Cyberbooks

by Ben Bova

  It was the other authors, the "midlist" authors who made up the great bulk of any publisher's titles and the new writers who had no experience, those were the ones whom Wo Fat slaved over. He regarded it as a personal failure if they received one penny in royalties over and above the advance they got before each book went on sale.

  Wo Fat glowered at the computer screen. This new design was seriously lacking! What fool is responsible for this? This column here, if subtracted from the figures in the third column and multiplied by the square root of the figures in the first column, would actually tell the author how many books had been sold during the six months that the statement reported on!

  Unacceptable! Someone's head would roll for this. Why, if he let this new design go through, Wo Fat would be besieged by authors demanding to know why they had not been paid for each and every book sold. That would never do.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Claude Le Forêt had been born in a logging camp in Manitoba. He had grown up in logging camps, where his father was nothing more than an average cutter of trees and his mother a cook. But Claude had gone far beyond his humble beginnings.

  Thanks to two lifetimes of hard work and sacrifice by his parents, Claude had gone to university. He had obtained a degree in management, and when he returned to the logging camp where his parents still slaved away over their tele-operated cutting machines and microwave cookers, he wore a business suit and carried a portable computer rather than a chain saw.

  Yet he was still true to his upbringing. Beneath his gray flannel suit jacket he still wore a plaid lumberjack's shirt.

  For many years Claude worked his way up the tree trunk of success. He had the brains and the inherited conservative instincts of his parents: he never went out on a limb, never barked at either a superior or an underling, never made a sap of himself. He stayed on the main trunk and rose quietly, unspectacularly, steadily to the very crown of Canada's largest lumber and paper-pulp combine.

  Now he sat wedged into a tiny booth in the coffee shop on the ground floor of the courthouse, facing the suede-suited westerner who was representing what seemed to be the entire U.S. book distribution industry. The coffee shop was filled with lunchtime customers. It buzzed with gleaming-eyed lawyers and glumly downcast clients, all of them hunched head to head over tiny tables in cramped little booths, whispering secrets to one another over croissant sandwiches and Perrier.

  "Your telegram said the affair was urgent," said Claude with a hint of Quebecois in his accent.

  "Shore is urgent," smiled the lawyer.

  Claude studied the weather-seamed face of this outlandish-looking lawyer. He himself was a handsome man, his face a bit fleshy from too much rich food, his eyes a bit baggy and bloodshot from the wine he drank with each meal, but otherwise he looked almost dashing with a touch of gray at his temples and a splendid mustache that curled up toward his slightly rouged cheeks. He wore a conservative two-button maroon suit, with his trademark lumberjack's plaid shirt and a tiny little bow tie of forest green. It took no great detective to deduce that he was totally color blind.

  "You wish my corporation to join with you in this suit against the book electronique, is that it?"

  "Yup," said the lawyer in his best Gary Cooper style.

  "This would be a serious commitment by my corporation. Not only that, it would create an international incident. Canada would become heavily engaged in this lawsuit. The Canadian government would certainly take an interest. Ottawa and Washington would send observers to the trial, at the very least."

  With a nod and a grin, the lawyer said, "Listen, Mr. Le Forêt." He pronounced the final "t," but failed to notice the shudder it sent along Le Forêt's spine. "If we let Bunker bring out Cyberbooks, what do you think it will do to the lumber business in Canada? To the paper and pulp industry?"

  Le Forêt shrugged gallicly.

  "I'll tell you what it'll do, friend. The more books they publish electronically, the less paper they'll need. Paper mills will shut down. Men will be thrown out of work. Whole cities will become ghost towns. The demand for lumber will be cut in half, then cut in half again. Thousands of lumberjacks will be unemployed. All those fancy tree-cutting machines of yours will be sitting out there in the forest, turning into rust. It'll be a disaster for you. And for Canada."

  If there was one thing Le Forêt had learned in a long and successful career, it was to examine carefully the enemy's side of the matter. He sat pensively for a long moment, then steepled his fingers and played devil's advocate.

  "If I do as you wish," he said slowly, "do you not think that the movement of environmentalists will come out on the side of Bunker and his Cyberbooks?"

  "The environmentalists?"

  "Oui. After all, they have been scheming for generations to close down the paper mills. They, with their silly nonsense about pollution. How can you make paper without sulfur and smoke? They even demand that we purify the water once we are finished using it!"

  The lawyer smiled a thin, superior, knowing, nasty, lawyer's smile. "The environmentalists won't bother us," he said.

  "Pah!"

  "I have their word on it."

  Le Forêt put on his pensive look again. "Their word? How so?"

  "It's simple. I pointed out to them that if the paper and pulp industry goes under, the economy of Canada goes down with it."

  "That has never bothered them in the past."

  "Well, I also pointed out that if the paper mills close down, they lose one of their best targets for raising money. Everybody will think that they've won their battle against you, and stop contributing to the environmental movement. They'll go out of business, too!"

  "Diable!" Le Forêt broke into a grin that pushed the tips of his mustache almost into his eyes. "And they believed you?"

  "Sure they did. They know I'm right. They can't exist without you."

  With a thoughtful rub of his chin, Le Forêt murmured, "I must remember this after the trial is finished. It is an interesting new light on a problem that has plagued me all my life."

  The lawyer grinned back at him. "Then you'll join our suit?"

  Sticking out a huge hand that was made to chop down trees, yet bore nary a callus, Le Forêt said, "I am with you. Moi, and the entire Canadian lumber and paper-pulp industries!"

  *

  When the trial resumed that afternoon, the lawyer grandly announced that the Canadian lumber and paper-pulp combine had joined in the class action suit against the rapacious forces of evil known as Bunker Books. Woody and the sales personnel attending the trial whooped loudly. Mrs. Bunker went pale, while Carl and the others on that side of the courtroom sagged visibly.

  Judge Fish glowered at the cowboy lawyer as he accepted the papers filed by the Canadians.

  "Will there be anyone else joining this suit?" he asked in a sharp, almost sneering tone. "Outer Mongolia, perhaps? Or maybe little green men from Mars?"

  The lawyer bowed his head slightly, as if embarrassed. "Your Honor, I know this has been a somewhat unusual procedure, but in the interests of justice I beg you to overlook the slightly unorthodox course that this trial has taken so far."

  The judge snorted at him.

  "I assure you there will be no further enlargement of the plaintiff's co-complainants."

  Turning to the clone group of defense attorneys, Justice Fish asked acidly, "Does the defense have any objection to this motion?"

  The lawyer closest to Mrs. Bunker got to his feet, looking perplexed. "May we have five minutes to review our position on this, Your Honor? This motion has come as a complete surprise to the defense."

  "Yes, I imagine it has," the judge retorted. "Five minutes recess." He banged his gavel and stalked out of the courtroom.

  Carl Lewis felt his temperature rising. "This trial is turning into a circus," he whispered to Lori.

  "More like a Roman gladiatorial contest," she whispered back. "We're the Christians and they're the lions."

  Staring at the defense attorneys, all five
of whom were frantically tapping at their briefcase computers, desperately searching for a precedent that would block the entry of the Canadians, Carl pleaded, "Isn't there some group that we could call in to back our side? I mean, how come we're all alone here and they've got so many people to back them up?"

  Lori's eyes suddenly sparkled. "You're right! I've got an idea!"

  She jumped up from her seat and pushed past Ralph and Scarlet to get to the aisle. Carl came right behind her.

  "What is it?" he asked as he followed her to the courtroom doors. "What?"

  But Lori said nothing as she half ran to the row of public telephones down the marble corridor.

  Picking up the nearest handset, she said to the voice-activated telephone computer, "The Author's League of America."

  Carl smiled with sudden understanding.

  *

  Raymond Mañana had never been a practical man. The fact that he had now served slightly more than seven years as president of the Author's League of America proved that fact.

  Never very tall, Raymond had allowed years of poor eating habits and lack of exercise to round out what had once been a spare body into a globule about the size of a modest weather balloon. His glistening pate was bald, but his chin was covered with a dirty-gray beard of patriarchal length. His once keen vision had fallen victim to endless hours of peering at word processor screens, so he now sported heavy trifocal contact lenses that made his eyes seem slightly bugged out, like a frog's.

  But despite these physical failings, Raymond had the heart of a lion. He had practically surrendered a mediocre career writing potboiler novels to accept the onerous and thankless responsibilities of the presidency of the Author's League. He was deeply immersed in reading the latest round of inflammatory letters sent in to the ALA Bulletin when the phone unit on his computer chimed out the first few bars of "Brush up Your Shakespeare," the ALA's official song.

  Raymond welcomed the call. The letters were boring: two of the most widely read authors in the country reduced to boyish slanders and insults over the issue of whether or not the organization should have an official necktie. He poked the button that consigned the libelous words to the computer's memory bank.

  Lori Tashkajian's lovely, worried face took form on the display screen.

  "Lori! I thought you'd be in court this morning."

  "I am," she answered. "We're on a short recess."

  "Oh."

  "Ray, we need your help. I need your help. The future of publishing depends on you!"

  "On me?"

  "On the Author's League."

  "I don't understand."

  Swiftly, Lori outlined what had been happening at the trial. Raymond nodded his understanding.

  "So we need the Author's League to come in here and support us. Otherwise we're going to go down the drain and Cyberbooks will be strangled in its cradle."

  "A mixed metaphor," said Raymond.

  "We don't have time to argue syntax!" Lori almost shouted. "You've got to get the biggest number of authors you can contact to come into court on our side. Today! This afternoon!"

  Raymond sadly shook his bald, bearded head. "What makes you think they'll come out to support Bunker Books? After all, authors and publishers aren't usually the best of friends."

  "It's in your own best interest!" Lori insisted. "Cyberbooks will bring down the costs of publishing to the point where thousands of writers who can't get their works published now will have a viable marketplace for their books."

  "I know. I understand. And I applaud what you're trying to do. But . . ." His voice trailed off.

  "But what?" Lori asked.

  Feeling weak and helpless, Raymond explained, "Well, you know this bunch. They're writers, Lori. They can't agree on what to have for lunch, for Pete's sake. Half of them think Cyberbooks is the greatest idea since Gutenberg, the other half think it's an invention of Satan."

  "Oh, god."

  "And they don't like to go into courtrooms. Can't say I blame them. The idea gives me the chills."

  "But if the ALA won't support this innovation in publishing, you're dooming all the writers. . . ."

  Raymond raised a pudgy finger. "I understand and I agree with you, Lori. I'll do what I can. I'll start calling people right now. But don't expect too much."

  "Maybe Sheldon Stoker!" Lori suggested.

  "He's in Indonesia, directing the movie they're making from The Balinese Devil."

  "Oh."

  "I'll do what I can," said Raymond, knowing it sounded feeble.

  "Please," Lori begged. "And quickly!"

  "I'll do what I can."

  Lori nodded and broke the connection. Raymond Mariana sighed a great, heaving sigh and, like a general issuing orders for a hopeless charge against overwhelming odds, he began tapping out phone numbers on his keypad.

  "She doesn't understand," he muttered to himself. "Editors just don't understand writers. We're not really organized. It's tough to get us to do anything except argue among ourselves. Christ, if we had any real organization, would the tax laws read they way they do?"

  THE BOOK SIGNING

  Conrad Velour sat in the middle of the bookstore, ballpoint pen poised, surrounded by stacks and stacks of his latest steamy novel, Inside Milwaukee. (After seventy-some "Inside" novels, he was running out of interesting cities.)

  Not only was the table at which he sat heaped with copies of Inside Milwaukee. All the bookshelves in the front of the store were packed with the novel. Even more were stacked by the cash register, where a discreetly small sign suggested, HAVE YOUR COPY OF INSIDE MILWAUKEE SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR.

  But the bookstore was strangely, maddeningly, eerily quiet. No customers had come to the table where MR. CONRAD VELOUR, AUTHOR!!! sat under the garish sign proclaiming his presence. Not a single book had been purchased. The ballpoint pen held in his white-knuckled fist had not scrawled out one autograph.

  An icy anger was inching along Conrad Velour's blue veins. The store manager was definitely avoiding him. The clerks were tiptoeing across the store's plush carpeting and whispering behind his back.

  Someone in the promotion department of S&M books was going to hang by the thumbs for this foul-up, Velour told himself. Someone was going to pay for this humiliation. More than an hour sitting on this hard bridge chair at this table heaped high with the best novel anyone's seen in years, and no customers. Not one.

  They got the address wrong in the advertisements. Instead of 333 Fourth Avenue, the ads had all read 444 Third Avenue. Velour had discovered the mistake too late to do anything about it. He himself had gone to the address the S&M publicist had given him, only to find that it was not a bookstore at all. It was Ching's Pizza and Chinese Take-Out. He had found the bookstore after some frantic screaming into a street corner telephone's voice-activated computer directory.

  Now he sat alone, flanked by piles of unbought books, while the store personnel avoided his furious stare. He had asked the youngsters behind the counter at Ching's to send the thousands of readers who would undoubtedly show up there to the proper address. But they barely understood English and—most crushing of all—not a one of them recognized him or his name.

  You'd think that at least some of my faithful readers would recognize the mistake and find their way here, he groused to himself. But no, they're probably filling up on pizza and Chinese dumplings, making Ching rich while I sit here like a leper with bad breath and psoriasis.

  Oh, they'll pay, he told himself for the millionth time. They'll pay!

  A little old lady wandered into the hushed and nearly unpeopled store. Velour straightened up on his chair and gave her his most charming smile. He could be very charming when he wanted to be. He had the slim, elegant, slightly decayed looks of a bankrupt British lord. He wore the uniform of a successful author: white silk turtleneck shirt, informal Angora cardigan of royal blue, crisply creased gray slacks, and butter-soft moccasins of genuine artificial squirrel hide.

  The little old lady doddered arou
nd the front of the store, casting furtive glances toward the table where Velour and his oversupply of novels were stashed. She hesitated, took a few uncertain steps toward the author, stared up at the sign proclaiming who he was, then made a sour face, shook her head, and turned around and left the store.

  Velour's hand clenched so tightly the ballpoint pen snapped in two.

  The store manager, a young wisp of a man, approached him as if he were a live bomb.

  "Uh, sir . . . there's a telephone call for you, sir."

  Velour fixed him with an evil stare. Sweat broke out on the youngster's upper lip.

  "Uh . . . I could bring the mobile phone here, I guess."

  Velour raised his left eyebrow one centimeter.

  "It . . . uh, it doesn't have a picture screen, though. Sir."

  "Good," he snapped. "Then whoever is phoning will not see the humiliation I'm being put through."

  The store manager scuttled away and returned half a minute later with the portable phone instrument in his trembling hand.

  Velour took a deep breath, then made himself smile as he sang, "Velour here!"

  "Conrad. Glad I located you. It's Raymond Mañana."

  "What can I do for you, Ray?"

  "I'm not interrupting important business, am I?"

  "For you, Ray, I can set aside business for a few moments. What's so important that you tracked me down here in the middle of a signing session?"

  "It's about the Cyberbooks trial, Conrad."

  "Oh, yes. I read something about that in PW last week, I think."

  For the next ten minutes Mañana explained what was happening in the courtroom. "So I thought, you're almost around the corner from the courthouse already, maybe when you've finished your signing you could pop over there and offer them some moral support."

  Conrad Velour sighed a patient, long-suffering sigh. It was so difficult to deal with fools. "Raymond, it's impossible. I'm not a Bunker author, to begin with, and I don't see why authors should be called upon to pull Bunker's chestnuts out of the fire. If this Cyberbooks deal falls through, so what? It won't affect me or my sales."