Arkwright (6 page)

Still, the setting was scientifictional enough. Out past right field, beyond the low fence that bordered the diamond, lay the World's Fair. The Perisphere and the Trylon towered above the pavilions, reflecting pools, and promenades of the fairgrounds, symbols of the fantastic world that awaited everyone if only they could pull themselves out of the Depression and, with any luck, avoid getting into another European war. When the game was over, everyone was supposed to go over there to have dinner and watch the Fourth of July fireworks, the last official activity of the World's Science Fiction Convention. Nat had already visited the fair, but he was looking forward to going again—this time, he hoped, with Maggie on his arm.

If she didn't find someone else instead.

The sudden crack of the bat brought his attention back to the field. Campbell had managed to hit the ball on his third try. It sailed up and over third base, describing a parabolic trajectory that carried it well into left field. Campbell had dropped the bat and was leisurely jogging toward first, confident that he'd just scored a home run; meanwhile, the Queens player who'd been on second was already sprinting for third, intent on rounding the bases and getting home.

Harry Skinner was playing left field for the Panthers, and until now it appeared that he wasn't going to do much out there except work on his tan. But Campbell's fly ball was a gift sent special delivery. Harry barely had to strain himself as he ran forward to catch it, and Campbell had just received the bad news from the first baseman when Harry hurled the ball to second, where his teammate got it in his glove just in time to tag the Cometeer trying to get back to where he'd started.

“Oh yeah!” Maggie nearly dropped her ice cream as she shot to her feet. “Go, Harry! Forward the Legion!”

Harry must have heard her above the uproar of disapproval from the Queens fans, who outnumbered the Philly contingent nearly two to one, because he grinned and waved to her. Nat tried not to be jealous, but he had to admit that, if Harry was his rival for Maggie's attention, he'd just scored a few points. And he looked good too, stripped down to his undershirt, his muscles shining with sweat. Nat had already figured that Harry was a working-class kid; his build was proof that he didn't spend his days in a shoe store.

The double play brought a sudden end to the fourth inning, and Harry sauntered in with the rest of his team. On the way, he walked past Sam. Nat saw him say something to the convention chairman, who this afternoon was doubling as captain of the Queens Cometeers; he couldn't make out the words, but Sam cast him an angry glare, which Harry took with a smug grin.

“What did you just say to him?” Nat asked when Harry joined them.

“I just asked if he'd found something to do with all those pamphlets.” Harry was still smiling. “I don't think he can take a joke.”

Nat and George shared an upraised eyebrow. It was bad enough that Sam had been forced to extend his amnesty to the teenager who'd openly challenged him in the convention hall just the other day. But Harry had also rubbed it in by volunteering to play for the Panthers. So even though the Philly club was being trounced by the Queens team, Harry was finding a way to get revenge.

There was a lot of that sort of thing going on today. It wasn't hard to tell that there was a rivalry between the two fan clubs, and although they'd had dinner together last night at the Wyndham Restaurant—those who could afford the $1 banquet ticket, that is—the conflict between the Futurians and New Fandom was making itself felt on the ball field. In just the first few innings, players had traded sides, rules had been bent, and accusations of cheating had been made. Perhaps this was why most of the writers had fled to Brooklyn: the smart ones like Isaac Asimov wanted to keep above the fray, while the out-of-towners like Jack Williamson didn't want to get mixed up in what was essentially a turf battle among unruly East Coast teenagers.

“You're certainly tempting fate, aren't you?” Maggie asked, a wry smile on her face. She nodded toward John Campbell, who was wiping his face with a towel as he chatted with some fans. “I mean, he might remember who it was who stopped him from getting a homer.”

Harry stopped grinning. He gave Campbell a worried look. “I dunno … you think I ought to go over and apologize?”

“If he rejects stories on the basis of who scores against him in a softball game,” George said, “then he's a pretty poor editor. Besides, he'll probably have forgotten all about it by the time you send him another story.” He shrugged. “Either way, I wouldn't talk to him, if I were you.”

Sound advice, and yet Nat was tempted to walk over and introduce himself to Campbell. He wanted very badly to sell a story to
Astounding
. Perhaps if he approached its editor the right way …

“I think he's more interested in good stories than good sportsmanship,” Maggie said, “if you know what I mean.”

He didn't know how she'd guessed his intent, but the wink she gave him confirmed that she had. Nat stayed where he was. “Still, if I just knew what he was looking for…”

“What do you want to write?”

“Why, science fiction, of course.”

“Yes, but what kind of science fiction?” Her expression became serious. “There are many different types, you know. Do you have something particular in mind?”

Nat gave Harry a wary glance. He liked Harry well enough, but he didn't know yet whether he trusted him not to steal an idea from him. But Harry had leaned away from them to tap another Philadelphia fan on the shoulder and beg a swig from the pint bottle of peach brandy he was carrying, so Nat answered her. “I've been kind of thinking about doing a space adventure story,” he said, lowering his voice a little. “I got a title:
The Galaxy Patrol
. It's about—”

“Sounds like E. E. Smith. Or Ed Hamilton.”

“Or Weinbaum or Leinster or Williamson,” George added, leaning in to join the conversation.

“Well, yeah, sure. Those are my favorites, so—”

“What makes you think Campbell will want a story that's like what those other guys are already writing for him?” Maggie was unapologetic about interrupting him. Nat was learning that she was clearly a girl who wasn't afraid to speak her mind. “I mean, every time
Astounding
publishes another Lensman serial, their sales jump. Stanley Weinbaum is no longer around, but there are probably a half dozen writers trying to replace him. So what's so different about your story that Campbell isn't going to find it somewhere else?”

Nat opened his mouth and then closed it. Out in the field, the Cometeers first baseman had just tagged out the Panthers player who'd slugged a ground ball to the pitcher, but he barely paid attention. Maggie had a point. There was nothing in the story he planned to write that was much different from anything he'd read in
Astounding, Amazing, Startling,
or any of the other pulps.

“Let me ask you something.” George slid a little closer to him. “The spaceships in your story … do they travel faster than the speed of light?”

“Umm … yeah, sure.”

“Uh-huh.” George nodded. “And what's the speed of light? I'll settle for an approximate figure.”

“Uh—” Nat had to think about this for a moment. “It's about 186,000 miles per second, isn't it?”

“Close enough. However, Einstein clearly stated in his general theory of relativity that the speed of light is a maximum value, and nothing—
nothing
—may exceed it. Not even the spaceships in all those stories we read.”

George pointed to the baseball diamond. “Let's say that this field is the solar system. Earth is home plate, and the Moon is the pitcher's mound. Okay?” Nat nodded, and George went on, “Well, on that scale, Mars is way out there past center field, the asteroid belt is the fence, and Jupiter is the Perisphere.”

“It's not that far away!” Harry had tuned in on the conversation.

“Yes, it is, and Pluto is somewhere in the Bronx.” George was still speaking to Nat. “So, with that scale in mind, where do you think the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is located?”

Nat looked around, saw the distant Manhattan skyline to the west of the ball field. “The Empire State Building?”

“That's a pretty good guess. I would've said New Jersey, but we'll go with that. Now, providing that the speed of light is absolute and nothing can travel faster, no ship we'll ever build could reach the nearest star in less than four and half years. So you can pretty much forget Smith's or Hamilton's ships reaching the center of the galaxy in only a few days.”

“Yeah, but so what?” Harry was determined to become part of the conversation. “It's just a science fiction story.”

George sighed, shook his head. “Let me try it this way … when you go up to bat, you've got a good chance of hitting the ball over the pitcher's mound. You might even score a home run by knocking it all the way over the fence. But it's physically impossible for you to hit the Empire State Building. Not even Superman could do that.”

“Superman could hit the Empire State Building,” said a Queens fan sitting nearby.

“Shut up, Julius,” Harry said, scowling at him.

“The point is, just about everyone who writes about space travel
gets it wrong
!” George intently stared at Nat over the top of his glasses. “You know, when I let one of the profs at MIT know that I read science fiction, he asked me why I was wasting my time with that trash … that's what he called it, not me. I asked him if he'd ever read any, and he told me that he had, but he's given up on it because, most of the time, the people who write it either pay no attention to science or simply get it wrong. He said, ‘If those writers produced science fiction that got the science right and still told a great story, people might pay more attention to that stuff.'”

“So you're saying…?”

“If you want to distinguish yourself from all the other fellows who are writing science fiction, do it better than they do. Get the science right.” He pointed to the field. “Rockets are like softballs. You'll never going to get out of the ball park if you keep playing with those. If your Galaxy Patrol is going to other stars, they're going to need something on a whole different order of magnitude.”

“Such as what?”

“Ever heard of Paul Dirac's theories about antimatter? Or the Einstein-Rosen Bridge?” Nat shook his head, and George smiled. “I'll tell you later. And remember, next semester, I'll be just across the Charles River from you.”

“That's great!” Harry was grinning broadly. “Can I ask you for help too? I'm—”

“Skinner!” The fan who was managing the Philly team was yelling to him from the batter's box. “Your turn! Get down here!”

“Coming!” Harry stood up and started to climb down from the bleachers, and then he stopped and turned to Maggie. “Hey, sweetheart, if I can hit this ball all the way to Mars, can I take you to the fireworks tonight?”

Maggie laughed. “Sure! You're on! Knock it to Mars, and I'm your date.”

“But you'll never break the speed of light,” Nat said.

“I won't need to.” Harry winked at Maggie. “If I score a run this inning, I'll be a bigger hero than Kimball Kinnison.”

“He'll never do it,” Nat said quietly as Harry walked away.

He was wrong. Harry's next ball went over the fence, and although the Cometeers beat the Panthers 23–11, Maggie went with him to the fair that evening.

But the conversation with George changed his life.

 

7

Maggie had warned Kate that her grandfather's memoirs were incomplete, but she didn't realize just how much was left untold until the narrative came to an abrupt halt shortly after the first World Science Fiction Convention. Nathan wrote about making his first sale to
Astounding
just a few months after he entered Boston College and how a subsequent series of short stories had helped pay his way through school and also made him one of the magazine's regular contributors during science fiction's Golden Age. But he'd just finished telling how a failed induction physical had kept him out of the wartime draft when the manuscript came to an abrupt end.

Perhaps her grandfather's failing health had stopped him, or maybe he'd heeded his agent's advice and decided not to write his life story. In any case, Kate came away from
My Life in the Future
only knowing how he'd met Maggie, Harry, and George and that they'd become this Legion of Tomorrow that they appeared to take so seriously even after sixty years. If she wanted to learn more, obviously she'd have to get it from them.

When she tried calling Margaret Krough, though, her assistant informed her that she was out of town; she'd flown to Germany earlier in the week for the annual Frankfurt Book Fair and would be there for a couple of more days. Kate was frustrated until she remembered that Harry had told her that he was available too. Directory information had his number in Philadelphia, and a phone call resulted in an invitation to visit him. A few days later she boarded the morning Amtrak train from Boston, and by midafternoon a taxi had dropped her off at the address he'd given her.

Harry Skinner lived in a large brick apartment building on Pine Street in the Washington Square neighborhood, a former row house that had been converted for use by senior citizens. A wheelchair ramp had been installed beside the steps leading to the front entrance, and a typewritten sheet of paper taped to a wall in the foyer gave the days and times when van service would be available to residents who wanted to go shopping. Kate pushed the button above Harry's mailbox; his voice came through the intercom a minute later and invited her to come up, advising her to take the elevator.

It wasn't Harry who answered the door, though, but a young man about Kate's age. One look at him and she had a clear impression of how Harry must have looked many years ago; the family resemblance was unmistakable, even though he'd substituted a goatee for a mustache. He welcomed her with a warm smile and a handshake and introduced himself as Jim Skinner, Harry's grandson.