Far Beyond the Stars

by Steven Barnes

  Benny stared, stupefied, as Cooley led them toward their train.

  He hadn't even gotten to the Fair, and his brain was already buzzing! Benny worked his way over close to Cooley again, and asked him, "So what is this special exhibit?"

  Cooley mopped his forehead, as if the afternoon sun had already begun to beat on them all. "You'll just have to wait and see," he said. "It's in the Hall of Nations, though." It was clear that the old black man's tirade had jarred Cooley, and it was taking him a little while to get his emotions back under control.

  "The Hall of Nations?" Jenny asked.

  "Yes. Most countries have their own exhibition space, but the Fair has areas set aside for some of the smaller, or poorer nations, and there are a couple of African exhibits that are supposed to be …" he paused, "quite interesting. Really quite." He leaned back against one of the support posts with a small, mysterious smile on his face. He seemed to have regained his equilibrium. "Yes," he said, "quite."

  The train ride from midtown Manhattan was only ten minutes along the Long Island Rail Road. The special train emptied them out into the station to join a throng, a veritable sea of people heading down and across the promenade toward the gates of the fair. Even though Benny had tried to maintain a cool demeanor, the sight of the Trylon and the Perisphere made his heart race and trip-hammer in a way reminiscent of how he felt when he looked at Jenny.

  (Or the way Cassie feels when she looks at you, Benny?)

  He looked down at the friend at his side, and she looked so happy and carefree, so happy just to be here, and alive, to be a part of this crowd entering the fairgrounds, that he didn't really want to answer, or have an answer to that question. Not just now. Right now, what he wanted to do was to appreciate the work, be a part of the crowd, and find his way into the world of tomorrow.

  Flushing Meadow, the site of the 1939 World's Fair, had once been known as the Corona Dumps, a tidal expanse covering 1,216 acres along the Flushing River. For decades it had merely been a refuse dump for the Brooklyn Ash Removal firm. Now, overseen by a nonprofit corporation, funded by over twenty-seven million dollars in bonds, the former dump had been transformed into one of the wonders of the world. The fair opened on April 30, 1939, the 150th anniversary of George Washington's inauguration. Its symbol was the Trylon and Perisphere, a futuristic structure that housed the exhibit "Democracity." There were seven zones: amusement, communications, community interests, food, government, production and distribution, and transportation. Exhibitors included about sixty countries, the League of Nations, thirty-three states and territories (including Puerto Rico), such federal agencies as the Works Progress Administration, and the City of New York.

  According to the newspaper, all kinds of new products were being introduced there. Unbreakable glass called "Lucite," a radio with pictures called "television," a kind of whole-room refrigerator called "air conditioning," and more.

  But beside the chance to see Bill Robinson, what Benny wanted most was to see Billy Rose's Aquacade, the "Road of Tomorrow" by the Ford Motor Company, maybe check out the diesel engines in the Railroad Building—Benny had an uncle who had worked for the railroad. Just a Pullman Porter, it was true, but a railroad man, nonetheless. There was also "Micky's Surprise Party," a cartoon by Walt Disney. He loved cartoons.

  And if the line wasn't too long, he wanted to take a jump off the Life-Savers Parachute Tower, 250 feet of stomach-dropping fun.

  His first impression of the Fair was its sheer size. He had never in his life seen anything so huge. The entire thing was so intimidating—the vast crowds, the complex and confusing maze of passages between exhibits, the constant barrage of sights and sounds—that his mind sought some central object to focus on, and found it in the central structures: the Trylon and the Perisphere. The Trylon was a slender three-sided pylon 610 feet tall, 50 feet higher than the Washington Monument. The Perisphere was almost 200 feet across. It looked like nothing less than God's personal ping-pong ball.

  They entered through the IRT and BMT subway gate, each of Cooley's dozen charges paying his seventy-five cents, receiving a little map and program book for their precious coins, and walking out onto Bowling Green. To their left was the Town of Tomorrow exhibit and buildings of Contemporary Arts, and along the Avenue of Patriots, the Home Furnishings and Gas exhibits. They gawked as they went, utterly enchanted. There was, everywhere they strolled, the sound of music and laughter, and the aroma of food that made him wish that he had extra money in his pocket and that he didn't need to rely upon the sandwich in the brown paper bag stuffed into his shirt.

  But although the exhibits beckoned to them, they didn't stop—Cooley was of one fierce mind. He was going to guide his charges though the crush and shepherd them to the General Motors exhibit, and he was going to accomplish that at whatever cost. Then, later, they would thrill to the artistry of Bill Robinson.

  He was almost out of breath by the time the building rose before them.

  The General Motors Futurama building was like an unclimbable silver cliff, the only approach through a narrow red cleft in one side. Two serpentine ramps led up to the slit—it was absolutely mobbed, and they waited in a mile-long line on one of the ramps.

  The letters on the General Motors building were silver on silver. As they inched further up the gentle slope of the ramp, again and again his eyes were drawn to the towering Trylon, almost as if it were calling to him. The Future! Everywhere he looked, this whole idea of the "Future" almost screamed to him, and a tiny voice deep inside him finally, with undeniable excitement, asked him if he had ever wondered what his part in that future might be.

  Everywhere, music filled the air. Musicians were stationed in small groups around the grounds. Popular music, swing music. Wailing clarinets.

  Once inside, he was confronted by a series of trolleys, which the crowd and students piled into. The little cars only allowed two people per ride, separated by a little partition. Cassie tried to jostle her way next to Benny, but some god of probability blessed him, and put him in a cart with Jenny.

  It was dark in there. Their shoulders pressed close together, and for just a moment, he felt her lean against him. Once, when their little cart bumped around a curve, her hand stole out and grasped his.

  He felt that contact right down to his core, as though a little jolt of electricity was bouncing around in his marrow. Even though it was probably just the excitement of the moment, that she was enjoying the sights and sounds, even though she released his fingers quickly, he was still left with a tingling memory. It warmed him.

  A hidden announcer's voice said: "General Motors invites you on a tour of future America. The moving chairs below the map will transport you to the world of the future—to 1960."

  The chair had its own piped-in sound track with music and narration. And then he was flying.

  For the next few minutes, Benny was transported on an imaginary flight across an America two decades yet to come. A curved map beneath them gave a perfect illusion of flight, and there were frequent changes of scale, to give you the sensation of swooping down closer or riding higher in your cross-country journey.

  They saw cities of the future along the way. Skyscrapers were thrusting tall boxes with rounded edges and wraparound glass walls. A suspension bridge hung from one graceful, central tower. A blimp hangar on a round floating platform could be pointed in any direction. In an apple orchard, individual fruit trees blossomed under individual glass jars.

  He held his breath, entranced, and wasn't certain that he began to breathe again until the end of the ride, when he was deposited in a mock-up of a typical American street with the narrator's excited advice to keep his: "Eyes to the future!" still ringing in his ears.

  Never in his life had he experienced anything like that, and only one thing could conceivably spoil the experience for him: Every last one of the thousands of little human beings shopping, working, playing, worshipping and living in the cities of the future had been white.

  Although
other fair exhibits were wonderful, they seemed to pale in comparison with the General Motors exhibit. They stopped for lunch, and sat at a cluster of picnic tables, watching the passersby with a happy, relaxed air. Life was good, and whatever came next, he was going to be ready for that, too.

  Cooley had disappeared for a few minutes, promising to meet them back here, and hadn't returned yet. Then they saw him, and he looked gravely disappointed.

  "What's wrong, Mr. Cooley?" Benny asked.

  "I went over to the Hall of Nations," the teacher said. "I wanted to see how the lines were."

  "And?"

  "There weren't any lines, because the exhibit isn't open."

  Benny felt his mouth open and then close again. It wasn't fair. He knew that Mr. Cooley had chosen this day specifically, not to see Bojangles' magic feet—that had just been a lure to get the kids to the fair. And it wasn't just the Futurama, although he had been enthusiastic, and less disappointed than Benny that there had been no dark faces. There was something else. Something about this Hall of Nations …

  Benny shared Cooley's sense of disappointment. "Not open?"

  "They said that the curator had taken ill, and that he was very protective of the exhibit, had traveled all the way from Africa with it, and wouldn't let anyone else near it, so that that section was locked up."

  "What is it?" Benny asked, pressing again.

  Cooley seemed to be reluctant to talk about it, and then sighed.

  "Well, there's a tribe in Africa called the Dogon—"

  "Where?" Jenny asked.

  "The Mali Republic. They have a legend that is a little difficult to explain."

  "What's that?" Benny asked.

  "Well, the story is that thousands of years ago, their ancestors were visited by creatures from another star. Apparently, there was some kind of exchange between them, and the aliens were said to have left something behind."

  "Something like what?"

  "Well … it's only been in the exhibition for a couple of days at this point, like I said, the exhibit is new—but in the paper they said that it looked kind of like a crystal hourglass. He won't let anyone look at it more closely, so no one knows quite what to make of it, but I think it's a real cultural artifact."

  "You don't believe the stories about spacemen, do you?"

  "No, I think that it might represent an unusual glassblowing or gem cutting from an earlier era of African civilization." He sighed. "I just want to see for myself."

  He looked out over the crowd, and his face was painted with sheer discouragement. "Well, we can see some of the other exhibits, and maybe come back. We'll have to get the train before eight o'clock, but maybe that can be done. Maybe. Just maybe we can get the full day in."

  He slapped Benny's thin back with one broad, flat hand. "We'll give it our best shot, right?"

  "Right," Benny said.

  SHUFFLE

  CHAPTER 11

  1953

  BENNY RUSSELL emerged from the Incredible Tales office building, staring at the drawing in his hands. There was salvation in that sketch. There was hope. If there was pain

  so many kinds of pain, remember, Benny?

  —in this world, perhaps there could be peace, or even salvation in another. The space station in the picture looked like such a place, a place which might be home, home to him and a safe haven for a thousand races and species, all meeting as equals, judged only by their actions and capacities, not by accidents of birth.

  That dream sustained him.

  A sudden gust of wind plucked at the paper, and it tweaked out of his hands and tumbled down the street between the feet of the passing pedestrians. Cursing, he chased after it. The damned thing did an elusive pirouette, tumbling and tossing as if it was consciously attempting to elude him.

  Like any dream, its flight was irregular, elusive, just beyond his grasp. He fought to narrow his mind down to the chase. This was no time to allow old problems, old fears and insecurities to stop him from pursuing his goal. It was just a sheet of paper, not his career. Just a pencil sketch, not the shattered fragments of his life.

  All of his attention was there, on that sheet of paper, and it was shocking and sudden when a black brogan clomped down on it, pinning the sheet of paper to the ground.

  Benny stared at it for almost five seconds before he forced himself to look up, past the blue creased pants, past the heavy leather belt and service revolvers, to the police officers staring at him with barely disguised contempt. Two of them. Both men, of course, were Caucasian.

  He blinked. For a moment one of them—the one whose name badge read Ryan—momentarily fluttered, and another man stood in his place. Then it wasn't a man at all. It was a creature with ridged facial skin, and a high wall of muscle from shoulders to neck. And the name of this person was . . . Gul Dukat. They had been enemies. Not Dukat and Benny

  (who was Benny?)

  but Dukat and Captain Sisko. Yes. Dukat had once ruled Sisko's world, and Sisko had deposed him, and animosity ran deep. He was a "Cardassian."

  The other wore a name badge saying Mulkahey. And again, he shimmered in Benny's

  (Benny?)

  sight, and took on another form. Weyoun, a . . . "Vorta" . . . that was it. A field supervisor for the Vorta, who had once represented the Dominion in another matter involving Benjamin Sisko, commanding officer of Deep Space … Nine. Yes. That was it. Deep Space Nine, an outpost between two empires, a frontier outpost, a safe zone almost like Casablanca. And maybe Sisko was rather like Rick, or a combination of Rick and Captain—

  Ryan smacked his nightstick into his palm. Hard. He stared at the oncoming Benny, and there was some part of this man that actually hoped that something would go wrong, that hoped that there might be . . . an excuse. Yes, there was really no other word for it … to employ some of the force that he was legally entitled to use.

  Benny braced himself. This situation, these confrontations, were old and familiar to him, and went back to some place deep, deep within him. If he believed in a racial memory, they went back to some time when men like Ryan and Mulkahey had wielded whips, not truncheons. When they dragged reluctant Negroes away in leg irons, not handcuffs.

  There was nothing even remotely friendly in their eyes.

  "What's all the hurry?" Ryan asked.

  Benny pointed to the piece of paper on the ground. In his most controlled voice, he said: "That piece of paper … it's mine."

  Ryan made no move to lift his shoe from the paper. "Is that so?"

  Benny was silent. He had learned, through long experience, that saying the wrong thing could bring greater pain than not saying enough.

  "Nice suit," Mulkahey said, eyes hooded. "Where'd you get it?"

  Benny forced his breathing to remain calm. "I bought it. Can I have my drawing back?" Unbidden, a thread of irritation had crept into Benny's voice.

  Ryan remained motionless. "Hey," he said. "I'd watch that tone of voice if I were you."

  Mulkahey prodded his nightstick in Benny's direction. "What are you doing around here, anyway?" The unspoken subtext? What makes you think you can shuffle out of Harlem without getting a nightstick so far up your ass you look like a licorice popsicle?

  "I work here," Benny said. Red anger crowded the edges of his vision, but there was black, dead black in the center of it. He recognized both color and shade. There was danger here, more than he wanted to admit. He had to walk very carefully.

  "What are you?" Ryan asked snidely. "The janitor?"

  Benny wanted to scream at them: No! Dammit. I'm a writer. I'm a good writer, and I've sold more words than either of you apes have read.

  But he said nothing.

  "Awfully well-dressed for a janitor," Mulkahey said.

  "How do we know the picture's yours?" Ryan chimed in.

  Benny struggled to maintain his composure. "It's a drawing of a space station."

  "A what?" Mulkahey narrowed his eyes. "Space what? Are you sassing me?"

  Benny tried to find th
e words. "It's a kind of Flash Gordon thing." He bent down to pick up the paper. Ryan's foot was still planted on it and showed little sign of moving. Benny tugged at it ineffectually.

  Mulkahey sneered. "Buck Rogers, that kind of stuff? Mighty flighty aren't you, boy? I think I want to take a look at this 'Space Station.'" He glanced at his partner. "Well, get off it."

  A reluctant Ryan obliged. Mulkahey looked at the drawing, turning it around, and there was grudging admiration in his eyes. He looked sharply at Benny.

  "You see," Benny said. "It doesn't have any value to any one but me."

  "You aren't trying to tell me that you drew this, are you?"

  The answer was no. Even if the answer was yes, Benny knew that the reply had to be no. Sudden inspiration hit him. "No, sir," he said, hating his mouth for saying it. "I'm just delivering it for the man in the office."

  Both men relaxed. Suddenly the world seemed to make sense to them. "Oh—you're a delivery boy."

  "Kinda well dressed for a delivery boy," Ryan said, but still handed the drawing back to Benny.

  "All right," Mulkahey said. "Beat it. Take your picture and get out of here."

  Benny tried to leave, but Ryan stopped him.

  "This time, you're getting off with a warning. Next time, you won't be so lucky."

  Benny kept his face carefully neutral. But in his mind, he remembered another time, during the war. Remembered an exploding boiler, and a white boy who looked an awful lot like this man, scalded and dying, his red ropy intestines coiling out of him like a bleeding snake, mewling with fear as death crawled up to claim him.

  You aren't so very different from that man, Benny thought to himself. I'd be lying if I didn't say that it was interesting to see how similar we all are on the inside. I'd be lying to say I wouldn't like to see that again, right here, right now.