Читать книгу Galaxy Jane - Ron Goulart - Страница 8

Chapter 6

When the orange-feathered screenwriter leaped from his chair and up atop the conference table, trotted down half its length and attempted to throttle the handsome humanoid producer, the white-enameled public relations robot seated between Summer and Vicky down at their end of the long oval chuckled appreciatively. “This is what I mean about this picture being a lot of fun,” he said.

“Women’s angle!” cried the angry parrotman as he struggled to get a good feathery grip on the Galaxy Jane producer’s smooth tanned throat. “Geeze, Gonzer, this is a goddamn pirate flicker!”

The PR ’bot put his white fingers to his metallic lips.

“They clown around like this all the live-long day.”

“I noticed the scuff marks on the table,” said Summer.

The husky cyborg headwriter, seated next to the struggling producer, inclined his aluminum right hand in the direction of his agitated parrot colleague. “I don’t want to have to stun you again, Harl,” he said. “Calm down and return to your chair, old buddy.”

“Calm down! Calm down!” He left off his choking attempts. “We’re scripting an epic here, Gunner! It’s a sweeping saga of piracy and a gutsy plea for political understanding as regards the basic rights of the hungry and downtrodden—”

“Actually, gentlemen,” remarked an obese toadman at midtable, “you’ve exaggerated the political situation in your script. True, Galaxy Jane did become modestly involved in an uprising among the Green Men of Gravespawn while residing for—”

“Modestly involved! Modestly involved!” Shedding feathers, the parrot man went clomping along the table top to where the immense toad was sitting. “We’re talking, beanbrain, about a spiritual and moral revolution that profoundly affected a significant—”

“The motives of the renegade robot who led that long-ago revolt, this so-called Tin Mahatma, were nowhere so clearly defined as they appear in your rather simpleminded script, Mr. Grzyb. What you’ve failed—”

“Actually, Professor Bleistift,” said the cyborg author across the table, “I wrote most of the scenes dealing with the native uprising against the imperialistic—”

“Um,” said the pudgy blond young man who was sitting on the far side of Vicky. “All you folks keep throwing around terms like imperialistic, which tends to make it look as though my great grandfather—the illustrious Captain Thatcher King of the Royal Mounted Stungunners—was some sort of unsavory tool of an oppressive government. It’s bad enough, really, that your shabby script paints him as a twit who was shacking up with some unkempt lady crook. But when you further—”

“There’s considerable evidence,” put forth the toad professor, “that the captain did indeed carry on an affair with Galaxy Jane. As historical consultant on this important vidmovie I’d be neglecting my office did I not correct your—”

“A lot you know,” said the pudgy young man, rising off his glaz chair. “My mom sent you highly legible fax-copies of my great granddad’s journals. And there’s not one entry from the period we’re talking about in which he says a thing about fooling around with your Galaxy Jane or any other lady space pirate. Fact is, he habitually refers to her as ‘The Scourge of the Spaceways.’ That, I hardly have to point out, isn’t a term of endearment or—”

“Captain King’s wife back home,” said the handsome producer as he massaged his neck. “I like her. I see her sitting by the fireplace. Right, sitting by the fireplace with this journal open on her-lap. And she’s trying to read between the lines. Is her husband nurfing this pirate bimbo? Tears touch her—”

“My great-grandfather was entirely faithful. He rarely even—”

“The half-witted wife isn’t even in our script,” yelled Harlan Grzyb, hopping up and down in the middle of the big oval table. “This is another dumb example of how you’re turning this meaningful—”

Zzzzzzummmmmm!

The headwriter used the stungun built into his thumb. Grzyb stiffened, shed a small swirl of bright orange feathers, took two wobbly steps to his left and then fell over onto the toad professor.

The PR robot masked another amused chuckle with his white fingers. “These guys really give me a kick,” he said. “Kidding around from dawn to dusk. I hope you people take this joshing in the spirit in-which it’s int—”

“Thanks, Gunner,” said the producer.

“He’s young and he gets excited.” Gunner Hock left his chair, grabbed his unconscious colleague by the collar of his neotweed sportunic and lifted him clear of Professor Bleistift. “You can’t convince the kid this is just a job.” He carried Grzyb over into a corner and dropped him-on the thermocarpet. “Myself, Shifty, I’m commencing to love your troubled wife at home angle.”

“Sure, it’s another good women’s angle,” said Shifty Gonzer, smiling. “That never hurts our box office.”

“We put that together with the crippled daughter and we’ll—”

“Wait now,” said the blond young man. “There weren’t any handicapped people in the King family. My great-grandfather’s only daughter was, in point of fact, a famous tapdancer on the planet Barafunda in her day. She was graceful as a—”

“She’s only lame actually,” said the handsome Gonzer. “Then when Captain King recites this little prayer given to him by the Tin Mahatma we cut to her at home and she throws away her—”

“Sir,” said Professor Bleistift, clearing his throat, “a certain amount of license is certainly tolerable. However, I must remind you that Captain King and the Tin Mahatma were sworn enemies. Also, please recall, the religion the Tin Mahatma preached was not a gentle or forgiving one. A typical prayer among his followers ran …hum …‘Oh, Evil and Bloody Goddess of Death and Terror, send Swift and Painful Death to All who oppose our Sacred Cause! Aiiieeee! Kill! Kill!’ Hardly the thing to cure a lame tapdancer.”

“Granny Alice wasn’t crippled, she wasn’t even lame,” protested the King great-grandson.

“You people don’t, yet, understand the women’s angle,” Hock told them, scratching his copper nose with an aluminum finger.

Gonzer was scowling in his chair at the table’s head. “If we stun his schmuck during a story conference, does that futz up any of our agreements with the King family?”

Hock glanced around the big table. “We could put Bunker King, Jr. to sleep, Shifty. Legally, that is,” he said. “With these press people here sitting in, though, we better go easy. Don’t you think so, Jack?”

Summer said, “Right, Gunner. We wouldn’t be favorably impressed.”

“It’s bad enough you put poor Mr. Grzyb into a stupor,” said Vicky, angry. “I happen to have read several of the novels he wrote before he sold out to your people and he’s a brilliant writer. His I Have No Perch, Yet I Must Sing is the best bird novel written on our—”

“Bird novels?” Gonzer bounced once in his chair and gazed at her. “We’re trying to save a 90,000,000 trubux production and this skwack is giving me bird fiction.”

“Nugent,” said Hock, leaning in the producer’s direction.

“Hum?”

“She’s Victoria Nugent. Youngest daughter of Eli ‘NewzNet’ Nugent.”

After three seconds Gonzer turned his scowl to a smile. “Excuse my illiterate remarks, Miss Nugent.”

“If you ask me,” said Vicky, avoiding Summer’s mild nudge in the direction of her ribs, “poor unconscious Mr. Grzyb’s great novel Dangerous Birdcages would make a heck of better vidmovie than this dippy yarn about Galaxy—”

“I don’t agree there, miss,” said Bunker King, Jr. “My great-grandfather’s life is one of inspiring and admirable incident, his story should inspire young and old alike all across this universe of ours.”

“Plus it’s got a great women’s angle,” added Summer.