Memories of the Future (17 page)

RALPH
(
to Starfinder
): How come you’re captain of a whaleship instead of an eelship? Seems to me a good, loyal Renascence citizen ought to stick to products made on his own planet, not somebody else’s.

STARFINDER
: Originally I’m from whaleship country. From Terraltair—Altair IV.

RALPH
: But Altair IV’s halfway across the galaxy. It’d take more years than you are old for you to get here.

STARFINDER
: My whaleship’s a special one. It exceeds standard ftl velocity.

RALPH
: Is that so?

STARFINDER
: Yes.

Ralph makes a
rat-a-tat-tat
with his empty bottle on the coffee table, and Mrs. Bleu jumps up, dashes into the kitchen and returns with four full ones. Ciely has come back downstairs and now begins collecting the empties.

THE WHALE
:

STARFINDER
:
Never mind, whale.

MR. BLEU
(
after, a mild eructation
): I know it’s prob’ly none of my business, Uncle John, but that eelship of yours that you accidentally rammed with your whale when you went after that feather-brained dotter of mine must have set you back quite a bundle. Just how big a bundle, if I may be so bold as to ask?

STARFINDER
: Ten billion dollars, or thereabouts.

MR. BLEU
(
in an awed voice
): Ten billion dollars!

RALPH
(
in an equally awed voice
): Ten billion dollars!

MRS. BLEU
: Was it insured?

STARFINDER
: Naturally.

MRS. BLEU
: Are they going to pay off?

STARFINDER
: I doubt it. It’ll probably be classified as an “Act of God.”

MR. BLEU
: Ten billion dollars. Down the drain!

STARFINDER
(
blandly
): What’s ten billion dollars?

RALPH
: Dirty capitalist pig! (
To Mrs. Bleu
): Get me another beer, Mildred. (
Mrs. Bleu heads for the kitchen again.
)

STARFINDER
(
calling after her
): Skip me this time, ma’am.

RALPH
: Too good to drink with us common ordinary working-class people, huh, Starfinder?

CIELY
(
again collecting the empties
): He’s certainly too good to drink with a freeloading klutz like you. You aren’t fit to shine his shoes!

MR. BLEU
: Ciely!

MRS. BLEU
(
returning with three full ones
): Apologize to our guest this minute, you bitchy little brat!

CIELY
: He’s your guest, not mine. (
Runs outside.
)

MRS. BLEU
(
sitting back down on the sofa
): I don’t know what we’re going to do with her. I just don’t.

RALPH
(
putting his booted feet on the coffee table and leaning back to a more comfortable position
): I know what
I’d
do with her!

MR. BLEU
: And she’d have it coming too.

MRS. BLEU
: We’ve tried everything. Cutting off her allowance. Locking her in her room. Washing her mouth out with soap. But she goes right on being just as snotty as ever, and keeps right on reading those buks.

STARFINDER
: Buks?

MRS. BLEU
: You know—those make-up things with words.

STARFINDER
: But isn’t she taught out of books at school?

MRS. BLEU
: You’re talking about textbuks. I’m talking about buks. Like you get from the underground liberry.

MR. BLEU
: Mildred, I
think
Ralph’s bottle is empty. While you’re at it, bring me another one. And bring Uncle John another one too.

STARFINDER
: Skip me again, ma’am.

RALPH
: Dirty capitalist pig!

STARFINDER
: I think I’ll get some air.

* * *

Outside in the bright morning sunlight, he wipes his forehead with the regulation handkerchief that came with the uniform and puts his captain’s hat back on. He takes a deep breath. In another minute he’d have—

Best to forget about it.

He looks up and down the block. Ciely is nowhere in sight.

Some distance down the street there is an eruption of verdure that indicates a park. Perhaps she is there.

He finds her sitting on a green bench that girds a spreading shade tree. She has a small branch in her hand and is tracing evanescent patterns on the grass. In her azure dress, she looks like a piece of the sky that has broken free and drifted down to the ground.

He crunches along a pebbled path and seats himself beside her. He sits there dumbly, not knowing what to say. For a long while, Ciely doesn’t say anything either. Then, not looking at him, she asks, “What did you think of my devoted parents, Starfinder?”

“Cynicism doesn’t become you, Ciely.”

“I know it doesn’t. And evasiveness doesn’t become you.”

He takes refuge behind a scholarly approach. “The major components of any given culture have a tendency to think alike and to behave alike and to glorify their own ignorance. Nevertheless, such people form the foundation of all stable societies. Without them, there wouldn’t be civilizations.”

“But you don’t understand, Starfinder. You made all that money while everybody else was trudging along the highway toward economic security, and you still don’t understand.” She is looking at him now. Earnestly, “If the
haute bourgeoisie
were just the foundation, it would be all right. But they are the walls and the floor and the roof, too. Their unions are so powerful that whatever they say, goes. It’s like serfs taking over a fiefdom and remaining serfs; like muzhiks taking over a landowner’s estate and remaining muzhiks; like sailors taking over a ship and remaining sailors.”

“If they didn’t remain sailors, the ship might sink.”

“It would be better if it did.”

Starfinder sighs. “I don’t think we’re getting anywhere, Ciely.”

She nods. Sadly. “I know. Anyway, we’re talking about tomatoes when the subject is really potatoes.”

“I’ve deeded my house in the country to your parents, with the proviso that they bequeath it to you. I’ve also established a trust fund for you, with no strings attached, so that when you come of age you can do anything you want,
‘haute bourgeoisie’
or no
‘haute bourgeoisie.’
You can even write poetry if that happens to be your bent. My lawyer has instructions to sell both my limousines and to deposit the money, less his commission of course, in a bank account in your name.”

She has resumed tracing evanescent patterns in the grass. He waits for her to say something, but the silence is broken only by the shrill voice of a mother sitting on a nearby bench, reprimanding one of her children.

There is a gnawing ache at the base of his sternum that has all the earmarks of a duodenal ulcer, but which is nothing of the sort. Once again, he assumes a scholarly air. “Given a democracy, Ciely, sooner or later there’s bound to be an establishment, and inevitably its values are going to flavor the societal soup. Renascence’s establishment is comprised of workingmen; but, believe me, if it were comprised of businessmen, it wouldn’t be any better; and if it were comprised of intellectuals, it would probably be worse.” His words sound empty, even to him.

“You’re still talking about tomatoes, Uncle John.” She throws away her branch and gets to her feet. “I think it will be best if we go back now. My mother and father are probably worried about where I am. As you probably noticed, I’m uppermost in their minds, morning, noon, and night.”

They leave the park and walk up the street of squarish houses, side by side but parsecs apart. They come to a halt by the little walk that leads up to the Bleus’ front porch. In
a
Andromedae’s morning light, the flowerbed in the front yard is a multicolored glory to behold. There is one exactly like it next door. In fact, there is one exactly like it in every front yard on the block.

“Are you coming in, Uncle John?”

Starfinder shakes his head. “It would serve no useful purpose. Say goodbye to your folks for me, and tell Ralph I’m ready to leave.”

“Very well.”

She stands staunchly before him, looking at last into his eyes. She is not nearly as thin now as she was when he first saw her in the boatbay of the eel, nor nearly as frail. And yet she seems to sway slightly in the morning breeze. “Goodbye, Uncle John. Tell Charles I’ll say goodbye to him later.”

“All right.”

And then, without warning, she is in his arms, sobbing. “Oh, Starfinder, I’ve been so mean, and I didn’t want to be—honest! I know you had to bring me home, I know you can’t afford to saddle yourself with a twelve-year-old misfit like me, and I don’t blame you in the least. I know all you did for me and I know I can never repay you in a thousand years, I know, I know, I know, and, oh, Starfinder, I love you, you and Charles, and please, when I’m grown up, come back for me!”

She turns, runs quickly up the walk, climbs the porch steps and disappears into the house. Starfinder’s “duodenal ulcer” takes a turn for the worse. In fact, it nearly doubles him over. Along the periphery of his vision he sees fields and trees and little hills clad with green and growing grass, and then, subtly, the fields fade away, and the hills and the trees, and the grass pales and vanishes, and all that is left is bleak and barren earth.

* * *

Ralph comes out of the house, descends the porch steps, staggers a little as he crosses the lawn, and starts to climb behind the wheel of the limousine. Starfinder taps him on the shoulder. “You’re too drunk to drive, Ralph,” he says.

Ralph turns around, regards him blearily. “Nobody gets drunk on beer. Beer ish the moderage of beveration.”

“I don’t like drunks,” Starfinder says. “I especially don’t like beer drunks. They’re hypocrites, slobs, and loud-mouths.”

“Dirty capitalist pig!” Ralph shouts and makes a wild swing in Starfinder’s general direction.

Starfinder turns him around, propels him across the lawn, boots him in the buttocks and sends him sprawling facedown in the Bleus’ flowerbed. Then Starfinder returns to the limousine, gets behind the wheel, backs out of the driveway and heads for his house in the country, where he will spend the rest of the day winding up his affairs.

He feels a little better, but not much.

* * *

De-orbit, whale
, Starfinder commands, standing on the bridge.
Dive back into the past.

The whale does not respond.

Clearly, it is dozing and has failed “hear” his command.

De-orbit, whale
, he “says” again, doubling the mental voltage of the telepathic command.
Dive back into the past!

The whale does not budge.

Starfinder is about to repeat the command again when a hieroglyph appears in his mind:

???

You know perfectly well where she is, whale. She’s on Renascence. Now de-orbit and stop playing games!

??