“Are you sure you can’t follow me?” he asked.
“Can’t.”
“You could if you wanted.”
“Can’t.”
“Why don’t you just give it a try?”
“Can’t, and that’s that.”
“Well, what are we to do, then?” the old man asked. “It seems we are at an impasse.”
He thought. They all thought, except Harold. He watched. He witnessed.
Then the old man said, “I have it. I knew I’d think of something. Mechanical means.”
And hardly were the words out of his mouth when the lights came on in the room, at first flickering as dim as the candle, then coming up strong and smiling.
The phone rang. Puddleduck answered.
“Quack?”
“Kiss us,” the excited face in the visor said. “We’ve made the auxiliaries putt. We can limp to haven.”
“Grats,” said Puddleduck. “But can’t we blif for home?”
“No way. The mains will have to be made anew.”
“Oh,” said Puddleduck, and rang off.
“Can you come along now?” asked the old man.
The ship limped where he directed, and in time they came to a planet, green as Eden. It wasn’t half bad, except that it wasn’t near anything. They went into orbit around it, keeping close company with a small pitted whizzer of a satellite.
“That’s my seat, that rock,” said the old man. “That’s where I sit to oversee when I visit. This is one of my planets. It’s small, but it’s a good home. If you will love it well, nurture and tend it, and take good care of it, I’ll lend it to you. How about that?”
“Done,” they said.
“Done it is, then,” said the old man. “Well, I must be about my business. I’ll check back shortly to see how you are getting on. If you need me, sit on my rock and give me a call. I’ll show up in no time. Now, if you will excuse me.”
“Wait, wait,” they said. “Before you tippy along, we must know—who are you, freaky old pooper?”
“You may call me Landlord Thing,” the old man said. He turned to Harold. “Are you coming?”
Harold looked at his parents with one quick sweep of his eyes and then he shook his head as fast as a suckling lamb can shake its tail. “No,” he said. “Thank you.”
Landlord Thing took a hitch on his shorts and stepped lightly through the wall into space. Then, just as they were opening their mouths to speak of him, he stuck his head back through the wall one last time.
He said, “Mind you, take good care of my world.”
And then like a guru skipping barefoot through Himalayan icefields he was gone.
Sky Blue waits for Landlord Thing. He has a heavy gun in his hands and he means to bling the Thing good and proper. That’s what he is there for, sitting on that dinky rock in space.
His mind wheels with the high heavens above. His mind whirls with the bare brown planet below. His mind is ground to flour between great stones.
He thinks, “Come. Come. Come and be killed.”
They called the planet Here or East Overshoe or This Dump. They didn’t love it. They didn’t take care of it. They didn’t nurture and tend it, or any of the other stuff they promised. They didn’t plan to stay, so why should they?
They called themselves Groombridge Colony. As soon as they fixed the drive, they meant to tippy along. They meant to blif. They meant to go. Onward to Groombridge 1618/2 and the way things were supposed to be. After all, they had paid good money.
Since Triphammer and Puddleduck wanted to get back into the galactic big time worse than anybody—quack, yes!—they were in charge. Like proper leaders, they exhorted everyone to do his utmost.
Recall: to fix the drive, the mains had to be made anew. To do the job, they needed some of This, some of That, and some of the Third Thing.
They didn’t wait a moment after they set down. They dug shafts like moles. They built towers like ants. They hammered and smoked and smelted and forged. They electrolyzed and transmuted. They ripped and raped and turned the planet upside down in the search for what they needed. They turned the green planet brown, these Groombrugians. They really made a mess of things.
Here’s the hard part. This is rare in the universe. They came by it in no time. That you can’t just buy at any corner store. They found twice as much as they needed. But the Third Thing, which everywhere else is common as dirt, was elusive as the wild butterfly of love. After years and years they had barely accumulated a single pood of the stuff, and that wasn’t nearly enough.
When they were planning to leave East Overshoe come morning, the Groombridge gang cared naught a tiddle what they did to the planet. When it sank in finally that they weren’t leaving all that soon, there were some who began to worry what Landlord Thing might make of their handiwork.
It wasn’t anything you could sweep under the carpet and smile about. It was more obvious than that. Well, yes.
It was Triphammer who began to fuss about it first. And Puddleduck caught it from her. But it was Puddleduck who thought of the answer, and Triphammer who found it worthy. It often worked out that way. They were a team.
Their answer was to set Sky Blue on that whirling rock to slay their monster for them. Within their terms, it was a perfect solution. Puddleduck remembered that Landlord Thing had said he would come instanter than powdered breakfast if he were called from that rock. Ha! at their beck, when they were ready for him, and then, bling! Then they would have all the time and peace they needed to rip the planet to the heart. And Sky Blue was the man.
They shook hands on it, and set out to look for Sky Blue. That was what they called Harold now. They called him Sky Blue because he was so out to lunch. But they had need of him now. He could shoot.
Yes, he could shoot. It was one of the things he did that no one else would think of doing. Sky Blue had grown up eccentric.
The heart of it was that he took responsibility seriously. He had been there when the agreement with Landlord Thing was made and he had said, “I promise,” in his heart. And like the loser he was, he wasted his time trying to live by his word.
Where things were brown, he did his best to green them again. Futile. Where the Groombridge gang pared and cored the planet, he repaired and corrected. Outnumbered. Where they ripped and raped, he nurtured and tended. That is, he tried. Every day he fell further behind.
Where it was necessary for balance, he shot things. He would think, “Come. Come and be killed.” And because all of Landlord Thing’s planet knew he had their best interests at heart, they would come, and he would kill them with love and sorrow.
If Triphammer and Puddleduck were not consummate politicians, hence tolerant, and if they hadn’t enjoyed the fresh meat he brought home from time to time, they would have disowned him. They probably should have anyway. As it was, they named him Sky Blue and allowed him his amusement. And because Triphammer and Puddleduck were Triphammer and Puddleduck, Groombridge Colony went along.
As Mount Rushmore said, speaking for the community, “Pretties need dippies for contrast, nay say?”
When Triphammer and Puddleduck found Sky Blue, their boy was up to his ears in dirt, beavering away making a large hole smaller. In the time it would take him to fill it, three more would be dug in search of the Third Thing, but he was not one to complain. He knew his obligation, even if no one else did, and he lived by it.
“Hey there, dull thud, child of ours,” they said. “Muckle that shovel for the mo and hie thee hither. Busyness beckons.”
Sky Blue did as they directed. He stuck his shovel in the sand and hurried over to them. He still yearned for their good opinion whenever it was compatible with what he thought was right. Oh, tell the truth—he might even strike a compromise with right for the sake of their good opinion. They had him hooked.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “Progen lovies, put my knucks to your purpose.”
“Oh best bubby, trumpets for your eagerness,” they said. They produced t
he gun, Groombridge Colony’s most powerful splat-blinger, and placed it in his hands. “Elim Landlord Thing for Mum and Dad, that’s a good dumb-dumb son.”
“Bling Landlord Thing? Where? Why? Oh, say not!” And Sky Blue tried to return the gun to Triphammer and Puddleduck, but they would have none of it.
“Yours,” said Puddleduck.
“Yours,” said Triphammer.
“Nay, nay, not I,” said Sky Blue.
Triphammer said. “Do you treacle-drip for This Dump, nurdy son of mine?”
“Certain sure, I do.”
“One boot, two boot, when the rent is due, and out go you. You lose.”
“Misery mort,” said Sky Blue. “Me, too? But no—holes ubiquate. I’ll screege from view.”
“Ho, ho, Hermit Harold, all by his onesome,” said Puddleduck. “You lose.”
“Unhappies,” said Sky Blue. And he looked at the equalizer in his hands. “What what? Oh, double what what?”
Triphammer drew close and whispered sweet in his ear: “Bling him to frags, and lovings and keepings.”
How’s that for a promise?
So Sky Blue waits for Landlord Thing. Above above. Below below. He sits on that rock, the call gone forth, and waits.
And there Landlord Thing is! The old man wades through space toward the rock where Sky Blue sits.
Trembling, barely able to control himself, Sky Blue raises the gun in his hands—butt coming up to his shoulder, muzzle swinging down to point. The gun is aimed, centered on his brushy mustache. And Sky Blue pulls the trigger.
A beam lances and there is a blinding flash. The face piece of Sky Blue’s spacesuit polarizes at the glare.
He casts the rifle from him into space, sobbing. His eyes clot with tears, He cries harder than he can remember, as though he has lost forever his last infinitely precious hope.
But as he sits there desolate, a pseudopod wraps comfortingly about his shoulders, and a warm voice says, “How have things been? Tell me about them.”
Sky Blue turns his head and opens his eyes. There, sitting beside him on that unnaturally comfortable rock, is Landlord Thing as first he saw him through the tight-pinched curtains so long before. Warm brown eyes and pseudopods.
“Nothing is right,” says Sky Blue. “Look down there at your planet. It’s been turned to brown. Nobody likes it there on your world but me. Everyone else wants to get away and no matter how I try, I can’t clean it up.”
“That isn’t the worst thing in the world,” says Landlord Thing. “We’ll see what can be done. Follow me.”
He shifts around to the other side of the rock and Sky Blue follows.
“This is the top side,” says Landlord Thing. “Now look.”
Sky Blue looks up at Here. It fills the sky above him. He is overflooded with a great warm wave of mystery and awe. It is momentarily too much for him and he must close his eyes and look away before he can look back again.
“I never realized,” he says.
Landlord Thing says, “You can heal the world. You can make it green again.”
“Me?” says Sky Blue. “No, I can’t.”
“Oh, but you can,” says Landlord Thing. “I have faith in you, Sky Blue.”
Sky Blue looks at him in astonishment. He hasn’t told Landlord Thing his new name.
“How can I do it?” asks Sky Blue. “I don’t know how.”
“You must take yourself out of yourself and put it in the planet. Nurture and tend the planet. Make it well again. Concentrate very very hard. Look at the planet and spread yourself so thin that you disappear.”
Sky Blue is unsure. Sky Blue does not believe. But Sky Blue is determined.
He looks up at Here, dominating the sky like a great mandala. It is a wave—he drowns. It is a wind—he dissipates. It is a web—but he is the spinner, spinning thin, spinning fine, losing himself in the gossamer. He handles the world tenderly.
Landlord Thing watches. Landlord Thing witnesses. And above them in the sky, the world turns green.
When Sky Blue reassembles, he is not the same. He looks once at Landlord Thing and smiles, and then they sit there in silence. They have called. They wait for their call to be answered. And after a time a ship lifts from the planet and comes to the rock.
It is Triphammer and Puddleduck. They wave to Sky Blue as though he were alone. He and Landlord Thing go aboard the ship. Triphammer and Puddleduck act as though they are blind to Landlord Thing’s presence. Sky Blue removes his spacesuit.
Triphammer and Puddleduck say, “Gasp, splutter, quack! No, no, no! The frust just must bust—screamie-a-deamie!”
Sky Blue is bewildered. He turns to Landlord Thing and says, “I don’t understand a word of it.”
Landlord Thing waves a sympathetic polyp. “It can be that way at first. Listen to them very closely. Concentrate on every word and some of it will come clear.”
So Sky Blue cranes an ear to the words of Triphammer and Puddleduck and concentrates harder than when he healed the planet. And, just barely, meaning filters through. They are nattering about the sudden return of the planet to its original condition. In the process, it seems, their castles have all been thrown down. Their mines are theirs no longer. Their stockpiles of This, That, and the Third Thing have disappeared in a lash flicker. They quabble about what has happened and what they should do.
Sky Blue listens to them until they run dry. Then he shakes his head in wonder.
“Offense. Unfair. Disrespect,” says Triphammer.
Puddleduck nods. “Wanh for our importance,” he says. “All toobies.”
Landlord Thing nods. “All toobies, indeed,” he says. “Tell them they are being given a second chance. Their only hope is if they take good advantage of it.”
Sky Blue relays the message. “Return to Here,” he says, “and learn to live there. It’s your life. Use it well.”
Triphammer and Puddleduck are astounded at these words. Their jaws drop like a gallows trap. Their nurdy son has never spoken to them like this before.
Landlord Thing says, “Come along, Sky Blue. I have some people to introduce you to. I think you’ll like them.”
He passes through the wall as though it were nothing to him. Sky Blue looks at his parents one last time, and then he follows. He steps through the wall of the ship and into space.
“I’m coming,” he says to Landlord Thing, striding the stars before him.
Sky Blue has held the curtains clutched tight in his hands this long time. Now he throws them open wide and peaks.
11
When the Vertical World Becomes Horizontal
THE RAIN is coming closer, sending the heat running before it. I can see the rain, hanging like twists of smoke over the roofs. The city will be scrubbed clean.
This is an acute moment. The wind is raising gooseflesh on my arms. I can feel the thunder as electricity and the electricity as thunder. Down in the street I hear voices calling around the corner. I think I even hear the music.
This is the moment. I know it’s here.
I’ve been waiting so long. I’ll savor this last bit of waiting. The dark is so dark, so close-wrapped. The electricity is white. The streets are going to steam.
There has never been a better moment since the world began. This is it! It’s here.
It’s never happened since the last time, and it’s going to happen now. The beginning of the world was a better moment. It was exalting. As nearly as I can tell, there have been two good moments since. I missed them both.
I’m going to be here for this one.
So are you.
I know the sun is baking the sidewalks now. The heat is on now. But listen with your skin. Rain is in the air.
It’s going to be good. When you see the rain and steam and sun and people all mixed together in the afternoon, you’ll know their tune is the one that’s been in your head all along. Close your eyes. Feel the wind rising.
I’ll tell you how good it’s going to be. I’ll tell you what it was like f
or someone who knew even less than you do about what is happening:
Woody Asenion was raised in the largest closet of an apartment at 206 W. 104th St. in Manhattan. Once there had been four—Papa, Granny, Mama, and him—but now there were only two. There was room now for Woody to stretch out, but at night he still slept at Papa’s feet, just like always, for the comfort of just like always.
Woody had never been out of the closet without permission. Well, once. When he was very small, he had slipped out into the apartment one night and wandered the aisles alone until the blinking and bubbling became too frightening to bear and the robot found him, shook a finger at him and led him back home. He had never done it again.
That was before they moved to 206 W. 104th St., back when they lived in the old closet. The new closet was about the same size. Its shape was different. That had taken growing used to.
The closet was the same size, but the apartment outside was larger. He wouldn’t dare go out there at night.
But on this day the vertical world was turning horizontal. People were no longer cringing and bullying. They were starting to think of other things.
It was already this close: When Woody’s father, who was very vertical, flung the door of the closet open while in the grip of an intense excitement, Woody had his hand on the knob and the knob half-turned. That was a quarter-turn more than he usually dared when he toyed with strange thoughts of an afternoon.
Mr. Asenion broke Woody’s grip on the knob with an automatic gesture. “You promised your papa,” he said and rapped the knuckles with a demodulator he happened to have in his hand. But the moment was quickly forgotten in his excitement.
“I had it all backward! I had it all backward! It’s the particular that represents the general.”
That was part of the vertical world turning horizontal, too. Since he had left Columbia University in 1928, Mr. Asenion had been working on a Dimensional Redistributor. He had been seeking to open gateways to the many strange dimensions that exist around us. He had never been successful.
He had never been successful in the vertical world, either. He had fallen out of the bottom. He told himself that he did not fit because he hadn’t yet found his place. He was very vertical. He knew the power that would be his if he ever invented the Dimensional Redistributor, and so labored all the harder through the many years of failure. It was his key to entry at the top of the pyramid.
Farewell to Yesterday's Tomorrow Page 16