The World Turned Upside Down (9 page)

I changed the subject quickly. Whatever they had given me made me feel dreamy and good, but not beyond being embarrassed. "Ariel, what happened? You were getting along fine—then suddenly you were in trouble."

She looked sheepish. "My own fault. You said we were going down, so I looked down. Really looked, I mean. Before that, all my thoughts had been about climbing clear to the roof; I hadn't thought about how far down the floor was. Then I looked down . . . and got dizzy and panicky and went all to pieces." She shrugged. "You were right. I wasn't ready."

I thought about it and nodded. "I see. But don't worry—when my arms are well, I'll take you up again."

She touched my foot. "Dear Holly. But I won' be flying again; I'm going back where I belong."

"Earthside?"

"Yes. I'm taking the
Billy Mitchell
on Wednesday."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

She frowned slightly. "Are you? Holly, you don't like me, do you?"

I was startled silly. What can you say? Especially when it's true? "Well," I said slowly, "I don't dislike you. I just don't know you very well."

She nodded. "And I don't know you very well . . . even though I got to know you a lot better in a very few seconds. But Holly . . . listen please and don't get angry. It's about Jeff. He hasn't treated you very well the last few days—while I've been here, I mean. But don't be angry with him. I'm leaving and everything will be the same."

That ripped it open and I couldn't ignore it, because if I did, she would assume all sorts of things that weren't so. So I had to explain . . . about me being a career woman . . . how, if I had seemed upset, it was simply distress at breaking up the firm of Jones & Hardesty before it even finished its first starship . . . how I was
not
in love with Jeff but simply valued him as a friend and associate . . . but if Jones & Hardesty couldn't carry on, then Jones & Company would. "So you see, Ariel, it isn't necessary for you to give up Jeff. If you feel you owe me something, just forget it. It isn't necessary."

She blinked and I saw with amazement that she was holding back tears. "Holly, Holly . . . you don't understand at all."

"I understand all right. I'm not a child."

"No, you're a grown woman . . . but you haven't found it out." She held up a finger. "One—Jeff doesn't love me."

"I don't believe it."

"Two . . . I don't love him."

"I don't believe that, either."

"Three . . . you say you don't love him—but we'll take that up when we come to it. Holly, am I beautiful?"

Changing the subject is a female trait but I'll never learn to do it that fast. "Huh?"

"I said, 'Am I beautiful?'"

"You know darn well you are!"

"Yes. I can sing a bit and dance, but I would get few parts if I were not, because I'm no better than a third-rate actress. So I have to be beautiful. How old am I?"

I managed not to boggle. "Huh? Older than Jeff thinks you are. Twenty-one, at least. Maybe twenty-two."

She sighed. "Holly, I'm old enough to be your mother."

"Huh? I don't believe that either."

"I'm glad it doesn't show. But that's why, though Jeff is a dear, there never was a chance that I could fall in love with him. But how I feel about him doesn't matter; the important thing is that
he
loves
you
."

"
What?
That's the silliest thing you've said yet! Oh, he
likes
me—or did. But that's all." I gulped. "And it's all I want. Why, you should hear the way he talks to me."

"I have. But boys that age can't say what they mean; they get embarrassed."

"But—"

"Wait, Holly. I saw something you didn't because you were knocked cold. When you and I bumped, do you know what happened?"

"Uh, no."

"Jeff arrived like an avenging angel, a split second behind us. He was ripping his wings off as he hit, getting his arms free. He didn't even look at me. He just stepped across me and picked you up and cradled you in his arms, all the while bawling his eyes out."

"He
did?
"

"He did."

I mulled it over. Maybe the big lunk did kind of like me, after all.

Ariel went on, "So you see, Holly, even if you don't love him, you must be very gentle with him, because he loves you and you can hurt him terribly."

I tried to think. Romance was still something that a career woman should shun . . . but if Jeff really did feel that way—well . . . would it be compromising my ideals to marry him just to keep him happy? To keep the firm together? Eventually, that is?

But if I did, it wouldn't be Jones & Hardesty; it would be Hardesty & Hardesty.

Ariel was still talking: "—you might even fall in love with him. It does happen, hon, and if it did, you'd be sorry if you had chased him away. Some other girl would grab him; he's awfully nice."

"But—" I shut up for I heard Jeff's step—I can always tell it. He stopped in the door and looked at us, frowning.

"Hi, Ariel."

"Hi, Jeff."

"Hi, Fraction." He looked me over. "My, but you're a mess."

"You aren't pretty yourself. I hear you have flat feet."

"Permanently. How do you brush your teeth with those things on your arms?"

"I don't."

Ariel slid off the bed, balanced on one foot. "Must run. See you later, kids."

"So long, Ariel."

"Good-by, Ariel. Uh . . . thanks."

Jeff closed the door after she hopped away, came to the bed and said gruffly, "Hold still."

Then he put his arms around me and kissed me.

Well, I couldn't stop him, could I? With both arms broken? Besides, it was consonant with the new policy for the firm. I was startled speechless because Jeff never kisses me, except birthday kisses, which don't count. But I tried to kiss back and show that I appreciated it.

I don't know what the stuff was they had been giving me but my ears began to ring and I felt dizzy again.

Then he was leaning over me. "Runt," he said mournfully, "you sure give me a lot of grief."

"You're no bargain yourself, flathead," I answered with dignity.

"I suppose not." He looked me over sadly. "What are you crying for?"

I didn't know that I had been. Then I remembered why. "Oh, Jeff—I busted my pretty wings!"

"We'll get you more. Uh, brace yourself. I'm going to do it again."

"All right." He did.

I suppose Hardesty & Hardesty has more rhythm than Jones & Hardesty.

It really sounds better.

Afterword by Eric Flint

Once we settled on Clarke's
Rescue Party
as the opening story for the anthology, the choice for the second story was practically automatic: This one.
Well . . . not quite. The part that was more or less automatic was that it would be
some
story by Robert Heinlein. The question of which story in particular, however, was something we had to kick back and forth for a while.
We faced a bit of a problem. For all of us as teenagers,
the
Heinlein was not really the Heinlein who wrote short stories. It was the Heinlein who wrote that seemingly inexhaustible fountain of young adult novels:
Rocket Ship Galileo, Citizen of the Galaxy, Have Spacesuit—Will Travel, Tunnel in the Sky, Time for the Stars, The Star Beast, Farmer in the Sky, Space Cadet, The Rolling Stones, Starman Jones . . .
the list seemed to go on and on.
If books had infinite pages—or book buyers had infinitely deep pockets—we would have selected one of those short YA novels for the anthology. Alas, pages are finite and the pockets of customers more finite still, so we had to find another alternative.
We chose this story, because of all Heinlein's short fiction it probably best captures the spirit of his great young adult novels. Most of Heinlein's short fiction is quite different, often much grimmer, and—speaking for me, at least, if not necessarily Jim or Dave—not something which had much of an impact on me in my so-called formative years.

Plus, there was another bonus. Again, for me at least. I'm sure I first read this story when I was thirteen. I think that because I remember being absolutely fascinated by the fact that: a) the protagonist from whose viewpoint the story is told is a
girl;
b) she was really bright; c) she was often confused by her own motives and uncertain of herself, for all that she pretended otherwise.
Leaving factor "a" aside, factors "b" and "c" described me at that age to a T. That bizarre age in a boy's life when girls had gone from being a very familiar, well-understood and mostly boring phenomenon to something that had suddenly become incredibly mysterious, even more fascinating—and completely confusing.
After reading the story, I remember thinking that I really, really hoped Heinlein knew what he was talking about—and that the depiction of women and girls you generally ran across in science fiction of the time was baloney. With few exceptions, in SF of the time, a female character was doing well if she achieved one-dimensionality. And that dimension was invariably good looks. This was no help at all. I already knew girls were good-looking. What I needed
to know was everything else—everything that Heinlein had put at the center of
his
story.
A year later I was fourteen and I had my first girlfriend, who remained so throughout my high school years. And whatever doubts I might have had that Robert A. Heinlein was
the
Heinlein were dispelled forever.

Preface by Eric Flint

This story made its way into the anthology by accident. We had never planned to include it at the beginning. In fact, none of us had even remembered the story, or the author—whose career in science fiction only lasted a few years and ended long ago. Instead, we'd wanted to include a story by Eric Frank Russell, a writer whom we'd all enjoyed for years and who had been especially significant for me as a youngster.
Alas, the decision on which stories get included in an anthology like this aren't simply made by the editors. The estates (or, in some cases, still-living authors) obviously have a say in the matter also. And, in the case of Eric Frank Russell, the agency representing the estate proved too difficult for us to deal with. (Never mind the details. Expletives would have to be deleted. Many many many expletives.)

I was the one who handled the negotiations with that estate, and after they finally fell through, I was in a foul mood. I'd
really
wanted a Russell story. So I decided to work off my frustration with some long-postponed manual labor: unpacking several big boxes of old science fiction magazines I'd purchased for my editing work and filing them away.
Halfway through the first box, which was full of old
Analog
magazines, a cover illustration caught my eye. Jumped out at me, to be more precise. In a split second, I not only recognized that cover but I remembered
the story it illustrated and the name of the author—Rick Raphael's novella
Code Three,
which I hadn't read in something like forty years but now recalled very vividly.

This was . . . a very good sign. So I immediately sat down and read the story, wondering if I'd still like it as much as I could remember liking it as a teenager.
As it happened, if anything, I liked it even more. As an experienced writer now well into middle age—being charitable to myself—I could spot little subtleties and nuances which I'm sure I missed as a sixteen-year-old.

I then called Dave on the phone and I began describing the story to him. Before I'd gotten out more than three sentences,
he
remembered it also—even though, like me, he hadn't read it in many years.
Oh, a
very
good sign.
So, here it is. The third story of the anthology, to serve all of us as a reminder that science fiction was constructed by many people, not simply a small number of famous writers. Rick Raphael came and went, but he had his moment in the sun.

The late afternoon sun hid behind gray banks of snow clouds and a cold wind whipped loose leaves across the drill field in front of the Philadelphia Barracks of the North American Continental Thruway Patrol. There was the feel of snow in the air but the thermometer hovered just at the freezing mark and the clouds could turn either into icy rain or snow.

Patrol Sergeant Ben Martin stepped out of the door of the barracks and shivered as a blast of wind hit him. He pulled up the zipper on his loose blue uniform coveralls and paused to gauge the storm clouds building up to the west.

The broad planes of his sunburned face turned into the driving cold wind for a moment and then he looked back down at the weather report secured to the top of a stack of papers on his clipboard.

Behind him, the door of the barracks was shouldered open by his junior partner, Patrol Trooper Clay Ferguson. The young, tall Canadian officer's arms were loaded with paper sacks and his patrol work helmet dangled by its strap from the crook of his arm.

Clay turned and moved from the doorway into the wind. A sudden gust swept around the corner of the building and a small sack perched atop one of the larger bags in his arms blew to the ground and began tumbling towards the drill field.

"Ben," he yelled, "grab the bag."

The sergeant lunged as the sack bounded by and made the retrieve. He walked back to Ferguson and eyed the load of bags in the blond-haired officer's arms.

"Just what is all this?" he inquired.

"Groceries," the youngster grinned. "Or to be more exact, little gourmet items for our moments of gracious living."

Ferguson turned into the walk leading to the motor pool and Martin swung into step beside him. "Want me to carry some of that junk?"

"Junk," Clay cried indignantly. "You keep your grimy paws off these delicacies, peasant. You'll get yours in due time and perhaps it will help Kelly and me to make a more polished product of you instead of the clodlike cop you are today."

Martin chuckled. This patrol would mark the start of the second year that he, Clay Ferguson and Medical-Surgical Officer Kelly Lightfoot had been teamed together. After twenty-two patrols, cooped up in a semiarmored vehicle with a man for ten days at a time, you got to know him pretty well. And you either liked him or you hated his guts.