The Planet Strappers Part 34

With wondering absorption he sniffed the mingling of ripe field and road smells, borne on the warm breeze of the late-August night. Some few cars evidently still ran on gasoline. For a moment he watched neon signs blink. In the desertion he walked past Lehman's Drug Store and Otto Kramer's bar, and crossed over to pause for a nameless moment in front of Paul Hendricks' Hobby Center, which was all dark, and seemed little changed. He took to a side street, and won back the rustle of trees and the click of his heels in the silence.

A few more buildings--that was about all that was visibly different in Jarviston, Minnesota.

A young cop eyed him as he returned to the main drag and paused near a street lamp. He had a flash of panic, thinking that the cop was somebody, grown up, now, who would recognize him. But at least it was no one that he remembered.

The cop grinned. "Get settled in a hotel, buddy," he said. "Or else move on, out of town."

Nelsen grinned back, and ambled out to the highway, where intermittent clumps of traffic whispered.

There he paused, and looked up at the sky, again. The electric beacon of a weather observation satellite blinked on and off, moving slowly. Venus had long since set, with hard-to-see Mercury preceding it. Jupiter glowed in the south. Mars looked as remote and changeless as it must have looked in the Stone Age. The asteroids were never even visible here without a telescope.

The people that he knew, and the events that he had experienced Out There, were like myths, now. _How could he ever put Here and There together, and unite the mismatched halves of himself and his experience?_ He had been born on Earth, the single home of his kind from the beginning. How could he ever even have been Out There?

He didn't try to hitch a ride. He walked fourteen miles to the next town, bought a small tent, provisions and a special, miniaturized radio. Then he slipped into the woods, along Hickman's Lake, where he used to go.

There he camped, through September, and deep into October. He fished, he swam again. He dropped stones into the water, and watched the circles form, with a kind of puzzled groping in his memory. He retreated from the staggering magnificence of his recent past and clutched at old simplicities.

On those rare occasions when he shaved, he saw the confused sickness in his face, reflected by his mirror. Sometimes, for a moment, he felt hot, and then cold, as if his blood still held a tiny trace of Syrtis Fever.

If there _was_ such a thing? No--don't start to laugh, he warned himself. Relax. Let the phantoms fade away. Somewhere, that multiple bigness of Nothing, of life and death, of success and unfairness and surprise, must have reality--but not here...

Occasionally he listened to news on the radio. But mostly he shut it off--out. Until boredom at last began to overtake him--because he had been used to so much more than what was here. Until--specifically--one morning, when the news came too quickly, and with too much impact. It was a recording, scratchy, and full of unthinkable distance.

"... Frank, Gimp, Two-and-Two, Paul, Mr. Reynolds, Otto, Les, Joe, Art, everybody--especially you, Eileen--remember what you promised, when I get back, Eileen...! Here I am, on Pluto--edge of the star desert! Clear sailing--all the way. All I see, yet, is twilight, rocks, mountains, snow which must be frozen atmosphere--and one big star, Sol. But I'll get the data, and be back..."

Nelsen listened to the end, with panic in his face--as if such adventures and such living were too gigantic and too rich... He hiccuped once. Then he held himself very still and concentrated. He had known that voice Out There and Here, too. Now, as he heard it again--Here, but from Out There--it became like a joining force to bring them both together within himself. Though how could it be...?

"Ramos," he said aloud. "Made it... Another good guy, accomplis.h.i.+ng what he wanted... Hey...! Hey, that's swell... Like things should happen."

He didn't hiccup anymore, or laugh. By being very careful, he just grinned, instead. He arose to his feet, slowly.

"What am I doing here--wasting time?" he seemed to ask the woods.

Without picking up his camping gear at all, he headed for the road, thumbed a ride to Jarviston, where he arrived before eight o'clock.

Somebody had started ringing the city hall bell. Celebration?

Hendricks' was the most logical place for Nelsen to go, but he pa.s.sed it by, following a hunch to his old street. _She_ had almost said that she might come home, too. He touched the buzzer.

Not looking too completely dishevelled himself, he stood there, as a girl--briskly early in dress and impulse, so as not to waste the bright morning--opened the door.

"Yeah, Nance--me," he croaked apologetically. "Ramos has reached Pluto!"

"I know, _Frankie_!" she burst out.

But his words rushed on. "I've been goofing off--by Hickman's Lake. Over now. Emotional indigestion, I guess--from living too big, before I could take it. I figured you _might_ be here. If you weren't, I'd come...

Because I know where I belong. Nance--I hope you're not angry. Maybe we're pulling together, at last?"

"Angry--when I was the first fumbler? How could that be, Frank? Oh, I knew where you were--folks found out. I told them to leave you alone, because I understood some of what you were digging through. Because it was a little the same--for me... So, you see, I didn't just tag after you." She laughed a little. "That wouldn't be proud, would it? Even though Joe and Two-and-Two said I had to go bring you back..."

His arms went tight around her, right there on the old porch.

"Nance--love you," he whispered. "And we've got to be tough. Everybody's got to be tough--to match what we've come to. Even little kids. But it was always like that--on any kind of frontier, wasn't it? A few will get killed, but more will live--many more..."

Like that, Frank Nelsen shook the last of the cobwebs out of his brain--and got back to his greater destiny.

"I'll buy all of that philosophy," Nance chuckled gently. "But you still look as though you needed some breakfast, Frank."

He grinned. "Later. Let's go to see Paul, first. A big day for him--because of Ramos. Paul is getting feeble, I suppose?" Nelsen's face had sobered.

"Not so you could notice it much, Frank," Nance answered. "There's a new therapy--another side of What's Coming, I guess..."

They walked the few blocks. The owner of the Hobby Center was now a long-time member of KRNH Enterprises. He had the means to expand and modernize the place beyond recognition. But clearly he had realized that some things should not change.

In the display window, however, there gleamed a brand-new Archer Nine, beautiful as a garden or a town floating, unsupported, under the stars--beautiful as the Future, which was born of the Past.

A Bunch of fellas--the current crop of aficionados--were inside the store, making lots of noise over the news. Was that Chip Potter, grown tall? Was that his same old dog, Blaster? Frank Nelsen could see Paul Hendricks' white-fringed bald-spot.

"Go ahead--open the door. Or are you still scared?" Nance challenged lightly.

"No--just antic.i.p.ating," Nelsen gruffed. "And seeing if I can remember what's Out There ... Serene, bubb, Belt, Pallas..." He spoke the words like comic incantations, yet with a dash of reverence.

"Superbia?" Nance teased.

"That is somebody's impertinent joke!" he growled in feigned solemnity.

"Anyhow, it would be too bad if something _that_ important couldn't take a little ribbing. Shucks--we've hardly _started_ to work, yet!"

He drew Nance back a pace, out of sight of those in the store, and kissed her long and rather savagely.

"With all its super-complications, life still seems pretty nice," he commented.

The door squeaked, just as it used to, as Nelsen pushed it open. The old overhead bell jangled.

Pale, watery eyes lifted and lighted with another fulfilment.

"Well, Frank! Long time no see...!"

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