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Jones. His first, last, and only subspace command, of course, since he was now
a married man. Deston had wanted
to resign while still a First Officer, but his superiors would not accept his
resignation until his promotion "for
outstanding services" came through. Thus, Ex-Captain Carlyle Deston and his
wife were dead-heading, not quite
back to Earth, but to the transfer-point for the planet Newmars.
"Theodore Warner Deston is going to be born on Newmars, where he should be,"
Barbara had said and Deston had
agreed.
"But suppose she's Theodora?" Bernice had twitted her. "Uh-uh," Barbara had
said, calmly. "I just know he's
Theodore."
"Uh-uh, I know." Bernice had nodded her spectacular head. "And we wanted a
girl, so she is. Barbara Bernice Jones,
her name is. A living doll."
Although both pregnancies were well advanced, neither was very near full term.
Thus it was clear that both periods
of gestation were going to be well over a year in length; but none of the five
persons who knew it so much as men-
tioned that fact. To Adams it was only one tiny datum in an incredibly huge
and complex mathematical structure.
The parents did not want to be pilloried as crackpots, as publicity-seeking
liars, or as being unable to count; and
they knew that nobody would believe them if they told the truth; even-or
especially?-no medical doctor. The more
any doctor knew about gynecology and obstetrics, in fact, the less he would
believe any such story as theirs.
Of what use is it to pit such puny and trivial things as facts against
rock-ribbed, iron-bound, entrenched
AUTHORITY?
The five, however, knew; and Deston and Jones had several long and highly
unsatisfactory discussions; at first with
Adams, and later between themselves. At the end of the last such discussion, a
couple of hours out from the
transfer point, Jones lit a cigarette savagely and rasped:
"Wherever you start or whatever your angle of approach, he always boils it
down to this: 'Subjective time is
measured by the number of learning events experienced.' I ask you, Babe, what
does that mean? If anything?"
"It sounds like it ought to mean something, but I'll be damned if I know
what." Deston gazed thoughtfully at the
incandescent tip of his friend's cigarette. "However, if it makes the old boy
happy and gives the College a toehold
on subspace" what do we care?"
THE IMPERIAL STARS
They were the finest interstellar agents-and greatest circus stars-the
Service of the Empire had!
I
DesPlaines (Plan) 75 rev cat 4-7076-9525. Hostile PX-3MRKQ. Pop. (2440) 7500
00. COL 2015 Fr (qv) &
NrAm (qv) phys. cult. Comml stndg, 229th. Prin ctrib gal: Circus d/t Gal, heav
met, prec stones. (Encyclopedia
Galactica, Vol. 9, p. 2937).
Jules and Yvette
For twenty-eight minutes The Flying d'Alemberts-who throughout two centuries
had been the greatest troupe of
aerialists of the entire Empire of Earth-had kept the vast audience of the
Circus of the Galaxy spellbound: densely
silent; almost tranced. For twenty-eight minutes both side rings had been
empty and dark. The air over the center
ring, from the hard-packed, imitation-sawdust-covered earth floor up to the
plastic top one hundred forty-five feet
above that floor, had been full of flying white-clad forms-singles and pairs
and groups all doing something utterly
breath-taking.
Suddenly, in perfect unison, eighteen of the twenty d'Alemberts then
performing swung to their perches, secured
their apparatus, and stood motionless, each with his or her right arm pointing
upward at the highest part of the Big
Top.
As all those arms pointed up at her, Yvette d'Alembert moved swiftly,
smoothly, out to the middle of her high wire
-and that wire was high indeed, being one hundred thirty-two feet above the
floor of the ring. She did not carry even
a fan for balance. She maintained her equilibrium by almost imperceptible
movements of her bands, feet, and body.
Reaching the center of the span, she stopped and posed. To the audience she
appeared as motionless as a statue.
Like all the other d'Alemberts, she was dressed in silver spangled tights that
clung to every part of her body like a
second skin. Thus, while she was too short and too wide and too thick to be
acceptable as an Earthly high-fashion
model, her flamboyantly female figure made a very striking and very attractive
picture-at a distance. Close up, how-
ever, that picture changed.
Her ankles were much larger than any Earthwoman's should have been. Her wrists
were those of a six-foot-four,
two-hundred-fifty-pound timberman. Her musculature" from toenails to ears to
fingertips, would have made all the
beach boys of Southern California turn green with envy.
After a few seconds of posing, she turned her head and looked down at her
brother Jules. on a perch sixty-one feet
below her and an "impossible" sixty-four feet off to one side. Then, flexing
her knees and swinging her horizontally
outstretched arms in ever-increasing arcs, she put more and more power into
her tightly stretched steel-and Jules,
grasping a flying ring in his left hand, began to flex his knees and move his
body in precise synchronization with the
natural period of the girl-wire system so far above him. Finally, in the last
cycle through which she could hold the
wire, Yvette squatted and drove both powerful legs downward and to her
right-and something snapped, with a harsh"
metallic report as loud as a pistol shot.
The wire, all its terrific tension released instantly as one end broke free
and dropped, coiled itself up in the air with [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]