Pohlstars (13 page)

He didn't finish that sentence, just more of that chuckling, cackling,
mean
laugh.

I felt uneasy. It was beginning to look as though Torklemiggen was up to something more than just high jinks and deviltry. He was easing up on the black hole and kind of crooning to himself, mostly in that foreign language of his but now and then in English: "Oh, my darling little assault vessel, what destruction you will wreak! Ah, charming black hole, how catastrophic you will be! How foolish these mammals who think they can forbid me to come near you- Then, as they say, light dawned. "Torklemiggen, I shouted, "you've got the wrong idea. It's not just a traffic regulation that we have to stay away from black holes. It's a lot more serious than that!

But I was too late. He was inside the Roche limit before I could finish.

I almost hate to tell you what happened next. It was pretty gross. The tidal forces seized his ship, and they stretched it.

I heard one caterwauling astonished yowl over the TBS. Then his transmitter failed. The ship ripped apart, and the pieces began to rain down into the Schwarzschild boundary and plasmaed. There was a quick, blinding flash of fall-in energy from the black hole, and that was all Torklemiggen would ever say or do or know.

I got out of there as fast as I could. I wasn't really feeling very sorry for him, either. The way he was talking there toward the end, he sounded as though he had some pretty dangerous ideas.

When I landed it was sundown at the field, and people were staring and pointing toward the place in the sky where Torklemiggen had smeared himself into the black hole. All bright purplish and orangey plasma clouds-it made a really beautiful sunset, I'll say that much for the guy! I didn't have time to admire it, though, because Tonda was waiting, and we just had minutes to get to the Deputy Census Director, Division of Reclassification, before it closed.

But we made it.

Well, I said I had big news, didn't I? And that's it, because now your loving son is

Yours truly,

James Paul Aguilar-Madigan,

the newlywed!

All writers have favorite themes and return to them over and over-even when they don't intend to and perhaps, as in my own case, don't realize quite how often they've done so until it comes time to put a collection of stories together. Their excuse (which I do dearly hope you will find justified in the present examples) is that a new treatment, a new setting, a new angle of attack can refresh an argument-especially an argument that seems worth making in the first place. At any rate, this story came about in the summer of 1982, when curiosity led me to Knoxville to see how they were doing with their first-ever world's fair. I am no great connoisseur of world's fairs; I'd only been to three before Knoxville-the pair in New York City a generation apart and the 1970 event in Osaka, Japan. Knoxville was a much smaller spectacle. Still, it had a lot of interesting exhibits and a holiday-carnival atmosphere; I had a good time. The locals I talked to seemed to be enjoying it a lot less, and when I asked them why so glum, they reported that it was losing money by the fistful and pot. What then (I wondered) was the reason for having it? Echo gave me an answer, and so I went back to my hotel room and began writing this story.

All writers have favorite themes and return to them over and over-even when they don't intend to and perhaps, as in my own case, don't realize quite how often they've done so until it comes time to put a collection of stories together. Their excuse (which I do dearly hope you will find justified in the present examples) is that a new treatment, a new setting, a new angle of attack can refresh an argument-especially an argument that seems worth making in the first place. At any rate, this story came about in the summer of 1982, when curiosity led me to Knoxville to see how they were doing with their first-ever world's fair. I am no great connoisseur of world's fairs; I'd only been to three before Knoxville-the pair in New York City a generation apart and the 1970 event in Osaka, Japan. Knoxville was a much smaller spectacle. Still, it had a lot of interesting exhibits and a holiday-carnival atmosphere; I had a good time. The locals I talked to seemed to be enjoying it a lot less, and when I asked them why so glum, they reported that it was losing money by the fistful and pot. What then (I wondered) was the reason for having it? Echo gave me an answer, and so I went back to my hotel room and began writing this story.

They were the Baxter family, Randolph and Millicent the parents, with their three children, Emma and Simon and Louisa, who was the littlest; and they didn't come to the fair in any old bus. No, they drove up in a taxi, all the way from their home clear on the other side of town, laughing and poking each other, and when they got out, Randolph Baxter gave the driver a really big tip. It wasn't that he could really afford it. It was just because he felt it was the right thing to do. When you took your whole family to the Lottery Fair, Baxter believed, you might as well do it in style. Besides, the fare was only money. Though Millicent Baxter pursed her lips when she saw the size of the tip, she certainly was not angry; her eyes sparkled as brightly as the children's, and together they stared at the facade of the Lottery Fair.

Even before you got through the gates there was a carnival smell, buttered popcorn and cotton candy and tacos all together, and a carnival sound of merry-go-round organs and people screaming in the rollercoaster, and bands and bagpipes from far away. A clown stalked on tall stilts through the fairgoers lining up at the ticket windows, bending down to chuck children under the chin and making believe to nibble the ears of teenage girls in bright summer shorts. Rainbow fountains splashed perfumey spray. People in cartoon-character costumes, Gus the Ghost and Mickey Mouse and Pac-Man, handed out free surprise packages to the kids; when Simon opened his it was a propeller beanie, a fan for Emma, for little Louisa cardboard glasses with a Groucho Marx mustache. And crowded! You could hardly believe such crowds! Off to one side of the parking lot the tour buses were rolling in with their loads of foreign visitors, Chinese and Argen tines and Swedes; they had special entrances and were waved through by special guards who greeted them, some of the time anyway, in their own native languages-
"Willkommen!
and
"Bon jour!
and
"Ey there, mate!
-as long as they didn't speak anything like Urdu or SerboCroatian, anyway. For the foreign tourists didn't have to pay in the usual way; they bought their tickets in their country of origin, with valuable foreign exchange, and then everything was free for them.

Of course it wasn't like that for the regular American fairgoers. They had to pay. You could see each family group moving up toward the ticket windows. They would slow down as they got closer and finally stop, huddling together while they decided how to pay, and then one or two of them, or all of them, would move on to the window and reach into the admissions cuff for their tickets. Randolph Baxter had long before made up his mind that there would be no such wrangles on this day for his family. He said simply, "Wait here a minute, and strode up to the window by himself. He put his arm into the cuff, smiled at the ticket attendant, and said grandly, "I'll take five, please.

The ticket seller looked at him admiringly. "You know, she offered, "there aren't that many daddies who'll take all the little fellows in like that. Sometimes they make even tiny babies get their own tickets. Baxter gave her a modest I-do-what-I-can shrug, though he could not help that his smile was a little strained until all five tickets had clicked out of the roll. He bore them proudly back to his family and led them through the turnstiles.

"My, what a crowd, sighed Millicent Baxter happily as she gazed around. "Now, what shall we do first?

The response was immediate. "See the old automobiles, yelled Simon, and, "No, the animals! and, "No, the stiffs! cried his sisters.

Randolph Baxter spoke sharply to them-not angrily but firmly. "There will be no fighting over what we do, he commanded. "We'll
vote
on what we do, the demo-cratic way. No arguments and no exceptions. Now, he added, "the first thing we're going to do is that you kids will stay right here while your mother and I get tickets for the job lottery. The parents left the children arguing viciously among themselves and headed for the nearest lottery booth. Randolph Baxter could not help a tingle of excitement, and his wife's eyes were gleaming, as they studied the prize list. The first prize was the management of a whole apartment building-twenty-five thousand dollars a year salary and a free three-room condo thrown in!

Millicent read his thoughts as they stood in line. "Don't you just wish! she whispered. "But personally I'd settle for any of the others. Look, there's even a job for an English teacher! Randolph shook his head wordlessly. It was just marvelous-five full-time jobs offered in this one raftle, and that not the biggest of the day. The last one, after the fireworks, always had the grandest of prizes. "Aren't you glad we came? Millicent asked, and her husband nodded.

But in fact he wasn't, altogether, at least until they safely got their tickets and were on their way back to the children, and then he was quickly disconcerted to see that the kids weren't where they had been left. "Oh, hell, groaned Randolph. It was early in the day for them to get lost.

But they weren't very far. His wife said sharply, "There they are. And look what they're doing! They were at a refreshment stand. And each one of them had a huge cone of frozen custard. "L
told
them not to make any purchases when we weren't with them! Millicent cried, but in fact it was worse than that. The children were talking to a pair of strange grownups, a lean, fair, elderly woman with a sharp, stern face and a round, dark-skinned man with a bald head and immense tortoise-shell glasses.

As the Baxters approached, the woman turned to them apologetically. "Oh, hullo, she said, "you must be the parents. I do hope you'll forgive us. Mr. Katsubishi and I seem to have lost our tour, and your children kindly helped us look for it.

"it's all right, Dad, Simon put in swiftly. "They're on this foreign tour, see, and everything's free for them anyway. Dad? Why can't we get on a tour and have everything free?

"We're Americans, his father explained, smiling tentatively at the tall English-looking woman and the tubby, cheerful Japanese-he decided that they didn't
look
like depraved child molesters. "You have to be an international tourist to get these unlimited tickets. And I bet they cost quite a lot of money, don't they? he appealed to the man, who smiled and shrugged and looked at the woman.

"Mr. Katsubishi doesn't speak English very well, she apologized. "I'm Rachel Millay. Mrs. Millay, that is, although my dear husband left us some years ago. She glanced about in humorous distress. "I don't suppose you've seen a tour leader carrying a green and violet flag with a cross of St. Andrew on it?

Since Randolph Baxter had no idea what a cross of St. Andrew looked like, it was hard to say. In any case, there were at least twenty tour parties in sight, each with its own individual pennant or standard, trudging in determined merriment toward the pavilions, the rides, or the refreshment stands. "I'm afraid not, he began, and then paused as his wife clutched his arm. The P.A. system crackled, and the winners of the first drawing were announced.

Neither of the Baxters was among them. "Well, there are six more drawings, said Millicent bravely, not adding that there were also six more sets of raffle tickets to buy if they wanted any hope of winning one of them. Her husband smiled cheerfully at the children.

"What's it to be? he asked generously. "The life exhibit? The concert-

"We already voted, Dad, cried Emma, his elder daughter. "It's the animals!

"No, the stiffs!" yelled her baby sister.

"The old autos, cried Simon. "Anyway, there won't be any stiffs there until later, not to speak of!

Baxter smiled indulgently at the foreigners. "Children, he explained. "Well, I do hope you find your group. And he led the way to the first democratically selected adventure of the day, the space exhibit.

Baxter had always had a nostalgic fondness for space, and this was a pretty fine exhibit, harking back to the olden, golden days when human beings could spare enough energy and resources to send their people and probes out toward the distant worlds. Even the kids liked it. It was lavish with animated 3-D displays showing a human being walking around on the surface of the Moon, and a spacecraft slipping through the rings of Saturn, and even a probe, though not an American one, hustling after Halley's Comet to take its picture.

But Randolph Baxter had some difficulty in concentrating on the pleasure of the display at first because, as they were getting their tickets, the tall, smiling black man just ahead of him in line put his arm into the admissions cuff, looked startled, withdrew his arm, started to speak, and fell over on the ground, his eyes open and staring, it seemed, right into Randolph Baxter's.

When you have a wife and three kids and no job, living on welfare, never thinking about tomorrow because you know there isn't going to be anything in tomorrow worth thinking about, a day's outing for the whole family is an event to be treasured. No matter what the price-especially if the price isn't in money. So the Baxter family did it all. They visited six national pavilions, even the Paraguayan. They lunched grandly in the dining room at the summit of the Fair's great central theme structure, the Cenotaph. And they did the rides, all the rides, from the Slosh-a-Slide water chutes through the immense Ferris wheel with the wind howling through the open car and Simon threatening to spit down on the crowds below to the screaming, shattering rollercoaster that made little Louisa wet her pants. Fortunately her mother had brought clean underwear for the child. When she sent the little girl off with her sister to change in the ladies' room, she followed them anxiously with her eyes until they were safely past the ticket collector and then said. "Rand, honey. You paid for all those rides yourself.