There was a long pause. At last Norvell was able to croak,
"Who?"
Candella said triumphantly, "Stimmens."
Norvell was speechless. The thing was not possible. Stimmens? Wet behind the ears, untried, incompetent even at simple research? Stimmens who didn't even want to stay with the firm, who had the infernal gall to ask for a contract release? Stimmens?
His hand stretched out for the cards, and then he stopped, abashed, realizing he had forgotten to ask permission. "Go ahead," Candella said coldly.
Norvell scanned them in astonishment. Why, he thought, this is impossible—and this bit here, we can't——
"Mind if I play these, Mr. Candella?" he asked and, getting an ironic nod, fed the punch-cards into Candella's previewer. The circuits scanned the punched holes and built a scene of electronic slaughter for him. He watched the little fire-figures in growing apprehension.
When he looked up, he said, so bemused that he hardly remembered to be fearful, "Why, it's good."
"Of course it's good!"
"No, really good, Mr. Candella." He shook his head wonderingly. "Stimmens, eh? I never would have believed it. Of course, it's rough—the emotional values need bringing out. The comedy stuff with the vitriol pistols ought to follow a tense thriller like Man Versus Scorpions instead of another comedy number like the Octogenarians with Flame Throwers. But that's easy enough to fix. Race Against Man-Made Lightning is out too; Stimmens told me himself we couldn't get the equipment from Schenectady. I suppose he forgot."
Candella was looking at him with an indescribable expression, but Norvell raced on, babbling nervously. "Real originality, Mr. Candella. I—I must say I admire him. Piranhas in the aquatic meet! Wonderful. And the octogenarians are a terrific switch. Number after number I've never heard of! I have to admit it, Mr. Candella, that boy has talent."
Candella said dangerously, "What the hell are you talking about?"
Norvell stammered, "Why, the—the originality, Mr. Candella. The freshness."
Candella hardly heard him; he was mumbling to himself as he riffled through sheets of paper. He pounded them with his fist and glared at Norvell.
"Originality! Bligh, do you think I'm nuts? Do you think I'm crazy enough to run untried novelties in a show like this?
Every one of these features has been a smash success somewhere in the country within the last ninety days."
"Oh, no! No, Mr. Candella, honest—I know. I've been getting all the reports, and none of this stuff—— Honesty Mr. Candella! I was saying to Stimmens just the other day, 'It's funny how little new stuff is turning up.' Gosh, Stimmens was doing the research himself, he ought to know!"
Candella exploded, "Look, you fool!" He tossed a sheaf of reports at Norvell.
They were all there. Names, dates, and places. Norvell looked up in horror. "Mis-ter Can-deMa," he whispered. "It's a doublecross!" His voice gained strength. "He wants a Fifteen rating. Just yesterday he tried to get me to recommend remission of his contract. I wouldn't do it; this is his way of getting even."
"Bligh! That's a serious charge!"
"Oh, I'll prove it, Mr. Candella. I've got the copies of his reports in my desk, under lock and key. Please, Mr. Candella —come into my office with me. Let me show you."
Candella stood up. "Show me," he ordered.
And ten minutes later he was saying grimly, "Thought I wouldn't call your bluff, eh?"
Norvell stared unbelievingly at the reports, face white as a sheet. They had been in his desk, locked with his key...
Arid they were not the reports he had seen. They sparkled with novelties; they showed all the magnificent new concepts in Stiminens's outline, and much, much more.
The papers shook in Norvell's hands. How? He couldn't have left the desk unlocked. Nobody had a key but him and Miss Dali—and she had no reason to do such a thing. There had been no chance for sleight of hand, no possibility his eyes had deceived him. Had he gone mad? Was it some chemical prank, the reports he saw in disappearing ink, the substituted ones then coming to light? How?
Over Norvell's desk set Candella was calling Stimmens in. The boy appeared, looking awed and deferential.
Mr. Candella said briefly, "Congratulations, Stimmens. You're the head of the department from this moment on. Move into your office whenever you like—this is your office. And throw this bum out." To Norvelclass="underline" "Your contract is canceled for cause. Don't ever try to get a job in this line again; you'll waste your time." He left without another word.
Norvell was entirely numb.
Stimmens said uneasily, "You could have avoided this. Don't think I enjoyed it. I've been working on it for six months, and I didn't have the heart to go through with it. I had to give you a chance; you turned it down."
Norvell stared, just stared. Stimmens went on defensively: "It isn't as if I just walked into it. Believe me, I earned this. What do I know about Field Days? Sweat, sweat, sweat; I haven't had a moment's peace."
Miss Dali walked in and kissed Stimmens, burbling: "Darling, I just heard! You wonderful Grade Fifteen you!"
"Oh," said Norvell in a sick voice.
They said more, but he didn't hear; it was as if his hearing aid were turned off, but the switch was not in his pocket but in his mind. He was out on the street before he realized what he was doing . . . and what had happened to the contract career of Norvell Bligh.
The thing was, Virginia.
Norvell came up to that point in his thinking as he had come a thousand times before and, like a thousand times before, he backed away from it. He ordered another drink.
No contract status, no bubble-house. It would be Belly Rave, of course. Norvell took a deep swallow of the drink. Still, what was so bad about Belly Rave? You'd be out in the fresh air a lot, at the least. You wouldn't starve—nobody ever starved, that much everybody knew. He could find something to do, probably. The allotments would take care of eating; his extra work—whatever it turned out to be—would give him a chance to save a little money, make a fresh start, maybe find a place in the old section of the city. Not like the bubble-houses, of course, but better than Belly Rave, from all he'd heard.
He wished one more time that he knew a little more about Belly Rave. Funny, considering that Virginia had been born there; but she had never wanted to talk about it.
And there he was, back on the subject of Virginia again.
How she would take it was another matter. He really couldn't guess. She had been so resolutely, reliably silent on the subject of Belly Rave and all it concerned. Her childhood, t her parents and even her husband, the power-cycle stunter whose crash in a long-ago Field Day had left young Norvell Bligh with a tearless widow to jolly out of filing a claim. He had married her instead; and Candella had made an unforgivable joke. . . . No. He faced it. He hadn't married her; she had married him—and not even him, really, but a contract job and a G.M.L. house.
He dialed another drink.