A Galaxy Of Strangers

by Lloyd Biggle Jr

  In the meantime, Dodger pitcher Rip Ruster was having one of his great days. He gave up a scratch single in the second and a walk in the fourth, and by the ninth inning he had fanned twelve, to the gratification of the hooting, jeering tourists.

  The last of the ninth opened with Ruster striking out the first two Pirates on six pitches, and the Pirates in the dugout started sneaking off to the dressing room. Then first baseman Sam Lyle ducked away from an inside pitch that hit his bat and blooped over the infield for a single. Pops called for the hit and run, and the next batter bounced the ball at the Dodger shortstop. The shortstop threw it into right field, and the runners reached second and third. Ruster, pacing angrily about the mound, walked the next batter on four pitches.

  Pops jumped from the dugout and called time. “Hit six-forty, did he?” Pops muttered and yelled, “Zilo!”

  The beaming Zilo jumped up from the far end of the bench. “Yes, sir?”

  “Get out there and hit!” “Yes, sir!”

  He shuffled toward the plate, and the uproar sent up by the tourists rocked the grandstand. Dipsey Marlow called time again and hurried over to the dugout.

  “You off your rocker? We got a chance to win this one. Get that thing out of there and use a left-hander.”

  “Look,” Pops said. “You know derned well the way Ruster is pitching we’re lucky to get a loud fowl off of him. That hit was luck, and the error was luck, and the base on balls happened only because Ruster got mad. Now he’ll cool off, and the only thing that keeps this going is more luck. Pete says the kid’s lucky, and I want some of it.”

  Marlow turned on his heel and stalked back to the coaching box.

  Ruster coiled up and shot a bullet at home plate. Zilo swatted at it awkwardly—and popped it up.

  The second baseman backed up three steps, waved the rest of the infield away, and got ready to end the game. The base runners, running furiously with two out, came down the stretch from third in a mournful procession. Zilo loped along the base path watching the Dodger second baseman and the ball.

  The ball reached the top of its arc and suddenly seemed to carry. The second baseman backed confidently into position, changed his mind, and backed up again. The ball continued to float toward the outfield. The second baseman turned and raced toward center field with his eyes on the misbehaving ball. The center fielder had been jogging toward the infield. Now he broke into a run. The second baseman leaped for the ball. The center fielder dove for it. Neither man touched it, and they went down in a heap as the ball bounced and frolicked away.

  The lumbering Zilo crossed home plate before the startled right fielder could retrieve the ball. The Pirates had won, 4 to 3, and they hoisted Zilo to their shoulders and bore him off to the dressing room. The Dodgers quitted the field to an enthusiastic chorus of boos.

  Pops went out to the third-base coaching box, where Dipsey Marlow still stood gazing vacantly toward the outfield.

  “Luck,” Pops said and gently led him away.

  Rodney Wilks, the Pirates’ brisk little president, flew over from L.A. that evening and threw a victory celebration in the ultramodern building that housed the National League offices. All of the players were there, and those who had families brought them. Women and children congregated in one room and the men in another. Champagne and milk shakes flowed freely in both rooms.

  National League President Edgar Rysdale looked in on the party briefly but approvingly. A team in a slump was bad for all the teams —bad for the league. When the race was a good one, fans frequently paid a double TV fee, watching two games at once or, if they had only one set, switching back and forth. If one team was floundering, National League fans would watch only one game. They might even patronize the American League. So the victory pleased the league president and also the other owners, who stopped by to sample the champagne and talk shop with Wilks.

  Fred Carter, the Dodger manager, also looked in on the party. Zilo’s freak pop fly had ruined a nine-game winning streak for him, but he seemed more puzzled than mournful. He backed Pops into a corner and said with a grin, “I been watching pop flies for thirty-five years, and I never saw one act like that. Did the kid magnetize his bat, or something?”

  Pops shrugged. “I been watching baseball forty-five years, and I see something new seven times a week.”

  “Just the same, the next time that kid bats against me I’m passing out butterfly nets. He don’t look like much of a hitter. Where’d you get him?”

  “Pete Holloway sent him out.” „

  Carter arched his eyebrows. “He must have something, then.

  “Pete says he ain’t got a thing except luck.”

  “Isn’t that enough? I’m going over to watch the Reds and Giants. Want to come?”

  “Nope. Now that I finally won one, I’m gonna get some sleep tonight.”

  Pops saw Ed Schwartz talking with Zilo, and he went over to see what line the club secretary might be handing out. Ed was talking about the old days, and Zilo was listening intently, his dark eyes sparkling.

  “Each team had its own city,” Ed said, “and its own ball park. Think of the waste involved! Eventually there were twenty-four teams in each league, which meant forty-eight ball parks, and even during the playing season they were in use only half the time, when the teams were playing at home. And the season only lasted six months. And there was all that traveling. We froze one day in Montreal and baked the next in New Orleans. Our hotel bill for the season used to look like the national debt, not to mention the plane fares. It was rough on the players in other ways. They only saw their families when they were playing at home, and just as they got settled somewhere they’d be traded and maybe have to move clear across the country—only to be traded again the next season or even the next week. Putting the entire league in one place solved everything. The climate is wonderful, and we almost never have a game postponed because of bad weather. We’re down to eight teams in a league, which anyway is as many as the fans can keep track of. We have two fields, and they’re used twice a day, for two afternoon and two night games. Each team has its own little community. Baseball, Cal is growing, boy, and lots of players are settling here permanently and buying their own homes. You’ll want to, too. It’s a wonderful place.”

  “It’s a soft place for club secretaries,” Pops growled. “Ed used to have to worry about baggage, plane schedules, hotel reservations, and a million and one other things. Now all he has to do is get the equipment moved a couple of hundred yards from one park to the other, now and then, and he gripes about it. Has he stopped talking long enough to get you settled?”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” Zilo said. “I’m rooming with Jerry Fargo.”

  “All right. Come out early tomorrow. You gotta learn to catch a fly ball without getting hit on the head.”

  Dipsey Marlow nudged Pops’s arm and pulled him aside. “Going to play him tomorrow?”

  “Might. We could use a little luck every day.”

  “I been listening to the big boys. Know what they’re going to do? Put up a flock of temporary stands at World Series time. They think they might get fifteen thousand people out here for every game.”

  “That’s their business,” Pops said.

  “Just tell me why anyone wants to take a trip and pay a stiff price to see a ball game when he can sit at home and see it for fifty cents.”

  “People are funny,” Pops said. “Sometimes they’re almost as funny as ballplayers.”

  President Wilks came over and placed a full glass in Pops’s hand. Pops sipped the champagne and grimaced. “It’s all right, I guess, but it’ll never take the place of beer.”

  “Finish in first division,” Wilks said, “and I’ll buy you enough beer to take you through the off season.”

  Pops grinned. “How about putting that in my contract?”

  “I will,” Wilks promised. “Do you want it in bottles or kegs?”

  “Both.”

  “I’ll take care of it first thing in the morning
.” He grinned and prodded Pops in the ribs, but behind the grin his expression was anxious. “Do you think we have a chance?”

  “Too early to say. Sure, we only won one out of fifteen, but we’re only ten games out of first. We been looking like a bunch of schoolkids, and if we keep that up we finish last. If we snap out of it —well, the season’s got a long way to go.”

  “I hope you snap out of it,” Wilks said. “Managers have tenure, but club presidents haven’t.”

  Pops found a bottle of beer to kill the taste of the champagne, and he made a quiet exit after instructing Marlow to get the players home to bed at a reasonable hour. The National League’s two playing fields were a blaze of light, and the shouts of the two crowds intermingled. There seemed to be a lot of tourists in attendance—and tourists at night games made even less sense than tourists at afternoon games. It’d be midnight before some of them got back to their hotels. Pops walked slowly back to Pirateville, grumbling to himself. The large mansion intended for the manager Pops had turned over to Dipsey Marlow, who needed the room for his eight kids. Pops lived in a small house a short distance down the street. His middle-aged daughter Marge kept house for him, and she was already in bed. She didn’t like baseball.

  Priority Rating: Routine

  From: Jard Killil, Minister of Juvenile Affairs

  To: All Planetary Police Organizations, Sectors 1247; 2162; 889; 1719

  All Interplanetary Patrol Units, Sectors 1247; 2162; 889; 1719

  Subject: Juvenile Detention Escapee Muko Zilo

  Reference: Previous memorandum of 13B927D8 and enclosures

  Information from several sources indicates that an unidentified ship, possibly that of escapee Zilo, traveled on a course roughly parallel to Trade Route 79B, which would take it into or through your sectors. Because of the time elapsed since his escape, it is assumed that Zilo has found an effective planetary hiding place. Immediate investigation is requested. Escapee is not—repeat not—dangerous.

  Kindly notify Philoy JRC immediately upon detention.

  Pops opened a three-game series against the Cubs with Zilo in left field. He figured the youngster would do the least damage there, since he was pitching Simp Simpson, his best right-hander, and the Cubs had seven left-handed batters in their lineup. At least that much of his strategy worked. In the first six innings only two balls were hit to left. One was a line-drive single that Zilo bobbled for an error as the runner reached second. The other was a foul fly on which Zilo seemed about to make a miraculous catch until his feet got tangled and spilled him. At the plate he waved his bat futilely and struck out twice while the Cubs were taking a five-run lead.

  In the last of the sixth, the Pirates got men on first and second. It was Zilo’s turn to bat. Dipsey Marlow called time, and as the tourists hooted impatiently, he strode to the dugout. “Take him out,” he said.

  “Why?” Pops asked. “He’s still batting .333. That’s better than the rest of these dopes.”

  “You gotta understand this luck thing. Yesterday it was luck to put him in. Today it’s luck to take him out. I found a spider in my locker, today, and that means—”

  “Hit and run on the first pitch,” Pops said.

  Zilo fanned the air lustily and dribbled a grounder toward the first baseman. Suddenly it took an unaccountable eight-foot bounce over his head and rolled into the outfield, picking up speed. Zilo pulled up at first, breathing heavily, and the two runners scored.

  Sam Lyle followed with a lazy fly ball to right. Zilo moved off first base and halted to watch the progress of the ball. The right fielder seemed to be having difficulties. He wandered about shading his eyes, backed up, and finally lost the ball in the sun. The center fielder had come over fast, and he shouted the right fielder away, backed up slowly, and finally turned in disgust to watch the ball drop over the fence. Lyle trailed the floundering Zilo around the bases, and the Pirates trailed by a run, 5 to 4.

  Three fast outs later, Dipsey Marlow returned to the dugout and squeezed in beside Pops. “I take it all back,” he said. “I won’t argue with you again the rest of the season. But this spider of mine—”

  Pops cupped his hands and shouted, “Let’s HOLD ‘em now! Let’s WIN this one!”

  “—this spider of mine was in my sweat shirt, and my old mother always used to say spider in your clothes means money. Will the players get a cut of what those fifteen thousand tourists pay to watch a Series game?”

  “The World Series is still a couple of hundred games away,” Pops said. “Let’s worry about it later. Get to work and pick us off a sign or two.”

  In the eighth inning, Zilo got a rally started with a pop fly that three infielders chased futilely. He moved to second on a ground ball that took a bad hop, and he scored on a soft line drive that curved sharply and landed between the outfielders. The Pirates pushed over two more runs on hits that were equally implausible and took a two-run lead into the ninth.

  The Cubs came back with a vengeance. The first two batters lashed out sizzling singles. Pops prodded his bullpen into action and went out to talk with Simpson. They stood looking down at the next Cub batter, the burly catcher Bugs Rice.

  “Don’t let him pull one,” Pops said.

  “He won’t pull one,” Simp said determinedly through clenched teeth.

  Rice did not pull one. He didn’t have to. He unloaded on the first pitch and drove it far, far away into left field, the opposite field. Pops sat down with the crack of the bat and covered his face with his hands.

  “Now we gotta come from behind again,” he moaned. “And we won’t. I know we ain’t that lucky.”

  Suddenly the men on the bench broke into excited cheers, and a scattering of applause came from the tourists. Pops looked up, saw runners on second and third, saw the scoreboard registering one out.

  “What happened?” he yelped.

  “Zilo caught it,” Dipsey Marlow said. “Didn’t think he had it in him, but he backed up to the fence and made a clean catch. Took so much time getting the ball back to the infield that the runners had time to touch up and advance, but he caught it.”

  “He didn’t. I heard it hit the bat, and I saw it go. It should have cleared the fence by twenty feet.”

  “Your eyes and ears aren’t as young as they used to be. Zilo caught it against the fence.”

  Pops shook his head. He huddled down in a corner of the dugout while Simpson fanned one batter and got another on a tap to the infield, and the Pirates had won two in a row.

  That was the beginning. The Pirates pushed their winning streak to twelve, lost one, won eight more. They were twenty and fifteen and in fourth place. Zilo became a national sensation. Lucky Zilo Fan Clubs sprang up across the country, and he kept his batting average around the .450 mark and even got another home run when a solid fly ball to the outfield took crazy bounces in nineteen directions while Zilo lumbered around the bases. The rest of the team took courage and started playing baseball.

  But not even a lucky Zilo could lift the Pirates above fourth place. Pops’s pitching staff was a haphazard assortment of aching, overage veterans and unpredictable, inexperienced youths. One day they would be unhittable; the next day they’d be massacred, and Pops found to his sorrow that luck was no answer to a nineteen-run deficit. Still, the season drifted along with the Pirates holding desperately to fourth, and Pops began to think they might even stay there.

  Then Zilo sprained his ankle. The trainer outfitted him with crutches and applied every known remedy and a few unknown ones that Zilo suggested, but the ankle failed to respond.

  “It beats me,” the trainer said to Pops. “Things that should make it better seem to make it worse.”

  “How long will he be out?” Pops asked gloomily.

  “I won’t even guess. The way it’s reacting, it could last him a lifetime.”

  Pops breathed a profane farewell to first division.

  Zilo hobbled to every game on his crutches and watched with silent concentration from a box be
hind the dugout. Oddly enough, for a time the team’s luck continued. Ground balls took freakish bounces, fly balls responded to unlikely air currents, and on some days opposition pitchers suffered such a loss of control that they would occasionally wander in and stare at home plate, as though to assure themselves that it was still there. Ollie Richards, the Reds’ ace and one of the best control pitchers in either league, walked seventeen batters in three innings and left the game on the short end of a 6 to 3 score without having given up a hit.

  Zilo’s good-natured, freckled face took on an unhealthy pallor.

  Wrinkles furrowed his brow, and his eyes held a tense, haunted look. As the team’s luck began to fade, he grew increasingly irritable and despondent. On the day they slipped to fifth place, he met Pops after the game and asked, “Could I speak with you, sir?” “Sure,” Pops said. “Come along.”

  Pops held the door as Zilo swung through on his crutches. He got the youngster seated, and then he settled back with his own feet propped up on his desk. “Ankle any better?”

  “I’m afraid not, sir.”

  “Takes time, sometimes.”

  “Sir,” Zilo said, “I know I’m not a good ballplayer. Like they say, I’m just lucky. Maybe this will be the last season I’ll play.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Pops said. “You’re young, and luck has took a lot of men a long way in baseball.”

  “Anyway, sir, I like to play, even if I’m not good. And I’d like to have us win the pennant and play in the World Series.”

  “Wouldn’t mind having another winner myself, before I retire.”

  “What I’d like to do, sir, is go home for a while. I think I could get my ankle fixed up there, and I’d like to bring back some friends who could help us.”