Kate Wilhelm in Orbit - Volume One Read Online Free PDF

her, his hands playing over her bare body, his face pressed against her skin.
    “Cut!” Herb said. His voice was shaken. “Hire her,” he said. The man rose, glanced at the girl, sobbing now, and then quickly bent over and kissed her cheek. Her sobs increased. Her golden hair was down, framing her face; she looked like a child. John tore off the helmet. He was perspiring.
    Herb got up, turned on the lights in the room, and the window blanked out, blending with the wall, making it invisible. He didn’t look at John. When he wiped his face, his hand was shaking. He rammed it in his pocket.
    “When did you start auditions like that?” John asked, after a few moments of silence.
    “Couple of months ago. I told you about it. Hell, we had to, Johnny. That’s the six hundred nineteenth girl we’ve tried out! Six hundred nineteen! All phonies but one! Dead from the neck up. Do you have any idea how long it was taking us to find that out? Hours for each one. Now it’s a matter of minutes.”
    John Lewisohn sighed. He knew. He had suggested it, actually, when he had said, “Find a basic anxiety situation for the test.” He hadn’t wanted to know what Herb had come up with.
    He said, “Okay, but she’s only a kid. What about her parents, legal rights, all that?”
    “We’ll fix it. Don’t worry. What about Anne?”
    “She’s called me five times since yesterday. The sharks were too much. She wants to see us, both of us, this afternoon.”
    “You’re kidding! I can’t leave here now!”
    “Nope. Kidding I’m not. She says no plug-up if we don’t show. She’ll take pills and sleep until we get there.”
    “Good Lord! She wouldn’t dare!”
    “I’ve booked seats. We take off at twelve-thirty-five.” They stared at one another silently for another moment, then Herb shrugged. He was a short man, not heavy but solid. John was over six feet, muscular, with a temper that he knew he had to control. Others suspected that when he did let it go, there would be bodies lying around afterward, but he controlled it.
    Once it had been a physical act, an effort of body and will to master that temper; now it was done so automatically that he couldn’t recall occasions when it even threatened to flare any more.
    “Look, Johnny, when we see Anne, let me handle it. Right?” Herb said. “I’ll make it short.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “Give her an earful. If she’s going to start pulling temperament on me, I’ll slap her down so hard she’ll bounce a week.” He grinned happily. “She’s had it all her way up to now. She knew there wasn’t a replacement if she got bitchy. Let her try it now. Just let her try.” Herb was pacing back and forth with quick, jerky steps.
    John realized with a shock that he hated the stocky, red-faced man. The feeling was new, it was almost as if he could taste the hatred he felt, and the taste was unfamiliar and pleasant.
    Herb stopped pacing and stared at him for a moment. “Why’d she call you? Why does she want you down, too? She knows you’re not mixed up with this end of it.”
    “She knows I’m a full partner, anyway,” John said.
    “Yeah, but that’s not it.” Herb’s face twisted in a grin. “She thinks you’re still hot for her, doesn’t she? She knows you tumbled once, in the beginning, when you were working on her, getting the gimmick working right.” The grin reflected no humor then. “Is she right, Johnny, baby? Is that it?”
    “We made a deal,” John said coldly. “You run your end, I run mine. She wants me along because she doesn’t trust you, or believe anything you tell her any more. She wants a witness.”
    “Yeah, Johnny. But you be sure you remember our agreement.” Suddenly Herb laughed. “You know what it was like, Johnny, seeing you and her? Like a flame trying to snuggle up to an icicle.”
    At three-thirty they were in Anne’s suite in the Skyline Hotel in Grand Bahama. Herb had a reservation to fly back to New York on the six