"You ought to see my ribs," he laughed. "I'll let you autograph them." "You mean you're in a cast." "No, just tape." "Let me see." "Sightseeing on odd Mondays only." "Let me see, Roy," Gabby repeated firmly. She reached out, unbuttoned Audibon's shirt and opened it. His entire left side was bound with white adhesive tape from spine to chest. She was so shocked and upset that Audibon's hopes began to kindle. He let her rebutton the shirt and adjust his tie. "Artistic, isn't it?" he said. "They're poets of the intercostals up at Gracie Hospital." "I want to pay," Gabby said. "Pay? What?" "The hospital bill." "Why?" "It was partly my fault. Maybe it was all my fault." "No," Audibon said. "Not your fault. Never." "I think I should make it up to you somehow." "Do you?" Audibon's hopes rose even higher. "We'll discuss it." The cab dropped them at the network and they took the elevator up to the big studio. It was an enormous room, half the size of an armory, blazing with flesh-colored lights hanging in thick clusters fifty feet overhead. On the studio floor were set up a country schoolroom with a blackboard on which the solar system was chalked, a miniature space-station, the interior of a rocket ship, half an observatory including a six-inch telescope, half a laboratory with an electronic microscope. The telescope and microscope were practical. Before a fifty-foot moonscape cyclorama, a symphony orchestra was rehearsing "The Music Of The Spheres" from Gustave Holst's "The Planets." Alongside the orchestra, a technician was sprinkling glitter on the show title HOW TO KNOW THE UNIVERSE. There were six cameras on the floor. Six hundred yards of cable coiled around the sets. The door from the dressing rooms opened and Galileo entered the studio. He was followed by Albert Einstein in violent dispute with Jules Verne. They were joined by Sir Isaac Newton and a striking red-headed girl who looked incongruous in a Victorian dress and pince nez. Six children from the Professional Children's School clustered around a piano on which a man in a spacesuit and fishbowl helmet played softly. "THIS IS YOUR UNIVERSE!" a voice blasted on a loud-speaker. There were muffled commands from the control talk-back and the voice tried it again with different inflections: "THIS IS YOUR UNIVERSE!" Audibon rejoined Gabby after a lightning tour of the studio and took her to a dark corner behind stacked flats, inhabited by a soda fountain and a potbellied stove. It was illuminated by the twelve-inch screen of a small monitor which cut dizzily from camera to camera, picking up a fag director, a fag assistant, a fag floor-manager, a fag camera director, a fag makeup artist, and finally following the red-headed girl's interesting bottom as she strolled around the studio. "THIS IS YOUR UNIVERSE, EXPANDING WITH THE SPEED OF LIGHT INTO NEW INFINITIES!" "Hello, pet," Audibon said softly. "Hello, Roy." "I'm sorry about last night too."