“Oh that,” Gabriel said. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll just make the ships go faster than fight.”
“But you can’t do that. It’s physically impos…”
Gabriel flapped a hand at him. “We’ll use a space warp. Been doing that for years.”
“But it’s not…”
“It’s dramatic license,” Brenda said.
Oxnard shook his head but kept silent.
“Okay,” Gabriel said. “Every week the kids are trying to get together and every week the families try to keep ’em apart. We can have them stowing away on each other’s ships, captured by the natives on the planets, lost in space… zowie, there’s a million storylines in this!”
“And we can have subplots every week,” Brenda said eagerly. “With all sorts of different characters and cultures on each planet they visit. It’s terrific!”
On and on they went, as the sky brightened outside and birds began to welcome the not-quite-risen sun. Gabriel pranced into his office and Brenda and Oxnard followed him into the cramped, cluttered little room. With an unlit pipe clamped between his teeth, Gabriel turned on his voicewriter, their free-for-all conversation began clattering out of the machine in black and white.
They sketched out the major characters while Gabriel ransacked the bookshelves lining the walls to find his Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare. The voicewriter dutifully typed up a summary of the series’ basic theme and outline, plus outlines for the first three hour-long segments. Then they went into details of characterizations, the types of actors needed, the costuming. Oxnard found himself doing most of the talking when it came to describing the spaceships and their equipment.
Finally it got uproariously funny. They began giggling at every line coming out of the voicewriter. When the machine obediently began typing, “Ha-Ha-Ha,” they broke up completely. Gabriel fell out of his desk chair onto the floor. Brenda had tears streaming down her cheeks. Oxnard felt as if his insides would burst. And they couldn’t stop laughing. Not until the machine ran out of paper and shut itself off. Seventeen sheets of “Ha-Ha-Ha” littered the office floor.
They staggered into the kitchen, breathless and squinting at the morning light. As coffee perked and orange juice defrosted, the blonde in the knit sweater came along. She was wearing stretch slacks and jewelry now, as well as the sweater.
“You guys sure were having a good time,” she said.
“Stay for breakfast,” Gabriel told her.
She smiled sweetly and kissed him on the nose. “Can’t, honey. Got to get back to the studio. I’m a working girl, you know. Not like you writers. ‘Bye!”
And off she flounced.
Sobering, Oxnard mumbled, “I ought to get back to my lab, too.”
“They can do without you for one day,” Brenda said.
“They did. Yesterday.”
“Grab a couple hours’ sleep first,” Gabriel said. “You can use the guest room.”
“Might be a good idea at that,” Oxnard let himself yawn. His eyes felt very heavy.
He was about to push himself up from the kitchen table when Gabriel put a steaming mug of coffee down in front of him and said:
“Listen, I appreciate all the advice you gave me about the spaceships and all. I want you to be my technical advisor for the series.”
“The series?”
“Yeah. ‘The Starcrossed.’ Remember?”
“I’m no technical advisor. I run a laboratory…”
Brenda was sitting across the table from him, with a curious expression on her sleepy face.
Gabriel said, “You know this science stuff. I’m going to need somebody I can trust, if we’re going to do this series right. Right, Brenda?”
She nodded and murmured, “Aye-aye, master.”
“But my responsibility’s to the lab. That’s…”
Gabriel wagged a finger at him. “You don’t have to leave the lab. All I’ll need is some advice now and then. Probably handle most of it on the phone. Maybe read the scripts when they’ve gotten to second draft.”
“My big chance in show biz,” Oxnard said.
“It’ll be a helluva help,” Gabriel said. “To me personally.”
Brenda nodded. “Finger will want you on the scene as a consultant anyway, on your new holographic process.”
“I suppose so,” Oxnard admitted.
Gabriel grasped him by the shoulder. “Go on, get some sleep. We can talk about it later.”
Oxnard nodded and got up wearily from the table. Padding down the hall toward the guest room, he wondered. what Gabriel and Brenda were going to do while he slept. Hell, you know what they’re going to do. The thought irked him. Greatly.
The guest room was midnight dark. Oxnard was completely blind the instant he let the door snap shut behind him. He took two cautious steps forward, hoping to make a less-than-shincracking contact with the bed, and stumbled against something soft.
It squirmed and he fell on top of it.
“Hey, whatcha… oh, Ron, it’s you,” a sleepy voice murmured.
They were sprawled on a sea of pillows that the girl had evidently strewn across the guest room floor.
“No, it’s not Ron.” Oxnard whispered, feeling rather flustered. He wished he had pockets to put his hands into.
“Oh? Who’re you?”
“Uh… Bill,” he said into the darkness. He still couldn’t see anything, but he felt her soft body and breathed in a tawny scent.
“What’s goin’ on?” another lissome voice whispered.
“It’s Bill,” said the first girl.
“Oh, gee, that’s nice.”
Oxnard felt another soft, warm body snuggle close to him. Four hands began fumbling with his robe. He thought furiously about the lab and his responsibilities. And about Brenda. He tried to remind himself that he was, after all, an adult who could take care of himself. He didn’t need… didn’t want… maybe they… but…
Finally, he said to himself: So this is show business.
3: THE AGENT
Jerry Morgan had two hysterical unemployed actresses in his waiting room, one tightlipped producer who was trying to break into comedy writing, and a receptionist who had just given two days’ notice. The actresses and producer were all formerly employed by Titanic Productions: a significant phenomenon, as Sherlock Holmes would have said if he’d been a theatrical and literary agent with an office off the Strip.
At the moment Morgan had a worse problem on his hands: a morose Ron Gabriel. It wasn’t like Gabriel to be downcast: ebullient, brassy, argumentative, noisy, egregious, foolhardy, irreverent—all those yes. Morgan was accustomed to seeing Gabriel in those moods. But morose? And—fearful?
Morgan studied his client’s face on the big view screen set into the wall of his private office. He had considered getting the phone company to put in a three-dee viewer, but so far hadn’t gotten around to it.
“So it’s been more than a week since Brenda brought the idea to Titanic,” Gabriel was saying, his voice low, “and I haven’t heard a word from her or anybody else.”
“Neither have I, Ron,” said Morgan as pleasantly as he could manage. “But, hell, you know Finger. He never moves all that quickly.”
“Yeah, but Brenda would’ve gotten back to me if there’d been some good news…”
Morgan glanced at the outline and fact sheet for “The Starcrossed” that rested on a corner of his desk.
“Did you give her the same poopsheet you gave me?” he asked.
Gabriel nodded. “We did it that morning, right on the voicewriter. Haven’t seen her since. She just took off…”