The Astral Mirror (4 page)

Editorial sipped her Bloody Mary while Sub Rights stared out the restaurant window at the snarling Manhattan midtown traffic. The restaurant was only half-filled, even though this was the height of the lunch hour rush; the publishing business had been in the doldrums for some time. Suave waiters with slicked-back hair and European accents hovered over each table, anxious to generate tips through quality of service, when it was obvious that quantity of customers was lacking.

Sub Rights was a pale, ash-blonde woman in her late thirties. She had worked for Hubris Books since graduating from Barnard with stars in her eyes and dreams of a romantic career in the world of literature. Her most romantic moment had come when a French publisher’s representative had seduced her, at the height of the Frankfurt Book Fair, and thus obtained a very favorable deal on Hubris’s entire line of “How To” books for that year.

“I think you’ve hit it on the head,” Sub Rights said, idly stirring her Campari-and-soda with its plastic straw. “Books should be made of
paper,
not this electric machine thing.”

Editorial had worked for six publishers in the twelve years since she had arrived in New York from Kansas. Somehow, whenever the final sales figures for the books she had bought became known to management, she was invited to look for work elsewhere. Still, there were plenty of publishing houses in midtown Manhattan which operated on the same principle: fire the editor when sales don’t pan out, and then hire an editor fired by one of your competitors for the same reason.

“That’s what I think, too,” she said. Her speech was just a little blurred, her tinted auburn hair just a bit frazzled. This was her third Bloody Mary and they had not ordered lunch yet.

“I love to curl up with a book. It’s cozy,” said Sub Rights.

“Books are
supposed
to be made of paper,” Editorial agreed. “With pages that you can turn.”

Sub Rights nodded unhappily. “I said that to Production, and do you know what
he
said?”

“No. What?”

“He said I was wrong, and that books were supposed to be made of clay tablets with cuneiform marks pressed into them.”

Editorial’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s the end of an era. The next thing you know, they’ll replace us with robots.”

The chief engineer paced back and forth, hands clasped behind his back, as the two technicians worked feverishly on the robot. The entire assembly area of the factory was absolutely still; not a machine moved, all across the wide floor. Both technicians’ white coveralls were stained with sweat and oil, a considerable loss of face for men who prided themselves on keeping their machines in perfect working order.

The chief engineer, in his golden-tan coveralls and plastic hard hat, alternately glared at the technicians and gazed up at the huge digital clock dominating the far wall of the assembly area. Up in the glass-panelled gallery above the clock, he could see Mitsui Minimata’s young, eager face peering intently at them.

A shout of triumph from one of the technicians made the chief engineer spin around. The technician held a tiny silicon chip delicately between his thumb and forefinger, took two steps forward and offered the offending electronic unit to the chief engineer. The chief took it, looked down at the thumbnail-sized chip, so small and insignificant-seeming in the palm of his hand. Hard to believe that this tiny grain of sand caused the robot to malfunction and ruined an entire day’s work. He sighed to himself, and thought that this evening, as he relaxed in a hot bath, he would try to compose a haiku on the subject of how small things can cause great troubles.

The junior of the two technicians, in the meantime, had dashed to the automated supply dispenser across the big assembly room, dialed up a replacement chip, and come running back with the new unit pressed between his palms. The senior technicians installed it quickly, buttoned up the robot’s access panel, turned and bowed to the chief engineer.

The chief grunted a grudging approval. The junior technician bowed to the chief and asked permission to activate the robot. The chief nodded. The robot stirred to life, and it too bowed to the chief engineer. Only then did production resume.

The Sales Manager for Hubris Books stroked his chin thoughtfully as he sat behind his desk conversing with his western district sales director.

“But if they ever start selling these electronic doohickeys,” the western district man was saying, “they’ll bypass the wholesalers, the distributors, even the retail stores, for cryin’ out loud! They’ll sell those little computer disks direct to the customer! They’ll sell ‘em through the mail!”

“And over the phone,” the Sales Manager added wearily. “They’re talking about doing the whole thing electronically.”

“Where’s that leave us?”

“Out in the cold, buddy. Right out in the cold.”

Robert Emmett Lipton was not often nervous. His position in life was to make other people nervous, not to get the jitters himself. But he was not often summoned to the office of the CEO of Moribundic Industries. Lipton found himself perspiring as the secretary escorted him through the cool, quiet, elegantly-carpeted corridors toward the CEO’s private suite.

It wasn’t as if he had been asked to report to the bejewelled jackass who headed WPA Entertainment, out in Los Angeles. Lipton could deal with him. But the CEO was different; he had the real power to make or break a man.

The secretary was a tall, lissome, devastatingly beautiful woman: the kind who could marry a millionaire and then ruin him. In the deeper recesses of his mind, Lipton thought it would be great fun to be ruined by such a creature.

She opened the door marked
Alexander Hamilton Stark, Chief Executive Officer
and smiled at Lipton. He thought there was a trace of sadness in her smile, as if she never expected to see him again—alive.

“Thank you,” Lipton managed, as he stepped into the CEO’s private office.

He had seen smaller airport terminals. The room was vast, richly carpeted; furnished with treasures from the Orient in teak and ebony, copper, silver, and gold. Far, far across the room, the CEO sat behind his broad, massive desk of rosewood and chrome. Its gleaming surface was uncluttered.

Feeling small and helpless, like a pudgy little gnome suddenly summoned to the throne of power, Lipton made his way across the vast office, plowing through the thick carpeting with leaden steps.

The CEO was an ancient, hairless, wrinkled, death’s head of a figure, sitting hunched and aged in a high-backed leather chair that dwarfed him. For a ridiculous instant, Lipton was reminded of a turtle sitting there, staring at him out of dull reptilian eyes. With something of a shock, he suddenly realized that there was a third man in the room: a younger man, swarthy, dark of hair and jaw, dressed in a European-cut silk suit, sitting to one side of the massive desk.

Lipton came to a halt before the desk. There was no chair there, so he remained standing.

“Mr. Stark,” he said. “I’m so happy that you’ve given me this opportunity to report directly to you about the electronic book project.”

“You’ll have to speak louder,” the younger man said. “His batteries are running down.”

Lipton turned slightly toward him. “And you are?”

“I’m Mr. Stark’s personal secretary and bodyguard,” the young man said.

“Oh.”

“We hear that Hubris Books is in hock up to its elbows on this electronic book thing,” the bodyguard said.

“I wouldn’t...” Lipton stopped himself, turned toward the CEO and said, louder, “I wouldn’t put it that way. We’re pushing ahead on a very difficult project.”

“Don’t give up the ship,” the CEO muttered.

“We don’t intend to, sir,” said Lipton. “It’s quite true that we’ve encountered some difficulties in the electronic book project, but we are moving right ahead.”

“I have not yet begun to fight!” said the CEO.

Lipton felt himself frown slightly, puzzled.

The bodyguard said, “Our sources of information say that morale at Hubris is very low. And so are sales.”

“We’re going through a period of adjustment, that’s true...”

“Millions for defense,” the CEO’s quavering voice piped, “but not one cent for tribute.”

“Sir?” Lipton felt confused. What was the CEO driving at?

“Your costs are shooting through the roof,” the bodyguard accused.

Lipton felt perspiration beading his upper lip. “We’re involved in a very difficult project. We’re working with one of the nation’s top electronics firms to produce a revolutionary new concept, a product that will totally change the book business. It’s true that we’ve had problems— technical as well as human problems. But...”

“We have met the enemy,” croaked the CEO, “and they are ours.”

“I don’t want to be overly critical,” said the bodyguard-cum-secretary, with a smirk on his face that belied his words, “but you seem to have gotten Hubris to a point where sales are down, costs are up, and profits will be a long time coming.”

“But, listen,” Lipton replied, trying to keep his voice from sounding as if he were begging, “this concept of electronic books is going to sweep the publishing industry! We’ll be able to publish books for a fraction of what they cost now, and sell them directly to the readers! Our sales volume is projected to triple, the first year we’re on the market, and our profit margin...”

“Fifty-four forty or fight!” cackled the CEO.

“What?” Lipton blurted.

The bodyguard’s smile seemed knowing, cynical. “We’ve seen your projections. But they’re all based on the assumption that you’ll have the electronic books on the market next year. We don’t believe you can do that, not at the rate you’re going now.”

“As I said, we’ve had some problems here and there.” Lipton was starting to feel desperate. “We contracted with Moribundic’s electronics division, at first, to make the damned things, but they flubbed the job completely. They produced a monstrosity that weighed seventeen pounds and didn’t work half the time.”

The CEO shook his wizened head. “My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country.”

Suppressing an urge to run screaming out of the room, Lipton slogged forward. “The company we’re working with now is based in Silicon Valley, in California. At least they’ve got the electronics right. But they’ve got problems with their supply of parts. Seems there’s a trucker’s strike in Texas, where the chips are being manufactured. This has caused a delay.”

“And in the meantime, Hubris’ sales are sinking out of sight.”

“The whole book industry is in a bad way...”

The bodyguard raised his dark eyebrows half an inch, as if acknowledging the point. “But we’re hearing complaints about poor morale in the office. Not just down in the pits, but among your own executive board.”

Lipton growled, “Those dimwitted idiots can’t see any farther than their own paychecks! They’re afraid that the electronic book is going to take away their jobs.”

“Your profit-and-loss projections are based, in part, on eliminating most of their jobs, aren’t they?”

“Well, yes, of course. We won’t need them anymore.” The CEO’s frail voice became mournful. “It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work...” His voice sank to an unintelligible mumble, then rose again to conclude, “that these dead shall not have died in vain.”

As if the CEO were not in the room with them, or at least not in the same plane of reality, the bodyguard launched into a detailed analysis of Lipton’s electronic books project. He referred to it specifically as Lipton’s project. Hubris Books’ president felt sweat trickling down his ribs. His hands shook and his feet hurt as he stood there defending every dollar he had spent on the idea.

Finally, the bodyguard turned to the CEO, who had sat unmoving and silent for the past hour.

“Well, sir,” he said, “that brings us up to date on the project. The potential for great profits is there, but at the rate we’re going, the cost will drag the entire corporation’s P-and-L statement down into the red ink.”

The CEO said nothing; he merely sat hunched in his oversized chair, watery eyes blinking slowly.

“On the other hand,” the bodyguard went on, “our tax situation should be vastly improved by all these losses. If we continue with the electronic book project, we won’t have to worry about the IRS for the next three years, at least.”

Lipton wanted to protest, to shout to them that the electronic book was more than a tax dodge. But his voice was frozen in his throat.

“What’s your decision, sir?” the bodyguard asked.

The CEO lifted one frail hand from his desktop and slowly clenched it into a fist. “Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!”

Mitsui Minimata held his breath. Never in his happiest dreams had he entertained the idea that he would someday meet the Emperor face to face, in the Imperial Palace. Yet here he was, kneeling on a silken carpet, close enough to the Divine Presence to touch him.

Arrayed around Mitsui, also kneeling with eyes respectfully lowered, were the head of Kanagawa Industries, the vice president for innovation, and the chief engineer of the Numazu plant. All were dressed in ceremonial kimonos more gorgeous than Mitsui would have thought it was possible for human hands to create.

The Emperor was flanked by serving robots, of course. It was fitting that the Divine personage not be touched by human hands. Besides, his decision to have robots serve him presented the Japanese people with an example of how these new devices should be accepted into every part of life.

With trembling hands Mitsui placed the first production unit of the electronic book in the metal fingers of the robot that stood between him and the Emperor. The robot pivoted, making hardly more noise than the heel of a boot would on a polished floor, and extended its arm to the Emperor.

The Emperor peered through his glasses at the little electronic package, then picked it up. He had been instructed, of course, on how to use the book. But for an instant Mitsui was frightened that somehow the instructions had not been sufficient, and the Emperor would be embarrassed by being unable to make the book work. Suicide would be the only way out, in that case.