Sprague de Camp's New Anthology
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Год: 1953
- Язык: английский
- Год: Panther
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Sprague de Camp's New Anthology». Краткое содержание книги:
"Did you?" said Wolff.
"That's the sad part; even sadder'n when I got bumped off in Fatal Decision. It was a math book: plain, solid, and analytical geometry. I struggled through about half and gave up."
"Doesn't sound like you, Claude."
"No, does it? But I got to where the funny little diagrams and equations and things just went round and round when I looked at them. I couldn't make sense of them even by sitting up all night over a bucket of coffee. Maybe if I'd had a normal education instead of being in show-business from the age of six weeks, it might have been different. But it's too late to go back and begin over, like I did in Three Wishes."
Wolff yawed and stretched. "Oh, well, maybe there's some other science that doesn't require so much math. Say, haven't we seen enough of this God-forsaken scenery? How about a stretch on the beach?"
They had just come around Point Arguello and the road was undulating along a stretch of sand-dunes between the Coast Range and the sea. Godwin looked for a place to park and presently found a turnout. He stopped the Studebaker and got out, not bothering to raise the top because at that time of year the climatic engineers allowed rain only on Wednesdays.
They climbed down the sandy, grassy slope to the beach. A few yards away a heavy surf boomed against the hard-packed sand. The beach was a small crescent with its concave side facing seaward, perhaps a hundred yards long, and terminated at each end by a rocky promontory. The landscape seemed devoid of human life. Shoreward the olive-brown hills bore a scattering of oaks among the scrub.
Godwin took a sharp look to make sure that he could see his car from where they were, and started north. At the promontory he and Wolff had to scramble over the rocks and found themselves at the beginning of another little crescent of sand. They plodded north to the next promontory and were climbing over these rocks when Wolff (who, being the taller, was in the lead) drew in his breath sharply and held out a hand in warning.
Godwin halted, thinking that perhaps his friend had surprised a family of sea-lions or some such denizens of the wild. Wolff silently beckoned. Godwin moved up beside the other actor.
Just beyond the rocks, at the beginning of the next beach, a girl was lying naked on her back upon the sand, asleep in the sun. She was a girl of pretty good size—"brawny" was the word that occurred to Claude Godwin. She was moderately pretty in a flat-faced Oriental way, as if she were part Asiatic, but there was nothing Mongoloid about the carroty-red hair stirring in the breeze. Dark glasses protected her eyes from the sun, and her head lay on a handkerchief spread out upon the sand. Beside her a neat pile of clothing was held down by a small camera.
Wolff whispered: "Boy, ain't that something? What'll we do?"
Godwin murmured: "She's liable to get a bad burn sleeping in the sun that way, even this late in the year."
"She probably didn't mean to go to sleep. But we can't exactly wake her up to tell her so."
"N-no. On the other hand we can't just walk off as if nothing had happened ... that would be missing a gorgeous opportunity!"
"Say!" hissed Wolff. "I got an idea!" He outlined a plan.
"Swell," said Godwin. "But which of us does what with what?"
"Oh, I take it and you're in it."
"No sir! You'd make a better model than I."
"Can't! I'm running for king this winter!"
"Let's flip then."
Wolff won the toss. He cautiously climbed down and picked up the camera while Godwin silently removed his clothes and piled them on the rocks. When he was as nude as the girl he climbed down and stood beside her.
"If she wakes up now we'll have some explaining to do," he whispered.
"Don't make me laugh or she will. Now lie down beside her. No, on your back. No point doing it on your stomach."
Wolff retreated a few paces, adjusted the camera, and took a photograph of the recumbent pair. The automatic film-winder purred faintly and stopped with a click at the next frame. Godwin started to rise, but Wolff motioned him back, took two steps, and shot a picture from another angle.
This time Godwin did get up. While Wolff replaced the camera on the girl's pile of clothing, Godwin climbed back up on the rocks and dressed with guilty haste. When he had finished, both men crept down off the promontory on the south side and hiked swiftly back the way they had come. When they had put enough distance between themselves and the girl they let out their pent-up mirth in raucous war-whoops, capering and slapping each other on the back. "Boy, wait till she gets those pics back from the drug-store!"
"What wouldn't I give to see her face ..."
"Hey!" said Godwin suddenly. "Suppose she recognises me? I may not be Hollywood's most popular actor, but my puss does get around. My agent says I packed 'em in at Julianehaab in The Honour of the Clan,"
"What's Yooly-anna-hawp?"
"The capital of Greenland. Since the climate-control boys melted off the ice-cap the Greenlanders have become the world's most fanatical movie-goers. There's nothing else to do on the long winter nights."
"I wouldn't worry; your last few pictures all had you wearing a moustache, so they wouldn't know you without it."
They came to the place where they had first reached the beach and climbed back up the slope. When they were back in the car, Godwin drove slowly, peering ahead.
"Whatcha looking for?" said Wolff.
"Her car. She musta parked somewhere; nobody lives along this stretch ... Ah, there it is!"
He slowed to a crawl as they came abreast of another parked automobile. This was a typical Hollywoodian vehicle: an enormous pink Cadillac convertible with imitation python-skin upholstery. Godwin said:
"You'd swear that was a star's car, now wouldn't you? But I've never seen our sleeping beauty around the studios."
"Neither have I. She doesn't look to me like star-material anyway. She might belong to some actor or producer."
Godwin speeded up, saying: "We could look up her licence-number, but it's not worth the trouble. And what do I wanna get involved with strange dames for? I got enough trouble holding off the ones I know already."
"Well, you'd have a time convincing anybody who sees those pics you're not involved with her." At Godwin's look of alarm Wolff added: " 'Sall right, Claude old boy. When the paternity suit comes up I'll testify for you."
"That would be a big help. But I'm not worried. I look different without my makeup, and I'm too short to run for king like you, and some day I'll quit this racket, anyway."
Westbrook Wolff did indeed intend to run for King of the United States of America at the decennial contest to be held in Washington in December. For following the wars and revolutions of the twentieth century, the world in a frantic search for stability and security had revived the obsolete institution of monarchy. The United States had done so in a more rational manner than most nations. Instead of the nation's entrusting the choice of the monarch to the vagaries of heredity, the king and queen were chosen from Hollywood's bravest and fairest for ten-year terms at a beauty-contest in which the U.S. Senate served as judges.
In due course Claude Godwin returned to Hollywood. After several months of miscellaneous movie work he was chosen for the title-role of Sabatini's Scaramouche, being re-made for the eighth time in two centuries. When the inevitable delays postponed shooting for a few days he let himself be talked into attending a party at the house of his leading lady, Gloria Malloy.
About twenty-three hundred Godwin surveyed the scene and found it not to his liking. In one corner Gloria Malloy was giving the English actor Beaumont the low-down on the aberrations of Hollywood, in the process accusing practically every denizen of the cinematographic jungle of being queer in one way or another. In another corner Vakassian, the script-writer, was complaining to Cuevas, the bit-player, about the crass materialism of the motion-picture industry. In the third, Gloria's husband, Lauder the cameraman, was making love to Cuevas's wife. The fourth was occupied by a roaring crap game involving Finkelman the producer, Novalis the director, and McCarthy the sound technician. McCarthy's girl had fallen into the swimming-pool and had been sent home in a taxi, while Novalis's girl had passed out and been carried upstairs to recover.