Goldengirl

‘What you will presently see is not staged for your benefit, gentlemen. It is the scheduled phase of her program. Her preparation for tomorrow is complete. As a diversion we turn to something she will enjoy. We make a mental leap of several weeks, and simulate her appearance before the press after her third victory in Moscow. Sessions like this are built into the program at regular intervals. We are great respecters of the influence of the media, you see. She needs to know how to acquit herself at a press conference, project her personality with charm but without conceit, answer questions without hesitation or evasion, and handle that difficult or unexpected one that always arises.’

The monumental presumption in all this didn’t seem to bother Lee. Like everyone else in this place, he was sold on those three gold medals.

The party had reached the back of the room and grouped around one end of a wood-encased electronic unit some twelve feet in length. A young man wearing earphones was staring shyly at one of the two blank TV monitors at the opposite end.

‘With our facilities,’ Lee went on, ‘we cannot physically reproduce the conference room the Russians will use in Moscow. That seats upward of a thousand correspondents. We have had to improvise. The lighting is arranged with a twofold objective: to subject Goldengirl to the glare of TV arc lights, and to create the impression from where she sits that the room is much larger than it is. From the front, you can’t see beyond the first three rows of seats, so they could stretch back indefinitely. And, of course, the audio system is graduated in a way that supports the effect. This device’ — he flattened his palm on the polished wood surface of the unit — ‘contains a bank of over five hundred questions. We recorded many at actual press conferences at major meets like last year’s Pan-American Games, but the majority have had to be individually styled for Goldengirl. The computer mechanism is capable of working in three different ways. First, it can ask her questions totally at random. Second, if we want to regulate the level of difficulty, it will select them by reference to a grading system. And the third mode of operation is sequential, so that she can be asked a series of questions exploring a particular theme in depth. I’m sure Dave Robb, our media resource expert’ — he extended his hand to the young man in earphones — ‘would dismiss this piece of wizardry as a simple electronic aid. It is only one of a number of ingenious gadgets he has constructed to assist Project Goldengirl. Dave actually had a lot to do with the technical side of the Goldengirl film. He fixed the audio system in the lounge too.’

Probably bugged the place while he was at it, Dryden thought. He stepped forward to examine the control panel. It was surprisingly uncomplicated. Two rows of six squares under glass. Presumably they responded to finger controls. He had seen parking-lot checkouts with more intimidating controls.

‘Without going into unnecessary detail,’ Dr. Lee went on, ‘there are six tapes bearing the questions graded in order of difficulty. If I touch this square on the left’ — he demonstrated — ‘it should throw out a simple question.’

‘Do you use weights in your training?’ a voice lower down the room asked the empty seats at the front.

‘And this should produce a more demanding one.’ Dr. Lee touched the square on the right of the top row.

‘Do your consider yourself completely feminine?’ a different voice barked from the opposite side.

‘The square at bottom left,’ Dr. Lee went on, ‘stops the tapes at random, like a fruit machine, and whichever one has a question closest in line is activated. Three seconds after Goldengirl’s response, the process repeats itself. It can go on indefinitely, and it is actually closer to the reality of a press conference than our questions in sequence, which we activate by means of the override controls, the remaining four squares in the second row. In addition, we have a few refinements controlled from Dave’s end of the console. We can phase in interruptions, simultaneous voices from different sides of the room, audience reaction in the form of laughter or hostile comment — in fact, any situation, apart from a maniac gunman, that a press conference could possibly produce.