Free Cyberbooks by Ben Bova Page A

human being can. What do editors do that computers can't?
    His ruminations were interrupted by Lori's stepping through the Boss's office door and out into the corridor. A grim-faced gray-haired man clutching a long trailing sweep of narrow white sheets of paper fluttering behind him like the tail of a kite bolted past them like an underweight halfback being pursued by the first-string defense. He brushed so close to Lori that she jumped into Carl's arms.
    "Who was that?" he asked, releasing her as the gray flash disappeared down the hall.
    "Grenouille, the assistant managing editor," Lori said without moving from his side. "He's always in a rush."
    Carl shook his head. "This is an odd place."
    "Isn't it, though?" Lori laughed.
    As they headed back toward her office, Lori said, "How's your hotel room?"
    He shrugged. "It's a hotel room. Okay, I guess. It's walking distance to the office."
    "My apartment's down in the Village. How about letting me cook you dinner tonight?"
    "Fine!"
    "And then you can come and watch me dance."
    Carl tried to stop his face from reddening, but he could feel his cheeks turning hot. "Uh, okay, sure."
    Lori grinned up at him.
    *
    Alba Blanca Bunker sat on the edge of the enormous round waterbed waiting for her husband. She was tired. It had been a hectic, exhausting day. The new line of historic novels was not selling well. It had seemed so right : a line of novels based on true history, the actual deeds and romantic exploits of some of history's greatest figures—Cary Grant, Lynn Redgrave, Willie Nelson, Barbara Walters. But despite a six-million-dollar publicity campaign, the books were moldering in the warehouses. Nobody seemed to want them.
    She sighed deeply and lay back on the waterbed, allowing her filmy white peignoir to drape itself dramatically across the tiger-striped sheets. She studied the effect in the overhead mirror. This bedroom had been their fantasy place when they had first built this home out of a converted warehouse next to the Disneydome, years earlier. With voice command either she or her husband could convert the hologrammic decor from jungle to desert, from underwater to outer space. With a sad little smile she remembered how the circuitry had blown itself out in a shower of sparks during one particularly vocal bout of lovemaking.
    Nothing like that had happened for many years now. The room was a cool forest green, the scent of pine in the whispering breeze, the hint of a full moon silvering the drawn draperies of the window.
    She knew where her husband was. In his office talking to Beijing, trying desperately to nail down the deal that would open up the Chinese market. A billion potential customers! It could mean the salvation of Bunker Books.
    Or could this MIT whiz kid be their salvation? His invention worked, there was no denying it. How much would he want for it? How much would it cost to start a whole new line of operations, electronic books instead of paper ones? That's why we need the China deal, she told herself, to provide the capital for developing the electronic book. Otherwise . . .
    There was still the tender offer from Tarantula Enterprises. Pandro would never sell his company. Never. He had built it practically from scratch, with nothing but the ten million his father had loaned him. Bunker Books was his creation, and he would go to hell and burn eternally before he would sell the company or any part of it.
    Still—if she could get him to pretend to consider the Tarantula offer, they might be able to raise some capital from a few insiders down on Wall Street. No, that wouldn't work. Pandro wouldn't stoop to such chicanery. He would plug ahead stubbornly trying to close the China deal with those elusive, wily Orientals. She did not trust men who spoke so politely, yet never quite seemed to do what they said they would.
    The electronic book. We've got to have it. And somehow find the money to develop it. Nothing else matters. It's either that or