Miss Bishop, phone the Nursery. Zane, scout the storerooms. Miss Blushes, get me a cigar."

"There's been chaos raging through here and no mistake, Mr. Flaxman," Joe began dolefully. "Government raid. They come busting in through every door and the roof. Fat guy the others called Mr. Mears roughs me up and asks, 'Where are they? Where are those things that are going to write books?' So I show him the three eggheads up in Cullingham's office. He laughs sarcastic-like and says, 'I don't mean these. I know all about these-they're hopeless idiots. Besides, how could they do the work of wordmills, being so much smaller?' I say, 'They're not idiots, they're so smart they're nasty. Speak up, Rusty,' I say and would you believe it, that crazy egg won't say anything but, 'Goo-goo-goo!' Well, after that they just tore the place apart, hunting hidden wordmills. Even tested our big typewriters to see if they'd write anything by themselves. And they went into Accounting and chopped up the old computer. Top of everything else, they impounded my skunk pistol-said it was an internationally illegal horror-weapon, banned in perpetuity along with copper bullets, dum-dums, saw-tooth bayonets, and spring-poisoning chemicals."

"I talked to Miss Jackson," Nurse Bishop reported. "All twenty-nine brats present and accounted for-Miss Phillips got back safely with her three. They're still yelling for rolls. Pop had post-alcoholic convulsions but is resting quietly. Excuse me now."

She hurried to the ladies' room, followed by Miss Blushes, who had delivered Flaxman his cigar held by its tip at arm's length.

"Pardon me, nurse," the pink robix said when they were in the sacred precinct, "but there's a very personal question I've been dying to ask you. I hope you won't mind."

"Shoot."

"Well, up through this morning, nurse, I've always noticed that you were quite a sweater girl, if you understand what I mean. But now. ." She indicated with her gaze Nurse Bishop's modestly mounded chest.

"Oh, those!" Nurse Bishop frowned thoughtfully. "Tell you what, I just decided to get rid of them-they were too sexy."

"How brave of you!" Miss Blushes quavered. "I know about the Amazons, of course, but what a drastic step. You have more courage than I do-I even shrank from painting myself black when Saint Willi died. I've always been a coward in my inmost circuits. Nurse, you're so brave, tell me, does a feminine being feel utterly evil when she sacrifices honor and decency. . and her innocence. . for the mere pleasure of the one she loves and her own?"

"Hey, that's a leading question," Nurse Bishop objected, "but yep, she feels plastered thick every square inch with bright black evil. Is that what you wanted to know?"

Back in the foyer the chunky Little Leaguer, having bolted his ice cream, was approaching Flaxman resolutely when Joe, who'd been scratching his head, said suddenly, "I forgot to ask you, Mr. Flaxman, but when did Clancy Goldfarb start working for the government?"