The Lighter Side by Keith Laumer, Eric Flint Read Free Book Online

entrepreneur explained. "I confess I wasn't above purloining a little free footage of whatever it was he was staging. Then I saw you, sir, in action, and presto! I perceived the New Wave in the moment of its creation! Of course, I secured only about three minutes' actual product. We'll have to pad it out with another hundred hours or so of the same sort of action. I can already visualize a sequence in which you find yourself pursued by flesh-eating Dinosaurs, scale a man-eating plant for safety and are attacked by flying fang-masters, make a leap across an abyss of flaming hydrocarbons and, in a single bound, attain the safety of your twifler, just as it collides with a mountaintop!"
    "Ah . . . I appreciate your offer of employment," Waverly interposed, "but I'm afraid I lack the dramatic gift."
    "Oh, it won't be acting," Izlik handed over a slim glass of pale fluid and seated himself across from his guest. "No, indeed! I can assure you that all my productions are recorded on location, at the actual scenes of the frightful dangers they record. I'll see to it that the perils are real enough to inspire you to the highest efforts."
    "No." Waverly drained his glass and hiccupped. "I appreciate the rescue and all that, but now I really must be getting back to work—"
    * * *
    "What salary are you drawing now?" Izlik demanded bluntly.
    "Five hundred," Waverly said.
    "Ha! I'll double that! One thousand Universal Credits!"
    "How much is that in dollars?"
    "You mean the local exchange?" Izlik removed a note book from his sporran, writhed his features at it.
    "Coconuts . . . wampum . . . seashells . . . green stamps . . . ah! Here we are! Dollars! One Unicred is equal to twelve hundred and sixty-five dollars and twenty-three cents." He closed the book. "A cent is a type of cow, I believe. A few are always included in local transactions to placate Vishnu, or something."
    "That's . . . that's over a million dollars a month!"
    "A minute," Izlik corrected. "You'll get more for your next picture, of course."
    "I'd like to take you up on it, Mr. Izlik," Waverly said wistfully. "But I'm afraid I wouldn't survive long enough to spend it."
    "As to that, if you're to play superheroes, you'll naturally require superpowers. I'll fit you out with full S-P gear. Can't have my star suffering any damage, of course."
    "S-P gear?"
    "Self-Preservation. Developed in my own labs at Cosmic Productions. Better than anything issued to the armed forces. Genuine poly-steel muscles, invulnerable armor, IR and UV vision, cloak of invisibility—though of course you'll use the latter only in real emergencies."
    "It sounds—" Waverly swallowed. "Quite overwhelming," he finished.
    "Wait!" a faint voice sounded from the floor. Waverly and Izlik turned to the cot where Fom Berj was struggling feebly to sit up.
    "You wouldn't . . . sink so low . . . as to ally yourself . . . with these vandals . . . " she gasped out.
    "Vandals!" Izlik snorted. "I remind you, madam, it was I who took in tow your derelict twifler, which was bearing you swiftly toward a trans-Plutonian orbit!"
    "Better annihilation—than help . . . from the likes of you . . . "
    "I, ah, think you have an erroneous impression," Waverly put in. "Mr. Izlik here doesn't produce Galaculars. In fact, he's planning a nice, family-type entertainment that will render the planet wreckers obsolete."
    "The day of the Galacular is over!" Izlik stated in positive tones. "What is a mere fractured continent, when compared with a lone hero, fighting for his life? When I release my epic of the struggle of one beleaguered being, beset by a bewildering bestiary of bellicose berserkers, our fortunes will be made!"
    "Oh, really?" Fom Berj listened to a brief outline of the probable impact on the theatrically minded Galactic public of the new Miniculars.
    "Why, Wivery—I really think you've solved the problem!" she acknowledged at the end. "In fact—I don't suppose—" She rolled