_New York Kid_
We made as good a landing as could be expected, considering the way my
hands shook when I brought her down.
Right smack in the middle of La Guardia field! It's the biggest skyport
in the System, and you can't miss it if you're a New York kid, with the
lay of the land and the navigation lights burned into your brain from
boyhood.
One of my own ancestors had brought a primitive skyplane down on that
field during the Second World War, when the First Atomic Age was just
starting.
They'd built the field up quite a bit in the intervening years--built
it in revolving stations toward the Heaviside. You could make contact
with the atomic clearance floats at sixty-five miles, and pick up a
guiding beam from a rocket glider twenty miles above the grounded
runways.
But you can't build the past out of existence. There were ghosts all
over that field, grease monkeys in khaki jeans, and taking care of jet
planes that had passed into limbo before the first space crate took off
for Mars. At least, that's the way Pete seemed to feel, and I could
sympathize with his screwball occultism.
I had a feeling that my own ancestor was down there, shading his eyes,
watching me make a perfect twenty-point landing. His eyes shining with
pride because I made such a good job of bringing her in. What he didn't
know wouldn't hurt him.
I thought we'd have trouble with the clearance officials, but when I
came striding out of the gravity port with the mirage pup clinging to
my right shoulder I was greeted with nothing but merriment. Tickle a
man's sense of humor if you want him to do you a favor!
Just seeing that crazy little beast put everyone in the best of humor.
A tall, young-old lad with puckered brows and graying hair, his skin
bleached by irradiation particles, took one swift look at my pilot's
license, ignored Pete's jittery stare, and gave the mirage pup a pat
that set his tail wagging.
"What's his name?" somebody asked.
I thought fast. "Flipover!" I said.
"Boy, he's quite a pup! Cute! Don't see many of them since the new
quarantine regulations went into effect. They have to be defleaed too
often!"
"All the little critters jumped off him in deep space!" I said.
The officer chuckled. "Okay, my friend! You can pass through. The first
gate on your right!"
We were through the gate and ascending a ramp toward a skyline that
brought a lump to my throat in less time than you could say, "Flip
Flipover!"
Little old New York hadn't changed much in ten years. The white
terrific flare that spiraled up from its heart was as bright as the day
I'd first seen it. Broadway--and a New York kid is hooked for life.
He'll always come back to it.
But now I didn't want to head for the bright lights. I wanted to find
a lodging close to the harbor lights, where I could look out over the
bay at night and--remember things. Her face just before she let go, not
really seeing me. Her eyes--
Pete was shaking his arm. "Set him down, Jim! Put him into that harness
I rigged up. Give him a chance to stretch his legs!"
"Sure, why not?" I grunted.
I set Flipover down on the ramp, fitted Pete's makeshift harness to his
shoulders, and wrapped the leash-end around my wrist.
The little beast started tugging right off.
"Looks like he knows his way around!" Pete chuckled. "Maybe New York
was his home town!"
That didn't sound funny to me. But a few minutes later I was taking it
seriously. The crazy pup had led us deep into the labyrinth of dark
streets which bordered the skyport, and there was no stopping him. I
had all I could do to keep up with him.
Pete's eyes were shining with excitement. "Give him his head!" he urged.
"What do you think I'm doing?" I yelled.
From the houses lights streamed out. Cornerset windows flamed in the
dusk and people moved across shadowed panes. Music came from beyond
the windows, loud, tumultuous. Someone was playing Milhaud's Bal
Martiniquais on an old-fashioned percussion instrument with shallow
keys.
I liked it. Give me color in music, polychromes. Give me color in life.
The flare of rocket jets, the blackness of space, a spinning wheel in a
big crystal casino--
I'd stay one week on Earth! Then I'd be off again and never come back.
I'd bury myself in the farthest--
"Give him his head!" Pete yelled.
* * * * *
Flipover had swerved and was heading for a narrow walk leading to a
fairly large circular house surrounded by a garden plot bright with
yellow flowers. There was a fountain in the middle of the garden and it
was sending up jets of spray which drenched Flipover as he tore down
the path.
I almost let go of the leash as I played it out. The house had the
look of age about it but not of neglect. We were within thirty feet
of it when the front door banged open and a big, angry-faced man came
striding out.
Down the path he came, straight toward me. A sunbronzed giant of a lad
built like a cargo wrestler, but with keen, probing eyes behind glasses
that had slipped far down on his nose.
When he saw me he stopped dead. Then he adjusted his glasses and peered
at me wordlessly, his hands knotting into fists.
Flipover was straining furiously, but I drew him in quickly and
returned the big lug's stare.
"So you're the guy!" he roared.
It happened so quickly I was taken by surprise. His fist lashed out,
caught me on the jaw.
I felt Flipover tear loose as I went crashing backwards, my head filled
with forked lightning.
He jumped me the instant I hit the ground. About three tons of
flailing weight crashed down on my shoulders, pinning me to the walk.
As deliberately as I could, I raised my right knee, whammed it into his
stomach and threw one arm about his neck in a strangle lock he couldn't
break.
"That's showin' him, son!" I heard Pete yell.
I tried not to break his glasses. But I had to be a little rough
because he wanted to play rough.
About one minute later he was standing in the fountain, eying me
angrily from behind a rising curtain of spray. The water came to his
knees.
Suddenly his lips split in a grin. He threw back his head and roared
with laughter. "By George, you sure know how to cool off a hot-head!"
"Well--thanks!" I said, modestly.
He stepped out of the fountain, walked up to me and thrust out his
hand. "Phillip Goddard's the name!" he said. "She just gave me my
ring back! When she said she couldn't marry a certified public
accountant I knew there was someone else. You're the kind of lad her
great-grandmother went for--and she's just like that famous ancestor of
hers!"
"Ancestor?" I gulped.
He nodded. "Just like her! Pluckiest girl in the System! Back in
the First Atomic Age it was. First girl pilot to make a solo hop to
Saturn--"
His face darkened. "Something happened to her! She never came back. But
she's come alive again in her granddaughter! No indoor cookie for Anne
Haven's granddaughter! I'm not exactly a lightweight, but I make my
living adding up long rows of figures. If she married me what would be
the result?"
The grin returned to his face. "She'd pine away from boredom. I like
it. I enjoy it! But the girl for me will have to be a red-headed adding
machine."
He stepped back. "When I saw you coming up the walk I lost my head!
Sour grapes, fella! If I couldn't have her--I didn't intend to step
aside for a rival without putting up a fight! Little boy stuff! I had
no call to take a sock at you! You're all right, fella!"
He gave me a resounding thump on the back. "So the best man gets her!
Okay, I can be a good loser! I don't know how long you've known her,
but I bet if you pop the question tonight, when she has that faraway
look in her eyes again--"
"He never bets!" Pete cut in.
* * * * *
I didn't wait to thank him. I was running up the walk toward the house
before he could let out a startled grunt. But I heard the grunt--far
off in the darkness.
Then a door slammed and I was standing in a brightly lighted living
room staring at her. A log fire was crackling in the grate and there
was a big, framed painting in oils hanging on the wall, facing the
entrance hall.
She was standing directly before the painting, staring down at
Flipover. Flipover was wagging his tail and pawing at her knees, and
she was stooping and patting him on the head. Only--she wasn't calling
him by the name I had given him. She was calling him, "Tow Tow."
"Oh, I can't believe it! I can't, I can't. Granny's pup! You've come
home, Tow Tow--and you are Tow Tow! I'd know you anywhere! You precious
darling."
Then I saw the girl in the painting. She was wearing a space suit a
hundred years out of date, and her hand was on the head of a mirage
pup too. Only it was a mirage pup in oils! Life-sized, lifelike and
unmistakably Tow Tow! The pup in the painting had the same dumb-bright
unweaned look about him! Any child brought up with that painting before
her would know the real Tow Tow when he came bounding home! He was like
no other pup!
The girl who was patting the real Tow Tow raised her head suddenly, and
looked at me!
For a full minute we just stood there, staring at each other. I don't
know how she felt, but I knew how I felt! A family resemblance can be
a remarkable thing! The contours of a face, the way the eyes look at
you, and the trembling of lips shaped in a certain way can--make the
universe reel!
Especially when there's no difference at all between the face of a girl
a century dead and a living face you'd never thought to see again!
"Who are you?" she whispered.
I told her.
Her eyes were shining when I stopped telling her about myself. She
swayed a little, and I think we both knew then how it was going to be.
She was in my arms before I realized that I didn't even know her name.
"It's Barbara!" she whispered, when I got around to asking her. That
was quite a few minutes after I'd met her. You can't kiss a girl and
ask her name in the same breath. And there was just a chance she'd be
offended and refuse to tell me.
But Barbara was a darned good sport about it!
"I've never been kissed by a total stranger before!" she said. "Jim, it
was wonderful!"
It sure was. We went back to it again.
It's been a long time, now. Seven years. And if I haven't proved
you can fall in love with the same woman twice I've been living a
lie. But I know that it isn't so. If I was living a lie, Tow Tow
would be unhappy, and he'd be filling the house with mirages. But my
five-year-old son, Bobby, isn't a mirage, and neither is the girl I
married.
Sometimes, when I see the lights of the skyport through a cornerset
window, and winds howl in from the bay, I get to wondering about Pete.
You see, he never came in that night, never joined us! He may have
looked in through a window, and realized I'd reached my last "port o'
call," a quiet harbor in a storm that had died away forever. He may
have turned and gone stumbling off into the night!
I'll never know, of course. Good old Pete! Sometimes I get to thinking.
A mirage pup can coil up in an old ship and hibernate for a century.
Could a human being do that?
There are strange influences in deep space. Are there discharges in
the electromagnetic field that could slow up the metabolism of a tired
little character like Pete?
That's nonsense, of course.
I'll have to go now. Bobby's calling me. He's standing at the head
of the stairs, in his pajamas, and he's waiting for me to tell him a
bedtime story about what it's like out in the mighty dark.
"Pop, you promised! Aw, come on, Pop--"
I'll have to keep it simple, of course. But maybe tonight I'll tell him
about Pete.
Maybe when he grows up he'll meet Pete.
Who knows?