The Best of L. Sprague de Camp

"Ovid, I don't like the look on Peshkov's face. He's drinking himself stiff, and he looks the way he did the night he shot all the panes out of the picture window."

"Oh," said Falck-Ross.

"Can't you hurry this thing through before he gets worse?"

"It'll take half or three-quarters of an hour yet, but I'll do my best."

Ross went back on the stage. The thirteen girls remaining in the contest paraded as before while Falck-Ross introduced them: "Miss Shirley Archer ... Miss Loretta Day ... Miss Mary Ferguson ..."

It did, as he had foreseen, take a lot of time, during which Peshkov's pudding-face stared at him with unnerving blankness between cocktails.

After consultation, the judges eliminated all but three contestants:

Shirley Archer, Loretta Day, and Claire La Motte. These paraded one by one as before, then lined up on the stage. Falck-Ross began a whispered consultation with Baum and Aldi. Left to himself, Ross would have had trouble choosing among the three girls. He thought that, aside from personal sentiments, Miss Day had perhaps a slight edge.

Marcus Ballin, whose taste ran to cones, preferred Miss Archer. Joseph Aldi, whose bent lay in the direction of hemispheres, argued as stoutly for Miss Day. Falck-Ross spoke up for Miss La Motte on the ground that, presenting an intermediate or spheroconoidal form, she embodied the golden mean.

Ballin and Aldi would not be budged. At last Ballin whispered:

"Put down your second and third choices. We can't stand here arguing all afternoon."

When the choices for the lesser places were written down, it was found that both Ross and Ballin had named Miss Day for second.

"Okay," said Ballin. "Ovid and I will go along with you, won't you, Ovid? Day it is. Now we'll pick second and third prizes. I'd give La Motte second ..."

As Claire was chosen second, Miss Archer took third. Baum stepped to the edge of the stage with his arms up and cried:

"Ladies and gentlemen: By unanimous opinion of the judges, first prize in this great and unique Outstanding Knitwear Company bustbeauty contest is awarded to Miss Loretta Day—"

"Stop!" said a voice.

"What was that?" said Ballin.

"I said stop!" It was Peshkov, erect and weaving. "De best-looking girl is obvious Miss Claire La Motte. To give de first prize to anodder one is obvious capitalistic injostice. I order you to change your decision. Oddervise, to de penal camps of Siberia!"

"What—what—" sputtered Ballin. Then he pulled himself together and assumed an air as regal as that of the ex-commissar. He gestured to a couple of waiters.

"Remove this man!"

At that moment, in a control booth of the Telagog Company, Gilbert Falck reached down, felt around until he had located his upper fishline, and pulled. When he had drawn the line as far as it would go, he let go one end and pulled on the other until he had the whole thing in his hands. He stuffed the string into his pants pocket. Now he was controlling Bundy's ballet dancer, while Bundy, unknowing in the next booth, was controlling his trade-journal staff writer.

In a dance studio, where the ballet dancer was performing hopefully under the eyes of a troupe manager in the expectation of being hired, he suddenly fell to the floor. Questions and shaking failed to rouse him. He lay where he had fallen, staring blankly and making odd walking motions with his legs and arms as if he were still erect.

At the same instant, while the waiters designated by Ballin as bouncers were staring apprehensively at their quarry, Ovid Ross took off in a tremendous leap from the stage and began bounding around the showroom, leaping high into the air to kick his heels together and flinging his arms about. Ross, imprisoned in his skull, was as astonished as anyone. He thought Falck must have gone mad.

Ross's astonishment changed to terror as he saw that he was bearing down on Bogdan Peshkov. The ex-commissar took a pistol from under his coat and waved it, shouting in Russian.

Bang! Glass tinkled. Ross took off in another leap that brought him down right on top of Peshkov. His body slammed into that of the ex-commissar. The two crashed into Peshkov's table. They rolled to the floor in a tangle of limbs and broken glass and table legs.

Ross found that his body was still kicking and flapping its arms. A kick accidentally sank into Peshkov's paunch and reduced the Muscovite to a half-comatose condition.

Then the seizure left Ross's body. He rose to his feet, fully under his own control. Everybody was talking at once. Several men gripped Peshkov while another gingerly held his pistol. Spectators crawled out from under tables.

Ross looked around, took a deep breath, and walked to the stage. Ballin was flapping his hands while Miss Archer had hysterics.

Ross faced the disorganized audience and bellowed: "Attention, everybody! All but those holding Mr. Peshkov take your seats. We will now go on with the contest. Waiters, mop up the spilled liquor.

See that everybody has what he wants. Mr. Ballin was announcing the final results when he was interrupted. He will continue from there on."