Everybody got into the act - everybody but Mr. Stone; he listened with a dour try-to-make-me-laugh expression.
Hazel finished her grand cliff-hanging finale by knocking over her coffee She plucked the cup out of the air and had a napkin under the brown flood before it could reach the floor under the urge of the Moon's leisurely field. "Well?" she said breathlessly to her son, while still panting from the Galactic Overlord's frantic attempts to escape a just fate. "How about it? Isn't that a dilly? Did we scare the dickens out of 'em or didn't we?"
Roger Stone did not answer; he merely held his nose. Hazel looked amazed. "You didn't like it? Why, Roger, I do believe you're jealous. To think I would raise a son with spirit so mean that he would be envious of his own mother!"
Buster spoke up. "I liked it Let's do that part over where I shoot the space pirate." He pointed a finger and made a buzzing noise. "Whee! Blood all over the bulkheads!"
"There's your answer, Roger. Your public. If Buster likes it, you're in."
"I thought it was exciting," Meade put in. "What was wrong with it, Daddy?"
"Yes," agreed Hazel belligerently. "Go ahead. Tell us."
"Very well. In the first place, spaceships do not make hundred-and eighty-degree turns."
"This one does!"
"In the second place, what in blazes is this "Galactic Overlord" nonsense? When did he creep in?"
"Oh, that! Son, your show was dying on its feet, so I gave it a transfusion."
"But "Galactic Overlords" - now, really! It's not only preposterous: it's been used over and over again."
"Is that bad? Next week I'm going to equip Hamlet with atomic propulsion and stir it in with The Comedy of Errors. I suppose you think Shakespeare will sue me?"
"He will if he can stop spinning." Roger Stone shrugged 'I'll send it in. There's no time left to do another one and the contract doesn't say it has to be good: it just says I have to deliver it. They'll rewrite it in New York anyway."
His mother answered, "Even money says your fan mail is up twenty-five per cent on this episode."
"No, thank you. I don't want you wearing yourself out writing fan mail - not at your age."
"What's wrong with my age? I used to paddle you twice a week and I can still do it. Come on; put up your dukes!"
"Too soon after breakfast."
"Sissy! Pick your way of dying - Marquis of Queensbury, dockside, or kill-quick."
"Send around your seconds; let's do this properly. In the meantime –" He turned to his sons. "Boys, have you any plans for today?"
Castor glanoed at his brother, then said cautiously, "well, we were thinking of doing a little more shopping for ships.
"I'll go with you."
Pollux looked up sharply. "You mean we get the money?" His brother glared at him. Their father answered, "No, your money stays in the bank where it belongs."
"Then why bother to shop?" He got an elbow in the ribs for this remark.
"I'm interested in seeing what the market has to offer," Mr. Stone answered. "Coming, Edith?"
Dr. Stone answered, "I trust your judgement, my dear."
Hazel gulped more coffee and stood lip. "I'm coming along."
Buster bounced down out of his chair. "Me, too!"
Dr. Stone stopped him. "No, dear. Finish your oatmeal."
"No! I'm going, too. Can't I, Grandma Hazel?"
Hazel considered it. Riding herd on the child outside the pressurised city was a full-time chore; he was not old enough to be trusted to handle his vacuum-suit controls properly. On this occasion she wanted to be free to give her full attention to other matters. "I'm afraid not, Lowell. Tell you what, sugar, I'll keep my phone open and we'll play chess while I'm away."
"It's no fun to play chess by telephone. I can't tell what you are thinking."
Hazel stared at him. "So that's it? I've suspected it for some time. Maybe I can win a game once. No, don't start whimpering - or I'll take your slide rule away from you for a week." The child thought it over, shrugged, and his face became placid. Hazel turned to her son. "Do you suppose he really does hear thoughts?"
Her son looked at his least son. "I'm afraid to find out." He sighed and added, "Why couldn't I have been born into a nice, normal, stupid family? Your fault, Hazel."
"His mother patted his arm. "Don't fret, Roger. You pull down the average."
"Hummph! Give me that spool. I'd better shoot it off to New York before I lose my nerve."
Hazel fetched it; Mr. Stone took it to the apartment phone, punched in the code for RCA New York with the combination set for high speed transcription relay. As he slipped the spool into its socket he added, "I shouldn't do this. In addition to that "Galactic Overlord" nonsense, Hazel, you messed up the continuity by killing off four of my standard characters."
Hazel kept her eye on the spool; it had started to revolve. "Don't worry about it. I've got it all worked out. You'll see."
"Eh? What do you mean? Are you intending to write more episodes? I'm tempted to go limp and let you struggle with it - I'm sick of it and it would serve you right. Galactic Overlords indeed!"
His mother continued to watch the spinning spool in the telephone. At high speed relay the thirty-minute spool zipped through in thirty seconds. Shortly it went spung! and popped up out of the socket; Hazel breathed relief. The episode was now either in New York, or was being held automatically in the Luna City telephone exchange, waiting for a break in the live Luna-to-Earth traffic. In either case it was out of reach, as impossible to recall as an angry word.
"Certainly I plan to do more episodes," she told him. "Exactly seven, in fact."
"Huh! Why seven?"
"Haven't you figured out why I am killing off characters? Seven episodes is the end of this quarter and a new option date. This time they won't pick up your option because every last one of the characters will be dead and the story will be over. I'm taking you off the hook, son."
"What? Hazel, you can't do that! Adventure serials never end."
"Does it say so in your contract?"
"No, but -"
"You've been grousing about how you wanted to get off this golden treadmill. You would never have the courage to do it yourself, so your loving mother has come to the rescue. You're a free man again, Roger."
"But -" His face relaxed. "I suppose you're right Though I would prefer to commit suicide, even literary suicide, in my own way and at my own time. Mmm. .. see here, Hazel, when do you plan to kill off John Sterling?"
"Him? Why, Our Hero has to last until the final episode, naturally. He and the Galactic Overlord do each other in at the very end. Slow music."
"Yes. Yes, surely... that's the way it would have to be. But you can't do it"
"Why not?"
"Because I insist on writing that scene myself. I've hated that mealy-mouthed Galahad ever since I thought him up. I'm not going to let anyone else have the fun of killing him; he's mine!"
His mother bowed. "Your honour, sir."
Mr. Stone's face brightened; he reached for his pouch and slung it over his shoulder. "And now let's look at some space-ships!"
"Geronimo!"
As the four left the apartment and stepped on the slid eway that would take them to the pressure lfft to the surface Pollux said to his grandmother, "Hazel, what does "Geronimo" mean?"
"Ancient Druid phrase meaning "Let's get out of here even if we have to walk." So pick up your feet."
III - THE SECOND-HAND MARKET
They stopped at the Locker Rooms at East Lock and suited up. As usual, Hazel unbelted her gun and strapped it to her vacuum suit. None of the others was armed; aside from civic guards and military police no one went armed in Luna City at this late date except a few of the very old-timers like Hazel herself. Castor said, "Hazel, why do you bother with that?"