Disraelian rhodomontade thundered compellingly. For Martin had the man
hooked. With unerring aim he had at the first try discovered Watt's
weakness--the uncomfortable feeling in a professionally arty town that
money-making is a basically contemptible business. Disraeli had handled
tougher problems in his day. He had swayed Parliaments.
Watt swayed, tottered--and fell. It took about ten minutes, all in all.
By the end of that time, dizzy with eloquent praise of his economic
ability, Watt had realized that while St. Cyr might be an artistic
genius, he had no business interfering in the plans of an economic
genius. Nobody told Watt what to do when economics were concerned.
"You have the broad vision that can balance all possibilities and show
the right path with perfect clarity," Martin said glibly. "Very well.
You wish Eden. You feel--do you not?--that I am unsuitable material.
Only geniuses can change their plans with instantaneous speed.... When
will my contract release be ready?"
"What?" said Watt, in a swimming, glorious daze. "Oh. Of course. Hm-m.
Your contract release. Well, now--"
"St. Cyr would stubbornly cling to past errors until Summit goes broke,"
Martin pointed out. "Only a genius like Tolliver Watt strikes when the
iron is hot, when he sees a chance to exchange failure for success, a
Martin for an Eden."
"Hm-m," Watt said. "Yes. Very well, then." His long face grew shrewd.
"Very, well, you get your release--_after_ I've signed Eden."
"There you put your finger on the heart of the matter," Martin approved,
after a very brief moment of somewhat dashed thought. "Miss Eden is
still undecided. If you left the transaction to somebody like St. Cyr,
say, it would be botched. Erika, you have your car here? How quickly
could you drive Tolliver Watt to Laguna? He's the only person with the
skill to handle this situation."
"What situa--oh, yes. Of course, Nick. We could start right away."
"But--" Watt said.
The Disraeli-matrix swept on into oratorical periods that made the walls
ring. The golden tongue played arpeggios with logic.
"I see," the dazed Watt murmured, allowing himself to be shepherded
toward the door. "Yes, yes, of course. Then--suppose you drop over to my
place tonight, Martin. After I get the Eden signature, I'll have your
release prepared. Hm-m. Functional genius...." His voice fell to a low,
crooning mutter, and he moved quietly out of the door.
Martin laid a hand on Erika's arm as she followed him.
"Wait a second," he said. "Keep him away from the studio until we get
the release. St. Cyr can still out-shout me any time. But he's hooked.
We--"
"Nick," Erika said, looking searchingly into his face. "What's
happened?"
"Tell you tonight," Martin said hastily, hearing a distant bellow that
might be the voice of St. Cyr approaching. "When I have time I'm going
to sweep you off your feet. Did you know that I've worshipped you from
afar all my life? But right now, get Watt out of the way. Hurry!"
Erika cast a glance of amazed bewilderment at him as he thrust her out
of the door. Martin thought there was a certain element of pleasure in
the surprise.
* * * * *
"Where is Tolliver?" The loud, annoyed roar of St. Cyr made Martin
wince. The director was displeased, it appeared, because only in
Costumes could a pair of trousers be found large enough to fit him. He
took it as a personal affront. "What have you done with Tolliver?" he
bellowed.
"Louder, please," Martin said insolently. "I can't hear you."
"DeeDee," St. Cyr shouted, whirling toward the lovely star, who hadn't
stirred from her rapturous admiration of DeeDee in technicolor overhead.
"Where is Tolliver?"
Martin started. He had quite forgotten DeeDee.
"You don't know, do you, DeeDee?" he prompted quickly.
"Shut up," St. Cyr snapped. "Answer me, you--" He added a brisk
polysyllable in Mixo-Lydian, with the desired effect. DeeDee wrinkled
her flawless brow.
"Tolliver went away, I think. I've got it mixed up with the picture. He
went home to meet Nick Martin, didn't he?"
"See?" Martin interrupted, relieved. "No use expecting DeeDee to--"
"But Martin is _here_!" St. Cyr shouted. "Think, think!"
"Was the contract release in the rushes?" DeeDee asked vaguely.
"A contract release?" St. Cyr roared. "What is this? Never will I permit
it, never, never, never! DeeDee, answer me--where has Watt gone?"
"He went somewhere with that agent," DeeDee said. "Or was that in the
rushes too?"
"But where, where, where?"
"They went to Atlantis," DeeDee announced with an air of faint triumph.
"No!" shouted St. Cyr. "That was the _picture_! The mermaid came from
Atlantis, not Watt!"
"Tolliver didn't say he was coming from Atlantis," DeeDee murmured,
unruffled. "He said he was going to Atlantis. Then he was going to meet
Nick Martin at his house tonight and give him his contract release."
"When?" St. Cyr demanded furiously. "Think, DeeDee? What time did--"
"DeeDee," Martin said, stepping forward with suave confidence, "you
can't remember a thing, can you?" But DeeDee was too subnormal to react
even to a Disraeli-matrix. She merely smiled placidly at him.
"Out of my way, you writer!" roared St. Cyr, advancing upon Martin. "You
will get no contract release! You do not waste St. Cyr's time and get
away with it! This I will not endure. I fix you as I fixed Ed Cassidy!"
Martin drew himself up and froze St. Cyr with an insolent smile. His
hand toyed with an imaginary monocle. Golden periods were hanging at the
end of his tongue. There only remained to hypnotize St. Cyr as he had
hypnotized Watt. He drew a deep breath to unlease the floods of his
eloquence--
And St. Cyr, also too subhuman to be impressed by urbanity, hit Martin a
clout on the jaw.
It could never have happened in the British Parliament.
III
When the robot walked into Martin's office that evening, he, or it, went
directly to the desk, unscrewed the bulb from the lamp, pressed the
switch, and stuck his finger into the socket. There was a crackling
flash. ENIAC withdrew his finger and shook his metallic head violently.
"I needed that," he sighed. "I've been on the go all day, by the
Kaldekooz time-scale. Paleolithic, Neolithic, Technological--I don't
even know what time it is. Well, how's your ecological adjustment
getting on?"
Martin rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"Badly," he said. "Tell me, did Disraeli, as Prime Minister, ever have
any dealings with a country called Mixo-Lydia?"
"I have no idea," said the robot. "Why do you ask?"
"Because my environment hauled back and took a poke at my jaw," Martin
said shortly.
"Then you provoked it," ENIAC countered. "A crisis--a situation of
stress--always brings a man's dominant trait to the fore, and Disraeli
was dominantly courageous. Under stress, his courage became insolence.
But he was intelligent enough to arrange his environment so insolence
would be countered on the semantic level. Mixo-Lydia, eh? I place it
vaguely, some billions of years ago, when it was inhabited by giant
white apes. Or--oh, now I remember. It's an encysted medieval survival,
isn't it?"
Martin nodded.
"So is this movie studio," the robot said. "Your trouble is that you've
run up against somebody who's got a better optimum ecological adjustment
than you have. That's it. This studio environment is just emerging from
medievalism, so it can easily slip back into that plenum when an optimum
medievalist exerts pressure. Such types caused the Dark Ages. Well,
you'd better change your environment to a neo-technological one, where
the Disraeli matrix can be successfully pro-survival. In your era, only
a few archaic social-encystments like this studio are feudalistic, so go
somewhere else. It takes a feudalist to match a feudalist."
"But I can't go somewhere else," Martin complained. "Not without my
contract release. I was supposed to pick it up tonight, but St. Cyr
found out what was happening, and he'll throw a monkey-wrench in the
works if he has to knock me out again to do it. I'm due at Watt's place
now, but St. Cyr's already there--"
"Spare me the trivia," the robot said, raising his hand. "As for this
St. Cyr, if he's a medieval character-type, obviously he'll knuckle
under only to a stronger man of his own kind."
"How would Disraeli have handled this?" Martin demanded.
"Disraeli would never have got into such a situation in the first
place," the robot said unhelpfully. "The ecologizer can give you the
ideal ecological differential, but only for your own type, because
otherwise it wouldn't be your optimum. Disraeli would have been a
failure in Russia in Ivan's time."
"Would you mind clarifying that?" Martin asked thoughtfully.
"Certainly," the robot said with great rapidity. "It all depends on the
threshold-response-time of the memory-circuits in the brain, if you
assume the identity of the basic chromosome-pattern. The strength of
neuronic activation varies in inverse proportion to the quantative
memory factor. Only actual experience could give you Disraeli's
memories, but your reactivity-thresholds have been altered until
perception and emotional-indices approximate the Disraeli ratio."
"Oh," Martin said. "But how would _you_, say, assert yourself against a
medieval steam-shovel?"
"By plugging my demountable brain into a larger steam-shovel," ENIAC
told him.
* * * * *
Martin seemed pensive. His hand rose, adjusting an invisible monocle,
while a look of perceptive imagination suddenly crossed his face.
"You mentioned Russia in Ivan's time," he said. "Which Ivan would that
be? Not, by any chance--?"
"Ivan the Fourth. Very well adjusted to his environment he was, too.
However, enough of this chit-chat. Obviously you'll be one of the
failures in our experiment, but our aim is to strike an average, so if
you'll put the ecologizer on your--"
"That was Ivan the Terrible, wasn't it?" Martin interrupted. "Look here,
could you impress the character-matrix of Ivan the Terrible on my
brain?"
"That wouldn't help you a bit," the robot said. "Besides, it's not the
purpose of the experiment. Now--"
"One moment. Disraeli can't cope with a medievalist like St. Cyr on his
own level, but if I had Ivan the Terrible's reactive thresholds, I'll
bet I could throw a bluff that might do the trick. Even though St. Cyr's
bigger than I am, he's got a veneer of civilization ... now wait. He
trades on that. He's always dealt with people who are too civilized to
use his own methods. The trick would be to call his bluff. And Ivan's
the man who could do it."
"But you don't understand."
"Didn't everybody in Russia tremble with fear at Ivan's name?"
"Yes, in--"
"Very well, then," Martin said triumphantly. "You're going to impress
the character-matrix, of Ivan the Terrible on my mind, and then I'm
going to put the bite on St. Cyr, the way Ivan would have done it.
Disraeli's simply too civilized. Size is a factor, but character's more
important. I don't _look_ like Disraeli, but people have been reacting
to me as though I were George Arliss down to the spit-curl. A good big
man can always lick a good little man. But St. Cyr's never been up
against a really uncivilized little man--one who'd gladly rip out an
enemy's heart with his bare hands." Martin nodded briskly. "St. Cyr will
back down--I've found that out. But it would take somebody like Ivan to
make him stay all the way down."
"If you think I'm going to impress Ivan's matrix on you, you're wrong,"
the robot said.
"You couldn't be talked into it?"
"I," said ENIAC, "am a robot, semantically adjusted. Of course you
couldn't talk me into it."
Perhaps not, Martin reflected, but Disraeli--hm-m. "Man is a machine."
Why, Disraeli was the one person in the world ideally fitted for
robot-coercion. To him, men _were_ machines--and what was ENIAC?
"Let's talk this over--" Martin began, absently pushing the desk-lamp
toward the robot. And then the golden tongue that had swayed empires was
loosed....
"You're not going to like this," the robot said dazedly, sometime later.
"Ivan won't do at ... oh, you've got me all confused. You'll have to
eyeprint a--" He began to pull out of his sack the helmet and the
quarter-mile of red ribbon.
"To tie up my bonny grey brain," Martin said, drunk with his own
rhetoric. "Put it on my head. That's right. Ivan the Terrible, remember.
I'll fix St. Cyr's Mixo-Lydian wagon."
"Differential depends on environment as much as on heredity," the robot
muttered, clapping the helmet on Martin's head. "Though naturally Ivan
wouldn't have had the Tsardom environment without his particular
heredity, involving Helena Glinska--there!" He removed the helmet.
"But nothing's happening," Martin said. "I don't feel any different."
"It'll take a few moments. This isn't your basic character-pattern,
remember, as Disraeli's was. Enjoy yourself while you can. You'll get
the Ivan-effect soon enough." He shouldered the sack and headed
uncertainly for the door.
"Wait," Martin said uneasily. "Are you sure--"
"Be quiet. I forgot something--some formality--now I'm all confused.
Well, I'll think of it later, or earlier, as the case may be. I'll see
you in twelve hours--I hope."
The robot departed. Martin shook his head tentatively from side to side.
Then he got up and followed ENIAC to the door. But there was no sign of
the robot, except for a diminishing whirlwind of dust in the middle of
the corridor.
_Something began to happen in Martin's brain...._
Behind him, the telephone rang.
Martin heard himself gasp with pure terror. With a sudden, impossible,
terrifying, absolute certainty he _knew_ who was telephoning.
_Assassins!_
* * * * *
"Yes, Mr. Martin," said Tolliver Watt's butler to the telephone. "Miss
Ashby is here. She is with Mr. Watt and Mr. St. Cyr at the moment, but I
will give her your message. You are detained. And she is to call for
you--where?"
"The broom-closet on the second floor of the Writers' Building," Martin
said in a quavering voice. "It's the only one near a telephone with a
long enough cord so I could take the phone in here with me. But I'm not
at all certain that I'm safe. I don't like the looks of that broom on my
left."
"Sir?"
"Are you _sure_ you're Tolliver Watt's butler?" Martin demanded
nervously.
"Quite sure, Mr.--eh--Mr. Martin."
"I _am_ Mr. Martin," cried Martin with terrified defiance. "By all the
laws of God and man, Mr. Martin I am and Mr. Martin I will remain, in
spite of all attempts by rebellious dogs to depose me from my rightful
place."
"Yes, sir. The broom-closet, you say, sir?"
"The broom-closet. Immediately. But swear not to tell another soul, no
matter how much you're threatened. I'll protect you."
"Very well, sir. Is that all?"
"Yes. Tell Miss Ashby to hurry. Hang up now. The line may be tapped. I
have enemies."
There was a click. Martin replaced his own receiver and furtively
surveyed the broom-closet. He told himself that this was ridiculous.
There was nothing to be afraid of, was there? True, the broom-closet's
narrow walls were closing in upon him alarmingly, while the ceiling
descended....
Panic-stricken, Martin emerged from the closet, took a long breath, and
threw back his shoulders. "N-not a thing to be afraid of," he said.
"Who's afraid?" Whistling, he began to stroll down the hall toward the
staircase, but midway agoraphobia overcame him, and his nerve broke.
He ducked into his own office and sweated quietly in the dark until he
had mustered up enough courage to turn on a lamp.
The Encyclopedia Britannica, in its glass-fronted cabinet, caught his
eye. With noiseless haste, Martin secured _ITALY_ to _LORD_ and opened
the volume at his desk. Something, obviously, was very, very wrong. The
robot had said that Martin wasn't going to like being Ivan the Terrible,
come to think of it. But was Martin wearing Ivan's character-matrix?
Perhaps he'd got somebody else's matrix by mistake--that of some arrant
coward. Or maybe the Mad Tsar of Russia had really been called Ivan the
Terrified. Martin flipped the rustling pages nervously. Ivan, Ivan--here
it was.
Son of Helena Glinska ... married Anastasia Zakharina-Koshkina ...
private life unspeakably abominable ... memory astonishing, energy
indefatigable, ungovernable fury--great natural ability, political
foresight, anticipated the ideals of Peter the Great--Martin shook his
head.
Then he caught his breath at the next line.
Ivan had lived in an atmosphere of apprehension, imagining that every
man's hand was against him.
"Just like me," Martin murmured. "But--but there was more to Ivan than
just cowardice. I don't understand."
"Differential," the robot had said, "depends on environment as much as
on heredity. Though naturally Ivan wouldn't have had the Tsardom
environment without his particular heredity."
Martin sucked in his breath sharply. Environment does make a difference.
No doubt Ivan IV had been a fearful coward, but heredity plus
environment had given Ivan the one great weapon that had enabled him to
keep his cowardice a recessive trait.
Ivan the Terrible had been Tsar of all the Russias.
Give a coward a gun, and, while he doesn't stop being a coward, it won't
show in the same way. He may act like a violent, aggressive tyrant
instead. That, of course, was why Ivan had been ecologically
successful--in his specialized environment. He'd never run up against
many stresses that brought his dominant trait to the fore. Like
Disraeli, he had been able to control his environment so that such
stresses were practically eliminated.
Martin turned green.
Then he remembered Erika. Could he get Erika to keep St. Cyr busy,
somehow, while he got his contract release from Watt? As long as he
could avoid crises, he could keep his nerve from crumbling, but--_there
were assassins everywhere_!
Erika was on her way to the lot by now. Martin swallowed.
He would meet her outside the studio. The broom-closet wasn't safe. He
could be trapped there like a rat--
"Nonsense," Martin told himself with shivering firmness. "This isn't me.
All I have to do is get a g-grip on m-myself. Come, now. Buck up.
_Toujours l'audace!_"
But he went out of his office and downstairs very softly and cautiously.
After all, one never knew. And when every man's hand was against one....
Quaking, the character-matrix of Ivan the Terrible stole toward a studio
gate.
* * * * *
The taxi drove rapidly toward Bel-Air.
"But what were you doing up that tree?" Erika demanded.
Martin shook violently.
"A werewolf," he chattered. "And a vampire and a ghoul and--I _saw_
them, I tell you. There I was at the studio gate, and they all came at
me in a mob."
"But they were just coming back from dinner," Erika said. "You know
Summit's doing night shooting on _Abbott and Costello Meet Everybody_.
Karloff wouldn't hurt a fly."
"I kept telling myself that," Martin said dully, "but I was out of my
mind with guilt and fear. You see, I'm an abominable monster. But it's
not my fault. It's environmental. I grew up in brutal and degrading
conditions--oh, look!" He pointed toward a traffic cop ahead. "The
police! Traitors even in the palace guards!"
"Lady, is that guy nuts?" the cabbie demanded.
"Mad or sane, I am Nicholas Martin," Martin announced, with an abrupt
volte face. He tried to stand up commandingly, bumped his head, screamed
"_Assassins!_" and burrowed into a corner of the seat, panting horribly.
Erika gave him a thoughtful, worried look.
"Nick," she said, "How much have you had to drink? What's wrong?"
Martin shut his eyes and lay back against the cushions.
"Let me have a few minutes, Erika," he pleaded. "I'll be all right as
soon as I recover from stress. It's only when I'm under stress that
Ivan--"
"You can accept your contract release from Watt, can't you? Surely
you'll be able to manage that."
"Of course," Martin said with feeble bravery. He thought it over and
reconsidered. "If I can hold your hand," he suggested, taking no
chances.
This disgusted Erika so much that for two miles there was no more
conversation within the cab.
Erika had been thinking her own thoughts.
"You've certainly changed since this morning," she observed.
"Threatening to make love to me, of all things. As if I'd stand for it.
I'd like to see you try." There was a pause. Erika slid her eyes
sidewise toward Martin. "I said I'd like to see you try," she repeated.
"Oh, you would, would you?" Martin said with hollow valor. He paused.
Oddly enough his tongue, hitherto frozen stiff on one particular subject
in Erika's presence, was now thoroughly loosened. Martin wasted no time
on theory. Seizing his chance before a new stress might unexpectedly
arise, he instantly poured out his heart to Erika, who visibly softened.
"But why didn't you ever say so before?" she asked.
"I can't imagine," Martin said. "Then you'll marry me?"
"But why were you acting so--"
"Will you marry me?"
"Yes," Erika said, and there was a pause. Martin moistened his lips,
discovering that somehow he and Erika had moved close together. He was
about to seal the bargain in the customary manner when a sudden thought
struck him and made him draw back with a little start.
Erika opened her eyes.
"Ah--" said Martin. "Um. I just happened to remember. There's a bad flu
epidemic in Chicago. Epidemics spread like wildfire, you know. Why, it
could be in Hollywood by now--especially with the prevailing westerly
winds."
"I'm damned if I'm going to be proposed to and not kissed," Erika said
in a somewhat irritated tone. "You kiss me!"
"But I might give you bubonic plague," Martin said nervously. "Kissing
spreads germs. It's a well-known fact."
"Nick!"
"Well--I don't know--when did you last have a cold?"
Erika pulled away from him and went to sit in the other corner.
"Ah," Martin said, after a long silence. "Erika?"
"Don't talk to me, you miserable man," Erika said. "You monster, you."
"I can't help it," Martin cried wildly. "I'll be a coward for twelve
hours. It's not my fault. After eight tomorrow morning I'll--I'll walk
into a lion-cage if you want, but tonight I'm as yellow as Ivan the
Terrible! At least let me tell you what's been happening."
Erika said nothing. Martin instantly plunged into his long and
improbable tale.
"I don't believe a word of it," Erika said, when he had finished. She
shook her head sharply. "Just the same, I'm still your agent, and your
career's still my responsibility. The first and only thing we have to do
is get your contract release from Tolliver Watt. And that's _all_ we're
going to consider right now, do you hear?"
"But St. Cyr--"
"I'll do all the talking. You won't have to say a word. If St. Cyr tries
to bully you, I'll handle him. But you've got to be there with me, or
St. Cyr will make that an excuse to postpone things again. I know him."
"Now I'm under stress again," Martin said wildly. "I can't stand it.
_I'm_ not the Tsar of Russia."
"Lady," said the cab-driver, looking back, "if I was you, I'd sure as
hell break off that engagement."
"Heads will roll for this," Martin said ominously.
* * * * *
"By mutual consent, agree to terminate ... yes," Watt said, affixing his
name to the legal paper that lay before him on the desk. "That does it.
But where in the world is that fellow Martin? He came in with you, I'm
certain."
"Did he?" Erika asked, rather wildly. She too, was wondering how Martin
had managed to vanish so miraculously from her side. Perhaps he had
crept with lightning rapidity under the carpet. She forced her mind from
the thought and reached for the contract release Watt was folding.
"Wait," St. Cyr said, his lower lip jutting. "What about a clause giving
us an option on Martin's next play?"
Watt paused, and the director instantly struck home.
"Whatever it may be, I can turn it into a vehicle for DeeDee, eh,
DeeDee?" He lifted a sausage finger at the lovely star, who nodded
obediently.
"It's going to have an all-male cast," Erika said hastily. "And we're
discussing contract releases, not options."
"He would give me an option if I had him here," St. Cyr growled,
torturing his cigar horribly. "Why does everything conspire against an
artist?" He waved a vast, hairy fist in the air. "Now I must break in a
new writer, which is a great waste. Within a fortnight Martin would have
been a St. Cyr writer. In fact, it is still possible."
"I'm afraid not, Raoul," Watt said resignedly. "You really shouldn't
have hit Martin at the studio today."
"But--but he would not dare charge me with assault. In Mixo-Lydia--"