The Best of L. Sprague de Camp
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Год: 1978
- Язык: английский
- Год: Del Rey / Ballantine
- ISBN: 0-345-25474-0
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Best of L. Sprague de Camp». Краткое содержание книги:
The gray-haired woman returned with a playsuit. Claire departed at a trot. A few minutes later, she was back with a bundle of clothes.
Ross, as soon as he got his shorts on, strained to get his right hand into his pocket. Bundy let him do so and he pressed the button twice.
Under his own power, Ross walked back along the trail. He lagged behind Falck and Dorothea so that he could begin an elaborate and groveling apology:
"Uh. Claire."
"Yes?"
"I'm—uh—awfully sorry. I don't—uh—know ..."
"Sorry about what?"
"All this. This afternoon. I don't know what got into me."
"For heaven's sake don't apologize! I haven't had so much fun in years."
"You haven't?"
"No. I've had the time of my life. I didn't know you had it in you. By the way, what is this contest?"
A little confused, Ross told her about the contest to select the most beautiful bust. He expected her to spurn the suggestion with righteous wrath and outraged propriety. Instead, she said:
"Why, that was sweet of him! I'm very much flattered." She glanced down at her exhibits. "Tell him I'll be glad to enter if I can arrange to get off early enough Thursday."
Women, thought Ovid Ross, have no shame. As he climbed the fence, he revised the intention he had held to drop in at the offices of the Telagog Company, knock Mr. Jerome Bundy's block off, and demand that the company remove the receiver from his cranium forthwith. Bizarre though the actions of his controller might seem, they seemed to have added up to a favorable impression on Claire.
Moreover, this infernal contest still loomed ahead of him. While he could no doubt beg off from Ballin, such a cowardly act would lower him in Claire's eyes. He'd better plan for telagog control during this crisis at least.
Back on the Peshkovs' grounds, as he neared his automobile, he was intercepted by a stocky man with an expressionless moonface. The man wore an old-fashioned dark suit and even a necktie. Claire introduced the man as Commissar Peshkov—Bogdan Ipolitovich Peshkov.
Behind the man hovered another of similar appearance, wearing a derby hat. From what he had heard, Ross took this to be Fadei, the chauffeur-bodyguard. Peshkov extended a limp hand.
"Glad to mit you, Comrade," he said in a mournful voice. "I hup you had a nice time."
Ross shook the hand, collected his party, and drove off.
Early Thursday morning, Gilbert Falck entered the offices of the Telagog Company when nobody else was present. There was not even a single controller carrying a client through an early-morning crisis. Without hesitation, the young man got to work on the mechanism of his control booth and Jerome Bundy's next to it.
With a screwdriver he removed the panel that covered the wiring at the front of the booth. He traced the wiring until he found a place where the return motor leads of his booth and Bundy's ran side by side. With wire cutters he cut both wires and installed a double-pole double-throw knife switch. When the switch was down the controls would operate as usual; when it was up, he would control Bundy's client while Bundy controlled his. However, as the sensory circuits were not affected, each would continue to see, hear, and feel the sensations of his own client.
Falck did not consider himself a heel. But he had fallen heavily in love with Claire La Motte and deemed all fair in love. His effort to have Ross disgrace himself by uninhibited behavior in Westchester had backfired, so that Ross had ended up more solid with Claire than ever.
Ross, while he had not exactly complained to the company about the paces that Bundy had put him through, had asked them to go easy. This request had caused Falck's and Bundy's supervisor to glower suspiciously and to warn the two controllers not to try stunts. Therefore, Falck did not dare to undertake any direct bollixing of his client's actions or to ask Bundy to. He must work by a more subtle method.
He had already tried to date Claire by telephone. She, however, was free only on weekends and had been dated up solidly for the next two by Ross. After this afternoon's contest, some of those dates might no longer be so solid.
Falck measured the panel. With a hand auger, he drilled two tiny holes in it. Then he looped a length of fishline around the crosspiece of the knife switch and pushed both ends back through the upper hole in the panel from the back. He did likewise with another length of line through the lower hole, screwed the panel back into place, and tautened the lines.
Now he had only to pull hard on the upper double length of fishline to pull the switch from the down to the up position. Then, if he released one end of the line and reeled in the other, he would remove the line entirely from the works and could stuff it into his pocket. Similar operations with the lower line would return the switch to its original position.
Later, when the excitement had died down, he would remove the panel again and take out the switch. There was a chance, of course, that the electricians would come upon the switch in checking for trouble, but Gilbert Falck was no man to boggle at risks.
About ten on Thursday morning, Ross's telephone in the Gazette offices rang.
"Ovid? This is Claire. You won't have to meet my train after all."
"Why not?"
"Because Peshkov's driving me down."
"That guy! Is he planning to attend the contest?"
"So he says. Would Mr. Ballin mind?"
"Hm. I don't think so, but I'll call him and straighten it out. I got—I've got influence with him. Is Peshkov coming alone?"
"Well, he wouldn't let his family be contaminated by this example of bourgeois frivolity, but he wants to bring Fadei."
"The goon? No sir! Tell him he'll be welcome (I think) but no bodyguards."
Ross called the Outstanding Knitwear Company and persuaded a dubious Marcus Baum to let Peshkov attend the showing.
The contest took place in Marcus Ballin's showroom, directly underneath his lofts. Despite the swank decor of the showroom, the noise and vibration of the knitting machines came faintly through the ceiling. The showroom had been fixed up something like a nightclub, with a stage a foot high on one side and little round tables spread around in a double horseshoe.
There were over three hundred spectators present, including representatives from The Clothing Retailer and other garment-trade magazines. These distributed themselves around the tables, to which a group of hardworking servitors brought trayloads of cocktails and small edible objects on toothpicks.
While Ivory Johnstone's band from Harlem entertained the audience, Ballin and Ross lined up the contestants behind scenes. Each of the lovely ladies wore a lightweight Outstanding sweater.
These sweaters were so sheer that to Ross they seemed practically nonexistent, following every contour of their wearers' bodies with implacable fidelity. Under normal conditions, this spectacle would have reduced Ross to a state of stuttering embarrassment. But as Gilbert Falck was now operating his body, he could give no outward sign of his feelings.
With a worried frown, Ballin said: "Say, Ovid, where's that little redhead of yours?"
"I'll look." Ross put his head around the end of the backdrop to look over the audience.
Claire La Motte and Bogdan Peshkov were just coming in, the latter the only man in the room wearing a coat. Peshkov said something that Ross could not catch over the distance and hubbub, patted Claire's arm, waved her toward the stage, seated himself at one of the tables, and haughtily beckoned a waiter. Claire started uncertainly toward the stage, then sighted Ross and walked quickly to where he stood.
Ballin said: "All right, Miss La Motte, here's your sweater. This is the third judge, Joe Aldi." He indicated a swarthy, muscular young man with a dense glossy-black beard who stood by with his hands on his hips. "Just step behind that curtain to put it on. Nothing under it, you know."