“It draws on some of the same material as the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ idea....”

“Ah-hah!”

“But it’s a completely new concept. Fully science fictional. No historical or contemporary parts to it at all.”

“No realism?” Montpelier asked, with an expression that was close to a sneer.

“None.”

“I know Gabriel. He’s always trying to sneak some realism in.”

With a grin, Morgan realized that Montpelier had suckered himself. He had set up a strawman; now all Morgan had to do was to knock it down.

“Let me tell you about this idea,” Morgan said, hunching forward over the table conspiratorially. He hesitated just long enough to make Montpelier hold his breath, then started quoting again from the poopsheet:

“Picture a starship floating through space, just like any ordinary starship, like you see on all the shows, but this ship’s been designed by the man who invented the three-dee process. Accurate. Technically detailed. A perfect jewel, shining in the black velvet of the infinite interstellar wilderness. Now, aboard that starship....”

It was dark outside and people were starting to trickle in for dinner before Montpelier stopped asking questions about the show. Morgan was hoarse, as much from the nervous strain of improvising answers as from talking steadily for so many hours.

Montpelier was nodding. “It’s got scope all right. I like the whole idea. It’s got depth.”

“Uh-huh,” Morgan grunted. Then, as noncommittally as possible, he asked, “How’s B.F. reacting to it?”

Montpelier shook his head. “If it was anybody else except Gabriel, B.F. would’ve snapped it up.”

“Oh. I see.”

“As it is,” Montpelier went on, “he’s stuck me with the job of getting along with Gabriel and not letting Ron get to the top.”

“Oh?” Morgan felt his head go light.

“It’s a pretty shitty job.” Montpelier complained. “I’ll have to handle Gabriel and keep him away from B.F. We’ll have to settle on a damned executive producer, maybe Sheldon Fad. He’s hot right now.”

“Yes,” Morgan agreed, with a genuine smile. “I think he’d be fine.”

When Montpelier finally left the restaurant, there were stars in his eyes. Or dollar signs, Morgan reflected as he bade the executive goodbye and promised to be in touch with him the next day for some “hard-nosed, eyeball-to-eyeball, tough-assed money talk.”

Morgan went to the men’s room, threw up as he always did after one of these extended bull-flinging lunches, cleaned himself up, then found a phonebooth out near the bar. He sat down, closed the door firmly, and punched out Ron Gabriel’s number.

It was busy. With a sigh, Morgan punched Gabriel’s private number. Also busy. With a deeper sigh, he tried the writer’s ultraprivate “hot line” number. He can’t be carrying on three conversations at once. Morgan realized it was more a fond hope than a statement of fact.

A sultry brunette appeared on the tiny screen. “Mr. Gabriel’s line,” she moaned.

“Uh....” With a distant part of his mind, Morgan was pleased that he could still be shaken up by apparitions such as this one. “Is, uh, Mr. Gabriel there? This is Jerry Morgan, his agent.”

“I’ll see, Mr. Morgan,” she breathed.

The screen went gray for an instant, then Gabriel’s hardbitten features came on the tiny screen.

“Well? How’d it go?”

Morgan said, “I just finished having lunch with Les Montpelier....”

“God, you sound awful!” Gabriel said.

“I did a lot of talking.”

Gabriel’s face fell. “They don’t want the show. They hated the idea.”

“I talked it all out with Montpelier,” Morgan said. “Finger’s read the poopsheet and...” He hesitated.

“And?”

It was criminal to tease Gabriel, but Morgan got the chance so seldom.

“And what?” Gabriel demanded, his voice rising.

“And... well, I don’t know how to say it, Ron, so I might as well make it straight from the shoulder.”

Gabriel gritted his teeth.

“They’re buying it. We talk money tomorrow.”

For an instant, nothing happened. No change in Gabriel’s facing-the-firing-squad expression. Then his jaw dropped open and his eyes popped.

“What?” he squawked. “They bought it?” He leaped out of view of the phone’s fixed camera, then reappeared some ten meters further away. He jumped up and down. “They bought it! They bought it! Ha-ha! They bought it! Those birdbrains bought it!”

The sultry brunette, another girl whom Morgan vaguely remembered as Gabriel’s typist and a third woman rushed into the room. Gabriel was still bounding all over the place, crowing with delight.

With the smile of a man who’s put in a hard but successful day’s work, Morgan clicked off the phone and started on his way home.

4: THE PRODUCER

Sheldon Fad lay awake, staring at the ceiling as the sun rose over the Santa Monica Hills. Gloria snored lightly beside him, a growing mountain of flesh.

The baby was due in another month or so and Gloria had been no fun at all since she had found herself pregnant. No fun at all. Zero. Sheldon wondered, at quiet times like this, if it was really his baby that she was carrying. After all, she got pregnant suspiciously fast after moving in with him.

He frowned to himself. It all seemed so macho at first. An actress and dancer, lithe and exciting, Gloria had attached herself to Sheldon’s arm when she could have gone with any guy in Los Angeles. They were all after her. He had ignored the stories about the vast numbers who had succeeded in their quest. That was all finished, she had told him tearfully, the night she moved in. All she wanted was him.

Yeah, Sheldon told himself. Just me. And a roof over her head. And not having to go to work. And a two-pound box of chocolates every day. And her underwear dripping in the bathtub every time he tried to take a shower. And her makeup littered all over the bathroom, the bedroom, even in the refrigerator.

A bolt, as the song says, of fear went through him as he realized that in a month—probably less—there’d be an infant sharing this one-bedroom apartment with them. What did Shakespeare say about infants? Mewling and puking. Yeah. And dirty diapers. A crib in the corner next to the bed; Gloria had already mentioned that.

Shit! Sheldon knew he had to get out of it. He turned his head on the pillow and gazed sternly at Gloria’s face, serene and deeply asleep. It’s not my kid, he told himself savagely. It’s not!

And what if it is? another part of his mind asked. You didn’t want it. She told you she was fixed. You believe her? And her line about hemophilia, so she can’t have an abortion? Even if it is your kid, you didn’t ask for this.