"Lot of good that does," Randy grumbled. He flew the VTOL to the end of his private strip and started the nearly vertical drop downward. "Besides," he continued in a mutter half to himself, "I'm not a dwarf. I'm just small."
THE AIRPLANE was met at the strip by a limousine. The pilot stayed with the plane while Randy rode back to the house on the other end of the estate. They were passing by the training stables when Randy suddenly reached forward and turned on the intercom to the chauffeur.
"Stop here, William," he said. "I want to take a quick look at my horses."
The limousine turned into the driveway and made its way past the homes of the stable crew. There were a few horses on the grounds and a number out taking turns around the track. He found Curly near the finish line, timing a horse.
"Two-thirty for the mile and a half," said Curly, resetting the watch.
"Who was that?" asked Randy.
"Winter Zephyrs," said Curly. "One of the newest from Winter Winds."
"Oh ... right," said Randy knowledgeably. "Those charts on him you sent me looked excellent. Good lines on both sides and good performance to date. Legs still good?"
"Couldn't be better," said Curly. "You've got another winner there, Mr. Hunter."
"We've got another winner," corrected Randy. "I couldn't do it without you."
"But it's your money, so you get the cup," said Curly. "Don't forget to drop by my office and pick it up."
"What cup?"
"You won a cup last year for 'International Horseman of the Decade'," said Curly. "I flew over to Ascot and accepted it for you from King William himself. Didn't Mr. Davidson pass the message on to you?"
"I guess he didn't think it was that important," said Randy slowly, his mind in a mild state of shock. I had four impossible dreams, he thought to himself. And now three of them have come true ... He shook his head at the next thought that came to his mind. Naw! That's crazy. Nobody can live forever ...
"I'm going to have Billy take Summer Zephyrs, twin sister of Winter Zephyrs, around for time," said Curly. "Want to stay to watch?"
"Nope," said Randy. "Got to get to the house. Rose and Junior are waiting."
After the limousine had pulled back out onto the drive, the aroma of the stable lingered in the car, getting stronger. Randy sniffed, then looked down at the soles of his shoes.
"An occupational hazard of being the best horseman of the decade," he muttered disgustedly. He gingerly took off the offending shoe and tossed it out the window. He would never be able to put it on again anyway. Shooting his cuff-comp from his sleeve, he set it to comm mode.
"Get me James," he said into it.
WHEN THE limousine drove Randy up the driveway to the front door, Rose was outside waiting. He got an enthusiastic hug from his slightly teary wife, who quickly wiped away her tears.
"Sorry we couldn't come to meet you at the strip, darling," she said. "But Junior has a bad cold and I wanted to keep him out of the drafts." She looked down at his stockinged foot.
"What happened to your shoe?" she asked.
Just then James appeared, carrying Randy's loafers.
"Your shoes, sir," said James, putting them down. Randy kicked off his other shoe and stepped into the loafers.
"Tell you later," he answered Rose.
She led the way into the house and up the large main stairs to Junior's room. Junior was now almost six years old, and had long ago left the crib room. Rose softly opened the door and they tiptoed in. Junior was lying in bed, his eyes open, looking out the window.
"Hi, Junior," said Randy. "It's Daddy!"
The child didn't stir, but kept looking out the window. Randy walked around to the other side of the bed and sat down. He put his hand on Junior's shoulder.
"Hi," he said again. "Daddy's here ..."
Junior gave a grunt and, avoiding Randy's eyes, turned over and looked the other way.
"Junior!" said Rose, exasperated. "Say hello to your daddy!"
"That's all right, Rose," Randy said gently. "He's punishing me for being away so long."
"But he's seen you nearly every day on the video letters you sent to us."
"You've got to admit that's not the same thing as being here in person."
Rose thought of the years and years of empty beds she had endured and said nothing.
Randy leaned over, put his arms around Junior, and gave him a long hug, murmuring softly into the back of his neck.
"I love you, Junior," he said. "I love you more than anything in the world. I think you are terrific, wonderful, stupendous, the best boy in the whole universe. I love you very, very much."
The tiny body started shaking, and Junior broke into long, heartrending sobs. Randy just held him tight until they abated.
"I ... I ... thought," he sobbed, "you ... were never coming back."
"But I did come back, didn't I?"
"You were gone so long."
"But I'm back now. Give me a hug."
Junior sat up in bed. His eyes were dripping tears, and long streams of snot dribbled down from his nose. Randy hesitated for a second at taking the messy child in his arms, but he quickly recovered, pulled out one of his two handkerchiefs from his hip pocket, wiped the nose mostly clean, and hugged the boy close.
Now Junior had started talking, it was impossible to get him to stop. "I thought you were dead, and Mr. Davidson was trying to fool us with make-believe videos of you talking to us ..."
Rose, with a little bit of help from Randy, got Junior dressed while he showed his dad all the cutouts and other projects that he had been doing to while away the time in his sickbed. On the way downstairs, he talked all about his classmates in the first grade at the Enclave School, then spent most of dinner disparaging "gurls", particularly those who made his life miserable by chasing him around the playground trying to kiss him. Then, as they took him back upstairs and sent him off to an early bed, he and his dad planned what they would do together that weekend.
"Can we go fishing in the pond in the middle of the track?" asked Junior excitedly. "Curly showed me where the big ones hide."
Randy didn't relish the thought of handling worms and slimy fish, but if they took Curly along ...
"Sure, big guy!" he said cheerfully.
"I am big, aren't I!" said Junior, jumping up out of bed and running over to the doorway. "Measure me again, Mommy."
"Not now, dear," Rose said. "It's time to go to bed."
"I want Dad to see how big I've grown," said Junior. He looked at his father with eager, sparkling eyes. "I take my growing pills every day—and they're working."
"Junior, dear, time to get into bed," said Rose, trying to deflect the conversation.
"That's all right, Rose," said Randy, straightening up to his full four feet eleven inches. "Let's see how tall the boy is."
Rose got the straightedge from its accustomed place on the bookcase shelf while Junior put his back up against the doorjamb and stood tall. The doorjamb had a cloth tape measure glued along its length. Randy placed the straightedge on top of Junior's head. The boy's head was already up to Randy's chin.
"Got it!" said Randy. Junior slipped out from under the straightedge and Randy peered at where it met the tape.
"Hundred and thirty-five centimeters—four feet five inches," Randy read, feeling a little queer.
"Now to bed!" commanded Rose.
Junior hopped into bed and they turned out the lights, shut the door, and went downstairs.
"How tall is he going to get?" asked Randy.
"The doctors predict he'll get to five feet four, taller than his mother."
"I've always wanted a son I could look up to," Randy said wryly.
RANDY spent Sunday afternoon fishing with Curly and Junior, and Sunday evening in his three-meter-wide bed getting reacquainted with Rose. On Monday morning, he was up early, watching the household routine from the breakfast table as Rose and Anna, the downstairs android, got Junior ready for school.
"I've got some
shopping to do," said Rose, "so I'm going to go along to school in the limo with Junior. That way I can be at the mall when it opens."
"Fine with me," said Randy, sipping the coffee with relish—it was fresh, not aged five years in a can. "I'll drive over to the headquarters building and get a briefing from Alan."
Randy watched as William chauffeured Rose and Junior off in the limousine to the center of Princeton Enclave. After they had gone, he looked around with pride at his estate. It was a beautiful day—he checked the sky and found a small fingernail moon shining palely in the blue sky in front of the sun. A silvery thread rotated slowly in space to one side of it. It would also be a beautiful night for observing if the weather kept clear. The only thing that marred his enjoyment was the sight of the balloons off in the distance above the trees.
He was almost tempted to take a walk through the woods to the headquarters building, but it had been even longer since he had driven one of his cars. He went to the garage and looked them over, James trailing along behind him. Since William had gone into town, James used his master key to open the key cabinet.
"Mr. Davidson purchased a new Mercedes-Benz in anticipation of your arrival, sir," said James. "The previous one was six years old and getting out of style. Would you like to drive that one?"
"Don't think so," said Randy, looking past the Mercedes at his other cars. "It's really only meant for show. Not that much fun to drive."
"How about the Rolls-Royce, sir?" asked James. "You have always enjoyed that car."
"I'll take the Duesenberg," Randy said finally. "Now that's a big car—and it's been some time since I've taken it for a spin."
James got out the large, gold-plated key to the modern reproduction of the original sixteen-cylinder Duesenberg convertible and handed it to his diminutive master. Randy took a big step up onto the running board and another big step into the tall, block-long monster. The seat was already adjusted forward and up as far as it would go, and Randy looked down from on high like the driver of a fire truck. With a grin of pleasure, he started up the thundering engine, lowered the top, backed the long car out of the garage, and took off down the driveway at high speed, throwing gravel behind him at the turns.
RANDY spent the whole morning hearing nothing but good news from Alan and his group and division managers.
"In summary, the Cable Transportation Group is continuing to make excellent profits," said Anthony Guiliano. Randy noticed that Tony's hair was greying around the temples. "And although its growth rate has slowed, we expect it to continue to expand as we add new rotovators around Earth, Moon, and Mars to handle increased demand."
"I presume they're in the same orbits, just half an orbit apart," said Randy.
"No," said Alan. "They actually go in opposite directions. That cuts down on the travel time when you want to go east instead of west."
"Sounds dangerous," said Randy, slightly concerned.
A shrill voice piped up from the back of the room. It was Mary Lewis, manager of the Rotovator Division. There was a vexed look on her face as she pushed her owl glasses back from where they had slipped to the tip of her nose.
"I can assure you that the laws of orbital mechanics preclude any collisions."
Alan switched to another chart.
"Our biggest money machine is the Negmatter Energy-Division. Since we have a monopoly on the source of the negmatter, there is no competition. Although we get our energy for essentially nothing, we set our energy prices just below what it would cost to generate energy using other techniques, such as solar, electric, and nuclear. Of course, no one is allowed to burn organic fuels anymore, even if they could afford them. As you can see, this division alone produces a profit of two hundred billion a year. We plow a good deal of it back into new energy-production facilities and keeping the Interstellar Division afloat, but there is plenty left over. You are close to being the world's first trillionaire."
"That brings up something I've been thinking about for a while," said Randy. "I've got more money than anyone could spend in a lifetime ... wisely, that is. Perhaps I ought to do some good with some of it."
"But most of your money is invested in businesses that supply good jobs to people," said Alan. "That's positive."
"That's not enough," said Randy. "I'd like to start a charitable trust. Sort of like Howard Hughes did. He set up the Hughes Medical Foundation and funded it by breaking out his aircraft division from the Hughes Tool Company, calling it Hughes Aircraft Company, and giving all the stock in the new company to the Medical Foundation."
"We could certainly do something like that," said Alan. "What are you thinking of?"
"I'll keep all the solid profit-making divisions under Reinhold Astroengineering Company," said Randy. "So Rose will be taken care of and Randy Junior will have a good start if something happens and I go too soon. But I'll keep the Interstellar Division separate and use that for funding the trust. Admittedly, it is still in a risky, negative-cash-flow state and will require pump-priming from my own pocket. But it ultimately could be the biggest and most profitable of all my enterprises—after all, its growth potential is effectively unlimited."
"Have you decided on a name for the charitable trust?" asked Alan.
"Yes," said Randy. "I'm going to call it the Hunter Institute for Aging Research. It's to be modeled along the lines of the Hughes Medical Institute, but instead of supporting medical research in general, it's to concentrate on medical solutions to the problems of aging." Randy gave a wry smile. "Since—as much as I want to—I can't live forever, perhaps the researchers can find a way for me to stay around longer than normal."
"Unless you kill yourself off in an accident sooner," chided Alan. "The VTOL pilot said that he didn't get a chance at the controls during your entire flight home."
"That reminds me," Randy said. "Who are the pilots for the second wave of interstellar warpmouth transport vehicles?"
"I'll let Andrew Pope tell you those details," said Alan. Andrew took over the video console with an air of authority.
"We have four ships almost ready to go," said Andrew. "They are being reworked slightly to correct the design problems that cropped up during your journey."
"I sure hope you've finally developed a good zero-gee toilet," muttered Randy.
Andrew read from a chart on the videoscreen. "The first one off will be going to Barnard, six light-years away. With the eighty-percent-cee velocity limit, it will take a little over five and a half years to get there. The pilot is C.C. Wong. Like you, he decided he would rather travel alone than cope with someone."
"Probably wise," said Randy.
"Next off is a ship going to Lelande at eight light-years," said Andrew. "It's going to have a crew of three, pilot Robert Pilcher and two girlfriends."
"Really!" said Randy, his eyebrows raising slightly.
"They have been living together for a number of years," said Andrew. "The company psychiatrists say the situation should stay stable."
He consulted the chart again. "The next mission is purely a scientific one. It's going to set up a warpmouth near the giant star Sirius and its white dwarf companion. I wasn't going to send a ship there. The Backside telescopes show that the planetary nebula of the system was blown away during the formation of the two stars. With no planetoids to exploit and the high level of radiation from the large main star, it has very low commercial value. The International Space University, however, wants to set up an observing post. We sold them a ship at cost and they will be supplying their own pilot. In return, we get to use their warpgate to launch follow-on missions to stars further out, like Procyon."
"What's the next one?" asked Randy.
"It'll be a long mission visiting two star systems, UV Ceti and Tau Ceti," said Andrew. "The ship will be a custom model since it has to carry two Silverhairs, one to leave in each system, so it won't come off the production line until next year. No pilot has been chosen yet." He turned off the videoscreen and stepped back. "That's about all the producti
on we can afford until we start generating some positive cash flow with business to and from the Alpha Cenfauri system."
ROSE KNEW it was coming. Every time Randy attempted to leave the Enclave, he was followed by airplanes or automobiles or helicopters from the Barkham estate carrying loads of raucous, shrill Animal Rescuers who hounded him at every stop. He had given up trying to travel anywhere, and was essentially imprisoned on his own estate.
Randy's cleanliness fetish was also getting worse. Rose noticed that he was now surreptitiously wiping his mouth with his handkerchief after kissing her. That hurt, and she spoke to him about it.
"It's getting to the point it's compulsive," she said. "Perhaps you ought to see a doctor."
"It's nothing!" Randy snapped. "I just like to be neat, that's all. I don't need to see some shrink." Angry and frustrated, he turned away from her. "I'm going to go out and get some fresh air." He slammed out the door leading to the garage, and the next thing she heard was the sixteen-cylinder roar of the Duesenberg as it raced down the driveway at top speed.
After leaving Princeton Enclave and turning onto the interstate to Atlantic City, Randy lost the carful of animal activists by deliberately deactivating the automatic pilot on the Duesenberg. This caused the expressway safety system to shunt him off the high-speed autopilot lanes through an emergency exit onto the human-driver lanes. His pursuers weren't able to follow him since their more modern car had a built-in autopilot that couldn't be switched off. Free of his pestiferous trackers, Randy took side roads to the beach and drove down to the end of the road at Cape May, where he parked at the little place he often took Rose to. After staring gloomily at the sea for a while, he came to a decision. Shooting out his cuff-comp, he said, "Get me Andrew."
"Hello, Mr. Hunter," said Andrew. "What can I do for you?"
"Tell C.C. Wong he'll have to wait a year and do the two-star Ceti mission," said Randy. "I'm getting out of this place and heading for Barnard."
WHEN ROSE saw Randy driving slowly up the driveway in the Duesenberg convertible she grew worried. He looked grim and tired rather than smiling and relaxed as he usually did after a ride in one of his vehicles. She decided she would tell him her little bit of good news. She had wanted to wait a while and be sure, but perhaps it would cheer him up. She put on a happy smile and went downstairs to greet him. When he came in from the garage, however, he was distant and refused to look her in the eyes.
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