'I don't believe I've ever been treated this high-handedly in my entire career!' blurted Finnister. 'I'm not entirely sure that -'
'Just a moment, please,' said Owling. He studied Gwen, who was smiling at him. The intelligence report said this woman was 'probable genius' and should be handled delicately.
'I'm only sorry the law doesn't give us the right to draft women, too!' barked Finnister.
'Then you wouldn't really have this problem, would you?' asked Gwen. She turned her smile on Finnister. It was full of beatitudes.
Owling said: 'I know we have full authority to handle this at our own discretion, General Finnister, and I agree that we've been subjected to some abuse but ... '
'Abuse!' Finnister said.
'And high time, too,' said Gwen.
A violent shudder passed through Battlemont. He thought: We are doomed!
'However,' said Owling, 'we mustn't let our personal feelings cloud a decision for the good of the service.'
'I hear the bugles blowing,' murmured Gwen.
'This agency was chosen as the one most likely to solve the problem,' said Owling.
'There could have been a mistake!' said Finnister.
'Not likely.'
'You are determined to turn this thing over to ... to ...' Finnister broke off, tapped her palms on the table top.
'It's advisable,' said Owling. He thought: This Gwen Everest will solve our problem. No problem could resist her. No problem would dare!
General Owling had become a Gwenophile.
'Very well, then,' snarled Finnister. 'I will reserve my judgment.'
General Finnister had become a Gwenophobe.
Which was part of Gwen Everest's program.
'I presume you two will be available for technical consultations from time to time,' said Gwen.
'Our subordinates take care of details,' said Owling. 'All General Finnister and I are interested in is the big picture, the key to the puzzle.'
'Big picture, key to puzzle,' mused Gwen. 'Wonderful idea.'
'What?' Owling stared at her, puzzled.
'Nothing,' said Gwen. 'Just thinking out loud.'
Owling stood up, looked at Finnister. 'Shall we be going?"
Finnister also stood up, turned toward the door at the end of the room. 'Yesss!'
Together, one on each side of the table, they inarched the length of the room: tump-a-thump-a-tump-a-thump-a-tump ... Just as they reached the door and Owling opened it, Gwen jumped to her feet. 'Charrrge!' she shouted.
The two officers froze, almost turned, thought better of it. They left, slamming the door.
Battlemont spoke plaintively into the silence. 'Gwen, why do you destroy us?
'Destroy you? Don't be silly!'
'But, Gwen ...'
'Please be quiet, Andre; you're interrupting my train of thought.' She turned to Leo Prim. 'Leo, take those sketches and things of that big-breasted Bertha they designed. I want adecal workups on them, full projos, the entire campaign outlay.'
'Big Bertha adecals, projos, the outlay,' said Prim. 'Right!'
'Gwen, what are you doing?' asked Battlemont. 'You said yourself that -'
'You're babbling, Andre,' said Gwen. She glanced up at the ceiling. An eye in one of the Cellini cupids winked at her. 'We got the usual solid recordings of this conference, I presume?'
'Of course,' said Battlemont.
'Take those recordings, Leo,' said Gwen. 'Do a sequence out of them featuring only General Sinister Sonnet Bonnet Finnister.'
'What'd you call her?' asked Prim.
* * * *
Gwen explained about the Finnister nicknames. 'The fashion trade knows all about her,' she finished. 'A living horror.'
'Yeah, okay,' said Prim. 'A solid sequence of nothing but Finnister. What do you want it to show?'
'Every angle of that uniform,' said Gwen. 'And the hat, Freud! Don't forget that hat!'
Battlemont spoke plaintively. 'I don't understand.'
'Good,' said Gwen. 'Leo, send me Restivo and Jim Spark ... a couple more of your best design people. Include yourself. We'll ...'
'And, lo! Ben Adam's name led all the rest,' said Battlemont,
Gwen turned, stared down at him. For one of the rare times in their association, Battlemont had surprised her with something he said.
I wonder if our dear Andre could be human? she mused. No! I must be going soft in the head. She said: 'Andre, go take a meditation break until time to call our next conference. Eh? There's a good fellow.'
Always before when she abused me it was like a joke between us, thought Battlemont dolefully. But now she is trying to hurt. His concern now was for Gwen, not for the agency. My Gwen needs help. And I don't know what to do.
'Meditation break time,' said Gwen. 'Or you could go to a mood bar. Why don't you try the new Interdorma mediniche? A niche in time saves the mind!'
'I prefer to remain awake for our last hours together,' said Battlemont. A sob clutched at his throat. He stood up to cover the moment, drew himself to attention, fixed Gwen with a despairing glare. 'I feel the future crouching over us like a great beast!' He turned his back on her, strode out through his private door.
'I wonder what the devil he meant by that?' mused Gwen.
Prim said: 'This is the month of St Freud. They go for prescience, extrasensory perception, that sort of thing.'
'Oh, certainly,' she said. 'I wrote the brochure.' But she found herself disturbed by Battlemont's departure. He looked so pitiful, she thought. What if this little caper backfires and he gets drafted? It could happen. Leo and the rest of these stranglers could take it. But Andre ... She gave a mental shrug. Too late to turn back now.
Department heads began pressing toward Gwen along the table. 'Say, Gwen, what about the production on ...' 'If I'm going to meet any deadlines I'll need more ... ' 'Will we have to drop our other ...'
'Shaddup!' bellowed Gwen.
She smiled sweetly into the shocked silence. 'I will meet with each of you privately, just as soon as I get in a fresh stock of crying towels. First things first, though. Number one problem: we get the monkey off our backs. Eh?'
And she thought: You poor oafs! You aren't even aware how close you are to disaster. You think Gwen is taking over as usual. But Gwen doesn't care. Gwen doesn't give a damn any more. Gwen is resigning in a blaze of glory! Into the valley of death rode the 600! Or was it 400? No matter. War is hell! I only regret that I have but one life to give for my agency. Give me liberty or give me to the WOMS.
Leo Prim said: 'You're going for the throat on these two military types, is that it?'
'Military tactics,' said Gwen. 'No survivors! Take no prisoners! Death to the White Eyes!'
'Huh?' said Prim.
'Get right on that assignment I gave you,' she said.
'Uhh ...' Prim looked down at the folder Owling had left. 'Workups on this Big Bertha thing ... a solido on Finnister. Okay.' He shook his head. 'You know, this business could shape up into a Complete Flap.'
'It could be worse than that,' Gwen cautioned.
Someone else said: 'It's absolutely the worst I've ever seen. Drafted!'
And Gwen thought: Ooooh! Someone has trepidations! Abruptly, she said: 'Absolutely worst flap.' She brightened. 'That's wonderful! One moment, all you lovely people.'
There was sudden stillness in the preparations for departure.
'It has been moved that we label this business the Absolutely Worst Flap,' she said.
Chuckles from the staff.
'You will note,' said Gwen, 'that the initials A-W-F are the first three letters in the word awful.'
Laughter.
'Up to now,' said Gwen, 'we've only had to content with Minor, Medium and Complete Flaps. Now I give you the AWF! It rhymes with the grunt of someone being slugged in the stomach!'
Into the laughter that filled the room, Prim said: 'How about the U and L in awful? Can't let them go to waste.'
'Unlimited!' snapped Gwen. 'Absolutely Worst Flap Unl
imited!' She began to laugh, had to choke it off as the laughter edged into hysteria. What in hell's wrong with me? she wondered. She glared at Prim. 'Let's get cracking, men! Isn't a damn one of you would look good in uniform.'
The laughter shaded down into nervous gutterings. 'That Gwen!'
Gwen had to get out of there. It was like a feeling of nausea. She pushed her way down the side of the room. The sparkle had gone out of her rebellion. She felt that all of these people were pulling at her, taking bits of herself that she could never recapture. It made her angry. She wanted to kick, bite, claw. Instead, she smiled fixedly. 'Excuse me. May I get through here? Sorry. Thank you. Excuse me.'
And an image of Andre Battlemont kept intruding on her consciousness. Such a pitiful little fellow. So ... well ... sweet-Dammit! Sweet! In a despicable sort of way.
* * * *
Twenty-five days slipped off the calendar. Twenty-five days of splashing in a pool of confusion. Gwen's element. She hurled herself into the problem. This one had to be just right. A tagline for her exit. A Gwen Everest signature at the bottom of the page.
Technical experts from the military swarmed all through the agency. Experts on suit articulation. Experts on shielding. Pressure coefficients. Artificial atmosphere. Waste reclamation. Sub-miniature power elements. A locksmith. An expert on the new mutable plastics. (He had to be flown in from the West Coast.)
Plus the fashion experts seen only by Gwen.
It was quite a job making sure that each military expert saw only what his small technical world required.
Came the day of the Big Picture. The very morning.
Adjacent to her office Gwen maintained a special room about 20 feet square. She called it 'my intimidation room.' It was almost Louis XV: insubstantial chairs, teetery little tables, glass gimcracks on the light fixtures, pastel cherubs on the wall panels.
The chairs looked as though they might smash flat under the weight of a medium-sized man. Each (with the exception of a padded throne chair that slid from behind a wall panel for Gwen) had a seat that canted forward. The sitters kept sliding off, gently, imperceptibly.
None of the tables had a top large enough for a note pad and an ashtray. One of these items had to be balanced in the lap or placed underfoot. That forced an occasional look at the carpet.
The carpet had been produced with alarming psychological triggers. The uninitiated felt that they were standing upside down in a fishbowl.
General Owling occupied one of the trick chairs. He tried to keep from staring at the cherub centered in a wall panel directly across from him, slightly to the right of the seated figure of Andre Battlemont. Battlement looked ill. Owling pushed himself backward in the chair. His knees felt exposed. He glanced at General Finnister. She sat to his right beyond a spindly table. She pulled her skirt down as he watched. He wondered why she sat so far forward on the chair.
Damned uncomfortable little chairs!
He noted that Battlemont had brought in one of the big conference room chairs for himself. Owling wondered why they all couldn't have those big, square, solid, secure chairs. For that matter, why wasn't this meeting being held in the big conference room? Full staff. The Big Picture! He glanced up at the wall panel opposite. Stupid damned cherub! He looked down at the rug, grimaced, tore his gaze away.
Finnister had looked at the rug when she came into the room, had almost lost her balance. Now, she tried to keep her attention off it. Her mind seethed with disquieting rumors. Individual reports from the technical experts failed to reveal a total image. It was like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces from separate puzzles all thrown together. She pushed herself backward in the chair. What an uncomfortable room. Intuition told her the place was subtly deliberate. Her latent anger at Gwen Everest flared. Where is that woman?
Battlemont cleared his throat, glanced at the door to his right through which Gwen was expected momentarily. Must she always be late? Gwen had avoided him for weeks. Too busy. Suddenly this morning she had to have Andre Battlemont front and center. A figurehead. A prop for her little show. He knew pretty much what she was doing, too. In the outward, physical sense. She might be able to keep things from some of the people around here, but Andre Battlemont ran his own intelligence system. As to what was going on in her mind, though, he couldn't be sure. All he knew was that it didn't fit. Not even for Gwen.
Finnister said: 'Our technical people inform us that you've been pretty interested -' she pushed herself back in the chair - 'in the characteristics of some of the newer mutable plastics.'
'That is true,' said Battlemont.
'Why?' asked Owling.
'Ahhh, perhaps we'd better wait for Miss Everest,' said Battlemont. 'She is bringing a solido projector.'
'You have mockups already?' asked Owling.
'Yes.'
'Good! How many models?'
'One. Our receptionist. Beautiful girl.'
'What?' Finnister and Owling in unison.
'Oh! You mean ... that is, we have the one to show you. It is really two ... but only one of ...' He shrugged, suppressed a shudder.
Finnister and Owling looked at each other.
* * * *
Battlemont closed his eyes. Gwen, please hurry. He thought about her solution to the military problem, began to tremble. Her basic idea was sound, of course. Good psychological roots. But the military would never go for it. Especially that female general who walked like a sergeant. Battlemont's eyes snapped open as he heard a door open.
Gwen came in pushing a portable display projector. A glance of mutual dislike passed between Gwen and Finnister, was masked by mutual bright smiles immediately.
'Good morning, everybody,' chirped Gwen.
Danger signal! thought Battlemont. She's mad! She's ... He stopped the thought, focused on it. Maybe she is. We work her so hard.
'Anxious to see what you have there,' said Owling. 'Just getting ready to ask for a progress report when you called this meeting.'
'We wanted to have something first that you could appreciate as an engineer,' said Gwen.
Owling nodded.
Finnister said: 'Our people report that you've been very secretive about your work. Why?'
'The very walls have ears. Loose lips lose the Peace! Don't be half safe!' Gwen positioned the projector in the center of the room, took the remote control, crossed to a panel which swung out to disgorge her chair. She sat down facing Finnister and Owling.
Seconds dragged past while she stared in fascination at Finnister's knees.
'Gwen?' said Battlemont.
Finnister tugged down on the hem of her skirt.
'What do you have to show us?' demanded Owling. He pushed himself back in the chair.
'First,' said Gwen, 'let us examine the perimeters of the problem. You must ask yourself: What do young women want when they enter the service?'
'Sounds sensible,' said Owling.
Finnister nodded, her dislike of Gwen submerged in attention to the words.
'They want several things,' said Gwen. 'They want travel ... adventure ... the knight errant sort of thing. Tally-ho!'
Battlemont, Finnister and Owling snapped to shocked attention.
'Gives you pause when you think about it,' murmured Gwen. 'All those women looking for something. Looking for the free ride. The brass ring. The pot at the end of the rainbow.'
She had them nodding again, Gwen noted. She raised her voice: 'The old carousel! The jingle-dingle joy journey!'
Battlemont looked at her sadly. Mad. Ohhh, my poor, poor Gwenny.
Owling said: 'I ... uh ...'
'But they all want one commodity!' snapped Gwen. 'And what's that? Romance! That's what's that. And in the unconscious mind what's that romance? That romance is sex!'
'I believe I've heard enough,' said Finnister.
'No,' said Owling. 'Let's uh ... this is all, I'm sure, preliminary. I want to know where ... after all, the model ... models they've developed ...'
'What's with sex when you get all t
he folderol off it?' demanded Gwen. 'The psychological roots. What's down there?'
Owling scratched his throat, stared at her. He had a basic distrust of subjective ideas, but he always came smack up against the fear that maybe (just maybe now) they were correct. Some of them appeared (and it could be appearance only) to work.
'I'll tell you what's down there,' muttered Gwen. 'Motherhood. Home. Security with a man. The flag.'