"I won!" Lora Becker shouted in ecstasy. People pushed and shoved around her, toward the Contest table, grabbing up their entries. Their voices grew in volume, an ominous rumble of discordant sound. Robants calmly moved furniture and fixtures back out of the way, clearing the floor rapidly. An unleashed frenzy of mounting hysteria was beginning to fill the big room.
"I knew it!" Julia's fingers tightened around Hull's arm. "Come on. Let's get out before they start."
"Start?"
"Listen to them!" Julia's eyes flickered with fear. "Come on, Nat! I've had enough. I can't stand any more of this."
"I told you before you came."
"You did, didn't you?" Julia smiled briefly, grabbing her coat from a robant. She fastened the coat rapidly around her breasts and shoulders. "I admit it. You told me. Now let's go, for God's sake." She turned, making her way through the surging mass of people toward the descent tube. "Let's get out of here. We'll have breakfast. You were right. These things aren't for us."
Lora Becker, plump and middle-aged, was making her way up onto the stand beside the judges, her entry clasped in her arms. Hull paused a moment, watching the immense woman struggle up, her chemically corrected features gray and sagging in the unwinking overhead lights. The third day -- a lot of old-timers were beginning to show the effects, even through their artificial masks.
Lora reached the stand. "Look!" she shouted, holding up her entry. The Worldcraft bubble glittered, catching the light. In spite of himself Hull had to admire the thing. If the actual world inside was as good as the exterior...
Lora turned on the bubble. It glowed, winking into brilliance. The roomful of people became silent, gazing up at the winning entry, the world that had taken the prize over all other comers.
Lora Becker's entry was masterful. Even Hull had to admit it. She increased the magnification, bringing the microscopic central planet into focus. A murmur of admiration swept the room.
Lora Becker's entry was masterful. Even Hull had to admit it. She increased the magnification, bringing the microscopic central planet into focus. A murmur of admiration swept the room.
"Wonderful," Bart Longstreet said softly, coming over beside Hull. "But the old hag has been at it sixty years. No wonder she won. She's entered every Contest I can remember."
"It's nice," Julia admitted in a clipped voice.
"You don't care for it?" Longstreet asked.
"I don't care for any of this!"
"She wants to go," Hull explained, moving toward the descent tube. "We'll see you later, Bart."
Bart Longstreet nodded. "I know what you mean. In many ways I agree. You mind if I --"
"Watch!" Lora Becker shouted, her face flushed. She increased the magnification to maximum focus, showing details of the minute city. "See them? See?"
The inhabitants of the city came into sharp view. They hurried about their business, endless thousands of them. In cars and on foot. Across spidery spans between buildings, breathtakingly beautiful.
Lora held the Worldcraft bubble up high, breathing rapidly. She gazed around the room, her eyes bright and inflamed, glittering unhealthily. The murmurings rose, sweeping up in excitement. Numerous Worldcraft bubbles came up, chest-high, gripped in eager, impassioned hands.
Lora's mouth opened. Saliva dribbled down the creases of her sagging face. Her lips twitched. She raised her bubble up over her head, her doughy chest swelling convulsively. Suddenly her face jerked, features twisting wildly. Her thick body swayed grotesquely -- and from her hands the Worldcraft bubble flew, crashing to the stand in front of her.
The bubble smashed, bursting into a thousand pieces. Metal and glass, plastic parts, gears, struts, tubes, the vital machinery of the bubble, splattered in all directions.
Pandemonium broke loose. All around the room other owners were smashing their worlds, breaking them and crushing them, stamping on them, grinding the delicate control mechanisms underfoot. Men and women in a frenzy of abandon, released by Lora Becker's signal, quivering in an orgy of Dionysian lust. Crushing and breaking their carefully constructed worlds, one after another.
"God," Julia gasped, struggling to get away, Longstreet and Hull beside her.
Faces gleamed with sweat, eyes feverish and bright. Mouths gaped foolishly, muttering meaningless sounds. Clothes were torn, ripped off. A girl went down, sliding underfoot, her shrieks lost in the general din. Another followed, dragged down into the milling mass. Men and women struggled in a blur of abandon, cries and gasps. And on all sides the hideous sounds of smashing metal and glass, the unending noise of worlds being destroyed one after another.
Julia dragged Hull from the lounge, her face white. She shuddered, closing her eyes. "I knew it was coming. Three days, building up to this. Smashed -- they're smashing them all. All the worlds."
Bart Longstreet made his way out after Hull and Julia. "Lunatics." He lit a cigarette shakily. "What the hell gets into them? This has happened before. They start breaking, smashing their worlds up. It doesn't make sense."
Hull reached the descent tube. "Come along with us, Bart. We'll have breakfast -- and I'll give you my theory, for what it's worth."
"Just a second." Bart Longstreet scooped up his Worldcraft bubble from the arms of a robant. "My Contest entry. Don't want to lose it."
He hurried after Julia and Hull.
"More coffee?" Hull asked, looking around.
"None for me," Julia murmured. She settled back in her chair, sighing. "I'm perfectly happy."
"I'll take some." Bart pushed his cup toward the coffee dispenser. It filled the cup and returned it. "You've got a nice little place here, Hull."
"Haven't you seen it before?"
"Haven't you seen it before?"
"Let's hear your theory," Julia murmured.
"Go ahead," Bart said. "We're waiting."
Hull was silent for a moment. He gazed moodily across the table, past the dishes, at the thing sitting on the window ledge. Bart's Contest entry, his Worldcraft bubble.
" 'Own Your Own World'," Hull quoted ironically. "Quite a slogan."
"Packman thought it up himself," Bart said. "When he was young. Almost a century ago."
"That long?"
"Packman takes treatments. A man in his position can afford them."
"Of course." Hull got slowly to his feet. He crossed the room and returned with the bubble. "Mind?" he asked Bart.
"Go ahead."
Hull adjusted the controls mounted on the bubble's surface. The interior scene flickered into focus. A miniature planet, revolving slowly. A tiny blue-white sun. He increased the magnification, bringing the planet up in size.
"Not bad," Hull admitted presently.
"Primitive. Late Jurassic. I don't have the knack. I can't seem to get them into the mammal stage. This is my sixteenth try. I never can get any farther than this."
The scene was a dense jungle, steaming with fetid rot. Great shapes stirred fitfully among the decaying ferns and marshes. Coiled, gleaming, reptilian bodies, smoking shapes rising up from the thick mud -
"Turn it off," Julia murmured. "I've seen enough of them. We viewed hundreds for the Contest."
"I didn't have a chance." Bart retrieved his bubble, snapping it off. "You have to do better than the Jurassic, to win. Competition is keen. Half the people there had their bubbles into the Eocene -- and at least ten into the Pliocene. Lora's entry wasn't much ahead. I counted several city-building civilizations. But hers was almost as advanced as we are."
"Sixty years," Julia said.
"She's been trying a long time. She's worked hard. One of those to whom it's not a game but a real passion. A way of life."
"And then she smashes it," Hull said thoughtfully. "Smashes the bubble to bits. A world she's been working on for years. Guiding it through period after period. Higher and higher. Smashes it into a million pieces."