“That’s not true, Ron,” Brenda said. “He wants you to work for him. He needs you. He’s desperate.”
Gabriel stopped in midsentence and stared at her. “He needs me?”
Brenda nodded gravely.
“Good! Tell him to go engage reflexively in sexual intercourse.”
It took Oxnard a moment to interpret that one, although Brenda giggled immediately.
“No, Ron. I’m serious. B.F.’s really in a bind and you’re the only one who can pull him out.”
“Got any rocks? Heavy ones?”
“Wait a minute,” Oxnard heard himself say. They both turned toward him. “Before we go any further, you ought to know… I invented the holographic projection system.”
Half expecting Gabriel to leap for his throat, Oxnard sat tensed in his chair, ready to defend himself verbally or physically.
“You invented it?” asked Gabriel incredulously.
“I’m Bill Oxnard. The jerk who started this three-dee stuff.”
They talked. They sat in the comfortably furnished living room, draped with towel and robes while the rain made background music for them, and talked for hours. One of the girls from further back in the house wandered sleepily into the room, naked, looking for the kitchen and murmuring about a midnight snack. The phone next to Gabriel’s chair rang a couple of times and he snarled into it briefly. Oxnard told him about the exciting days when he was perfecting the first holographic system, how the corporate executives had beamed at him and given him bonuses. And then how they tossed him out of the corporation when he asked for a share of the royalties they were reaping.
“They screwed you out of your own invention,” Gabriel said, with real pain in his voice. “Just like they’ve screwed me out of my royalties.”
“It was my own stupid fault,” Oxnard said. “I was so wrapped up in the technical work that I didn’t pay any attention to the legal side.”
“Why the hell should you have to?” Gabriel demanded. “If those pricks were honest men you wouldn’t have to worry about them sticking it to you. They were clean clothes, but their skins are slimy. The bastards.”
Gabriel showed Oxnard his own three-dee set and they turned it on. The Keir Dullea similacrum appeared in miniature, hovering in the far comer of the living room, riding a model spacecraft across a simulated Martian crater. The images looked solid, but they sparkled and shimmered.
“Most of that’s in the transmission system,” Oxnard said, squinting at the scintillations in the images. “But I think I can improve the picture quality a little, if you have a toolkit handy.”
Gabriel produced a toolkit. Oxnard went happily to work on the mahogany-like plastic console that housed the threedee receiver, tinkering with the controls in the back.
Brenda, meanwhile, outlined Titanic Productions’ precarious fiscal situation. By the time Oxnard rejoined the conversation, she was saying:
“Of course, he’s screaming that he’ll never deal with you again. Repeat, never. But he knows that he needs a good show right away and you’ve got the imagination and talent to create it for him.”
Gabriel was lying fiat on the Rya carpet, stretched out in front of the sofa on which Brenda was sitting. She had her legs tucked demurely under her, Oxnard noticed. Keir Dullea had ridden off into the sunset, so Oxnard turned off the set.
“No, I won’t work for Finger. That sonofabitch is just too slimy to deal with. He’d sell his own mother to the cannibals.”
“But you wouldn’t have to deal with Finger,” Brenda urged. “You could work with Les.…”
“That turd!”
“And me.”
Gabriel heaved a deep sigh, making the towel around his middle flutter slightly. “It would be nice, baby. I’d really like to work with you. You’re one of the few honest people left in this town…”
“I’d enjoy working with you, too, Ron. You know that.” Oxnard found himself frowning at both of them.
“But…” Gabriel said, his voice distant and small, “I’ve gotten so emotionally involved.…”
“You?”
“Yeah. With this ‘Romeo and Juliet’ project. I really wanted to tackle Shakespeare. Bring the Old Bard up to date. There’s no greater challenge to a writer. I wanted to show them all that I could do it.”
Brenda shook her head. “No, I don’t think ‘Romeo and Juliet’ would be right for The Tube. Those New York bankers want something sound and safe… not Shakespeare. They need something much more conventional, like science fiction.”
“Science fiction!” Gabriel complained. “Is that all those frogbrains can think of? I’m sick of science fiction; it’s on every network, every show. Why can’t we do something new, fresh, original?”
“Like ‘Romeo and Juliet?’ Oxnard asked, sitting down beside Brenda.
“Yeah, why not?” Gabriel countered.
“Ron, Titanic won’t go for a show that deals with the networks or the studios,” Brenda said. “That’s realism! You know how they steer clear of that. Why, even the news programs get permission before they put anything real on the air.”
“Yeah, I know.” Tiredly.
Oxnard said, “No starcrossed lovers, then.”
Brenda started to reply, but Gabriel said, “What was that?”
“Huh? Oh, I said… no starcrossed lovers. You know, Romeo and Juliet.”
Gabriel sat bolt upright. “Starcrossed loversl Holy shit! That’s it!” He leaped to his feet. “That’s it! Wow, what an idea!”
The towel started sliding downward and Gabriel made an automatic grab for it as he pranced around the room. “That’s it!” he said again. “That’s it!”
Brenda was grinning but she looked just as befuddled as Oxnard felt. “What? Tell us.”
Pouncing atop the three-dee console, Gabriel shouted: “They want science fiction and I want Shakespeare. We’ll merge ’em… He stood on the console, stretched to his full height, flung his arms over his head and boomed:
“THE STARCROSSED!”
The towel fell to the floor.
Time lost its meaning. At some point the rain slackened, then died away altogether. The windows of the living room started to show the misty gray promise of a new day. Inside the room, Bill Oxnard felt himself being drawn into the chaotic vortex of creation. It was like being present at the creation of a new world.
“There’re these two families, see,” Gabriel was saying, oblivious of his nudity, “on two different spaceships. They’re merchants… they go from planet to planet, trading goods. You know, spices, hardware…”
“With a gambling casino in the back,” Brenda suggested.
Gabriel eyed her. “Maybe… maybe it would work. Well, anyway. One family has this guy, the youngest son of the head of the family…”
“And the other family has a daughter.”
“Right! The two families land on the same planet at the same time, see?”
Brenda nodded vigorously. “We could have a different planet every week… and the same major characters. That’s just what a good series needs!”
“Sure,” Gabriel agreed. “Good guest stars and the same regulars each week.”
“So the boy and girl fall in love,” Brenda said.
Gabriel was rubbing his hands together anxiously. “Right. But their families don’t like it. They compete with each other, see, for the interstellar trade. They don’t…”
“Wait a minute,” Oxnard said. “If these are interstellar ships there’s going to be a time factor involved. You know, the twin paradox.”
“The what?” Gabriel looked blank.
“If you travel at almost the speed of light, there’s a time dilation. The two families wouldn’t age at the same rate. The boy will get older than the girl or vice versa.”