The Starcrossed

Just then the elevator stopped with a sickening lurch and the flimsy doors opened with a sound like aluminum foil crinkling.

Everything here happens on cue, Oxnard thought as they stepped out into the studio.

The laser system was indeed working quite well. Montpelier clapped his hands in childish glee and pronounced it “Perfect!” as they ran through the demonstration tapes, although Oxnard noted, from his perch alongside the chief engineer’s seat in the control booth, that the output voltage on the secondary demodulator was down a fraction. Nothing to worry about, but he tapped the dial with a fingernail and the engineer nodded knowingly.

No sense scaring them, Oxnard thought. He went down the hall to the cafeteria and munched a sandwich with Brenda and Montpelier. There wasn’t much conversation. Oxnard put on the abstrated air of a preoccupied scientist: his protective camouflage, whenever he didn’t know what to say and was afraid of making a fool of himself.

Finger and his New York bankers glowed with the aura of haute cuisine and fine brandy when they entered the . studio. Despite the NO SMOKING signs everywhere, they all had long black Havanas clamped in their teeth. Finger had changed his costume; now he wore a somber, stylish Pickwick business suit, just as the bankers wore. Protective coloration, Oxnard thought. I’m not the only one who uses camouflage.

The men from New York were old; no Vitaform Processing for them. Their faces were lined, their mouths tight, their eyes suspicious. Three of them were lean and flinty. The fourth outweighed his three partners and Finger combined. He looked hard, not fat, like an overaged football lineman. Oxnard had seen his type in Las Vegas, watching over their casinos through dark glasses.

“And this is the inventor of the three-dee system,” Finger said, smiling and waving Oxnard over to him. “Dr. William Oxnard. Come on over, Bill. Don’t be shy. I want you to meet my friends here… they can be very helpful to a brilliant young scientist looking for capital.”

Oxnard shook hands with each of them in turn. Their hands were cold and dry, but their grips were tight, as if they seldom let go easily.

Then Finger led them to the plush chairs that had been lined up for them around the receiver console. Ashstands were hurriedly set up at each elbow, while Finger stood in front of the bankers, scowling and shouting orders to his aides with a great flourish of armwaving. Montpelier and Brenda sat off to one side in plain folding chairs. Oxnard went back to the control consoles, got a fully confident nod from the chief engineer and then walked toward the cameras.

The lights in the studio went down, slowly at first, almost imperceptibly— then very suddenly dwindled to total darkness, except for a single overhead spot on Finger, who was still standing in front of the bankers.

“Everything seems to be in readiness,” Finger said at last. “Gentlemen… once again may I present to you Dr. William Oxnard, the genius who invented the holographic home entertainment system.”

Bill Oxnard stepped into the spotlight. Finger scuttled to the seat beside the beefy New Yorker, who had— sure enough—put on dark eyeglasses.

“Thank you, Mr. Finger. Gentlemen… as you very well know, three-dimensional holographic entertainment systems are the biggest thing to sweep the industry since the original inception of the old black-and-white television broadcasting, about a half-century ago.

“For the first time, fully three-dimensional projections can be shown in the home, using receiving equipment that is cheap enough for the average householder to buy, while low enough in manufacturing cost to provide an equitable profit to the manufacturers and distributors…”

“We are neither manufacturers nor distributors, young man,” rasped one of the frail-looking bankers. “We are here to see if Titanic has anything worth investing in. Spare us the preliminaries.”

Bill nodded and suppressed a grin. “Yessir. What Titanic has, in brief, is a new and improved holographic photography system; as you know, the three-dimensional images now received over home sets are spotty, grainy, and streaked with quantum scintillations…”

“Looks like the actors’re always standin’ in a pile of sequins,” said the beefy one, with a voice like a cement truck shifting gears.

“You mean confetti,” one of the flinty ones corrected.

Beefy turned slowly, making his chair creak under his bulk. “Naw. I mean sequins.”

“I call it snow!” Finger broke in brightly. “But whatever you call it, the effect’s the same. Watching three-dee gives you a headache after a while.”

Beefy muttered something about headaches and Flinty returned his attention to Oxnard.

“Very well, young man,” he said. “What are you leading up to?”

“Simply this,” Oxnard replied, smiling to himself. “My laboratory… “

“Your laboratory?” one of the bankers snapped. “I thought you worked for the RHB-General Combine?”

“I was Director of Research for their Western Labs, sir,” Oxnard said, feeling the old acid seething in his guts. “I resigned when we had a difference of opinion about the royalties from my original holographic system inventions.”

“Ahh,” wheezed the oldest of the quartet of bankers. “They squeezed you out, eh?” He cackled to himself without waiting for Oxnard’s answer.

“At any rate,” Oxnard went on, feeling his face burn, “I now own my own modest laboratory and we’ve developed a much improved holographic projection system. The patents have come through on the new system and Titanic Productions has taken an option on the exclusive use of the new system for home entertainment purposes.”

“What difference does the new system make?” Beefy asked. “Three-dee is three-dee.”

“Not quite correct, sir,” Oxnard replied. “The old system is very grainy. It does give viewers headaches after an hour or so. You see, the impedance matching of the primary…”

“Skip the technical details,” Finger called out. “Show us the results.”

Oxnard blinked. For a moment he was terribly conscious of where he was, of the cold light streaming down over him, of the people he was speaking to. He longed for the safety of his familiar laboratory.

But he pressed onward. “All right. Basically, my new system gives an absolutely perfect image. No distortions, no scintillations, no visible graininess or snow. Unless you’re an engineer and you know precisely what to look for, you can’t tell a projected image apart from someone actually standing in front of you.”

“And that’s what you’re going to demonstrate to us?” Flinty asked.

“Yes, sir. With the help of one of you gentlemen. Would one of you care to step up here in the spotlight with me?”

They all looked at each other questioningly, but no one moved from his chair. After a few seconds, Bernard Finger said, “Well I’ll do it, if nobody else…”

Beefy pushed him back down into his seat. Finger landed on the padding with an audible thwunk!

“I’ll do it,” Beefy said, with a grin that was almost boyish “Always wanted t’be in show business… like my cumpar’ Frankie…”

He lumbered into the spotlight, glanced around, suddenly self-conscious.

Oxnard stretched out his right hand. “Thank you for volunteering,” he said. His palms were suddenly sweaty.

Beefy reached for Oxnard’s hand. His own heavy paw went through Oxnard’s.

The other bankers gasped. Beefy stared at his own hand, then grabbed at Oxnard’s image. He got nothing but air.

“Actually I’m ’way over here,” Oxnard said, as a couple of technicians pushed aside the screen that had hidden him from their view. He looked up from the tiny monitor he had been watching and saw the bankers, more than fifty yards across the huge empty studio. Beefy was standing under the spotlight, gaping at Oxnard’s three- dimensional image; the others were half out of their chairs, craning for a view of where Oxnard really was standing.