Hibbs walked slowly down the stairs, toward the front door.
Marie said, “I’m sorry, Frank. I shouldn’t have said that. It just slipped out.”
Hibbs opened the door.
“Will you come back? I don’t really think you’re a freak, Frankie—”
Hibbs closed the door behind him.
HE SAT ON A bench in the town’s little park. Two boys came over and stared at him.
“Hey, you’re Hibbs, aren’t you?”
“Sure, he’s the guy. Hey, Mr. Hibbs, what did it feel like in space?”
“Lonely,” Hibbs said.
“Was it hot or cold?”
“Neither.”
“How long did you stay?”
“Not long. It was exploratory.”
“How did you breathe?”
Hibbs didn’t answer.
“Bro-ther! What was it like on Mars?”
“Lonely.”
“Boy! Hey, how about doing a trick for us?”
“Yeah, show us some of your stuff. Come one!”
Hibbs rubbed his eyes.
“C’mon, mister. Do something!” The drinkers from Joe’s Bar came up in a compact group, blinking in the sunlight.
“You kids scram,” said Fleet. “Go on, scram. Hiya, Frankie.”
“Hello, Eddie,” Hibbs said. “You remember all the boys, don’t you?”
“Sure,” Hibbs said. “Hello, Joe, Jim, Stan—I don’t believe I know this gentleman.”
“I’m Tommy Burke. I was a couple years behind you in school. But I remember you, Mr. Hibbs.”
“Sure has been a long time since high school days,” Jim Mathis said. “Buy! Remember those days, Frank?”
“I remember them,” said Hibbs.
“We was all great pals then,” Joe said.
Hibbs smiled.
“Oh, sure,” Dearborn said, “we razzed you a little, Frank, because you were different. But we really did like you.”
“That’s a fact,” Fleet added. “No friends like the boyhood friends, eh, Frankie?”
“I guess that’s true,” Hibbs agreed.
“Things were always lively when you were here, Frankie. That time you burned down old man Thompson’s shed. What did you call it?”
“Poltergeist manifestation,” answered Hibbs.
“Yeah! They almost put you away, huh? But you showed ’em all. All those profs at Harvard and Duke—then the top Army brass—you showed ’em!”
“I should have kept my mouth shut,” Hibbs said. “I was an idiot.”
“How about a drink for old times’ sake?” Joe asked, taking a bottle out of a brown paper bag.
“Thanks, but I can’t drink,” Hibbs said. “My metabolic makeup . . .”
“That’s okay, Frankie. We’ll drink to you. Here’s to Frankie Hibbs, the hometown boy who made good.” Joe opened the bottle and drank, and passed it around.
EDDIE FLEET rustled his newspaper.
“Say, Frankie,” Jim Mathis said, “You were always a hotshot with numbers, weren’t you?”
Hibbs didn’t answer.
“Well,” Mathis went on, “me and the boys have been thinking of taking a little flyer on Dakota Uranium. Here it is here.” He pushed the newspaper at Hibbs. “What do you think, Frankie?”
“It’s a highly speculative stock,” Hibbs said, not looking at the newspaper. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”
“Yeah? Well, thanks a lot, Frank. That saves us some money right there. What stock do you think we should buy?”
“I don’t know,” Hibbs said.
“Sure you do,” said Fleet. “We read in the papers about how you could predict any individual stock, if you wanted to. You worked it all out for fun once. Just a matter of understanding the stock market cycle, you told the reporters.”
“I can’t tell you,” Hibbs said. “You can see that, can’t you? If I tell one person, I’d have to tell—”
“Don’t hand us that, Frankie,” Mathis said.
“I won’t do it,” Hibbs said. “When I was younger, I didn’t mind doing things for people. I got a kick out of it, enjoyed it. I didn’t think it would turn out this way. I liked being different then, but it has to stop now. I’m the only one of my kind and there’s no place for me.”
“You mean you won’t help us out?” Eddie Fleet asked.
“Can’t you see my position?” Hibbs pleaded.
“You won’t help out your old friends,” Dearborn said sadly.
“I can’t!”
They turned to go. Mathis murmured softly, “Dirty freak.”
Hibbs stood up. “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” Mathis said.
“Go on, say it.”
“All right then, I will,” Mathis said. “You’re a freak, a dirty freak. And you’re a murderer, too. How many of them did you kill, Frankie, sitting in your office in Washington and thinking? A million, two million? You aren’t human!”
“You’re right,” Hibbs said, “I’m not really human. I’m a sport, the only one of my kind, absolutely unique and unduplicatable. And all of you envy me and hate me, but you still have to ask favors of me. Like a fool, I did what you asked during the war, because I thought you were my people. But you’ll never leave me alone, will you? You’ll never forgive me.”
“Don’t get excited, Frankie,” Fleet said, taking a step back.
“I’m not excited. I’m hopelessly tired and lost. Where can I go? What can I do? It’s the same everywhere. ‘Do this for me, Mr. Hibbs, do that, Mr. Hibbs. Perform this tiny miracle for me, Mr. Hibbs.’ And if I don’t—‘You dirty freak, Mr. Hibbs.’ You want miracles? You really want to see miracles?”
“Take it easy, Frankie,” the bartender said.
“Sure, I’ll give you miracles!” Hibbs told them. “Want to see me fly?” Abruptly he levitated himself fifty feet into the air and came down again. “That’s how I went into space. Want to see me make fire?”
“Frank, please!”
FIRE LEAPED from Hibbs’ fingertips, scorching the ground in front of them. They turned to run and suddenly found themselves surrounded by a roaring circle of flames.
“That’s how I make fire!” Hibbs shouted. “What other little exhibitions would you like? Teleportation?”
Mathis and Fleet were suddenly lifted off their feet and hurled to the ground. They scrambled up, ashen white, gasping, hands over their faces to shield them from the circle of flame.
“What else can I do for you?” cried Hibbs. “I’m practically unlimited, you know, a real, genuine superman. Maybe you’d like to see how I control supersonics? Shall I level this town for you, as I leveled Stalingrad? Or maybe you want to know what really happened to the Russian Fourth Army? I’ll show you!”
A blackness formed over the heads of the men, expanded, grew, began to envelop them.
“Frank!” Mathis yelled, running into the street. “For God’s sake, Frank!”
The blackness disappeared. The flames vanished.
“All right,” Hibbs said, and levitated. “I’m going. To hell with you and your lousy race.”
“Damn him!” grated Dearborn. “He might have killed us!”
“I knew there’d be trouble,” Mathis said. “He isn’t even human.”
“But where’s he going now?” asked Tommy Burke.
“Mars, Venus, the Moon—who cares?” Dearborn said. “Wherever he goes, he’ll be alone. Superman—he can have it!” The figure of Frank Hibbs, two hundred feet in the air, hesitated, stopped, came down alongside Willie Day. Hibbs looked puzzled. Day was sitting on the ground with his arms on his knees and he had a sad, pitying expression.
“You didn’t run,” said Hibbs.
“No,” Willie Day said.
“You weren’t afraid I might hurt you, even kill you?”
“Not really.”
“Why?” asked Hibbs, bewildered. “I’ve done more killing than any one man in history. Why did you think I’d stop at another?” Day gave hi
s head a single shake. The pitying look never left his face. “They were the enemy. You knew what they stood for and you were right in hating them. You knew I didn’t want anything like that, so you wouldn’t kill or even hurt me. And there’s something else . . .”
“What?” demanded Hibbs. “You’re human. Maybe another step up, but human all the same. And you’ve been made to think you’re a computer. I guess you are in a lot of ways, but there’s one thing you didn’t compute.”
HIBBS SAT down beside him. “What’s that?”
“You’re not the only one with a special talent. There are plenty of people like that—scientists, artists, mechanics, gardeners with green thumbs.”
“So?” Hibbs prompted.
“You think you can’t help anybody if you can’t help everybody. Does a surgeon figure that way? Does a green-thumb gardener refuse to work because he can’t take care of everybody’s garden?”
Hibbs was silent for a long while as the other men slowly came back from the street. “I hadn’t thought—” he began, and stopped. He turned sharply on Willie Day. “Softsoap! You’re after something! What is it?”
“Nothing,” said Day. “For myself, that is. For you.”
“You’re crazy. What could I want that I can’t do?”
“Stop thinking of yourself as a freak. You can’t do that alone. You need help. All right, you’ve got friends right here in town who can help.”
Hibbs stared around at the others. They nodded sheepishly.
“What about a—a drink?” Tommy Burke invited.
“You know something?” said Hibbs. “I’ve never had one with the boys. I’d—well, I can’t think of anything I’d like better.”
Day got up and brushed himself off. “Why not?” he asked. “You’re only human.”
LONE SURVIVOR
The problem the two men went out in the sailboat to talk over was simple: one was in love with the other man’s wife. The solution they reached was also simple—but which one came back?
ON August 5, the Coast Guard cutter Seabright put to sea at 1330 hours, in response to information concerning the auxiliary sloop Hope, and its crew consisting of the owner and one guest. After steaming for three hours through heavy seas and gale-velocity winds, the Hope was encountered at a point four miles east of the Port Everglades offshore buoy. The sailboat was found derelict, and an attempt was made to take it in tow. There was only a single survivor, one man having been washed overboard in an attempt to aid the other . . .
The Hope was running fast, her long, flat, overhanging bow pounding slightly in the Gulf Stream chop. Her owner, Theodore Debner, held the tiller lightly, watching for sudden gusts, edging the sloop up to meet them. George Matthews, his guest, braced himself against the coaming and looked west, trying to make out the low white coast line of Florida. Neither man had spoken since leaving Port Everglades.
“It’s quite a sensation,” Matthews said at last. “What is?” Debner asked sharply.
“This sailboating, of course.”
“Oh,” Debner said, smiling faintly. “I thought you were referring to something else. Some of your recent activities have been sensation-filled, haven’t they?”
Matthews stirred uncomfortably. “There’s no sense starting that way. We came out here to talk about it. It’s a damned uncomfortable situation.”
“I’m going to tack,” Debner said. “Handle the jib sheet, would you?”
“Jib sheet?”
“That line,” Debner said, pointing. “Free it when we’re in the wind, but don’t let it get away from you. . . . You really don’t know much about sailboats, do you?”
“My first time on one,” Matthews said. “Mountain climbing’s more my sport.” He found the correct line and waited. Slowly the boat rounded into the wind, her sails flapping wildly.
“Now,” Debner said.
Matthews took a double turn around his hand, set his shoulders and unfastened the line from its cleat. Suddenly the big jib filled with a crack.
“Make fast!” Debner shouted, leaning savagely into the tiller. Matthews didn’t have a chance. He was dragged the length of the cockpit, the line jammed around his hand. It seemed impossible that a triangle of canvas could exert such a pull. He managed to wrench his hand free before the billowing sail could yank him over the cabin top.
The sloop completed its tack, and Debner set up the lee jib sheet one-handed, before the sail could fill.
“I warned you I wouldn’t be much help,” Matthews said, a little shakily, rubbing his shoulder.
“I know. You’re the expert at other things.”
The water was getting rougher, and the wind, which had been moderate when they left Port Everglades, was now singing wildly in the shrouds. Overhead, the sky was slate-gray, with wispy black clouds racing over it.
The long, slim racing sailboat leaned heavily into the mounting seas. She was a faithful image of her owner; neat and taut, beautifully groomed, a little too quick in her movements, a little contemptuous of the sea she scudded over.
“I guess we’d better talk about it,” Matthews said.
Debner nodded. “That’s what we came out for,” he said. “The peace and solitude of the ocean, and a chance to discuss our mutual problem. Go ahead. Tell me the technique you used. Maybe I can try it on someone else’s wife.”
“It’s been nothing like that,” Matthews said. “Jannie and I—”
“So you call her Jannie,” Debner mused.
“I’ve called her Jannie since college. I didn’t even know she was in this town. We met last month at that water-color exhibit.”
“Small-town art is such a fine excuse for mischief,” Debner said.
“If you’re finished with your amusing comments . . .”
“I am a betrayed husband,” Debner said, smiling. “My emotions get the better of me.”
Matthews felt baffled, and a little unsure of himself. He had dated Janice—she was Janice Layton then—in college. It was casual, at least for him—lunches squeezed between Vector Analysis and Stress and Strain; movies, when he wasn’t too busy studying for an examination in Heat, Part II. But there had been a growing undertone of seriousness that the war interrupted.
In the Philippines, Matthews tried to analyze that undertone. It bothered him to find that a straightforward application of engineering principles gave him no coherent answer. And then one day, as the result of no analysis at all, he knew he was in love.
By the time he came home, it was too late. Janice was married. Matthews had firm ideas about marriage, and he didn’t like to think of himself as a home-wrecker.
But the home had been wrecked long before he ran into her again. Not that Debner was particularly cruel to his wife; that would have implied some interest in her. He simply ignored her, ignored everything except the handsome monthly receipts from the Layton wool mills.
“Let’s get it over with,” Matthews said directly. “You’ve given her a pretty rotten time. Do you love her, Debner?”
The question caught Debner by surprise. He glanced at the swell of his mainsail, then said. “Love is an adolescent’s word, Mr. Matthews.”
Matthews turned quite red. and asked. “Why did you marry her?”
“Janice is a very pleasant woman,” Debner said. “As I’m sure you know. And there were other considerations.”
“Such as money?”
“Well—why not?”
“All right,” Matthews said heavily. “I never thought you’d admit it.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Debner asked. “It’s just between ourselves. The question is, what now? Ease out on the jib, please.”
Cautiously this time, keeping the strain on the sheet winch, Matthews let the jib out. Debner uncleated the mainsheet and swung the boat before the wind, her boom at right angles to her beam, and dipping into the tops of the crests. He had to steer with his whole body, for the following sea was lifting the sailboat’s long flat counter, swinging her sideways, trying to make her broach
. The sky had grown darker, and ominous wind-puffs tore white streaks in the waves.
“The thing I hate,” Debner said, “is the sheer messiness of it all. I suppose you and Janice have been defaming me all over town. Huddling in dark little bars holding hands in the last row of the movies.”
Matthews square face stiffened. “No. And we haven’t discussed this with anyone.”
“I can hardly believe that,” Debner said.
“It’s true, not that it matters. Will you give her a divorce?”
Debner shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll think about it. We’re starting back now. Sec if you can spot the whistle buoy.”
Matthews took the binoculars from their case, adjusted them and stood up, bracing himself against the coaming. There was nothing visible but the white-capped waves racing. When the sailboat dipped into the trough he could see nothing but a crazily tilted sheet of white-veined water. Spray was clouding the glasses, and he shielded them with one hand. There was something in the distance, but he wasn’t sure if it was the buoy or another boat. If he could hold the glasses steady for another moment . . .
Debner screamed, “Get down!” Matthews looked around and saw, dreamlike in its clarity, the boom bearing down on him like a blunt-edged guillotine, lashed to express-train speed by the force of the wind behind the sail.
At the last moment he dropped to the deck, feeling the boom brush the top of his head.
“Hang on!” Debner shouted. The boom whipped to the end of its arc, narrowly missing the backstay, and was brought up short by the cleated mainsheet. The impact ripped the cleat out of the coaming. The mast bent like a green sapling, but held. The sailboat heeled over, putting her deck under water, then slowly answered the helm.
“Wind shifted,” Debner called. “Lucky we didn’t lose the mast in that jibe. It’s going to be a little tricky getting back, now.”
MATTHEWS was still dazed. If the boom had hit him. he would have been dead.
The wind was shrieking a gale now. whipping the tops of the waves in sheets of spindrift. Green water poured over the bow and down the spillways each time the sailboat dipped her bow. But Debner was keeping the boat on its feet and moving. He had drawn the jib taut and let the main go free. When the wind puffed, he swung the sloop to meet it, then quickly let the sails draw before the boat’s way was stopped.
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